Abstract
Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love is a timely book with the recent financial crisis, triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States, which resulted in a lack of investor confidence, tightening of credit, and the slowing of economies worldwide. This collection of case studies examine how professional sports teams in North America are weathering the storm of the changing financial climate. Dave Zirin, a sports editor of The Nation magazine and sports radio host on Sirius/XM satellite radio, uses case studies involving the owners of professional sports teams as well as accounts from fan and media sources to provide examples in support of his opinion that the team owners are ruining professional sports. The book addresses many hotly debated topics such as publicly funded stadiums, ticket prices, and athletes’ salaries, all of which have become highlighted by the financial crisis in North America. The author attempts to demonstrate that the present team owners as well as the structures of ownership within modern North American professional sports leagues have become increasingly focused on profit margins. The author encourages fans to take a stand by voicing their opinions about the current state of professional sport to prevent any further financial exploitation of players, taxpayers and themselves, by the owners’ pursuit of bigger profit margins. Bad Sports could serve as a bridge between discussions of past and present professional sports practices and discussions of sustainability for future generations. Die-hard fans of a particular sports team may be aware of some of the backroom politics, such as the lobbying of government officials and politicians participation in opening game ceremonies, which are presented in the book, but most sports fans may be unaware and enlightened by the information Zirin presents. Zirin challenges the reader and sports fans to revaluate their satisfaction in the value of their money for the quality of athlete performance in addition to the league structures, policies and practices of modern-day sports.
The book consists of 15 different case studies, consisting of a mixture of individual teams, team owners and political issues, which constitute the individual chapters. Zirin uses historical data as well as interview data of fans and narratives of news events to examine the current ownership practices that occur within the realm of professional sports. The chapters in the book are relatively short and are tied together by four key themes: capitalism, commodification of athletes, power relations, and class divisions, each of which will be discussed throughout the review.
Intentional or otherwise, Zirin sheds light on hegemonic practices employed by professional team owners in order to achieve financial success. The first chapter examines the use of public funds to create new sports arenas and stadiums. Zirin is quick to point out that most team owners come from affluent families or have accrued wealth through their own business dealings. Zirin suggests that the owners should be paying for the venue, as it is the owners, not taxpayers, who benefit financially from them. After all, there has never been a publicly subsidized sports venue that has contributed to the economic and employment growth in the city in which it was built (Noll and Zimbalist, 1997). Using this example, Zirin, indicates that owners or the bourgeoisie, dominate and exploit the taxpayers or the proletariat for their own financial gain. Zirin continues this framework in chapter 7 while describing the manipulation of labor laws by Peter Angelos to designate the Orioles’ ballpark cleaning crew as day workers, allowing Angelos to pay them below the state’s minimum living wage.
In chapter 14 he provides an example of the exploitation and alienation of the athletes by the owners when he discusses the use of steroids by professional baseball players. Following the major league baseball strike in 1994, teams across the league experienced a significant decline in fan attendance at games. Players such as Barry Bonds, Mo Vaughan and Alex Rodriguez, started to increase their muscle mass and an increase in the number of home runs followed shortly thereafter. Zirin describes the encouragement players received from owners who saw an opportunity to utilize the players’ new talent in an effort to increase the fan base back to pre-strike levels, and in turn increase the owners’ profit margins. New advertising campaigns focusing on the players’ new athletic stature and increased athletic performance resulted in an increase in the owners’ revenue (Bryant, 2006). When the use of steroids hit the mainstream news, owners were quick to deflect blame onto the players and trainers. The owners exploited the players’ steroid use for the owners’ own financial gain and alienated themselves from the players when there was public outrage over the steroid usage.
Within the book, specific examples are given on how hegemonic practices such as class divisions, power relations, and creation of the dominant ideology surrounding sporting venues as a catalyst for economic development are reinforced and reproduced among professional sports team owners. In chapter 2, Zirin quickly points out that National Football League owners support a ‘blackout policy’, ‘where the teams that don’t sell out their home games ‘‘black out’’ the television broadcasts to local communities’ (Zirin, 2010: 29). In recent years, the escalating costs of going to a sporting event have prevented many working-class families from attending; thus, television blackouts (re)produce class separations. Zirin suggests that the owners have persuaded the general public that this is a fair restriction and therefore there has been no public outcry.
The issue of power relations are brought to the forefront in a number of different chapters, which discuss player strikes, and the use of replacement players. In these instances, the players are seen as a disposable commodity as was the case when Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, publicly threaten to make the replacement workers permanent (ESPN, 2005). Player trades due to salary disputes or personal grievances with owners are also discussed to demonstrate the disposability of players and the casual disregard owners’ show for their teams and their players’ talent. Zirin implies that owners use trades to remind players who is in charge and that they should tow the company line.
In chapter 3, Zirin acknowledges the owner’s participation in politics has assisted them in establishing the dominant ideology in North American society, which suggests building a new sporting venue, will fix social problems in that area. Despite pleas and protests by some taxpayer groups, many sporting venues get built without the majority of the citizens knowing how much money is being contributed or the source of the public funds. Taxpayers are lead to believe that the building of a new sporting venue will be beneficial to the local economy, which, as discussed above, is not the result. Politicians have been known to participate in opening ceremonies, such as dropping the puck or throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game in order to gain exposure and align themselves with a particular demographic in the community. Owners use these alliances and campaign donations to influence the politicians on issues such as tax breaks or pro-life initiatives (American Life League, 2004; Vogel and Lindsay, 2008). Zirin further supports his argument with respect to the owner’s influence of cultural ideology in chapter 4, using as an example George Steinbrenner’s support of patriotism. In one particular incident, Steinbrenner had a fan thrown out of Yankee stadium for going to the washroom during the singing of ‘God Bless America’ (New York Civil Liberties Union, 2009).
The book ends with Zirin’s own suggestions that sport fans can prevent the complete obliteration of their beloved sports teams. Zirin delivers a glimpse of hope for sport management with the description of the structure of the Green Bay Packers, a team owned by fans and run by volunteers. All profits are reinvested back into the team or within the community. Zirin exudes praise for the owners and management and suggests that all teams should use the Packers as their role model. However, as Zirin is quick to point out, it is impossible for this situation to occur within the National Football League as a result of changes to the league’s constitution, which coincided with the league’s implementation of revenue sharing among teams.
Zirin presents himself as extremely biased against team owners. He chooses strong examples to prove his point but also presents himself as hostile towards the owners. A weakness in Zirin’s stance is his limited view from the owners’ perspectives. Zirin acknowledges that he is unable to present the owners’ side because despite many attempts to contact them, he was unable to secure any interview with any owner of the professional teams who he contacted. Furthermore, there are few owner interviews in the public domain and those that do exist are limited in their content. However, it makes the reader wonder if the examples given are simply outliers and do not reflect all of the owners of professional teams. It is not until page 141 that the author acknowledges that there are owners who care about their teams and their fans. Nevertheless, the acknowledgement is limited to a paragraph.
Another limitation within the book is the lack of player input. Input from players or other personnel within the sporting organization would have provided more depth to Zirin’s case studies and presented a balance to his arguments which are critical of the owners. Although fan interviews are beneficial, support from those within the sporting community would create more of an impact. Although the particular cases highlighted within the book do an exceptional job of supporting Zirin’s thesis, there are times throughout the book in which his arguments are convoluted and Zirin presents himself as angry and bitter towards the owners. Furthermore, the majority of data used to support Zirin’s claims come from newspaper articles, annual reports and Internet websites. These types of sources may already present the information in a bias manner, which has the potential to skew his arguments. Zirin could have added strength and rigor to his point of view with more research data and peer-reviewed sources.
Overall, Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love can be used to start a discussion about not only the future of ownership in professional sports but also the structure and consumption of it. The book can serve as a reminder for the general public to question what is being presented to them and to avoid becoming a passive spectator. Zirin does a fine job of pointing out that professional sports have changed significantly from past generations and the general public needs to question the direction in which North American professional sports’ leagues are headed with their present stakeholders. Fans and the general public have the right to question the value of what they are getting for their money and whether the increasing commercialization of the leagues have helped or hindered their quality. Zirin’s book could serve as a basis for discussion on sport and power relations or the commercialization of sport within an undergraduate or graduate class at a university level.