Super "Bowling For Dollars" — How Politicians & The @NFL Screw Taxpayers
Happy Super Bowl LIII! Today is Georgia taxpayers' day to get screwed!
During the NFC & AFC playoffs, I wrote about the financial train wreck that was Super Bowl XLVIII, played in New Jersey in 2014, and how the NFL and its teams reap all the profits while host cities—and taxpayers—get screwed. Today the train wreck comes to Atlanta.
The city just opened the shiny, new $1.6 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium, paid for by taxpayers, the majority of whom cannot afford a Mercedes Benz; all of whom had no say in how their tax dollars were going to be spent.
Michael Farren and Anne Philpot, researchers with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, reported on just how much the state will lose not only during the Super Bowl, but for many years to come. This isn't an anomaly. This is what happens when taxpayers subsidize professional sports. This is why 70% of Americans are against this practice.
So sit back with your guacamolé and wings and read their words. All emphasis mine:
Sunday’s Super Bowl, a rematch 17 years in the making, harkens back to a thrilling 2002 title game between Tom Brady’s underdog New England Patriots and the high-flying St. Louis (now-Los Angeles) Rams.
But the host of this year’s game, Atlanta’s sparkling new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, reminds us of something less thrilling: the $1 billion or so that politicians give away in unnecessary public handouts to professional sports every year.
The $1.6 billion stadium was underwritten by $248 million in local bonds. Once taxpayers pay those off, they’ll then write the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons an annual check for stadium operations and upkeep.
Our calculations suggest taxpayers will pay around $1.02 billion over the course of the deal. Combined with $77 million in sales tax rebates, infrastructure investments, and city-provided land, locals could be on the hook for over five times the initial $200 million estimate.
The story is the same in most other sports cities. And like other sports teams, the Falcons rake in buckets of money: corporate sponsorships ($900 million) and personal seat licenses ($267 million) could have paid for 75 percent of the stadium cost alone, not CONTINUE READING: Marie Corfield: Super "Bowling For Dollars" — How Politicians & The @NFL Screw Taxpayers
Why the federal government should stop spending billions on private sports stadiums - http://brook.gs/2bzLhpc on @BrookingsInst
