Cleveland just recently passed an extension on the "sin tax" to pay for upgrades on Browns Stadium or is First Energy Stadium now? Tens of millions are needed to save the stadium from utter destruction or something, and according to the team owners and sponsors, the people of Cuyahoga County were morally responsible to pay up.Wait, if the NFL was liberal, wouldn't the outcome of every game be null as both sides are always winners and instead hitting each other hard, the players complimented each other and pick flowers out of the turf and hand them to their opponents? That the Super Bowl would be an affirmation that we are all winners and everyone gets a medal?
I also think it is cute that the article says Tebow was run out of the NFL because of his religious beliefs, as if his skills (especially as shown by the Patriots in the playoffs) were lacking a bit.
But more to the article's point... is the NFL really tax-exempt? Because if it is, I can't think of a reason why it should be.
The NFL is not tax exempt, but they do have a special monopoly status under current law. This allows them to decide where a team will be located and who can own it.
Beyond that, many cities have special arrangements with their NFL franchise, especially with regard to stadiums. As far as I know, all NFL stadiums are publicly owned.
Remember, only the Browns play in this place. The fucking Browns! The Cleveland "We are going to destroy Manzel's career before it even starts" Browns. And First Energy is telling Cuyahoga County that they need to save the stadium to invest in their city.
Logic and reason have no place in these kinds of discussions. Not many people want to be mayor of Cleveland, but no one wants to be the mayor who let the town's pro team run away.
The root cause of this kind of insanity is the legal monopoly the NFL(and other sports leagues) are granted by law. Football teams are treated more like public utilities. It would be horribly inefficient for a city to have competing power companies, with double power lines strung down each street. It would drive up the costs for each company and in the end be bad for consumers. Fair enough, so we trade enterprise for a regulated market. In the case of pro sports, we don't regulate very much. It seems the pro teams write the regulations, but we are content with that. We hear a lot of moaning about millionaire ball players, but we(the people) created them. If player salaries were dependent on ticket sales, few players would be paid more than $100k a year.
The monopoly makes the television revenues possible, which make some players worth millions a year. This also makes the location of the team almost superfluous. They could be based anywhere. This puts a city in a very weak bargaining position.