What is a night at the ballpark worth?

For decades, the Pawtucket Red Sox have been a summer staple in the Ocean State.

The experience of a warm night spent alongside friends and loved ones, cheering on aspiring Major Leaguers at McCoy Stadium, is one shared by thousands and thousands of Rhode Islanders across multiple generations. At a time when many in our state continue to struggle and remain anxious about the future, a trip to the ballpark provides affordable, family-friendly fun – a chance, as the slogan goes, to “Watch the Stars of Tomorrow Today,” just a few miles up the road.

Soon, the PawSox experience will permanently change. Whether it is for the better – and whether Rhode Island remains the team’s home – is far less clear.

The team will remain at McCoy this season and next, but the new owners have made clear they have no intention of keeping the squad in Pawtucket. They are instead eying a new waterfront stadium on the former I-195 land in Providence.

Recently, the ownership group – which includes the powerful Rhode Island lawyer Jim Skeffington as team president, as well as Boston Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino – unveiled its proposal for the 10,000-seat stadium. The project’s $85 million price tag includes construction of a parking garage and the relocation of utilities.

The artists’ renderings of the ballpark and its grounds are very appealing. The images evoke some of the most celebrated modern Major League stadiums, including Baltimore’s Camden Yards. One can imagine the vibrant atmosphere, the Providence skyline as a backdrop, and the sight of kayakers paddling to claim home run balls.

Far less attractive are the proposed financing terms outlined by the new owners. While they would pay for the construction of the stadium – and assume the related risks – they are seeking a commitment from the state of $4 million annually over the course of 30 years through a lease-sublease arrangement, bringing the total taxpayer subsidy to $120 million.

That figure, on its own, is enough to give anyone pause. As Gov. Gina Raimondo noted in a statement, while the Providence ballpark proposal is “exciting,” there are “very limited resources” available to address a host of priorities, including economic development. Projected state budget deficits running into the hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming years further complicate the equation.

Of course, the debacle of 38 Studios – the failed video game company of former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, for which the state is on the hook for roughly $90 million – remains fresh in the minds of many. Rhode Islanders are justifiably wary of sinking millions more into another baseball-related venture, especially when the potential benefits remain fairly nebulous.

What differs in the case of the stadium proposal as currently constituted is that Rhode Island would, going in, have a far clearer picture of what to expect. We have, essentially, been quoted a price, knowing more or less exactly what we have purchased.

Within that context, the stadium must not be viewed as any sort of investment. 38 Studios carried the promise – however far-fetched – of creating the foundation of a new industry, of being a means to attract other, similar companies to the state. Moving the PawSox a few miles south and west to Providence would carry no such potential, and its economic benefits overall will be modest at absolute best.

What truly must be ascertained, it seems, is the importance we, collectively, place upon the team’s presence in Rhode Island – how much value we see in it as a part of our identity, as a recreational resource for our communities.

The team’s new ownership group, particularly Rhode Island native Skeffington, readily engages in rhetoric appealing to the sentimental bond between the PawSox and state. Yet their “all or nothing” approach to this point – pressuring state leaders for an answer before the General Assembly adjourns in June, while wielding a “Plan B” that would result in the team ending up in Worcester, Foxboro or elsewhere – speaks to the reality that in the end, they will be essentially indifferent to any concern but their own bottom line.

That, of course, is no crime. Skeffington and his partners are businessmen.

As they weigh their options and focus on how to best benefit themselves and their newly acquired team, so must Rhode Island step back and assess – honestly and completely – just what keeping the PawSox in Rhode Island is worth.