I didn’t say I like the status quo, I said you can’t change it by going after the NFL as a monopoly. The bottom line is the NFL has no more of a monopoly than any other sole purveyor of a highly specified product. It just so happens that in this case it’s a $13 billion dollar highly specified product, other than the sheer size of their market it’s no different than a BigMac or specific model of car, or any other uniquely defined product.
The electric company is a utility, in America we specifically decided to make utilities into local monopolies. It doesn’t have to be that way. We made a conscious with the good and bad that comes with it.
Stop going personal, it just shows you’ve run out of logic. Those things don’t have anything to do with the legal structure of the league. It’s the raw money coming in that makes it all happen. Money is power and power corrupts. You spread around $5 billion (player portion of the revenue) to 1600 people (roughly the number of player), people who have specifically trained their whole lives to be one of those 1600 people, avoiding learning many other things (like morals) because they didn’t have the time things are gonna happen.
And really, stop making it personal. That’s a refuge for those that lack facts and logic. It’s not about principle, it’s about reality. The reality is attacking NFL as a monopoly is sound and fury signifying nothing. You can make a lot of noise but if it actually gets to court they’ll win, and nothing will change. If you want the NFL to change you need to stop watching. It’s just that simple. It’s a business, the pocketbook rules. Those are the facts, nothing personal.
“Stop going personal, it just shows you’ve run out of logic”
Relax. Nobody’s getting personal. And no, I haven’t run out of logic. You just haven’t been following it.
The bottom line is this. Whether you consider the NFL to be an industry in and of itself or you consider it to be merely one enterprise amongst many competing businesses in the larger category of leisure/entertainment is largely irrelevant. The bottom line is that which ever opinion you hold on that question, the NFL is still poorly regulated.
If you believe, as you do, that the NFL is, to all intents and purposes, just one company in the larger entertainment industry, then is it right that the courts have prohibited them from setting a uniform pay scale and controlling free agency? Other business in the entertainment industry don’t have to deal with such restrictions. From that point of view, the NFL is over regulated compared to other business in the entertainment industry. And there is a clear cause and effect between past court rulings on this issue and player salaries and free agency.
Likewise, if you view professional football as an industry in and of itself, and the NFL as the sole provider of that product, it’s still poorly regulated.
We can differ on the question of monopoly or not, but either way, the NFL is poorly regulated. Not unregulated, but poorly regulated because those regulations put in place were never designed to benefit the consumer. They were designed to benefit the players in some regards and the owners in other regards.
The public has a right to question the current state of regulation which in the past, has largely fallen to the interpretation of the courts because Congress has never addressed this particular case in a comprehensive, responsible way.
One final point. We’re not debating whether the sports leagues should be regulated. They already are. The question is whether they should continue to be regulated in the current manner, with the players interests being put first, whether they should they become unregulated, or whether the manner in which they are regulated should change so that the interests of the fans are placed first.
What’s to stop someone from starting their own Pro Football league and competing with the NFL? That would make it a de facto non monopoly right?