Washington DC and Sports Development

The city's success in landing the Expos baseball team comes at the end of a road littered with one sports failure after another. An Olympic bid, an auto race and a marathon all flopped. But the return of baseball to the nation's capital is being hailed by business and government leaders as a victory in their efforts to promote economic development.

"Sports and entertainment is a big, big part of this, and this is a huge achievement on that end," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who hopes to build a new $440 million stadium he contends will have benefits beyond professional baseball.

In recent years, local business leaders have joined elected officials in unsuccessful efforts to land the Super Bowl and the 2012 Olympics. While the city has hosted the NBA All Star Game and last year's NFL Kickoff celebration on the National Mall, the D.C. Grand Prix and the revived D.C. Marathon turned out to be one-time events. In the case of the marathon, organizers canceled the 2003 event just days before - leaving nearly 7,000 runners high and dry - then promptly filed for bankruptcy.

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