No league uses leverage quite like the NFL,and Los Angeles has been the perfect tool for making the owners more moneyThe world’s most lucrative sports league has retired one of their most valuable money-making tools. For 21 years the NFL wielded a giant golden hammer over America’s cities, using the threat their local football team might trek to Los Angeles to extract billions for valuable unique stadiums.
No league in the US uses leverage quite like the NFL. They didn’t glean to $10bn in revenue by being nice. They beget played their broadcast rights brilliantly in recently decades, and leading terrified networks to spend outlandish amounts of money out of the fear they might lose their tiny platter of games guaranteed to be ratings winners. But the league’s best trick has been getting cities and counties and states to spend taxpayers’ money on stadiums to be used for just eight regular-season games.
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Source: theguardian.com