Overpaid Millionaires Can Leave
Dear editor:
Professional football is a profit oriented, freely publicized (in the press, internet and TV,) privately held business owned by multi-millionaires, employing highly talented, hard working, overpaid millionaire players. The unbelievable income that pays for all of these millionaires is from constantly escalating ticket prices, huge television revenue, concessions, parking and sky boxes. On top of all this, at least in New Orleans, the Saints have a guaranteed profit income from the state of Louisiana (the only state to do so,) as negotiated by ex-Governor Mike Foster, of a deal valued at $186.5 million. Next year’s payment is $23.5 million, which the state has to somehow scrounge for at a time of a major budget shortfall due to the condition of the nation’s economy, record unemployment, a continually falling housing market, a recession that is slowly turning into a depression and falling state tax receipts. This subsidy is necessary, according to team millionaire owner Tom Benson, due to the fact that New Orleans is a relatively small income market for an operation like the New Orleans Saints.
The present agreement for these payments runs through the end of the 2010 season and of course the Saints and Tom Benson want a new deal that guarantees a large profit margin for their operation. To make sure this happens there is an implied threat that if the state doesn’t come through with the money the NFL will not bring the 2013 Super Bowl to New Orleans and the Saints will move to another city in another state. As a result, the fear is that there would be a large business loss to the French Quarter, downtown hotels and restaurants, a loss of jobs for those people who work in support services connected to football, and the ever present loss of prestige for the city and state.
Right now our state is facing a tremendous budget shortfall that will result in cutbacks of money for schools, colleges, municipalities, Medicaid payments, infrastructure, rebuilding cities and towns devastated by multiple hurricanes, and many other state programs. The money just isn’t there. Are we going to take away funds from all of these state responsibilities to insure a profit picture for millionaire Tom Benson and the millionaire players that work for him? Are we going to go begging to the federal government for a piece of the $800 billion stimulus package to pay state expenses and improvements and then turn around and give a chunk of it to the Saints? Who do the Saints think they are…Wall Street or the banks?
As a long time college and professional football fan I have to stand up and shout “NO,” and hope that our state legislature has the guts and the common sense to say the same thing. Charity begins at home, and if the Saints and their millionaires want to leave our home, so be it. We can’t afford their luxury.
Professional football is a profit oriented, freely publicized (in the press, internet and TV,) privately held business owned by multi-millionaires, employing highly talented, hard working, overpaid millionaire players. The unbelievable income that pays for all of these millionaires is from constantly escalating ticket prices, huge television revenue, concessions, parking and sky boxes. On top of all this, at least in New Orleans, the Saints have a guaranteed profit income from the state of Louisiana (the only state to do so,) as negotiated by ex-Governor Mike Foster, of a deal valued at $186.5 million. Next year’s payment is $23.5 million, which the state has to somehow scrounge for at a time of a major budget shortfall due to the condition of the nation’s economy, record unemployment, a continually falling housing market, a recession that is slowly turning into a depression and falling state tax receipts. This subsidy is necessary, according to team millionaire owner Tom Benson, due to the fact that New Orleans is a relatively small income market for an operation like the New Orleans Saints.
The present agreement for these payments runs through the end of the 2010 season and of course the Saints and Tom Benson want a new deal that guarantees a large profit margin for their operation. To make sure this happens there is an implied threat that if the state doesn’t come through with the money the NFL will not bring the 2013 Super Bowl to New Orleans and the Saints will move to another city in another state. As a result, the fear is that there would be a large business loss to the French Quarter, downtown hotels and restaurants, a loss of jobs for those people who work in support services connected to football, and the ever present loss of prestige for the city and state.
Right now our state is facing a tremendous budget shortfall that will result in cutbacks of money for schools, colleges, municipalities, Medicaid payments, infrastructure, rebuilding cities and towns devastated by multiple hurricanes, and many other state programs. The money just isn’t there. Are we going to take away funds from all of these state responsibilities to insure a profit picture for millionaire Tom Benson and the millionaire players that work for him? Are we going to go begging to the federal government for a piece of the $800 billion stimulus package to pay state expenses and improvements and then turn around and give a chunk of it to the Saints? Who do the Saints think they are…Wall Street or the banks?
As a long time college and professional football fan I have to stand up and shout “NO,” and hope that our state legislature has the guts and the common sense to say the same thing. Charity begins at home, and if the Saints and their millionaires want to leave our home, so be it. We can’t afford their luxury.
posted by Sam Schoolsky | 3:58 PM
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