Houston’s sputtering Oilers are exhibit A. Eight years ago the county government spent $100 million to renovate the Astrodome in order to keep the team. Now, owner Bud Adams is demanding a new stadium; since Houston won’t build him one, he’s threatening to move to Nashville, Tenn., which might. St. Louis erected a $240 million dome to lure the Rams from Los Angeles last spring. The Browns’ package in Baltimore includes free use of a $200 million stadium to be built by the state, the right to charge $80 million for “licenses” entitling fans to buy season tickets, all the profits from concessions, parking and advertising and state reimbursement of any relocation fee. When one team gets a deal like that, the rest are forced to follow suit. “In order to be competitive, you have to have those kinds of revenue streams,” says Denver Broncos president Pat Bowlen, who wants to replace 47-year-old Mile High Stadium. “The name of the game is a modern, state-of-the-art venue.”

And that means big, big money. Only a handful of stadiums earn theft keep. The Atlanta Braves drew 2.5 million fans on theft way to winning this year’s World Series, but local taxpayers still must cover $700,000 of interest on the stadium’s bonds. Why should they? The standard answer is that stadiums spin off jobs and growth. Most economists, though, believe that every dollar spent on baseball is a dollar simply diverted from football, movies or restaurant meals. Teams “don’t have much impact at all on the cities they’re in,” says California sports economist James Quirk. The main benefit is the thrill of being a major-league city. Cleveland understands; its Indians’ drive to the American League baseball pennant brought endless press mentions of the “Cleveland renaissance.” That’s great for civic pride, but Rob Baade, an economist at Lake Forest College in Illinois, finds that pro franchises don’t bring new employers to town. Says Baade, “There is absolutely no correlation.”

Tagliabue says the way to end the bidding war is to let the leagues control where franchises move to. But that would just centralize the NFL’s effort to squeeze taxpayers, not stop it. In fact, even the cities that complain about extortion don’t want it outlawed. “Why would anybody put an end to this?” asks Brookings Institution economist Roger Noll. After all, if the Browns end up in Baltimore, Cleveland will have 80,000 seats to fill–and it’s got to attract a team somehow.