Of course, I understand what you are saying but it doesn't follow to the next logical step which is that the subsidy is making it possible to offer larger salaries to players. In effect, taxpayers are subsidizing the larger salaries.
That isn't the next logical step for a couple of reasons.
1 - The teams/owners are subsidized not the players. Should the fact that the new Yankee stadium (not yet built) will receive a subsidy mean that A-Rod isn't allowed to pay his babysitter well above market rates, because you can argue that the money indirectly comes from government subsidies? If the higher salaries mean the players buy more Ferraris does that mean that the government is subsidizing Ferrari? If Ferrari buy more components are subsidized by the local governments who help build the stadiums? Are shareholders of those companies subsidized? What about the people who sell things that the shareholders buy with the profits from their shares (assuming they sell them or get dividends)? Giving the subsidy in the first place is a very bad idea IMO. But the fact that the government should stop giving the subsidies doesn't justify the government taking control even of the teams/owners, let alone downstream of the people who actually receive subsidies. If I write you a check for $5000 that doesn't mean I get to order you around (unless you agreed to it in exchange for the money), it certainly doesn't mean I get to order around someone you hire with that money.
2 - Not all teams play in a subsidized stadium.
In any case remove all the subsidies and the superstars will still make massive salaries. You seemed to find those salaries to be an injustice. Would you be fine if they where cut by ten or twenty percent? I doubt it.
How would you structure things so they don't?
Establish competing leagues.....after all, free markets like competition. Don't you agree?
That's rather problematic. But lets assume you do manage to get a new baseball league that has as good of players as the major leagues. There is a pretty good chance that it will struggle, and/or merge with the current major leagues, and you might just be increasing the demand for subsidies. More teams would be trying to get them, and the new league might need them to compete. OTOH the states and localities could try to play one team off against the other.
I'm not really sure new leagues would be likely to be viable, but I'm not against them. If they work, more power to them. However I think your dreaming if you think they would bring an end to either subsidies or very high wages for the top players. (In fact player wages would go up if the new league was viable.)
To the extent that it could happen it would probably result in higher salaries for the top players, which you've been consistently arguing against, but I don't think that any such system is likely.
Why? Increased demand would grow the supply.
To an extent it probably would, but not by as much as the increase in demand. Top quality baseball (football, basketball etc.) players aren't like cars. You can't just build a new plant and crank them out. Sure you would have more players, but you'd mostly just have current minor league players (or people with equivalent skills) playing in the new league (or taking the place of current major leaguers who move to the new league.
"Or do you think that eliminating public subsidies for privately owned sports stadiums would keep the owners from controlling their teams and the league? It wouldn't. It would be a good idea (practically and morally) but it wouldn't achieve your apparent objective."
Subsidizing stadiums is a bad policy when the benefits directly accrue to a narrow band of owners and spectators.
Which is exactly why I say eliminating the subsidies would be a good idea (practically and morally). But that doesn't change the fact that it would neither remove the owners from control, or prevent multi-million dollar salaries for players (which was the point we started with, remember you said they where unjust, before you even mentioned subsidies, and you didn't just apply the idea that such high salaries are unjust to players, but to other fields as well)
I didn't say it was ok with you...
Yes you did - "Again why is that unsound economic policy okay with you but the other not?"
Technically you asked a question, but its a "have you stopped beating your wife" type of question. The question assumes something that in this case isn't true. |
