Cowboys most valuable NFL team at $2.1 billion
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Dallas Cowboys are the first American sports franchise worth more than $2 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
The NFL's most valuable team for the sixth consecutive year, the Cowboys saw their overall worth increase 14 percent to $2.1 billion. That's about $1 billion higher than the average NFL team value, $1.11 billion, up 7 percent.
Only Manchester United of the English Premier League, at $2.24 billion, is more valuable than the Cowboys, according to Forbes' surveys. And Man U's owners, the Glazer family, also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are $1.033 billion, 18th in the NFL.
New TV contracts, the collective bargaining agreement signed last year that will last a decade, and higher premium seating revenue contributed to the increases. Every franchise except the Cincinnati Bengals increased in value; the Bengals stayed the same at $871 million, which ranks 26th overall.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/09/05/cowboys-value.ap/index.html#ixzz25cqBlmqC
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Original post from Marmar in GD
(Bloomberg) New York Giants fans will cheer on their team against the Dallas Cowboys at tonight’s National Football League opener in New Jersey. At tax time, they’ll help pay for the opponents’ $1.2 billion home field in Texas.
That’s because the 80,000-seat Cowboys Stadium was built partly using tax-free borrowing by the City of Arlington. The resulting subsidy comes out of the pockets of every American taxpayer, including Giants fans. The money doesn’t go directly to the Cowboys’ billionaire owner Jerry Jones. Rather, it lowers the cost of financing, giving his team the highest revenue in the NFL and making it the league’s most-valuable franchise.
“It’s part of the corruption of the federal tax system,” said James Runzheimer, 67, an Arlington lawyer who led opponents of public borrowing for the structure known locally as “Jerry’s World.” “It’s use of government funds to subsidize activity that the private sector can finance on its own.”
Jones is one of dozens of wealthy owners whose big-league teams benefit from millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Michael Jordan’s Charlotte, North Carolina, Bobcats basketball team plays in a municipal bond-financed stadium, the Time Warner Cable Arena, where the Democratic Party is meeting this week. The Republicans last week used Florida’s Tampa Bay Times Forum, also financed with tax-exempt debt. It is the home of hockey’s Lightning, owned by hedge-fund manager Jeffrey Vinik. None of the owners who responded would comment.
LINK: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-05/in-stadium-building-spree-u-s-taxpayers-lose-4-billion.html
On edit: Oh yeah, the title thread: In Stadium Building Spree, U.S. Taxpayers Lose $4 Billion
and then your friend...
