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Professional sports franchises are on a $8 billion building binge and the public is picking up the tab. In almost 40 cities across the country, multimillionaire team owners are getting huge public subsidies to build sports palaces. Newsday's computer analysis found that the public was subsidizing two-thirds of the cost and sometimes the entire amount. Meanwhile the teams get lucrative deals for splitting the revenues of everything from luxury boxes to parking to selling advertising and naming rights. (Aug. 18-22, 1996)