Tag: NFL

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Accountability Common Sense general freedom media and media people national politics & policies Regulating Protest responsibility

Time for Action

NFL, freedom, rights, football, Pence, Prison Reform

More protests during the national anthem; more opposition to those protests by the Trump administration; more recriminations about the administration’s opposition to the protests. Ah, modern times.

Let’s review:

  1. NFL players have a constitutional right to take a knee during the national anthem. 
  2. NFL owners do have or could have (depending on who you believe) a contractual right to require players to stand for the national anthem or face action.
  3. Presidents have a right to suggest that owners fire NFL players who take a knee during the anthem, though I’d really prefer they not use the term SOB — though again they have a right to say it. 
  4. Vice-​Presidents have a right to leave an NFL game if NFL players take a knee during the anthem or, believe it or not, for any reason they feel like. And under our free system, they can even go further, and plan their reaction ahead of time depending on what action players take.* 
  5. NFL fans have a right to continue to be fans or not.

I love football, but haven’t followed the NFL for decades.

I love rights even more. And I think we certainly ought to be talking about and, more importantly, working on criminal justice reform. Let’s not lose sight of that in the controversy over the NFL protests. 

Perhaps, the time for protest is ending. The time for action is now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Did Vice-​President Mike Pence leave the Colts-​49ers game as a PR stunt? Well, every move the president or the VP make is a public relations stunt. If that’s the primary attack on the VEEP’s actions, he has turned the corner and is in the clear.

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Off the Field

Colin Kaepernick, football, flag, patriotism, Trump, free speech, NFL

At last Friday’s event to rally support* for Sen. Luther Strange, the Mitch McConnell-​financed establishment candidate in today’s GOP runoff in Alabama, President Donald J. Trump veered — as he is wont to do — off topic: the NFL players refusing to stand for the national anthem.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners,” the commander-​in-​chief asked the crowd, “when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired!’?”

Trump’s trash-​talking touched off bigger protests before Sunday’s games. Some argued the president was undermining freedom of expression. But, of course, the president was freely expressing himself. 

And no doubt speaking for many others. 

Polling conducted last year, after former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the pregame anthem — which started this trend — found a majority opposed to his actions. 

“NFL ratings are down massively,” the President correctly remarked. 

The National Football League’s television ratings dropped 8 percent last year, and so far 2017’s ratings are down an additional 15 percent. Moreover, in a massive JD Power survey, the protests during the anthem were the top reason given for not watching the NFL.

Of course, Kaepernick was making a political statement, not trying to maximize his dollar-​value in the marketplace. The now mysteriously unemployed quarterback said a year ago, “If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”

Whether one agrees with Kaepernick or not, he is paying a steep price to make a point. Firing folks won’t silence the message. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* The president oddly quipped of his Strange endorsement: “There is something called loyalty, and I might have made a mistake and I’ll be honest, I might have made a mistake.” Trump added that Strange and his GOP opponent, Judge Roy Moore, were “both good men” and he would campaign hard for either Republican.

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Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Billions to Billionaires

I began the week talking about opera. If I end the week discussing football, you can be sure that I’m closer to my home turf.

Which doesn’t make this any easier, for, though many operas stay afloat with taxpayer funds, far more taxpayer money goes to football.

The National Football League, owned by billionaires whose product rakes in big bucks through ticket sales and eye-​popping broadcast fees, could certainly support itself. And yet these rich folk don’t merely pass the hat, they wave guns under the table, extorting money out of taxpayers across the country.

Writing in The Atlantic, Gregg Easterbrook surveys the damage. He might as well channel Carl Sagan, for the answer to “how much do taxpayers waste on football?” is “billions and billions.”

Santa Clara’s new “home” for the 49ers is a $1.3 billion stadium, which, writes Easterbrook, although largely “underwritten by the public,” will drive revenue that will mostly “be pocketed by Denise DeBartolo York, whose net worth is estimated at $1.1 billion, and members of her family.”

So much of subsidy ends up helping mainly the rich. Opera? Mainly an upper class thing. Football? It may reach the lowbrow, but boy, do the rich make out like bandits, off the taxpayers.

Indeed, argues Easterbrook, this is worse than the bailouts. “Public handouts for modern professional football never end and are never repaid.”

If you don’t oppose subsidies to football, which are obviously unnecessary transfer payments from the poor to the super rich, what subsidy would you oppose?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.