About 21 years ago I was one of several thousand who publicly greeted then-owner Robert Irsay at Hoosier Dome when he brought his Colts franchise to town.

It’s hard now to believe that city of Indianapolis – with help of a county-wide hospitality tax granted by state General Assembly and a generous $25 million grant from Lilly Endowment – built an $82 million, 63,000-seat professional football stadium on pure speculation, without having a team to play in it.

Less than 13 years later, by time it was politically acceptable to mention it, Colts’ owner Jim Irsay appeared on national television to call for a new publicly funded stadium. As then-chairman of Libertarian Party of Marion County, I publicly denounced this idea. I asked how an $82 million public works project could become obsolete shortly more than a decade after it was built.

The straight and fundamental answer is that RCA Dome was built by three entities that had no experience in business of professional football: a local government, a state government and a tax-exempt foundation.

Why should we have expected anything but a no-frills building, one that had too few luxury suites and too few fancy club seats to turn an NFL team moderately profitable in modern age?

Relying on usual experts lacking imagination and foresight, government built a facility that was too small, and was neither expandable nor convertible. Worse, it tied project to special interest groups, such as downtown parking-lot owners.

But main problem with government-built stadiums like RCA Dome is that no one is really accountable for decisions once stadiums turn out to be inappropriate. The William Hudnut administration, which built Dome and brought Colts to town, was long gone before inadequacies of facility become apparent.

Since at least 1997 – only 14 years after 63,000-seat Hoosier Dome was built for $82 million – Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay was publicly lobbying for a new stadium to host his team.

Although pushed back by Pacers’ $175 million taxpayer-supported Conseco Field House deal, he said his turn would come. He has repeatedly said that his NFL franchise “cannot survive” on revenues provided from RCA Dome, and that a new stadium is needed “sooner or later.”

It’s tough making big money on an NFL franchise in a market this size without taxpayers subsidizing much of costs. Taxpayers coughed up $20 million in 1998 to enlarge RCA Dome’s suites and enhance value of its expensive box seats. This actually cut dome’s capacity to 57,900 seats, making it smallest stadium in league. In 2003 team ranked 27th out of 32 NFL teams in terms of revenue and 29th in value.

"We're significantly, significantly below average (in revenue), and that disparity is growing,” Irsay told Indianapolis television viewers. “Yet average determines what our expenses are with salary cap. That's what makes things so difficult."

However, as Cincinnati Bengals have proven, a new stadium does not ensure a better profit. Even with a new stadium, Bengals were 24th in revenue in 2002, with only $4 million more in revenues than Colts.

The Colts’ lease at RCA Dome runs until 2013, but team can break deal after 2006 season if its revenues aren’t greater than or equal to median in NFL in two out of next three seasons. Indianapolis could require Colts to stay by paying difference between team’s revenues and league’s median.