Taxpayers Have Spent A ‘Staggering’ Amount Of Money On NFL Stadiums

When the NFL season kicks off Thursday night in New England, football fans will file into a stadium built with $72 million in taxpayer money. Compared to fans in other NFL cities, residents of Foxboro, Massachusetts, can thank their team for giving them a bargain.

Taxpayers have spent nearly $3 billion on the 16 stadiums that will host NFL games during the season’s opening weekend, according to figures in a new analysis from the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a Washington, D.C-based conservative nonprofit group.

All told, 29 of the NFL’s 31 stadiums have received public funds for construction or renovation. In the last two decades, the analysis found, taxpayers across the country have spent nearly $7 billion on stadiums for a league that surpassed $10 billion in revenue last season.