In Nashville, Not All Sing Praises of an NFL Team

It is a jarring sight: a futuristic-looking arena jutting up in the heart of Nashville, in the middle of what used to be a seedy honky-tonk row.

The $120-million indoor facility is credited with transforming downtown, spurring $44 million in additional investment that has already made the area a tourist mecca before the arena is even finished.

Still, after several years of trying, the city has not found a professional hockey or basketball team to play in the arena.

But that failure hasn’t kept city fathers from proposing a new, separate $292-million football stadium for the Houston Oilers, a team which has set its sights on Nashville in the continuing game of musical chairs being played by sports franchises moving to cities that offer bigger bucks.

Now a determined group of residents is doing all it can to yank the chair away.

On Tuesday, voters here will decide whether to issue general obligation bonds to help build the stadium. If the referendum fails, it would be the first time a city has rejected an offer by a National Football League team to move there.

“We’re not opposed to the football team or to the NFL,” said Charlie Allen, a spokesman for the Nashville group spearheading the drive to stop the 65,000-seat stadium. Rather, he said the group opposes the deal the city cut with the team, which he says gives away too much. “Ninety-five percent of the opponents feel that is not an appropriate use of public funds,” he said.

Mayor Phil Bredesen, who is leading the campaign to approve the stadium, contends a rejection will keep Nashville from moving into the front rank of American cities.

“It’s almost turned into a cultural vote,” he said. “It deals with fundamental questions about what kind of city we’re going to be.”

It also raises fundamental questions about the practice of municipalities shelling out millions of dollars for the benefit of wealthy sports team owners to get teams to relocate or stay in their cities--a practice that opponents have dubbed “stadium socialism.”

Five professional football teams have moved or made steps toward moving in the past year, causing a backlash not only in Nashville but also in Congress, which is considering a bill that would discourage the practice.

Opponents of the Oilers’ move to Nashville cite studies that dispute the notion that sports teams and stadiums add significantly to a city’s economy. “If there was evidence that [sports teams] are good for the overall economy of Nashville then there might be some justification” for using public funds, said Allen. “All of the economic studies that I have read say that there is no evidence.”

Bredesen concedes that “you can’t justify [the stadium] entirely on the basis of economic impact.” He cites a Peat Marwick study that estimates the stadium will generate $25 million in new annual spending, but says the greater significance of the Oilers’ move is in the symbolism of Nashville joining the ranks of major cities that host professional sports teams.

“It puts you in a slightly different category,” he said. “Your peers are San Francisco and Chicago, not Mobile.”

Nicknamed Music City USA, Nashville is renowned as the axis of the country and western music industry. But for Bredesen, a Harvard-educated transplant to the city who made a fortune in health care before entering politics, the limited perception of the city as simply home of the Grand Ole Opry is grating. He likes to remind people that Nashville also is a center for publishing and health care.

Bredesen, who is not a sports fan, said he had to be persuaded to take the lead in pressing the Oilers issue. Even now he said a professional sports team “is not the be-all and end-all,” but “a way to round out the image of the city.”

“I don’t know that there will ever be a company that relocates a headquarters here because we have an NFL team,” the mayor said, “but when they’re working up the pros and cons of cities, it can’t hurt.”

Proponents also believe that the stadium could help rejuvenate the east bank of the Cumberland River across from downtown, where old factories and warehouses have been deteriorating for years.

Branding the fight a watershed battle over the city’s future, Nashville’s business leaders have gone all out to win the measure, outspending opponents 20 to 1.

A recent newspaper poll showed 56% of the voters polled support the stadium, with 34% opposed. But opponents say they don’t trust the figures. They insist that they are going to win the referendum. “I think they had to take quite a few polls before they could find one that said they’re winning,” said one opponent, Gerald Dautreuil.

When city leaders first proposed building the indoor arena that is almost completed downtown, they sold it primarily on the need for a large convention and concert venue. Nevertheless, the city has been trying for several years to attract a hockey or basketball team to play there.

By contrast, the Oilers approached Nashville after owner Bud Adams failed to persuade Houston officials to build a new stadium to replace the aging Astrodome. At first, Nashville officials thought the city was being used as a bargaining chip. With time, however, it became clear Adams was serious. The design for the Nashville stadium will have more luxury suites than the Astrodome, which translates to more profit for the team.

Under the team’s deal with the city, Nashville would pay $149 million toward the new stadium, the state would pay $70 million and the remainder would come from the sale of private seat licenses.

The city promises that it would use revenue from its hotel-motel tax and surplus funds from the water department to repay stadium bonds. The debt would be paid off over 30 years at $8 million per year. No tax increase would be needed, officials insist. But opponents are skeptical.

Bredesen compares Tuesday’s vote to the 1967 referendum in the city on the sale of liquor by the drink. People opposed to the Oilers coming to town want the city to return to the way it used to be--”a small and isolated Southern city,” he said.

Some of the opponents don’t altogether reject that appraisal. “The notion that it’s wonderful to be an NFL city--I think that’s arguable,” said Allen. “I don’t want to live in an NFL city. Most of the time when I go to an NFL city I can’t wait to get home.”

He added that he doesn’t object to growth as long as it’s quality growth.

Although NFL officials approved the Oilers’ move at a meeting in Atlanta on Monday, Houston Mayor Bob Lanier is holding the team to its contract, which binds it to the city until 1997. After that, the team would move to Nashville, providing voters here approve the deal.