Ex-Miami mayor touts 'FANTASTIC' ROI, economic impact from major sporting events

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]All right, I'm going to move on. South Florida hosts some of the biggest sporting events in the world. You know, Formula 1, Miami Open, Super Bowl. Got it. Francis Suarez is the former mayor of Miami and joins us now again. Welcome back, your honor. Always good to see you. Now, you put a lot of money into these sporting events. Is it is it paying off for taxpayers?

[00:00:21]>> I'll give you the context, Stuart. So, we put in in the city about $15 million.

[00:00:25]In Miami Dade County, which is the metropolitan area, they put in about 45.

[00:00:29]So total about 60. The economic impact on a year like this where you have the FIFA World Cup, all of the different sports events that you just mentioned, the tennis tournament, the Formula 1 tournament, uh all these things, it's about a $2.5 billion economic impact. So you invest about $60 million, you get $2.5 billion in economic impact. So I would say the ROI on that is fantastic.

[00:00:53]>> Okay, I'll go with that. The World Cup will be the biggest sporting event South Florida, I think, has ever seen. Are you ready?

[00:01:03]>> Of course we are. Uh we have, like you said, the most Super Bowls in history.

[00:01:07]Uh we have had events throughout the year, Formula 1, which actually generates more revenue in a weekend than the Miami Dolphins generate an entire season. Uh 275,000 people come in from out of town to to witness and to be part of the Formula 1 race. So, we're accustomed to big events, whether it's Ultra, which is a massive music festival, 150,000 people come in for 3 days. Those seven games are going to be like seven Super Bowls because billions of people watch World Cup games as opposed to hundreds of billions that watch a Super Bowl. So, Miami is going to be absolutely ready for it.

[00:01:42]>> Got it. Next one. Rich New Yorkers leaving the state. They're moving to Florida and they're out bidding the locals for homes. How do flidians feel about this influx of New Yorkers pushing up prices?

[00:01:57]>> So, look, when you have low taxes and low crime, you create demand. Ken Griffin once called it the problems of prosperity. And there's no immigration policy in Miami. You can't prevent people from coming. So, that's a reality. No mayor in America is going to want to increase crime or increase taxes to make their city less desirable to bring prices down. So what you have to do is you have to understand that the best thing that you can do as a mayor or as someone who leads a city is try to create opportunities for people to be prosperous. So what we did in Miami was we had children's savings accounts so kids could learn financial literacy. We had a tech charter school for high school students. We had retraining and reskilling programs for adults. And even for people uh in elderly people, we had a computer science classes for them so that they could be integrated into the new economy. So you upskilled your population. We have the lowest unemployment in America, which means that everyday people are employed at the highest level in the country. And we had the highest median wage growth, not the highest necessarily wage growth at the top. Highest median wage growth, which means that the average person is benefiting the most in Miami than anywhere around the country. The economics are simple. Keep taxes low, keep people safe, lean into American innovation, and you win. I hear Florida is shutting down the Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center. Uh Governor DeSantis says it was always supposed to be temporary. The Democrat I remember the Democrats being in an uproar over this project. Okay, now you're going to close it down, but would you still consider it a success?

[00:03:29]>> Of course. The border is completely secure, which uh it was completely porous under President Biden. I mean 20 or 30 or 40, God knows how many undocumented workers came in uh to the country of the United States during that time. The president has completely shut that down. And so obviously when you shut down illegal immigration, there's less and less need for a detention facility for illegal immigrants. So I think this is a victory for President Trump. This indicates that his immigration policy and im immigration enforcement policies are working and this is a natural consequence of that.

[00:04:02]>> Got it. Your honor, it's always a pleasure to have you back and it's great to see Miami doing so well. All good stuff. Thank you, your honor.