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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/how-the-nfl-fleeces-taxpayers/309448/?msv3w9
Last year was a busy one for public giveaways to the National Football League. In Virginia, Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, who styles himself as a budget-slashing conservative crusader, took $4 million from taxpayers pockets and handed the money to the Washington Redskins, for the team to upgrade a workout facility. Hoping to avoid scrutiny, McDonnell approved the gift while the state legislature was out of session. The Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, has a net worth estimated by Forbes at $1 billion. But even billionaires like to receive expensive gifts.
Taxpayers in Hamilton County, Ohio, which includes Cincinnati, were hit with a bill for $26 million in debt service for the stadiums where the NFLs Bengals and Major League Baseballs Reds play, plus another $7 million to cover the direct operating costs for the Bengals field. Pro-sports subsidies exceeded the $23.6 million that the county cut from health-and-human-services spending in the current two-year budget (and represent a sizable chunk of the $119 million cut from Hamilton County schools). Press materials distributed by the Bengals declare that the team gives back about $1 million annually to Ohio community groups. Sound generous? Thats about 4 percent of the public subsidy the Bengals receive annually from Ohio taxpayers.
In Minnesota, the Vikings wanted a new stadium, and were vaguely threatening to decamp to another state if they didnt get it. The Minnesota legislature, facing a $1.1 billion budget deficit, extracted $506 million from taxpayers as a gift to the team, covering roughly half the cost of the new facility. Some legislators argued that the Vikings should reveal their finances: privately held, the team is not required to disclose operating data, despite the public subsidies it receives. In the end, the Minnesota legislature folded, giving away public money without the Vikings disclosing information in return. The teams principal owner, Zygmunt Wilf, had a 2011 net worth estimated at $322 million; with the new stadium deal, the Vikings value rose about $200 million, by Forbess estimate, further enriching Wilf and his family. They will make a token annual payment of $13 million to use the stadium, keeping the lions share of all NFL ticket, concession, parking, and, most important, television revenues.
After approving the $506 million handout, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton said, Im not one to defend the economics of professional sports Any deal you make in that world doesnt make sense from the way the rest of us look at it. Even by the standards of political pandering, Daytons irresponsibility was breathtaking.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)Or rather the priorities of those who govern us.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)I wanted to vomit.
I felt the same was after reading "Free Lunch". I got halfway through it before putting it back on the bookshelf; it made me too angry.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)...about how high-school sports are ruining our school systems.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)?mskh1x
Every year, thousands of teenagers move to the United States from all over the world, for all kinds of reasons. They observe everything in their new country with fresh eyes, including basic features of American life that most of us never stop to consider.
One element of our education system consistently surprises them: Sports are a big deal here, says Jenny, who moved to America from South Korea with her family in 2011. Shawnee High, her public school in southern New Jersey, fields teams in 18 sports over the course of the school year, including golf and bowling. Its campus has lush grass fields, six tennis courts, and an athletic Hall of Fame. They have days when teams dress up in Hawaiian clothes or pajamas just becauseWere the soccer team!, Jenny says. (To protect the privacy of Jenny and other students in this story, only their first names are used.)
By contrast, in South Korea, whose 15-year-olds rank fourth in the world (behind Shanghai, Singapore, and Hong Kong) on a test of critical thinking in math, Jennys classmates played pickup soccer on a dirt field at lunchtime. They brought badminton rackets from home and pretended there was a net. If they made it into the newspaper, it was usually for their academic accomplishments.
Sports are embedded in American schools in a way they are not almost anywhere else. Yet this difference hardly ever comes up in domestic debates about Americas international mediocrity in education. (The U.S. ranks 31st on the same international math test.) The challenges we do talk about are real ones, from undertrained teachers to entrenched poverty. But what to make of this other glaring reality, and the signal it sends to children, parents, and teachers about the very purpose of school?
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)will be talking about the $1 million bond issue to renovate the field.
Nothing in the budget for a new math teacher, though.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)...and now they're seeking out recruits from high school.
The only football team I can respect is the Packers.
Not that I'm really a football fan, but at least their business model is much more democratic.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)...probably sell their house if it meant the "God-like" Vikings stay in the state.
A high average of Minnesotans are intelligent people but rather naive and Eat-Up with sports.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)baseball, hockey, basketball, even tennis... everyone gets a new arena or stadium just for the asking.
It's slowing down a little now with things like New Jersey not pitching to steal the Yankees, but the whining from the owners is still deafening and the jobs argument never stops.
For some reason, though, the voters who scream loudest about food stamps or corruption are never heard from when there's a stadium to be built.
JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)But the Chargers have been lobbying for a new stadium for eight years now and are not even close to getting one. They are not even within shouting distance. It will snow a foot deep on Mission Beach before they get one.
The NFL tried extortion, saying we will never get another Super Bowl until we build the Chargers a new stadium. We told them to take their Super Bowl and stick it.
Don't get me wrong. I love football; college more than NFL, but I'm a Chargers fan. But if they want a new stadium they can build it 100% with their own money, on land they buy at market price. The city is pretty adamant that way. We got lied to and fleeced on a baseball stadium, and we aren't going that route again.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)why we have allowed people who become so successful from our hard earned dollars to avoid that is beyond me.
good for san diego -- a city i love -- btw.
WCLinolVir
(951 posts)UTUSN
(70,671 posts)PDittie
(8,322 posts)Not the good kind, either.
http://brainsandeggs.blogspot.com/2010/02/nfl-socialism.html
They're suing another halftime performer also, and she's fighting back:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/nfl-waging-secret-legal-war-632282
"Of course, the NFL's claimed reputation for wholesomeness is hilarious, in light of the weekly felonies committed by its stars, the bounties placed by coaches on opposing players, the homophobic and racist comments uttered by its players, the complete disregard for the health of players and the premature deaths that have resulted from same, and the raping of public entities ready to sacrifice public funds to attract teams."
The NFL sucks, the NCAA sucks harder, and I enjoy football. But its culture of violence permeates our entire society, and is a microcosm of the nation's fetish for war, blood and guts, wounded veterans, and all the rest.
gopiscrap
(23,733 posts)I feel that a team needs to be owned by the city it represents and the profits of that franchise going to that city and state.