The NFL season has kicked off with thunderous applause once again. This year’s opening weekend achievedrecord ratings for the great modern-day gladiator match. Just last year, the National Football League generated over$23 billion in revenue. As the sport continues to dominate the public ethos and generate record revenue, the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans are constructing new stadiums using taxpayer dollars.
Over$10.6 billion in public funds have been spent on current NFL stadiums. Onlythree current stadiums have been constructed via private funding—SoFi in Los Angeles, MetLife in New Jersey and Gillette in New England. TheDenver Broncos will soon join this list with a new stadium that will exceed $4 billion. The median value of stadium subsidies, tax breaks, and tax–exempt bonds has risen to$500 million since 2010. Empirical evidence has shown that these subsidies havefailed to generate new jobs, businesses, and tax revenue in the areas with new stadiums.
NFL teams have staggering financial valuations. In 2020, the average NFL team’s valuation was approximately$3.48 billion. This figure rose to$5.1 billion in 2024 and increased even further to$7.13 billion in 2025. The league’s “least valuable” franchise, the Cincinnati Bengals, has an estimated valuation of$5.5 billion. Under their revenue-sharing deal with the NFL, each team receives over$400 million annually. Yet, despite this immense profitability,maintenance costs and other expenses fall on the taxpayer.
In March 2022, the Buffalo Bills announced a new stadium with a projected price tag of$1.4 billion, of which over $1 billionwill come from public funds. The price has ballooned to a reported$2.1 billion; Bills owner Terry Pegula is on the hook for any costs that surpass $1.54 billion. Terry Pegula is worth an estimated$9.3 billion, but he is asking for nearly a billion in public funding to make the stadium a reality.
In order to generate funds for the construction, Erie County, the location of the new stadium, resorted to selling “Bills Bonds” to cover $125 million of the county’s $250 million contribution. The obligations of these municipal bonds fall on the county. The Bills will technically pay rent to the county to play in the stadium, but the Bills hardly assume financial risk. Even though the franchise technically pays rent, those payments only cover operations—meaning the bulk of the stadium’s multi-hundred-million-dollar price tag was shouldered by taxpayers, not the team.
The Tennessee Titans are in the midst of construction on a new stadium and taxpayers are on the hook for an astounding$2.3 billion. Due to the long-term repayment structure of the bonds—spanning at least 20 years—taxpayers will face approximately$1.1 billion in interest costs as part of the nearly $2.3 billion total public expenditure. Much like the Bengals, the Titans’ franchise value has seen rapid growth,$6.3 billion this year, up from $4.9 billion in 2024.Amy Adams Strunk, owner of the franchise, has an estimated net worth of $2 billion.
Two examples of owners shouldering the cost of a new stadium are the Los Angeles Rams’Stan Kroenke, whose net worth of $21.3 billion is one of the highest in the league. Kroenke built SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, at a cost of$5.5 billion, making it the most expensive stadium of all time. In the same city, Steve Ballmer, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, recently financed his team’s new$2 billion arena out of his own pocket. All of these owners across the big four leagues in North America can afford to finance their stadiums privately, but they just choose not to. The burden of stadium financing should not fall on the shoulders of taxpayers.