When Vince Lombardi was coach and general manager of the Green Bay Packers, he sat at a card table with a cardboard name plate and when the Packers’ number came up he picked Donnie Anderson.
Those were the days when men were men. Now, the draft has become like an awards show. It’s… let me search for just the right word here… stupid.
But I guess the NFL has found yet another profit center and a way to keep interest in its sport year round when we should all be focussed on baseball. Fine. Swell. Stupid. But whatever.
Here’s what makes absolutely no sense. The NFL is a billion dollar industry. So, why is the state kicking in $2 million in taxpayer money to help pay for their party? The state budget includes that money to help pay for… something. It’s unclear exactly what.
On top of that, Green Bay area legislators want us to kick in another $1.25 million to pay for police costs related to the event. Wait a minute. I don’t know how they do it in Green Bay, but if you need police in Madison to, say, manage traffic for a charity run/walk, you get a bill from the city. So, if charities need to pay, why on earth should the NFL get subsidized by the taxpayers?
Of course, this is peanuts compared to the extortion that the governor and legislature caved to from the Milwaukee Brewers. Taxpayers got stuck with a half billion dollars in renovations to American Family Field. The Brewers were never asked why they needed the money, why the billionaire owners, who will benefit from a refurbished stadium, can’t do this on their own dime.
Pro sports is big business. That’s fine. If fans want to pay for tickets and pay for streaming services that’s their own business. But taxpayers shouldn’t be required to subsidize billionaires.
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Taxpayers subsidize billionaires, or just the very rich, in lots of ways. In every way the Republicans can make that happen, in fact. Musk got something like 400 billion. School vouchers are a huge transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. I could go on. Why should sports be any different.
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How are vouchers a transfer from the less well off to the well off? There are income limits. On the other hand, isn’t that true about paying off student debt, as the average college grad makes about $1.5 million more over a career than a high school graduate?
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Income limits? Where? So far as I know there are no income limits and the wealthy people who already send their kids to private school are the majority of those using the vouchers. I did not agree with paying off student debt. But you just made the case for why it’s not a bad idea to make sure everyone can get an education…..
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The income limits for a single parent with two children range from $45,000 to $61,000 depending on which of three programs you’re in. The incomes are adjusted for family size and marital status.
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Happy to see the crowd didn’t boo when they honored Steve McMichael last night. Or maybe they just muted the mics.
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in Wisconsin. For now. Who is actually using it?
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well, it was a glorious show, lots of ex Badgers and some former Packers, shocked to see Jerry Krammer in a wheel chair. he made one hell of a block on that cold December day, in 1967.
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