Omaha mayoral candidate fantasizes that he can get an NFL team, also that he can be Omaha mayor

There is much stress and sadness in the world today, so let’s all laugh at this guy:

A 26-year-old political novice is entering the 2017 Omaha mayor’s race with a proposal to bring an NFL team to Omaha.

Taylor Royal, a Republican accountant who is an Omaha native, … proposes that the city build a football stadium and either petition the NFL to create a new team or recruit a current team to move to Omaha.

Royal believes that a team would broaden the tax base and create excitement in the city.

Now, this isn’t entirely crazy: As I’ve pointed out a million times before, thanks to those big national TV contracts that every NFL team owner gets a cut of, you could put a team in the Gobi Desert and still turn a profit, so why not Omaha? Except that the league would hate it (both because it would hurt at TV contract negotiation time and because an Omaha team wouldn’t bring in much in the way of ad sales or luxury suite money), and Omaha already doesn’t have enough money to fix its crumbling roads, and bwahaha “broaden the tax base.” Not to mention the fact that Omaha is the actual poster child for not having sports teams.

On the bright side, this “26-year-old political novice” managed to get some national news coverage for his campaign, just by declaring his commitment to a plan that was attention-getting, albeit not in a good way. On the less bright side, this is what he’s going with as his campaign photo:

584b973f9c68d-imageGood thing for him there’s no such thing as bad publicity, I guess?

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