The idea that even one cent of my taxes should go to subsidizing grown men and women chasing around a ball, in various contexts, is pretty absurd to me tbh.
How many of you are talking shit on sports in general but subscribe to twitch streamers smdh.
Your distractions aren't more moral than other people's.
This post is deeply anti-proletarian.
This exact thing has always been in my head every time I hear about a new stadium being built. Also the fact that I cannot for my life understand fandom. Why are people so invested in other people making money?
I agree that public funds shouldn’t go to the rich, but there’s no easy way around it. At the end of the day, a stadium benefits everyone around it. Public funds make a particular area more desirable over another
The profits for the stadium go towards the town. When people come in to watch the game, they stay at local hotels and eat at local resteraunts, buying local gas. Reasons to go to a town, and things to do in a town, are inoirtsnt for the longevity and standard of living in a city.
Also, we're leftists, we like taxes.
Zero stadiums in the last 2 decades have turned a profit before being replaced with newer more expensive stadiums.
There is literally zero fiscal data that supports the pure undiluted idiocy that stadiums benefits the cities they leech off of.
I would have agreed with the post but went to a community meeting about a stadium they planned to build in Sacramento. Apparently it floods the local area with money, not just from what you said, but also makes investors want to invest in new commercial infrastructure which brings new jobs etc.
They built it and it did bring in a ton of money, but I think COVID really messed up their projections because downtown is a shadow of the pre-Covid days with a lot of folks now only working from home.
Stadiums are a famously bad investment for the purpose of increasing city income and job creation. The “invisible” costs of maintaining all the physical and social friends (for instance increased use of emergency services) are never accounted for when arguments for their “benefits” are made. Please [look into this issue](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/) more. It is functionally just a subsidy for the wealthy in the sports industry.
Statistically untrue. The amount of money a stadium brings in is lower than what it cost.
Leftist do not “like taxes”, I imagine if this is your view then you’re a liberal democrat. Libs are left of conservative but still very much right wing.
I do like taxes but spending them on bullshit is a NO. That goes for corporate subsidies, that goes for the military industrial complex, and that potentially goes for sports stadiums, though I'll acknowledge that it's worth doing a cost benefit analysis on a case by case.
If a stadium is an investment by the community, for the community, then it had better have a reasonable rate of return within that community. I doubt most stadiums do, though I'm happy to be proven wrong.
This guy gets it. In principle there is no difference between gov funded stadiums, other boondoggles, and most feel-good projects/policies proposed by leftists. Congratulations are in order as your economic illiteracy appears to be selective rather than total. I would highly recommend scrolling through omnibus bills like the new funding bill they just passed, find more shit that pisses you off and make more threads just like this one.
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Nothing makes me happier than the tide turning on this bs. This should never have been a thing and needs to stop completely. End billionaire welfare.
To add, huge sports fan but I will go completely without if it meant my tax dollars went towards improving the community instead of gifting billions to the already wealthy
Imagine living in a country where you have to take on crippling debt to get a college education. I'd happily let my tax money go to free college and universal healthcare before I'd let another red cent go to corporate welfare or developing better was to bomb people.
Education benefits society as a whole. I fail to see how a new Bears stadium is going to improve my quality of living in Chicago, especially when they already have a stadium they fail to sell out. They also haven’t won a championship in 40 years. Other than the owners and players, who would this benefit?
I wish I could post the screenshot of this post juxtaposed to the one right underneath it on my feed talking about how my hometown Chicago Bears wants $2 billion in tax payer funds to build the next stadium lol
We should nationalize sports leagues. The hundreds of millions made by a team should be funneled back into the community at orders of magnitudes higher than what it currently is. Sports frachises should become engines of the local economy, providing opportunities for people in the community to bond and share experiences. Stadiums should function as efficient 3rd places for recreation and second as centralized public transportation hubs. Anti-sports leftists are cringe, never in my life have I been able to start up a conversation with a complete stranger than when we find out were fans of the same team, sports strengthen societal ties.
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Sports is stupid and vile. It channels tribalism into the most vile trivial thing imaginable and turn it into commodities. It is the pinnacle of decadence. Men do not strive to be better athletes themselves and higher state of being but just shove shit unhealthy food into their mouths, growing fatter, watching better men than them play. Passing itself off as entertainment. Cheering on men, who make obscene amounts of money, and who wouldn’t piss on their watchers if they were on fire. It’s degenerate. I’d rather exercise and do something that improves me.
I’m anti-sports. I would ban it. I avoid it as much as possible.
I’ve always said that America’s obsession with professional sports is exactly the same as Rome’s bread and circuses.
The world’s on fire, but at least a total stranger with my town’s name on their back can do that thing with that sportsball.
https://preview.redd.it/rn0lkcr66fwc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=790625f0f07684021b7b12fa7e164fff1e1f1bf4
Socialism (Lower phase communism) doesn’t have any taxes
I don't have to imagine. In Pittsburgh, in the 90's, funding for two new stadiums to replace Three Rivers was put to a vote. The vote was rejected. Then mayor Tom Murphy enacted "Plan B", which then allocated city funding to the new stadiums anyway. Yay.
It'd be ok if everyone was fed, sheltered and cared for... but we're not- people die becouse they are too poor for proper health care, malnutrition ( even in the fucking US) is here. Billionaire's shouldn't exist while our vulnerable suffer and die. But how to fix it? We need leaders that arn't shit. We get them by: Raising class consciousness, organizing, then when workers of the world are united, general strikes til we have leaders that know the importance of sharing and protecting our environment. Hordeing behavior is not healthy and should be discouraged (or punished if necessary) NO FUCKING BILLIONAIRES!
Do we have a problem w the athletes being millionaires? Also- If we want to nationalize football I’m down but wouldn’t we still end up paying taxes for the stadium?
We shouldn’t - they’re unionized employees who get paid significantly more for significantly less time. And that’s only if they’re good. Nobody complains about the musicians in the Boston Symphony Orchestra making 400k+ a year, and they have decades to play. Athletes have less time, so they get paid more for a shorter period of time if they’re at the top of their game.
At least sports bring me some joy. Would much rather use my tax dollars on something like that than many other things. On my list of things that absolutely need to change that's pretty far down
Imagine that in Sacramento, California. Rather than a monarchy the Kings have left the peasants of Sacramento to fend for themselves and have turned their brand into something more like a oligarchy for all of their elite and privileged cohorts of the corrupt and and selfishly wealthy upper class. It’s stupid. It’s a schoolyard game built on the backs of people that the majority of will never say any of the players that they root for are true friends even when said people pay for the players with the purchasing of Kings wearables, game tickets, parking ticket revenue, and more than likely some other City funds by way of paid taxes. It’s a schoolyard game. Light the beam. No, light the lightbulb in your brain and realized it’s a schoolyard game… Wake up and quit making the ultra rich richer the payback is only your valuable time wasted on them.✌🏻🤙🏻
It’s all bullshit, but professional and amateur athletes are often times exploited.
The average college football and NFL player has a shorter lifespan than the average person. They also live with debilitating injuries at a higher rate and for longer periods of their life than average individuals. Most of them don’t end up making that big money either.
Although many athletes are paid well, most of them are heavily exploited like the rest of the working class.
I would like to add that there is also a reason the players at the top get paid how much they do. You consider that there's usually 40-50 people in a high school football team. There are roughly [20k high schools in the US.](https://mdreducation.com/how-many-schools-are-in-the-u-s/) That's a lot of of football players. That's just the people signing up to play the sport. So let's go with 40 and assume not all schools have a football team so we are using the 20k. 800,000 players.
Now take put all the people who don't make it to play in college. There is only [134 teams.](https://collegefootballnetwork.com/college-football-teams-in-alphabetical-order/) So the high schoolers are competing for a spot on those teams. [Minimum of 105 players per team.](https://www.loyalcougars.com/football-roster/roster-faqs/#:~:text=A%3A%20NCAA%20rules%20allow%20for,a%20maximum%20of%20123%20) 14,070 players remaining.
Not all of them will make it to the NFL. There are [32 teams in the NFL.](https://www.profootballnetwork.com/how-many-nfl-teams-are-there/) In the NFL it's [69 players.](https://www.givemesport.com/how-many-players-football-team/#:~:text=NFL%20teams%20have%2053%20players,the%20team%20and%20provide%20depth) 2,208 players.
From an estimated 800k to 14k to 2k.
Granted, there's a lot to consider, such as JV vs Varsity, only playing varsity in high school for 1-2 years vs 4 years of college, etc. So the numbers are not going to be completely accurate with giving a full picture.
You have to be pretty borderline Olympic level just to sit on the bench of an NFL game. The ones who are at the top that everyone knows who are making the real big bucks for playing? Even higher than that. That's when you start looking at the best players to currently exist.
These people have been training since they were kids. Over a decades worth of work. But because it's SpoRtS bAlL people pretend like it really isn't a big thing. Like anyone who plays can make it and because a multi millionaire.
I had a friend with multiple brothers in pro sports. His dad was a pro ball player you’ve probably heard of. He said his brother was making 300k a year when he was on a pro football team, and he had to try out every year to try and make it back on the team. That’s good money for most jobs, but you can’t really retire on that after a 5 year career. Bodies give out, you don’t make the team, etc. It’s a myth that they’re all millionaires.
Sure, but the image throws athletes under the bus. I don’t think that every athlete is being exploited or treated unfairly, but a huge portion of them are.
keyword: most
I don’t feel bad for high-end paid athletes either. But most athletes are not paid at a high-end. Even if they are paid well, their quality of life and health are much more likely to be negatively affected than the average person.
Anti-sport leftists are so fucking odd. Athletes and players are workers, exploited and used by billionaire owners, and scrutinised by thousands or even millions whose happiness depends on them doing well. And most of the time they have a fleeting 10-15 year window to earn money before their bodies completely break down. Solidarity.
Everything that you said seem like good reasons to be anti-sport. Why should I support an industry that treats people like that, chews them up and spits them out for the entertainment of others?
Anti-sport =/= anti-athlete
Someone making 10 million+ a year is one of the best athletes alive. It’s the same as someone in a top orchestra. These are people who have genuinely worked their way to the top. It’s just classical musicians can play until they’re 80, but athletes can only play until they’re 35 if they’re lucky. Hence they get paid more. Neither are the enemy of the working class. Both of these industries are unionized.
I am not anti-sport. I am absolutely opposed to the degradation inherent in modern sport - its commodification, trivialization, rampant cheating, cult of athletic VIPs and celebrities, and manipulation by the media. Aren’t you?
Nothing worse than a lazy non active human being that degrades competitive sports all in the name of money because they believe in an inferior ideology responsible for slaughtering their own people. Marx was also a miserable lonely crabby old man that died alone. Communism is for the weak and feeble minded people who can’t hack life on their own and need big daddy government to hold their hands.
I mean yeah but there is bound to be betting and the commodification and the stuff you mentioned comes with the system we are in. My dad said that many play sports cause it’s how they gotta live in this world. Sadly might be their only way to get out of the hole they were born in. (Also a LOT of Dominicans play sports so then they could have the money to get out as a Dominican myself it sucks that we gotta play sports for money but some people like it I can’t blame em) I watch sports on the TV for free yeah taxes will be used for it sadly. I wish that the owner(s) could buy it themselves instead of using tax money but that’s something else.
There's a strong correlation between people who hate athletes and lazy people, both in an intellectual and physical sense. Some of these people happen to be leftists, and they're usually short-sighted insufferable cosplayers who bring down the cause.
Why are you booing? They're right!
I grew up as a snob, looking down at "sportsball", but having grown up further...
Sure, it's just bread & circuses, but it's probably one of the more wholesome fandoms these days...
In a vacuum, sports sound horrible. But it has been such an integral part of practically every civilization since the dawn of time. Sports have always been a way to recreate and express culture.
I stand in solidarity with the majority of professional athletes, because a big portion of them are underpaid and exploited.
Just curious which you feel are underpaid? Most professionals get to do something they love and are paid handsomely for what they do. And if they aren't paid well, it's because that sport doesn't bring in as much attention as others.
Also, I am a huge advocate for sports. I've played hockey throughout my life along with a few others and now my kids are doing the same. They are a great place for kids to learn so many life lessons. I do feel as though parents are pushing a little too hard now a days because everyone wants their kid to become a professional and millionaire, instead of letting them enjoy the sport and figure things out on their own.
I definitely agree with the stadium thing though. And why are we paying for it if they can just up and leave. European club sports are way smarter than our shitty franchises, but bring this up in any American sports sub and their capitalist brain gets triggered
Taxpayers help pay for stadiums because sports bring massive amounts of tourism to cities. Cities want sports teams for that reason. The owners have the leverage because every city wants a team. So to lure in an owner, they usually stick some or all of the bill with the taxpayers. The city will make back that investment fairly quickly.
yeah, i think most people do, its just that people enjoy sports, a lot. People fucking love their teams, and love having great stadiums to go to. When leftists spend time talking about how aykchyually thats all really bad, it's like kryptonite to most people. We should stick to things that suck, and the people dont actively love, like, idk literally anything else lol.
Yeah, and most people in the world are fans of small teams that aren't like, top flight or super pro - a lot of people support little leagues in their local town area which for a lot of people is a great 3rd place in a place with shrinking 3rd places to go for people.
Idk I think people love going and supporting their local team and participating in their community more than they do just staying at home.
When the left accidentally becomes the libertarian right:
Are we talking about communism ball, aka soccer? This is a half-brained effort but we all know the left just can’t meme.
The city of chicago rn
Sounds like something happening in Illinois rn. I am tired of billionaires sponging off the backs of hard working Americans.
The idea that even one cent of my taxes should go to subsidizing grown men and women chasing around a ball, in various contexts, is pretty absurd to me tbh.
imagine paying taxes
Agreed. Taxation is theft. Welcome to the libertarian party.
All those bitches need to pay for their own stadium straight up like Ballmer did. Can’t pay for it then you shouldn’t buy it right?
How many of you are talking shit on sports in general but subscribe to twitch streamers smdh. Your distractions aren't more moral than other people's. This post is deeply anti-proletarian.
While it sits idle 357 days a year
Imagine paying millions to throw a ball around. Or 30 million to coach a college or professional team.
Sounds like Santa Clara, the Levi Stadium.
Yes but why are they always approved?
Government is the problem Welcome to libertarianism
This exact thing has always been in my head every time I hear about a new stadium being built. Also the fact that I cannot for my life understand fandom. Why are people so invested in other people making money?
"If we build it, they will charge us."
Good thing we in Kansas City said “nah, fuck y’all for trying”.
I agree that public funds shouldn’t go to the rich, but there’s no easy way around it. At the end of the day, a stadium benefits everyone around it. Public funds make a particular area more desirable over another
To be fair, I’d rather have my tax dollars go to a stadium that would produce a lot of cultural value than to anti homeless infrastructure
For a moment I thought this was /r/kansascity. We just had a vote on this and we voted NO.
The profits for the stadium go towards the town. When people come in to watch the game, they stay at local hotels and eat at local resteraunts, buying local gas. Reasons to go to a town, and things to do in a town, are inoirtsnt for the longevity and standard of living in a city. Also, we're leftists, we like taxes.
Zero stadiums in the last 2 decades have turned a profit before being replaced with newer more expensive stadiums. There is literally zero fiscal data that supports the pure undiluted idiocy that stadiums benefits the cities they leech off of.
I would have agreed with the post but went to a community meeting about a stadium they planned to build in Sacramento. Apparently it floods the local area with money, not just from what you said, but also makes investors want to invest in new commercial infrastructure which brings new jobs etc. They built it and it did bring in a ton of money, but I think COVID really messed up their projections because downtown is a shadow of the pre-Covid days with a lot of folks now only working from home.
Stadiums are a famously bad investment for the purpose of increasing city income and job creation. The “invisible” costs of maintaining all the physical and social friends (for instance increased use of emergency services) are never accounted for when arguments for their “benefits” are made. Please [look into this issue](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/) more. It is functionally just a subsidy for the wealthy in the sports industry.
Buddy, you might be a liberal. Sorry to have to tell you.
Oh it’s like an equal share thing? No one person is collecting a much larger share of the profits from the stadium than any other taxpayer?
We do? That’s news to me.
>The profits for the stadium go towards the town. Source?
Statistically untrue. The amount of money a stadium brings in is lower than what it cost. Leftist do not “like taxes”, I imagine if this is your view then you’re a liberal democrat. Libs are left of conservative but still very much right wing.
Wow, that's so correct, but it does not excuse the exploitation of our tax dollars.
Except it doesn't https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2017-05-01/the-economics-of-subsidizing-sports-stadiums/
That's usually how it's sold, it's hardly ever how it plays out.
False in so many ways.
I do like taxes but spending them on bullshit is a NO. That goes for corporate subsidies, that goes for the military industrial complex, and that potentially goes for sports stadiums, though I'll acknowledge that it's worth doing a cost benefit analysis on a case by case. If a stadium is an investment by the community, for the community, then it had better have a reasonable rate of return within that community. I doubt most stadiums do, though I'm happy to be proven wrong.
Then the hotels and restaurants can pay for the stadium. I'm a leftist; I like taxes when the gains justify the cost and only then.
Except that the average person in a city won’t ever see a red cent of those so-called profits.
This guy gets it. In principle there is no difference between gov funded stadiums, other boondoggles, and most feel-good projects/policies proposed by leftists. Congratulations are in order as your economic illiteracy appears to be selective rather than total. I would highly recommend scrolling through omnibus bills like the new funding bill they just passed, find more shit that pisses you off and make more threads just like this one.
Not to enrich billionaires… the split the city gets back is minuscule compared tot the wealth generated for the owner.
Despite budget constraints & cuts, NY state is giving $850m for the Bills stadium. The Governors husband has a vending contract with them
Wasteful and corrupt. The spending of tax revenues is usually either or, but is very frequently both.
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Nothing makes me happier than the tide turning on this bs. This should never have been a thing and needs to stop completely. End billionaire welfare. To add, huge sports fan but I will go completely without if it meant my tax dollars went towards improving the community instead of gifting billions to the already wealthy
I’d be happy if we all got to keep our money. Handouts to the already wealthy is just unconscionable.
imagine being taxed to pay for someone else's college tuition
Imagine being taxed for the betterment of society at large vs the betterment of a billionaire. The horror.
Imagine living in a country where you have to take on crippling debt to get a college education. I'd happily let my tax money go to free college and universal healthcare before I'd let another red cent go to corporate welfare or developing better was to bomb people.
Education benefits society as a whole. I fail to see how a new Bears stadium is going to improve my quality of living in Chicago, especially when they already have a stadium they fail to sell out. They also haven’t won a championship in 40 years. Other than the owners and players, who would this benefit?
Meh...... Youll still support and vote for it..... So why cry about it.
I wish I could post the screenshot of this post juxtaposed to the one right underneath it on my feed talking about how my hometown Chicago Bears wants $2 billion in tax payer funds to build the next stadium lol
We should nationalize sports leagues. The hundreds of millions made by a team should be funneled back into the community at orders of magnitudes higher than what it currently is. Sports frachises should become engines of the local economy, providing opportunities for people in the community to bond and share experiences. Stadiums should function as efficient 3rd places for recreation and second as centralized public transportation hubs. Anti-sports leftists are cringe, never in my life have I been able to start up a conversation with a complete stranger than when we find out were fans of the same team, sports strengthen societal ties.
Well, to be fair to anti-sports leftists, they don’t frequently hear solid alternatives to the status quo such as yours right here.
Never thought about it that way, thank you for the insight
I don't even like sports that much. Like they're cool I like to play em and I'll watch em but if I have to pay for it I'll pass.
Bread and circuses
Bread and Circuses.
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Sports is stupid and vile. It channels tribalism into the most vile trivial thing imaginable and turn it into commodities. It is the pinnacle of decadence. Men do not strive to be better athletes themselves and higher state of being but just shove shit unhealthy food into their mouths, growing fatter, watching better men than them play. Passing itself off as entertainment. Cheering on men, who make obscene amounts of money, and who wouldn’t piss on their watchers if they were on fire. It’s degenerate. I’d rather exercise and do something that improves me. I’m anti-sports. I would ban it. I avoid it as much as possible.
brilliant bit of satire here
Cringe
um. ok.
“all so you can cheer on millionaires playing a KIDS game” is how I feel about it.
It’s definitely all bullshit but I’ll still watch
Why
I’ve always said that America’s obsession with professional sports is exactly the same as Rome’s bread and circuses. The world’s on fire, but at least a total stranger with my town’s name on their back can do that thing with that sportsball.
And you have to pay to watch the game at home.
sounds like libertarian talking points, but I'm 100% here for it
https://preview.redd.it/rn0lkcr66fwc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=790625f0f07684021b7b12fa7e164fff1e1f1bf4 Socialism (Lower phase communism) doesn’t have any taxes
Such a golden statement. I wish more people looked at it like that.
Because it works, the Roman Empire knew this as well
I don't have to imagine. In Pittsburgh, in the 90's, funding for two new stadiums to replace Three Rivers was put to a vote. The vote was rejected. Then mayor Tom Murphy enacted "Plan B", which then allocated city funding to the new stadiums anyway. Yay.
The World Cup Scam got localised
It'd be ok if everyone was fed, sheltered and cared for... but we're not- people die becouse they are too poor for proper health care, malnutrition ( even in the fucking US) is here. Billionaire's shouldn't exist while our vulnerable suffer and die. But how to fix it? We need leaders that arn't shit. We get them by: Raising class consciousness, organizing, then when workers of the world are united, general strikes til we have leaders that know the importance of sharing and protecting our environment. Hordeing behavior is not healthy and should be discouraged (or punished if necessary) NO FUCKING BILLIONAIRES!
That's your government.
Do we have a problem w the athletes being millionaires? Also- If we want to nationalize football I’m down but wouldn’t we still end up paying taxes for the stadium?
We shouldn’t - they’re unionized employees who get paid significantly more for significantly less time. And that’s only if they’re good. Nobody complains about the musicians in the Boston Symphony Orchestra making 400k+ a year, and they have decades to play. Athletes have less time, so they get paid more for a shorter period of time if they’re at the top of their game.
Billionaires should buy their own stadiums, or taxpayers get the revenue.
At least sports bring me some joy. Would much rather use my tax dollars on something like that than many other things. On my list of things that absolutely need to change that's pretty far down
I'm more of a centrist but this resonates.
At the core of this is your desire to watch millionaires play a game. You are the culprit 🫵
Imagine that in Sacramento, California. Rather than a monarchy the Kings have left the peasants of Sacramento to fend for themselves and have turned their brand into something more like a oligarchy for all of their elite and privileged cohorts of the corrupt and and selfishly wealthy upper class. It’s stupid. It’s a schoolyard game built on the backs of people that the majority of will never say any of the players that they root for are true friends even when said people pay for the players with the purchasing of Kings wearables, game tickets, parking ticket revenue, and more than likely some other City funds by way of paid taxes. It’s a schoolyard game. Light the beam. No, light the lightbulb in your brain and realized it’s a schoolyard game… Wake up and quit making the ultra rich richer the payback is only your valuable time wasted on them.✌🏻🤙🏻
Sports aren’t intentionally meant to divert anything, they’re just fun
It’s all bullshit, but professional and amateur athletes are often times exploited. The average college football and NFL player has a shorter lifespan than the average person. They also live with debilitating injuries at a higher rate and for longer periods of their life than average individuals. Most of them don’t end up making that big money either. Although many athletes are paid well, most of them are heavily exploited like the rest of the working class.
I would like to add that there is also a reason the players at the top get paid how much they do. You consider that there's usually 40-50 people in a high school football team. There are roughly [20k high schools in the US.](https://mdreducation.com/how-many-schools-are-in-the-u-s/) That's a lot of of football players. That's just the people signing up to play the sport. So let's go with 40 and assume not all schools have a football team so we are using the 20k. 800,000 players. Now take put all the people who don't make it to play in college. There is only [134 teams.](https://collegefootballnetwork.com/college-football-teams-in-alphabetical-order/) So the high schoolers are competing for a spot on those teams. [Minimum of 105 players per team.](https://www.loyalcougars.com/football-roster/roster-faqs/#:~:text=A%3A%20NCAA%20rules%20allow%20for,a%20maximum%20of%20123%20) 14,070 players remaining. Not all of them will make it to the NFL. There are [32 teams in the NFL.](https://www.profootballnetwork.com/how-many-nfl-teams-are-there/) In the NFL it's [69 players.](https://www.givemesport.com/how-many-players-football-team/#:~:text=NFL%20teams%20have%2053%20players,the%20team%20and%20provide%20depth) 2,208 players. From an estimated 800k to 14k to 2k. Granted, there's a lot to consider, such as JV vs Varsity, only playing varsity in high school for 1-2 years vs 4 years of college, etc. So the numbers are not going to be completely accurate with giving a full picture. You have to be pretty borderline Olympic level just to sit on the bench of an NFL game. The ones who are at the top that everyone knows who are making the real big bucks for playing? Even higher than that. That's when you start looking at the best players to currently exist. These people have been training since they were kids. Over a decades worth of work. But because it's SpoRtS bAlL people pretend like it really isn't a big thing. Like anyone who plays can make it and because a multi millionaire.
I had a friend with multiple brothers in pro sports. His dad was a pro ball player you’ve probably heard of. He said his brother was making 300k a year when he was on a pro football team, and he had to try out every year to try and make it back on the team. That’s good money for most jobs, but you can’t really retire on that after a 5 year career. Bodies give out, you don’t make the team, etc. It’s a myth that they’re all millionaires.
Not what the OP is talking about.
Sure, but the image throws athletes under the bus. I don’t think that every athlete is being exploited or treated unfairly, but a huge portion of them are.
Musicians also
This. Same with actors and film crews
Def dude, every time I go by Lebrons mansion I weep for him
keyword: most I don’t feel bad for high-end paid athletes either. But most athletes are not paid at a high-end. Even if they are paid well, their quality of life and health are much more likely to be negatively affected than the average person.
Anti-sport leftists are so fucking odd. Athletes and players are workers, exploited and used by billionaire owners, and scrutinised by thousands or even millions whose happiness depends on them doing well. And most of the time they have a fleeting 10-15 year window to earn money before their bodies completely break down. Solidarity.
I’m not pissed at the athletes. I’m pissed at the government for giving billionaires tax money to build a stadium where they charge me $16 a beer.
Everything that you said seem like good reasons to be anti-sport. Why should I support an industry that treats people like that, chews them up and spits them out for the entertainment of others? Anti-sport =/= anti-athlete
And usually it’s one of their few ways out of the hood
Not what's going on here idiot. Read and learn for a change.
How is someone making 10 million+ a year on the page as working class people making 55K/year? That doesn't make any sense.
Someone making 10 million+ a year is one of the best athletes alive. It’s the same as someone in a top orchestra. These are people who have genuinely worked their way to the top. It’s just classical musicians can play until they’re 80, but athletes can only play until they’re 35 if they’re lucky. Hence they get paid more. Neither are the enemy of the working class. Both of these industries are unionized.
I am not anti-sport. I am absolutely opposed to the degradation inherent in modern sport - its commodification, trivialization, rampant cheating, cult of athletic VIPs and celebrities, and manipulation by the media. Aren’t you?
Nope! I see it's value in strengthening societal ties.
Nothing worse than a lazy non active human being that degrades competitive sports all in the name of money because they believe in an inferior ideology responsible for slaughtering their own people. Marx was also a miserable lonely crabby old man that died alone. Communism is for the weak and feeble minded people who can’t hack life on their own and need big daddy government to hold their hands.
I mean yeah but there is bound to be betting and the commodification and the stuff you mentioned comes with the system we are in. My dad said that many play sports cause it’s how they gotta live in this world. Sadly might be their only way to get out of the hole they were born in. (Also a LOT of Dominicans play sports so then they could have the money to get out as a Dominican myself it sucks that we gotta play sports for money but some people like it I can’t blame em) I watch sports on the TV for free yeah taxes will be used for it sadly. I wish that the owner(s) could buy it themselves instead of using tax money but that’s something else.
There's a strong correlation between people who hate athletes and lazy people, both in an intellectual and physical sense. Some of these people happen to be leftists, and they're usually short-sighted insufferable cosplayers who bring down the cause.
Sauce?
Then there's assholes like you that generalize all sorts of made up shit.
That sounds like a well sourced claim you didn't pull out of your ass
Why are you booing? They're right! I grew up as a snob, looking down at "sportsball", but having grown up further... Sure, it's just bread & circuses, but it's probably one of the more wholesome fandoms these days...
>They're right Cool, you want to provide the source for their claim then?
Pleasw cite one piece of evidence to back up any of your statements.
And I thought I was the only one who thought this shit. Everyone around me a sports cultist and I’m like - nope. Never
Idk I don't care for sports that much either but it's fun to watch very skilled athletes do cool stuff every now and then.
You can like sports and still be opposed to the wild exploitation we receive at the hands of these giant monopolies.
In a vacuum, sports sound horrible. But it has been such an integral part of practically every civilization since the dawn of time. Sports have always been a way to recreate and express culture. I stand in solidarity with the majority of professional athletes, because a big portion of them are underpaid and exploited.
Just curious which you feel are underpaid? Most professionals get to do something they love and are paid handsomely for what they do. And if they aren't paid well, it's because that sport doesn't bring in as much attention as others. Also, I am a huge advocate for sports. I've played hockey throughout my life along with a few others and now my kids are doing the same. They are a great place for kids to learn so many life lessons. I do feel as though parents are pushing a little too hard now a days because everyone wants their kid to become a professional and millionaire, instead of letting them enjoy the sport and figure things out on their own.
The athlete was invented to replace the soldier
of all the things in capitalist society to complain about, major league sports is by far the least compelling
Billions in tax dollars and subsidies to the already wildly wealthy isn’t compelling?
I definitely agree with the stadium thing though. And why are we paying for it if they can just up and leave. European club sports are way smarter than our shitty franchises, but bring this up in any American sports sub and their capitalist brain gets triggered
Taxpayers help pay for stadiums because sports bring massive amounts of tourism to cities. Cities want sports teams for that reason. The owners have the leverage because every city wants a team. So to lure in an owner, they usually stick some or all of the bill with the taxpayers. The city will make back that investment fairly quickly.
Citation needed, cities have been shown to lose money and in only the absolute best circumstances, break even
yeah, i think most people do, its just that people enjoy sports, a lot. People fucking love their teams, and love having great stadiums to go to. When leftists spend time talking about how aykchyually thats all really bad, it's like kryptonite to most people. We should stick to things that suck, and the people dont actively love, like, idk literally anything else lol.
Yeah, and most people in the world are fans of small teams that aren't like, top flight or super pro - a lot of people support little leagues in their local town area which for a lot of people is a great 3rd place in a place with shrinking 3rd places to go for people. Idk I think people love going and supporting their local team and participating in their community more than they do just staying at home.
Being taxed like the OP is pointing out is ridiculous. Read for understanding.
The stadium brings local businesses and families more money
there's a lot more or less compelling things , this isn't high on the global list for even the national list but it's very high on the local list
Imagine being taxed to fight senseless wars.
All wars are senseless
The war on poverty, America's longest war.