Charlotte Taxpayers Win Super Bowl: Panthers Receive Fewer Subsidies Than Broncos | Eastern North Carolina Now

 Publisher's note: The author of this post is Dr. Roy Cordato, who is Vice President for Research and resident scholar for the John Locke Foundation.

 The "good" news is that, in this year's Super Bowl battle over which team fleeces its home city's taxpayers the least, Broncos or the Panthers, the winner is the Panthers by a pretty wide margin. According to this article by the Manhattan Institute's Jared Meyer (originally published in Forbes), the taxpayers of Denver were forced to cough up 75 percent of the cost of Sports Authority Field, or $300 million. On the other hand, Charlotte's taxpayers have been blessed with "only" having to provide 30 percent of what it cost to build Bank of America Stadium, or about $165 million.

 According to Meyer, here's how it breaks down:


 Unfortunately the use of taxpayer money to line the pockets of rich NFL franchises is not limited to Charlotte and Denver. In fact these wealth transfers dominate the league. Meyer points out that:

 The NFL is by far the most valuable sports team in the world. Team owners do not need taxpayer aid to turn a profit, yet this problem is only growing. Public funding for stadiums completed in the 2000s was 70 percent higher than for those completed in the 1990s. League-wide, about 70 percent of the capital cost of NFL stadiums has been provided by taxpayers, not NFL owners.

 If this doesn't qualify as welfare for the rich it is difficult to figure out what would.