To begin, I should confess that I myself have not followed the NFL since the Super Bowl in 1977, which was the last NFL game I ever watched. I have, however, been an ardent follower of the English Football League(thats Association football or soccer, of course) since the 2nd broadcast of ABC's Wide World of Sports, which broadcast "Live from Wembley Stadium by satellite" the English FA Cup Final match between Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City in June 1961. For a number of years thereafter Wide World continued its FA Cup broadcasts every year and these later broadcasts usually included as commentator the late, great Danny Blanchflower (who had been a player in the 1961 Cup Final). And, it was around about that time when I became hooked on the "beautiful game".
It was also about this time when I first began to see myself as being a conservative. And it seemed to me, even then, that my two new passions were connected in a number of ways.
First, the "democratic" organization of the FA Cup, was for me, one of the its great beauties. Any group of 11 players who could come up with the entry fee (about 50 pounds, if I recall) could enter a team and make a run for the Cup--and, if they were good enough could progress all the way to the final at Wembley. This still, it seems to me, makes the FA Cup a far more exciting competition than the Super Bowl, where a committee of the club owners meet in a room (smoke-filled?) and decide first, which teams can play, where each team can play, and which players and owners (or potential owners) can join the "Club".
The English League itself, also, is organized along "democratic" lines with the promotion/relegation system determining which teams play each other every year with such decisions being made--where they should be made--on the playing field.
English football, it seems to me then, is a much better advertisement for several conservative principles such as free market economics, de-centralized government, etc., than the oligarchic structure of the NFL, and the other American professional sports organizations (including, regrettably MLS) which mimic it. And, the best indicator of the success of the English organizational scheme, is that it has been copied, with success, in well over a hundred countries, something the English National Health scheme cannot claim--with a straight face anyway.
To conclude, my humble advice to El Rushbo:
1. get in touch with the powers that be in MLS
2. get in touch with Drew Carey and David Beckham
3. organize a real football team in St Louis (which probably deserves one more than any other American city)
4. use whatever power and influence you may have to bring promotion/relegation (and, therefore true democracy) to American sports.
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