Freedom Line Blog

It took United Airlines offering to bailout the Pentagon, but it looks like the privately funded Navy-Air Force college football game will be played as scheduled this Saturday.

On Tuesday, Obama administration officials at the Department of Defense had suspended all athletic contests at the three service academies because of the government shutdown.

But after an outcry over the cravenly political move, United Airlines offered to fly the entire Air Force football team for free to Annapolis. That, apparently, shamed Pentagon officials into letting the game go on as scheduled.

It’s good to see that college kids training to defend our nation won’t be used as pawns by liberals trying to score political points over the funding impasse. But it’s still distasteful that this disgusting strategy was used in the first place.

First the Obama administration barricaded veterans from visiting the open-air World War II monument.

Then it ordered the forced closure of a privately-funded colonial farm.

Now comes word that the Department of Defense is ordering the service academies to suspend all intercollegiate athletic events during the government shutdown because of “optics.”

On Tuesday, a soccer game between the Naval Academy and Howard University was postponed indefinitely due to an order from DOD.

Up next may be the nationally televised football game between Navy and the Air Force Academy scheduled for Saturday.

“The potential revenue loss to the Naval Academy Athletic Association would likely exceed $4 million,” a Naval Academy spokesman told the Capital Gazette. “That money comes from ticket sales, sponsorship, parking and concession revenue. The largest revenue stream is the payout NAA receives from CBS Sports Television.”

The worst part about this – The athletic program at Navy is completely funded by private donors. Air Force could make the trip without using any government money as well.

In other words, all expenses for Saturday’s game could be held without congressionally appropriated funding, yet the political officials running the military won’t allow it to happen.

When asked for DOD’s rationale, Navy’s Athletic Director said he was told it was about “optics.” “It’s a perception thing. Apparently it doesn’t resonate with all the other government agencies that have been shut down,” he said.

This isn’t politics. It is ugliness pure and simple.

H/T: National Review Online

Proving that Congress can “walk and chew gum at the same time,” the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to ban NCAA Division I football from holding a “national championship” unless it’s the product of a playoff system. What!?

Sadly, during the voice vote there was only one enthusiastic “No” vote from John Barrow (D-GA).

Congress loves power, and this vote is a perfect example of how everything, no matter how trivial (sports), is supposedly under their domain.  ‘Mandating that everyone get health insurance?  We can do that.  Controlling all political speech?  We run this show!  Mandating how college football players spend their postseason?  Sure, we watch college football and we personally prefer a playoff system.’

Republicans and Democrats deserve equal criticism.  The legislation is actually sponsored by Republican Joe Barton (TX).  Of course, if Texas had gone to the national championship game last year, then some representative from Oklahoma would have cried foul and tried to change the system.

Today’s vote is just one example of the blind arrogance exhibited by our representatives on a daily basis.  Power is king on the Hill.

It seems that Congress is little different from high school social politics.  Everyone travels in cliques (known as caucuses); everyone wants to be popular (leader, chairman or even President) and there are plenty of scandals involving drugs and cheating.

I guess in this metaphor that makes voters the parents of Congress.  It’s a shame that throwing Congress out of office every two years is the only punishment voters can inflict upon their “honorable” representatives.  (At what point are we allowed to stop calling them honorable?)

You can read the bill, H.R. 390 “The College Football Playoff Act,” here.  Here is the markup information from today’s hearing.

The kerfuffle over Rush Limbaugh’s expulsion from the group attempting to buy the Saint Louis Rams has garnered a lot of press coverage today — most of it from those embracing the politics of partisan indignation.

As a man of the right, I take no small umbrage at politics intruding where it doesn’t belong, and professional sports is one of those areas. As a matter of principle, Rush’s bid for the Rams shouldn’t matter any more than it would if Al Franken was trying to get a share of the Vikings or if Maureen Dowd wanted a piece of the Jets (which I would really, really like to see).

What’s getting lost in the shuffle, however, is how much the Limbaugh expulsion reflects that professional sports in general — and the NFL in particular — operates in an unfree market.

Remember that professional sports leagues are essentially cartels, restricting membership and raising bars to entry. Heck, Major League Baseball is even exempt from federal antitrust laws.

In the NFL, this empowers as few as nine of the 32 teams to block the sale of another. To have an atmosphere of such limited competition and to have your competitors empowered to veto your ownership wreaks of an inefficient and dysfunctional market.

Rush got the boot for essentially political reasons, but maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. Otherwise, that champion of capitalism would end up with equity in a system that essentially looks like a medieval guild.