Can LeBron James bring $500m to Cleveland if Michael Jordan couldn't make a dent in Chicago's economy?

Is LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star, worth $500m to the city he has re-embraced?

Cleveland certainly thinks it’s due for a spikethanks to the LeBronomy, noting that the sleek star’s $20m salary isn’t the only benefit of his new gig with the Cavaliers. “When people say this is just about an athlete making money, there’s more to it than that,” said Edward FitzGerald, the Cuyahoga county executive who is running for governor. “Other people will make a living.”

FitzGerald initially said that LeBron would bring in $500m to the city, before scaling back expectations.

Even at the scaled-back rate, these are crazy numbers. To get a sense of it, the 2016 GOP confab in Cleveland will likely bring an additional windfall of $200m. The entire combined revenues of Madison Square Garden, from the Knicks to Lady Gaga, was $241.7m.

So it’s hard not to be astonished at what the trickle-down theory of LeBrononomics demands of the star’s earning power. Never has an athlete held the hopes of an entire city on his shoulders. Victor Mathesen, an economist, skeptically notes that every one of Cleveland’s 2.1 million men, women and children will have to engage in $240 of LeBron-related spending every year. Each. That’s a lot of jerseys.

We called some sports economists who, unlike FitzGerald, are not running for governor of Ohio. These economists say that Lebron is no – forgive the term – slam dunk regarding the saving of Cleveland. In fact, the city won’t even capture all the LeBron riches, says Michael A Leeds, professor of economics at Temple University.

“LeBron James will certainly generate a lot of revenue, though the new revenue-sharing rules mean that Cleveland will not capture everything LeBron brings in. In general, the impact of teams on cities is vastly overstated. People who spend money at a Cleveland restaurant before a Cavaliers game are typically not spending new money. They would have spent that money on something else even if the Cavaliers did not have LeBron – or did not exist.”

In other words, LeBronaffects the local economy in the vein of the third law of thermodynamics: he neither creates nor destroys money, only redistributes it.

How about LeBron as job creator? Surely some enterprising business would want to touch the hem of LeBron’s financial earning power?

Another economist is a buzzkill on that too. “I don’t expect the spillover effects will be a big deal. The name recognition effect is also dubious,” says Jeffrey Owen, associate professor of economics and management at Gustavus Adolphus College. “I don’t know of any evidence or any compelling reason why a successful sports team would attract employers to a city.”

In fact, it’s a good idea to stop hyperventilating about the impact of sports in general on local economies – unless you’re an Aaron Rodgers fan.

“Having Lebron James in any city will not turn around that city,” says Allen Sanderson, a senior lecturer in the department of economics at the University of Chicago and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Sports Economics. “The success of a local sports team, with the possible exception of the Green Bay Packers, has a small impact on the local economy.”

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As for lockouts, their impact is also decidedly exaggerated.

“If there was a lockout, businesses near the arena would bear the brunt. But other businesses would benefit because people will go there instead,” Sanderson explains.

“In Chicago, they like to say the NHL lockout cost the city $2m a day,” an estimate based on the dubious assumption that 20,000 people would not go elsewhere in Chicago and spend $100 per person. “Most fans of NBA and NHL teams are local and would have done something else that evening,” Sanderson says.

In fact, there are very few teams and players who ever affect their city’s economies. The Green Bay Packers are one. The Chicago Cubs, because they draw fans from outside the area, are another, says Sanderson. Others are hit or miss.

The Chicago Bears, for instance, have less economic impact than the Macy’s store downtown.

Even the biggest stars have trouble moving the needle on their local economies, and their effect is unpredictable. “Michael Jordan had more of an impact on teams the Bulls visited than he did in Chicago,” said Sanderson. “When he left and the Bulls were awful, they would [still] sell out. People still wanted a night out.”

Sanderson cited a shopping mall as an another example of positive economic impact. He stated that a typical mall is open 3,000 hours a year; compare that to a basketball team or hockey franchise that plays 40 nights a year for five hours a night. “And in the NFL, it’s only for eight or so events a season,” he said. “And perhaps a playoff game.”

In fact, events rarely change anything about cities except their traffic patterns – a shame, some economists say, because taxpayer money could be used in other ways than tax breaks for big sports venues.

“The feeling is that LeBron coming back to Cleveland is a nice sports story,” said Owen. “And conventions are known to have the same overblown projections as sporting events. There is really nothing special about tourism compared to other industries, so it is no more worthy of government subsidy. It would be better to invest in things like education and infrastructure – things government is supposed to do. None of those events or attractions are bad things as long as they are not being bankrolled by taxpayers.”

Summarized Steve Marshall, who grew up in the Cleveland suburb of Cleveland Heights: “Cleveland has come as long way from being known as the ‘Mistake by the Lake’, and LeBron is part of that feel-good story. When I go back to visit my family, there is more activity in the city, and I’m sure LeBron will add to that.”

But in terms of pure economic stimulus, Marshall says, the credit probably goes to another source: the non-profit academic medical center known as the Cleveland Clinic.