What comes to mind when you think of the Super Bowl? The Bronco’s stunning offense? The glitzy halftime show? Chicken wings and Clydesdales? Call me a spoil sport, but I can’t help thinking subsidies. ‘That’s because even though the NFL (National Football League) generates $51 million a year in ticket sales, $2.1 billion in merchandising revenue, and an estimated $2.8 billion a year for television rights, they also receive about $1 billion each year in state and federal subsidies to cover their capital costs. Many teams also take a page from the playbook of the biggest global corporations by blackmailing local governments: unless taxpayers pony up for a new stadium or major improvements to the old one, the team will simply pack up and head elsewhere. The NFL also gets a tax break through a convenient loop-hole that deems it a non-profit organization. I work for a very different size of non-profit in which all these millions and billions of dollars are impossible-to-fathom sums. However, the NFL’s ability to fleece the public is nothing compared to most of the big—and even more dubious—subsidies out there. The International Society for Ecology and Culture has been tracking corporate subsidies for more than two decades and these are some of the worst we’ve found:’ globalresearch.ca/the-super-bowl-of-subsidies/5367054
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 17:07:08 +0000
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