The Impact of Stadium Announcements on Residential Property Values: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Dallas-Fort Worth

We investigate the impact of a potential new sports venue on residential property values, focusing on the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys' search for a new host city in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We ¯nd that residential property values in the city of Dallas increased following the announcement of a possible new stadium in the city of Dallas. At the same time, property val- ues fell throughout the rest of Dallas County, which would have paid for the proposed stadium. These patterns reversed when the Dallas stadium proposal was abandoned. Subsequently, a series of announcements regarding a new publicly-subsidized stadium in nearby Arlington, Texas, had a deleterious effect on residential property values in Arlington. In aggregate, average property values declined approximately 1.5% relative to the surrounding area before stadium construction com- menced. This decline was almost equal to the anticipated household sales tax burden, suggesting that the average expected amenity e®ect of hosting the Cowboys in Arlington was not signi¯cantly different from zero.