The real tragedy of the Rita vs Gayle settlement

Our Noligarchs map. Bensonville is shaded in yellow.

Because they won't go to court now, we'll never know exactly how much Benson makes off of his Earldom. We can guess it's a lot, though.

In the four seasons since the Saints have been operating fully under the new agreement, the team has never tried to claim an inducement payment.

When counting the Mercedes-Benz naming-rights money -- a 10-year deal worth at least $50 million -- the stadium improvements, and revenue from the real estate deal, Benson is almost certainly clearing more than $23.5 million.

And that's on top of what was an already lucrative arrangement.

The Saints continue to keep virtually all revenue produced during home games at the publicly owned Superdome. This includes net concessions revenue, ticket sales, advertising, naming rights, parking, merchandise sales and virtually anything else that can turn a profit.

The team pays no rent in exchange for these revenue streams.

It's hard to say exactly how much Benson is making, but business is good to say the least.

In a related story this week, the Texas Rangers are ramping up to run an arguably even worse con on the Dallas metro area. Deadspin is, I guess, hopefully, framing it as the stadium war to end all stadium wars. 

It is not unreasonable, I don’t believe, to portray the pending fight over a new $1 billion stadium for the Texas Rangers as a proxy war—or at least a referendum—over the public financing of stadiums in America.

But let's not get our hopes up.