Ask me to name the skills of an NFL quarterback, and I could list half a dozen of them with no sweat. The same goes for a major league shortstop, an NBA point guard, an Olympic decathlon performer, or for that matter, even a top-ranked NASCAR driver. But ask me to name the sole skill required of a professional team owner, and I can answer with four words: Having lots of cash.
Which raises the question: Why the hell do we gush over these owners? Why do we gush over people whose only conspicuous talent is the ability to spend a great deal of money on the purchase of a sports team? What have these people done to deserve our adulation, other than accumulate wealth?
Yet we can't watch an NFL game without the camera sweeping up to the owner's box and showing the team's owner either smiling contentedly or frowning in disappointment. Look at Jerry Jones (owner of the Dallas Cowboys)! He's smiling! He's happy! Jerry is happy because his team just scored a touchdown! Or this: Oh, no....look at Jerry! He's frowning! The Cowboys just fumbled on the goal line and Jerry Jones is now very sad. Oh no! Poor Jerry!
It's pathetic really.
Prior to the 1890 season, members of the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players got together for a serious skull session. By the end of their discussion they had reached the ominous (and liberating) conclusion that baseball players didn't NEED to be "owned."
They realized they didn't need be "owned in order to make a living at their sport. Indeed, all that was required to make a go of it were three things: a field to play on, players to play on it, and spectators willing to pay money to watch them play. What was so complicated about that?
Accordingly, in 1890, a group of mainly National League players broke away and formed what was called the Players League, consisting of eight teams and some of the game's greatest stars, including the legendary Mike "King" Kelly, considered by many to have been the greatest player of the decade (the 1880s). The League's president was John Ward.
As far as these professional baseball players were concerned, the team owners (none of whom could play the game themselves) were getting a free ride. After all, the fans came to see the players "play," not to see the owners "own." As for revenue, the players who belonged to this new, experimental League would divide it up among themselves. Every team's manager was a player-manager.
Alas, the Players League lasted only one year, 1890, the result of the owners going on a full-fledged charm offensive. The owners flattered the players, cajoled them, reassured them, commiserated with them, held their hand. And when that wasn't enough, they resorted to Armageddon by threatening to blackball them for eternity. ("If you don't drop this Players League nonsense, you'll never play professional baseball in the U.S. ever again."). It worked. The players went back to being owned.
No one is suggesting we adopt something as radical as the Players League philosophy and turn the NFL into an employee co-opt. If the players want to be owned, that's fine; let them be owned. But don't pretend "ownership" is more noble than it is. Don't have cameras treat NFL owners like Roman Emperors watching gladiators. Look at Jerry Jones! He's happy! Jerry's happy! He wants Gluteus Maximus to win!