[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 3, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H399-H400]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1245
             INTRODUCTION OF GIVE FANS A CHANCE LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, during the 25 years that I have been

[[Page H400]]

privileged to work with communities across the country to help make 
them more livable, nothing has captured the imagination of the ordinary 
citizen more strongly than suggesting that our communities no longer be 
held hostage to the whims of billionaire sports team owners. The fact 
today is that a few dozen of America's richest people can decide for 
any reason at all that they are not making enough money, or they think 
they could make more money, or that they do not like the color of the 
stadium, or that perhaps they could squeeze more from the fans where 
they are by offering up the possibility that their team will be 
relocated somewhere else, perhaps to a town that some other owner has 
abandoned.
  The bidding war with threats, implied or explicit, for taxpayers and 
fans to cough up millions more in subsidies to a franchise is a fact of 
life for fans in more than half of America's metropolitan areas. It has 
been a sad spectacle that started in the 1950s when the profitable 
Brooklyn Dodgers and their compatriots, the New York Giants, both 
baseball teams, left for greener pastures in California. This has 
triggered a parade of franchise relocation, many times not because of a 
lack of fan support or financial support but simply because the owners 
felt they could get a better deal elsewhere. Witness the recent sad 
situation of the long-suffering fans in Cleveland, Ohio, who have been 
in that icebox of a stadium year in and year out to capacity and now 
the Browns are gone.
  The sad fact is that the Federal Government aids and abets this 
relocation process. It grants an antitrust broadcast exemption that 
makes franchises worth hundreds of millions of dollars and makes the 
leagues possible and extraordinarily profitable. The NFL alone in the 
most recent round of contract negotiations netted $17.5 billion.
  Still there is no stability for the American fan, and they continue 
to pay more for tickets, more for parking, more for taxes, more for 
seat licenses, more for concessions that make it less affordable, less 
comfortable for the community and ever more lucrative for the few who 
profit.
  It does not have to be this way. I have introduced the Give Fans a 
Chance Act which would require that leagues follow their stated rules 
on relocation and consider the community impact, actually involve the 
community in the decisionmaking process.
  My legislation would give local communities the opportunity, after 
this analysis takes place, to actually match a bid for a franchise that 
might otherwise be relocated. And, most important, it would not allow 
these professional sports leagues to have artificial restraints on who 
can own a team.
  The NFL, for example, has decreed there will be no more Green Bay 
Packers style community ownership. One has got to be a billionaire. 
Green Bay, Wisconsin, one thirty-fourth the size of Los Angeles, has 
one of the most successful franchises in professional sports, and it is 
owned by 1,950 shareholders. Little Green Bay, Wisconsin, does not have 
to worry that when they invest millions of dollars in their facilities, 
that somehow an owner is going to decide to relocate elsewhere, and it 
has made a profound difference in that community.
  The NFL and others argue that Green Bay is an aberration, a special 
case, that it cannot be replicated anywhere else, that people in other 
communities are not smart enough to figure this out. I disagree. I do 
not think Green Bay, as unique as that community is, is an aberration 
and a special case, and I think we ought to at least give other fans 
the same chance.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to support the Give Fans a Chance 
legislation. I strongly urge long-suffering sports fans to lend their 
voice. If the American people are heard, truly we will give the sports 
fans a chance.

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