The moment President Barack Obama was elected to office and then again during his inauguration, many of my more conservative friends continuously used words like “socialist” and “communist” to describe the 44th president of the United States.
I am not taking a stance on his policy initiatives, but I find it funny that people were not outraged when socialism crept its equalizing head into areas near and dear to American hearts; places considered to be American institutions that serve as a beacon to our national pride. I am referring, of course, to the sporting world.
Breaking down three of the major four sports reveals wildly socialistic policies, yet nobody seems to take issue with it in this realm.
Let’s start with baseball; America’s favorite pastime. It is the most “capitalistic” of all sports but if you dig deep you can find socialistic roots. One underlying idea of socialism is spreading the wealth evenly amongst the rich and the poor, moving to create a single middle class of equality.
Baseball does well with no salary cap, and teams operates in the true spirit of capitalism as a business. With teams able to spend as much as they wish on “business assets” or the best players for their teams, the most well run and successful teams rise to the top and are able to out bid the poorer run franchises.
Under commissioner Bud Selig in the 1990s however, baseball instituted revenue sharing. This was based on the idea that large market teams, such as New York and Los Angeles could attract the most revenue due to their location. The large market teams would then have to share revenue with smaller market teams like Tampa Bay, Oakland and Kansas City. This was an attempt to eliminate the geographical advantages some teams had, but never the less is socialism at its finest.
Football is much more devoted in creating equality that baseball is. In the NFL, there is a salary cap in which teams are limited by a total salary figure, not allowing free market forces to pay players their true market value, and allowing poorer performing franchises to spend the same amount as dominant franchises.
On top of this, the NFL puts great equalizing force in the college draft. With the poorest performing teams rewarded with the highest draft pick in an attempt to balance the power. Rewarding the poor at the expense of the rich…pure socialism.
The NBA is similar to the NFL in many aspects except it has a much stricter salary cap and institutes a lottery system for the worst performing teams to win the highest draft prize, a mix of socialism and gambling at the same time.
People are outraged by Obama’s leftist regime he has instituted but I find it funny that the fearful breath of socialism has been breathing down the neck of classic American institutions for years without recourse.
