Georgia lawmakers are set to consider a lucrative tax break aimed at persuading the National Football League to bring the Super Bowl to Atlanta.
The Atlanta Sports Council is backing legislation that would waive the state sales tax on tickets for the Super Bowl, worth an estimated $5 million to $6 million. The same deal could potentially extend to other pricey sporting events.
Dan Corso, the council’s executive director, said it’s essential for Atlanta to offer the tax break in its quest to host the game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“Super Bowl host cities typically offer this type of incentive, which makes it a necessary part of any bid package to be competitive,” said Corso, who said the game could generate $30 million in sales tax revenue. “We believe this tool can help Atlanta win the bid for the 2019 or 2020 Super Bowl, benefiting all of Georgia.”
It’s likely going to reignite an already contentious debate in the Georgia Legislature, which is set to reconvene Monday, about spending public funds on the new stadium. Atlanta has already committed $200 million in bonds backed by hotel-motel taxes for construction of the nearly $1.5 billion stadium. The project could receive potentially hundreds of millions more over the next three decades.
“The question for me is, where does it end?” said state Sen. Vincent Fort, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat. “It’s corporate welfare at its most cavalier. Enough is enough. It just doesn’t make sense.”
No measure has been introduced yet, but the effort has the backing of both Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who led the city’s push to issue bonds for stadium construction. The NFL said in a statement that it requires any city hosting the game to exempt sales tax on tickets “in order to benefit the attendees who would otherwise have to incur it.”
Therefore, boosters driving the effort are also likely to ask city officials to waive local taxes, worth an estimated $5 million to $6 million, according to the sports council.
NFL owners in May will choose among Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans and Tampa for the 2019 and 2020 Super Bowl sites, and Atlanta is gunning for the 2019 event to showcase the new stadium that’s rising next door to the Georgia Dome.
Last month, the Atlanta City Council unanimously approved a resolution by Councilman Ivory Young to support a bowl bid.
Young, whose district includes the retractable-roof stadium, said Thursday that such an event would be a boon for tourism in his community and the city as a whole. He wanted to know more about the potential economic impact of the bill, but he indicated he’d likely support it at the state and local level.
“It incentivizes participation in the bowl; it leaves those dollars in their pocket and they’re more likely to leave them at the aquarium or the World of Coke,” he said. “I’d be supportive of that.”
The proposal could extend beyond the Super Bowl to include other high-profile events, according to one person with direct knowledge of the negotiations, such as the college football national championship landing in Atlanta in 2018 and the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four coming in 2020.
One version making the rounds would allow two Deal administration officials — the economic development commissioner and head of the state Revenue Department — to decide which events could benefit from the tax break.
Atlanta's bid for the College Football Playoff already included a similar promise: a vow to commit up to $3 million to reimburse the playoff organization for sales taxes on tickets, regardless of whether the state passes the tax break.
The tax give-backs for the game have prompted outrage in other states. A New Jersey lawmaker called for a national movement to reject the NFL's tax break demands after learning of his state's $7.5 million tax rebate for the 2014 game.
The proposed tax break wouldn’t be the first aimed at helping the new stadium.
The Falcons and the Atlanta Braves — the baseball franchise that is building splashy new digs in Cobb County — both were told they would not have to pay sales taxes on construction materials for their facilities. That's millions of dollars in savings in addition to hefty public subsidies they already received.
And lawmakers last year approved a $23 million proposal to extend a parking deck near the Falcons stadium, adding to the more than $30 million for parking and land for the site that the state is earmarked to spend.
Critics have promised a fight. William Perry, who runs the Georgia Ethics Watchdogs advocacy group, said it's not worth the trade-off.
“What’s next?” he asked. “Every Georgian must give the NFL $1 in order to make it as a finalist for a Super Bowl?”
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