Tom Hanks is fed up with NFL billionaires scamming taxpayers for stadiums

Lindsay Gibbs
Apr 28

Hanks thinks billionaires should pay for their own stadiums. What a novel idea.

In these dark, dark times, it’s important to find comfort in the few awesome things we can still rely on. Like Tom Hanks.

This week, the Forrest Gump star vented to SFGate about the Oakland Raiders’ move from the Bay Area to Las Vegas, and took NFL owners to task over taxpayer-funded stadiums in the process.
“Here’s the thing I don’t quite understand. And I’m not trying to?—?this isn’t one of the (many) causes I’m fighting for. I’m just thinking as a fan: It’s a billion-dollar industry, they have billion-dollar TV contracts. All the owners are billionaires,” Hanks said.

“And yet when they want to build a stadium they’re going to use for 10 weeks out of the year, they expect the city taxpayers to buy the building.”

Tom Hanks sure does make a lot of sense.

Last month, NFL owners voted 31–1 to allow the Raiders to move to Las Vegas in two years. Oakland, which has been the home of the Raiders twice, from 1960–1981 and from 1995-present, still owes $83 million in taxpayer money to cover Oakland-Alameda Coliseum’s debts dating back to a 1995 Raiders’ stadium renovation.

Read more
https://thinkprogress.org/tom-hanks-thinks-billionaires-should-pay-for-their-own-nfl-stadiums-adf31c227fdf