The Denver Broncos are winning. U.S. taxpayers are not.
Sports Authority Field at Mile High, the home of the Super Bowl 50 champions, has shortchanged federal tax collectors by $54 million, a Brookings Institution analysis says.
In the first-of-its-kind study, Brookings looked at 36 professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey stadiums built or renovated since 2000 using $3.2 billion in tax-exempt municipal bonds and concluded the work resulted in a $3.7 billion loss in federal tax revenue.
It’s one thing when local taxpayers pay for stadiums in their hometowns. Front Range residents in 2002 assumed about $300 million of the $400 million cost to build the Broncos’ new stadium in the parking lot of the old Mile High Stadium.