Posted on 02/12/2023 8:43:43 AM PST by george76
Whether you love or hate football, this is outrageous.
...
Nearly 100 million people will watch this year’s Super Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona. But most viewers will never know about a disturbing bit of backstory to this year’s event—how the NFL tried to collude with a local government to attack free speech.
A Phoenix city ordinance, likely lobbied for by the league, would have required local property owners to get the NFL’s approval for any advertisement they wanted to put up on properties in the downtown area. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the city dubbed this nearly two square mile area a “clean zone” and would’ve required business owners to get permits to display “posters, flyers, banners, pennants, flags, window paintings and even balloons” from January 15 to February 19. As a condition of that permit, they’d need to get permission from the NFL or Arizona’s Super Bowl Host Committee.
The idea was to give the NFL the ability to more closely control advertising in the area while tourism spikes for the event. For example, they could block anyone from displaying Coke ads, since the league formally partners with Pepsi.
FIRE blasted this measure as a “dystopian rule that violates the First Amendment.” Maricopa County Judge Bradley Astrowsky evidently agrees. He just heard a case brought by a local business owner who challenged the ordinance and said, “The city of Phoenix is letting the NFL decide what I can and cannot say on my own property. That’s not right.”
After hearing the case, the judge struck down the city’s ordinance on February 2 and called it “an unconstitutional delegation of government power” to a private entity.
Good riddance....
These kinds of laws are not new and have cropped up in localities that hosted past Super Bowls as well. But they’re absurd. The NFL has no right to control what other people can do on their properties. And local governments should be in the business of protecting the rights of their constituents, not catering to corporate interests and granting them special privileges in the law.
That’s crony capitalism at its very worst. And, unfortunately, it’s not the only way the government does special favors for the NFL. For example, many NFL teams receive billions in special tax exemptions and subsidies from local governments that force working taxpayers to subsidize a $17-billion-dollar sports league.
Whether you love or hate football, regardless, this is outrageous. It shouldn’t be too much to ask that the NFL pays its own way and plays by the same rules as everyone else.
The NFL’s rules about who can say the word “Super Bowl” is really stupid.
Like any organization with power, the NFL is corrupt. This is a universal truth that our founding fathers understood very well.
“clean zone”
How very...Orwellian of them.
The “NFL” never said they made a mistake or they were wrong..so nothing has really changed.
Whether intentional or not, the NFL certainly encourages division. I’d say much of it is intentional.
I heard that the vegans have been demanding that the MFL start making footballs out of plants instead of animal skin.
That would be at the NFL stadium. That would be about it.
The NFL has become “The Big Candy Ass”.
Watch without the sound on, turn some music on instead. Becomes almost watchable.
“Super Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona. “
Glendale, not Phoenix
I can sort of understand why the NFL might apply such pressure in order to provide official sponsors some level of assurance that the event won’t be besieged by ambush marketers.
Like, “Let’s Go Brandon”?
Not me... I refuse to support it. I can live without it just fine.
A POS organization run by vile, liberal wokester filth, tries to stop Americans from exercising their First Amendmant risghts on their own property... who in the hell is surprised by this?
It’s not called the National Felon League for nothing.
I gave-up on any so-called “pro” sports decades ago; college sports, too.
I only watch F1, IMSA and IndyCar racing.
I’ll add this to the reasons why I don’t watch the NFL.
I have a friend who lives across from a monstrous camp site. The site organized a massive show a few years ago and she got the idea to set up a small venue at her place to take advantage of the comers. Word went out to the comers that their vendors paid good $$ to set up, which supported the whole shebang, and those vendors deserved their support back in kind.
Lesson learned.
I will only be happy when I turn on a game and there are only 3,000 or so spectators at the game.
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