When The Saints Go …

Remember when everybody loved the New Orleans Saints?

In case you’ve forgotten already, it was right after Hurricane Katrina ripped through Louisiana and you literally couldn’t find a TV channel that wasn’t showing Deuce McAllister helping out some homeless kid.

It was all sweet … but apparently not as sweet as cash money.

Specifically, $23.5 million in cash money – which is what the Saints get each year from the State of Louisiana.

Of course, Louisiana is facing a billion dollar budget deficit this year and may not have the money to pay for things like a football team that only makes the playoffs once a decade.

Of course the flip side of that argument is that football teams generate revenue, right?

Right?

Apparently not enough revenue, because the state has been using surplus funds, refinancing debt on the Superdome and borrowing cash from an economic development fund to keep from missing the payments it owes to the franchise.

Oh well, at least they won’t be pulling a Bank of America and spending $1 million a game (in bailout cash) for advertising rights to the Carolina Panthers’ stadium.

Everybody knows the Panthers are only going to choke in the playoffs, people.

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