[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16645-16646]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      THE WAR AGAINST SPORTS FANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. There is a drama being played out in the divorce and 
bankruptcy court with the McCourt family and the Los Angeles Dodgers. 
It's another chapter in the sad war against fans, the very people who 
make these multibillion-dollar enterprises possible in the first place.
  It's an all-too-familiar refrain. No city is exempt from the threat 
of bankruptcy or being held hostage by an owner threatening to move if 
their demands are not met. No one, that is, except the fans of the team 
that is arguably the most successful franchise in professional sports, 
the current Super Bowl champions, currently undefeated--and maybe the 
strongest team in the NFL this year--the Green Bay Packers.
  Packer fans will tell you they're unique: little Green Bay, 
Wisconsin, with only 104,000 people, a metropolitan area of less than a 
third of a million, the smallest sports media market in the United 
States, but arguably the most successful franchise.
  Green Bay is special perhaps for another reason: it's the only 
franchise in all of Major League sports that doesn't have to worry 
about some billionaire egomaniac running the franchise into the ground 
or being tired of it and selling it off to another city, or just the 
community being held hostage by obscene demands for even more revenue, 
more sacrifice from fans and the community.
  You know, that's been the fate. About one city a year since 1950 has 
had a franchise change, and many others have had the screws put to 
them. But the Green Bay Packers, are owned by 112,158 shareholders. 
Each shareholder is given voting rights in the franchise, and no 
shareholder can hold a controlling stake in the company. The Packers 
can raise funds for team expenses through prudent decision-making by 
the board of directors and by offering public shares.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, there is something to be said for the approach of 
the long-term success of the Green Bay Packers; but, sadly, the 
billionaires who run the NFL and other professional sport franchises 
have decided otherwise. All Major Leagues, formally or informally, 
prohibit public ownership. The NFL formally outlawed public ownership 
in 1961--the same year it

[[Page 16646]]

instituted a radical revenue-sharing policy--but grandfathered in Green 
Bay. Major League Baseball outlawed public ownership through an 
informal resolution passed in the mid-1980s when Joan Kroc sought to 
donate her baseball team, the Padres, to San Diego.
  Well, I think the sad record is that the billionaires are not always 
so brilliant; but they are long on money, political influence and ego, 
and they know a sweet deal when they've got it. The franchises to this 
point have been a ticket to even greater wealth in part because these 
franchises are part of a cartel that would be illegal in most other 
industries. Guaranteed massive profits, they're the only show in town. 
They often can threaten to pick up and move and of course witness some 
of these egregious stadium deals.
  I was just in Cincinnati earlier this week; and people there, whether 
they're conservative, liberal, Democrats or Republicans, are still 
holding their heads about being saddled with an egregious contract for 
a recent new stadium that put all the revenue upside in the pockets of 
the owner.
  George Steinbrenner recently passed away. He was a wealthy man to 
begin with from a family business, but he became a billionaire based on 
his Yankee empire and his ability to further enrich himself as a 
result, in part, of the construction of a brand new Yankee Stadium that 
not only cost an astronomical sum for the taxpayers of New York, but 
further inflated the value of his ownership of the Yankees.

                              {time}  1010

  There have been critical appraisals that have suggested that it would 
have been cheaper for New York to simply buy the New York Yankees 
outright for the value of the team than submit to the outrageous 
demands from Steinbrenner to keep them there.
  Well, the gravy train is fueled by another source of revenue; not 
only having communities and fans over a barrel, but they have an 
antitrust exemption that enables them to negotiate lucrative television 
contracts worth billions of dollars. For instance, the current NFL 
contract worth $3 billion a year to go with the $6 billion that has 
been pried out of locals for stadium deals and parking.
  Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to look at legislation 
Congresswoman Hahn and I will be introducing today. Give fans a chance. 
It's time to do that, to broaden the ownership options, allow democracy 
and the free enterprise system to work.

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