The RFK Deal Needs to Prioritize Residents

Chairperson Mendelson and members of the committee, and committee staff, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Shira Markoff, and I am the Director of Economic Policy at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI). DCFPI is a non-profit organization that shapes racially-just tax, budget, and policy decisions by centering Black and brown communities in our research and analysis, community partnerships, and advocacy efforts to advance an antiracist, equitable future.

Although DC Council made improvements to the fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget over the version proposed by Mayor Bowser, it still leaves many District residents—especially Black and brown people and immigrants—out in the cold with cuts to health insurance, rental assistance, the Child Tax Credit, and other vital programs. At the same time, the Council is considering approving an RFK deal that gives billions in subsidies to a billionaire and his wealthy sports team co-owners based on flimsy research about the economic benefits for DC.

Many residents, including lifelong DC residents, want to see the Commanders return to DC, but the current deal has significant shortcomings. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s renegotiated deal addresses some concerns, but it does not go nearly far enough in minimizing the use of District resources and maximizing revenue. The Council should not approve a deal that gives away massive subsidies that crowd out investments in DC communities and hands over development rights for the land around the stadium, sidelining the local community’s input on priorities for the site.

Councilmembers should push for a deal in the best interest of residents, rather than giving in to pressure from the mayor, the Commanders, and federal officials to rush the process and spend DC taxpayer money unwisely. DC Council should take adequate time to consider the research and opinions expressed by experts and residents during this hearing process. It should then negotiate a fairer, more beneficial deal on behalf of DC residents that:

• Minimizes the upfront costs of the stadium and parking facilities for DC;
• Ends all sales tax exemptions and ensures all revenue goes into the General Fund;
• Retains development rights around the stadium and opens a competitive bidding process;
• Includes legally binding requirements and enforceability provisions around affordable housing, first source hiring, and other community benefits; and,
• Ensures that both stadium and mixed-used district construction are covered by project-labor agreements.

The True Cost of the RFK Deal is Much Higher than Other Stadiums

In presenting the original deal to the public, the mayor made several misleading arguments to make the Commander’s investment appear more significant than it is, downplay the costs to DC, and make it seem like a better deal than other stadiums—all of which remain in the Chairman’s revised deal.

First, the mayor played up the idea that the $2.7 billion the Commanders will pay for the stadium is the largest private investment in DC history.^[1] However, much of the $2.7 billion will not go to DC businesses or residents. A large portion of costs are for construction materials and DC does not have, for example, steel mills or glass factories, meaning the project will have to import those goods.^[2] Also, since the deal lacks a first source hiring agreement, it is likely many of the construction workers will reside outside DC and won’t owe income taxes to the District on their DC earnings.

Second, the mayor said that DC’s direct contribution of $856 million for stadium infrastructure and parking is a smaller percentage of the total stadium cost than other cities’ deals, a claim echoed in the Robert Bobb Group report.^[3],[4] However, the percentage only looks better by comparison because the Commanders are proposing a more expensive stadium than most recent stadiums. When the dollar amounts spent by cities on NFL stadiums are compared, DC’s subsidy is about $200 million higher than the $667 million average, according to Greater Greater Washington (Figure 1).^[5] If the Commanders want to build a more expensive stadium, that is their decision, but DC should not contribute more because of that.

Figure 1

DC’s Stadium Construction Subsidy is Nearly $200 Million Higher than the Average Public Subsidy for NFL Stadiums

Source: Chart created by Nick Sementelli and Alex Baca, “Arguments in defense of a stadium at RFK fall short of a first down,” Greater Greater Washington, May 27, 2025.

Lastly, by focusing on the direct costs paid by DC, the mayor is vastly understating the full cost of this project for the District. The mayor gave a total cost of approximately $1.1 billion for stadium horizontal infrastructure, parking garages, infrastructure, and the Sportsplex.^[6] The revised Chairman’s deal does not change any of these upfront costs except cutting $12 million from the Sportsplex in the Council-approved budget.^[7] The true cost to the District for the mayor’s deal is estimated to be at least $8.3 billion when all direct subsidies, tax breaks, and forgone revenue opportunities are added up (Table 1).

In the tax abatement financial analysis, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) found that the tax exemptions in the deal are not necessary for the team to build the stadium and to continue to operate as a business entity.^[8] The renegotiated deal eliminates the sales tax exemption for the parking facilities, eliminates redirecting stadium sales taxes into a stadium maintenance fund, and gives DC parking revenue for non-stadium event days. That is a start, but the deal is still costing DC at least $8 billion (Table 1). Additionally, the team would keep all the revenue from naming rights, sponsorships, and parking for game days despite DC’s massive subsidy of stadium construction and parking facilities. This means that DC pays while the Commanders get to keep virtually all the money.

Research Shows that Stadiums are Not a Significant Driver of Local Economic Growth

Mayor Bowser and DC Council are justifying the enormous subsidies to the Commanders by claiming the stadium will create jobs and drive development in the area. However, the economic impact analysis the mayor provided to the public fails to provide a detailed methodology and does not account for significant levels of forgone tax revenue—meaning the cost to DC is actually higher than what she claims. Plus, the firm that conducted the analysis, CSL, has a track record of overinflating benefits and had to retract a $70 million calculation error in a DC United stadium report in 2014.^[9] In its economic analysis, the Council Budget Office pointed out that CSL incorrectly counted all wages earned by workers at the stadium as taxable income, but DC is unable to tax the personal income of workers who live outside DC.^[10]

The preponderance of research on stadiums indicates that the benefits in the mayor’s report are vastly overblown. In fact, sports economists widely agree that stadiums produce little or no tangible effects on local economic activity and sometimes can reduce economic growth.^[11],[12] And research shows that stadium subsidies are usually far in excess of the economic benefits of the stadiums, making them “gigantic giveaways to billionaire owners at the expense of taxpayers.”^[13],[14] As one economist put it, “If a local government is considering adopting economic growth policies, there are far better candidates than subsidizing professional sports franchises.”^[15]

The subsidies for the Commanders also have racial equity implications. Subsidies for stadiums overwhelmingly transfer public wealth to white men, research shows.^[16] This is a particularly egregious use of DC’s resources given that the Council just approved a budget cutting critical programs for the lowest income residents, which falls hardest on Black and brown residents due to systemic racism.

A Stadium is Not the Best Way to Drive Economic Development in Ward 7

Ward 7, especially communities East of the River (EOTR), has been underinvested in for far too long. The unemployment rate for Ward 7 was 8.9 percent, on average, from 2019-2023 compared to 4.6 percent for DC overall, and the poverty rate for Ward 7 was 22.4 percent, on average, from 2019-2023 compared to 14.5 percent for DC as a whole.^[17]

While investment is needed in Ward 7, massive subsidies for a football stadium (which is West of the River) are not the best way to do that. As discussed earlier, much of the money spent on construction will not go to DC businesses and the deal does not include first source hiring requirements for DC residents so many jobs might be filled by workers outside DC. This is one of the most egregious exclusions in the deal. Once the stadium is constructed, the jobs there are likely to be seasonal, low wage employment. And the $50 million community benefits agreement (CBA) in the revised agreement is a paltry sum compared to the enormous subsidies and tax breaks the Commanders will receive, and it is not anywhere near meeting the need for investment in the local community. Lawmakers have not detailed what the CBA must include, but it should include specific set asides for EOTR in Ward 7.

Another major concern is DC giving lucrative development rights to the Commanders to create a mixed-use district. The original deal provided no assurances that the Commanders would build the mixed-use district, especially the housing component, in a timely manner or at all. The renegotiated deal has deadlines for building phases of the mixed-use district, but the penalty—a faster phase in of rent payments that the team should have been paying in the first place—is not sufficient to safeguard the District’s investment, and the timeline in the 2040s is too long to wait for badly needed housing. Moreover, giving this land to the Commanders sidelines community input and puts a football team in charge of making land use decisions for the community. There are also no protections in place to ensure that neighbors living near the stadium will be able to continue to afford to rent and own homes as property values rise, which could quickly lead to displacement.

The negotiated deal also provides no assurances that local residents will be able to take advantage of new business opportunities and, depending on what businesses open in the mixed-used district, they may compete with existing businesses in the community rather than attracting new customers to those businesses. It also fails to mandate environmental protections for the surrounding land and the Anacostia River.

Instead of squandering billions of the District’s scarce resources on subsidies that will primarily benefit a billionaire sports team owner and do not provide clear and adequate benefits to local residents, the Council needs to drastically reduce the public subsidies to the Commanders and use the savings to make direct investments that will create quality jobs and improve the health and financial well-being of residents in Wards 7 and other low-income communities. Some ways to do this include supporting the start-up or expansion of locally-owned businesses, securing much needed grocery stores EOTR, funding career pipelines to quality jobs such as in health care and tech, building affordable housing units, and creating community land trusts.

DC Should Negotiate from a Place of Strength to Secure a Much Better Deal for Residents

The Commanders have made their desire to be in DC clear.^[18] Governor Wes Moore has not expressed a desire to keep the Commanders in Maryland and has said that there are better uses for the current stadium site.^[19] DC is in a strong negotiating position to push back harder than it did in the renegotiated deal on the level of subsidies and benefits to the Commanders and still be able to close a deal if lawmakers decide that is in the District’s best interest.

Here are several ways the Council should improve upon the deal:

• Minimize the upfront costs of the stadium and parking facilities for DC: The Council should bring down the amount DC is providing for stadium construction significantly. DC should look to models of other cities that have built stadiums without large subsidies. For example, SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles was fully privately financed, both for land and construction. The savings from reducing the upfront cost should be used for direct investments that create quality jobs and improve the health and financial well-being of residents in Wards 7 and other low-income communities in DC.
• End all sales tax exemptions and ensure all revenue goes into the General Fund: The renegotiated deal ends the sales tax exemption for parking, but it keeps the estimated $65 million tax exemption for personal seat licenses even though the CFO found that sales tax exemptions are not necessary for the business operations of the Commanders. Revenue from both this tax and sales tax on ticket sales should go to the General Fund, rather than a stadium maintenance fund, so that the Council can use the funds in the best interest of residents. The Commanders can use their profits to pay for maintenance expenses.
• Retain development rights around the stadium instead of giving them to the Commanders: Instead of giving development rights to the Commanders, DC should launch a competitive bidding process for the land, with the requirement that the buyer(s) pay market-rate leases. This process should include meaningful opportunities for community involvement to determine priority uses for the site. DC should also include a legally binding requirement to build substantial housing on the site with at least 30 percent set aside as affordable, including 20 percent affordable at 60 percent area median income (AMI) and 10 percent affordable at 30 percent AMI. Plus, a social housing pilot should be created there.
• Include a legally binding CBA: The renegotiated deal includes a $50 million CBA, but as stated earlier, that is insufficient compared to the benefits the Commanders are receiving from DC. It is also unclear what is included in the CBA beyond the funding. DC residents, especially those who live in Ward 7 and EOTR, should have ample opportunity to weigh in on their priorities for a CBA. The process Councilmember Felder undertook to gather community feedback is a decent start.^[20] At a minimum, the CBA should include first source hiring requirements—with set-asides for residents of Wards 5, 7, and 8—and opportunities for local businesses to serve as vendors for the stadium and mixed-use district. The CBA must be legally enforceable, not just a series of promises, and include clawback provisions to safeguard DC funds if the Commanders fail to meet commitments.
• Ensure that all construction is covered by a project-labor agreement (PLA): The current deal only includes a PLA for the stadium parcel. DC Council should also require a PLA for the mixed-use district to ensure the project creates good union jobs.

I urge Councilmembers to push for these changes to the deal to minimize costs and maximize benefits for DC residents. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to take questions.