The nonexcludable function of sports stadiums in climate-changed cities

Abstract

The unrelenting threat of climate change and extreme weather events on human settlements has prompted urban planners and public policymakers to develop robust climate mitigation and adaptation strategies for their cities. As part of these measures, they may identify existing or proposed infrastructure that could serve residents during a public emergency (e.g. as shelters). One such candidate is the modern professional sports stadium, which has demonstrated its versatility over the past several years by serving as field hospitals, COVID-19 testing and mass vaccination sites, and municipal voting centers. In this commentary, we consider the essential contribution sports stadiums may make to cities and regions impacted by extreme weather and climate change. Specifically, we examine the utility of a publicly funded stadium as a shelter in response to large-scale disasters. As part of our analysis, we identify the structural, geographical, organizational, and logistical factors that impact the feasibility of this proposal.

Keywords:

• sport ecology
• sustainability
• climate change
• public sport facilities
• public subsidies
• political science

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Geoffrey Propheter, Daniel Rascher, and Tiffany Richardson for their constructive reviews of previous versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In this paper, we use stadium as a catchall term to include all major sports venues, including, but not limited to, indoor and outdoor arenas, ballparks, and speedways.

2 Our application of the term nonexcludable to stadiums being used as public shelters is intentional—an effort to evoke the concept of the stadium as a public good. Of course, a stadium mega-shelter is nonexcludable insofar as it can meet human demand (in size and resources), and we acknowledge there are clear circumstances in which a stadium’s capacity would be exceeded by human demand, especially following a disaster. A more academic debate on this issue may centre on congestible public goods (Ahn, Isaac, and Salmon 2009), club goods (Cornes and Sandler 1996), and expanded typologies of goods (Ostrom 2010).