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Senators Threaten To Rescind NFL Antitrust Exemption
An anonymous reader writes In response to the FCC's discontinuation of rules that support the NFL's blackout policies, the NFL issued a statement indicating that it would nevertheless continue to enforce its blackout policies through its private contract negotiations with local networks. On Wednesday, however, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced a bill that would rescind the antitrust exemption that enables the NFL to demand blackouts in the first place and formally warned the NFL to abandon blackouts altogether. The antitrust exemption gives sports leagues "legal permission to conduct television-broadcast negotiations in a way that otherwise would have been price collusion" and further allowed the formation of the NFL from two separate leagues. Meanwhile, the NFL enjoys a specialized tax status and direct monetary support from taxpayers to build arenas and stadiums.
how about a Redskin-out?
The NFL obviously paid off some group of politicians to achieve their non-profit status. Now a new set of politicians have their hand out for another sweaty envelope filled with cash.
that being able to watch football is one of the only issues that's easy to get bipartisan support on
The NFL also gets nonprofit status on top of this. Could we do more to support them?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is obviously a payback to Comcast...
The point of having the blackouts to begin with is AGREED upon by the very cities that McCain is claiming to "protect". It brings foot traffic into the cities and increases sales to nearby restaurants and bars and let's not even go into ensuring that the stadium (which shares profits with the towns) is as near capacity as possible.
Now, if we want to completely privatize the stadiums I'm all for letting the free market do its thang. But, as McCain oddly points out, these are NOT private entities but basically defacto public partnerships.
The NFL is a cancerous bloated parasite living off public funds.
1 - Startup
2 - Cash in
3 - Sell out
4 - Bro down
I can't stand professional sports, the dollars involved, the fact that even though i can't stand watching sports i'm indirectly paying for them with taxes. I have over 300 fucking sports channels that are bundled that i want nothing to do with. And god forbid you live in an area where a new staduim is being built, you'll spend years living with construction noise, never again see parking near your home, and the best part waves of drunk loud assholes who get genuinely agressive for no reason other than you don't give a fuck about the ridiculous games they endorse.
everything about professional sports disgusts me.
Let's train children to idolize men who have accomplished nothing other than mastery of childrens games.
NFL is the worst of the bunch but they're all deplorable.
Comcast will need to due a lot of work if they want NFL Sunday ticket. There system right now does not have the room for it.
You charge too much for tickets/parking/hot dogs/beer, people don't go see your games. Threatening to not allow fans who won't bend over and lube up see the game is IMHO seriously bad business practice. Want to entice fans to games? Don't charge $500 per game for a family to go.
// prefer watching it on TV
/// except for the damned commercials
//// then again, when I went to the game they had "commercial timeouts".
/ haven't been to a game in 15 years
stuff that nerd into a locker
Congress actually threatening to do something good for a change?
...since "Redskins" is so harmful and offensive, how about we also ban the word 'nigger' from use in media? Or rescind copyright protection for anything that includes that offensive term.
I mean, this is all about protecting the feelings of oppressed minorities, right?
-Styopa
I mean really.. the NFL is non-profit? gimme a fucking break.
How is this not blackmail? And why does the Redskins changing their name have anything to do with senators not rescinded the antitrust exception? They should be rescinding it regardless, but no one in Washington does their job. It's all about political favors and back-stabbing to get ahead.
The linked legislation was initially introduced AND referred to Judiciary Committee in 2013 (18-Nov-2013). What am I missing?
https://www.congress.gov/bill/...
else you would have to prosecute trading standards because whatever that abomination of a game is, football is the one thing its not.
xxx
Stop, you are killing me!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Last blackout for notable teams:
NY Giants: 1975
SF 49ers 1981
Dallas Cowboys 1990
Chicago Bears 1984
NE Patriots 1993
Washington Redskins 1965
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The problem is not with the founding fathers, the problem is that all of our candidates are being bought and paid for by the same sponsors. The founding fathers did very well in designing what Socrates envisioned as a perfect Government 2,600 years ago. Put the blame in the right spot and things can actually get better. Of course petitioning your own candidates onto the ballot is hard, so you will most likely not do anything.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Glad I didn't catch the sport virus. When the cableco put a $6 per month charge (or $72.00 per year) on my bill for "sports programming" I checked my antenna and cut out all TV programming. Stream the rest. Worked for me. I enjoy going to games but not being forced to pay for them otherwise.
People love it. I know people that it's the only thing they care about. They didn't _have_ to bribe politicians. People cheerfully vote in favor of their stadiums just so they could have a team.
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This is the WORST example of government interference in the free market that I have seen in quite some time! Well, do your worst government! The free market will CONTINUE to buy stadiums wherein these mom-and-pop operations can do business! STOP TRYING TO OPPRESS SMALL BUSINESSES, YOU CAN'T WIN!!! A CHICKEN IN EVERY POT, AND A NEW STADIUM EVERY TWO YEARS!!!!!!
The NFL isn't in it for the money. The NFL is in it to maintain control. The teams aren't non-profits. The teams are (generally) profit-generating entities. The League is there just to maintain the cabal.
Phuck, what a dumbth country you have now. Damn. "Idiocy? Ha! I'll show you idiocy!"
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Sports on Slashdot. Is it the end times already?
First, the public subsidy.
This this is on Oct. 2 2014: 0.09% is free money. Who gets this free money: the big banks, B of A, Citi, Chase. Also the top four investment firms which are also banks: #1 Goldman Sachs, #2 Morgan Stanley, #3 JPMorgan Chase, #4 Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Note the overlap, there is no meaningful difference between banks and brokerage firms.
So what is the result? Why the Fed's Zero Interest Rate Policy Isn't Working.
And the lack of any effective oversight: Bank of America fined $7.65M over accounting blunder.
So 7,650,000 divided by 4,000,000,000 = 0.019125 or 1.9125%. Note that this error existed for years, and it meant that BofA saved a huge amount of money by having $4 billion less in capital reserves then was required.
But to understand what the fine really means it should be compared to the market capitation (total worth on the stock market), which on Oct 2 2014 was $177 billion. So 7,650,000 divided by 117,000,000,000 = 4.32203e-05 = .0000432203 = 0.00432203%. Ohh, that must have really really hurt.
No one was held accountable. No one lost their job, was demoted, got a bad mark on their permanent record. The stock holders end up paying the fine. That's what it means to have no effective oversight.
So the NFL is in trouble and B of A gets a fine valued at 0.00432203% of their current net worth. That is why my brain hurts.
Why is Snark Required?
...I'm tired of subsidizing the sheer idiocy that is the NFL. The NFL has outlived it's usefulness. It can go die now.
All this huffing and puffing from Congress Critters can be solved by dumping some football tickets into constituent service offices, you know, to invite the staff to come see all the value a football team contributes to the community and see what NFL is all about.
Free of course, no strings attached. Just have some tickets.
And forget you were upset about blackouts and antitrust, okay? Okay!
Sig for hire.
The NFL dick riding by the so called free market loving ass hats. So don't you think it's about time to ween the NFL off the government teet or does the free market not apply to wealthy corporations....
I'm glad someone noticed this. Congress is in recess right now, so I don't know how this bill could have been introduced. The Senators involved are probably back in their home states right now.
The stadiums are built and owned by the teams and/or the communities in which they play.
The NFL is a league made up of teams, and does not own the teams or the assets of the teams. Think of it as a trade group for professional football teams.
Which billion-dollar business is using that name? Bueller? Bueller?
If the stadiums use taxpayer money to be built then games played in that stadium by law shouldn't ever be blacked out.
The NFL, "non-profit"? Then so is Walmart.
mark, whose interest in sports approaches 0 as a limit, with the exception of two "sports", one of the American football,
where it's in negative numbers
--
Shame about that kid who died playing the so-called sport
What I find interesting is NFL cheerleaders are quite accomplished dancers of skills as demanding like for professional dancers on Broadway shows. Those I've met and read about have extensive dance training from ballet to modern, all needing to be in top physical shape. It's more than just looking good, you have to be ***good***. Auditions are demanding. Those who fail, cry. Those who get accepted, cry (all those years of training finally paid off). Once they are accepted, it doesn't get easier. Rehearsals and choreography is demanding, some candidates get washed out because they cannot project that "show presentation" (they either have "it" or they don't). Choreographers know what "it" is when they see it but cannot describe it.
Unlike NFL football players, cheerleaders don't make the big bucks. I read they have to be employed or a student in college. Raising a child is equivalent to being employed. They get some compensation per game. I guess those that pursue this occupation do it for the experience.
mfwright@batnet.com
I wonder who the NFL forgot to bribe this season?
...a second time after first paying for the stadium that the billion-dollar business is playing in. Fuck that. Taxpayers should be getting into the arena they paid for for free, much less not have to deal with blackouts.
There were a good number of founding fathers who were against slavery and fought pretty hard to make it illegal. Of course those people harm your biased opinion so you ignored them and made a false generalization.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
This is why, when forced to turn in a donation card, I would donate a single time donation of $1. My hope was that it cost them $2 to process it.
Once I designated my church as the recipient, for a $50 donation. Someone told me that designated funds had to actually be given to the designee, instead of used for overhead UW expenses. I intended to follow up with the church treasurer to see if it actually got there, but I wound up moving out of town before I had the chance.
None of which does anything to change the fact that slavery was written into the Constitution, or that you're blatantly ignoring everything else I mentioned: protection of business interests outside slavery and making sure the common people had no say in their governance. Right after starting a war with the slogan "no taxation without representation".
Physician, heal thy biased elitist self.
Let's not forget the vintage 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. 1011-1015, and its exemption from federal anti-trust laws of insurance companies. Why? Because "the continued regulation and taxation by the several States of the business of insurance is in the public interest . . . ." Not sure about your state, but mine could not stop the price fixers in 2007. Companies were still too stupid to do the math, so we bail out AIG. Think they love you because of the tv commercials? Right. Those premiums are based on value, not collusion to jack 'em up across the board and divide the market. Right.
Why isn't the NFL taxed like any other big business? These teams can afford to pay players millions of dollars yet they are tax exempt. What the Fuck is going on here?