A Stadium. Outrageous Taxes. City Broke. SuperBowl.

Glendale, AZ, home to the 2015 Super Bowl, is broke according to Americans for Tax Reform. 

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) opposes public financing of stadiums, among other things. Here’s why ATR is outraged over the Super Bowl Stadium:

• Glendale is small- 230,000 residents
• Moody’s lists its debt at 4.9% of its tax base. Bad, very bad.
  • Glendale’s debt is 4 times the national median & 2 times the average AZ city
  • 40% of the city’s debt is dedicated to paying off sports arenas
• AZ is probably on the hook for $150M for the stadium. A court found the mechanism to pay the stadium debt, an increased rental car tax, is unconstitutional in AZ (the rental car tax is constitutionally dedicated to other things, not stadiums)
• If you tax it, visitors will not come to your state
• Glendale is in Maricopa County which financed $1.2B of the stadium relying on hotel taxes
  • Super Bowl visitors stayed in other counties, thereby not helping with the stadium debt.

Americans for Tax Reform