Donald Trump issued a lot of statements last week, some more incomprehensible than others, and one of those, surprisingly, had to do with sports team owners:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that Trump wants to end what she described as “special tax breaks for billionaire sports team owners,” along with a range of other priorities, including ending the carried interest tax break used by private equity fund managers.
Which special tax breaks are we talking about exactly? Leavitt didn’t say, but most of the media speculation has been around amortization, the practice of deducting the cost of buying a team on their taxes, as if a sports franchise were a piece of machinery that gradually wears out and eventually needs to be replaced. This tax dodge is, on the face of it, insane: Franchises tend to go up in value over time, not down, plus team owners already deduct the cost of replacing players through scouting and running a farm system, so this amounts to double-dipping on deductions. Still, once baseball owner Bill Veeck invented the amortization loophole in the 1950s, it spread like wildfire across sports leagues. (Though ironically enough Veeck, for various technical reasons, was never able to take advantage of it.)
Other possible targets could include: the use of tax-exempt bonds for stadium (difficult without Congressional action, since it’s baked into the 1986 Tax Reform Act); antitrust exemptions for leagues (likewise would require legislation); or nothing, but Trump was thinking about sports because he was going to the Super Bowl and figured people hate sports team owners, this’ll win him some upvotes on Truth Social.
So can Trump actually close the amortization loophole, and does he really mean to? Now we’re getting deep into speculation based on one line of a press statement — there’s already lots of skepticism that he’ll really go through with eliminating an unrelated tax dodge, the carried interest loophole, because that would piss off the president’s fellow rich people, not to mention his Project 2025 authors at the Heritage Foundation. “Ending tax breaks for sports team owners lol” seems like a reasonable first reading, but maybe President Musk has it in for his fellow billionaires who choose to buy sports toys instead of social media toys, could be, all that is solid melts into air.
Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? The ideology of most sports team owners seems to align with that of the current administration, right?
A fair few of these owners have contributed to his election, re-election, and/or inauguration funds in the last three cycles. Some of them even had family members serve in his cabinet the first time around.
Most of these owners do spread their b̶r̶i̶b̶e̶s̶ “campaign contributions” around to both major parties — especially at the local level, and particularly when they’re angling for stadium subsidies — but seven-figure donations to those supporting the current administration tell us exactly where these people stand.
Trump is a former franchise owner in the failed USFL, and failed to be admitted to the NFL ownership club. He has been known to carry grudges. And considering the pooled wealth of professional sports, what are the possibilities inherent for campaign and library donations for him and his circle so that he might reconsider how those tax break changes are applied? Finally, some of those owners are just a little too openly or perhaps performatively woke. Can’t have that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_American_football
It seems more likely to me that this is an attempt at a bully tactic to (finally) be allowed into the NFL owners club.
Back when the ownership groups had a spine (but still no moral or ethical compass), they rejected him on principle. Nowadays, sports owners (and NFL ownership in particular) have a much better developed sense of duty (to their fellow billionaires and ‘maybe’ billionaires).
NFL ownership in decades past rejected him as someone utterly unfit to be part of their club. He was certainly unfit, but it remains an open question whether he was significantly ‘less’ suitable than some other owners (Irsay, Rosenbloom, Davis just to name three)
Take a look around. This group is now, for the most part, just like him (only richer and in some cases less orange).
The only real question I have is whether they will charge him actual money for a franchise (which he does not have), or just issue him a free franchise (while charging 1-3 other expansion owners) in exchange for notable services to rich Americans.
The good news is that he will almost certainly manage it as catastrophically badly as he has managed his other businesses… which means one of his fellow quasi billionaires will be able to take possession of that franchise in a very short time.
Turds of a feather, etc.
He was also rejected as an owner of the Buffalo BIlls.
I don’t think this goes anywhere, and may not even be mentioned beyond this week.
Just like everything else he pukes out on goofsocial.
It’s not an idea he would ever come up with on his own, so your last sentence seems the most likely explanation. Never underestimate President Musk’s pettiness, he’d love to stick it to some of his fellow bazillionaires who are insufficiently sociopathic.
He’ll scrap the proposal in exchange for preferential treatment to become an owner in the future. It’s always about what Trump/Musk can get away with.