The Feudal NFL

In "Why Nations Fail", Acemoglu and Robinson discuss feudal systems in Europe dating back to the 14th century. In a feudal system, "Lords allocated land to peasants, in exchange for which peasants had to perform extensive unpaid labor and were subject to many fines and taxes (Why Nations Fail p. 98)." In How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers, Gregg Easterbrook argues that this very feudal system exists in the relationship between NFL owners and the taxpayers that live in their team's city. Here, the Lords are the owners of the teams while the peasants are the every day citizens living in the team's city. Rich NFL owners, some of which are valued at $1 Billion, use taxpayers to help pay for new expensive stadiums. The owners already profit from ticket sales, concession sales, and stadium parking just to name a few things; so why should taxpayers have to pay to build and renovate stadiums for owners who they are already making rich through their team purchases? Greed among NFL owners drives them to want more and more for their team, and rather than paying for these goods themselves, they rely on the taxpayers. At the end of the day, all the taxpayers receive is entertainment from their team while the owners profit from them in more ways than one.