Posted on 10/08/2017 12:24:42 PM PDT by mbrfl
I just sent this to my Congressman. I encourage others to do likewise. It's time to broach the topic of regulating major league sports in this country. And no, there's nothing unconservative about regulating a monopoly like the NFL. Don't buy the argument that it's un-American to regulate the NFL because is goes against the free market. The NFL is anything BUT a free market, and it never has been.
Mr. Desantis
I am writing to encourage you to introduce legislation to fix the broken state of major league sports in this country. The NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL are de facto monopolies of their given sports and should be regulated as such - with the concerns of the consumer placed first, rather than the concerns of the owners and players. The problems with major league sports in this country are structural, and long standing. The NFL has never been a free market, and yet Congress has never fully addressed this issue. In some regards the law acknowledges the necessity of coordination amongst owners, and therefore allows a degree of cooperation and communication between them that would be considered collusion in any other industry. In other areas, specifically labor, the courts have imposed a strict free market interpretation on the leagues which has created out of control salaries, free agency, and ultimately an unaccountability and entitled attitude amongst the players. When you have an industry that exists in such a legal limbo, those with the deepest pockets will exploit the inconsistencies in the system to achieve the outcome that is most beneficial to themselves.
As such, it is entirely appropriate for Congress to play a role in this issue. It's time to decide whether the major sports leagues should be viewed as a natural monopoly and regulated as such, with the interests of the consumer being placed first, or be viewed as a free market, in which case the leagues need to be dissolved. While one can debate which of those two options is the best solution, the status quo is unacceptable.
It's hard to imagine what the outcome would be if the leagues were simply forced to dissolve. Perhaps the market would respond with the creation of more independent teams who would schedule competition with one another individually, just as with boxing matches.
The option of requiring the individual team owners to merge and create one entity rather than maintain the façade of independence seems more reasonable to me. After all, there is an inherent contradiction in viewing competitors on the field as economic competitors. In fact, a strict enforcement of free market principles on league play is oxymoronic. Both parties to a competition have to, by definition, engage in a degree of cooperation and coordinate amongst themselves.
What would such a merger look like? In broad terms, the owners would be required to exchange ownership of their individual teams, in exchange for shares in the new entity - let's call it the NNFL (i.e. the new nfl). The amount of shares could be determined by the market value of the individual teams. From there, the NNFL would be able to set up a uniform, incentive based salary structure, a uniform code of behavior whose enforcement would not bend to the whims of an individual owner, and a policy on free agency that would make the game more enjoyable for the fans. The mission of the coaches and GM's would remain the same - to compete to the best of their ability with the resources given to them by ownership. But salary and disciplinary decisions would be out of their hands and would instead be controlled by NNFL ownership, whose mission would be to oversee the competition, ensure its fairness, and look out for the well being of the product as a whole rather than the interests of one team.
In such a scenario, there would need to be some legal oversight - just as exists with other monopolies such as electric companies - to ensure they manage their business properly.
Thank you for your time. Please feel free to contact me if you feel there is any way I can help to push this idea forward.
The underlying issue is money.
Stop watching, don’t buy NFL merchandise and stop patronizing their sponsors.
In the media, patriotism is bought and sold like a commodity.
Minor leagues and an English soccer-style promotion/relegation system would do wonders, also. Even the arrogant billion-dollar owner could find his team competing with the Fresno Frogs and the Bakersfield Barons for the “NFL B League Championship” if he doesn’t ban the left-wing distractions and focus on fielding a winning team. :)
The NFL’s exemption from anti-trust laws needs to end.
The “Richest Game in the World” is the playoff to determine who gets promoted to the English Premier League.
Exactly....refuse all things NFL. Plus calls and emails
It's one thing for the auto industry to develop and consolidate so it ends up with a half-dozen major global players (only three of them based here in the U.S.), but no sports league can function that way.
I'd also point out that using U.S. government resources to regulate something as inconsequential as an entertainment business is a waste of time and money.
What exactly do you expect to happen if anti-trust laws were applied to the NFL — and how would that make anyone’s life any better? LOL.
“The underlying issue is money.”
Whereas there is truth in this, I personally think the major issue is that there are large swaths of our citizenry who don’t like each other or actually hate each other. The days of ‘I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it’ are long over.
I lay a great deal of the blame for this at the feet of politicians, liberal academics, and the media. All have fueled divisions among Americans (race, class, money, politics, religion, etc) for many, many decades, and they’ve mostly all done this for personal gain (e.g. votes, divide and conquer politics, grants and publications, notoriety, and/or ideology). They’ve also pushed for immigration (and turned a blind eye to illegal immigration) for perceived personal gain, and in so doing have contributed to rapid demographic shifts in American society that are both destabilizing and that promote non-integration into the American melting pot.
Ultimately, our children and future generations will pay the price. It will take totally honest, open, politically incorrect, ongoing assessment and discussion to get past this point in our history. Hopefully, we can avoid more violence - though many on the ‘tolerant’ left are pushing for this.
End their special tax breaks.
Saw a semi-pro game last November. By definition, then, the NFL is NOT a monopoly.
Also, you are correct that the NFL is not a free market, but what company on Earth ever was a “free market”? What does that even mean?
The NFL may or may not have come about in a free market, but that’s a different thing.
BTW—I have turned against the NFL with a passion, and those sub-human, anti-American pieces of monkey vomit filth will never again see a dime of my money.
Most major league sports are specifically exempt from anti-trust laws that apply to most other enterprises in the United States, in that they are permitted to limit any new competition from entering the field, and a franchise, once created, has no particular allegiance to their place of origin.
Mergers and joint agreements of professional football, hockey, baseball, and basketball leagues are exempt. As a result of the AFL-NFL merger, the National Football League was also given exemptions in exchange for certain conditions, such as not directly competing with college or high school football.
Any civil case in which the NFL could be seen as being essentially in constraint of trade, however, just might open up this can of worms all over.
I don’t think it is a monopoly
It is just one leg of the entertainment industry in this country
Outlaw, or at least tax, state and local government subsidies for stadiums.
Can you imagine the same thing in law, for example?
"So sorry, Lord Casselreagh. I know you graduated at the top of your class from Harvard Law School and you really wanted to work in corporate law for a major New York City law firm, but the Los Angeles prosecutor's office had the first pick in the draft and they selected you ... so you have to work for them whether you like it or not."
LOL.
What “special tax breaks” does the NFL have?
Don't tell me the Gators have gotten so bad you're now watching soccer?!
I’ve been watching soccer for years. I used to watch “Soccer Made in Germany” on PBS when I was in High School.
In fact, I didn’t even bother watching yesterday, I knew the Gators would lose. Albeit I didn’t expect it to be because of a missed PAT.
I hope Desantis gets many co-signers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.