NBC Sports is set to receive another $6 million in taxpayer funds – beyond the $20 million the company already received – in return for creating 150 new full-time jobs within five years.
The State Bond Commission will consider the funding proposal from the Department of Economic and Community Development Friday. The $6 million loan is forgivable, with payments deferred for five years and a 1 percent interest rate.
The subsidy amounts to $40,000 per job created. The first $20 million loan supported the creation of 450 jobs.
Earlier this month, an NBC Sports executive appeared in a state-funded economic development ad.
“We consolidated our operations right here,” Princell Hair, senior vice president of NBC Sports Group, says in the commercial.
“For the last several years, we have worked to create a business climate in this state that grows jobs,” Gov. Dannel Malloy said when he announced the ad campaign. “And everywhere from small businesses on Main Street to major companies, we are seeing results. This new phase of our effort to encourage economic growth makes it clear that Connecticut can be a destination for and home to innovative companies.”
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, a Republican candidate for governor, criticized the ads as “purely political.”
Employees of NBC Universal and NBC Sports contributed $4,600 to the Connecticut Democratic Party’s federal account in January. State contractors and recipients of state aid can donate to political parties through their federal accounts, despite the ban on direct contributions to candidates.
The owner of the property occupied by NBC Sports gave the party $2,500 in November.