Didn’t Watch the Super Bowl? You Still Got Charged - In These Times
David Sirota reports on how we all, fans or not, pay for professional sports: Didn’t Watch the Super Bowl? You Still Got Charged
That term—Sports Tax—is not hyperbolic. In a week that saw Louisiana fork over $5 million to the NFL for the privilege of helping that league make big Super Bowl money, Sports Tax is the most accurate catch-all label for the four sets of levies the public is being made to shell out.
The first Sports Tax comes from the higher taxes we all pay in order to fund direct handouts....In all, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that “taxpayers have committed $18.6 billion since 1992 to subsidies for the NFL’s 32 teams, counting the expense of building stadiums, forgone real estate taxes, land and infrastructure improvements, and interest costs on public bonds.” That's almost $1 billion every year—and that's just for football, meaning the figure isn't even counting similar handouts for other leagues.