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Taxpayers Still Indulge Pro Teams

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 7, 2007

Last weekend featured two great events at Raymond James Stadium.

On Friday night the University of South Florida played before its first sellout crowd and a national TV audience. They did not disappoint, beating West Virginia. On Saturday a large crowd attended the game between Blake and Middleton, a rivalry that was revived when the two historically black high schools, once closed in the name of desegregation, were reopened.

The only downside was the fact that a good portion of the money fans spent last weekend won't benefit USF or Hillsborough County schools. As the Tribune's Baird Helgeson pointed out before the Bulls game, it was a cash cow for the Bucs.

For those who didn't know - or would like to forget - the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the major tenants of the stadium, receive the first $2 million of profit from parking and concessions at non-Buc events annually and split any profit over that amount with the Tampa Sports Authority. The Bucs also control the naming rights to the stadium and all advertising in it.

That goes beyond corporate welfare; that's stealing.

Indy Taxpayers Worse Off

This shows that lease terms for publicly financed sports facilities can be staggeringly generous to the professional teams and that construction costs seldom tell the entire subsidy story.

But if you think the taxpayers in Hillsborough have been abused, you might not feel so bad when you look at what the citizens of Indianapolis, where the Bucs play today, are being asked to shell out.

Take Conseco Fieldhouse, where the NBA's Indiana Pacers play. Even though the building's $222 million cost was paid entirely with public dollars, the Pacers receive all revenues from both basketball and non-basketball events - as well as the $40 million naming-rights fee paid by Conseco. The team's operating expenses are capped at $3 million a year, with the public picking up the difference. In exchange, the city of Indianapolis receives all of $1 a year in rent, plus the right to use the parking garage built with city tax money - when the Pacers aren't playing there.

Then there's the Bucs' opponent, the Colts. Next year the team will play in a new $500 million stadium, financed mostly with public money. Their current home, the RCA Dome, isn't even 30 years old, yet was declared outdated by the team's owner, Jim Irsay, whose father moved the team from Baltimore in 1984 because the stadium there was too old.

Even more appalling is that after they demolish the RCA Dome, the taxpayers of Indianapolis are going to be paying millions on bonds still owed on it. Then they are going to have a second set to pay off as well.

Speedway Deemed Not Worthy

This is fiscal insanity, all in an effort to be a 'major league city.'

While all of this is going on, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which helped put the city on the map and brought hundreds of millions tourist dollars over the years, supports itself.

I guess politicians and taxpayers in Indianapolis have short memories. When Irsay said he needed a new stadium, they should have reminded him what his ingrate father, Robert, told fans when he sneaked the Colts out of Baltimore in 1984: 'It's not your ball team. It's mine. ... I paid for it.'

Joseph H. Brown is a Tribune editorial writer.

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