Julian Zelizer: Sports and Political Oversight Do Mix
[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book is "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism" published by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely about current events.]
When baseball slugger Mark McGwire admitted he had used steroids in his record-breaking 1998 season, he recalled refusing to talk about the subject in his 2005 testimony to Congress.
"After all this time, I want to come clean," McGwire announced. "I was not in a position to do that five years ago in my congressional testimony, but now I feel an obligation to discuss this and to answer questions about it. I'll do that, and then I just want to help my team."
McGwire's admission come as the House Judiciary Committee has been investigating the problem of brain injuries to football players, following heated discussions October 28, when the committee aggressively questioned NFL officials to figure out why the league had done so little to curb this well-known problem....
...[I]nsisting on a firewall between sports and politics ignores the long-standing relationship between these two parts of American society. At the state and local level, sports teams depend on government assistance. There have been a large number of public subsidies, ranging from appropriations for stadium construction to the placement of public transportation near stadiums to tax breaks which the sports industry has depended on for growth....
Football has a political history of its own. According to the sports historian Richard Davies, the National Football League started a team in New Orleans in 1966, right after Rep. Hale Boggs and Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana helped push through legislation that exempted the NFL from antitrust laws so that there could be a merger with the successful American Football League....
There is also a long history of congressional investigations into sports.
In 1960, the Senate conducted hearings about the influence of organized crime in professional boxing. Americans were shocked when former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta admitted that he had thrown a fight against Billy Fox in November 1947. Members of the mafia threatened to kill LaMotta, but he testified anyway.
During similar hearings in 1961, the boxer Rocky Marciano told legislators that "it seems absolutely essential that a federal czar be named to head the professional sport of boxing."...
The government must help guide the industry toward better practices. There is a precedent for investigation. And sports has depended too much on government to now claim to be a free agent.
Read entire article at CNN.com
When baseball slugger Mark McGwire admitted he had used steroids in his record-breaking 1998 season, he recalled refusing to talk about the subject in his 2005 testimony to Congress.
"After all this time, I want to come clean," McGwire announced. "I was not in a position to do that five years ago in my congressional testimony, but now I feel an obligation to discuss this and to answer questions about it. I'll do that, and then I just want to help my team."
McGwire's admission come as the House Judiciary Committee has been investigating the problem of brain injuries to football players, following heated discussions October 28, when the committee aggressively questioned NFL officials to figure out why the league had done so little to curb this well-known problem....
...[I]nsisting on a firewall between sports and politics ignores the long-standing relationship between these two parts of American society. At the state and local level, sports teams depend on government assistance. There have been a large number of public subsidies, ranging from appropriations for stadium construction to the placement of public transportation near stadiums to tax breaks which the sports industry has depended on for growth....
Football has a political history of its own. According to the sports historian Richard Davies, the National Football League started a team in New Orleans in 1966, right after Rep. Hale Boggs and Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana helped push through legislation that exempted the NFL from antitrust laws so that there could be a merger with the successful American Football League....
There is also a long history of congressional investigations into sports.
In 1960, the Senate conducted hearings about the influence of organized crime in professional boxing. Americans were shocked when former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta admitted that he had thrown a fight against Billy Fox in November 1947. Members of the mafia threatened to kill LaMotta, but he testified anyway.
During similar hearings in 1961, the boxer Rocky Marciano told legislators that "it seems absolutely essential that a federal czar be named to head the professional sport of boxing."...
The government must help guide the industry toward better practices. There is a precedent for investigation. And sports has depended too much on government to now claim to be a free agent.