This Sporting Life - The NFL

SPORT: an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.
SPORTING:  fair and generous in one's behaviour in dealing with others.


Old news this may be, but some old news bears repeating.

Though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal claims to be an anti-spending conservative, each year the state of Louisiana forcibly extracts up to $6 million from its residents’ pockets and gives the cash to Benson as an “inducement payment”—the actual term used—to keep [New Orleans Saints owner Tom] Benson from developing a wandering eye.

CenturyLink Field, where the Seattle Seahawks play, opened in 2002, with Washington State taxpayers providing $390 million of the $560 million construction cost. The Seahawks, owned by Paul Allen, one of the richest people in the world, pay the state about $1 million annually in rent in return for most of the revenue from ticket sales, concessions, parking, and broadcasting (all told, perhaps $200 million a year). Average people are taxed to fund Allen’s private-jet lifestyle.

I am an obsessive follower of stadium news, and one of my favorite blogs, Field of Schemes, tracks these depressing developments on a daily basis. But every once in a while, I learn something that deepens my disgust over public subsidies to asshole billionaires. Like this:

That’s right—extremely profitable and one of the most subsidized organizations in American history, the NFL also enjoys tax-exempt status. On paper, it is the Nonprofit Football League.

The NFL is a non-profit organization. A non-profit that pays its top five executives $60 million annually. A non-profit organization that sucks in public subsidies by the billions, then patting itself in the back when it returns a few hundred thousand back to community groups. A non-profit organization that continues to try and deceive the public that is enriching it, leading to absurd situations liket his one:

The NFL asked Congress to grant pro football a waiver from the disclosure rule. During the lobbying battle, Joe Browne, then the league’s vice president for public affairs, told The New York Times, “I finally get to the point where I’m making 150 grand, and they want to put my name and address on the [disclosure] form so the lawyer next door who makes a million dollars a year can laugh at me.” Browne added that $150,000 does not buy in the New York area what it would in “Dubuque, Iowa.” The waiver was denied. Left no option, the NFL revealed that at the time, Browne made about $2 million annually.

from here

Imagine the day when sport becomes accessible to everyone - for free. Use of stadia by all manner of teams, lifelong. When anyone who wants to play has the time and opportunity to fulfil that wish. Facilities for young and old, able or disabled alike, in neighbourhoods. No ticket entry to any game. Players, coaches, trainers, organisers, etc, etc, all on the same deal as the rest of the population - from each according to ability, and receiving the same remuneration, access to the common wealth - to each according to need. That's socialism.