Right you are, Paul. If stadia made money in and of themselves, teams and owners would build the damn things themselves and laugh all the way to the bank. The only way the economics really work is to have someone else (the public, for instance) build it for you (it's nice if you throw in a little contribution to make it look good) and then give it to you (or lease it to you at ridiculous terms and give you control of all the revenue streams). Joe Robbie got the land ridiculously cheap, but he built the place himself----unfortunately, when he died, his family wasn't able to pay the tax bill and had to sell the stadium and the team. JRS and PacBell and CCS are the only privately-built stadia that come to mind this early in the morning. Maybe there are others. But the way to do it is to get someone else on the hook for a bunch of the expense and then have them give you control of the facility.
The SF Giants are looking to unload up to $15,000,000 in player salaries next year due to the debt load incurred in privately financing PacBell. It will be difficult to have others (cities=taxpayers) kick in to finance new stadia when money is getting tighter for more important things such as roads and schools.
And, yet, they keep doing it. They'll do it in Indianapolis, eventually, where the public school system has no air conditioning. I do know that, in their first year in PacBell, the Giants took in $160 million in revenue, third in baseball behind the Mets and Yankees, more than doubling their 1999 revenue at 3Com Park ($75 million). They only increased their payroll 24% in that time (to $56 million). They were at $63 million for 2001, and increased to $78 million this season. That seems like a lot in a short period of time. But Jeff Kent's a goner for sure, that's $6 million right there. They pay $20 million a year in debt service, and the ownership group supposedly builds a $1M annual profit into the budget, and reinvests anything above that into the team (they made a $5M profit the first year of PacBell).
The issue is partly taxes. When the government is nominal owner, the stadium isn't taxable. So the income gets sales tax assessed, but a stadium valued at 300 million gets nailed a lot by property tax. If it's a private concern, the tax liability is more than the nominal rent that public stadiums pay.
$1b is a ridiculous price for the vikings, even if they were moved to LA. Forbes just did a list of the value of NFL franchises. With the Redskins on top at $845m, followed by Dallas. Both of these teams own their stadia, where much of the value is tied. Value of Franchises (vikings at $437m) http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0902/070tab.html See link if you care to be a member. (its free and just an email and zip required). This article talkes extensively about McCombs and how he is trying to cash in on his investment. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0902/070.html