The Media Wants to Destroy the NFL — Throw’em Open

The NFL is bad. It’s an organization rife with racism. Its sole purpose is to exploit the poor for its own personal gain. It should be destroyed and replaced with something more financially fair, less physically dangerous, and more racially equitable…so we are told.

Just days before the the start of the NFL regular season, one the most promising quarterbacks in the NFL, Andrew Luck, abruptly retired from football. The litany of injuries he sustained over his short career became too much, and he no longer wished to play the sport he once loved.

Nobody has a right to Andrew Luck or his labor. So his reasons to no longer play are largely irrelevant. If Luck no longer desires to play football, it’s a free country and he’s free to do whatever he wants or doesn’t want to do with his life. Unfortunately, his retirement is yet another opportunity for a Media that leans largely left, to stand on top of Luck’s decision and play activist disguised as journalist.

Articles were written ad nauseam about Andrew Luck’s courage to walk away from the NFL with a large amount money still on the table. Reporters gushed over his choice to no longer sacrifice his own physical well being for the sake of billionaire white owners and the millions of simpletons who consume their product. Further, according USA Today’s Editorial Board, Andrew Luck’s retirement may signal the NFL’s destruction and prove to be the catalyst in which other players to leave the NFL early.

According to USA Today,

Football is a great game. But as players grow bigger and faster and the collisions more violent, it has to do more on the injury front or risk losing its status as the top dog among American sports. If Luck helps that happen, one of his greatest football feats will have been accomplished in retirement.

With the NFL celebrating its 100th season this year, the Editorial Board at USA Today seems to just now have noticed that football is a violent and physically hazardous sport. Furthermore, if Luck’s retirement discourages others from playing the sport and knocks the NFL from the top of the sports popularity mountain-it will be Luck’s greatest football achievement. Astute readers may be wondering, how exactly could someone ruining a company that made him financially able to walk away from his profession at a young age- be a good thing. You must simply believe that the company is morally bad, capitalism is evil, and its destruction is essential to human welfare.

Why exactly does the NFL deserve such ire from those who make a living off of the product it provides? For those whom subscribe to a leftist/marxist philosophy (hint: the majority of the sports media) the NFL can be easily classified as the Bourgeoisie, and the players-the Proletariat. The Owners and Coaches exploit the Players for their profit at the expense of the players’ labor, and more importantly-their health. Additionally, the Owners, and most of the Coaches are white men, while the players are predominantly black. The conclusion is an obvious one in the land of the absurd: The NFL institution needs be torn down, and presumably replaced with Women’s Soccer.

But as with most left-leaning arguments, it is light on facts and logic and heavy on emotional appeal. The implication of the argument usually goes something like this: “If you don’t agree that the NFL is evil, then you are for the players getting physically injured; and thus, you are evil.” The argument is the product of sloppy thinking.

First, no player to my knowledge, is being physically compelled to play by the NFL. It’s an entirely voluntary transaction between two autonomous parties. In fact, unlike most employee and employer relationships, the players can actively negotiate their salaries and shop their services to the highest bidder within the same company. Juxtapose this with McDonald’s employees. They aren’t exactly able to turn down what one franchise owner is offering in labor compensation; only to turn around and go to another owner for a significantly higher amount. McDonald’s employees don’t benefit from a collective bargaining agreement that provides them almost half of the company’s 17 billion dollars in income.

Second, it’s intellectually dishonest to claim that the players are somehow unaware of the physical dangers inherent in playing football. Everything from pulled muscles to death is on the table when a player puts on the pads and takes the field. Football is a taxing sport, and the probability of lifelong injuries increase the longer one plays. Pretending that you just recently discovered that human beings repeatedly colliding with one another at high speed, drastically increases the chance of injuries, is stupid. Pretending that players are forced to do this, rather than acting on their own volition-is even dumber. Unfortunately, sports journalists like to use their concern for players safety as cover to shoe horn their personal politics into the conversation. None of this is to say that the NFL is perfect. Certainly, the stain and implications of concussions are far reaching. However, the long term effects of concussions are well documented now, and players are able to make an informed decision about the risk they are choosing to expose themselves to.

This liberty. This freedom. To choose what is best for you despite the apparent and inherent risks-is what the clerisy of Media wishes to eliminate. They despise the savage meritocracy the NFL created and seek to tear it down. They want replace it with an institution of their own making. One where their vast intellect and superior moral values would tell the masses of rubes and yokels what is best for them. They would decide what is fair compensation for the players labor, not the owners whose capital provides the opportunity for the players social mobility. They would have you believe that Andrew Luck is not someone who decided that he had simply had enough, but rather, a courageous hero in the fight against inequality. Unfortunately, for all their vast intellect, they fail to understand that in a game of winners and losers-there can never be equality.

Originally published at https://throwemopen.com on September 6, 2019.