TheAgitator.com
Here Comes the Legislation
Thursday, May 6th, 2004Looks like Congress may get involved in this silly brouhaha over putting Spiderman’s face on the baseball infield. George “Term Limits” Nethercutt has sent a letter to Commssioner Selig threatening congressional action with all the nuance and subtlety of a “courtesy visit” from Patsy Parisi. Note that Nethercutt insists he’s sticking his nose in this squabble “for the children,” specifically the Little leaguers who “deserve to see their heroes slide into bases, not ads.”
I was listening to ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike” show this morning on the way in to work and was amused to find both Mike and Mike outraged at baseball’s blatant commercialism.
“What next,” Mike 1 said. “Are we going to have the Pittsburgh Heinz Ketchup Pirates? The Nike Swooshes?”
This coming from a guy who gets his paycheck from ESPN. ESPN is owned by ABC-Disney. ABC-Disney also owns the hockey franchise in Anaheim. The hockey franchise in Anaheim is named after a friggin’ Disney movie.
The major college bowls feature gigantic corn chip mosaics on the 50 yard line. NHL rinks have featured on-ice advertising for years. European soccer players wear enough ads to be mistaken for NASCAR drivers. Speaking of NASCAR, it’s the most popular sport in the country right now. It also happens to be the most advertising-intensive. And baseball itself has rotating behind-home-plate ads, outfield billboards, and a long history of movie tie-ins. We still watch and enjoy all of these sports. They haven’t been tainted.
I’ll admit that even I find ads on the bases a little tacky. But of the many reasons to be bored with baseball, this one ranks pretty low. Also, I don’t own a major league baseball franchise. Neither does Nethercutt. He ought to keep his mitts to himself.
I agree with you in principle. If there was absolutely no public monies involved in the game, then I would agree with you whole heartedly. However, as long as baseball operates under an anti-trust exemption and plays in publicly funded parks, I think elected officials should have a say in what “Honest” Bud’s Used Ca…er Baseball can and can’t do.
I don’t like the idea at all, although I think Spiderman 2 should be kick-ass with Alfred Molina as Doc Oc.
But in all fairness, take a look at the English Premier League. Is there actually a team called “Carlsberg’s”?
I’m fine with this, but only if comic book stores must start pushing Official MLB merchandise on their customers…
“I agree with you in principle. If there was absolutely no public monies involved in the game, then I would agree with you whole heartedly. However, as long as baseball operates under an anti-trust exemption and plays in publicly funded parks, I think elected officials should have a say in what “Honest” Bud’s Used Ca…er Baseball can and can’t do.”
And some people think private schools wouldn’t be socialized under a voucher system…
The public just can not piece it together. Baseball and other sports need to keep finding new revenue sources because of the crazy money they pay their employees. I hate to see it but I have no problem with it. Until the public gets fed up with the way the system is set up starts demanding acountability it will keep getting worse.
Someone has to pay the salaries, and in the end the part that the consumer pays is being bombarded with advertising that pays for the broadcasters who pay for the TV contracts.
The reason that these teams pay their players more money than they have in revenues is that sports are not a free enterprise business. Every team needs the others. The Yankees would be worthless without 29 other teams in the league to play against. But since they have the greatest revenues they can spend the most, on the other hand the rest of the teams need to compete with them, so they have not choice but to spend more than they have.
In comes MLB, run by some of the dumbest people around, Selig, Dupey….and instead of making things competitive and having salary restrictions they try to find more Johns to whore themselves out to. Make no mistake, MLB are whores who will do anything for money. Not that the players union is much better, they believe that the owners have all the duty to keep the game alive while the union’s only role is to take as much money from in the present as possible.
Nice swipe at baseball being boring Radley, but baseball is a game of wonderful pauses that is considerably more mental than most other sports. If you want boring watch some pro basketball. That is a gutter sport. Wow, look at how talented that 7 foot guy is, he just dunked with authority. That takes skill. Pro basketball represents the new American mentality, one second clips of guys dunking and individual play, the highlight reel. The only skill needed to play that game is to come out of your mother’s womb 7 feet tall. And best of all is watching the last two minutes of a game that take 30 minutes to play.
Sigh.
Well, this can generate some money for teams that don’t have George Steinbrenner’s assets. Then I don’t have to listen to whining RS fans who complain their team can’t win because they don’t have the payroll.
Government shouldn’t be involved in any sport. No tax dollars should goto fund any parks or anything related to sports teams. They should all live and die by the free market. Just like freelance IT consultants.
Besides, baseball sucks. As long as the players are unwilling to pee in a cup then the claim that it’s not legit will stick. I don’t really care if a player does to that because it is their body. But at the sametime, if I shell out my hard earned cash to goto a game then I want to know who is doing it and who isn’t. At least with something that is fake like wrestling I know what I’m paying for.
I think one of the main reasons why NASCAR is so popular is because their fans wouldn’t put up with this kind of behavior. Heck, they are willing to throw their beer away if they think a race is called bad. Can’t imagine the type of outrage that would hit the fan if drivers where unwilling to be forthcoming about drug use.
Fangsign, I agree in general that govmt should not be in sports, but since govmt steals our money for everything else and never gives me anything in return at least I will support them wasting money on something that finally is a benefit to me like a new stadium.
What really gets me is this quote:
“The U.S. government recognizes the special contribution of baseball to our nation by granting MLB special anti-trust exemptions. This over-the-top commercialization of baseball undermines its value to our nation and potentially questions the need for MLB’s special monopoly status.”
The special contribution of baseball to our nation? I’d say a company like Microsoft contributes a lot more to our country and way of life than baseball, but apparently they aren’t deserving of anti-trust exemptions.
The nanny state knows no bounds…
I, um, you know, um, have I mentioned the idea I heard? It’s about an island. Um, see..it’s…well, umm…..AAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve lost it. Stick a fork in DC. They’re done.
I am about as much of a baseball purist as you’re ever going to find. And as much as I abhor the idea of seeing the bags adorned with anything but dirt and cleat marks . . . I can’t see any logical problem in it. I also cannot see why the gummint thinks they should get involved, regardless of the anti-trust monopoloy MLB currently enjoys. I think an excellent point was made by Peer(Peter?)when he/she said:
Baseball and other sports need to keep finding new revenue sources because of the crazy money they pay their employees.
Free market anyone?
I think one of the main reasons why NASCAR is so popular is because their fans wouldn’t put up with this kind of behavior.
Now that’s funny. fangsign, they already put up with more advertising than any sport on the face of the planet! Now if that isn’t what you were referring to, please clarify.
We could ask them as fans to please not do this . . . arrange a boycott . . . but I think that’s about all we are entitled to.
Hey DC, don’t you have a freakin’ war on terror you should be fighting?
baseball is a game of wonderful pauses
…
…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
The quest for the mighty dollar takes yet another turn.
Congress doesn’t have enought to screw up they want to find new ways to waste our taxes.
As a huge baseball fan, I think this Spiderman promo is despicable. But god damn, I hadn’t even CONSIDERED that Congress might get involved. Argh, how DARE they make me sympathetic to Bud Selig?!
I think what’s really alarming is that NASCAR somehow became “the most popular sport in the country.”
If NASCAR is a ’sport’, then is my commute to work ‘8 minute abs’?
If NASCAR is a ’sport’, then is my commute to work ‘8 minute abs’?
RAOTFLMAO!
It would depend on where you live.
LA? Yep. You’re trim by the time you get to work.
Tucumcari, NM? No way. Too peaceful.
Logo a No-No? “No,” Says Ho(ey)
I, for one, could not care less about the Spiderman 2 logo on the bases issue that Hipp (and just about everybody else in the world) is so worked up about. Radley has already articulated my position well: I was
A FUNDAMENTAL WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY
Radley Balko reveals that some members of Congress appear to have nothing better to do than to engage in busywork and nonsense. I suppose that comes as little surprise for those familiar with Twain’s famously savage dismissal of our nation’s…
Too bad we can’t turn on the Wayback Machine, go back to FDR’s administration, and deny Cleveland the authority to use WPA money to build the Mistake On The Lake. Prior to that, baseball teams either owned their own stadia or rented them from another private sector owner. Once one team used the subsidy involved to build a winner, others followed. I’d pass a law that set a deadline to move all sports arenas into the private hands by a date certain. Leagues that did not comply would lose any existing anti-trust exemption. The owners would probably need a window of, say, ten years to phase in this new regime.
(BTW, it’s Spider-Man. Two capitals, one hyphen.)
Kevin
I take the Hemingway approach - its not a sport unless your life is in constant jeopardy while participating - bullfighting, mountain climbing, and motor racing. End paraphrased quote. You get the gist anyway.
I’m sympathetic to the need for baseball as an truly American institution - but we have to start drawing the line somewhere. We the people thru the gobmint have essentially give MLB a free pass. Now that we have done that and financed it to boot - why should we complain or worry about Sen Blowhard getting in up to his shins in it. I personally quit going to MLB games after the whole strike fiasco - so it doesn’t affect me directly - but between unaccountable players and a business model with no constraints (apparently what all Americans want now - everything for free and the right to petition for redress that they got exactly what they wanted) - why are we surprised, or better yet - why do we care? I think it says a lot about American culture.
You don’t like baseball’s anti-trust exemption? Blame Oliver Wendell Holmes, who authored the Supreme Court decision that created the anti-trust extension. Better yet, blame Harry Blackmun. In perhaps the most egregious mistake in his embarassing career, he wrote in Kuhn vs Flood that although the Supreme Court had made an error previously, it could not correct that error.
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