A problem when sports journalists write about politics, labor, architecture, urban design, and business issues of sports

Tank McNamara comic strip, 3/17/2008

is that there is stuff that they don't seem to know much about or care about. Today's Washington Post has a column by Sally Jenkins outlining how the "baller" President Obama could "remake the play of America," in "Mr. President, The Ball Is In Your Court ."

Skipping the fact that even a celebupresident like Obama has limited political capital and a very full plate, to me, one of the most important things that the Federal Government could do with regard to sports as a business is to step in and stop the public funding of sports stadiums and arenas by local and state governments.

Now, leagues and teams can play jurisdictions off the other, and increase the amount of money received, and dash the interests and hopes of various communities (i.e., when the Baltimore Colts went to Indianapolis, or when the Cleveland Browns came to Baltimore, how the Seattle Supersonics went to Oklahoma City, etc.).

Congress gets worked up when leagues put limits on viewer watching ("Bill Would End Separation of Church and Super Bowl" from the Post and these articles from the Washington Times about the battle between Comcast and Peter Angelos about broadcasting Washington Nationals baseball games, "Comcast, MASN negotiate," "TV deal still not resolved," and this editorial, "Rabbit ears and Peter Angelos.") but they don't seem to be too worked up about the millions and millions of dollars scooped up by team owners.

This has to stop.

And would be far far far far far more important for President Obama to address than any of the six fairly random things mentioned in the Jenkins column.

-- Field of Schemes is the companion website to the book Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit



On the Fastrack comic strip, 11/29/2008

It's a shame when the best editorial commentary on sports printed in a newspaper runs in the comic section. (And by the way, it's why I think that the cartoonists producing Tank McNamara are as deserving as Gary Trudeau for a Pulitzer Prize for editorial commentary.)

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Although Post columnist Tom Boswell has written a number of good columns on the business aspects of the Washington Nationals and the stadium.