By Chris Acree —

For sports fans, fall is a wonderful time. Football is getting good, the World Series is being decided and basketball is beginning. But fans and viewers should know that with almost every professional sports team, there’s an eerie tale of extortion.

Public funding for stadiums remains one society’s biggest rackets. Multibillionaire team owners demand taxpayer money for extensive renovations or a new stadium altogether. If the city pushes back, they threaten to move the team and leave the public with the bill.

Minnesota taxpayers are on the hook for over half a billion dollars for the new Minnesota Vikings stadium. The Atlanta Braves decided to move to the suburban confines of Cobb County, Georgia, where they acquired $300 million in property taxes (usually used for roads and other infrastructure) and silenced much public outcry through governmental gymnastics.

While the KFC Yum! Center doesn’t have a money-grubbing professional team residing in it, it still has fiscal controversies.

The average Louisville resident might not notice anything wrong with the arena. Louisville games usually have a good crowd, and during the offseason, the venue hosts big-name concerts and other events. But the arena is losing money hand over fist.

The arena is in debt to the tune of $22 million – a deficit projected to increase to $37 million by 2029. People who keep track of this sort of thing, like bond rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, say the arena’s financial projections still show them being able to cover the debt. Keep in mind these are also the arena’s own estimates.

Why so much debt? A committee of state legislators want to know, and they’ve requested Kentucky State Auditor Mike Harmon audit the Louisville Arena Authority. His office isn’t even done with an audit of the U of L Foundation. A representative from the Arena Authority said an audit is unnecessary and the group already has a debt reduction plan.

A likely culprit may be the revenue sharing agreement the arena has with the university’s athletic foundation. The KFC Yum! Center receives tax subsidies. The arena’s lease says the athletic foundation receives 88 percent of private suite sales – a big source of revenue for any stadium. When the arena receives money from the city and state, one could argue that Louisville residents are giving money directly to the athletic foundation.

“What you’ve got is a conduit by which taxpayer dollars are funneled through and they go into the University of Louisville Athletic Association,” local businessman Denis Frankenberger said. “It’s a taxpayer scam.”

The Arena Authority may also owe the Kentucky State Fair Board some money. They made an agreement to pay the fair board for the lost income from Freedom Hall. The fair board says this money equals over $11 million.

The KFC Yum! Center is the third-largest collegiate arena in the country behind UK’s Rupp Arena and Syracuse’s Carrier Dome. If we want to keep it that way, we need to make sure it is financially viable and paying its rightful debts.

Restructuring our deal with the arena would be a great first step in showing U of L can be fiscally responsible and increase trust with the city and taxpayers by reducing their financial burden. If they can do that, maybe The Yum! Center can remain in good working order for years to come. And maybe, just maybe, it could even attract an NBA team one day.