Lot o good americans on this site. Can someone tell me why the NFL and its owners get away with being socialist in the name of competitive balance. So if you are a bad owner, cut costs, lack investment and have a great fan base...you suck...get the top pick in the draft...and then if that player gets great there is a cap on the salary that you have to pay that guy. So you basically collude with the rest of the owners to control salaries. Revenue sharing moves nearly 8 billion to all clubs, even the shitty ones with shitty owners, like the bengals. TWELVE NFL TEAMS haven't won a playoff game in 11 years...that is a 3rd of the league that can't win a playoff game in a decade. So let the big market teams pay whatever they want to get players if that is the prerogative of the owner, let the top picks choose their teams based on situation and recruiting. Why is a professional athlete ever forced to go to cincinnati and play for that incompetent organization? Make the owners actually pony up some money for a decent stadium and facilities. Maybe the public will donate some money if they want to win so bad. Seems that people on this board want capitalism to win out...but in the nfl it seems the owners like get paid without earning it.
Why is the NFL allowed to be socialist?
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Patriots making it to the SB almost every year seems pretty capitalist to me.
You need only look at soccer in Europe to see why removing competitive balance rules would be terrible. You think it’s bad that a third of the league hasn’t accomplished anything in a decade?
Since 2004, ONE team not named Barcelona or Real Madrid has won la liga. Bayern has won the bundesliga at a trot like 6 years in a row.
The commies over there have shown how terrible unbridled capitalism for sports leagues.
Since 2004, ONE team not named Barcelona or Real Madrid has won la liga. Bayern has won the bundesliga at a trot like 6 years in a row.
The commies over there have shown how terrible unbridled capitalism for sports leagues.
It's not socialism, it's similar to a cartel. While cartelization across the economy is a feature in some types of right-socialism, a cartel is, in and of itself not socialist. There are multiple reasons for the NFL setup, and it has worked to make it very profitable. There are arguments to be made that the league would be better if it treated the different teams as competing firms in a free market, like most European soccer leagues (or so I am told, I am just going off of what others have told me about European soccer) but I'm not sure that fans would enjoy the top heaviness of the arrangement. I think there is some comfort in knowing that no matter the size of your TV market, if you have a good owner and a good GM you will have a real chance.
NFL is the most well run successful people can't get enough of more money than they know what to do with.... where you can go from worst to first in one season. Yeah, let's tear it down and fix it.
I don't think it's accurate to call European soccer an example of unbridled capitalism. The teams almost never turn a profit, they are basically vanity projects for billionaires. The NFL is not a microcosm of a complicated economy, it more closely resembles a large business with multiple divisions. The kind of planning that works within a firm creates dysfunction when applied to an economy at large. Generally speaking, the smaller the unit, the more central planning and "redistribution" work. For instance almost nobody would treat their household like a competitive economy, a family generally operates along the lines of "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs", but if you apply that logic to a country you end up with the Khmer Rouge. Likewise, regulations within a sports league can make real sense, but if you were to treat the broader economy like the NFL treats its franchises you would sow misery and want.
The NFL is a private organization, they can set it up how they want. It’s not like it’s tax money, if someone doesn’t like the draft, or whatever, they don’t have to be part of the league.
Ugh.....I made it through about one and a half sentences of that dribble.
From this I read 'la liga', 'Bayern', 'bundesliga' and 'at a trot'.
I am clearly out of my depth here
The NFL is the business.
No one is forced to play.
Please feel free to "control" my salary at 20 million.
No one is forced to play.
Please feel free to "control" my salary at 20 million.
Exactly. The NFL is simply a corporation with a board of directors (the owners) and a CEO (the commissioner) and in pursuit of a specific business model.
They are in the entertainment industry and in competition with others for the customers entertainment dollars and doing quite well at it.
None of this resembles socialism.
So what remedies are you advocating here? Do you want legislation passed that outlaws the NFL draft, or do you want one o' them there activist judges to nullify it? Who exactly do you want to tell the NFL to stop being socialist - the big bad gubmit?
Every pro sport has rules to keep competition fair. Salary caps, draft lotteries, roster limits, trade restrictions, media blackouts, etc. are all ways they try to keep the playing field level. In NASCAR they all drive basically the same vehicle with different stickers on it. Baseball doesn't have a salary cap, but they also have a huge farm system, and international players, and even then the small market teams don't win championships very often.
Not every rule is "socialist" in nature. Teddy Roosevelt broke up the big trusts that were monopolizing business in this country, and I don't remember anybody calling him a socialist. If you hate socialism so much, remember to rip up your Social Security checks when they come around. No one forces you to accept that money.
Not every rule is "socialist" in nature. Teddy Roosevelt broke up the big trusts that were monopolizing business in this country, and I don't remember anybody calling him a socialist. If you hate socialism so much, remember to rip up your Social Security checks when they come around. No one forces you to accept that money.
Surely you can't be serious. The NFL has an antitrust exemption, is a tax-free organization and its teams play in taxpayer-funded stadiums all over the country.
No one ever forces you to take money, they do force you to pay in though..
Because all the billionaire capitalist NFL owners know that they all make more money when there is a high level of competition and to due that you need to have as level a playing field as possible.
The real answer to your question is that the NFL enjoys an anti-trust exemption. The NCAA does not, which is why conference realignment has occurred over the past 30 years.
The social security comment it a little silly. You’re essentially saying, ‘you’ve been forced against your will to pay into a system but don’t reap what the reward of it because you don’t like it.’
Now if I could opt out of SS but didn’t, that would be a different story. But the idea of the government forcing me to pay, at threat of jail if I don’t, into a system and then saying I shouldn’t take whatever benefit because I am against that system is ludicrous.
Premier League is the same way. Since it’s inception in ‘92 only two clubs not named Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, or Arsenal have won titles. It does look as though Liverpool has a really good shot at a title this year, but that’s not saying a lot considering they are consistently top 5 with United, City, Chelsea, and Arsenal in salary spending.
Some people want to view the NFL teams as if they were each their own separate business and really they are not. The NFL in and of itself is a monopoly of sorts which controls it's various parts to insure the overall well being of the entire business. It's not all that tough to understand. It's entertainment and one team beating up on others week after week with no shot for anybody else isn't very entertaining. Multiple teams with a shot to win on any given week or win it all in any given year is much better entertainment.
There are a lot of political arguments on this forum that do not give me a whole lot of hope for the average Nebraska voter, but I was super happy to see everyone jump on this and actually know some key facts:
The NFL is not socialism, it's a cartel. A cartel is actually demented capitalism run amok; private entities come together to corner a market and squeeze as much out of it as they can.
If you want to remove those restrictions (flimsy and self-serving as they may be at times), the NFL is going to wind up being a lot more like baseball, or, as was brought up here, like European soccer.
I personally don't want that. If anything, they need to strengthen the players union and get even more money and infrastructure dedicated to player well-being during and after their time in the NFL, considering what we now know to be serious physical and mental risks associated with the sport. That means strengthening the players union and weakening the owners. Good luck with that, right?
The NFL is not socialism, it's a cartel. A cartel is actually demented capitalism run amok; private entities come together to corner a market and squeeze as much out of it as they can.
If you want to remove those restrictions (flimsy and self-serving as they may be at times), the NFL is going to wind up being a lot more like baseball, or, as was brought up here, like European soccer.
I personally don't want that. If anything, they need to strengthen the players union and get even more money and infrastructure dedicated to player well-being during and after their time in the NFL, considering what we now know to be serious physical and mental risks associated with the sport. That means strengthening the players union and weakening the owners. Good luck with that, right?
I sense another pro socialist person who does not even understand what it is. The colleges today are corrupted and not teaching reality but a point of view
...No, they don't. What they do, though, is teach. This is, by it's very nature, in direct opposition to reactionary conservative B.S., which does not like change or a variety of answers to difficult questions.
Anecdotally, I went to college, and grad school (twice), (10 years of my life) and never once encountered anything like "teaching a point of view." That's not how education actually works. I had liberal and conservative professors; they all had in common a devotion to teaching and freedom of inquiry, examination of all kinds of theories that are meant to explain phenomena, and a respect for peer-reviewed and verifiable findings.
Peddle that "education is bad" crap somewhere else, and turn off Fox News.
Not quite how that would work. How about I accept not to receive any SS benefits when I retire as long as the gov't doesn't take any money out of my paycheck for SS.
It's a leaque, not a collection of 32 different companies competing in the same industry. It's like McDonalds with 32 franchise stores and 0 company owned stores. As opposed to 32 different fast food companies competing in the same industry.
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Please save us Nebraskan's. We'll end up destroying ourselves with our conservative political views.
Puke...
Just when I think I've seen the dumbest shit possible on this board and nobody will ever top it, an OP like this comes along. Honest question, were you on some kind of drugs when you posted this?
So you dislike conservatism, was educated and you’re here to tell us that liberalism is grand and that the education system takes no part in indoctrination of the young minds in our society...
Sounds like they taught you well...
Gee whiz, ya got me! What a great argument.
Reactionary (adj): (of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform.
I've said before that education is, by definition, liberalizing, in that it provides new information and thus, alternative thoughts and choices.
Also, I am not saying anything is particularly wrong with conservative viewpoints. From time to time, they're important and land on the correct side of an argument. It was, after all, Edmund Burke who said that liberalism acts as the engine that drives society forward, and conservatism acts as the brakes that prevent it from advancing too far too quickly, or out of control.
Now, I am not conservative, and what I am railing against is this idea that liberal, and by extension education, is by definition "wrong." That's why I jump on that shit immediately and am so uncompromising. That is not a "conservative" argument, it's a crackpot, reactionary, stupid one. The right wing in this country now has a hateful media narrative constantly spewing out disprovable BS (and there are plenty of studies now that prove that the most misinformed Americans are those that consume right wing media) and the idea that your fellow Americans who are liberal are the enemy. That is wrong, its extremist, and its un-American.
But the NFL caps salary...which makes no sense as the top athletes should be allowed make as much money as they deserve. There isn't an owner cap on how much money they can make...the salary cap in theory allows smaller markets to get better players while also keeping owners from paying players what they deserve. It certainly has effected some talent going to the NFL, where they could go to the MLB and make much more money and get treated better and stay healthier. Plus NFL facilities are worse than power 5 facilities, watching a game at arrow head is considerable worse than memorial stadium. Plus revenue sharing aims to allow crappy owners to subsist and keep making money even though they do not have the skill to run an NFL franchise. Why can't an NFL owner ever lose money or fail? Because of the sanctity of the league? Basically owners have colluded to create rules where they can make money no matter the decisions they make, and do not have to pay talent their full worth, and the lower their production on the field the more the league gives them in name of competitive balance. The point is that even with these "handouts" 33% of the league is so poorly lead that they can't even win a playoff game.
The NFL doesn't have an Antitrust Exemption like the MLB... It has its antitrust protection through collective bargaining. The argument is that "you can't sue us for antitrust violations because you've agreed to the system through the collective bargaining agreement in place."
So when the NFL Players Association de-certified during the last lockout in 2011, there was a lawsuit filed by Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and others (including draft eligible graduating college seniors) on behalf of all players which had a kitchen sink of claims about how the NFL's business practices are against the law. The Players' Union de-certifying was a prerequisite for the lawsuit. They alleged that the draft is an illegal restraint of trade, that salary caps are illegal restraints of trade, ect. If you think about it... drafts and salary caps in literally any other industry would be laughed at, dismissed, and declared illegal. Imagine hospitals drafting doctors that graduate from med school and the worst hospital gets the first choice for the doctors with the highest potential.
After the lockout, the lawsuit, and some bad publicity... the NFL and the players association reached another collective bargaining agreement and the lawsuit was dropped. The draft, salary caps, and the rest will survive court scrutiny until the next round of collective bargaining and labor battles.
So when the NFL Players Association de-certified during the last lockout in 2011, there was a lawsuit filed by Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and others (including draft eligible graduating college seniors) on behalf of all players which had a kitchen sink of claims about how the NFL's business practices are against the law. The Players' Union de-certifying was a prerequisite for the lawsuit. They alleged that the draft is an illegal restraint of trade, that salary caps are illegal restraints of trade, ect. If you think about it... drafts and salary caps in literally any other industry would be laughed at, dismissed, and declared illegal. Imagine hospitals drafting doctors that graduate from med school and the worst hospital gets the first choice for the doctors with the highest potential.
After the lockout, the lawsuit, and some bad publicity... the NFL and the players association reached another collective bargaining agreement and the lawsuit was dropped. The draft, salary caps, and the rest will survive court scrutiny until the next round of collective bargaining and labor battles.
Letting owners just pay what they want will not go the way you think. You’ll still have a bunch of teams that never win, and some owners will pay just enough to field a team while making money hand over fist because what are (for example) Bears fans going to do, go root for the Packers? Even if the fans do abandon their local team, you can’t just let teams “fail”, because not knowing which/how many teams are going to be in your league year-to-year is not a recipe for success. So, you have to either have some efficient way to replace teams that fold or provide some minimum of financial support to keep them going. Either way you’ll have a situation where only a handful of games between the teams that spend all the money are interesting.
Maybe if you had a mechanism for “failure”, like a pyramid system where teams can come up from a lower league and replace a relegated team, it could work, but America’s vast size compared to European countries makes promotion/relegation seem pretty impossible. It’s not good for any team in the league if, say, the Broncos have a bad season and get replaced by an upstart team in Ogallala.
I am highly educated and believe in true education. That said this ponzi scheme of student loans caused a glut of overpaid,biased and yes socialistic professors. So not only were many young people fed a complete load of BS they did that and lived the fun life in college on the student loan dime. Now these same students are voting for anyone they feel has a chance of getting the student loan debt erased
Actual college prof here, 20 plus years in the game. As stated by Dudz, the political views of college profs range from very left to conservative. But few if any reactionaries. Lots of leftish/libertarian types, skeptical of power generally. Overpaid? I would make about 30% more in the private sector/fed govt based on my years of experience.
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