Originally Posted by
Hawk405359
Not in the legal sense, but as Al Davis learned, owners that try to move without the league's blessing don't get very far. He could move in name, but the league gave him the cold shoulder. He was forced to move back and tried to sue them again, losing pretty significantly. That's why the league can put restrictions and conditions on a team moving to LA now, because moving without the league is a poor prospect.
And while it's true that, before taxes and other obligations, most franchises do earn money (there's usually at least one exception every year), they don't typically earn money for the city/state, just the people who run the franchises. That's why there was a backlash in Seattle against building a new arena for the Sonics that wasn't at least half-funded by the owners, cities usually lose money on sports franchises. City's agree to bear some of the costs of building stadiums because they view it as valuable amenities, not because it benefits the bottom line for anyone other than the owners (and even then, it may not be enough to recoup the investment costs). If the state at large had to put up 600 million to build an NFL stadium, it'd be a pretty bad investment even if we could make a team of billionaires materialize out of thin air to buy a franchise.
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