FILE - Buffalo Bills fans leave Bills Stadium as a mascot waves a flag after an NFL divisional round football game against the Baltimore Ravens, Jan. 16, 2021, in Orchard Park, N.Y. State and county taxpayers will be asked to commit $850 million in public funds toward construction of the Buffalo Bills' new stadium, which has a state-projected price tag of $1.35 billion, a person familiar with the the plan told The Associated Press on Monday, March 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus, File)

If New York residents are footing the bill for sports stadiums, Sen. Jabari Brisport thinks the state’s residents should be given an opportunity to buy the teams, too.

Brisport recently introduced S.8781 in the state Senate in response to the state’s $850 million deal to help the Buffalo Bills build a new stadium. New York state taxpayers would pay $600 million, with Erie County, where the team is located, spending another $250 million. Terry and Kim Pegula, the Bills’ owners, would pay 39% of the construction cost.

Before the state’s budget — and the Bills’ stadium construction finance plan — was finalized, Brisport penned a letter signed by 20 state senators opposing the deal. Brisport, D-Brooklyn, wrote the NFL, an entity valued at $112 billion, had only agreed to commit $200 million to the stadium deal through a loan while disagreeing with the Bills keeping all stadium revenues, which includes parking, concessions, naming, television and media rights.

Now, Brisport is proposing a new section in the state General Municipal Law stating any new stadium receiving 51% or more of its financing from public money offer local and state government the opportunity to purchase a more than 51% ownership stake in the professional sports team.

“This legislation is based on a simple principle: if the public is spending money on a sports franchise, it is the public that should benefit,” Brisport wrote in his legislative memorandum. “Accordingly, if more than half of a new stadium is financed with public support, then the public should have the opportunity to purchase more than half of the sports franchise. This will ensure that billionaire sports franchises cannot extort the public, and that the true stakeholders — the people of New York who support the team — benefit from any public expenditures.”

As was the case in his letter, Brisport’s legislative justification takes aim at the use of state tax dollars to pay for stadiums at the expense of other programs in high-poverty areas. A review of the most recently built or renovated Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League stadiums in New York shows the Bills’ stadium deal is an outlier. According to the Investigative Post, five stadiums and arenas in New York City have been built since 2009 — new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and Mets, a hockey arena for the New York Islanders and the new arena for the Brooklyn Nets. Madison Square Garden was also renovated in 2013. Combined, those five projects received roughly $379 million — or 6% of the combing project cost — from taxpayers.

“The idea that the public needs to finance these private projects with public money is one that simply cannot withstand public scrutiny,” Brisport wrote. “That is exactly why it is so common for deals regarding these projects to be negotiated behind closed doors, far from the oversight of the public, and then publicly announced as a fait accompli. The public is typically strong-armed into these corrupt arrangements, based on either false promises of public benefit or veiled threats that the team will leave without the public subsidies being immediately granted. Elected representatives are often kept in the dark. However, economists have been absolutely clear in objecting that these boondoggle projects do not benefit the public or the local economy; rather, it is an open secret that the costs are made public, while the benefits are privatized to the same circle of wealthy owners.”