For all intents and purposes, the NFL’s decision to change its headquarters tax status to taxable after being tax-exempt for 73 years means very little.
Via Jared Dubin of CBS Sports, Steve Ginsberg of Reuters noted last month that the change wouldn’t impact the league or its teams financially, at least not in a significant way:
Andrew Delaney, a sports law expert with Martin & Associates, said if it became a for-profit entity, the NFL would likely find enough write-offs to offset the savings it would lose along with its tax-exempt status.
“When MLB made the switch from a non-profit, they reported that there was no real change in their tax liability,” he said. “If I were running the NFL show, I’d say, ‘This isn’t worth it.’ It’s not worth the PR hit it takes.”
OK, so the NFL is no longer a non-profit trade organization, but the teams are still sharing the vast majority of the money and thus paying the vast majority of the taxes. And as has been pointed out frequently in recent years, the sad reality is that loopholes make it possible for big corporations to keep their tax bills hilariously low anyway.
The key difference now is that the NFL will no longer be required to disclose the comically high salary commissioner Roger Goodell makes ($44 million last time we checked).
So don’t be fooled. This is a strategic move, not an altruistic one. Nothing has changed, except our ability to get a feeling for how much the league’s head honcho is making.
