Rush Limbaugh — I’m sorry, Ultra-Conservative Talk Show Host Rush Limbaugh — is part of a group planning to bid on the St. Louis Rams. This has sparked outrage among media literati and new NFL Players Association chief DeMaurice Smith, who view Limbaugh as a racist unfit to own a team in a league where 60% of the players are black. Wayne Allyn Root offers a stock defense of Limbaugh’s “rights”:
[T]his latest controversy about Rush Limbaugh’s attempt to buy the St. Louis Rams is an example of why the Democratic Party and liberals in this country are even worse when it comes to the issue of freedom (and free speech). NFL players- particularly black NFL players- are incensed that Rush might become a NFL owner. They are demanding that the NFL prevent Rush from owning a team. They are blaming his supposedly “racist views.” NFL players obviously won’t let the idea of free speech or freedom of expression get in the way of their desire to ban Rush. Afterall, no NFL player ever said or did anything to offend the sensibilities of the American public.
[ . . . ]
Keep politics out of sports. In a free and capitalist society, if you have the money, it is your right to buy any business you want. PERIOD. What an amazing country where a radio host can earn enough success and wealth to buy a $700,000,000 NFL football team. Instead of fighting over it, or denigrating his opinions, or trying to ban his options and opportunities, we should all be celebrating Rush Limbaugh’s success. God Bless America, freedom, the NFL, and Rush Limbaugh.
Root’s off-base here. It’s hard to “keep politics out of sports” when talking about the Rams given that the team was lured to St. Louis in 1995 by a $280 million taxpayer-funded stadium (that recently got an additional $30 million in tax funds for “new scoreboards, a new club area and a paint job.”) If sports was a political issue when St. Louis officials built the stadium, why is it suddenly a non-political issue when a new ownership group wants to takeover the stadium’s primary tenant? In a “free and capitalist society,” governments don’t build and maintain stadiums for wealthy sports owners — or conservative talk show hosts for that matter.
Furthermore, the NFL is a partnership, and under the league’s constitution, the other owners must approve any franchise sale. Limbaugh doesn’t have the “right” to buy a franchise just because he has the money. Whether it’s good business practice to deny Limbaugh’s bid, it’s well within the property and contractual rights of the NFL owners to decline to associate with him — for whatever reasons they deem valid.
Finally, I would note that the sale of the Rams was prompted by the huge estate tax bill foisted upon the children of the team’s late owner, Georgia Frontiere. Imposing multi-million dollar fines on people because their mother dies is the real outrage here, not the faux infringement of Rush Limbaugh’s “free speech” rights.
{ 19 comments }
Root’s done this before at http://www.rootforamerica.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry090517-212606 when he claimed that if Notre Dame didn’t let him do commencement it would be censorship.
This article is an example of the reason I have a hard time aligning myself with the Mises Institute. Yes the NFL has the right to associate itself with any individual, just like I have the right to decline selling my house to some guy that I just don’t like. But the other side of this argument is the fact the NFL is a legal monopoly that can and has been infiltrated by political faction. I am aware of Von Mises concept of the Freedom of disassociation, but this applies in a non-government sanctioned monopoly model (ie – normal commerce). In every state that has an NFL team or more, the local political factions use the popularity of the team to sponsor all kinds of classically illiberal measures as these same factions do with other popular activities.
The freedom to disassociate works when you are talking about some diner, car wash, or even retail chain. However, where a heavily politically infiltrated government sanctioned monopoly is libeling a private citizen with the racist brand, there is considerable suspicion there.
Your argument regarding taxpayer-funded stadiums is well made until you start trying exclude potential owners by it. I agree that tax-payers should not be made to build stadiums for teams, but they already did. Are you arguing that whomever the new owner is, they should be made to pay back the taxes used to build the stadium at personal expense? If you are then you have no basis on this point to exclude Rush or anyone else, because that is the scheme is it not? The city or state builds the stadium and the owners of the tenant organization serve the purpose of paying off those taxes by increasing the incidence of new taxable activities. It may be a terrible scheme, but it is terrible in one direction, the government paying for it in the first place. This part of your argument can be summed up thus: Rush is a hypocrite. I have just shown that he is not, since he will be the party of the agreement that did not demand taxes or do the taxing for the stadium. He is the party that is being made to pay the taxes back directly and indirectly.
The second point is totally disconnected from the first. Rush is hyporcrite because he wants to enter into a government subsidized scheme, but the partnership of NFL should have the freedom to disassociate with whomever they would like. Is that the point?
I would have no problem with your second point of the NFL being a partnership except that they are, through local and national government faction and taxation schemes, a state-sanctioned monopoly that is heavily politically infiltrated. Yes, the NFL may decline legally to associate with Rush Limbaugh. Still, do not attempt to rhetorically make them into a normal partnership with the freedom to associate with whom they want. Their government sanction in almost every market they are in makes them a quite abnormal and even other-than partnership as you describe.
The third point is just silly. No owner, Rush or otherwise, has anything to do with the abhorrent estate taxation scheme unless you are trying to make the accusation that the potential owners put their fingers on the state tax commission to tax the estate so heavily. It may be important to point out the atrocious taxation scheme foisted upon the Frontiere heirs, but it does not disqualify any potential owner that was not part of some conspiracy to tax them in order to get the team sold.
You are so caught up in strict discipleship of Von Mises that your knee-jerk column misses entirely the fact that the whole of the NFL is not a Von Mises ideal organization or scheme. The only thing free-market about the NFL is the sale of paraphernalia.
If you are trying to continue to make the point that somehow Rush is a hypocrite because he is not following libertarian ideals, Rush is not a libertarian. He is a conservative who lives in the real world, not a fantasy world where the system government like the Von Mises ideal is established without another revolution. Rush and the rest of the conservative movement realize that incursion of totalitarian ideals are so welled dispersed throughout the country that avoiding all elements of incursion would make us all recluses holding-up in a mountain cabin.
Football players should fight the stereotype that they are dumb, not advertise it as this complaint against Limbaugh does for them. Is Limbaugh racist? One of his most frequent substitutes was economist Walter Williams.
too late to keep politics out of “national” sports. where do you think those big stadiums come from?
Root and Oliva both make reasonable points. But I don’t understand why there should be outrage by anyone on any side of this issue. Just because some non-libertarian restrictions exist tangentially to the issue is no reason to accept additional non-libertarian restrictions. Rush should be free to attempt to purchase the team, and the NFL should be free to accept or reject the offer. It’s just another trade–if both parties are willing.
Issues about government-funded arenas, racism, and estate taxes may enter into it for the buyer and seller, but tell the rest of us little about whether the deal should be made or not.
This alleged controversy is just another molehill made into a mountain.
@ Greg Miller
I am trying to follow your argument, but I do not understand the point about the NFL being a legal monopoly – at least not in my limited understanding of the NFL. Can you please explain?
Am I not allowed to bring some people together to play football and sell tickets to the games, provided I can find the capital resources for equipment, payroll, and whatever else would be needed? I am not being facetious, but I will be surprised if that is the case.
It is interesting that people seem to have forgotten, or not been taught, that until recently, racism in the south was almost entirely Democrat.
The segregationist governor of Alabama, George Wallace was a Democrat.
The Ku Klux Klan were Democrat, and included, amongst others Senator Robert Byrd. Most of the people convicted for civil rights violations were registered Democrats. The KKK were also Jewish activists (who themselves were democrats).
During the 1976 Election, African American’s were not allowed to go into Jimmy Carter’s church.
Now we see the truth of LBJ’s assertion about the “Great Society Program”. Now most African Americans believe that it is the Republicans who are racist.
I should also add that since 1980, many southern democrats have changed affiliation.
@ Farside
They are a legal monopoly through the very means that the article raised, not that you will be arrested if you try do your own thing. They are supported by taxpayer funded stadiums among other things that allow them a competitive advantage to any competing football league (not that I am some disgruntled XFL fan or something). They are “legal” because their market supremacy in one market is used to obtain dominance in another market (locale) and are not subjected an anti-trust inquiry.
So imagine that there is no league involved, just a network of teams that want to play against each other. If you wanted to setup your own team in say Albuquerque, you would have to reward fans with amenities that they are used to in Phoenix or Denver which means that you would have to befriend and woo local and state government officials to get that same level of funding. With no league, this scenario could be more isolated due to the lack of organization to lobby governments. With the NFL in place, what would have been an isolated incident of petitioning the government in a certain market becomes the modus operandi of the organization in multiple markets.
This effectively solidifies the market dominant position of an NFL team in those markets and this by their own behavioral monopoly as well as the government support they get in the various markets they enter. Even if only a minority percentage of venues were government supported, the whole organization is benefited in the solidification of their monopoly status because of even that minority support.
To your question of opening your own venue and selling the tickets, etc the barrier to entry will be the level of amenities that you are forced to take on as an upfront cost trying to compete for fan-base and player-base with a government supported venue. Yes you could raise the money to compete, but your competition would not have to do so in the same manor.
So, the NFL makes this worse by creating a barrier to entry within the league itself. Barrier to enter market and then barrier to enter the league that has dominance over the market and all legal and sanctioned by local and state governments all over the country.
Greg, could you please summarize your point? Other than nit-picking every point S.M. Oliva made, (though some of them are merely side observations, like the Fontaine comment, making your critique of it moot) I have no idea what your perspective is.
From what I read, Mr. Oliva is making the case that Limbaugh has no “right” of purchase. Are you trying to argue that he does, or is this just an attempt to discredit some tenet of Austrian economics that you do not agree with?
It seems to me that you are not critiquing Austrian economic theory as much as you are Mr. Oliva’s writing style (disconnected points and such).
BTW, if you really want a discussion on your arguments, you will be far better served if you refrain from making inflammatory ad-hominem attacks such as this.
What fact? What do “ideal organizations” have to do with Mises, purposeful human action, or reality for that matter? I don’t claim to be an expert on Mises, but I’ve read most of his books and do not recall him dwelling on this theme. My only guess at what you’re referring to would be the ERE, which is something that is never considered to exist in reality, as it is only an analytical tool.
Ok Greg, I read your reply to Farside above, and I get your point. Thing is, what does this have to do with an article on Limbaugh’s alleged rights?
So you are stating that the NFL is placing barriers to entry due to its privileged relationship with government. Guess what, I don’t think you’ll get many folks here to disagree with that around here. I’d say most all of us prefer the freedom of voluntary interaction. That in itself however, does not give Limbaugh the right to purchase a team, unless suddenly two wrongs does make a right?
How is this supposedly a critique of an Austrian perspective?
Greg Miller: Everything you say may well be true, but with the exception of your point about the Frontiere estate tax issue, I fail to see what your criticism has to do with what Oliva wrote here. Oliva was merely criticizing Root’s take on this affair, merely pointing out that his claim notwithstanding, no one in a free society has any “right†to buy whatever they want. A sales transaction is a two-way street, and a seller has every right not to sell his property to someone for any reason he deems fit, following anyone’s counsel he wants.
And please notice that Root himself makes no mention of the point you make about the NFL being a “heavily politically infiltrated government sanctioned monopoly.†In fact, he proclaims “God bless the NFL.†Not surprising seeing as how it comes from a guy who has actually bragged about his initials spelling W-A-R.
Okay, I will just summarize my objection to his criticism of root given all the requests for response. What I object to is the point that somehow the NFL is a normal organization with which a typical free-market transaction analysis can take place. The NFL isn’t an organization that have applied to a typical free-market analysis. Yes, they can make whatever agreement with whomever, but recognize that this is not just some normal private entity deciding for the good of its organization what is right. It is an organization that is polluted by political concerns deciding by criterion that are not completely about the good of the organization in a free market.
Oliva had 3 points of objection, the third I admit is a side-point that is not important. The two major points that I dealt with already I think are invalid on the grounds stated.
My position on the issue, which I purposely left out because it was the analysis that bothered me the most, is similar to that of Root. Root’s article is mostly about the players. He doesn’t even address whether or not Rush is a racist too much. He was mostly objecting to the desire of the players to ban an individual with whom they disagree from owning the team. He doesn’t like that people do that, because political points view preventing some privilege even privately are not the American spirit.
My position follows Root’s in that so far the players are saying no and that spirit of banning people with whom you disagree is a dangerous position. If you ever listen to liberal talk radio, it is not about some topic in the news and how point-by-point it is wrong or right. It is all about boycotts and mindless political action divorced from any principles. It descends to I don’t like X and therefore destroy X.
I think that Oliva’s refutation was an attempt at a Von Mises analysis that doesn’t work due to the NFL not being a normal free-market entity. The NFL may have the right to due what it wants, but recognize that it does so with a skewed view not necessarily related to what is right for the organization or the sport. It brings a lot of political baggage of its own.
Also, I like Root’s spray-tan avatar.
I do apologize if the statement that 8 pointed out seemed inflammatory. I did not mean for it to sound like a critique of Von Mises, just a critique of an attempt at a Von Mises-esque analysis that seemed poorly thought out and knee-jerk.
“I think that Oliva’s refutation was an attempt at a Von Mises analysis that doesn’t work due to the NFL not being a normal free-market entity.”
Wow, did you miss my point. I never said the NFL was a free-market entity. Quite the opposite, by emphasizing the stadium subsidies, I agree with you that it’s not. I was disagreeing with Root’s assertion that the NFL was, in fact, a pristine example of free markets.
@ 8
My critique was not on the austrian perspective, but on the attempt at one. “In a free and capitalist society, governments don’t build and maintain stadiums for wealthy sports owners” is attempting to say that somehow the owners are the guilty in the party. They are if they were part of the initial stadium construction at tax-payer expense, but if they are like Rush and the other potential buyers they are part of the deal that pays it back, not the guilty party that initiated it. Unfortunately, in what I did call a “terrible scheme”, the taxpayer never is payed back for the initial expense given that the taxpayer doesn’t receive revenues from the new taxable activity. However, Rush or any other owner would not be contributing to new taxes being used just generated through greater taxable activity. What the state decides to do with the increased revenue may be something crappy, but it not something that can be laid at the feet of new owners.
@ S.M. Oliva
I didn’t miss your point. I saw that you were making that point but then the second point was disconnected and almost counter. The first point doesn’t work because in the stadium subsidies scheme, the new owners would be paying back the initial expense not incurring it.
Now, I gotta say that I wasn’t trying to be a troll here. Just so you all know.
Greg –
I never took the position that Limbaugh was responsible for previous stadium subsidies However, according to some reports, the next Rams owner may demand more subsidies for further renovations to the Edward Jones Dome. In any case, I was only addressing Root, not Limbaugh.
As to my second point, again, I was refuting Root’s argument that somehow the NFL had a duty to accept Limbaugh’s bid without question. The league’s governing documents provide otherwise. That’s my only point. I wasn’t attempting to address the NFL’s overall statism (though it’s a topic that interests me.)
Finally, I only speak for myself, not Austrian economics or some sort of official “Misesian” view.
@ Oliva
Well that stinks about the new subsidies. Maybe this whole issue about Rush will spurn some discussion in the media about the statist deal that is the professional sports racket. In my own state, some soccer team owner couldn’t get private funding for a stadium, so he went around begging for it in city after city until one agreed to float the bill. Every time I drive by it, I am disgusted.
Thanks all for the conversation.
For those who don’t remember what got Rush into all the hot water, it was from a long while back when he was a host on ESPN’s Gameday. The idea was to provide a “fan’s perspective” not as a player or coach or otherwise expert. The subject came up regarding the Eagles and their quarterback situation. Now, I was actually watching the show live, which I guess few others were !!!
His comments were basically that Donovan McNabb was overrated and not that good a quarterback and that the media was pushing him because they desired a black quarterback to be successful. Whether true or not, one could definitely make the claim that it was.
There were two black hosts on the show, neither of whom objected, one who actually agreed with Rush. Nothing came of the episode for a few days until a caller in a local Philly radio sports talk show mentioned the comments. Then as they say, all hell broke loose.
Love him, hate him, ignore him (he’s no Austrian at all, though there is much to agree with), what basically happened was the league rallied around its own. All those affiliated closed ranks and since he was an outsider, he was dismissed. It’s not that what he said was wrong, racist, or anything else, it’s that he criticized the “establishment”.
I have to admit that I used to be a huge NFL fan, but have lost interest over the years. Simply put, the product has declined in my opinion. In fact, what did it in was salary caps, parity, and all sorts of other collectivist measures. It’s unfair to say the league became more competitive, as the league enjoys monopoly status and is free from competition. That the teams within are “competitive” is not accurate when one considers their revenue sharing, and the fact that teams make oodles from TV and need not even win to be “profitable”. No, the teams are not competitive in what we’d say is competitive, but rather they are all parasitic off the League.
Comments on this entry are closed.