Super Bowl and the Scam of Professional Sports
Cenk Uygur picks Elway apart on subsidizing the poor vs subsidizing John Elway and the NFL personally.
Why we all pay for Football and other pro sports, whether we like them or not. Whether we buy tickets, or not.
"Taxpayers in Hamilton County, Ohio, which includes Cincinnati, were hit with a bill for $26 million in debt service for the stadiums where the NFL’s Bengals and Major League Baseball’s Reds play, plus another $7 million to cover the direct operating costs for the Bengals’ field. Pro-sports subsidies exceeded the $23.6 million that the county cut from health-and-human-services spending in the current two-year budget (and represent a sizable chunk of the $119 million cut from Hamilton County schools). Press materials distributed by the Bengals declare that the team gives back about $1 million annually to Ohio community groups. Sound generous? That’s about 4 percent of the public subsidy the Bengals receive annually from Ohio taxpayers."
Howard Cosell, the sports world's insider of all insiders had a lot to say at the end of his career on the matter, and many other matters surrounding professional athletics:
"First, the moral problem I had with the NFL. I no longer believed in the league, and I became increasingly disillusioned with what I felt was a deception of the American public. Thanks to Monday Night Football, the NFL took off in the 1970s, becoming the most powerful, prestigious, and glamorous organization in professional sports. At the same time, however, what was happening off the field began to sicken me. As I have related in previous chapters, power eventually corrupted a lot of the owners and the men who run the league. Greed and political chicanery became normal business practices. Their arrogance knew no bounds. They thought they had a license to do exactly as they pleased, particularly with regard to carpetbagging franchises—or threatening to carpetbag franchises if the cities in which they played didn’t come through with bigger stadiums, better tax breaks, and other concessions."
"The following was sent to me by a fan. It was taken from "Long Island's Own Newspaper" Newsday dated December 8, 1978, and was attributed to Peter Gent, member of the Dallas Cowboys from 1964-68, and author of the great book North Dallas Forty:
"For there should be a fundamental difference between professional and amateur sports that goes beyond the technical distinction of whether athletes make money from their sport. I learned the difference at the end of training camp my rookie year with the Dallas Cowboys. Management called a meeting to explain the responsibilities of being a professional football player. The man to give the best advice was the team's public relations director. He told us: "Boys, this is show business." With these words in mind, nothing about professional sports, even Howard Cosell, is mystifying. Professional athletes are first and foremost show business, dealing in illusion and entertainment. The first responsibility of the players is to the audience, not themselves. If the audience wants winners, that is what is given. If it wants losers, that also it will get. The principle is the same for midget wrestling and the National Football League.""
http://thefixisin.net/cosell.html
Click here for the chutzpah and ignorance of John Elway.
Why we all pay for Football and other pro sports, whether we like them or not. Whether we buy tickets, or not.
"Taxpayers in Hamilton County, Ohio, which includes Cincinnati, were hit with a bill for $26 million in debt service for the stadiums where the NFL’s Bengals and Major League Baseball’s Reds play, plus another $7 million to cover the direct operating costs for the Bengals’ field. Pro-sports subsidies exceeded the $23.6 million that the county cut from health-and-human-services spending in the current two-year budget (and represent a sizable chunk of the $119 million cut from Hamilton County schools). Press materials distributed by the Bengals declare that the team gives back about $1 million annually to Ohio community groups. Sound generous? That’s about 4 percent of the public subsidy the Bengals receive annually from Ohio taxpayers."
Howard Cosell, the sports world's insider of all insiders had a lot to say at the end of his career on the matter, and many other matters surrounding professional athletics:
"First, the moral problem I had with the NFL. I no longer believed in the league, and I became increasingly disillusioned with what I felt was a deception of the American public. Thanks to Monday Night Football, the NFL took off in the 1970s, becoming the most powerful, prestigious, and glamorous organization in professional sports. At the same time, however, what was happening off the field began to sicken me. As I have related in previous chapters, power eventually corrupted a lot of the owners and the men who run the league. Greed and political chicanery became normal business practices. Their arrogance knew no bounds. They thought they had a license to do exactly as they pleased, particularly with regard to carpetbagging franchises—or threatening to carpetbag franchises if the cities in which they played didn’t come through with bigger stadiums, better tax breaks, and other concessions."
"The following was sent to me by a fan. It was taken from "Long Island's Own Newspaper" Newsday dated December 8, 1978, and was attributed to Peter Gent, member of the Dallas Cowboys from 1964-68, and author of the great book North Dallas Forty:
"For there should be a fundamental difference between professional and amateur sports that goes beyond the technical distinction of whether athletes make money from their sport. I learned the difference at the end of training camp my rookie year with the Dallas Cowboys. Management called a meeting to explain the responsibilities of being a professional football player. The man to give the best advice was the team's public relations director. He told us: "Boys, this is show business." With these words in mind, nothing about professional sports, even Howard Cosell, is mystifying. Professional athletes are first and foremost show business, dealing in illusion and entertainment. The first responsibility of the players is to the audience, not themselves. If the audience wants winners, that is what is given. If it wants losers, that also it will get. The principle is the same for midget wrestling and the National Football League.""
http://thefixisin.net/cosell.html
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