{"id":6140,"date":"2014-11-01T06:48:50","date_gmt":"2014-11-01T12:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6140"},"modified":"2014-11-01T06:48:50","modified_gmt":"2014-11-01T12:48:50","slug":"thanks-to-crony-capitalism-the-unholy-alliance-between-business-and-government-in-which-the-taxpayer-gets-bilked-the-nfl-has-created-what-amounts-to-a-risk-free-business-envi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6140","title":{"rendered":"Thanks to crony capitalism\u2014the unholy alliance between business and government, in which the taxpayer gets bilked\u2014the NFL has \u201ccreated what amounts to a risk-free business environment.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.barrons.com\/news\/article_email\/the-case-against-football-1414823445-lMyQjA1MTI0NjA0MTAwOTE5Wj\">Michael Vallo<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A chapter on the NFL\u2019s business practices should make even the most ardent pigskin fan bristle. Thanks to crony capitalism\u2014the unholy alliance between business and government, in which the taxpayer gets bilked\u2014the NFL has \u201ccreated what amounts to a risk-free business environment.\u201d Almond provides plenty of blood-boiling examples, like the NFL\u2019s tax-exempt status\u2014unique among major sports leagues\u2014and the now commonplace arrangement that sees taxpayers fund NFL stadiums while team owners reap the economic rewards. The New Orleans Saints even receive an \u201cinducement payment\u201d of up to $6 million a year just to keep the franchise in the city. That\u2019s on top of the $200 million that taxpayers forked over for renovating the Mercedes-Benz Superdome\u2014they will see none of $50 million to $60 million the team received in naming rights from the car maker.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;Other chapters aren\u2019t as strong. A chapter on race doesn\u2019t seem fully fleshed out and lists uncomfortable questions about race and football rather than going into detail. And the connection between football and violence against women only gets four pages at the end of a chapter focusing on homophobia. The sorry history of sexual and domestic violence in high school, college, and professional football programs deserves more attention.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;The thought of any large-scale exodus of fans is unlikely. TV ratings are up again this season from already astronomical levels. The continued popularity, as Almond points out, is due in part to the way the sports media promote rather than cover the game. \u201cSports represent one of the few growth sectors for the corporate media,\u201d he observes. \u201cIt\u2019s far more profitable to cover football as a glorious diversion than a sobering news story.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Vallo A chapter on the NFL\u2019s business practices should make even the most ardent pigskin fan bristle. Thanks to crony capitalism\u2014the unholy alliance between business and government, in which the taxpayer gets bilked\u2014the NFL has \u201ccreated what amounts to a risk-free business environment.\u201d Almond provides plenty of blood-boiling examples, like the NFL\u2019s tax-exempt status\u2014unique [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6140"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6141,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6140\/revisions\/6141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}