Playing Hard Ball; E. Pyburn

It's been pointed out that athletes make that much money becausethe market is willingto pay, and thereforethere is nothingwrongwithit. While there'scertainlynothingwrongwith beingrich,not allofthesupportforprofessionalsportsis "willing." Undoubtedly, being a professional athlete wouldalwaysbe lucrative,justby the nature of the business,but professionalsports as a wholebene fits mightilyby governmentsubsidies-some hid den and some not so hidden-paid for by "unwill ing" taxpayers. No matter the sport, major teams are touted by municipalgovernmentsacross the country.They are touted with the promiseof all kinds of perks, mostoftenthe provisionofan arena.In somecases the teams are paid outright in cash to locate in a community.All paid for by taxpayers. And while baseball or hockey leagues do, in large part, finance their own training of prospec tivenewplayersthroughthe establishmentoffarm teams, football leagues have taxpayers at every levelof the educationsystembeguiledinto wholly financing their training programs-of both prospectiveplayersand prospectivecoaches.

Wouldn't almost all business ventures do a wholelotbetter ifmostoftheircapitalinvestments and training costs were given to them as a gift? Even employeesof a servicestation,a shoe manu facturer, or perhaps a packing plant might find substantialraises in their pay, too, if the business ownerswere freed from suchobligations. Justificationof this practiceis most often in the Evelyn Pyburn is editor ofthe Big Sky Business Journal in Billings, Montana, where this article first appeared. guise of economicdevelopment.But like all such claimsfor economicdevelopment,if it is indeed a viable commercialconcern the money will be in vested by the private sector-and in the case of mostsportsit probablywouldbe. Promoters of any professional sports team wouldseek capitalfrom communitybusinesspeo ple, televisionnetworks, or prospective advertis ers-those mostlikelyto benefitfrom the spinoff business. The investors would be taking a high risk,but sincethey are the ones who benefit most directly from the potential profits, who better to take the risk?

Of course, as far as they are concerned, it's a wholelot better if the taxpayerstake the risk (and littleor none of the profits).Whileit'sunderstand able why the businesspeoplewouldnot likelypur sue the risk if they can get taxpayersto do it, it's bafflingwhy the taxpayers so meekly accept the situation. It is ludicrous,when one considers the big bucksinvolved.It falls under the fast-growing categoryof welfareprogramsfor the rich. What happens in actual practiceis government takes moneyfrompeoplewhowouldotherwisebe spending it on education, clothing,medical care, housing,boats, vacations,or investmentsin their own businessventures,and redistributesit to oth ers whose desires are somehowconsidered more worthy than those who earned the money in the first place. A more astuteobserverofthe market has point ed out that municipalitiesshould charge the pro fessionalsportsteamsfor the privilegeofincluding the name of a cityin their team name, becauseof the almostautomaticticketsalesit generatesfrom residentswantingto support the "home" team.

How the logisticsof that would work, I don't know,but itcertainlymakesmoresensethan soak ing taxpayers for the privilegeof making profes sionalathletes and team ownersrich. D 112 Academic Freedom at a Public University by John R. Lott, Jr. A greatdealofattentionis paidto academicfree dom. Among the benefits of such freedom, it is claimed,is that the free disseminationof informa tion will allow better informed decisions to be made. The following story points out that public fundingofacademiacreatescertainsubtleandnot so-subtlebiasesthatareinconsistentwithacademic freedom. Giventhe continuingexpansionofpublic involvementin academia,it seems importantthat these biases be openly acknowledged and dis cussed.Whilethefollowingis apersonalaccountof whathappenedto me severalyearsago whenI was affiliatedwith MontanaState Universityin Boze man, Montana,itillustrateswhatI thinkarenotun usualeventsatpublicuniversities.