It was once held that there was a universal and collective goal to advance American ideals and values, for the best interests of our communities and fellow Americans. But sadly, such has been lost to generations gone by.
What, you say, does that have to do with football?
Well, football at one time, not too many years ago, was thought of as a popular sport in the United States, geared towards aspiring athletic excellence and competition, rather than that of a $10 billion annual windfall.
To wit, football served as a motivational tool, for youth and young men, in order to exemplify character in the handling of life's challenges, beyond the playing field. Skills such as leadership, teamwork, social responsibility and personal accountability were the order of the day.
Now -- football is big business first, starting at the amateur levels, which is the feeder system for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), going forward to the National Football League (NFL), now the most lucrative and powerful professional sports league in the U.S. The profit-making NCAA is a close second, from both its football and basketball college conferences.
But the NFL did not attain its wealth and power in a vacuum, but rather it had a lot of help along the way; from the federal government, to the courts, to the local taxpayer. And because of mandated leniency by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its NFL ant-trust exemption, the NFL's federal not for-profit business league tax-exempt status since the 1960's, and taxpayer funded billion dollar stadiums chockfull of tax abatements, the NFL continues to live large. With the NFL's unending flow of corporate welfare, which subordinates the public, it continues to prey upon its fans and the U.S. taxpayer.
But it is because of the many exclusive benefits bestowed upon the NFL that it indeed has more than a moral obligation to lead by example, something that it has been criticized for not doing these last several months.
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