Few things infuriate me more than the private sector receiving subsidies from the government. It bastardizes the free market and gives unfair advantages to the politically connected who are scared to death to compete with us little guys.
For conservatives and those of us who care about the context of the issue, specifically here with the NFL, it's not about “freedom of speech”. An employee of a company can say what they want, but they are not free from consequences. A business has every right to fire an employee who embarrasses them or does harm to the business. It always baffles me when someone doesn't understand this.
Michelle Malkin calls out the NFL on their dependency on the very people they despise:
As for the NFL's status as a "private" enterprise? That's some Super Bowl-sized audacity right there. I first started tracking publicly subsidized sports boondoggles with my very first watchdog website, Porkwatch, back in 1999. Since then, taxpayers at all levels of government have foot the bill for football stadiums to the tune of an estimated $1 billion every year.
Over the past decade, new tax-supported NFL stadiums rose up for the Indianapolis Colts (the $720 million Lucas Oil Stadium), the Dallas Cowboys (the $1.15 billion AT&T Stadium) the New York Jets and Giants (the $1.6 billion MetLife Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings (the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium), the Atlanta Falcons (the $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium), and the San Francisco 49ers (the $1.3 billion Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara).
If you can't start and grow a business within the bounds of the private sector with your money or capital raised from private equity, then you aren't a businessman. Stealing the earnings from our labor to finance stadiums so they can promote anti-Americanism aren't the only benefits they lather in:
Yet, the NFL, its teams and its sponsors continue to benefit from a bonanza of tax-free loans, municipal bonds, rent waivers and property tax exemptions. Congress provided the league with an antitrust exemption that protects its monopoly broadcasting rights. Localities have raided "emergency" funds to help pay for stadium construction. And corporate benefactors write off their expenses for luxury boxes, tickets and naming-rights purchases.
In a free market scenario, a business would fire an employee that disrespects the country and its customers. Not so with the NFL. Like any government company, they aren't subject to putting their customers first, so they have no fear. They can insult us and degrade the pillars of our society that we hold in high regard, like law enforcement, and not feel any pain. They can take a knee in the middle of our national anthem, which is a blatant slap in the face of our country, with no worries. If things did get hot, they just need to have their politicians they bought ram some more pork legislation up our asses and treat us like subservient ATM machines.
Something has to give. Beyond being unwillingly forced to subsidize parts of the NFL, it doesn't affect me. I stopped watching when Bob Costas started using the airwaves to push his Marxist anti-Second Amendment propaganda my way. Too bad because I'm a spender with expendable income. I blow money on stuff that makes me happy. Every season I had the NFL Sunday Ticket package, I'd buy jerseys, I went to games, and on and on. Now I just spend on the UFC, Bellator, and the PGA. The NFL, like the NBA, is dead to me.
Good riddance to this league of felons that hate our country and the owners who support and encourage them.
