“The ‘other’ side of the NFL’s story,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, September 19-25, 2014, 27

The NFL’s Other Story

While the airwaves and print media recycle their outrage over the revelations of domestic violence perpetrated by Ray Rice against his fiancé at the time and Adrian Peterson against his 4-year old son, the focus has shifted from the alleged crimes themselves to the NFL’s cover-up.

Reminiscent of US Presidents’ own cover-up stories that ended in impeachments and the Catholic Church’s sordid history of protecting priests’ acts of pedophilia, the media reflects public outrage.

Will this storm be as quickly forgotten as the storm about the long-term debilitating effects of injuries suffered by NFL players? Will the concussion controversy be swept under million-dollar settlements with retired players or clever marketing campaigns?

As these scandals come to light, and regardless of how they’ll be eventually settled, they also shed light on the NFL itself as one of the most successful financial enterprises in the American entertainment industry.

To begin with, though race and class issues have been raised in media explanations of the behavior of NFL players, we are dealing here with millionaires, after all. The lowest NFL contractual salary per year is $375,000 (with an average of $1.9 million). Even if the average playing career of NFL players is short, this is a handsome compensation.

When we direct our ire at Commissioner Roger Goodell, we should remind ourselves that his annual compensation exceeds $44 million—not bad for the so-called sheriff of football. You’d think that for that salary he could have the courage to deal with criminals among his flock. Can we expect some moral courage as well, or is this too much to ask of a millionaire?

But with all of this money flowing, what we forget is that the NFL is a non-profit organization with strong players union. For devout fans—NFL games attract more viewers per game than any other sport—these facts might not be known. Non-profit? With an estimated $9 billion in annual revenue, how is it conceivable that the IRS would recognize such an organization as non-profit?

We know that the Church of Scientology has had its run-ins with the IRS, because of its dubious claims of religious practices. Is the NFL the new American religion? Does the worship of athletic celebrities warrant non-profit designation? I’m sure some clever lawyer made the argument that allowed for this ridiculous designation, but does that mean that game tickets are tax-deductible?

From a business perspective, this non-profit status is fascinating—who wouldn’t want to shelter profits in a similar fashion?—but not nearly as fascinating as the communal, even socialist, rules governing the league.

Last Sunday, there were three big upsets in the league: the Chicago Bears defeated the 49ers in their new stadium south of San-Francisco, San Diego defeated the 2013 Super-Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, and Cleveland defeated the New Orleans Saints. How is that possible? Why is it that on any given Sunday, any team, even the statistically worst one, can beat the best?

The NFL is the model of real competition, the one Adam Smith already envisioned, and the one economists theorize about. If any participant team in the football market can beat anyone else, there must be some fairness in this game. How is fair play in the NFL guaranteed?

Though not government-imposed, there is league-imposed salary cap on all teams, so that the best and the worst cannot outspend each other. This way rich owners cannot skew the results of games by buying all the available talent in one year (the way it’s done in baseball, for example).

This imposed equality—socialist if I ever saw one—is an accepted, unquestioned feature of the game of billionaires (one of the worst teams in the league, the Buffalo Bills, was just sold for $1.4 billion). Would these same billionaires agree to such caps in other markets? Would they agree that fair competition requires strict regulations and enforcement, even unions?

Instead of reciting Adam Smith’s cliché of Invisible Hand—unbridled competition despite monopolistic tendencies and barriers to market entry—we should recall his more nuanced and insightful Impartial Spectator. Focusing on morality, Smith insisted that our conscience be our guide, that our moral sentiments can ensure fair dealings with others.

As we delight in the socialist-framed competition of the NFL, we may also want to encourage owners, players, and fans alike to think in moral terms about their moral responsibility on and off the field. Celebrity status comes at a price, and so are the expectations of millionaire athletes: they are role models to young viewers and future players. As such, domestic violence, drug abuse, and DUIs should be fully excised from their daily diet.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He co-authored with Jeff Scholes Religion and Sports in American Culture (2014). He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

       

 

“What the Super Bowl tells us about our culture,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, January 31 – February 6, 2014, 19.

THE GOLDEN BOWL

When I ask what game is played by a bunch on millionaires on lush green grass, most people respond with “polo.” They forget that in fact there are twenty-two millionaires on the field at any given time during a professional football game—America’s most popular spectator sport.

The analogy to gladiators, which was common among sports sociologists in the 1970s, has been replaced more recently with the “Forty Million Dollar Slaves” as a narrative about the “The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete” (Rhoden 2007). Instead of Roman emperors orchestrating a diversion for starving masses, American billionaires are ensconced in guarded balconies as their players slug it out till concussions force them out of the arena.

No different from their predecessors, team owners buy and trade players as if slavery hasn’t been abolished yet; despite the appearance of a trade organization that is quasi non-profit, and despite a players union (currently negotiating a landmark settlement to compensate retired players for their debilitating injuries), the NFL has a salary cap (socialist marketplace?) where over-all team expenditure on those million-dollar slaves is set by the league (and enforced by a $30 million/year commissioner).

As we prepare to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, and are entertained by million dollar (30-second) commercials (ensured to air no matter what pace the game should have), let’s check to see if billionaire owners are getting their money’s worth from their “millionaire slaves.”

Peyton Manning of the Broncos is the 4^th highest-paid quarterback who earns an average of $17.5 million/year (in a multi-year contract), while Russell Wilson of the Seahawks is earning a puny $1.2 million/year 9under his rookie contract). Can we therefore expect—to use marketplace value comparison—a seventeen to one ratio between their abilities or performances?

According to SportingNews.com, the Seahawk’s 2013-1014 payroll is the highest in the league with $124.9 million, while the Broncos’ is 5^th with a total of $119.2 million. Is it because Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) is wealthier than Pat Bowlen (oil drilling wildcatter)? But what is an extra $5 million among billionaires?

The other two championship finalists were the 49ers (9^th in the league with $116.2 million) and the Patriots (19^th in the league with $106.3 million); were they a better bargain for their achievements as compared to the two finalists?

But perhaps we shouldn’t fixate on money and think more broadly about the cultural significance of football in America. Public Religion Research Institute CEO Robert Jones reports that 26 percent of those surveyed “pray for God to help their team,” while 25 percent “think their team has been cursed,” and 19 percent “believe God is involved in determining who wins on the court or in the field.” Overall, “half of Americans fall into one of these groups.”

“As Americans tune in to the Super Bowl this year, fully half of fans — as many as 70 million Americans — believe there may be a twelfth man on the field influencing the outcome,” Jones confirmed. What does this say about the intermingling of religion and sports? It’s not only that fans pray to God for intervention or players thank God when scoring (“Tebowing” has become a cultural signature behavior of players on the field), but the very terminology used in sports is reminiscent of that classically invoked in religious ceremonies and practices.

Whether the topic is belief, sacrifice, work, competition, relics, pilgrimages, or redemption, similar vocabularies are used with the assumption that one discourse is translatable to the other with the same psychological and social impact.

We “believe” in our team (Broncos) and our “hero” (Manning) using reverential words that we typically reserve for our faith in Jesus Christ as our savior. We pray for victory against the heathens of the northwest, and hope that the legalization of marijuana in both states (Colorado and Washington) will not raise the anger of God. Did smoking pot have something to do with our teams’ ability to chill and focus?

So, it’s not simply that billionaires provide expensive entertainment for the masses; they demand (with threats of moving their teams elsewhere) that the public pay for the arenas. The Roman emperors built arenas and supplied slaves (admittedly in a slave economy); our billionaires, working under capitalist pressures, ensure that fans (indirectly) pay for their own entertainment (taxes and product placements).

Since sports is considered by some to be our American religion, and since we pray for victories the way we pray for our souls, perhaps we should consider nationalizing football teams (Packers?) and turning them to religious institutions where all are welcome to seek communal comfort or salvation.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. His latest co-authored book (with Jeff Scholes) is titled Religion and Sports in American Culture. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com