No. of Recommendations: 8
The other issue is the entrance of private equity into sports ownership.
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Makes all the sense in the world, from past history, doesn't it?
There is already an unconscionable / obscene amount of money flowing INTO professional sports from willing consumers and unwilling / misled taxpayers in the form of exhorbitant ticket prices and twenty year tax giveaways for stadiums costing from $1.5 billion to $6.4 billion or higher. If there is any possible way to find a way to transfer MORE of these funds away from the public into the hands of the wealthiest tenth of a tenth of a percent in the country, we can count on the private equity "business model" to find a way or die trying.
Of course, one mismatch between this new scheme and current reality is that pro sports already do not match the model in retail, restaurants, hospitals and nursing homes already exploited by PE. In those industries, PE bought firms that owned the real estate of their point of delivery to "customers", conducted a bunch of paper shuffles that sold the real estate to a separate firm then obligated the PE-controlled business to lease the space back from the separate REIT at inflated rates, shifting more money out of the soon-to-be zombie firm into the pockets of REIT owners.
In pro sports, owners figured that scam out thirty years ago. I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a SINGLE stadium in ANY sport built exclusively with team owner or even private money. I'm not even sure a single stadium has been built in the last thirty years with more than even 20% owner/private money. Taxpayers are already holding the bag on probably 80% of the cost of all stadiums in use. No opportunity for further shifting of liabilities possible there.
WTH
