Once a year my wife and I sit down and actually watch the Super Bowl together. I used to watch a lot of NFL, but for some reason I lost my interest after people getting paid millions of dollars to play a game became unable to put two coherent sentences together. Additionally, it became equally nauseating to watch these same multimillionaire players dance around in the endzone for doing the job for which they were paid.
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But, like childbirth (so I am told), I eventually forget the pain and we watch one game a year for all of the marbles. I still end up feeling nauseated but I just blame it on all of the junk food I eat during the game.
Anyway, while watching this year’s game and not being able to forget all that is going on in this country, I couldn’t help but think about what the game would be like if we treated it like we do businesses. I’ll call this concept “crony football.”
Under the operating rules of crony football, by the end of the first quarter the San Francisco 49ers would have to hire a significant number of new lobbyists in order to convince the league officials that Baltimore had an unfair competitive advantage. These lobbyists would push to have the league start taxing the Ravens’ points so that the score would be more even and ultimately more fair.
Second, it would have been obvious that Baltimore was taking advantage of “loopholes” in the rules that allowed them to score more points and prevented San Francisco from scoring as many. These loopholes need to be closed now, before the entire league goes off the gaming cliff.
Third, because of the obvious disadvantage the 49ers had in the first half of the game, some special rules need to be put into place. These rules would include: The 49ers should be allowed to have 12 players instead of 11, they can have two guys in motion at the same time and we will move the out-of-bounds lines out a couple more feet just to make it fair.
Fourth, at the end of the game we should tax the winners’ income at a 50 percent higher rate than the losers, just to be fair.
Finally, no winner should be declared because that divides us instead of unites us. We don’t want any of the children who support either team to feel badly about themselves by declaring their team the loser. It is obviously more important for children to feel good about themselves than to be aware of reality and how the world actually works.
As long as we are fantasizing about crony football, I think that it would help everyone’s self-esteem and certainly be fairer if the Lions were declared the winner of the Super Bowl even though they weren’t there. The Lions were at a distinct market disadvantage through no fault of their own. They certainly need more or better lobbyists.
Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you want to think about it, I don’t have room in this column to get into the commercials. Suffice it to say that there were several that I greatly appreciated and a few that I could live the rest of my life and never see again.
I hope you appreciate this analogy and let me leave you with this guiding thought: “No worries, mon! Every-ting is gonna be all right!”
Gary L. Rathbun is the president and CEO of Private Wealth Consultants, LTD. He can be heard every day on 1370 WSPD at 4:06 p.m. on “After the Bell” on the Afternoon Drive, and every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening at 6 p.m. throughout Northern Ohio on “Eye on Your Money.” He can be reached at (419) 842-0334 or email him at garyrathbun@privatewealthconsultants.com.
