Today in the Sports Owner Grift
- Charlotte shaken down for $300 million by the Panthers. Admittedly, I’m sure those 8 home dates a year have a massive impact on the area’s economy.
- Who could have anticipated that creating lavishly taxpayer-subsidized expensive parking garages for the Yankees would be a terrible idea?
- Who could have anticipated that driving dump trucks of taxpayer money to Jeffrey Loria’s house would be a terrible idea?
- Nobody has ever accused Phil Rogers of being a nuclear scientist, but to argue in defense of the proposition that the taxpayers owe the Cubs a new stadium that the Yankees were unable to win championships in their previous stadium is very, very, very special.
Clearly, the solution to this problem is just to let the owners keep all the money, because then they would have no incentive to get free taxpayer money or charge what the market will bear for tickets, because…look, aurora borealis! In fairness, it is true that NCAA sports are free to attend and never result in taxpayers getting soaked for new facilities, so clearly not paying the players is a very effective way of stopping the grift. And you can’t deny that taxpayers never shelled out for new stadiums when there was a reserve clause.