John Oliver’s Rousing Speech Rallies American Sports Fans To Stop Wasting Public Money On Stadiums

In spite of the fact that new sports venues often cost upwards of billions of dollars to construct, many American teams play in stadiums and arenas that are less than 25 years old. Heck, once the Atlanta Braves move into their new park, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park will be the most senior venue in the NL East — and that only opened in 2004. Whether it’s through municipal bonds, tax breaks, or free real estate, a lot of the money to pay for these venues ultimately comes out of taxpayers’ pockets.

On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looked into the billions in public money that has been sunk into new and renovated stadiums during the recent building bonanza of the last two decades — a construction spree that isn’t just about creating new arenas but about who can build the fanciest.

“You can now watch a game from a swimming pool suspended above the field, where the real contest for the fans is finding out whether or not HPV [human papillomavirus] can swim,” says Oliver. “My money’s on HPV; that’s a clutch STD.”

Most new stadiums “look like they were designed by a coked-up Willy Wonka,” he notes, citing examples like the field-level aquarium that sounds the playing field at the Florida Marlins’ recently opened stadium.

He gives the example of the $283 million in taxpayer funding that the Detroit Red Wings got from Detroit — a city that had just declared bankruptcy weeks earlier — and even though multibillionaire Little Caesars founder Mike Ilitch is the team’s owner.

“That’s a little hard to swallow,” says Oliver. “Not as hard to swallow as a Little Caesars Crazy Bread with an assortment of Caesar dips, but still pretty hard.”

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