End The NFL’s Non-Profit Status

Super Bowl Sunday is on it’s way which makes it a good time to highlight one of the biggest cons perpetrated by the National Football League.

…in 2012, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was paid $29.5 million to run the organization. And that’s not all. The NFL, if you didn’t realize it, exists as a 501 c 6 organization. It’s not for profit!

In order to have that status, the NFL must be run as a charitable foundation. In 2012, they gave away a meager $2.3 million. Almost all of it–$2.1 million– went to the NFL Hall of Fame.

Goodell made 15 times what the group donated to other charities. . .

And if you’re wondering, neither Major League Baseball nor the National  Basketball Association is registered as a charity, foundation or trade organization. They each gave up their tax- free status years ago.

The biggest winner next weekend won’t be the Seattle Seahawks or the Denver Broncos, but Roger Goodell.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.