GOP Tax Bill Slashes Write-Offs for Sports Franchise Owners

Sports franchise owners would be limited in how much they can deduct from their taxes under the proposed GOP tax bill.

The House Ways and Means Committee released on May 12 its portion for the reconciliation bill that congressional Republicans look to pass to enact major parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Currently, sports owners can deduct from their taxes over a 15-year period most of the cost of purchasing their team.

However, under the proposed tax bill, they would be able to deduct only 50 percent of the cost of that acquisition.

A franchise, according to the text, is one associated with “professional football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, or professional sport.”

There have been record acquisitions of sports franchises over the past few years.

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The largest was the $6.1 billion purchase of the NBA’s Boston Celtics by a group led by billionaire investor Bill Chisholm in 2025.

This followed an ownership group, led by billionaire Josh Harris, buying the NFL’s Washington Commanders from Dan Snyder for $6.05 billion in 2023.

The next most-expensive sports franchise acquisitions were the Walton-Penner family’s purchasing of the NFL’s Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion in 2022; billionaire Matt Ishbia’s buying the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury for $4 billion in 2023; and philanthropist Miriam Adelson’s acquiring a 70 percent stake in the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks for $3.5 billion in 2023.

Trump wants to eliminate “all special tax breaks for billionaire sports team owners,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Feb. 6 following a meeting between the president and congressional Republicans.

The Ways and Means Committee’s portion for the reconciliation bill includes making the 2017 individual tax cuts permanent; increasing the State and Local Tax, or SALT, deduction from $10,000 to $30,000; taxing the endowments of some colleges and universities; increasing the child tax credit; and not taxing tips and overtime pay.

It would also eliminate clean energy tax credits created under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, remove taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants, and raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.

However, the tax portion has come under fire from Republicans in Democrat-led states such as California and New York for what they say is an inadequate increase in the SALT cap.