Tax funds for pro sports will keep flowing.

There’s a bill in Tallahassee that would end the gravy train of tax dollars to professional sports franchises.

It’s a good idea. Taxpayers have better ways to spend their money than helping out millionaire athletes and billionaire team owners.

If the Bucs want to pay defensive tackle Gerald McCoy $14 million a year, fine. If Rich DeVos hopes to see the value of his Orlando Magic franchise keep rising (it rose another $20 million to hit $920 million this year, according to Forbes), swell.

Just don’t force taxpayers to underwrite those deals by paying for stadiums and arenas. Virtually every other business in America builds its own workplace. So should sports teams.

That was the thinking behind Brandon Republican Sen. Tom

Lee’s bill to repeal “state funding for sports facility development.”

Lee’s idea was financially prudent and eminently fair.

Obviously it stood no chance of passing.

A tie vote in a committee this week seemed to signal its demise.

So, while the Legislature continues to wrestle over things like teacher pay, health care, transportation and housing, you can rest assured the sports subsidies will keep flowing.

“Deeply flawed”

By this point, there are probably some sports PR folks screaming: “But subsidizing sports is a smart economic move!”

Those people have been proved wrong. Again.

Two years ago, a state study found that spending on sports yields some of the worst returns on tax dollars. And now a Tampa TV station aired a piece about one of the leading defenders of the practice, entitled: “Florida’s leading economist on sporting events isn’t an economist.”

The piece from WTSP concluded that Mark Bonn, a professor at FSU’s hospitality school with a background in marketing, produced research that was “deeply flawed, resembling marketing propaganda more than economic analysis.”

This is important. Because when politicians want your money, they often rely upon bogus “economic impact” studies that claim every tax dollar spent on sports generates gazillions more dollars in “economic impact.”

It’s bunk. As the WTSP piece noted, sports “economists” sometimes arrive at these numbers by assuming, for instance, that every single person who attends a spring training game is a tourist who came to Florida just for the game and spends $1,000 while visiting. It’s not reality.

If pro sports teams want to invest in their franchises, they should do it themselves.

Oh, and if taxpayers do contribute, they should be treated like any other investor — and share the profits.

Go, Lions!

The two items above made me feel even better about cheering for the Orlando City Soccer Club inside its splendid new stadium last weekend.

Why? Because, unlike almost every other pro-sports franchise

in Florida, the Lions built their own stadium with their own money … which is precisely the way business is supposed to work.

Tallahassee stench

Distinguished gentleman, indeed. On Wednesday, South Florida Republican Sen. Frank Artiles was exposed for going on a barroom rant where he

used the N-word, “bitch,” “a-hole,” “p---y” and more — all while talking to black legislators. There’s now a lot of debate about Artiles’ future. What should concern you more is his past. After all, this guy — who made headlines in another bar two years ago after a college student said Artiles punched him in the face — has been writing and voting on Florida laws for the last six years.