Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Biggie Slow - American sports fans are communists

It is with only a bit of pleasure that I introduce Biggie Slow.  

To call him big and slow is an insult to big and slow people. Imagine the love child of Luke Harangody and Kathy Bates and if you've got him nailed.

BS is originally from the 'burbs of Chicago and is the only one of us not from the Northeast. He hates all things New York and doesn't have a problem letting you know. He claims to be a die hard White Sox and Bulls fan but that may be questionable. He still wears a Harold Baines and a Luc Longley jersey. His beloved Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup of course and it pains me to type that sentence.  

OK, seriously, Biggie may be the most intelligent of us all and this first post will show it. Enjoy
 
American Sports Fans Are Communists

Before we get started, I should probably introduce myself. Well, not myself per se – but rather an introduction to my writing style. I never passed third grade English, so my grammar sucks (quite literally Word just informed me I misspelled grammar). I don’t know proper punctuation. When in doubt I like to throw in a semicolon; it’s pretty much my favorite punctuation and I don’t think it gets nearly enough airtime. Writing style? Glad you asked. I like to think of it as a stream of consciousness overlaid with a moderate case of ADHD. Facts or data to back up my point? Well, not so much.


From each according to his ability to each according to his need

That’s right, Karl Marx in the very first post. I think it’s time to call a spade a spade. For as much as we in America talk about our love of the free market and all things wholesome, when it comes to sports - Americans are bunch of Communists.

Communism, as best as I can understand it, is an economics system. It is neither good nor bad (although I might suggest that it is highly inefficient which explains why it hasn’t seemed to be sustainable, but that’s a conversation for another day), just a way to divide up resources.

Here’s my third grade understanding of communism; it’s all based on equality. You go ahead and produce/sell what you can. You put all revenue that you made into one giant pot, and you get to take out what you need. Everyone else does the same. There’s probably more to it than that, but I don’t care.

Assuming an individuals fundamental needs are generally the same, then one can reasonably argue that a persons withdrawals should be about the same. But not everyone has the same training, skill set, education or whatever - and so peoples contributions to society are going to be all over the freaking place (I personally try to contribute as little as possible).

That sounds a hell of a lot like revenue sharing to me. I’ll even one up that. If the amount of money we spend on professional sports is the appropriate representation of its popularity, I would suggest that that more communist the revenue sharing/salary cap the sport the more popular it is.

The highest revenue sports are:
1. NFL,
2. MLB,
3. NBA,
4. NHL (depending on how you cut it, of course).

I thought about getting into specifics about differences in the different leagues, but I just don’t have the energy, so you’ll just have to look it up, but my belief is that the NFL is the most redistributive (is that even a word) and I’m going with it. So in the NFL you not only revenue sharing but a salary cap and a freaking salary floor? Who the hell is running this league? Lenin? Yeah, yeah, parity in the league makes every game is competitive, blah. Can’t wait till we have that crapfest Seahawks Chiefs in the Superbowl this year. That’ll be awesome. I mean isn’t just a matter of time before everyone in the league finishes 8-8?

Here’s the thing. There are few teams I dislike more than the Cowboys (Packers, Vikings, Red Wings, Twins, Cubs, Pistons, Pacers, and of course Yankees, Mets, Giants, Rangers, and Knicks (I can’t help it, I have a lot of hate) – but surgical freak Jerry Jones wants to pump two billion dollars into his stadium and his team more power too him. Why should he have to share his investment with the poorly run St. Louis Rams? It doesn’t make any sense.

Why are we rewarding owners who are crap? Here’s a link to a good post on the incentives or better yet, disincentives revenue sharing creates.

So I’m a business owner, and I’m going to out my little product on the market. I mean I didn’t spend any more on investing in infrastructure or hiring any engineers to develop it or anything. As a matter of fact the product doesn’t even work. It kills people with ennui. I call it the Pittsburgh Pirates. Instead of going out of business quickly, my competitors who do have a product works and people like and just give me money every year to help me stay in business. Every friggin year. That makes sense.

I believe there’s a term for that. Communism.

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