Senators to introduce bill seeking to stop tax funds from financing new stadiums

The legislation would require teams to foot the bill if they're seeking to build new stadiums

A bill is being introduced by the Senate on Tuesday to try and prevent teams from using tax breaks to have their stadiums funded by taxpayers. The bill is being supported by a group of politicians that believe that taxpayer funds are being misappropriated to stadiums, and only a select wealthy few are benefiting from the current system.

Some details of the bill are currently unknown, as it's a delicate issue. How this would affect teams currently in the process of building stadiums, for example, is a question mark.

According to ESPN's Darren Rovell, the Brookings Institution released a report that $3.2 billion of taxpayer money has funded new stadiums since 2000. To some Senators, this is unacceptable.

"Professional sports teams generate billions of dollars in revenue," said Cory Booker (D-N.J.). "There's no reason why we should give these multimillion-dollar businesses a federal tax break to build new stadiums."

Booker went on to comment on the unfairness of the current structure, saying that "wealthy teams end up reaping most of the benefits."

James Lankford (R-OK) is also going in on the bill.

"Everyone likes free federal money to build their expensive stadiums, but with $20 trillion in federal debt, this is waste that needs to be eliminated," Lankford said in a statement.

Naturally, team owners will not be thrilled with the proposal, but there's a strong chance that they have nothing to fear. It's very difficult to change the appropriation of tax funds, particularly when those funds are going an industry as major as professional sports. Nonetheless, it's interesting to see a concerted effort being made to stop such a common practice.