4 ms·

The American sports plutocracy

77 points by momentmaker 2mo ago

josefritzishere 2mo ago
[flagged]
- MandieD 2mo ago
  To anyone who sees the parent comment as a non-sequitur, note one of the names in the partnership discussed at the beginning of the article.
  - jtr1 2mo ago
    Quite something to see neither Jared nor his in-laws mentioned here
- potbelly83 2mo ago
  Yeah but her laugh /s
evanwolf 2mo ago
Per Thompson, after roasting everything wrong with wealth and power concentration in professional sports... > But ameliorations are possible. Tax law could further restrict the ability to team owners to amortize. And honestly, I don’t know why some local governments shouldn’t own stakes in the professional sports teams that they often directly finance. Is anyone drafting a manifesto reforming US sports? Local playbooks for public stadium owners? State labor laws? State taxes? Bills that toss out federal monopoly law exclusions? Laws that compensate student athletes with lifetime platinum healthcare? Not my field but it seems there should be more of a movement.
- nradov 2mo ago
  Of all the problems that governments should be working on, this is among the least important.
lapcat 2mo ago
The Green Bay Packers are the model for community ownership of a sports team. Of course the NFL hates this for all the reasons mentioned in the article, and also because the Packers are the only team to publicly reveal their finances. Thus, the NFL decided to ban ownership models like this, making the Packers the one and only.
- starkparker 2mo ago
  My preferred modern (and non-American) model is the German Bundesliga 50+1 rule,[1] which unlike the Packers is actively employed and enforced within both the league and regulatory bodies, with external ownership instead being the legacy, rare, and endangered exception. > The name of the rule refers to the need for members of a club to hold 50 percent, plus one more vote, of voting rights - i.e. a majority. In short, it means that clubs - and, by extension, the fans - have the ultimate say in how they are run, not an outside influence or investor. > Under German Football League (DFL) rules, football clubs will not be allowed to play in the Bundesliga (or second division) if outside investors have the greatest say. > In essence, this means that private or commercial investors cannot take over clubs and potentially push through measures that prioritise profit over the wishes of supporters. The ruling simultaneously protects against reckless owners and safeguards the democratic customs of German clubs. ... > Using the concrete example of Bayern Munich, the shareholders of the men's first team (FC Bayern München AG) are the members' club (FC Bayern München e.V. - 75%), Adidas (8.3%), Allianz (8.3%) and Audi (8.3%). > Things are organised differently at Dortmund. The members' club (consisting of 168,163 members as of November 2022) actually only controls 4.61% of Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA, which oversees the men's first team, reserves and U19s. Signal Iduna hold 5.98% of shares, Bernd Geske 8.24%, Evonik Industries 8.19% and the remaining 72.27% is floated on the stock market. However, the management company in charge of running the football club, Borussia Dortmund Geschäftsführungs-GmbH, is 100% owned by the members' club, ensuring control of matters and thus compliance with 50+1. The rule's been challenged or subverted frequently. The most recent ruling on it was two days ago from the German Federal Cartel Office:[2] > It is intended to stop rich, and often foreign, investors transforming German football in the way the English Premier League has changed while keeping smaller clubs competitive. But the likes of Bayern Munich would like the rule scrapped to boost their own coffers. > A prerequisite for the 50+1 rule is that it be applied consistently and without differences, a statement from the Federal Cartel Office said following a review. > The Bundesliga - the new name for the German Football League (DFL) which runs the top two men's divisions - must also ensure fans have a role and there is open access to membership, according to watchdog president Andreas Mundt. > This could be viewed as a nudge to RB Leipzig - controlled by the Red Bull empire - to open up the club more to members. 1: https://www.bundesliga.com/en/faq/what-are-the-rules-and-regulations-of-soccer/50-1-fifty-plus-one-german-football-soccer-rule-explained-ownership-22832 https://www.bundesliga.com/en/faq/what-are-the-rules-and-reg... 2: https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/german-watchdog-permits-footballs-50-123329096.html https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/german-watchdog-permits-fo...
iamnothere 2mo ago
I vote with my wallet—zero spending on sports, zero time watching sports, zero betting on sports, zero reading about sports. I don’t feel like I miss out on anything. If I had any interest in sports I could go play them for free, but I tend to opt for unorganized outdoor activities. It boggles the mind how much time and money people spend on this industry. That said, this is an area where antitrust enforcement would be applicable, if we ever get an admin who’s willing to engage in active trust-busting.
- redwood 2mo ago
  As someone who has gone back and forth over sports over the years and generally is of the anti-establishmentarian strain of thinking and inherently against sports as a general boring vanilla time sink, I do see the value of having something that folks can synchronize their time and interest to that gives joy to the masses in a shared way that is at least purely entertainment as opposed to something more heated like war.
  - Barrin92 2mo ago
    >I do see the value of having something that folks can synchronize their time and interest to that gives joy to the masses As a bottom up communal activity yes, American sports is Roman bread & circuses now with their own Temu version of an emperor and his clan at the top. This is sports in the way Barron Harkonnen is throwing sports events for his nephew
  - bloomingeek 2mo ago
    < entertainment as opposed to something more heated like war.> As an avid sports fan, I've always thought this. All the emotion and anguish I feel during the seasons for the teams I support is sort of cathartic. But I can't help wonder what the effect legal online gambling will have. Yes, I know gambling and sports has been around since Methuselah, but now regular "Joe's" are in the act, who would have never gambled in the past because of the legal aspect. The heated like war will most likely become heated like costly regret.
    - 2mo ago
peterashford 2mo ago
Yeah but this is the entire point of Neoliberal economics: enabling rent seeking behaviour to allow Capital to accrue wealth by virtue of being the biggest pile of wealth. It's ultimately not sustainable: the reductio ad absurdum of this state of affairs is one Capitalist owning everything. Clearly the pitchforks will come out before that, its just a question of how long it takes before it all explodes
- dgellow 2mo ago
  Sorry to tell you, but no pitchforks will come to save you
  - LateCheckOut 2mo ago
    Maybe collapsing ecosystems will
  - Mistletoe 2mo ago
    Why did they come out in the French Revolution and countless other times and they won’t now?
    - fragmede 2mo ago
      Capital built stronger, taller, AI-enhanced walls to keep the peasants out.
    - strictnein 2mo ago
      Because our lives are 100x better (maybe more?) than the lives of the average subject in France in the 18th century.
      - dgellow 2mo ago
        That, and also an extremely sophisticated media ecosystem, surveillance apparatus, police forces, etc. But there is also close to no collective responsibility in the US culture
  - 2mo ago
tolugenius 2mo ago
I wish the author could have made more concrete examples on this. I guess for me what's more revealing is more recently, the ease to which the leagues (I mainly follow basketball and soccer, but this probably true for many) adopted partnerships with gambling (sorry "prediction market") companies, essentially going from 'we will go after players who gamble to "why don't we let the fans gamble". I think the ease and speed of it more concerning for me.
1970-01-01 2mo ago
Seems like between the lines there is a little success jealousy. Only a billionaire can own one of these major teams, and you get all of the problems this carries. It doesn't seem unique, and if anything its an anti-climatic use of wealth that could be spent on a million other problems. That's all I took away.
- twoodfin 2mo ago
  Actually, it’s the anti-trust exemptions / lack of enforcement that allows the leagues (owned by the billionaire team owners) to decide who can and can’t own a team. Otherwise teams could and probably would be purchased by publicly-owned corporations.
  - 1970-01-01 2mo ago
    That's not a hard rule; there are several counterexamples. I found the Knicks, Braves, Blue Jays, Rangers, and Canadiens are publicly-owned. The billionaires will play their money games, but they don't have full control on the entire league.
    - twoodfin 2mo ago
      Right but those instances only happened because the existing owners approved the sales.
  - rjrjrjrj 2mo ago
    The NFL ownership rules prohibit public corporate ownership, although that is not due to the antitrust exemption. There are numerous current and historic examples of corporate ownership in the other 3 leagues. Toronto's teams are all owned by Rogers. The Angels and Ducks were once owned by Disney. Comcast owns the Flyers and once owned the 76ers. CBS owned the Yankees.
bdangubic 2mo ago
Once the “biggest crime athlete can commit” became betting on own games / sport (this supercedes all other crimes including rape, domestic violence, mutilating dogs…) the sports as we knew it came to an end. I used to be huge sports fan, the watch-meaningless-regular-season-NBA-game-in-January kind… now it has been years since I watched any sports game outside national team matches
massysett 2mo ago
This all supposes that the sports team owners really are that: independent owners. Sure that’s what we call them, but it’s more accurate to say they are equity partners in a common enterprise. It’s not interesting to say that a sports league controls whether there is a new team. Of course it does, just as an existing supermarket chain decides where to open new stores, or an airline decides what cities to fly to. Competition for a sports league comes from other leagues (not necessarily in the same sport) or from different forms of entertainment entirely.
- kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
  > equity partners That implies equitable treatment. The reality is there is a class of filthy rich people that make a game of shaking down government bodies to pay for their entertainment venues so they can swim in more money on the public dime. Equitable would be if a public entity invests 60% into a stadium, they get 60% of the revenue. No billionaire grifter will allow that to happen.
  - JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
    Equity as in stock
  - b3ing 2mo ago
    But they get to have their city/state name and a bunch of minimum wage jobs, and extra flight traffic for people and athletes that have no care about the area to come in and spend a few more bucks at chain hotels and restaurants that have their HQ in another state/city
  - badpun 2mo ago
    What's the shakedown?
    - kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
      Pay for my stadium or I move the team.
sbm_au 2mo ago
It's an interesting comparison between American sports leagues and the ruthless competitiveness of European football. It's quite possible in English football to found a "startup" like AFC Wimbledon and get it into the major leagues. But there's still barriers - an absolutely astronomical investment is required to compete in the Premier league. "Welcome To Wrexham" really illustrates the power-scaling of wealth, as Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac (and many of their club's players) go from big millionaire fish in a small pond, to small fish in the multi-billionaire sovereign wealth fund pond.
gcapu 2mo ago
I like the article, but some of the issues are the law and other issues seem to be not the law, and it confuses me. For example, the fact that teams can’t join the NBA doesn’t seem to be a law in particular.
uhfraid 2mo ago
As the saying goes: “Republicans vote socialist on football”
tancop 2mo ago
This is only a problem because of the American franchise system where teams are part of a league and fully depend on it. Football teams in Europe play in a league. If the Premier League decided to kick out Man City for some reason they would still exist, own their trademarks and be able to play matches (but also lose major sponsors and have to negotiate with the EFL to get back in the pyramid). Leagues don't get to decide if a new club can form in the first place. They can control who gets access (like the failed Super League that would have a semi closed system) but licensing rules fall under the national federation. Every team is its own corporation that's either controlled by club members, publicly traded or a privately owned company. Other teams can't just block them from selling shares out of economic self-interest.

77 points by momentmaker 2mo ago

josefritzishere 2mo ago

[flagged]

MandieD 2mo ago
To anyone who sees the parent comment as a non-sequitur, note one of the names in the partnership discussed at the beginning of the article.
- jtr1 2mo ago
  Quite something to see neither Jared nor his in-laws mentioned here
potbelly83 2mo ago
Yeah but her laugh /s

evanwolf 2mo ago

Per Thompson, after roasting everything wrong with wealth and power concentration in professional sports... > But ameliorations are possible. Tax law could further restrict the ability to team owners to amortize. And honestly, I don’t know why some local governments shouldn’t own stakes in the professional sports teams that they often directly finance. Is anyone drafting a manifesto reforming US sports? Local playbooks for public stadium owners? State labor laws? State taxes? Bills that toss out federal monopoly law exclusions? Laws that compensate student athletes with lifetime platinum healthcare? Not my field but it seems there should be more of a movement.

nradov 2mo ago
Of all the problems that governments should be working on, this is among the least important.

lapcat 2mo ago

The Green Bay Packers are the model for community ownership of a sports team. Of course the NFL hates this for all the reasons mentioned in the article, and also because the Packers are the only team to publicly reveal their finances. Thus, the NFL decided to ban ownership models like this, making the Packers the one and only.

starkparker 2mo ago
My preferred modern (and non-American) model is the German Bundesliga 50+1 rule,[1] which unlike the Packers is actively employed and enforced within both the league and regulatory bodies, with external ownership instead being the legacy, rare, and endangered exception. > The name of the rule refers to the need for members of a club to hold 50 percent, plus one more vote, of voting rights - i.e. a majority. In short, it means that clubs - and, by extension, the fans - have the ultimate say in how they are run, not an outside influence or investor. > Under German Football League (DFL) rules, football clubs will not be allowed to play in the Bundesliga (or second division) if outside investors have the greatest say. > In essence, this means that private or commercial investors cannot take over clubs and potentially push through measures that prioritise profit over the wishes of supporters. The ruling simultaneously protects against reckless owners and safeguards the democratic customs of German clubs. ... > Using the concrete example of Bayern Munich, the shareholders of the men's first team (FC Bayern München AG) are the members' club (FC Bayern München e.V. - 75%), Adidas (8.3%), Allianz (8.3%) and Audi (8.3%). > Things are organised differently at Dortmund. The members' club (consisting of 168,163 members as of November 2022) actually only controls 4.61% of Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA, which oversees the men's first team, reserves and U19s. Signal Iduna hold 5.98% of shares, Bernd Geske 8.24%, Evonik Industries 8.19% and the remaining 72.27% is floated on the stock market. However, the management company in charge of running the football club, Borussia Dortmund Geschäftsführungs-GmbH, is 100% owned by the members' club, ensuring control of matters and thus compliance with 50+1. The rule's been challenged or subverted frequently. The most recent ruling on it was two days ago from the German Federal Cartel Office:[2] > It is intended to stop rich, and often foreign, investors transforming German football in the way the English Premier League has changed while keeping smaller clubs competitive. But the likes of Bayern Munich would like the rule scrapped to boost their own coffers. > A prerequisite for the 50+1 rule is that it be applied consistently and without differences, a statement from the Federal Cartel Office said following a review. > The Bundesliga - the new name for the German Football League (DFL) which runs the top two men's divisions - must also ensure fans have a role and there is open access to membership, according to watchdog president Andreas Mundt. > This could be viewed as a nudge to RB Leipzig - controlled by the Red Bull empire - to open up the club more to members. 1: https://www.bundesliga.com/en/faq/what-are-the-rules-and-regulations-of-soccer/50-1-fifty-plus-one-german-football-soccer-rule-explained-ownership-22832 https://www.bundesliga.com/en/faq/what-are-the-rules-and-reg... 2: https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/german-watchdog-permits-footballs-50-123329096.html https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/german-watchdog-permits-fo...

iamnothere 2mo ago

I vote with my wallet—zero spending on sports, zero time watching sports, zero betting on sports, zero reading about sports. I don’t feel like I miss out on anything. If I had any interest in sports I could go play them for free, but I tend to opt for unorganized outdoor activities. It boggles the mind how much time and money people spend on this industry. That said, this is an area where antitrust enforcement would be applicable, if we ever get an admin who’s willing to engage in active trust-busting.

redwood 2mo ago
As someone who has gone back and forth over sports over the years and generally is of the anti-establishmentarian strain of thinking and inherently against sports as a general boring vanilla time sink, I do see the value of having something that folks can synchronize their time and interest to that gives joy to the masses in a shared way that is at least purely entertainment as opposed to something more heated like war.
- Barrin92 2mo ago
  >I do see the value of having something that folks can synchronize their time and interest to that gives joy to the masses As a bottom up communal activity yes, American sports is Roman bread & circuses now with their own Temu version of an emperor and his clan at the top. This is sports in the way Barron Harkonnen is throwing sports events for his nephew
- bloomingeek 2mo ago
  < entertainment as opposed to something more heated like war.> As an avid sports fan, I've always thought this. All the emotion and anguish I feel during the seasons for the teams I support is sort of cathartic. But I can't help wonder what the effect legal online gambling will have. Yes, I know gambling and sports has been around since Methuselah, but now regular "Joe's" are in the act, who would have never gambled in the past because of the legal aspect. The heated like war will most likely become heated like costly regret.
  - 2mo ago

peterashford 2mo ago

Yeah but this is the entire point of Neoliberal economics: enabling rent seeking behaviour to allow Capital to accrue wealth by virtue of being the biggest pile of wealth. It's ultimately not sustainable: the reductio ad absurdum of this state of affairs is one Capitalist owning everything. Clearly the pitchforks will come out before that, its just a question of how long it takes before it all explodes

dgellow 2mo ago
Sorry to tell you, but no pitchforks will come to save you
- LateCheckOut 2mo ago
  Maybe collapsing ecosystems will
- Mistletoe 2mo ago
  Why did they come out in the French Revolution and countless other times and they won’t now?
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    Capital built stronger, taller, AI-enhanced walls to keep the peasants out.
  - strictnein 2mo ago
    Because our lives are 100x better (maybe more?) than the lives of the average subject in France in the 18th century.
    - dgellow 2mo ago
      That, and also an extremely sophisticated media ecosystem, surveillance apparatus, police forces, etc. But there is also close to no collective responsibility in the US culture
- 2mo ago

tolugenius 2mo ago

I wish the author could have made more concrete examples on this. I guess for me what's more revealing is more recently, the ease to which the leagues (I mainly follow basketball and soccer, but this probably true for many) adopted partnerships with gambling (sorry "prediction market") companies, essentially going from 'we will go after players who gamble to "why don't we let the fans gamble". I think the ease and speed of it more concerning for me.

1970-01-01 2mo ago

Seems like between the lines there is a little success jealousy. Only a billionaire can own one of these major teams, and you get all of the problems this carries. It doesn't seem unique, and if anything its an anti-climatic use of wealth that could be spent on a million other problems. That's all I took away.

twoodfin 2mo ago
Actually, it’s the anti-trust exemptions / lack of enforcement that allows the leagues (owned by the billionaire team owners) to decide who can and can’t own a team. Otherwise teams could and probably would be purchased by publicly-owned corporations.
- 1970-01-01 2mo ago
  That's not a hard rule; there are several counterexamples. I found the Knicks, Braves, Blue Jays, Rangers, and Canadiens are publicly-owned. The billionaires will play their money games, but they don't have full control on the entire league.
  - twoodfin 2mo ago
    Right but those instances only happened because the existing owners approved the sales.
- rjrjrjrj 2mo ago
  The NFL ownership rules prohibit public corporate ownership, although that is not due to the antitrust exemption. There are numerous current and historic examples of corporate ownership in the other 3 leagues. Toronto's teams are all owned by Rogers. The Angels and Ducks were once owned by Disney. Comcast owns the Flyers and once owned the 76ers. CBS owned the Yankees.

bdangubic 2mo ago

Once the “biggest crime athlete can commit” became betting on own games / sport (this supercedes all other crimes including rape, domestic violence, mutilating dogs…) the sports as we knew it came to an end. I used to be huge sports fan, the watch-meaningless-regular-season-NBA-game-in-January kind… now it has been years since I watched any sports game outside national team matches

massysett 2mo ago

This all supposes that the sports team owners really are that: independent owners. Sure that’s what we call them, but it’s more accurate to say they are equity partners in a common enterprise. It’s not interesting to say that a sports league controls whether there is a new team. Of course it does, just as an existing supermarket chain decides where to open new stores, or an airline decides what cities to fly to. Competition for a sports league comes from other leagues (not necessarily in the same sport) or from different forms of entertainment entirely.

kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
> equity partners That implies equitable treatment. The reality is there is a class of filthy rich people that make a game of shaking down government bodies to pay for their entertainment venues so they can swim in more money on the public dime. Equitable would be if a public entity invests 60% into a stadium, they get 60% of the revenue. No billionaire grifter will allow that to happen.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
  Equity as in stock
- b3ing 2mo ago
  But they get to have their city/state name and a bunch of minimum wage jobs, and extra flight traffic for people and athletes that have no care about the area to come in and spend a few more bucks at chain hotels and restaurants that have their HQ in another state/city
- badpun 2mo ago
  What's the shakedown?
  - kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
    Pay for my stadium or I move the team.

sbm_au 2mo ago

It's an interesting comparison between American sports leagues and the ruthless competitiveness of European football. It's quite possible in English football to found a "startup" like AFC Wimbledon and get it into the major leagues. But there's still barriers - an absolutely astronomical investment is required to compete in the Premier league. "Welcome To Wrexham" really illustrates the power-scaling of wealth, as Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac (and many of their club's players) go from big millionaire fish in a small pond, to small fish in the multi-billionaire sovereign wealth fund pond.

gcapu 2mo ago

I like the article, but some of the issues are the law and other issues seem to be not the law, and it confuses me. For example, the fact that teams can’t join the NBA doesn’t seem to be a law in particular.

uhfraid 2mo ago

As the saying goes: “Republicans vote socialist on football”

tancop 2mo ago

This is only a problem because of the American franchise system where teams are part of a league and fully depend on it. Football teams in Europe play in a league. If the Premier League decided to kick out Man City for some reason they would still exist, own their trademarks and be able to play matches (but also lose major sponsors and have to negotiate with the EFL to get back in the pyramid). Leagues don't get to decide if a new club can form in the first place. They can control who gets access (like the failed Super League that would have a semi closed system) but licensing rules fall under the national federation. Every team is its own corporation that's either controlled by club members, publicly traded or a privately owned company. Other teams can't just block them from selling shares out of economic self-interest.