NFL Vs. American Needle; Sherman Act, Schmerman Act
by Joe EscalanteSoon the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an important anti-trust case to decide to what extent the NFL can conduct itself as a single entity in negotiating certain agreements or if it must operate as 32 individual entities.
I don’t have a problem with the Sherman Anti-Trust act. It prevents companies from doing things like charging a penny for a gallon of milk in a certain territory, driving out all competitors, then raising the price of milk to a million dollars. (Muwhahahahaha!!!!!)
However, the Act has also made me lose interest in professional sports. You can interpret the Act to prevent Ron Cey, Davy Lopes, Steve Garvey and Steve Sax from being forced to stay in the same infield together forever all you want, but it still made baseball a lot worse for me at least.
It helped make millionaire ball players into potential billionaires, and there are a lot of lower tier ball players that went from lower middle class to millionaire; but I’m more concerned about the irritating sight of Garvey in a Padre uniform, or Eric Dickerson playing for the Colts.
There are decent arguments on both sides of this issue and the New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees laid out the NFL player’s view recently in Washington Post. His points fall flat with me however. I’m not concerned about whether a hat maker gets to make NFL hats or if they have to make hats for someone else. I fail to see how I benefit if NFL players get to drive up their salaries through this kind of competition and play for different teams every couple years if they choose.
Free and unfettered competition is always a compelling argument but it hasn’t made these sports better. I know the arguments. I took all the anti-trust classes in law school, somehow I got published in the field, but the truth is that the Act’s application to sports has made sports worse.
What has the fan gained from all this free agency? Spoiled players with guns, bad tattoos, bling, steroids, and high ticket prices? Is this what they we’re fighting for? I’m glad the court is taking a second look at this. My free advice to the players is that before they gain sympathy by griping about the Sherman Act, they will need to clean up their own act. oooooh. Sick burn!
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30 Comments
Perhaps if there was more emphasis placed on reading, writing and arithmetic, we could end the societal, generational decline from human being into sports star. In the scheme of things, with the problems currently facing US as a society, professional sports shouldn't even show up on the radar screen.
I agree with Cowboy, a few years back I may have been interested in this issue but as of now WE need to take our schools back from the union's and bring America Exceptionalism back to the forefront..
More bread and circus!
Unions are not the problem and what is American Exceptionalism? An attitude that we can be hypocrites? Support dictators and claim to support liberty at the same time so a cabal of bankers can get more loot? Better wake up – we have allowed certain parties to use the nation's credit card and we get the bill. It is all going to crash soon like the USSR.
See how you are?
You and I finally agreed on something.
Are you sure though that it isn't a Jew conspiracy?
I even thought twice about even posting a comment on this thread, but since I shoot my mouth off and opine on everything else, I decided "what the hell, I might as well."
In my opinion, professional sports, more specifically Football has become the "Sunday Church". It is the Roman Colisieum, for the modern masses. It is a game; but it is big business. It is a distraction, nothing more, nothing less.
Other country's tend to strive for academic excellence; they pride themselves at having their children excell in math, in science, in language and the arts. What do we teach our children? To win at all costs? There is something wrong with that.
Professional sport is another 'bubble' at near full inflation. When the cost exceeds the value; POP goes the bubble and public support vanishes. I don't need the government to tell me that. The coliseum is in ruins if you hadn't noticed.
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Sort of concur with Paul.
And Cowboy Logic…"What do we teach our children? To win at all costs? There is something wrong with that. " well yes and no. Drawing that line is tricky indeed.
In Hawaii we use one word to make it plain and simple. Pono.
Pono means do what is right. Do we want to teach our children to lose at any cost? No. Win at any cost? No. Pono means do what is right. Most humans have a sense of what is right.
I think the risk has flattened already and this bubble is most quietly being deflated. Th wholesale burst has survived vis-a-vis the Fed.
[...] the original here: » NFL Vs. American Needle; Sherman Act, Schmerman Act – Big Government Share and [...]
I enjoy the diversion. I do not completely understand all the ramifications. What seems obvious to me is that the NFL, and not necessarily teams compete with other entertainment (like NASCAR or the NBA or even American Idol) and that makes them a unit. It also seems fair to say that the unions negotiated salaries and salary conditions are a separate issue from this. But I read earlier in the season that the players felt that the owners were not being completely honest about monies made where there is owner/player profit sharing.
I think the fan… well I know this fan refuses to pay to go see a game. It has just gotten to expensive. I guess they will have to decide what the tipping point is.
The thing I like about Baseball, and it does have an anti-trust exemption, is that Colleges do not subsidize baseball by admitting borderline retarded athletes into higher education just to play a sport.
I'm fine with allowing exemptions to sports like Football and Basketball, but with that exemption comes Congressional over site. Congress could then force the sports associations to “drop” felons, or set up stricter college educational rules.
AA education should not be filling your school's quotas of Blacks with wannabe sports stars who have no interest in a higher education.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=...
Take FSU as an example…..
She tells "Outside the Lines" that more than a third of the football team, and three-quarters of the basketball team, had learning disabilities.
Well, if we idolize these folks then the fame will never fade. I am in the US Navy and have been around the world with Spec War (Non SEAL) and I do not get paid enough for something I do not like to do (sleep in tents, train in the rain, leave family behind friends/family for extended periods of time, ok pay, get shot at, have a nation of individuals trying to kill you an not to mention….MRE's..) and they get paid millions for something they LOVE to do… I never quite understood that. I do whatever in "certain" situations to win at all costs and my contract isn't nearly that big nor complicated. WTF?? And whats up with $100 plus dollar tickets and $10 beer? Seriously?
Well no shit…. Everyone knows that. Well, quite like the Govern'ment, we have a choice to make. Either watch them, idolize them and sponsor them and pay them. We watch mostly because we BET on them. Basketball is crap, baseball is slow and football is total carnage, skill, violence and finese. Not saying it is ok nut more entertaining than the latter. If we don't like the product they are putting out, tell someone, not blog about it. Did I mention that I hate basketball…. Unless the team i have money on is winning big!! See…
GREAT ARTICLE!!!
AFTER ALL THOUGH, WE ARE THE MODERN ROMANS!!!
I was gonna comment,but the Game just started,Good Day All,
Bob
We do what's in OUR best interest…Always been the way. Always will be the way….To think differently is naive…and USSR/Democrat-like
Not when it comes to Israel which we support OVER our own interest. Hmmmm, doubt me?
We guarantee Israel's oil supply EVEN IF IT MEANS a shortage in the US!
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4504
Not when it comes to Israel which we support OVER our own interest. Hmmmm, doubt me?
We guarantee Israel's oil supply EVEN IF IT MEANS a shortage in the US!
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4504
Of course it's a Jew conspiracy, just check his recent post – everything is about Israel to this angry guy.
" Support dictators and claim to support liberty at the same time so a cabal of bankers can get more loot? Better wake up – we have allowed certain parties to use the nation's credit card and we get the bill."
Yes! And we are working feverishly to pull those weeds out by the root. Harry Reid made it easy by pouring Roundup all over himself. Obama is helping us by taking the American people as idiots and thinking he can stab us in the back without any reprisal.
I think it is very telling about how you must feel about yourself that you cannot appreciate natural gifts and hard earned merit. How having pride is something ugly. Maybe that is how you ended up laying on the rug, face down in a goopy hamburger with your child video taping you begging you to quit being such an abject loser.
I thought the message we give our kids now is "We are all winners – even the losers".
My parents were pretty awful, but there were a few good things they laid out for me.
1) I got my arse busted if I said "Can't".
2) They took money from the kids if they got a "C" or less.
3) We were expected to pay our own way through college.
What I learned from their mistakes is:
1) Cheaters never win.
2) Live your rules.
Why do I mention this? Because at some point a person must decide for themselves who they are going to be and accept consequences. They do not teach that in school. You either figure it out or you might as well fling yourself onto the steaming heap.
Brett Favre is the MAN!
Pants on the ground… pants on the ground!
For those who are fans.Chicago Bears DE Gaines Adams died today of cardiac arrest. He was only 26. Bless his family and his soul.
There are 32 different football teams, so why shouldn't players be able to play for whomever they want? To deny players their employment rights (via free agency) is to deny them the ability to compete and deny their fair market salary.
Complain about huge salaries all you want (and complain about bank bonuses, while you're at it), but it's only fair that athletes and bankers and anyone else earn the wages they deserve. It's the millionaire/billionaire owners who are paying their salaries. The leagues make millions off their images and their TV broadcasts, so the players deserve their money.
If you complain about the players earning money for preforming a service (capitalism), well, if the players earn less, the executives will only earn more.
Well, the real question to ask is, what the hell is the US supreme court doing involved in the inner workings of professional football for anyway? Did I miss something in the constitution that talked about how our highest court should be more or less regulating a private sector entity? I don't know much about the anit-trust laws, but from the little bit I have read they seem like just more government over regulation bemoaning the evil capitalists with all the money, the first seeds of the ism's that all end with government being way too involved in things they have no business dealing with in the first place.
If the majority of "what we teach our children" comes from TV in general or watching professional sports specifically, then I would say that there is a bit more of a problem than them not wanting to lose. While I am at it, winning at all costs is not so much a bad thing in the first place. Work hard to win, do what you have to do to beat the other guy, that mindset, more than any other, is what makes people successful. That success can be achieved in that way in places other than the football field as well, like, maybe… "excell(ing) in math, in science, in language and the arts."
Joe, That would be Ron Cey, BillRussell, Davey Lopes and Steve Garvey. Steve Sax came later.
[...] original post here: » NFL Vs. American Needle; Sherman Act, Schmerman Act – Big Government Share and [...]
[...] post: » NFL Vs. American Needle; Sherman Act, Schmerman Act – Big Government Share and [...]
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