As for the economic benefits, it's easy to look at the area around the E Center in West Valley City or the Delta Center in Salt Lake City and believe those facilities sprouted restaurants, shops and theaters. Indeed, they probably did attract those things, but only because they pulled them in from other parts of the community. People have got to eat. They enjoy going to the theater. A sports arena doesn't create more demand for those things. It just tends to concentrate them in one spot, especially if other tax subsidies are used to attract the shops and theaters, as well.

The result is a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors trick. People see the bright lights and packed gathering places, but they don't see the dark, vacant parts of town where those places might have located otherwise. There is no net gain.

In Utah, however, the tax structure gives cities a natural incentive to attract drawing cards, such as stadiums. That's because cities benefit from a large portion of sales taxes generated within their own borders. A soccer stadium just might lure a restaurant or shopping center away from another Utah city.

In sports, we would call this an interception. But in a metropolitan area, a win for one city isn't necessarily a win for taxpayers everywhere.

So is the new soccer team a bad thing for the Wasatch Front? Would a soccer stadium be a horrible thing?

I'll let Andrew Zimbalist answer that one. He's an economics professor at Smith College in Massachusetts who has authored books on sports economics and is clear about the downside of public financing. Having a major league team, he said in a recent interview with a state department journal on sports in America, does indeed have its benefits.

"One of the wonderful things about having a sports team in your community is that it galvanizes everyone to actually experience themselves as a community. It gives them an identity. That kind of expression of enthusiasm and unity is an aspect of the community experience that you don't have often in modern society, which is so atomized and individualized because of things like the automobile and television. It provides a very special experience for people — or at least it can."

A special experience, but not necessarily economic development.

If cities in Utah want to help build a stadium, do it by taxing the fans who attend the games. Attach a surcharge on tickets or hot dogs or parking. Let all the regular taxes it generates go to the city's general fund.

Maybe then Checketts will be right in his predictions. Maybe then a stadium would be a benefit, and not a drain.

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Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com