11:02 PM CDT on Monday, June 19, 2006

By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA-TV

While the NBA playoffs have pumped thousands of dollars into Dallas city coffers, a new economic study concluded cities that build big football stadiums could actually lose tax revenue every game day.

Arlington residents voted to raise their sales tax to help the Cowboys build a new stadium. But according to a new independent study, the city could lose sales tax money on every game.

The economist who dug into the numbers said he was even surprised by his findings.

"What we're seeing is one football game lowers tax revenue by about $500,000 dollars," said Craig Depken, a University of Texas in Arlington sports economist.

The study done by UTA found that regular season football games actually cost the host cities about a half million dollars in sales tax revenues.

"So, that number was kind of shocking," Depken said. "Whoa, ok, this is not all it's cracked up to be."

While football fans spend money, it is mainly spent at the stadium where the benefits go primarily to the team.

"Your locals are spending $75,100 inside the stadium, but those dollars are not taxed the same way as if they were spending them at Target or JC Penney," Depken said.

Depken spent five months looking at the impact of professional and college sporting events. He said each Maverick playoff game in Dallas gives the city about $65,000 in new sales taxes.

But like football, he found regular season basketball games actually take away from sales tax revenues.

Baseball is another story.

For some reason, major league baseball and hockey do generate additional tax revenue for host cities.

Also, post season play in all sports pumps extra money into tax coffers, but the study said only a few million dollars at the most, even for a superbowl.

"If economomists could find a stadium that did pay off, we would shout from the mountains here's how to do it," Depken said. "We just havent' figured it out yet."

Arlington's mayor, Robert Cluck, said he's not worried about the study because the stadium has already spurred an economic growth.

E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com