11.15.2009

Football - Is there anything more Socialist?

I know, this will offend the very fiber that is America because there is nothing more American than football; and America stands for freedom and liberty! Oh yeah?
1. With regular cable TV I can only watch 1 football game on Sunday afternoon in the Bay area. That is the Cowboys at the Packers. There was no morning game but they were showing figure skating, which is just like college football but that's another post entirely.
2. I cannot watch the Raiders because they didn't sell out the stadium. If they don't sell out they don't show it on TV. So if I want to watch the local team of the region I have lived in for 3 years I have to spend a large amount of money to do so. But I wasn't a fan when I moved here so exactly why would I spend any money to watch a team that I can't even watch on TV? And they really, really suck. they expect people to pay to see them? The poor idiots that are watching the game right now should be PAID, not have to pay.
3. The second most populace city in the country hasn't had a football team since 1995. In a capitalist society I'm pretty damn sure that LA would have a football team by now. But we have agendas to uphold and it wouldn't be prudent for such a large population to have a team.
4. In Canada on regular cable I can pay a little extra to see every game played. In the United States unless I have Direct TV, which is largely owned by the NFL, I do not have that opportunity. By the way, they Tuesday Morning QB has chronicled often how the people of Tehran get games that he does not in Maryland. They get the good ones.
5. If you want to play in the NFL, and you're really good, you can't play for any team you like. In fact, you can only play for the team that drafts you. That's liberty. Imagine graduating from college and only being able to sign with one company.
6. College football is the free minor leagues for the NFL. SURE they get an education, whatever. These kids play in games that get more viewer ship then most nightly dramas, yet they aren't paid a dime. They are "given" an education but really that means very little to most as very few are held to the standards of regular students and are just attending the university to make money for the university. If they were paid what they were really worth as far as revenue goes they'd probably be making six figures. I'm pretty sure that USC with Matt Leinart drew millions of mover viewers then US does now without Matt Leinart. Yet legally at least, Leinart didn't make a dime.
6a. If you join a university as say a QB and the very next year that university signs the greatest high school QB of all time who is definitely going to be starting ahead of you, you are not allowed to leave for another major university without forfeiting a year of college eligibility. You don't get paid but they still have rights over you that are completely socialist. You don't get paid but because the university wants to start someone else you are penalized for trying to go somewhere else and do well yourself. Sounds very Soviet to me.
7. Stadiums - we are told that if cities don't fund massive new stadiums every 10 - 15 years the teams will have to move because they can't make a profit. But doesn't the league have a salary cap? How can one team lose money if that is the case and the league itself makes a huge profit? Ohh right, but the owners won't make that much more of a profit so they need tax payer money to build new, completely unnecessary stadiums that they get the full profit from, to generate new profits for the socialist owners. Sounds like Wall Street.

People accept it as part of the culture that is moving us toward socialism. People laud football as pure America. I think, unfortunately, that they are totally right.

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Happy Super Tuesday!