As payment for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Buccaneers will get nothing and like it. Although they probably don’t like it.
Via the Associated Press, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on Friday that the Bucs are entitled to no compensation from BP for lost income due to the broader financial impacts of the oil spill. The team had wanted $19.5 million.
The appeals court upheld the decision of a federal district court that the Buccaneers had failed to show that its revenue from May through June 2010 was not significantly lower than its revenue from May through June 2011. To qualify for damages, the Buccaneers had to show that the team’s revenues recovered by at least 10 percent in 2011.
Of course, the offseason lockout from 2011 likely had plenty to do with the inability to show a sufficient increase in revenue. With football shut down entirely from March 11, 2011 through early August, there naturally was far less revenue than there would have been in a normal year.
The Buccaneers presumably tried to make that point. It apparently did not work.
