Art Modell once joked that NFL owners were Republicans who acted like socialists. Yet conservative talk-show host Chris Stigall insists that liberals can't be true football fans.
Dissecting the most recent Chiefs' debacle with play-by-play man Mitch Holthus on KCMO 710-AM, Stigall described spending the weekend in Chicago. Being around so many Bears fans and so many Democrats put Stigall's little brain in motion. He came up with this shiny theory:
"If you're a sports fan, particularly an NFL football fan, you cannot be liberal and look at the model that is the NFL and be a liberal. It doesn't work."
Holthus asked Stigall to explain.
"Winner take all," the host answered. "Cream rises to the top. It is all about competition.
It is fair-market competition. Merit pay. Capitalism and conservatism
is what dominates -- particularly the NFL, I would argue all sports,
but certainly the NFL."
The problem with Stigall's theory is that the NFL is in many ways a leftist's delight.
Modell's comment was made in reference to the league's policy of sharing television revenue. Since 1960, the league has distributed the money it receives from the networks in equal portions to each team.
Pooling the multibillion-dollar television deal allows the Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars to compete with teams in larger cities. The Chiefs have lost 24 of their last 26 games because they've been badly managed, not because they're undercapitalized.
In fact, the system of wealth distribution is so good for the league's smaller-market teams that a "have," Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, has begun to complain. Sounding like a taxpayer cursing the deductions on his paycheck, Jones recently said it is "unthinkable" that the Chiefs and Green Bay Packers get to gravy-train on the Cowboys' popularity.
The NFL is not a true market economy in other facets. The cap on salaries limits what teams can pay players, fostering parity. The league helps struggling teams by giving them preference during the talent-acquisition period and in the scheduling of future opponents. Taxpayers subsidize the industry by assisting with facility construction.
One more important way pro football isn't politically conservative: Labor gets most of the money.
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"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
-- Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948.
@MJM - Stigall was the one calling out the highly lucrative subset of the economy. Everyone else is just pointing out that he was incredibly ignorant in doing so.
There was no succumbing to liberals (by the way, nice smear yourself). NFL executives simply understand that the key to their continued success and wealth is sharing revenue and keeping as many people as possible interested in their product. No, this doesn't work in a free market, but the NFL is not a free market. We know that; Stigall apparently doesn't.
Cool. So under Obama's regime of Socialists we are all going to make (at minimum) hundreds of thousand of dollars! David, go take an Economics course - Socialism has NEVER worked. Furthermore, not everyone in the NFL makes the same amount of money for the same amount of work. Here are some recent examples of Socialism that you might study: Former Russia, China, N. Korea. There is ONLY one way Socialism could work, and we are probably will never be capable (as humans) of this. To work, everyone in Society would have to agree with and follow to the core perfectly - The Ten Commandments (The Natural Law). Unfortunately, we are unable as humans to perfectly follow these Natural Laws that govern us. Ney, we not only don't follow God's Laws we rebuke them - we are Moral Rebels and liberals are the leaders of Moral Subjectivity. That is why Capitalism is the only way that a morally corrupt society can function because it allows (more completely) for the Natural Consequences to take hold and "hopefully" curb corrupt/immoral behavior. Capitalism allows for the individual to do "good" even if the governing entities or other individuals choose to do "wrong." Your argument is completely devoid of Logos. You are taking one HIGHLY LUCRATIVE subset market of our economy and suggesting that because the NFL Billionaire Regime has been forced to succumb to Cry Baby Liberals that this entire organization is Socialist? You are stretching (BIG TIME) with your illogical argument in an attempt to smear conservative talk show hosts that have cornered the media market.
The NFL is also a legalized monopoly. If you had deep, deep pockets to start a team, you sure couldn't join the NFL if you wanted to. Thank goodness my only exposure to Stigall is on the Plog.
Stigall's show is currently a lot like a
Chief's game.... a lot of yelling and no entertainment value.
Yeah, what the hell is Stigall thinking? The NFL is basically a socialist organization, operating under the damn-near Marxian ethos that the good of the whole trumps the good of the individual.
And *gasp* these commies are by far the most successful sports entity in the US.
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