HBO host Bill Maher attempted again this week to starkly smear conservatives. While that’s nothing new, Maher added a small little wrinkle into this profanity laced, factually ignorant diatribe, sports.
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I personally love baseball and football above all other American sports. So I found it interesting that Maher found a way to claim football is successful due to socialism, and that baseball is failing because of capitalism.
Forgetting that the NFL and MLB are private organizations and have complete authority to place rules on their sport, Maher says the NFL does something different. They share TV revenue among the 32 teams equally, while baseball does not. Plus, the NFL draft’s first draft pick is the worst team from the year before. He also cites the fact that a small town like Green Bay can go to the Super Bowl, while the Pittsburg Pirates haven’t won the World Series in a long time.
Well, two can play that game Bill. In the “socialist” sport known as football, can Maher explain why the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions have never been to a Super Bowl, ever? And can he explain how that evil capitalist sport known as baseball can see a team like the Marlins, with the smallest payroll in baseball defeat the Yankees, who have the highest in 2003? In fact, from 2000-2010, there was a new World Series winner every year (with the exception of the Red Sox, who hadn’t won in 80 plus years prior).
In truth, the NFL and MLB do have slightly different rules regarding salaries and revenue. Both have had times where they’re commercially dominant. The explanation for the 103 million people who watched the Super Bowl last year wasn’t archaic draft picks or ad revenue, it was the fact that the sport is more exciting than ever and its become a de facto holiday for the nation, even for folks who don’t like football. That’s the definition of capitalistic success, not socialism.
His comparison is flawed. His facts are arbitrary and easily reversed. Thus his point, while surrounded with comedy, is completely bogus as usual.
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