Advocates protest Eagles owner over money owed to city

By: Tom MacDonald

One of the options on the table to balance the budget during the recent budget forums was an outstanding eight million dollar payment from the Philadelphia Eagles. The city shouldn’t count on all that money coming their way.

By: Tom MacDonald
tmacdonald@whyy.org

One of the options on the table to balance the budget during the recent budget forums was an outstanding eight million dollar payment from the Philadelphia Eagles. The city shouldn’t count on all that money coming their way.

Transcript:
Philadelphia Eagles Vice President of Public Affairs Pamela Crawley says the reason the $8 million payment for outstanding luxury box revenue is in court is because the team believes the city owes it money from a cancelled 2001 game when the new turf at Veterans Stadium wasn’t ready for a preseason contest between the Eagles and Baltimore Ravens.

Crawley: “When that happened and that game was cancelled the Eagles made sure the fans were reimbursed for their funds, so the fans walked out with their money, but at the end of the day [the city] did owe money to the Eagles for that cancellation.”

Crawley says the Eagles want credit for the sale of over sixty thousand tickets for the game which they say will offset most if not all of the skybox rental due the city.  The whole matter has been in the court system for years, and when it will be resolved is unknown.

Listen:
Click on the play button below or right click on this link and choose “Save Link As” to download. [audio: reports20090305eagles.mp3]