DAVID CAY JOHNSTON:... George Steinbrenner is getting over $600
million for the new Yankee Stadium in New York. The New York Mets are getting
over $600 million. In fact, the City of New York gave them money to lobby
against the taxpayers to get more money. Rudy Giuliani gave $50 million to the
two teams for that purpose.
The new owners of the Washington Nationals baseball team in Washington, D.C.,
paid $450 million for the team. But, in fact, they got the team for free,
because the subsidy they’re getting for the new stadium is worth $611 million.
We actually paid these people to buy the team.
Now, in this country right now, we are spending $2 billion a year subsidizing
the big four sports: baseball, basketball, football and hockey. It accounts for
all of the profits of that industry and more. Now, there may be individual teams
that make money, but the industry as a whole is not profitable. And that’s
astonishing because the big four leagues are exempt from the laws of
competition. By the way, irony is not dead, because here are people who are in
the business of competition on the field who are exempted by law from the rules
of economic competition.