I always like Frank Deford's NPR commentaries on "sports and the business of sports," and he made an argument today about this that I kind of buy - here it is. Give it a listen.

In another place recently, I was reading about the Giants Superbowl parade and how fervor over city/regional team sports is one of the few things that creates a meaningful local and regional identity for people any more, drawing folks from different classes, cultures and professions together in fandom. In a society with declining civic engagement and an increasing propensity to cluster off into niches, that is a pretty important service. We can't quite separate sports from our public identities. That, and that Congress is entitled to hold investigative hearings about potentially illegal business activities that may have crossed state lines (as they did with Bill Gates).

Still, we have to admit that there might be more important issues that Sen. Arlen Spector could be dealing with. Also, I like to imagine that Sen. Spector refers to himself in the third person during congressional hearings.

"Arlen Spector will get to the bottom of this!"
"Perjury makes Arlen Spector angry. You don't want to get Arlen Spector angry, do you?"

Aren't there tax breaks and such that go to professional sports teams/organizations? I've always assumed that's the legal reason why Congress gets involved.

They're keeping their faces on television and their names in the newspaper.

That's what they're doing.

Congress should care about steriods as much as it cares about whether Paula Abdul's breasts are real or not.


Dear Senator Clinton:

I know that you are busy running for President and whatnot but I saw Paul Abdul on the tee-vee last night with my friends and issues were raised that, as my Senator, you really ought to be investigating . . .

≡ Click to see image ≡

Congress sometimes does this under the idea of revisiting MLB's antitrust status (it's the only sports organization that has an antitrust exemption). My guess as to why they're holding it is that it's not hugely contentious (ie. no matter what the results, a lot of voters aren't going to be pissed off), it makes them look like they're doing something, and a bunch of politicians are baseball fans.

Aren't there tax breaks and such that go to professional sports teams/organizations?

Absolutely - immense amounts of public-private partnership dollars are out there supporting private sports teams in many forms, most particularly under economic-development incentive programs. I can't get all that excited about steriod use, but I'm not all that excited about how our tax dollars are applied in the service of all the major leagues in all the sports, either, and if we're going to fund them, don't we have some stake in the degree of sham and corruption we're supporting?

Is Arlen Spector even on this committee?

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is kinda like an Old West sheriff. It just walks around and makes sure everybody knows that it's tough and that you don't mess with the law.

This is the argument I've heard that seems most cogent (I can't listen to Deford's commentary ATM):

The initial argument is that Congress has evidence of widespread, federally illegal activity in a prominent enterprise (in this case, one that influences the actions of children and, as a business, is so prominent that it has huge portions of the media dedicated to it), so they gather information on the activity to make legislative decisions upon. In the process, evidence of inaccuracies and lies is revealed and the Committee has an obligation to further investigate this. Things compound from there.

Now, the other angle is that the government uses the relatively low cost of the Committee's investigation to try and either publicly humiliate an organization or individual AND/OR coax out a strong case that can be brought to court (instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on "a hunch".

I do believe the MLB's anti-trust status particularly accents the "need" for investigation.

Whether this is the right committee to be handling such a matter I think is up for open debate, but it's not necessarily wrong or overly wasteful for a tiny branch of Congress to fact-find in this matter.

All this said, Arlen Spector wanting to get in on the action with the NFL's "SpyGate" thing is absolutely ridiculous.

3 words: Las Vegas gambling. Also, Congress will eventually have to deal with online sports wagering with something more stolid than heretofore.

Finally, there is that nagging Drug War.

Y'know, I had a very similar reaction 2 or 3 years ago, when some committee held a hearing on steroids with Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, et al.

But in part as a result of the hearings, the players' union finally agreed to a semi-legitimate testing regime.

So I came around on that one after the fact-- there is the antitrust exemption, and it is something that people care about, and taxpayer money goes to.

But I'm really uncomfortable with this hearing.

It seems to me-- without having seen any coverage of it-- to be targeting one man. Now, I yield to no one in my Clemens hatred, and my belief that he is a stupid, temperamental diva who may well have used steroids. But I'm really not happy about Congress going after one guy like this. It's just not appropriate, and not a great use of Congress' time.

That applies 100-fold to Arlen Specter's investigation of the NFL.

Well, it's not Congress' fault that Clemens is the only one that has called the Mitchell Report into question. That, presumably, is what they're concerned about... whether this partial history of the use of steroids in baseball can be trusted.

Or so the line of reasoning would go.

nah, they got rid of the retroactive-immunity-for-telecoms thing pretty quick, they've got time to spare now.

oh, and Clemens is an asshole.

OK. Sorry that I love this so much, but... from the SI blog on the hearing (which has been lots of fun):

From SI's David Epstein: "Souder and Cummings have told me previously that it's a mistake to think this is all a waste of Congress' time. They said that this is about public health and public education, so it shouldn't be viewed as granstanding when they want to take on these issues publicly. The whole point, they say, is to educate the public about steroids and HGH, and to do that, they see the Mitchell Report as a document whose public credibility is important. They said that the public probably overestimates the resources they expend on this compared to other things because of the media attention, which is probably true. They've held a few hearings over the course of several years and it has caused a marked shift in baseball's attitude toward drugs and drug testing."

Now, on the other hand, I heard (while on lunch) two committee members express that they felt the hearings were a waste of time and just plain wrong for the committee to be taking on. So, there ya go.

I felt the same way about Tipper Gore getting Senate hearings for her issue (nasty, dirty music lyrics.) Dude, there are more important and pressing issues you guys need to be dealing with, not interviewing Frank Zappa and Dee Snider. It's just one of the things that pissed me off about Al Gore.