Making Sport of Us
I love sports. Football. Baseball. Not every sport, but most. I even go so
far as to coach little kids in soccer.
Well, sports fans, professional sport is making sport of us. It’s almost as
if the movers and shakers of pro sports want to test us, to see how far
we’ll go to support them.
It’s not enough that we give them our dollars and make them super-rich.
Sports businesses also want to leach off of us through taxes. And that’s
leaching off of all of us, including those who give their money to things
like art museums and opera, and would never sit inside a stadium.
I resent this, because I want to be able to tell culture snobs that my
avocation isn’t costing them a dime!
Now the Minnesota Twins are getting a new stadium. To build it, they get a
cut of an add-on sales tax in several Minnesota counties. Minnesota citizens
didn’t even get a chance to vote on the tax. And eminent domain will likely
be used to get the property. This is a political insider job all the way.
Whatever happened to the old days, when baseball was a private business not
seeking a handout from cities, counties, and states?
It’s not as if pro teams can’t support themselves. They’re rich, big
businesses. But they’ve held local groups hostage, playing one locale
against the other.
Baseball is supposed to be America’s game. But the politics of it are more
of a con game than a sport.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
