Dave Zirin: The Super Bowl Is a Grift of Epic Proportions

[marmar]

from The Nation:


The Super Bowl Is a Grift of Epic Proportions
While the wealthy party during Super Bowl week, a heist is happening in plain sight.

By Dave Zirin


The Super Bowl is like prom for the 1 percent. When the big game comes to town, it’s accompanied by private jets, parties, and nonstop bottle service. That should be enough, but it never is. The bacchanalia also comes festooned with public funds for the NFL, an overwhelming police presence, and the removal of the poor. It’s a world of fun on our TVs, but it’s a wrecking ball for local communities.

This year the game is in Miami, and the scams are starting to seep into public consciousness. As the Miami Herald is reporting, the NFL booked 1 million dollars’ worth of rooms at the J.W. Marriott Marquis hotel and Aventura’s Turnberry resort for the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers players and coaches—and sent the city the bill.

Even though the NFL is a gargantuan corporate operation and both teams are owned by billionaires, Miami (where 27 percent of children live below the poverty line) is on the hook for the hotel accommodations. This is just part of a $4 million welfare package with which the city has gifted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who makes 10 times that amount in yearly salary. That $4 million does not include the costs of the police and security presence required to host the game. Rodney Barreto, the chairman of Miami’s Host Committee, said to the Herald, “These are basically things we have to do to get them to come. If we’re not doing it, another city is.” .............(more)

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/super-bowl-protest/

[exboyfil]

1. Rich man's welfare

You got to love it.

Professional football is the only sport I watch. Maybe I need to get a different time waster.

[rurallib]

2. Sad to say I bet Zirin is the only sports writer in the country

who will write about this.
He is a national treasure IMHO

[marmar]

3. Yep.

[SCantiGOP]

4. And this is relatively small change

Compared to the extortion of forcing taxpayers to build a stadium and related facilities for some of the most reliably profitable businesses in the country.

[2naSalit]

5. +1

[Aristus]

6. I stopped watching professional sports years ago.

For many reasons, and this is one of them.

I'm tired of hearing how municipalities going into debt to build sports stadiums that ends up profiting only private investors.