2 Comments
Oct 11, 2021Liked by Alex Bloom

How much of a role do team owners actually have over the team and the league? The case of NBA owners donating to trump is an interesting one because, despite the conservative beliefs of owners, the league itself is pretty liberal. NFL owners seem to be more conservative, but NFL players also seem to be more conservative. I'm not disputing this is potentially an issue, but I think it's more complicated than owner's values = teams values.

Expand full comment
author

Well, one thing the owners do control is who gets to be an owner! Often there's some approval process for a sale of a franchise that involves an okay from the other owners.

The other thing the owners influence, of course, is the CBA, since they're the guys sitting across the table from the players. It seems as if the NFL owners found extra-legal means (i.e., blackballing players; presumably other threats) of enforcing a prohibition on anthem protests because they *couldn't* get the players to agree to the ban in a CBA.

I didn't mean to imply owners' values = team' values. You're right. It's obviously more complicated than that. But it's also transparently hypocritical to have MBS own a club and claim to be standing for LGBTQ+ rights everywhere. And this would be my broader point: global capitalism seems to makes support for human rights profit-contingent.

Expand full comment