A Study in Contrasts...

I watched the Green Bay - Rams game yesterday with interest.

Not just because good football, some reeeely good football in this case, is a good diversion, but because these two teams in particular stand out in one glaring respect:  One is owned and operated to the benefit of its publicly-traded, shareholder-owners, and the other is owned and operated by a greedy capitalistic profit-mongering blight on the butt of humanity.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, you understand...

Yep, one of them, the Packers, is owned by more than 450,000 shareholders.  About twice the population of Green Bay, by the way.  Most, in fact, are located in and around the Chicago area, the locus of their arch nemesis, da' Bears.

The Packers were formed and still operate in Green Bay, and unless or until its Board of Directors votes to move it to the Bright Lights of Some Broadway Somewhere or Other, which stands the same chance of happening as a hurricane blowing through a junkyard resulting in a flight-ready Jumbo Jet, it will happily stay in Green Bay where it belongs.

Kind of like the Boston Celtics, doncha' know...

As to the Rams, on the other hand, it is the Poster Team for Greedy Excess.  All you have to do to own an NFL team, it seems, is to marry its ancient owner, drown him in the surf, and then sell the team to the highest bidder.  For those of you who are birthday-challenged, that actually happened.  Yes, my friends, it really did.  One Georgia Rosenbloom Frontiere left an entire city in PTSD for a generation, not that she gave a rat's patootie.  

The good citizens of Saint Louis, where I used to not-so-proudly reside, had just suffered a Grand Theft Team.  Its Cardinals picked up and moved to Phoenix.  So it managed to screw another city as it had just been screwed by attracting the Rams.  From Lost Angeles.  So STL built a gigonda new stadium, sold it out for years and years, and everyone lived happily ever after, right?  Ummm, no.  

Nope, the same city which had suffered PTSD managed to pass it along to Beer City.  The L. A. Rams, became the L. A. Rams once again, by way of a short two-decade detour to St. Louis.  Pfftttttt!

Oh yeah, kind of like the L. A. Chargers became the San Diego Chargers became the L. A. Chargers.  And now these two teams will wind up playing in the same arena, most likely to only a few thousand underwhelmed, yawning folks.  Ain't that rich?

So now a region that had too many teams and then had too few, now has too many again.  And most of the fans present are cheering for the visiting team. Oh well, you get it.

All of this demonstrates one simple thing:  Sports teams should be owned by the cities in which they reside, and play, and live, and operate.  Period.  I, the consummate capitalist, believe the Laws of Capitalism should be suspended as it relates to NFL football teams, and basketball teams, and hockey teams, and all other professional sports teams. 

Whadayou think?