Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

It seems that the San Francisco 49ers are hoping to bail out of San Francisco and play in San Jose (if they can get a stadium built).

But Senator Dianne Feinstein (a former mayor of the City) and a lot of other San Franciscans are horrified. So besides stamping her little foot, she's planning to introduce a bill that would make franchise moves more difficult -- even if the move is less than 50 miles. So says the 12 January San Jose Mercury-News sitting on the dining room table as I write.

Hmm. The United State Senate might intervene (yet again) in a local matter.

Thinks I: Why don't they Do The Right Thing For The Oppressed Masses and simply socialize the sport. Then we'll get to read newspaper articles such as the following:

SAN FRANCISCO, October 15, 2015 -- Mayor Rembrandt Ruiz held a press conference yesterday dealing with the recent controversies involving the municipal Nationalized Football League team, the San Francisco Pacifists.

He expressed "great sorrow" at learning that a woman had been passed over for the position of starting Right Tackle. "My staff contacted Coach Jackson yesterday on this injustice to inform him that I will have little choice but to bring this up at the next Board of Supervisors meeting unless he takes immediate action," said Ruiz.

The Mayor also stated that he was "standing firm" on his ban on hot dogs and beer in the concession area. He indicated that he hoped the Supervisors would quickly approve his brother-in-law's catering service as next season's exclusive food and beverage contractor. "This is the farthest thing from nepotism and cronyism," said Ruiz. "There is not a speck of doubt in my mind that Sonny's firm can provide the very best environmentally-friendly quiche and wine available."

Ruiz also touched on the simmering issues of Affordable Seating, costume equality for the Drag and Hetero cheerleading squads, and the long lines at the stadium's two ticket booths, where a showdown with the public employees union was feared. Each of these was "being studied" but no decisions have yet been made.

Finally, the Mayor refused comment on the Pacifists' 0-6 season record and their recent 42-6 drubbing by the Boise Black Helicopters.

Later,

Donald

Hilarious! It could be the start of a whole new genre: PC hits {fill in field here). Men's basketball. The playground. The heavy equipment industry. Nursing. It's a franchise!

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on January 12, 2007 5:55 PM

The NFL already is quite socialist, what with its salary caps and revenue sharing.

Posted by: Peter on January 13, 2007 3:42 PM

We are already have socialized sports, when cities pay for the construction of stadiums to keep teams from moving, benefitting the billionaire franchise owners at taxpayers' expense.

Posted by: Peter L. Winkler on January 13, 2007 4:25 PM

Salary caps and revenue sharing, in my opinion, don't make the NFL socialist. The owners each have an interest in making the entire operation more popular and therefore more profitable by making the league more competitive, and salary caps and revenue sharing are two tools that they use to do this.

The teams are less like sole proprietorships than they are like branch offices of a corporation.

Posted by: Bil on January 13, 2007 4:29 PM

I totally agree with Peter. Salary gaps, guaranteed payments, and revenue sharing, along with efforts to ensure parity among teams is the essence of socialism.

It also amazes me how some hardcore sports fans (particularly football and baseball) pretend to care about free markets in other areas, but then want city governments to subsidize teams and stadiums even though the return on investment is nil.

It's even more amazing that franchise owners still find ways to move to other cities and find new suckers, uh, I mean, city officials, who eagerly subsidize team owners despite empty promises of goodies that will supposedly follow the building of a new stadium.

By the way, recently sports talk radio hosts in the LA area have been whining about proposed increases in LA Dodger ticket prices, arguing that the owners are supposed to make sure that the Oppressed Masses, uh, I mean fans, have affordable ticket prices (the cheapest seat price would rise to $10 from $6, still less than the price of some movie tickets)

However, there is an interesting sop to the masses eager for our contemporary version of bread and circuses: "A ticket to the right-field pavilion — at $35 in advance and $40 on game day — will entitle fans to an endless supply of ballpark staples, including hot dogs, peanuts and soda."

By the way, at Dodger stadium, beer has not been available in the pavilion for years. I think that this may be the case at some other parks as well.

Your parody news story, while amusing, is easily outdone by reality.

Posted by: Alec on January 13, 2007 5:18 PM

The Green Bay Packers are community owned, and it seems to have worked out OK.

Posted by: MQ on January 18, 2007 2:03 AM






Post a comment

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember your info?