Trump tries to smash sports team owners' tax break
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President Trump and billionaire sports team owners are locked in an under-the-radar fight over Trump's push to significantly limit a tax break the owners have enjoyed for two decades.
Why it matters: Trump wants to cut teams' tax deductions on key expenses — including player contracts — as part of his "Big Beautiful Bill." It's part of his effort to cast the massive bill as good for the middle class — and not a giveaway to billionaires, as Democrats and other critics call it.
- Trump's plan was approved in the House bill, but Senate budget writers removed it from their version on Monday, in a win for team owners.
- Now, because leaders in both chambers want to eliminate differences in the House and Senate versions before the Senate passes its bill, the tax break plan will be a negotiating point as the upper chamber moves toward a final version of Trump's big bill.
Zoom in: A Senate panel's move Monday to keep the tax break came as team owners — some of them major GOP donors — have been leaning on senators to reject Trump's plan to kill it. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a longtime Trump ally, was among those pushing to keep the tax break. Others include:
- Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, who during the 2024 campaign donated $250,000 to the NRSC and $50,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) super PAC.
- Denver Broncos owner Rob Walton, who last cycle gave $2 million to the SLF and more than $100,000 to the NRSC.
- The Boston Celtics' ownership team.
- Tax breaks are serious business in the NFL, where the 32 teams can rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year beyond the $400 million-plus each team gets from the league's revenue-sharing system.
The deduction the White House is targeting would reduce what professional teams can write off on their expenses for "intangible assets" such as player contracts and media rights.
- The tax change would only affect future team owners, not current ones. But lobbyists for the NFL and other leagues say it would reduce team valuations and limit the amount that franchises could be sold for, possibly resulting in higher costs for fans.
- According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, limiting the deduction could net the government nearly $1 billion in revenue over the next decade.
- During a lunch last week at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) headquarters, David Lee, a pollster for Trump's political operation, told senators that 71% of voters support getting rid of the tax break.
The intrigue: The senators most receptive to the owners' arguments have been Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), NRSC chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who chaired the NRSC last year.
- Cotton has been an outspoken supporter of a simplified tax code.
- Scott raised concerns about Trump's proposal during a call with members of the Senate Finance Committee on Friday.
- Scott told Axios in a statement the proposal in Trump's bill amounted to "bad tax policy" and that it would result in higher costs being passed down to fans.
The backstory: Trump has had a complex relationship with the NFL, the nation's most popular professional sports league.
- During his first term in office Trump blasted NFL players who kneeled during the National Anthem to protest racial injustice, saying that those who did "maybe ... shouldn't be in the country."
- Trump has also said the NFL has become "soft" because of rules it adopted to reduce concussions.
Trump's hard feelings toward the league date to the early 1980s, when the NFL rejected an overture he made to buy the Colts, then based in Baltimore.
- Instead he settled on buying the New Jersey Generals, who played in the short-lived USFL, a spring league that folded after adopting a Trump-backed plan to compete with the NFL in the fall.
White House officials point out that despite his past tension with the NFL, Trump has had some good relations with the league and many owners.
- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was at the White House last month for an announcement that D.C. would host the 2027 draft, and that the NFL supports a plan for a new stadium for the Washington Commanders.
- New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson — who hosted Trump in her booth at the Super Bowl earlier this year — visited the White House last week.
What they're saying: Trump "wants a fair tax system for all Americans, not a select wealthy few," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tells Axios.
- "That's why the president is committed to passing the One Big Beautiful Bill, which delivers the largest tax cuts for the middle class in history," Leavitt added.
- Spokespersons for the NFL, Major League Baseball and the NBA did not respond to requests for comment.
