Quote:
Originally Posted by spleen1015
I support them in any action they want to take as long as it is lawful.
I just don't know if it will make much difference. I don't know if the people who are the ones that can really do anything about it are willing to do anything about it.
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My issue with it is the complete lack of self-awareness by these players. Last year, the combined salaries of the NFL, NBA and MLB totaled $14.1 billion dollars. That's just one year and that is just player salaries, not total team or league revenues. Think of the difference that these monies could make if going to the proper places that need them.
While people think this is a police racial bias issue, the deeper issue is the socio-economic disparity that drives these encounters between those that are impoverished and police. Defunding the police is not the solution. Providing proper training and resources is needed and defunding will not do anything to address that.
Even more so however, if we truly want to address the root causes of these issues, we need to look at addressing funding towards education, health care, mental health, addictions, social services and a myriad of other issues that factor into the social marginalization of minorities.
Now imagine how far a large portion of that $14.1 billion would go every year in America towards helping to address these root causes? Think of how fucked up it as that only this small percentage of the population is able to earn this income, simply from winning the genetic lottery, both from a talent perspective and being born the correct sex. I could have dedicated my whole life towards playing in the NBA from the time I was two years old and still never would have come close.
Now I know that there are some counter-arguments here. The first being that it is simply players taking advantage of a free market and that they are simply being paid a portion of league revenues. Sure, but players have a ton of leverage here and if they REALLY believe in the cause, they can truly impact how these programs are funded through the next collective bargaining agreements.
Let's start with capping salaries at say $1 million per year, which I think is a completely reasonable number. Even if we were to make a flat salary of $1 million per year for every player, that equates to only $1.8 billion. We are still talking over $12 billion towards social programs. That's only the start of it. Demand that owners cough up a significant portion of these income towards these programs. We could arguably double that $12 billion and that number is probably going to fall somewhere closer to $20-$24 billion. Imagine the change that would make.
If players aren't willing to go that route, we should demand more as fans. Player salaries are generally driven by revenues, which include TV contracts (themselves driven by how much advertising revenue companies will pay), ticket sales, etc.
IF society as a whole TRULY cares about change, let's speak with our dollar. We need to stop supporting sports, movies, video games, etc. We also need to stop the consumer driven accumulation of goods which drives this class divide. Refuse to give your money to the NFL, NBA, etc. Refuse to go to movies. Refuse to buy a new Ford, Honda, etc. And then on top of that, take that money and give it to charitable programs to support education, mental health, addiction, etc.
Essentially force fund these programs through professional sport or stop supporting sports, entertainment, etc. and take the money that you save from there and directly fund social programs.
As an aside, this isn't even getting into taxpayer funded stadiums (or sponsorship money players receive). Should we defund the Atlanta police because of the shooting of Rayshard Brooks? Or should we ask, instead of spending $700 million towards the building a new stadium wouldn't it have been better to have spent that money on programs that needed them?
None of this will happen of course. Players do not care enough about change to push this agenda nor do the Twitter warriors, Black Lives Matters protesters or anyone else for that matter.