It’s Super Bowl weekend — but instead of hype and halftime noise, today’s Peoplenomics report takes a hard look at something few people ever question: why taxpayers are still paying for private sports empires.
In Frank’s Weekend: The High Cost of Private Sports, we trace the hidden financial machinery behind stadiums, bonds, and “public-private partnerships,” and explain why these projects almost never pay for themselves — no matter how they’re sold to voters.
This isn’t a rant about sports. It’s an accounting story. One that reaches back to a little-known legal fight in Seattle in the early 1970s and runs straight through today’s ballooning public debt, rising living costs, and misplaced priorities. Along the way, we separate civic pride from fiscal reality and show how entertainment quietly became one of the most reliable ways to socialize risk while privatizing profit.
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GU : “… Frank’s objection was simple, quaint by modern standards: the government was lending its credit — effectively its taxing power — to a private venture. …”
The above ^ was thoughtfully excerpted from PeopleNomics.com (the subscriber side) and pasted here (without permission) for discussion. Forgive me George. I knew what I did.
Lending municipal and state credit may have been spawned in Richy Rich sports stadiums but is all over the old world public finance model – the municipal bond market. TIFs and loads of projects have been funded for We The People (sewage treatment plants, etc.) based on known cash flow of mandated populace who become Payors on the bonds. Math works? Bonds catch a bid and are mostly buried in Pension and INsurance Cos.
Then came Industrial Revenue Bonds. City _X_ wants to help fund without the bother of running something for the public good (ex: hospital) so lends credit as sponsor of another class of Muni. These would require a higher coupon since the Math, the funding flow, wouldn’t be paid by a defined body of bodies. But, we built loads of medical facilities this way so?
Yesterday was a “gut it out” day. My back pain isn’t off the charts but I’m experiencing typical end of cycle phase where life gets in the way. I have managed to reload copious amounts of seasoned white oak in launch position and predict cold outside / sizzling inside from the Puppy Bowl on. It’s SooperBowl Sunday!
I have yet to finish your tail, err, tale George but … without meaning to pee on Frank’s pooch, funding a sports stadium need not be a loser. Ask the University of Notre Dame. They make bucket-loads (6-7) weekends of the Season. Ahem, buy a winning team? It’s just entertainment. Though a Bears fan as a kid, this is the one Pro game I watch annually. Irony : commercial time-outs are what the Mute Button is for. Not tomorrow.
My Dad was a Big in football, from HS to College (a one-off lineman Guard as Captain wasn’t done in the late 40s) to being drafted in the Pros. Dad was a stud. I watched him perform feats of strength hard to imagine to this day. The guy was wicked fast for 30 yards so smarting off and escaping didn’t work. He was a Crew Cut proud man of steel. I tried to play but … got shorted by my 5’2″ Mom. Better I went back in the water, swam competitively.
Another illegal snippet from PeopleNomics : “… I will make this short …”
Sure George.
We watch and wait.
Savor the days, all ‘o them.
Egor of the frozen North
____ /) _____________
Egor — deeply appreciated. And forgiven. Mostly. ?
You’re right on the mechanics: municipal bonding, IRBs, TIFs, and revenue-backed financing can and do work when the cash flows are durable, mandated, or tied to essential services. Sewage plants don’t relocate. Hospitals don’t threaten to leave town every 15 years unless you build them a newer one. That distinction matters — and it’s exactly where Frank drew his line.
Where stadium finance breaks down isn’t the bond math in isolation — it’s the optionality asymmetry. The public side carries long-duration risk with no exit. The private side captures upside, controls operations, and retains relocation leverage. That’s not infrastructure finance; that’s entertainment finance with a sovereign co-signer.
Notre Dame is a good example — and also an exception that proves the rule. A university-owned facility with captive demand, donor backing, and institutional continuity is not the same animal as a privately held franchise shopping cities against one another. Did mention endowments, alumni funds, and a rep (school marketing) built at least partially on fooseball?
One behaves like an asset. The other behaves like a negotiating weapon.
As for “I’ll make this short” — guilty as charged. Some tails don’t dock easily. But the Admiral’s point demands acuity:
Notre Dame football does generate real money — but the headline “profit” only looks that clean because of a thick web of institutional advantages that no private team (and almost no other school) enjoys. And yes, there are benefits to the wider university — but they’re indirect, uneven, and often overstated.
Here’s the straight ledger view.
Does Notre Dame football actually make money?
Yes. The football program at University of Notre Dame consistently runs an operating surplus. Home games generate enormous gross revenue (tickets, media rights, donations tied to football weekends, merchandising). The program is one of the few in college sports that can credibly claim to be self-sustaining on an annual operating basis.
But that’s not the same as saying it operates like a normal business.
Why the numbers look better than a pro team’s would
Notre Dame football benefits from several structural advantages that dramatically improve the optics:
• Tax exemption: As a nonprofit educational institution, Notre Dame pays no federal income tax. A private NFL franchise with the same cash flows would not look nearly as profitable after tax.
• Capital subsidization: Stadium construction, renovations, and infrastructure are often funded through donations, bond structures, or internal university financing rather than pure market-rate private capital. That lowers the effective cost of capital.
• Labor cost suppression: For decades, players were unpaid. Even now, NIL payments are largely externalized to donors and collectives, not booked as football department expenses in the same way salaries would be in pro sports.
• Bundled revenues: Donations that come in during football season are frequently booked as “general giving,” not football revenue — even though football is the trigger. That shifts income off the football ledger and into the broader university column.
• Media deal uniqueness: Notre Dame’s long-standing independent TV arrangements (historically NBC) have provided unusually stable, high-margin media income with none of the league revenue-sharing obligations that constrain pro teams.
Put differently: football “makes money,” but it does so inside a tax-advantaged, cost-suppressed, donor-augmented ecosystem. Strip those away, and the margin compresses fast.
Is football subsidizing the rest of the university?
Indirectly, yes — but not in the way fans often imagine.
Football helps in three main non-cash ways:
Brand amplification
Notre Dame football is a global marketing engine. It keeps the university in national consciousness every fall. That brand halo helps admissions selectivity, alumni engagement, and fundraising across departments.
Alumni and donor activation
Many large gifts to academics, buildings, and endowments are emotionally unlocked through football weekends and identity. Football is often the door, not the destination.
Admissions yield
Applications spike after successful seasons. That allows the university to be more selective, which improves rankings and long-term institutional leverage.
But here’s the uncomfortable part:
Those benefits are diffuse, not universal.
A philosophy major, a physics researcher, or a student indifferent (or hostile) to football does not receive a direct educational benefit proportional to the resources, attention, and institutional gravity football consumes. In some cases, football dominance actively distorts campus culture, priorities, and funding decisions.
Is Notre Dame comparable to public stadium subsidies?
No — and this is where Egor’s point partially holds.
Notre Dame is the owner, the operator, and the beneficiary. There is no private franchise extracting profits while externalizing risk to taxpayers. The university is not threatening to relocate South Bend if it doesn’t get a new stadium. That makes it categorically different from municipal stadium finance.
But it’s still fair to say this:
Notre Dame football works financially because it sits inside a privileged institutional wrapper, not because football is inherently a great standalone business.
Bottom line
• Yes, Notre Dame football makes money.
• Yes, it confers real institutional benefits.
• No, those benefits are not evenly distributed across the academic mission.
• And no, it is not a clean analogy for publicly subsidized pro sports.
It’s a rare case where the spectacle mostly pays for itself — but only because the rules of the game are tilted in ways that don’t exist outside elite, nonprofit higher education.
That’s the whole McGillah — ledger, halo, and hidden offsets included.
Anyway, ShopTalk or not, the conversation’s open. Those who want the full ledger view — legal, financial, and historical — will find it on the subscriber side. The rest can keep it light, mute the commercials, and enjoy the Puppy Bowl.
Back to the shop. There’s work underway on the sidelines.
— GU
The (wannabe) writer in me pens: “There once was a man from Nantucket.
When Sports he came on, he said…”
G, how did my post yesterday about the TBI’s suffered by football players get missed?
https://spauldingrehab.org/about/news/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy-in-football-players
Of 631 brains donated by former football players, 180 did not have CTE, 163 (26%) had CTE stage I or II and 288 (46%) had CTE stage III or IV.
https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/2023/02/06/researchers-find-cte-in-345-of-376-former-nfl-players-studied/
The Boston University CTE Center announced today that they have now diagnosed 345 former NFL players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) out of 376 former players studied (91.7 percent).
https://www.bu.edu/bostonia/2017/aaron-hernandez-cte-worst-seen-in-young-person/
‘Hernandez, just 27 when he hanged himself with a bedsheet, was riddled with Stage 3 CTE, to a degree that “we’ve never seen…in our 468 brains, except for individuals very much older,” Ann McKee, director of BU’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center, told a news conference at the Metcalf Trustee Center. “Individuals with similar gross findings…were at least 46 years old at the time of death.” ‘
Your usual rejection of any human costs involved?? Your financial addicted brain can only see money symbols??
Pray for those suffering TBI and CTE. Phineas Gage would understand:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/phineas-gage.html
‘Some described him as unusually polite and mild-mannered pre-accident, and almost monstrously unstable afterward.’
I’m not sure Notre Dame is an exception. “College football” (and HS football in places where it’s a religion, like Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) don’t move around, and are hugely profitable. I ’bout shit myself, 10 years ago (or so) when I learned the annual operating budget for the University of Florida football team was $125mln. ‘Made me start poking around and discovering USC, FlaSt, Miami, Texas, PennSt, and a bunch of other State colleges, and private schools like Notre Dame, Duke, Vanderbilt, etc. all have huge budgets. Their men’s football and basketball programs are huge moneymakers, often returning profits which are the double of expenses — even for schools with perennial losing programs (ahem… like Indiana University.) The profits are rolled into the athletic programs that are huge annual losers, with the object of insulating the school’s athletic department so it places no drain on its academic budget. This is how a UCLA can have 37 varsity sports teams (male & female) and compete in lacrosse or field hockey, which are watched by dozens of spectators.
The Green Bay Packers are the sole exception within the ranks of professional sports teams. Green Bay, Wisconsin is almost exactly the same size as Tyler, Texas — with a population of about 107,000 Green Bay is nowhere near big enough to support a sports franchise, yet it does, because the townsfolk own the team, franchise, and Lambeau Field. The Packers are the only professional sports team which can never move.
The “Chicago” Bears are contemplating a new stadium. They are looking at the Calumet region of Indiana — from Michigan City to Valparaiso to Crown Point and Whiting. This kinda pisses me off because those towns are NOT FRIGGING CHICAGO. Now I know, building a stadium city in Gary or Hammond is going to be a lot cheaper than rebuilding that entire area of Chicago which surrounds Soldier Field, but INDIANA IS NOT CHICAGO, dammit, and Soldier Field is an iconic venue. It’s like frickin’ Fenway, and like Lambeau and Orchard Park, gives the home team a huge weather advantage over the last 4-6 weeks of the season.
________
@George
No, those benefits are not evenly distributed across the academic mission.
I would disagree here, because virtually all college athletic departments are at-worst, revenue-neutral. Therefore, they put no drain, strain, or rein on the school’s academics.
GU : “…it is not a clean analogy for publicly subsidized pro sports …”
Uhm, if implied that was a mistake. The point was / is sports programs can support their own build out costs. ND Football (enormous) free cash flow is a spider web of inflow with minimal outflow (actually, to support other sports).
Once upon a time my Fam. Bidness had a dozen season tickets, two rows with six in a row each. Over time the insanely expensive stipend rate caused the Corp to pull back to just four seats. As a boy Dad took me to at least one game per season. He always said that it was the biggest game of the year. At the top end of sport they are _all_ the biggest game but that was a sales job on Little Egor.
Eventually, when my stud football Dad couldn’t climb stands in the House That Rockne built they fell to me. Read : the fun part in the stadium and the awful part paying bills. It’s big in South Bend to look at your son and say “hey, call buds until 2 can join us at the game. It was stunning how many kids had never made it inside the House. What it cost was way less than what I gained. Ditto E2. Golden Dome Golden Times.
It’s easy to gripe about costs. The payoff was ginormous. Yah, I walk into ND Stadium and am wrangling (3) little ones. At the time, think I was $300 all-in after paying to park (a lovely woman in the hood allowed back-yard park), buying the boys whatever from overpriced concessions and entering the stadium. Worth every penny. Until it wasn’t.
In the end our annual tithe bill was on my computer desk for months. Mrs. E kept saying “don’t you pay that” until, knowing she was on layline and … I didn’t pay it. There was (and is) an infamous saying “no one ever dies off the ND season ticket roles” and, here I was resigning our multi-decade four box for … nadda.
Hope someone is enjoying the view from our seats. I did.
Egor
ps – there were a handful of products I adopted early in career #3. One was Munis. They were stupid great when Fed Tx rates were high. Work even now. It’s a *preferred* credit.
My eyes were opened when Seattle (communists or not) built up stradium deebt and it became the cause for the local option sales tax is 3.9 perceent on TOP of the state 6.4 percent – that’s before the 15.6 percent for state, local sales and “dumb enough to stay here TAXES. Now if private schools paid sales tax…
Munis ?
Holy Snikies Egor – remember some PA Hospital Bonds my back office BondGuy put my lil Mom in..+8% coupon rate. Thats right Crumb Snatchers, you used to clip coupons off bottom of physical bond and take said coupons to the Bank for payment.
+8% relatively Risk Free Bond – plus those badboys were Tax advantaged.
Of course my mortgage rate in 91 was almost 9%, couple ticks under, on a VA loan. Unaffordable housing at Current rates – puuhlease .
As long as the World Pop be suffering from severe case Cranialrectilitus (HeadUpAss) they will end up owning nothing, and not being very happy – Yeah that Happiness part IS just one of the Big Lies that make up the WEF and the associated mother-weffers..the enemy of all HUMANITY
If one can re-brand competition sports as “entertainment” sports, an owner can dictate the performance scoring to reflect any number the owner wants-before the goals are ever scored on the field.
If it is labeled as ‘entertainment’, the package is complete and hard competition is avoided when the desired score is achieved and the rest of the game is just played out in time.
Players are paid and happy, owners paid and happy, game looked like a real competition, spectators paid and got to see a game and a few of them even made a few bucks on the scores and when they happened at the right times and much beer was drunk to keep the stadium owners happy.
Plus I can go bowling int he aisles of Lowe’s when the game kicks off…
A further signal to Adm. Egor. (More for the unwashed and unsubscribed who are not understand of Ure skepticism)
There once was a man from Nantucket,
When sports came on he said, “Fuck it.”
I won’t buy a seat,
Or fund billionaire meat,
If the herd goes that way, I’ll buck it.
There once was a town sold a promise,
That stadium debt wouldn’t harm us.
But the bonds never died,
While the owners all sighed,
As the bill showed up yearly to charm us.
There once was a deal “for the people,”
Sold loud from a podium steeple.
But the math wouldn’t close,
And the ledger all knows,
It was bread for the few—circus for sheeple.
There once was a crowd full of passion,
Cheering debt in a tax-exempt fashion.
When the team skipped the town,
They still paid every pound,
For nostalgia compounded with ration.
So here is the moral, succinctly:
If the project were sound and convincing,
Private money would play,
Put its own skin in play,
Not mortgage the kids while we’re wincing.
when everyone was shelter in place and all the resturants and bars and stadiums were closed durring the plandemic.
there was no music, no dancing, no reason to celebrate, no reason to cheer, no excape, no joy, no laughter, no smiling, no release,
only fear.
the kind of fear that your neighbors breath could kill your whole family.
when i took that job working out at the stadiums. running back stage, the pass gate at concerts, shows, running seahawks security…
i provided securty and saftey and freedom for countless people to
hear live music again, to dance! to celebrate! to cheer! , to be filled with Joy! to laugh! to smile! and release even for just a moment the bondage of fear pumped out 24/7 on mainstream news outlets.
freedom from the fear that their neighbors breath could kill their whole family.
i provided an army of protection for a population to hear the music again here in the sound area.
and only a few know it was me at the helm.
and i never once got Covid and i never once recieved the vaccine.
its not all about distracting the sheep with bread and circus Mr Ure.
without Music, Humanity would lose its identity.
music moves the soul…and that is what shapes the material world.
*Tips Hat
I Win With God Within ~
Que: ~ I need never get old
https://youtu.be/-2hxU4UG3dA?si=2uzPFr-NgLKJZcMG
Nathanial Rateliff and the Night Sweats.
And it was so
THE DUDE finds amid the crowd, few people who follow Him, just to be near Him, just to dwell in His presence. The Eternal Heart is satisfied by just these few people. These few HE grants the The Keys of Life.
Imagine the joy The Eternal Heart feels when a million souls are released from the bondage of fear….
Only a few more steps George and then God’s power shall be seen and known in my life.
A line from my favorite poem Titled: Of Tide and Time
~ Be still. Perhaps if you are still enough, you can hear the everlasting tide of Being fling itself on the shores of Forever. ~
until we meet again my friend,
I Win with God within.
EXELLENT Post on Sports Venues!!! George you hit the high points very well!!
Let me start by saying I agree with the observation as to the difference between University facilities and privately owned sports teams facilities. Wholly different worlds although both are in the “Sports Business”
—————-
Interesting discussion… one that for me harkens back to my college days. My degree was in Public Administration with an emphasis on Finance (through the Poly Sci dept NOT the Business School … strange placing of the program but fit me to a “T” since I was thus able to double major with a second major in International Relations). In the course of doing that degree I had one course where we examined all of the crazy stuff that public entities lend their credit weightings too, from both the public entity side and from the business side that was using the public ledger, a big part of which being Sports venues. (forget if it was one of my Business School profs or the finance professor in the Poly Sci dept who taught that course)
Understanding Stadiums and Sports Arenas financing back then, and of course still today, was like descending into an Alice in Wonderland underground web of confusing tunnels ALL either unmarked or intentially incorrectly marked. With that said we did look at several deals (how our professor got the inside financials for some of those deals I have no idea … not sure it was by strictly legal ethical means – documents from old friends from his old big time accounting firm, big law firm acquaintances, odd ball lawsuits, private tax rulings, hidden SEC filiings, etc. etc.), and every one was an interesting study in Legalized THEFT (imo).
Our professor was clearly prepping us for public finance in the REAL WORLD, not some fairy tale world, think of the old Rodney Dangerfield movie “Back To School” only our professor was Rodney Dangerfield not that clueless professor.
Talk about a study of GREED .. we studied deals from Boston to NYC to LA to Chicago to Dallas and a few other places across various different types of sports facilities. The bigger the city the more complex the deal was, and the more the public was being ripped off was one item that popped up almost immediately.
Lesson #1: The money received by a local government virtually never comes close to what the taxpayers put into a project. The side benefits of nationwide PR from a new sports venue, or regional business increases, etc., NEVER NEVER NEVER materializes no matter what the promoters claim at the front end.
Lesson #2: If the private owner won’t pay for it 100%, including the infrastructure costs, the government and locality are virtually always better served by letting the sports team LEAVE and go elsewhere (imo), MUCH better served … local sports fans be damned!
I could go into the dynamics of such deals item by item, George did a good overview … but the key takeaway is that a government entity is giving taxpayer money away if it helps (even with just tax exemptions and infrastructure projects) to build such facilities.
Fortunately where I live the public believed what I laid out above and multiple times over the years VOTED DOWN public financing for large sports facilities. MULTIPLE times. Finally we got the chance to obtain a major sport expansion team but alas no public fiancing ended up being available since the public voted it down. As a result we were about to lose out on obtaining the expansion team but alas at the last minute the local private sector business community came up to the plate and paid for it lock, stock, barrel, and last sewer connection … though the city did sell them the vacant land at then FMV and they did get a standard 20 year property tax exemption which every large project in my metro area always gets.
Same thing happened a few years later with another major sports expansion team. Again vacant land sold at FMV but other than that totally paid for with private money and again just a standard 20 year property tax exemption.
Ditto our nice Convention Center too! … all private money, much of it from a Charitable Trust that NEEDED to spend bunches and bunches to keep their tax exemption since their actual operating business employs in the thousands generatng huge revenues yearly and they had been miserly in paying out what their Federal Tax Exemption required them to spend on “charities”. What they didn’t pay an individual who is worth billions paid or is covered by our local “Bed Tax” which outsider who are visiting pay.
One extra item of note: our local Government OWNED baseball team did build a new government owned stadium but raised private money to pay for the part that the legitimate cash flow would not pay for – note that team is Local GOVERNMENT OWNED, NO private owners. The County government owns the team and also owns the stadium (and as a result ticket prices are CHEAP, a family can actually afford to go and enjoy – as long as they don’t consume stadium priced alcohol, a beer costing as much as a cheap ticket, usually MORE)
Nearby cities have taken on literally MANY BILLIONS of debt to finance their new sports venues (except Indianapolis’s big new stadium which I understand was mostly – all? – paid for by private money – Lilly Foundation and Lucas Oil being a large part of that). I just shake my head at those cities that now have taken on BILLIONS $$ in debt for the building of their sports venues, which we all know the sports teams will NOT pay off.
Unfortunately locally we too are now also going down the road of Public Finance when it comes to sports /entertainment venues. Too involved for here but the city and county are now involved in two projects, though neither one involves the huge sums neighboring cities are spending, and one in particular is almost a gift to the city and under a real business analysis any investor would jump on that deal in a flash (city bought it at 1/20 the current cost to replace it and it is still virtually state of the art though in need of having the mechanicals overhauled)
George : haven’t read that ^ in a lifetime, thx, E
and a rudder thing …
GU :
” OK – back to the shop.
There won’t be a ShopTalk Sunday this week.
With Super Bowl weekend, I don’t plan to waste my time “talking to an empty room.”
Wait. Back to the shop but no ShopTalk. I’ll take the *over* Mister.
Open a thread and let it flow.
Egor
Yeah, take the over, lol
What a deep thinker..and one I have considered my whole life..I was never allowed to seek an education worthy of the opportunities to make a decent living.. I was forced to stay in my social class of poverty..
While the largest portion of property taxes goes to public education — K?12 and the infrastructure that feeds into higher education. Yet the very students whose families pay these taxes still have to take on massive loans just to access the next level of schooling or are openly denied accessing them.. take the library at YALE..its closed to absolutely anyone that isn’t considered smart enough to read and understand this..while MIT, HARVARD etc. has an open stack policy…. And those loans forced upon the children of lower social classes are structured in a way that keeps people anchored to the same social class they grew up in.
Meanwhile, families in the upper tiers have access to tax shelters, deductions, private foundations, and legacy pathways that shield them from the full cost of the system while giving their children a smoother path upward. So the lower and middle classes end up funding a system that disproportionately benefits the children of the upper classes — not just economically, but socially.
Other countries treat education as a public investment in national stability. Everyone pays in, and everyone’s children have equal access to advancement. But in the U.S., the structure is inverted: the people with the least resources carry the heaviest burden, while those with the most resources have the most ways to avoid contributing.
Now, with the U.S. entering the early stages of an economic crisis that future historians will study, the question becomes unavoidable:
Why continue a tax structure that forces the lower tiers to fund opportunities they themselves are denied????
I personally feel that either the system needs to offer equal educational access to all social classes — the way many other nations do — or the financial burden should shift toward those who can actually afford it. Because maintaining the current structure during a period of economic contraction only accelerates the divide between the two Americas: the one that advances, and the one that pays for that advancement
What you’re describing isn’t a failure of education policy. It’s a feature of the financing architecture.
Public education in the U.S. is funded broadly and regressively — property taxes, sales taxes, payroll friction — while access to elite outcomes is rationed through credential gates, legacy pathways, capital buffers, and debt instruments. The people who pay most reliably into the system are not the people who extract the highest returns from it. That inversion is not accidental.
Student loans are the tell. In a truly public investment model, financing follows the outcome: society pays upfront and recovers value through higher productivity, innovation, and tax base expansion. In the U.S. model, the risk is pushed down the income ladder. Lower-tier families finance access with personal debt, while upper-tier families finance access with balance sheets, tax shelters, and institutional proximity. One group amortizes risk privately; the other socializes it upward.
That’s why the comparison to other countries matters. In systems where education is treated as national infrastructure, access is broad and the return is collective. In the U.S., education has been financialized. Degrees function less like public goods and more like leveraged assets. The debt is sticky. The credentials are scarce. The mobility is conditional.
And this ties directly back to the stadium argument.
In both cases, public money is mobilized under the banner of “general benefit,” while the upside concentrates elsewhere. Whether it’s a sports franchise or an elite institution, the pattern is the same: broad funding, narrow access, privatized gains, and moral narratives used to justify the spread.
During expansion, that imbalance is tolerated. During contraction, it becomes visible.
That’s why your closing question lands so hard. In an economic downturn, maintaining structures that force the lower tiers to finance opportunities they are structurally denied isn’t just unjust — it’s destabilizing. It accelerates social bifurcation. You don’t get one America. You get two: one that compounds advantage, and one that services it.
Frank’s fight wasn’t about football. It was about refusing to confuse “public good” language with public benefit reality.
Same fight. Different arena.
Hare. Have some bread. More clowns along in a minute.
P.S. we look to the prophetic words of Don McLean,
“And the three men I admire the most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
We started singing
… Bye, bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die ”
according to the latest release of the Epstine files,
Epstine said the date for starting WWIII is,
tomorrow.
02/08/2026.
Superbowl sunday.
if N___, Ure not paying attention.
We Shall see if Epstine was really in the Know. or just some sick pedo pushing pounds of flesh for pennys in crypt os.
I’m paying attention. And I hope that saner heads prevail, but I’m not betting on outcomes; I’m just trying to make sense of the information flow and stay out of harm’s way.
Stu has indicated he believes WWIII started in 2011, and we are at the midpoint. And I have heard rumblings of impending financial meltdowns and military defeats. What could go wrong on a Sunday?
Amen to that…
Back when I graduated H.S. in 1971 , the poc got all the “free college” ,the White folk had to pay. So I didn’t go because I couldn’t afford it. Now it’s poc and illegals.
Mostly agree with you LOOB
Here we are lucky … as long as you IGNORE the finance people at the major colleges (who are trying to increase their enrollment) and the Private colleges.
Here near my part of the state the old “City College” concept lives, though it is not well publicized … but because of word of month more are learning of it.
Two nearby cities have City Colleges, though that is not in their name, one is a well known college and one of the country’s top end engineering school, the other a more pedestrian lower tiered college. What does that City College designation mean? It goes back to the 1800’s when colleges were first coming into being. It meant colleges that were SUBSIDIZED by the local taxpayers and were intended to help the bright but poor kids get an advanced education.
Tuition is miniscle for both .. as long as you live within a defined geographic area, currently about $450 a semester at one and about $700 a semester at the other one. Yep … you can go to a top end engineering University for about $700/semester for your undergraduate degree “IF” you live in their “reduced tuition area” AND have lived there as a taxpaying resident for at least two years (on your own or with your parents)BEFORE you start your education with them. They DO NOT ADVERTISE that dynamic and it is NOWHERE to be found in their online materials. Sort of a local secret that it seems only the local high school counselors know about.
The other location which is up the road from the first is just a general run of the mill 4 year, formerly community college, city college, with even cheaper tuition (but NOT nationally recognized, that goes to the much more expensive State University across thattown). Again similar residency requirements but NOT as long a wait. BOTH have been long subsidized by LOCAL taxes in addition to any money they can now grab from the State.
In my state at least it is possible to pay little to nothing to get an education IF you play the “Education Game”. Those schools, and some of our state Community Colleges have very low tuition, though not as low as those City Colleges. Locally after two years from our local CC you can transfer to the BIG State University across town and PAY LESS than those who started out there to begin with (have no idea how the local CC wrangled that deal for it’s 2 year grads) and walk out with a degree from a well known nationally recognized major university at a cheap price. OH … and if you are a city high school grad your CC tuition will be partially subsidized by the city (they are trying to find the money to pay the entire bill in fact)
In addition of course there is always the State’s National Guard tuition program (Air Guard being best since those Guard members never go anywhere except to the airport). In our state, differs per state, the National Guard will pays 100% of in state college tuition at any state university for any degree.
IF you really want a post secondary education in my state there are ways to get it for very very low cost … IF you are willing to do the research and then jump through the hoops (and WORK while you are going to school). It may take you 6 or 7 years vs 4, but by jumping through the hoops you should NOT have ANY debt when you finally get your degree.
God I wished I had known about that school fifty six years ago lol… unfortunately at that time I had endured quite a bit of ridicule because my last name wasn’t the prominent families name..to keep myself entertained I dove into books and didn’t really have any true friends until I went into the military. the same with my friend jean..she is by far the smartest woman I have ever known..but like me ..she o oh read things that interest her..without any direction she like myself never made anything of herself..I get a chuckle because she’ll say..if I ever find a smart person.. where I laugh and say..come on you do know I know ….. now MIT’s whole syllabus is online which I believe was the first school in the usa..
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP62esZEwffjMAsEMW_YArxYC .
and another great school in India
https://m.youtube.com/@iit
Wanna hear something funny..I don’t even know how many books I’ve read..just like my part time and day labor jobs..I can’t tell you all of them I’ve had either.. I will start reading and realize I’ve already read this..lol lol.. I know on my ebook I have god close to a thousand cook books alone maybe five or six of my favorite ones..the wife made me clean out the garage so she could park in it..my all time have to thumb through are by my side.. the back of the van there’s maybe twenty books on ancient Viking mead..and some old wine making books.( its what interests me right now..the year we went without an income..the wife every once in A while would say..god I wish I had a little wine..so.. learned the trade..shared recipes with vintners at various winery’s that and cooking the book should be out pretty soon the table of the gods.. ive been a recipe tester for it for years now..)
https://www.tableofgods.com/
Stephen2 : IMO that’s the secret sauce. Help kids have practical work with your hands careers (you know, the kind AI can’t replace, yet). We had a great Shop Class when I was a kid. Then … we told pipeline layers to relearn life, become coders? Nope. AI is writing all the code. Find a job where humans are required and do that. ~E~
amen to that…I have told the grandkids..become an electrician.
plumber, mechanic, HVAC,etc..a good HVAC makes as much as a doctor..and a plumber..as much as an attorney…as plumber.. a brick layer.. real world jobs..a good welder.. a handy man..around here you’ll find it hard to get a plumber to do basic repairs..there’s so much construction going on that they only want new builds..the blank slate..one kid graduated from plumbing school decided before he signed on as an apprentice or journeyman..he would just do repairs..in two weeks he had to hire another school grad to help out..the same thing with handyman services..the big companies only want big ticket sales..
maytag.. I bought a top of the line Maytag dishwasher the factory forgot the four dollar door gasket..no one repairs locally..they had to have a factory repair from 350 miles away..he of course didn’t have one went back three weeks later he drove back installed it..s month later the circuit board went out..this time the only place they could get someone from was Chicago. he didn’t have a board..it took three months before he returned..so appliance repairman..forty years ago there were appliance repairman in just about every town..today you throw it away
“While the largest portion of property taxes goes to public education — K?12 and the infrastructure that feeds into higher education.”
Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio are floating referendums on doing away with property taxes. Others may sign on before their local election days…
______
“Meanwhile, families in the upper tiers have access to tax shelters, deductions, private foundations, and legacy pathways that shield them from the full cost of the system while giving their children a smoother path upward.”
You and I have access to all of these, too. ‘Thing is, we don’t have enough income to make any of these vehicles worthwhile.
______
“Other countries treat education as a public investment in national stability. Everyone pays in, and everyone’s children have equal access to advancement.”
Um, no. Children have the opportunity to go to a college or tech school that’s commensurate with their admissions and aptitude test scores. If a kid doesn’t score high enough to qualify for admission to an advanced school, they get to flip burgers or shovel shit. Despite paying 60%-90% of their income in taxes, if Junior punts his admissions test three times, he’s fucked, for life. In this country, Junior can invent a product or process and move from gutter-rat to owner of the Manor House. In every other country, he has to find a way to get his product or process to the U.S., or he stays in the gutter forever.
(“Um, no. Children have the opportunity to go to a college or tech school that’s commensurate with their admissions and aptitude test scores.”)
to the kids around here..I always suggest schools like oxford,Eton,Westminster etc..so far only four took my suggestion oh and one went to a school in the usa.. She went to Juilliard.. my grandkids didn’t want to go abroad..all the others had to provide was their living expenses.. I believe they even had their books given to them..
BULLSCHEISSE !
You CHOSE to stay where you were, this is a weak argument I Was “forced” – pure unadulterated BULLSCHEISSE!
Education is the EASIEST thing in the USA to Finance..key word EASIEST.
Now what you do with said borrowed Education money is where ALL the “accidents” occur – just like the TURNS at NASCAR race (s) Turns are where the accidents USUALLY happen. Still no guarantees anyone will be making any money once youse been educated at a 4 year or higher.
All I keep hearing right now is my Father in Law talking about the job offer in Philly at world renowned teaching hospital he recieved in early 1970’s. They were living at the time in Oklahoma, and he was Dr at OU Hosp. They said it felt like they were escaping the dark ages when they moved to SE Pennsyltucky.
You may have felt like you were “forced” – but I see it as No Will to Fight.
If you aint gonna Fight for anything in Ure life – you aint gonna have much..
..are you ? In fact previous behavior suggests laying down to the weffers, please, correct me if wrong.
*This is an old one from neighbor down here Belize, been breaking his ballz lately about being old and broken , just cancelled pending tour…We Aint Gonna Take It. Twisted Sister/Disco Dee-https://youtu.be/4xmckWVPRaI?
(“Education is the EASIEST thing in the USA to Finance..key word EASIEST.”)
true.. you can go in debt .. it keeps you in the same wage category..I have a niece..she’s almost my age..on her third or fourth PhD.. I asked her why .she said duh the school loans.. she’d never be able to pay back the school loans..which reminds me she hasn’t sent me her latest dissertation ..
If I didn’t read this site, I’d not have known that silly game was tomorrow. I’ve never been to a ball game in a stadium, not even in high school. It seems quite silly to have 22 grown men fighting over a “ball” that’s not even round. I don’t mind them doing it, but don’t do it on my dime or my time.
I think a far better use of my tax money than stadiums would be to have publicly funded brothels and massage parlors with affordable rates and high quality women. They can easily justify them as “Mental Health Facilities”. They should be operated on a non-profit basis with minimal costs to citizens. IMHO, the ROI would be far higher than that of any kind of stadium. They would also likely lower the overall rate of violence in society.
Well, this is such a thing (kinda). It’s called happily married, takes work, but it’s a tax-advantaged investment. But be warnbed, the field is ppoisoned by false advertisers and time/shape shifters! A poor decision (remember how I know?) Can cost you a million or more.
Nice idea if you can make it work. For that, you really need Andy level seduction skills. I tried it three times and it sorta worked the second time, until she left. The third time was a horror show. In many marriages, the sexual think is the draw, and it stops on your wedding night. Some are luckier than others, but it’s a contract where only the government and the family law judge gets to read and interpret it. Prenups rarely work – only deep love, trust, and integrity can make an honest marriage work, and nothing can make a dishonest one work. Best of luck to all those with good marriages! Wish I had the one that got away.
I only go to the kids for the snack table…lol lol lol..and wear either my sea hawks t shirt…( watch a game..they play hard but if they knock someone down ..out goes the hand offering a hand up..good sportsmanship)
FWIW Public Service Announcement
Peacock for the Olympics has a LIVE feed of EVERY event for EVERY nation for the entire Olympics. (about $11/mo)
Peacock also has some replays available for selected events and for US viewers some Multi Screen feeds if various events that US competitors are in different events at the same time.
I “HATE” paying for any TV feeds but I did go out and sign up for Peacock and will cancel at the end of the Olympics so I will only be paying for one month of service ($11+-) for getting ALL the Olympics I will am interested in. I signed up via my ROKU box since Roku makes it simple to sign up, and more importantly VERY SIMPLE to cancel!
(my Samsung TV’s also have an ability to use Peacock directly but I did have to jump through a couple of hoops to get those TVs to auto link into my account this time even though I had everything linked together in the past when I previously had Peacock)
btw the TV feed quality and camera work is EXCELLENT and NBC has obtained very good color commentators for everything I have watched so far.
Peacock Olympic coverage – in 4K
SOME of the events being broadcast via Peacock are in 4K, way above ota (over the air) quality . Everything is being sent in at least HD (1080). The difference between a 4K picture and a HD picture for these events is very noticable if you are watching via a very big screen (75″ or larger)
When you scroll across to the sport you want to watch the “Explanation Screen” of that event will have a notation on it as to the video feed quality that is available (4K or HD). If it is available in 4k that is what you will get IF your TV and data connection can handle it.
If a friend wasn’t coming over to watch the Super Bowl on my big screen I would trash the Super Bowl and watch the Olympics tomorrow night.
hank . thanks for the stuff on iodine .. i am seriously interested in it . all info is helpful you give . i am now researching . arousal of the mind is paramount to discovery and advance . you like G do that
re: “No Ring”
feat: “Smoke on the Water”, Deep Purple
The Ring of the Fisherman or Piscatory Ring worn by the Pope relates to the Mark 1:17 “fishers of men” Biblical passage according to “Wikipedia”. In example the Wiki page shows an image of Pope Leo XIII’s ring. It appears in a digitized version from volume 8 of a 1908 Swedish encyclopedia named Nordisk Familjebok (“Nordic Family Book”). Apparently volume 8 is known as the “Owl Edition”.
A subsequent Wiki reference points to a July, 1903 issue of the “New York Times”. It advises that the Fisherman’s Ring of Pope Leo XIII is missing. Separately the newspaper informs that Cardinal Ferrari and others have arrived for conclave. Here is the link to the “NYT” article:
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/07/26/105055997.html
Let’s listen in for an early preview of DJ George talking shop. Light it up with a ditty from Imagine Dragons – “Smoke and Mirrors” at the following Youtube link:
https://youtu.be/gzDRhd2gDIo
I would hazard a money guess at Norte dame. School came first as young American coped with British empire amid being small colony. Football made school more attractive. Times of recession late 1880s was a concern. Russia Lenin early 1900s a issue. Roaring 20s as epstine times followed by depression 30s and ww2 of now mostly silent generation nearing 100 years old if alive.
Cc : the story around here (St. Joe River basin) is Father Sorin made it as far as the East shore of Great Lake Michigan (OBSCON) and thought to wait until the weather improved before furthering West. The UND and Brethren are … still waiting.
https://sites.nd.edu/ndarchives/edward-sorin-the-founding-of-notre-dame/
Please note : NO Religious advice is implied or intended – Sigh ~E~
I’m still betting on a dutchbank failure kicking off any real stock issue. Bitcoin is pressure valve going bad first
For a textbook example of the build-me-a-stadium-or-else routine, I offer Kansas City. It looks like both professional teams are going to have new homes. I have been to the existing facilities for the Royals and the Chiefs, and both are still totally adequate buildings – super easy to get to, ample parking, no structural issues, and plenty big enough, especially considering how both teams are playing at the moment. But they’re hell-bent on having something new.
I’ve heard proposals to move the Royals downtown, which would be a logistical nightmare, or to the Kansas side. The Chiefs have already decided on Kansas. Kansas and Missouri were practically reenacting the Civil War to offer the sweetest pot. I don’t live in the area, but I’m pretty sure they’ll find a way to spread the cost among all of us.
I asked someone who does live in the area why any of this is even happening, and the short answer was – developers. The envisioned hotels, strip malls, etc. never materialized around the existing stadiums, so developers want what they think will be greener pastures elsewhere, but they want someone else to pay for it. In this part of the country, at least, what developers want, developers get, all wrapped up with a bow on top.
“That was when baseball “came up the hard way.” Football? It took the shortcut to mass marketing. It found the public wallet.”
Baseball wasn’t immune. The first pro baseball game I saw was at Crosley Field. The second was at Riverfront Stadium. The moneyed PTB got Cincinnati to build a stadium. The carrot they used was “If you build us a new stadium for the Reds, the NFL will give us a franchise” (which is how the Bengals came to be.) Of course the bond issue for Riverfront Stadium was $25mln, which probably wouldn’t buy the concessions area of a modern stadium…
BTW:
“Was Ruano Right?
Hell yes he was.”
I totally agree.
If I stop at the McDonald’s in Ligonier, Indiana, I pay a 7% sales tax. If I stop at a McDonald’s in Indianapolis, I pay 8.5% sales tax. There’s 900k people in Indy (probably about a million-7 in “Greater Indianapolis”); it’s the State Capitol, and one of the top U.S. destinations for amateur athletics of every kind — oh, and a race or twelve, IIRC. I believe Lucas Oil Stadium cost around $900mln and they projected it would return $2.2bln to the city’s coffers. I wonder how much city/county sales tax a million residents and 2.2min visitors pay every year…?
“Is Sports Worth It?”
Advertising rates for the stuporbowl are $16mln/minute this year. How much cheaper could products be, if manufacturers and service companies didn’t piss away billions every year, on advertising?
Not that I’d rather pay $1200 for a ticket to see Taylor Swift (or even $12…)
They are ALL entertainers — court jesters. I want to be entertained, to escape for a few minutes. I don’t want to invest time on bullshit or money on garbage. I also don’t want to put up with their drivel or narcissism. I will watch the first quarter with my daughter, then travel home and watch the 4th quarter with my son (who’s working in my town, Sunday, but will come by during his lunch break.) Were it not to see my kids, I’d not bother.
re: Don’t be a Nerd
Alright, I switched on my tv for the halftime show. Who said ¿”La revolución no será televisada”?
Consensus amongst my fam (including the ex-wife who’s been a SB junkie since she was a toddler) is:
Worst halftime ever and a fitting halftime for one of the worst Superbowls ever.
My son commented: “All he’s doing is collecting clips for his next music video. This would suck dangling donkey d***s if it was in English. In Spanish, it’s ten times worse.”
I put on the Turning Point [alternative] halftime show (TV is on west wall, ‘puter is on east wall) on low volume, about 5 minutes into Bunny’s Badness, called my daughter, and said nothing about the computer. Within 2-3 minutes, everyone at my house was watching the computer and she was gritching over the phone. Folks started leaving before halftime was over; Junior went back to work before the game ended.
I got the impression they all felt, somehow unfulfilled.
Personally, the game and the halftime show were exactly what I expected. Once alone, I tried on my red light heated shoulder brace and calmly hit my reading material.
There are times it is not necessary to rub it in…