Current news reports inform us that the NFL is seeking $2 billion in loans to help defray operating costs. In this time of great economic uncertainty and the hackneyed “credit-crunch,” I wonder to what source(s) it might turn? Who might recently have become the beneficiaries of the kind of money that might permit loans of this magnitude? Hmmmmm? Might banks or other financial institutions – themselves the recipients of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer-financed largesse – be such a source?
The NFL has many costs to cover, including the multi-million salaries of players, maintenance expenses on sky-boxes, and the millions of dollars that go to its owners and managers. Pro football – like pro baseball – has been able to defray some of these costs – such as getting taxpayers to pay the costs of building stadiums for them in which to play and profit. Still, there are other costs of doing business that are not fully covered by lucrative television broadcast revenues. So, will the taxpayers again be called upon to underwrite the costs of this lucrative, privately-owned enterprise?
11:01 am on November 2, 2008
