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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.
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.
The point of the blackouts is to extort money from the fans for an overpriced live experience. If they really wanted to sell out every game, they should study basic economics and drop prices. They'll still make ridiculous amounts of money.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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
...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
Qualifiers: I respect that each person is entitled to their own interests, and nobody's preferences are really any better than anyone else's preferences, and "fun" is a very mysterious concept and varies greatly between people, and so on.
But...
Football is *REALLY* *REALLY* stupid. I can't get my head around the overwhelming exuberance that people feel over this brief period of watching people chase a ball around a field. I can understand the appeal of actually playing the sport, as exercise produces emotional and physical benefits and throwing competition into the effort helps one to commit more to the experience. But watching other people play while eating outrageously unhealthy food and shouting like a buffoon just seems wildly pedestrian.
Yeah, I am a snob. I offer no apologies.
The same could be said about pretty much everything. The things you like are incredibly boring and stupid to a lot of people.
Yes, but I'm sure that no one spends huge amounts of their tax dollars supporting his boring recreational activities...
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Not to mention that if I wanted to read this crap, I'd go to a fuckin sports site. WTF does a profit machine built on a slow and boring rugby-like costume dance has to do with "news for nerds" anyways?
You just figured out why "non-profit" is wishy-washy ... people don't work for free and non-profits pay people so at what point are you hiding profits in people's salaries?
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!