PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — WrestleMania is coming to Philadelphia for the first time in a quarter-century, but an economic expert does not expect the event to bring in much stone-cold cash for the city.
When Mania Week's main-event matches light up Lincoln Financial Field in South Philadelphia this weekend, the entertainment value to fans will be over-the-top, but the monetary value to the host city will be ... more subtle, says Dr. Michael Leeds, who studies applied microeconomics at Temple University.
“You have to take into consideration only the new money that is spent — money that is spent by people in Philadelphia that would not have been spent in Philadelphia had this not taken place," Leeds said.
He calls WrestleMania “a once-every-couple-of-decades event that’s basically going to have zero lasting impact on tourism in the city.”
Reports from WWE estimating that WrestleMania generated hundreds of millions of dollars for cities like Los Angeles and Dallas are overstated, Leeds says.
“You have to make some fairly strong assumptions to get the dollar figure they are talking about.”
Leeds says the Dallas study assumed each fan who went to WrestleMania or a related or supplemental event spent $1,300 restaurants and lodging.
“If people are going, from the city, that $1,300 gets reduced to zero,” he said. “If they’re coming from the surrounding counties, that number gets reduced — maybe not to zero, but to a much smaller number.”
He says most WrestleMania visitors are focused on official WWE events: “You’re going to see them going to the WrestleMania events — not going to the Liberty Bell, not going to the zoo.”
Leeds says even though he doesn’t expect the event to drive economic growth, some things can’t be measured.
“If it makes people in Philadelphia feel better about themselves and feel happy — that’s great — but we don’t have to pretend that it’s going to be a driver of economic growth in the city.”