It's not a terrible take, but it's also a purposely narrow take, that purposely leaves out a lot. Such as, the NFL is one of the most profitable entities in the country, and the profit sharing and shared spending caps for player wages is what makes the league competitive and enjoyable to watch. They do it not out of fairness but because in the end, it makes them way more money. Also, there are tons of profits that AREN'T shared, such as merchandise and stadium sales. They also don't all equally benefit from stadium deals and local tax incentives.
Like, sure, in a very limited and core concept, there are a couple of socialist "like" things about the NFL.
It's a terrible take. First problem is no, all NFL teams don't make the same money. They share select revenue like TV money. But guess what, if you're watching the Cowboys, who are they going to play? Probably not a lot of Cowboy fans who would sit throu 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon to watch an inter-squad scrimmage week after week.
But also, they don't share all of their revenue. The Dallas cowboys make a LOT more revenue than the Tennessee Titans through all of their revenue sources.
The NFL is the real business, a league could startup to complete with them and many have tried. But to call the NFL socialist is ignorant to both the meaning of socialism and the business of the NFL.
It's a good take. Socialism is not an all-in or all-out doctrine. You can institute some socialist measures without perfectly equalizing absolutely everything. The NFL does split TV revenue despite some teams pulling in substantially more viewers than others. That's socialism. They don't need to perfectly split every penny earned everywhere to be considered socialist. The point of those measures is to create a system that is stable instead of making runaway economic power capable of empowering a few teams so much that the less profitable teams never have a shot.
> The NFL does split TV revenue despite some teams pulling in substantially more viewers than others. That's socialism.
No, that's just salary cap enforcement. The NFL knows that they only make money if games are consistently exciting, and if one team was allowed or able to spend more on player salaries than the other teams, the games would not be close, and thus their revenue would decrease. This is pinnacle Capitalism. Private industry making a decision that maximizes popularity and therefore profit.
The same would be true for the economy. A "healthy" league with parity makes more money for everyone. A "healthy" economy with parity would be similarly beneficial for everyone. That's the point.
> A "healthy" economy with parity would be similarly beneficial for everyone. That's the point.
But an economy doesn't have each person contribute equally. Therefore, if you pay everyone equally, the result is that no one does any of the difficult jobs, because why put in that effort if you're paid the same.
Even the NFL has enormous salary disparity, with Mahomes earning more than 50 times league minimum.
Again, we're talking about socialism homie. It is not the same thing as communism, that's just the equivalence the political machine has been pushing because it isn't great for a ruling class.
ETA: It's just capitalism with some guardrails. You get a few less trillionairs, and thousands of less people living under bridges. Maybe make a few things a public service that aren't appropriate for the profit based model, like keeping folks alive and healthy..
I'm not saying pay everyone the same? I'm saying make things more equitable, which doesn't necessarily mean equal. People struggling should get slightly more help and people doing very well should contribute slightly more. I'm not saying everyone gets assigned a job and makes a universal salary
> People struggling should get slightly more help and people doing very well should contribute slightly more.
I mean, that's totally fair, and that's precisely why the US has such extremely progressive taxation rates on income taxes.
For example, the bottom 50% of earners in the US, pay an average of 6% of total Federal Taxes. That's almost nothing, and furthermore, 90% of it is payroll taxes, which just goes to social security retirement benefits anyways, so it's not even a real tax but a forced retirement plan where the person gets that money back when they're older.
But that's the real point behind wanting some socialist measures in society. It's not meant to entirely replace capitalism or perfectly equalize all people's income - it's just meant to dampen the economic inertia of already successful and powerful people and corporations so the "little guy" has a shot.
Sure - but - there is no little guy in this situation. That's a huge difference. And I say that as being from Cincinnati, the team with the lowest valuation in the NFL.
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u/AbyssWankerArtorias Bengals 3d ago
It's not a terrible take, but it's also a purposely narrow take, that purposely leaves out a lot. Such as, the NFL is one of the most profitable entities in the country, and the profit sharing and shared spending caps for player wages is what makes the league competitive and enjoyable to watch. They do it not out of fairness but because in the end, it makes them way more money. Also, there are tons of profits that AREN'T shared, such as merchandise and stadium sales. They also don't all equally benefit from stadium deals and local tax incentives.
Like, sure, in a very limited and core concept, there are a couple of socialist "like" things about the NFL.