By Indianapolis Mayor Gregory A. Ballard, USCM Mayors Professional Sports Alliance Chair
October 1, 2012

As the mayor of a city with a large professional sports presence, you learn quickly that being the home to professional sports franchises, teams and facilities present both opportunities and challenges. Nothing brings this closer to home than the recent news that the National Hockey League owners locked out their players in conjunction with the expiration of their collective bargaining agreement September 15.

The reality is that the relationship between professional sports entities and cities is a long-term one, which must be sustainable for teams, players, facilities and cities. And of course, it is crucial that we protect our taxpayers’ investments as well as the prospects of our local sports hospitality workers whose income and ability to support their families can be directly affected by the status of a contract. And certainly, we all appreciate the impact of professional sports on small businesses and employment in our cities as well.

As such, I believe there has to be a better way to bring sports and tourism and their related dollars to our cities without the uncertainty of third-party contractual negotiations or asymmetric information when negotiating stadium contracts.

This is something we struggle with in Indianapolis – we have NFL and NBA franchises as well as a triple-A MLB team. And others do, too. I’m certain there is a better way to share information and work with other stakeholders at the table.

To address these and other issues, I spearheaded the formation of The U.S. Conference of Mayors Mayors Professional Sports Alliance. The alliance is composed of mayors of cities with existing professional sports teams or professional sports infrastructure such as stadiums, or mayors of cities wishing to explore the possibility of involvement with professional sports events.

Frankly, it was a long-time coming. Players and owners already have coalitions designed to represent their needs and provide collaborative space. The cities should as well. The purpose of the Mayors Professional Sports Alliance (MPSA) is to share amongst our mayors better information, resources and support on issues related to professional sports, and to work effectively with leagues, players and owners.

MPSA provides an opportunity for affected cities to pool data and better understand the science and best practices of professional sports contracting, and other key issues. The alliance helps frame our relationships to our sports teams for what they are – long-term affiliations – and it leads us towards developing best practices through information sharing amongst MPSA mayors.

As members of the Conference of Mayors, we already know that we learn best when we talk to each other. MPSA now provides a means by which we can share information and deal with common problems in the area of professional sports.

Ultimately, this is a resource designed to protect and maximize our cities’ relationships with sports franchises and players; each of who already have their own organizations. In fact, the NFL has already recognized benefit of having a structure like this. MPSA provides a single-point-of-contact for programmatic communications with pro'sports teams on issues such as youth development or anti-obesity campaigns.

As such, our alliance recently partnered with New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management to help address these issues and begin to create a network and working database for affected member cities.

The Tisch Center has already begun populating the database with important documents and information relevant to arena and facility leases, incentives and financing agreements and provisions, which will be made available to relevant alliance membership. Other key research projects are under development as well, all aimed at better arming our mayors with the best information possible regarding professional sports.

The MPSA is quickly picking up traction as an important entity in professional sports. For example, on September 6, I participated in the Bloomberg’s Sports News Summit in New York City, serving on the stadium financing panel. And just this past week, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck led a discussion on stadium security issues at a Conference of Mayors meeting in Dallas.

As such, I was the only panelist there providing a municipal perspective on the role of professional sports in cities, and I laid out the vision for our new partnership with the Tisch Center, including its potential to serve more broadly as a partner and resource not just for cities, but for players and owners.

I look forward to continuing to grow the Conference of Mayors MPSA as we strive to better educate our members on the unique challenges of being a professional sports town.