HermannView

By any measure the Super Bowl is socialist from head to toe.

Start with the venue. Governments paid for over 80 percent of the new $750 million Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the Super Bowl venue. The Colts chipped in about 15 percent, an investment they probably recouped in inflated asset value the day the stadium opened. Governments are also covering the estimated $20 million a year in operating deficits.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The NFL itself is a government creation.

Back in 1961 Commissioner Pete Rozelle convinced Congress to grant anti-trust immunity to the NFL to allow it to negotiate with broadcast companies as a single entity. Its first contract with CBS proved so lucrative that each team had $332,000 in the bank at the beginning of the season, a sum that exceeded most team payrolls at the time. Flush with cash, team owners might have started a bidding war for players if a truly free market in labor prevailed.

But having eliminated a free market externally in the broadcast marketplace, this new government sanctioned monopoly proceeded to eliminate a free market internally in the labor marketplace. The NFL imposed a rule allowing any team losing a free agent to another team to receive something of equal value from that team. Few teams were willing to risk signing a high profile free agent only to see their own rosters depleted.

Free agency came about only in 1993 after a jury ruled in favor of the players in a restraint of trade lawsuit brought by a group of NFL stars. That verdict and the threat of a class action filed by Reggie White of the Philadelphia Eagles on behalf of all NFL players led the league to the bargaining table. Still the owners refused to allow a completely free market by demanding and receiving a salary cap.

It could be socialist. The summary Socialist Party USA’s party platform states:

“The Socialist Party stands for the abolition of every form of domination and exploitation, whether based on social class, gender, race/ethnicity, age, education, sexual orientation, or other characteristics.

We are committed to the transformation of capitalism through the creation of a democratic socialist society based on compassion, empathy, and respect as well as the development of new social structures.  Socialism will establish a new social and economic order in which workers and community members will take responsibility for and control of their interpersonal relationships, their neighborhoods, their local government, and the production and distribution of all goods and services.

For these reasons we call for social ownership and democratic control of productive resources, for a guarantee to all of the right to participate in societal production, and to a fair share of society’s product, in accordance with individual needs.

As we pursue a socialist transformation of society, we join with others in making radical demands on the existing system: demands that challenge the basic assumptions of a capitalist market economy while pointing the way to a new society. Although reforms will not in themselves bring about socialism, the fight for them will advance the cause by demonstrating the inherent limitations and injustice of the capitalist system. As we build the socialist movement, we organize around a platform committed to our common and interdependent struggles and aspirations.”- http://socialistparty-usa.org/platform/

The part that seems to apply to the NFL is this section:

For these reasons we call for social ownership and democratic control of productive resources, for a guarantee to all of the right to participate in societal production, and to a fair share of society’s product, in accordance with individual needs.

In the clip of the article cited, it states:

1. Governments paid for over 80 percent of the new $750 million Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the Super Bowl venue.
2. Governments are also covering the estimated $20 million a year in operating deficits
3. The NFL itself is a government creation.
4. But having eliminated a free market externally in the broadcast marketplace, this new government sanctioned monopoly [the NFL] proceeded to eliminate a free market internally in the labor marketplace.
5. Few teams were willing to risk signing a high profile free agent only to see their own rosters depleted.
6. [Even with free agencies] the owners refused to allow a completely free market by demanding and receiving a salary cap.

Is this “social ownership and democratic control of productive resources,” a “guarantee to all of the right to participate in societal production or [a] fair share of society’s product, in accordance with individual needs?”

I do not think so. It is not democratic control, it is overpowering control. Just because something is controlled by the government does not mean it is socialism. There is fake socialism (Leninism, Trotskyism and preached by the Communist Party) and real socialism (Socialist Party, Socialist Labor Party, preached by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges in different ways). Huffington Post forgets this distinction. The government control of NFL and its funding by the government more shows it is an instrument of propaganda and distraction than socialist. The free market prohibited by the NFL does not mean it is socialist either. While I do not agree with the NFL’s tactics or its government funding, I do not believe it is socialist.

(Source: azspot)