Green Bay & Pittsburgh? Democratic (Big D) Values Are Responsible For The Success Of America’s Favorite Sport

by Bruce Friedrich

The Super Bowl is Sunday, of course. It’s worth contemplating how two smallish cities have managed to find themselves in the big game, one of them a perennial favorite despite its small-town status. Bill Maher explains:

[T]he NFL runs itself in a way that would fit nicely on Glenn Beck’s chalkboard – they literally share the wealth, through salary caps and revenue sharing – TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it 32 ways. Because they don’t want anyone to fall too far behind. That’s why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call “punishing success.”

Baseball, on the other hand, is exactly like the Republicans, and I don’t just mean it’s incredibly boring. I mean their economic theory is every man for himself. The small market Pittsburgh Steelers go to the Super Bowl more than anybody – but the Pittsburgh Pirates… Their payroll is about $40 million, and the Yankees is $206 million. They have about as much chance at getting in the playoffs as a poor black teenager from Newark has of becoming the CEO of Halliburton. That’s why people stop going to Pirate games in May, because if you’re not in the game, you become indifferent to the fate of the game, and maybe even get bitter – that’s what’s happening to the middle class in America. It’s also how Marie Antoinette lost her head.

No one loves football more than Republican politicians; it would be nice if they took a lesson from football’s success.

By: BruceGFriedrich

Vice President, Policy, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals