Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down
226
Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down
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Overview
Sportscaster Howard Cosell dubbed it “rule number one of the jockocracy”: sports and politics just don’t mix. But in truth, some of our most important debates about class, race, religion, sex, and the raw quest for political power are played out both on and off the field. From the NFL lockout and the role of soccer in the Arab Spring to the Penn State sexual abuse scandals and Tim Tebow’s on-field genuflections, this timely and hard-hitting new book from the “conscience of American sports writing” offers new insights and analysis of headline-grabbing sports controversies (The Washington Post).
It explores the shady side of the NCAA; the explosive 2011 MLB All-Star Game; and why the Dodgers crashed and burned. It covers the fascinating struggles of gay and lesbian athletes to gain acceptance, female athletes to be more than sex symbols, and athletes everywhere to assert their collective bargaining rights as union members. Dave Zirin also illustrates the ways that athletes are once again using their exalted platforms to speak out and reclaim sports from the corporate interests that have taken it hostage. In Game Over, he cheers the victories—but also reflects on how far we have yet to go.
“A book that no thinking sports fan can afford to miss.” —Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781595588425 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New Press, The |
| Publication date: | 07/19/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 226 |
| Sales rank: | 614,020 |
| File size: | 518 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Occupy the Sports World
The year 2011 was defined by revolutions in the Middle East and radical Occupy movements across the globe. While "the Protester" stole the cover of Time magazine as its "Person of the Year," the sports world was experiencing a level of political and economic upheaval the likes of which we haven't seen in more than four decades. In 1968, as war, violence, and revolt gripped the world, currents of social and political change found an unmistakable echo in the world of sports. The year 1968 saw Muhammad Ali — banned from boxing and out on appeal after receiving a five-year prison sentence for avoiding the draft — give two hundred speeches on college campuses and proclaim to his audiences, "Keep asking me how long on Vietnam I sing this song, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong." It saw the greatest stars, like Bill Russell, Jim Brown, and Lew Alcindor, embrace politics without shame. And if there was one moment that crystallized not only 1968 but an entire era of resistance against war and racism, it was when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists to the sky and brought the revolt to the most unlikely of places: the Olympic Games. Bill Russell said after their medal-stand protest that his only problem with their actions was that he didn't think of it first.
Just as in 1968, the spirit of radical change shaped 2011. A wave of revolutions and revolts were felt from the Middle East to the Midwest. This was the year of #Occupy, and nothing is the same as it was before. And, just as in 1968, this spirit has reverberated in the world of sports.
2011 saw owners lock out their players in the National Football League and National Basketball Association. While both were painted by the media as a struggle "between billionaires and millionaires," something deeper was taking place. Both were triggered because of attempts by owners to shift the burden of their leagues' economic crisis onto their players, making them pay for the poor decisions and planning of those at the top. This is essentially the same dynamic that pushed protesters into the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, London, and Madison, Wisconsin. Both sports lockouts also resulted in very different outcomes, the result, I will argue, of the two groups' drastically different approaches to the broader social movements that are defining this moment in time.
But the year's dazzling collisions of sports and politics were foretold in January, when the Green Bay Packers won the 2011 Super Bowl. In a thrilling game, during which the Packers beat the Steelers 31–25 behind a three-hundred-yard performance by Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, the show's announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman made a brazen decision: not once did they mention the Packers' unique ownership structure. Often, the Super Bowl includes shots of the two teams' owners fretting like neurotic Julius Caesars in their luxury boxes. But the Packers are a community-run nonprofit, owned in 2011 by each and every one of 112,000 fans. This state of affairs provides peculiar advantages no other NFL team shares. The Packers can never be moved to another city. Their stadium, Lambeau Field, will never be torn down and replaced with a 1.5-billion-dollar monument to corporate welfare. They give 60 percent of their concession profits to local charities. When they need a cash infusion, they sell more stock instead of passing on the tax burden wholesale onto the entire populace. And, perhaps most importantly in Wisconsin, beer prices at Lambeau Field stand at roughly half of that at the average stadium. Rather than celebrate these facts, Fox buried them.
With the NFL lockout looming, however, this was hardly surprising. After all, the team from Green Bay stands as a living, breathing example that if you take the profit motive out of sports, you can get more than a team to be proud of: you get a Super Bowl champion. They demonstrate that pro-sports owners are about as superfluous and outdated as having your own Betamax. There are more than a few fans in more than a few cities who would pony up for some stock shares if it meant that they wouldn't be held up for a publicly funded stadium, wouldn't have to worry about the team's leaving town, or were assured that their team's owner would be sent packing, leaving sports decisions to those who actually know something about sports and don't think their paycheck and years of watching television have made them into an expert. (Looking at you, Dan Snyder.)
If the broadcast did not mention Green Bay's unique ownership structure, the people of Wisconsin celebrated it with gusto following their Super Bowl triumph. When Packers head coach Mike McCarthy rallied in front of thousands of Cheeseheads back home in Wisconsin, the Lombardi Trophy in hand, he said, "We're a community-owned football team, so you can see all the fingerprints on our trophy." When Republican governor Scott Walker, at the time recently elected, took the stage after McCarthy, he was audibly booed. But this didn't stop Walker from bathing himself in the team's triumph, slathering himself in their glory. When Walker publicly declared that February was now to be Packers Month, he oozed praise for the franchise, saying, "I congratulate their unprecedented success, and I enthusiastically commend this observance to all citizens."
Just days later, Walker unveiled plans to strip all public workers of collective bargaining rights and dramatically slash the wages and health benefits of every nurse, teacher, and state employee. Then, in advance of any debate over his proposal, Walker warned that the Wisconsin National Guard would be "prepared" to meet any resistance with "whatever the governor, their commander-in-chief, might call for." Considering that the state of Wisconsin had not called in the National Guard since 1886, these bizarre threats did more than raise polite, Midwestern eyebrows. They provoked rage.
Robin Eckstein, a former Wisconsin National Guard member, told the Huffington Post, "Maybe the new governor doesn't understand yet — but the National Guard is not his own personal intimidation force to be mobilized to quash political dissent."
I was in Madison the week when the marches started, and it was remarkable to see them mature from set-piece demonstrations to something as aggressive, grassroots, and intense as anything this country has seen in decades. The week started on Valentine's Day, when the teachers' union held professionally printed signs that read, "Governor Walker: Have a Heart!" I remember thinking that this, frankly, bordered on lame. But soon the students walked out of their classes and the teachers called in sick. The feeder marches followed, converging on the capitol from points all over Madison. I ran from one to another, floored by what felt like hundreds of thousands of people, ages six to sixty, loud and angry. A slew of signs referred explicitly to the events in the Middle East earlier that year: "If Egypt Can Have Democracy, Why Can't Wisconsin?," and "We Want Governors Not Dictators," and the pithy Mubarak nod: "Hosni Walker."
But what this stunned sportswriter, who has been to his share of demonstrations, found as striking as the amusing signage and angry chants was the sheer number of Packers jackets and hats. If the protesters had pooled their Packers gear, they could have outfitted Lambeau Field. (I grew up in New York City, and it's difficult to imagine a labor demonstration with masses of workers and students sporting Jets and Giants gear.) It wasn't just hats and jackets on that cold, mercifully snow-free week in February. There were signs on display that read, "Aaron Rodgers is a Union Rep and so am I" and "Scott Walker is a Bears fan." One banner read, "The Packers are run by the people. The Government is run by the rich." I spoke to one teacher who put it perfectly: "Wisconsin is a grassroots kind of state and the Packers are a grassroots team, owned by the fans. ... Standing for workers' rights is about being a Packers fan. They're one and the same. When we see Walker in a Packers jersey, it feels like an insult."
Fandom is often cited as something that draws energy away from positive struggle for social change. To see Packer Nation propelled by the unique situation of their ownership structure toward activism was remarkable all by itself. Besides, the fact of community ownership means that this is a team whose very existence is a threat not only to NFL owners, but also to the idea espoused by everyone, from Scott Walker to Mitt Romney to Paul Ryan, that the wealthy are untouchable "job creators" to whom we should tip our hat at every opportunity.
But the most extraordinary part of this display wasn't just the symbol of the Super Bowl–winning Packers in the streets of Madison; it was the Packers themselves. Then-current players Brady Poppinga and Jason Spitz and former Packers Curtis Fuller, Chris Jacke, Charles Jordan, Bob Long, and Steve Okoniewski issued the following statement at the height of the Madison demonstrations:
We know that it is teamwork on and off the field that makes the Packers and Wisconsin great. As a publicly owned team we wouldn't have been able to win the Super Bowl without the support of our fans. It is the same dedication of our public workers every day that makes Wisconsin run. They are the teachers, nurses, and child care workers who take care of us and our families. But now in an unprecedented political attack Governor Walker is trying to take away their right to have a voice and bargain at work. The right to negotiate wages and benefits is a fundamental underpinning of our middle class. When workers join together it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards. Wisconsin's long-standing tradition of allowing public sector workers to have a voice on the job has worked for the state since the 1930s. It has created greater consistency in the relationship between labor and management and a shared approach to public work. These public workers are Wisconsin's champions every single day and we urge the Governor and the State Legislature to not take away their rights.
Then, on February 15, NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith issued his own statement in support of state workers, writing, "The NFL Players Association will always support efforts protecting a worker's right to join a union and collectively bargain. Today, the NFLPA stands in solidarity with its organized labor brothers and sisters in Wisconsin."
Given that the NFLPA was facing a lockout of its own, the opportunity for solidarity was there to be seized. The following week, Charles Woodson, the only Packers player with the profile, respect, and cultural currency to rival Aaron Rodgers, went public with his own support. Woodson is the team's defensive captain, but he's really more than that. A future Hall of Famer, a Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Michigan, an NFL defensive player of the year, and a perennial Pro Bowler, Woodson is, most important, the team's vocal and emotional leader. News that he had voiced his support for the struggle evoked cheers in the capitol and shock waves in the governor's office. The great Woodson, charged with pumping fans up at halftime and making speeches after the game, said during the playoffs, "The President [a Chicago Bears fan] doesn't want to watch us in the Super Bowl? We'll go see him! Say White House on three!"
Woodson is also one of the team's union reps. As the Packer Nation wondered if Chris Jacke was going to be the most high-profile Packer to speak out, Woodson openly proclaimed his solidarity with the then-looming lockout:
Last week I was proud when many of my current and former teammates announced their support for the working families fighting for their rights in Wisconsin. Today I am honored to join with them. ... These hardworking people are under an unprecedented attack to take away their basic rights to have a voice and collectively bargain at work. ... I hope those leading the attack will sit down with Wisconsin's public workers and discuss the problems Wisconsin faces, so that together they can truly move Wisconsin forward.
The Packers' support was not lost on those marching in the streets. Aisha Robertson, a public school teacher from Madison, said to me, "It's great to see Packers join the fight against Walker. Their statement of support shows they stand with us. It gives us inspiration and courage to go and fight peacefully for our most basic rights."
The movement soon moved from protests to recall votes for Governor Walker and several members of the state senate. One of the get-out-the-vote spokespeople was another Packers hero, the retired Gilbert Brown. The beloved defensive lineman, with a girth that could block out the bright winter sun, recorded a highly publicized statement where he said, "Hello, this is Gilbert Brown, defensive lineman for the '97 Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers, calling on behalf of We Are Wisconsin. ... I know a little bit about playing defense and right now it is time to defend Wisconsin. We are holding the line, putting our children's education before big corporate tax giveaways. It is up to voters like you to make the difference."
Walker no doubt envisioned conflict when he rolled out his plan to bulldoze the public-sector workers of Wisconsin. But I do not think he foresaw having to go toe-to-toe with the Green Bay Packers. I also do not think he foresaw the other sports union facing a lockout — the National Basketball Players Association — joining against him.
In the NFL lockout, players were facing the prospect of playing more games for less money. NBA players were threatened with steep pay cuts as well as the added possibility of contracting several teams. The NBA had also recently welcomed several owners from the Scott Walker slash-and-burn school of business, like the Cleveland Cavaliers' boss, who is also the CEO of Quicken Loans, "Subprime" Dan Gilbert, and multibillionaire Russian plutocrat Mikhail Prokhorov. When Republican state legislators convened a late-night vote to strip public-sector employees of their rights to collectively bargain without even the pretense of a quorum, that was, for NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter, a call to arms. "Last night's vote by the Wisconsin Assembly was an attempt to undermine organized labor and the men and women across the country who depend on their unions for a voice in the workplace," said Hunter. "The NBPA proudly supports our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and their stand for unequivocal collective bargaining rights."
Hunter has been part of the labor movement for many years. Less expected was the contribution from the Milwaukee Bucks' Keyon Dooling, the team's player rep. "Wisconsin public sector workers tirelessly deliver services on a daily basis to millions of Wisconsin residents," said Dooling. "Wisconsin's workers deserve better than last night's vote. Today, our union stands proudly with our fellow union members throughout the state as they continue their fight."
Dooling, it's worth noting, took a stronger stand than one of the state's leading Democrats, Wisconsin Democratic senator Herb Kohl. Herb Kohl is not-so-incidentally also the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.
When dealing with periods of profound protest, it always makes sense to turn to those who have been there before. I spoke with Dr. John Carlos, the 1968 Olympian who raised a black-gloved fist at the Mexico City Olympics. John Carlos knows intimately the price that must be paid when athletes speak truth to power, and he believes that these actions on behalf of protesters are more than appropriate: they're righteous. Here is what Dr. Carlos said to me at the time:
I don't think Governor Walker realizes that workers are the people who built this country and workers are the people who keep the fabric of our communities together. Workers are the people of the grassroots. For him or any political figure to try and cut their wages, take their health care, crush their unions, or subjugate them in any way is just a travesty. ... I commend what the workers, students, athletes, and all protesters are doing to stand up for their rights and I am with them one thousand percent. Every person from the world of sports with a heart or sense of humanity would say the same.
The NFL Lockout and the "Beauty of Work"
As the NFL lockout wore on, the league's players association closely monitored the fight in Wisconsin. One reason was basic union solidarity. I interviewed DeMaurice Smith, who said,
I'm proud to sit on the executive council of the AFL-CIO. We share all the same issues that the American people share. We want decent wages. We want a fair pension. ... The minute that any sports player believes for whatever reason that they are outside the management-labor paradigm you will start to lose ground. Our guys get their fingers broken, their backs broken, their heads concussed, and their knees torn up because they actually put their hands into the ground and work for a living, and I would much rather have them understand and appreciate and frankly embrace the beauty of what it is to work and provide for their family.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Game Over"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Dave Zirin.
Excerpted by permission of The New Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments,
Foreword,
Pre-Game,
1: Occupy the Sports World,
2: "You Have to Be an Ultra from Within": Soccer and the Arab Spring,
3: Today's World Cup and Olympics: Invictus in Reverse,
4: Zombie Teams and Zombie Owners,
5: Joe Paterno: Death, Remembrance, and the Wages of Sin,
6: The NCAA's "Whiff of the Plantation",
7: Here Come Los Suns,
8: "Is Your Underwear Flame Retardant?": Sexuality and Sports,
9: "I'm Not Your Child": Racism Today in Sports,
Post-Game,
Notes,
Index,
What People are Saying About This
“A damning indictment of all that is corrupting sports and a song of praise for athletes standing up for human rights and decency.”
—Kirkus
“In his enlightening essay collection, Nation columnist and author Zirin (Welcome to the Terrordome) employs common sense and research to show that politics and sports are entangled, whether it’s members of the Green Bay Packers supporting the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin’s public workers or the Phoenix Suns donning ‘Los Suns’ uniforms to protest Arizona’s controversial, immigrant-obsessed law, SB 1070. . . . Zirin steadfastly demonstrates how the games we watch are not just an escape from the everyday: they are a reflection that provides a perfect opportunity for protest and change.”
—Publishers Weekly