Lankford Working with Booker, Blumenauer to Eliminate Federal Tax Incentives for Professional Sports Stadiums

U.S. Senator James Lankford is working with U.S. Senator Cory Booker and Congressman Earl Blumenauer to close a loophole that allows professional sports teams to finance new stadiums with municipal bonds that are exempt from federal taxes.

Lankford and Booker introduced similar legislation in 2017.

“Oklahomans should not be responsible for subsidizing the construction of professional sports stadiums in New York and New Yorkers should not be responsible for subsidizing sports stadiums in Oklahoma,” said Lankford. “Using billions of federal taxpayer dollars to build private stadiums when we have real infrastructure needs in our country is not a good way to prioritize a limited amount of funds. I’m grateful to work with Senator Cory Booker once again to introduce this bill that would eliminate the use of federal tax-exempt bonds for sports stadiums. We need to be responsible with taxpayer dollars. This is an opportunity that we can work across the aisle to address federal government spending.”

“There’s no reason professional sports teams that generate billions of dollars in revenue should benefit from tax-exempt federal financing,” Booker said. “This bill would put an end to this wasteful practice and stop diverting dollars away from other critical local infrastructure projects.”

While the measure stops the use of the tax exempt municipal bonds, it doesn’t prevent cities and states from offering economic incentives to the teams.

The group of lawmakers believes that using the bonds to finance sports stadiums limits municipalities ability to also finance projects like hospitals, schools and roads.