John Oliver is a big sports fan. It's no surprise then that sports often have a way of making their way into the top story of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, whether it's the treatment of NCAA athletes or the recent FIFA scandal.
For the top story for Sunday night's installment of Last Week Tonight, Oliver took to the field once again to tackle a sports issue. This time, it was stadiums and cities' use of public money to build them.
The denizens of cities across America have a lot of pride for the sports teams that have come to make up an integral part of the identity of their beloved metropolises. However, Oliver explained during his show's segment Sunday night that almost every professional sports team gets some kind of public money, which fans might not realize as they cheer on their teams in the hopes of winning another championship.
Yes, that means the construction, maintenance and amenities of stadiums come out of taxpayer dollars. I hope you like aquariums behind home plate and swimming pools overlooking the field because you may have helped pay for them.
Why do cities and taxpayers let this happen when the private corporations that own the sports teams essentially keep all of the revenue the stadiums produce? Oliver showed that teams use a variety of tactics to get cities to build new stadiums, such as threatening to leave the city and making overblown promises about how the stadium will revitalize the city's economy. But at the end of the day, it seems like the fans are so loyal to their hometown teams that they would do almost anything to keep them in their cities.
That's why Oliver channeled Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights to give an inspiring speech to the sports fans of America to just say no to the owners of sports teams when they want to use their money to construct new stadiums without taxpayers getting many of the tangible benefits. Of course, a speech like this had to end in a rousing chant, and this time Oliver led everyone in saying "make them pay" as he reached the end of the show. "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" indeed.
Check out the full Last Week Tonight segment below.
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