Winning the Super Bowl is supposed to be the pinnacle of a player’s career. The ring. The confetti. The bonus check.
Unless the game is played in California.
When the Super Bowl was hosted in San Francisco, players didn’t just walk away with a trophy. They walked away with a tax bill. And not a small one.
“If you win the Super Bowl in California, then they send you a bill that says, ‘Uh-oh, you lose,’” Glenn Beck said.
California doesn’t just tax the bonus earned from the game. It goes further. Because the championship was played in the state, California applies what’s known as a “jock tax” — and in California, it’s among the harshest in the country.
Unlike many other states, “California reaches backward months into the past, and they claim the right to tax a slice of your entire season salary based on how many duty days you spent in the state. … So they’re not just taxing the bonus; they’re not just taxing the game check; they’re taxing you the entire year,” he explained.
That means income earned outside California can suddenly be subject to California’s tax code simply because an athlete showed up to play a game.
And California’s rates are no joke.
“In California, they’re giving you the highest marginal rate in the country. It’s over 13%, and they’re thinking about raising it,” Beck noted.
Consider the numbers. Seahawks players each received a $178,000 bonus for winning the Super Bowl. That sounds like a windfall — until California calculates its share.
According to Beck, they “[owed] the state more than that in taxes.”
“How can you lose money winning the Super Bowl? Well, California’s found a way to do it,” he scoffed.
The broader principle is what raises eyebrows. “When a government decides it can tax income earned elsewhere just because you happen to pass through, you’re not taxing activity; you’re taxing existence. That doesn’t work out well,” he warned.
History suggests aggressive taxation has consequences.
In the 1970s, Richard Cloward and Frances Piven — described by Beck as “crazy Marxist professors” — “collapsed New York [City]” by pushing policies that strained the welfare system and coincided with high taxes and aggressive enforcement. “They had high taxes, aggressive enforcement — ‘you owe us because you were here.’ What followed in the 1970s?” Beck asked. “Capital flight.”
“Why do you think Rush Limbaugh left? Why do you think Sean Hannity left? Why do you think I left?”
France experienced something similar in the 1980s when it imposed a wealth tax. “The wealthy didn’t pay more. They left. And by the time the [French] government repealed the tax, tens of billions of dollars in capital already [were] gone, along with all the jobs and the investment that came with it,” Beck said.
Even ancient Rome offers a cautionary tale. “In Rome — late empire — they took productive citizens and just squeezed them,” he said. “Why? Because … they were bloating the state. They needed to pay for the giant state. Tax base completely collapsed. Economy followed — gone.”
The warning is blunt: “There is a lesson in every civilization that has tried this. … You cannot tax people into staying. You can only tax them into leaving.”
California is already facing challenges. “Six straight years of net population loss [in California]. … Hundreds of major companies are gone. Film production is a thing of the past. Billionaires are moving their residence. Where? To Florida,” Beck said.
Yet instead of reconsidering policy, critics argue the state keeps doubling down. “Instead of asking the question what’s happening here, they just answer the same way: just tax what’s left.”
That’s the concern behind the “jock tax” mentality. As Beck put it, “once you accept the idea that location alone gives the government the right to reach into your entire life, there is no limiting principle any more.”
To see the full breakdown of how much California took — and how the numbers actually work — watch Glenn Beck’s video where he lays it all out.
