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 draft is PERFECTLY free market, not even remotely close to NOT being free market.
A bunch of men create an organization.
I want to play in that organization.
They set up rules in their organization by which they take turns on who gets to pick me first.
How is that not free market?
In the situation you outline, the ONLY way the LA prosecutor’s office could enforce that decision would be through a LAW, through the COERCIVE POWER OF GOVERNMENT.
There is nothing like that in the NFL draft.
I played soccer in high school. I still hate it.
Now that the NFL has shirt the bed, I’m glad I still have college ball. Thank goodness my Dogs seemed to have turned it around.
UGA is going to kill us.
Hey, if it helps get rid of the shark humper, I say “Bring it on!”
After the Spurrier and Meyer years, you won’t begrudge us a few drubbings, will you?
I had to Google that.
Yikes!
Do I amuse you? KMA.
After how you guys tortured us in the 80s?
“Run, Lindsey, Run!”
No way!
But in this one case, if it gets us Mike Leach, it would be worth it.
I get your point, but it’s really a matter of degree. If you take that argument to its extreme you could make the same argument, that power companies are not a monopoly because consumers of power can always choose to do without and spend their money on something else.
The market for football is sufficiently unique that it has a low substitution effect ,i.e. consumer behavior is slow to respond to increases in price by spending their dollars somewhere else, which indicates it has a high degree of uniqueness, and that other products make a poor substitution for it.
Bust Them Up! Bust Them Up! ;)
Bring back the USFL!
bump
In any other industry, this would be considered illegal collusion among separate business owners. If all the law firms in the U.S. got together and set up a salary scale through the American Bar Association that fixed salaries for law school graduates, the whole arrangement would be deemed illegal and the penalties imposed by the U.S. government would destroy much of the industry.
That's really the basis of what makes pro sports leagues monopolies by definition. On the one hand the NFL is comprised of 32 independently-owned companies, but they function as a cartel and conduct business in ways that would be illegal in any other industry.
Can you answer the question, or are you just posting nonsense here that doesn’t stand up to even 8th grade level scrutiny?
Wrong. They are ONE org, with FRANCHISES, like 7-11.
I do not get to set up a 7-11 on my own.
I must go through corporate and follow their rules.
If you own a football team, and you want to join the NFL, you are joining a single ORG that shares profits and has a boss.
And leather helmets and no pads! Man Up! ;)
Bump
It took me until this year to forgive Trump for taking away Herschel's innocence and last eligible year.
The NFL does not generate its own profits. TV and merchandise contracts are negotiated by the NFL, but profits are shared among the teams and reported on their individual tax returns. This is why the NFL was able to function as a "non-profit" corporation for so long until they voluntarily changed their status a couple of years ago.
That's really not how a company like 7-11 operates.
Free market or monopoly? Technically they have features of both, but the bottom line is that collectively the individual owners have a corner on the professionial football market and do their best to band together to keep new owners from joining their club unless it’s to their economic benefit to do so. And yet the individual teams are separately owned, and they are required to bid against one another for talent because of free agency as upheld by the courts. Part free market part monopoly. The bottom line - the consumer gets screwed.
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