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The NFL is Running a Billion-Dollar Con
Pittsburgh Magazine ^ | October 2013 | SEAN CONBOY

Posted on 10/22/2013 5:07:34 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen

Chances are good that you or someone you know recently purchased groceries, talked to a mechanic or opened a medical bill and felt a pang of existential dread so visceral that it triggered a physical sickness.

This is what it means to be alive in America in 2013. To work hard, always do the right thing and still commute home at the end of the day under a charcoal cloud of professional uncertainty, political harakiri and increasingly unfathomable “service fees” visa-vis your monthly cable bill.

Yet the incomprehensibly rich NFL team owners are busy crafting a neat little narrative for you, the fan: They need more of your tax dollars to build their lavish stadiums.

Not that you haven’t already been generous. Since 1923, 186 professional sports stadiums have been built at a cost of $53 billion. Taxpayers have chipped in to the tune of $32 billion — 61 percent of the total.

(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghmagazine.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: nfl
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To: Kid Shelleen
I have the following recommendations for the NFL:

I think this would improve the situation for the NFL owners.
21 posted on 10/22/2013 6:44:41 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: MaxMax

Who would have thought that Bum Phillips and Bud Adams would perish within days of each other.


22 posted on 10/22/2013 6:50:59 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Pan_Yan
Yes, "personal seat licenses" are one of the gret scams ever. Phil Mushnick of the New York Post has been really tough on them.

Basically, a PSL is a "license" to buy season tickets. Beofre you buy the tickets, you pay a fee to be allowed to buy.

Con job if there ever was one.

23 posted on 10/22/2013 6:53:43 PM PDT by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: Pan_Yan
Yes, "personal seat licenses" are one of the gret scams ever. Phil Mushnick of the New York Post has been really tough on them.

Basically, a PSL is a "license" to buy season tickets. Before you buy the tickets, you pay a fee to be allowed to buy.

Con job if there ever was one.

24 posted on 10/22/2013 6:53:55 PM PDT by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: Kid Shelleen

Remember how the NFL virtually crucified the late Jack Kent Cooke for daring to build his own stadium with his own money?


25 posted on 10/22/2013 6:56:17 PM PDT by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: AlexW
I still very much relish football games in person. I can observe the full context and strategy of the game; especially substitution packages, which I don't get to follow on the idiot box because they feel the need to endlessly loop replays between all live action to assuage short attention spans and plain ignorant viewers.

TCU games are fun, but then that is about the total spectacle and not merely the game. The excitement, the flavor, even the exorbitantly priced vittles are delightful.

Now the TV experience mostly gives me a headache due to the over-production and ubiquitous and intrusive monetization inserts. And it's getting worse each year. I'm sure- tho I cannot prove it- most in-game producers/directors are meth freaks. When I watch a game on the idiot box anymore it's casually while I'm otherwise occupied with other tasks and the sound muted.

26 posted on 10/22/2013 7:00:04 PM PDT by Dysart (Obamacare: "We are losing money on every subscriber-- but we will make it up in volume!")
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To: Fai Mao

Ditto

It’s gonna be interesting to see the value of a franchise when the do gooders succeed in switching them to flag football instead of full contact.

The lawyers ultimately will do the price of an NFL franchise what they spent decades doing to the tobacco industry.


27 posted on 10/22/2013 7:05:48 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas (it's the debt bomb stupid!)
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To: TBP
Yes, "personal seat licenses" are one of the gret scams ever.

Anymore it's mostly the corporate crowd who attends, and they just allocate costs of the circus to their customers as entertainment XP, bundle it and pass it duly along.

Of course there are always the common fools- the unthinking fanatics with more disposable income than sense. I'm pretty sure P.T. Barnum would be proud.

28 posted on 10/22/2013 7:10:09 PM PDT by Dysart (Obamacare: "We are losing money on every subscriber-- but we will make it up in volume!")
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To: Cyman

I can’t wait for a massive winter storm to hit NJ on SB weekend. Serves the dumbasses right. The SB should always, ALWAYS be played in the south in an open air stadium, no roofs or retractable roofs. That even means you Jerry Jones. Give me the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Arizona, San Diego etc. any day. College stadiums are fine also.

Oh, and kickoff should be at 3:00 PM.


29 posted on 10/22/2013 7:39:33 PM PDT by slouper (LWRC M6A2)
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To: Kid Shelleen

Who ISN’T running a billion dollar con these days? Well okay, the fedgov is running a trillion dollar one, so we should just let the pikers have their billion.


30 posted on 10/22/2013 8:05:42 PM PDT by AFreeBird
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To: dfwgator

...and, Who would have thought that at mid year the Chiefs would be the only undefeated team in the game?


31 posted on 10/22/2013 8:12:26 PM PDT by KC Burke (Officially since Memorial Day they are the Gimmie-crat Party.h)
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To: Kid Shelleen

would you suggest, for one second, that the taxpayers did not benefit immensley from these stadiums???????hundreds of thousands of fans flocking to your city....spending zillions of dollars on food, lodging, nonsense, booze, etc...please...the taxpayers make an investment...it usually works out just fine. The Hoosier dome in Indianapolis wasn’t even dusty and they tore it down and built an even more fantastis stadium nearby....fear not, they know what they are doing...


32 posted on 10/22/2013 8:27:28 PM PDT by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
? Like Rush said, football will become extinct within 20 years.

no, that's how long it will take you to get a season ticket to the Packers!!!!....I don't think that there is a game in the NFL that isn't normally sold out.

33 posted on 10/22/2013 8:33:45 PM PDT by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: Kid Shelleen

just one more thing on the subject.....Frank sinatra did not build his own auditoriums...movie stars do not build their own theaters, race car drivers do not build their own racetracks,horse racers did not build Churchhill downs, the team owners cannot take the stadium with them...the stadium belongs to the community where it is located....the team leaves....bye-bye...we have such a great stadium that we will entice another team to come here....See Milwaukee county stadium and the Braves/Brewers.


34 posted on 10/22/2013 8:47:55 PM PDT by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: slouper

Nah - football is an all weather sport - the fans need to accept it and suck it up. Personally I think the colleges should do a 16 team playoff series at home for the higher seed and the superbowl should shuffle through every NFL stadium on a rotating basis. The whole “hold the bowls in the south” routine only punishes those teams who are built for the winter season and rewards those built for the south. If you don’t believe it then prove it by sending the southern teams up north for the next 3 years of bowl competitions. I’m sure there are plenty of stadiums that can support the same size crowds. Besides why should southern fans get more chances for those tickets due to travel budgets.


35 posted on 10/22/2013 8:55:24 PM PDT by reed13k (For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.)
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To: Cyman

“San Diego voters will not vote for another public built football stadium so the NFL (besides not so subtly whispering that LA needs a team) harrumph about hotel rooms, transit problems etc...Extortion plain and simple.”

Here in NJ we weren’t given a vote on it. I think they may have been able to fund a lot of it because the new Giants Stadium is also used by a Canadian Football League team (the Jets).


36 posted on 10/23/2013 2:41:27 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic war against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: slouper

for a real football game, the super bowls should be played at Green Bay, Chicago, Pittsburg, Buffalo, or Boston.


37 posted on 10/23/2013 3:57:44 AM PDT by X Fretensis
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To: slouper
Cordially, nuts to that.

My idea of a great football game is:

Bears, Packers, Giants, or Steelers;

Played outdoors in December;

In freezing drizzle or snow showers;

Final score, 7-3.

38 posted on 10/23/2013 6:09:46 AM PDT by Notary Sojac (Mi tio es enfermo, pero la carretera es verde!)
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To: slouper

I prefer they go back to how they did it before the merger. Championship game is at the team with the best record.

I mean, everyone remembers the “Ice Bowl”. I think it would be awesome.


39 posted on 10/23/2013 7:24:42 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: terycarl
I don't think that there is a game in the NFL that isn't normally sold out.

Unless it's the Jaguars.

40 posted on 10/23/2013 7:26:37 AM PDT by dfwgator
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