Taxpayer-funded sports arenas are a boondoggle, and Tennesseans know it. Whatever the sport, wherever the
location, it’s true across major league and minor league cities.
The
Titans are worth an estimated $2.6 billion. The team’s revenue for the
2020 season totaled $354 million.
They have enough capital and enough cash flow — and the monopolistic
protection of the National Football League to boot — to renovate Nissan
Stadium or build a new stadium if the team’s owners think that’s the
best way to go. But if they think so, then they
need to be willing to foot the bill.
The
reality is that Nashville has more pressing issues than handing
hundreds of millions of dollars to
the owners of a private business to replace a perfectly good stadium.
Both Nashville and the state of Tennessee have more pressing issues to
address that ARE actual functions of government. Taxpayer money should
be used to address the problems of ordinary
citizens and to pay for the real responsibilities of the government like
education and public safety.
Government should not be in the business of subsidizing any politically-connected company.