While America wrestles with the question of whether to vote red or blue come November, ESPN radio host John Clayton proposed a new solution early this week: Vote navy, green and gray. Vote for the smart, incisive, candid Richard Sherman. Of course, Clayton was kidding. But if you were to pick one NFL player to lead a presidential ticket, Sherman would be pretty a deserving choice. Sherman proved that in an interview with Clayton on Monday, recommending a should-be-obvious plan for how to get America out of the red once more: Stop making the everyman and the everywoman foot the bill every time a billionaire rolls into a city and wants to erect the latest and greatest stadium. Thinking on his feet and improvising what he’d want his campaign slogan to be — he settled on “Make America the place you want to raise your kids” — Sherman put forth what he deemed to be a “pretty ingenious plan for our economy”: make the rich pay for their own toys.
As America continues wrestling with what some wags insist on referring to as a “lesser of two evils” choice for President, it seems a viable alternative might just be a good idea. What better choice to offer up that someone who’s smart, well-informed and used to blind-siding wide receivers silly enough to come across the middle of the field?
Richard Sherman’s policy proposals could use some fleshing out, but his belief in making rich sports team owners pay for their own toys is one whose time has definitely come. Leagues and team owners have discovered that, if they are smart and ruthless enough, they can play one city off against another in order to extract the most generous deal possible for their teams.
[O]wners handing taxpayers the sky-high cost of state-of-the-art sports venues has irked effectively everyone in the 99 percent for a long while, but to avail for our collective wallet. The most recent, obscene example of this is the ongoing situation in St. Louis, as the city and state’s residents are still on the books for more than $100 million to pay for the Rams’ stadium, even though the team divorced the district in favor of LA early this year.
Suffice it to say that the stadium Sherman plays in is certainly not exempt from this exorbitance either. Seattle’s CenturyLink Field cost $300 million in taxpayer dollars alone — despite the fact that franchise owner Paul Allen is one of the wealthiest people on the planet[.]
This shamelessness has resulted in billions of public dollars- money that could be used for infrastructure, housing the homeless, or any number of other more productive uses- being wasted on stadiums. It’s a case of government subsidizing private businesses because owners have discovered that by holding cities hostage and threatening to relocate they can extort a sweetheart deal from governments who don’t want to explain to their constituents why their team moved.
Unfortunately for America, Sherman won’t be old enough to run for President until 2023, but I think now might just be a good time to beat the rush and endorse him for President in 2024. Remember, you heard it hear first.
