In an ideal world, sports would be about the fun and personal challenge of playing sports. Humans everywhere have long since elevated sports to a position disproportionate to sensible balance, and I’ve long since accepted this. It’s just the way it is.
However, if the tail shall be wagging the dog, then let the whole mutt shake. There are a million sportswriters, and only a handful dare to pace sports in context in quite the same way as Dave Zirin.
The People of Oakland Need to Occupy Their Sports Teams, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)
… This is Oakland: the city of the Black Panthers, Berkeley, the Brown Berets, and Boots Riley. It is almost shocking that there is not a public campaign to demand at least a partial public seizure of these teams, given the public expenditure already invested. I asked a slew of people this past weekend why this campaign has yet to cohere, and the answers ranged from it’s being unrealistic to there being “more pressing campaigns” than trying to untangle sports-league bylaws. But the mega-profits being produced by today’s leagues could actually aid those campaigns, providing new revenue streams for cash-strapped schools and hospitals. Here is where the city could take something from the history of the once-fearsome Raiders: Sometimes scaring the piss out of an opponent can be a very effective tactic. Occupy these Oakland franchises and demand that these owners acknowledge that the teams of the East Bay were yours long before these owners arrived for the great plunder. They can share the wealth or they can spend their own money or they can sell out. But the teams remain. As a T-shirt I saw this weekend said, “Oakland: the people that lead the world.” When it comes to turning the table on sports owners, it’s time for Oakland to lead.
