On Thursday, SportsFans.org Exectutive Director Brian Frederick and Board Member Dave Zirin discussed the NFL lockout and what fans can do on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show. Be sure to sign the petition and tell your friends!

Check out the video here.

On Wednesday, Kansas City Star columnist Sam Mellinger wondered what the Royals would be like if Mark Cuban owned the team instead of David Glass. Mellinger rightly criticized Glass’ handling of the club over the last 10 years, but argued that Glass had made strides in recent years to improve the club. Even if that is true, there’s a more important question that should be asked.

Forget about Mark Cuban or any other wealthy owner. What if the people of Kansas City owned the Royals?

Initial reactions to this question probably range from “Hell, yeah, let’s run David Glass out of town on a rail” to “That sounds like socialism to me.” To be clear, we are a long way from the day when cities can actually buy the teams they love. And if you’re concerned about socialism, it’s already occurring in baseball – it’s just benefiting David Glass and the other owners. These owners get massive tax dollars to build and renovate stadiums that only end up making them richer.

As Dave Zirin, author of Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love, explains it, the current ownership system “socializes the debt of sports while privatizing the profits.”

Just look at baseball’s antitrust exemption, which allows only the current baseball owners to monopolize the baseball market.

And if a city ever did try to buy a team, the owners would prevent it, even if the city offered the most money. How’s that for the triumph of capitalism?

But let’s consider for a minute, however, that it was possible for the people of Kansas City to buy the Royals.

Glass purchased the Royals for $96 million in 2000. The franchise is now estimated by Forbes to be worth $341 million, making it the 24^th most valuable franchise out of 30.

Now, it’s clear that the franchise is not worth three times as much 10 years later because of anything that’s happened on the field.

As Forbes put it, and everybody else knows, “Few franchises have squandered the fortune they have gotten from baseball’s revenue sharing system as much as the Royals.”

The team is worth a lot more now, in part, because of the $250 million in renovations to Kauffman Stadium. Those renovations were not paid for by all of Kansas City, but by the people of Jackson County.

But here’s the thing – at the time Jackson County voters approved a sales tax increase to pay for the renovations, the franchise was only estimated to be worth $239 million.

Jackson County citizens could have just bought the Royals from Glass and saved money!

And if all of Kansas City had gotten behind such a purchase, they could have met any asking price from Glass.

Sure, Kauffman Stadium wouldn’t look as nice as it does now, but was it really vital to renovate the old stadium? Couldn’t Royals fans live without the new amenities if it meant getting rid of David Glass?

Of course, there is the matter of operating costs, but those could have been offset by money spent on the Sprint Center, which will likely never see a franchise.

And before you argue that new stadiums and new stadium renovations are good for the Kansas City economy, consider what Roger Noll, coauthor of Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums, wrote: “There’s never been a publicly subsidized stadium anywhere in the United States that had the effect of increasing employment and economic growth in the city in which it was built.”

Even if the Sprint Center did have a team, it wouldn’t necessarily be a net plus. Take a study published by the conservative Heartland Institute which found that “professional sports teams generally have no significant impact on a metropolitan economy.”

So if new stadiums and stadium renovations aren’t benefiting the Kansas City economy, what good are they? They’re simply good for further enriching Glass and keeping the team in Kansas City. It’s the same situation faced by sports fans from San Francisco to New York. Build a new stadium (or massively renovate the old one) or lose your team.

It’s time for sports fans to fight back.

Imagine a Kansas City-owned Royals team. The revenues from the club would go back into the community. The team would never be in danger of being hijacked by an owner looking only at his bottom line. And the city could spend as much as it wanted to build a winning team.

A team of the people and for the people.

It’s not that hard to imagine – this is exactly what happens with the Green Bay Packers.  There are more than 100,000 people who own shares of the Packers. And they couldn’t be happier.

Imagine feeling such a sense of optimism about the Royals and their future again.

Kansas City may have missed a chance to buyout David Glass this time, but don’t worry, it won’t be long before he demands more renovations or a downtown stadium.

By then, sports fans need to be ready to trade him away.

–

Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. His favorite teams are the Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and whichever team his brother is coaching for. And the underdog. Email him at sportsfanscoalition@gmail.com

Join your fellow SFC members tonight @ 6:30pm in DC at Politics & Prose for sportswriter and SFC board member Dave Zirin’s BAD SPORTS book reading.

CSPAN Book TV will be on hand taping the event.

Let’s fill up the seats and take back sports from the powers that be!

Buy the book here.

Attend a BAD SPORTS book event in your city.  Check out the book tour page here.

WHERE: Politics & Prose (Connecticut & Nebraska Avenues)

WHEN: 6:30pm

RSVP on FB here.

Join us in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, July 28th @ 6:30pm for the book release party of BAD SPORTS: How Owners Are Ruining The Games We Love by Dave Zirin. The event brought to you by Sports Fans Coalition and Busboys & Poets offers free food and a talk by sports writer and SFC board member Dave Zirin.

Here are all the details:

EVENT: BAD SPORTS Book Release Party

DATE: 7/28/10

TIME: 6:30pm

LOCATION: Busboys & Poets

ADDRESS: 14th & V St. NW DC (2021 14th St NW)

WHAT: Free Food, Conversation, and Entertainment

WEB: www.busboysandpoets.com/events.php

FACEBOOK: Event Page

EMAIL: Jeremiah@SportsFansCoalition.org

PHONE: 202-674-0775

MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE BOOK:

Hailed as the “conscience of American sports writing” (The Washington Post), Dave Zirin  has written an explosive call-to-arms that details the increasing power and influence of professional sports and the dictatorial team owners who keep fans, and hometowns, at their mercy. BAD SPORTS (on sale from Scribner on July 20) is a hard-hitting and trenchant look at the politics of sports, from an astute and thought-provoking young sportswriter. Join Dave Zirin as he discusses the new book, and hear why he already has so many fans cheering.

“Zirin puts the politics back in sports and makes good sport of the politics. Even if you don’t know the difference between March Madness and Spring Break, read this book: it’s an original and scathing look at how America works.”

—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine

“The only thing I like better than pitchers who throw hard, are writers who do the same. In Bad Sports, Dave Zirin does exactly that. No curve balls, no changeups, just fastball after fastball under the chins of owners who say they love sports but make decisions based on profits for profit, the hell with the fans or the quality of the game. Bad Sports doesn’t ask for accountability, it demands it.”

—Howard Bryant, author of The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

“Every owners nightmare just came to life. Bad Sports is the book that all owners, general managers, presidents and CEO’s of professional sports franchises prayed would never be written. Brilliantly blatant, Dave Zirin separates scandal and innuendo from truth and moral ineptness. Bad Sports proves that although wealthy men in suits may own franchises, they don’t own the game.

—Scoop Jackson, ESPN

“Hard-hitting, fun, ironic and informative, Dave Zirin’s Bad Sports is a riveting look at sports ownership in our time. Zirin takes on the owners in a way only he can and makes you think about sports in a way you never have. This book makes you laugh and it makes you cry, sometimes in the same paragraph.”

—Christine Brennan, USA Today sports columnist, author of Inside Edge and Best Seat in the House

“The smartest and gutsiest sportswriter in America has just written the smartest and gutsiest book about sports – and about America.”

—Robert Lipsyte

“Dave Zirin is Bringing The Noise once more with his expose on the modern day tyranny that has turned athletic entertainment into ‘Gross’ National Product. Dave Z is irreplaceable. He’s the sports world Geiger counter, exposing the truth and protecting the fan from first, second, and third degree burns.”

—Chuck D, Public Enemy

“This book is a critical account of how rapacious owners are leaching the fun out of sports and how we, the beleaguered fans, can take back the games we love.”
—Katrina vanden Heuvel; Editor, The Nation

“As Dave Zirin says to fans of corporatized sports teams—“There is a time to cheer and a time to seethe.” Zirin seethes and sometimes applauds with facts and true stories. It’s more exciting reading Bad Sports than 95% of the games I’ve watched.”

—Ralph Nader

One of the most powerful people in sports, DeMaurice Smith, joined SFC board member Dave Zirin in studio on his Sirius XM Radio show for a conversation about what’s in store for NFL fans come 2011. It was not an optimistic response delivered by the NFL Players Association Executive Director when Zirin asked if the owners are willing to make concessions in order to negotiate a new CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement).

A telling moment occurred when Dave Zirin’s co-host, NBA center Etan Thomas, asked Smith how he is handling the misinformation campaign which suggests that the players will strike rather than the reality that NFL owners are on the verge of deciding to lock out players from participating in the games they want to play.

Note: The owners stand to make $4 billion from their TV contract even without actual games on the field. This kind of hijinx is awfully reminiscent of the BCS payouts for bit players milking the cash cow, but I digress.

The truth is that the players are willing to negotiate while the owners only care about the fans to the extent that they want to keep secure the revenue streams already established from ticket sales, parking, merchandise, and concessions. It’s nice to know that a man of DeMaurice Smith’s stature recognizes that the fans are important.

Enough of the analysis of the conversation. Listen to it here.