Preserving the Cartel

AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL SPORTS IS a monopoly, or at least , an oligarchy. A few billionaires in control of all of it, even though the professional baseball players labor union is perhaps the most powerful labor union in the world. Suppose you are an eighteen year old high school baseball player, with a promising future in the game. How do you find employment? By being drafted. You have no control over whom you will work for; you wait until draft day, and then you find out which teams you will play for, if you are fortunate enough to play. The same is true of other professional sports; the money is good, and if you are good enough, you make good money. but you have absolutely no control over whom you will play for. In just about every other part of the work world, a person has an opportunity to apply for jobs and negotiate compensation with any number of employers. The billionaires owners have complete control over the supply of their products and services. No matter how high the demand for sports entertainment rises, the owning oligarchy can decide to withhold further production, driving up the price of their product, as all good students of capitalism know. and this is exactly what they do. s a result, profits are high in professional sports, and the market is saturated with demand - but not with supply. This keeps the number of athletes down, and drives up their salaries, but owners are willing to accept that, because the profit margins are even higher. meanwhile, huge cities are left without top level sports entertainment, by deliberate calculation. And those that have it pay exorbitantly for it. One might think that anti-trust action would force professional sports to expand to the level of demand, but so far, its no goWe must all play by the rules of the great ownership cartel.