Pop the champagne, Oklahoma City! Not only has the Thunder emerged victorious in the 2025 NBA Finals—bringing home the first title in the city’s history—but you, the taxpayer, are footing the bill for the team’s shiny new stadium. Mayor David Holt—citing economic benefits and civic pride—pioneered the measure, securing a full 1 percent of the city’s 4.125 percent sales tax over a period of six years for funding the new arena, which is rather generously estimated to cost a minimum of $900 million to build. Misleadingly, the tax has been almost exclusively referred to by proponents and news outlets alike as a “1-cent sales tax” or a “penny tax”—downplaying the fact that the tax makes up roughly 25 percent of the city’s total sales tax revenue.
Surely, the Thunder owners are chipping in some dough themselves? Well, of course they are! After all, they acquired the team for a measly $325 million less than two decades ago, and it’s now valued at nearly $4 billion. How much are they coughing up? Just $50 million—a pittance, barely 5 percent at most of the total cost. Similar measures across the nation have largely been shot down by voters, leaving team owners to primarily fund new arenas themselves—or not build them at all. The OKC deal is a glaring outlier.
Mayor Holt has cited fears that the Thunder would leave OKC for the highest bidder at the end of their contract if the measure didn’t pass. In other words, he believed that if the city didn’t force taxpayers to shell out funding for the new arena, the Thunder would skip town. This reads more like a high-stakes hostage situation than a matter of municipal finance. Hilariously, Holt even admits this—stating he “felt that the Thunder had all the power” and that “cities like [OKC] never have leverage in these situations.” It appears that the Thunder drew up the play, and Mayor Holt ran it like he was trying to make the team.
Holt has also tried to pass the measure off as a sort of “popular mandate,” citing that 71 percent voted “yes” on the proposition. He neglects, of course, that this 71 percent only includes voters who actually showed up to vote. The 71 percent of “yes” voters constituted 41,129 people—only around 5 percent of the total population of OKC who will bear the burden of the tax every single time they make a purchase in the city. If this vocal minority is so passionate about the new arena, perhaps they should put their money where their mouth is and offer to pay for it themselves—at least in part—rather than subject their fellow citizens to paying more for gas, groceries, and just about everything else, all so they can sip $18 beers in the blinged-out new venue. (It is also worth mentioning that the taxpayer will not have free entry into the stadium for events, they’ll pay again).
Additionally, Holt has argued the development will be an economic boon for the city, claiming that the presence of the Thunder will bring in all sorts of benefits that economists simply cannot grasp—benefits that, in his words, “transcend the projected economic impact.” One such benefit? “Clout,” he says. His basis for these claims? Certainly not economics, but something far more mystical and elusive—something more along the lines of “vibes.” Pure, unmeasurable, subsidized vibes.
Economists largely agree that the deal will harm taxpayers—especially the poor—and benefit only the billionaire team owners and other direct stakeholders. One economist—who is an expert in public policy regarding arena construction—even described it as “by far the worst stadium deal [he’s] ever seen negotiated from a public standpoint.” Even the notoriously interventionist Federal Reserve acknowledges that “almost all economists” agree stadium subsidies are an empirically bankrupt idea. This is truly saying something in a country where public subsidies for billionaires are essentially a bipartisan pastime. “This is not only corporate welfare, but it appears to be a particularly bad deal,” said Oklahoma Libertarian Party Chair Chris Powell.
Ludwig von Mises refers to this kind of scheme—where the state launches “ventures” and funds them through compulsory taxation, lacking information regarding consumers’ actual preferences as revealed through market prices—as “a system of groping about in the dark.” This is precisely what Mayor Holt is doing—taking money from the hands of the people of OKC and giving it to crony billionaires based on “vibes” and “clout.”
Let us reiterate that it is Thunder ownership—and maybe future game attendees who can afford tickets at the new venue—who will benefit. The handful of construction and management companies tasked with bringing the new arena into fruition will surely be handsomely compensated with taxpayer dollars as well. Largely, however, the taxpayers themselves will see their wallets shrinking in order to make all of this happen.
Rather than investing the $850 million (minimum) in tax revenue in efforts to improve public safety, schools, roads, or—radical thought, bear with me—merely leaving it in the hands of the citizens who earned it, the municipal government is pouring it into a basketball palace fit with luxurious boxes for city officials, their cronies, and the like to hobnob at the city’s expense. Sure, they might buy the tickets, but taxpayers foot the bill. The Thunder may have brought home a championship, but the people of Oklahoma City are bringing home a hefty tab.
