Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love

[Better Believe It]

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Dave Zirin, Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love
Author: Dave Zirin
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Welcome Dave Zirin, Edge of Sports, and Host Brad Reed, AlterNet


Brad Reed, Host:

As both a liberal and a sports fanatic, I jumped at the chance to host today’s salon with Dave Zirin to talk about his new book “Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love.” Dave’s book is a very smart, witty and hard-hitting look at how jerkbag sports owners have transformed their stadiums from blue-collar and middle-class entertainment venues into massive profit-making behemoths tailored more toward corporate America than Joe Six Pack. Average families have found themselves priced out of going to games, since owners have cordoned off entire sections of ballparks for luxury boxes and club seats. And to make matters worse, these same owners have grown ever-more-fond of shaking down taxpayers for cash to build their multiplexes despite the fact that many of these taxpayers will never be able to afford to attend a game. This heinous practice is particularly glaring in Washington, DC where the city forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new ballpark for the perpetually terrible Washington Nationals, despite the fact that the city at the time was planning to shut down a whopping 24 public schools.

Today we’ll chat with Dave about how greed and political corruption have hurt sports in the United States, how the business of sports has hurt both fans and players and finally what the average fan can do to take their teams back and make sports a cornerstone of our communities again. Welcome, Dave!



http://fdlbooksalon.com/2010/12/18/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-dave-zirin-bad-sports/

"Dave Zirin is Bringing The Noise once more with his expose on the modern day tyranny that has turned athletic entertainment into 'Gross' National Product. Dave Z is irreplaceable. He's the sportsworld geiger counter, exposing the truth and protecting the fan from first, second, and third degree burns."
-- Chuck D, Public Enemy
"The Nation's sports columnist Dave Zirin combines the passion of the most rabid sports nut with the intellectual rigor of the most learned Hegelian. This book is a critical account of how rapacious owners are leaching the fun out of sports and how we, the beleaguered fans, can take back the games we love."
-- Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor, The Nation

[flvegan]

1. I particularly like that he picks on the Natinals.

(sic)

[Hawkeye-X]

2. We have a very bad owner here - Stan Kroenke of the Walmart money

and he's in the middle of ruining the Nuggets but goading Melo to leave.

If I was the Nuggets owner, I'd give him an extension for life as long as he remains a Nugget.

And I'd get him the dream players Melo would want in order to win championships.

Ego doesn't win games - teamwork does.

Miami is full of egomaniacs.

Hawkeye-X

[Sanity Claws]

3. I stopped following baseball because of this

I used to follow the Yankees and Mets but got absolutely disgusted with how the Yankees got the City to help them build a new Yankee Stadium and then priced the seats out of range of most people.

[FLPanhandle]

4. Not just the owners.

Players have gotten just as greedy. You can't pay someone 10's of millions of dollars each year and keep cheap ticket prices either.

Owners and players are living large off the sports dollars.

[Better Believe It]

5. Ticket prices would not come down if players had their pay cut.

The owners would simply pocket more billions.

As long as they can fill most of the seats why should they drop prices?

Their prices are based on what the market will bear, not on players pay.

[FLPanhandle]

9. Not exactly.

Only one NFL team has to release financial statements Green Bay Packers (the Packers are owned by local shareholders). It's one data point (but the only one we have) In GB player costs rose from $139 million in 2008 to $161 million last season, while operating profits declined from $20 million to $10 million during the same time.

I'm just saying that blaming the owners exclusively is disingenuous when owners, coaches, & players are pocketing more money than ever.

[Better Believe It]

14. The Packers are the ONLY professonal sports team that is actually owned by the community.

That's why they are the exception on disclosure.

And they are not set up to be a profit sports enterprise designed to enrich a few owners.

The fact that their payroll increased by 22 million dollars and the team still was able to disburse 10 million bucks to community owners without raisng ticket prices demonstrates how much the idea that players salaries dictate prices lacks substance.

If the owners were able to cut players pay 50% the owners would not cut prices and would continue to demand that fans and non-fans be taxed to pay for new sports complexes!

What a scam!

[panader0]

6. Both owners and players get their money from fans

If you are a player, you hire an agent. He negotiates a deal for you. Would you, as a player, say, "Oh. that's too much"?
TV rights with advertising, tickets etc are where the monies come from. Don't go to games.
Nobody seems upset when an actor/actress gets 20 million for one movie. The players are not to blame. They get what they can get. The fans support the whole thing.

[FLPanhandle]

11. I wouldn't turn it down.

The money is now from TV though not from fans in the stands. Blaming owners exclusively for indulging in this new influx of cash is to ignore the corresponding full wallets of coaches and players too.

[panader0]

12. TV money comes from viewers/fans too

[Archae]

7. And owners are great at shaking down even the most fiscally conservative politicians.

I mean, what politician is going to want to be known as the "Guy who lost (fill in the blank sports team)?"

Here in WI, Milwaukee taxpayers got shaken down by the owners of the Milwaukee Brewers that way, with Miller Park.
Even our "esteemed" governor at that time, "frugal" Tommy Thompson said flat out, "Stick it to 'em!"

The Green Bay Packers are owned by the *FANS* and that makes all the difference.

[Rex]

8. The Alamodome in San Antonio comes to mind.

They destroyed historical homes and buildings to make room for a big, ugly domed thing that no NFL team wants to call home. :eyes:

[Initech]

10. In LA, we have Arte Moreno and the McCourts.

I hate to knock on Arte, but as long as he keeps that pathetic excuse for a GM in charge (especially after the way he fucking botched the Carl Crawford deal), the Angels are never gonna win another title.

And the Dodgers - the McCourt's divorce trial is turning them into the laughing stock of the league at this rate.

[Davis_X_Machina]

13. Owners have been ruining the game..

...since the days of Harry Frazee, and Connie Mack selling off his stars every winter.