America should stop funding the NFL and their huge stadiums and then there would be plenty of money that taxpayers gave to spend on our crumbling roads and bridges sadly in need of great repairs. What   is wrong with our elected officials to not be able to see this problem and change things on the nation’s behalf as a whole? Is there any cap on how rich the team owners can be? America has a lot of stadiums to host sporting events. They are becoming more expensive with strange amenities. The home of the Dallas Cowboys boasts giant expensive murals painted by famous artists. There are 14 party cabana rooms overlooking the field with leather seats and private bars. There are swimming pools that look down at the end zone inside the stadium. Yes, you can now watch a live game from a swimming pool extended over the field all paid by your tax dollars through municipal bonds not being used on our roads and bridges.

The Miami Marlins have a new ballpark too. In their ballpark there is a giant fish tank that goes all around the ballpark. Do we need an aquarium behind home plate? Hell no.  Ok it is cute and nice however we get no revenue or tax money from all the fans these things attract. Taxpayer money just pays for all of it. That is wrong. All that stuff is expensive. $12 billion dollars was spent on 51 new facilities that have been opened between 2000 and 2010.  We could have had state of the art roadside bathrooms with that kind of money.  Why are we funding the bills for professional teams? Sports teams are successful businesses with wealthy owners. They don’t need our municipal bond money.

Two years ago Detroit got permission to spend $283 million dollars of taxpayer money, two-thirds of the cost of a new $444million hockey arena. Detroit is black and they don’t even like hockey. Yeah I just said that too. Detroit could have used that money to improve communities and create jobs in economically depressed areas. The owner of that hockey team is Michael &Marian Llitch the founder of Little Caesars Pizza Chain worth $5 billion dollars. Let him pay for his own stadium. Taxpayers not only just give away money to build these stadiums, we let them keep virtually all the revenue those stadiums then produce.  What do we get out of the deal? Nothing!

The president of the Miami Marlins David Samson admitted on film in a Bryant Gumbel interview show that   they get the income of naming rights, they get the income from concessions, they get the luxury box income,  they receive the income from all other events held at the stadium too. He said the object of “all this” is to get all the revenue. Not only are they greedy they are arrogant like they actually deserve all the profits from the building tax money built. Naming rights is a sham too. If you sell the name of your building you get to keep the money even if it is a stupid name.  The New Orleans Pelicans are going to play all their home games at the Smoothie King Center. How can you pretend to play a macho sport when you have to go to a place named after soft creamy stuff ejaculated from a machine? Yeah I said that too.

Teams are so successful for pushing for upgraded stadiums that since the early 90’s we have had a replacement rate of over 90 percent. None of our infrastructure has been properly replaced. Almost every team in America gets some kind of public money. The New York Yankees built their own stadium but were given land rent and property tax free costing NYC hundreds of millions in lost revenues. Other teams get their stadiums funded by tax free municipal bonds.

Municipal bonds are the way for a city to take out a loan which they are to pay back later. They usually pay it back by new or existing taxes. These bonds should have never been used to pay for stadiums. It is time to tax the leagues, the owners, the property that these profit making stadiums produce to fix the roads that lead up to them. The team threaten to leave the cities unless they get their free stadiums. The stupid crazed fans protest and lobby for their stadiums. Dumb asses. Yeah I said that too.  They provide no help to the community. People park and buy their beer at the stadium not in the nearby neighborhood. There is no proof that a new stadium creates increased jobs, incomes or tax revenues. I’m   done. Maybe we need a nut like Mr. Trump   to be on the taxpayer’s side and demand something back to the community that we need for a change.