The Big Football Con

Gregg Easterbrook is a huge football fan.  Thankfully that hasn’t kept him from writing a new book revealing some of the seamy underbelly of how the National Football League uses lobbying to get away with fleecing the American public.

“For Veterans Day last year, the NFL announced that it would donate cash to military groups for each point scored in designated games. During NFL telecasts that weekend, the league was praised for its grand generosity. The total donation came to about $440,000. Annualized, NFL stadium subsidies and tax favors add up to perhaps $1 billion. So the NFL took $1 billion from the public, then sought praise for giving back $440,000—less than a tenth of 1 percent.”

The NFL is rightly getting heat this week for downplaying concussion risks for its players.  Maybe this will also bring attention to the fact that the NFL is also abusing its fans.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.