Mostly because I have difficulty letting go, I’ve continued to think about the issue of autonomy and the NBA. I’ve been active over in the comments section of
True Hoop, and I thought I might let the cream rise to the surface here.
In response to a comment I made, which I’ll reproduce in a second, one reader and scribe offered this to retort: “Its a matter of scale. The NBA's earning 2.4 BILLION from ABC/ESPN and another 2.2 BILLION from TNT over 6 years for broadcast rights, and that doesn't include endorsement, licensing, & direct ticket sales. There's 442(I think) players in the NBA altogether. That's a really small workforce ultimately responsible for a multi-billion dollar product. Is it fair to say that Shaq is somewhat more responsible for that product than other players? Is it absurd to say he's simply receiving his fair share? What does the federal minimum wage possibly have to do with this?”
For me, the issue of player autonomy has everything to do with the minimum wage—not only those who earn it but also those who make significantly less. The issues (autonomy and minimum wage) are related for both economic and moral reasons.
Put it like this: ESPN and TNT aren’t spending $6.6 billion to televise tall dudes playing a game. They’re buying the entire product the NBA puts out. It’s important to remember that Shaq’s hands aren’t the only hands helping to create that product. Even if you had all the hands that dribble, pass, shoot, block, steal, and rebound in the league, you still wouldn’t have the NBA.
You’d have basketball players.
In other words, if we’re discussing the hands that create the NBA, we need to acknowledge the hands that tear tickets, mop floors, sell soda, sew jerseys, bind leather, and so on. True, these folks might not possess the talent or training of the tall dudes in shorts.
But are they any less valuable to the NBA as a product?
And how much less valuable?
Shaq made $11,300 per minute played last season. If the person who stitched his sneaks lived in the U.S. and made minimum wage—which in all likelihood is not the case; they probably lived in Southeast Asia and made far less than our minimum wage—they wouldn’t earn that all year.
Show me a working definition of fairness, equality, or justice that tolerates this discrepancy in income and privilege. Tell me whose autonomy is being violated.
Keep in mind, I’m not mad at Shaq for cashing in. Diesel won three championships for my team not too long ago, and we remain close to this day.
I’m furious, however, with the idea that his autonomy is somehow eroded just because he’s forced to don Armani and not Fubu…when he’s not even doing his job but nursing it…when he’s earning 11 Gs/minute for wearing pinstripes.
It seems to me that it’s the autonomy of all those hands who stitch Shaq’s shoes an
d mop his sweat that we ought to think about. The very fact it’s so easy to dismiss the regular-sized hands that make the NBA a product—the hands that don’t make it on TV, the ones that burn from the glues used in making the new ball, the hands that work other jobs after the tall guys go home and pussyfoot with personal chefs and valets—suggests that their autonomy is already at risk.
People died in the Superdome. But the autonomy of the guys who play in it is violated?
I wonder what the minimum age (and I mean age, not wage) for stitching Shaq’s shoes is. You think it’s high enough?
Watch a game on ESPN Classic tonight from 30 years ago. You’ll notice a difference from today’s game. Maybe the talent wasn’t as good then; maybe the players didn’t train as hard or jump as high.
But that’s not the only difference. It’s not even the most significant difference. The difference I notice has to do with the NBA as a product: the jerseys aren’t as glossy, the floor not as polished, the shoes don’t look new, the arenas aren’t as comfortable, the broadcast not as nice, the video games non-existent, the wives not entertained.
It’s the product that sells not the players. You take those same players from 30 years ago and put them in today’s product, and the NBA still sells. Why? Because most of the people buying it want the product, not the talent. That’s why the video games sell more than the stadiums.
Why wasn’t the NBA international in the ‘80s? Why weren’t people in China sporting Bird jerseys? Is it because Bird wasn’t as good as Dirk? C’mon now, you know better.
It’s because the product wasn’t as developed or as polished; the NBA didn’t look all that different from the YMCA in anything but talent. And talent doesn’t sell jerseys or make them. The p
roduct does.
As long as we’re talking about the NBA as a product, which we always are unless we’re strictly talking talent (and television is never about talent), then you have to talk about all the hands that help to create it. Therefore, the conversation about player autonomy needs to begin with—or at least include—the autonomy of the people who make all the shit the NBA sells: from jerseys and jackets, to popcorn and Pepsi.
Shaq doesn’t make $11,300 per minute played unless someone is stitching his shoes for nothing. Remind me again about the dress code.
I wonder how many hands fit inside Shaq’s left shoe. Is their annual labor the same value as Shaq’s labor per minute? Is their autonomy bought with rookie wage scales? Are these questions even humane?
Tell me I’m wrong, Professor.
8 comments:
Here's the thing that bothers me about McCann. Here's a guy that's obviously smart, obviously passionate, and obviously cares about labor issues/equality/autonomy. Yet he chooses to focus all his talent and energy and passion on BASKETBALL PLAYERS. Am I alone in thinking that the world would be better served if he used his talents to stand up for those whose minimum wage ISN'T in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and lead incredibly lavish lifestyles by any measure? Granted, by using the bully pulpit that professional sports offers, he gets his message out, and gets people thinking who ordinarily wouldn't be thinking about such things. But then again, getting people to think about this problem in terms of the NBA isn't likely to produce a lot of results. How many of us are going to volunteer to help Joe Baller take on the league over his autonomy, when he already has incredible resources at his fingertips.
My short point is that even the scrubs in the NBA have more than enough resources at their disposal to defend their autonomy without the aid of a law professor. McCann's ideas and arguments better are better applied to those who have no resources. If McCann doesn't care about those people, or honestly thinks those less fortunate are on an equal field with NBA players (the latter seeming to be the point that he and Henry Abbot seem to be making), then fine - everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, if that isn't the case, then I simply cannot take him seriously, as he ignores the vast expanse of reality.
TJ –
Since you didn’t respond to my emails, I’ll respond here. I’ll also try to be as brief as possible.
You have the absolute right to pick your battle ground in the global “war on autonomy.” However, to condemn others for choosing a different battle ground, one where the lines of battle are, to the general public, not so distinct, is naïve at is most benign and specious at its worst. Where you fit in to those two sides of the same coin is up to you.
In your prior post on this subject you accused Mr. McCann of being “paternalistic.” I say it is actually you who is paternalistic in choosing to protect the “poor, downtrodden sweatshop worker” whose autonomy is nullified by the big, bad corporation, when that same corporation, given its druthers, would stifle the autonomy of every living being on Earth if it could get away with such an act (and believe me, there are a host of companies attempting just that). What makes your viewpoint paternalistic is your failure to perceive that NBA players are, in fact, owned and are not, no matter how much money they earn through their sport, truly autonomous.
If NBA ballers were autonomous, there would be no Dr. Jerry Buss paying his charges on the Lakers roster to entertain the masses for his financial benefit (and personal entertainment). There would be no commissioner David Stern using the players to market the product he oversees. And yes, that’s a missing component in your explanation of NBA marketing; the players are integral to the marketing of the NBA as a global product, and that is the real difference between the NBA back in the day and the NBA today. That is why Stern was known as “the player’s commissioner.” It was because he placed the players’ faces before the public and said, the NBA is nothing without these extraordinary athletes before you. It is David Stern’s marketing genius that is responsible for the icon that is Michael Jordan, not Michael Jordan.
Let’s put all of this another way. The two major figures in the NBA since 1985 are Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal. The first and smoothest step on the path to lead a life after basketball as lucrative as the one they had while playing is to remain affiliated employees with their primary corporate owners, the National Basketball Association. The next step is to remain affiliate employees of the shoe companies that, in part, own them. Another step, one that each of them has taken, is to become a part of the pantheon of Hollywood “stars.” In this way, their faces are ensured of near immortality, even when their bodies are long past performing on any basketball court. Now, who put, “I Wanna Be Like…” and “Kazaam” on the Hollywood map? Disney. Oops, and Disney owns ABC, a primary broadcast network for the NBA, and Disney owns ------- ESPN. And in turn, ESPN, ABC, and their “parent” Disney Corp. all own Mike and the Big Aristotle.
They own them. Get it? Just like Phil the Dark Knight owns those sweatshop workers whose plights you so embrace. If Disney wanted to monetarily and psychically emasculate either Jordan or O’Neal they could do so in the drop of a hat. One well-placed, credible witness to any of the litany of their transgressions would serve to destroy these men’s lives – and don’t believe for a second that this “witness” in the form of another well-known, publicly credible person, a videotape, or a phone conversation, doesn’t already exist. Ain’t autonomy grand?
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There is, unfortunately, a racial component to this autonomy argument, or lack thereof, missing from your discussion. Until the recent “Euro-explosion” in the NBA, the vast majority of players in the league were black. And where there’s a large group of black men, particularly black men with money who think they can act in the same manner as the white men who pay them, trouble is sure to follow. Trouble in the way of harassment – obscenely ridiculous rule changes and alterations to the game, media bias – easily 99-out-of-100 tragedy and horror stories in the NBA (and the NCAA) are about black players, and disbandment - do you actually believe that all these Euro-dudes are that much better than collegiate ballers who spent four years in a program learning their craft, players who could have been had for far less money?
Simply put, who’s spending the most on this product called the NBA? What do the audiences at games look like? Who spends the most on everything from concessions to merchandise? Whose wallets are the corporate sponsors of the NBA mainly trying to reach? Whose eyes are “saved” by ballers wearing suits instead of casual clothes (but they didn’t fine two-time MVP Stevie Wonderful for wearing a tee-shirt, sport jacket, raggedy jeans, and tennis shoes – as seen numerous times on TNT and ESPN and ABC - on his way to the locker room last season)? The answer to all of these questions is, white people white people white people, YEAH!
Put yet another way, when a player goes into the stands because his family is being verbally abused by fans, why do reporters whine that the player needs to have more restraint. They say the player needs to go to security and point out where the problem is, not go into the stands himself. If a man exited from a store and a couple of people were verbally abusing his family, what would he do first? Approach the abusers, not call security, or the police. Why then do the players need to be more restrained? Why not the spectators? Why is the athlete vilified rather than the “fans?” Because the reporters represent some of the same companies and corporations, and serve the same constituency that fills the coffers of the NBA. Additionally, when you or I enter an NBA arena, we are there as paying guests of the owner. We, the spectators, are there to be entertained by the product he owns, a product without autonomy – the players on the floor.
A pertinent sidebar: As a sports reporter, I attended a George Mason at James Madison basketball rivalry game. I called the JMU sports information director (SID) and told him I wanted to write a story about the game through the eyes of JMU boosters. The SID arranged for me to sit with the basketball program’s primary boosters. At one point during the second half a “well-lubricated” white booster (all of them were white and male) leaned over to me and pointed to the star black player who was raining points on Mason. The booster said, “That’s my boy right there. I own him. After the game, still shaken from the comment I walked through the JMU player and coaching staff parking lot. There I saw a brand-new Nissan 300ZX with vanity plates – the star players’ jersey number. I knew right then the booster was telling the truth.
I hope that through the story you can make the connection with this sidebar to race, ownership, the NBA, and the mirage of player autonomy.
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To end at the beginning, it is dangerous and fallacious in reasoning to attempt to argue lack of autonomy based on wages earned, or who performs what duty for what company or corporation. After all, what would Mike and Shaq and all these large - largely black - men be without the NBA? Perhaps they’d be hard-working gentlemen earning a livable wage somewhere in the U.S.
However, to the same, largely white, audience that lives and dies with their every move today, they’ll become, ‘Officer, I think it was number four in the lineup - that big, scary black guy right there. Hell, even with their fame, at the wrong place at the wrong time, MJ and Shaq Daddy and all other black NBA players are “that big, scary black man.” at any given moment.
It doesn’t matter how much money they earn, how big their current contract is, or how they perceive their status in the game, these men are no more autonomous, on or off the court, than the child worker in a Nike factory in Malaysia – it just appears that way.
D-Wil: You're nice. Real nice. You put it better than McCann and his legal degrees ever could.
And you know what, I agree with you on most of the points, especially those about race. White America has always related to African Americans solely as bodies (and not people), and it creeps me out that professional sports seem like the latest extension of that phenomenon.
That said, I just can't agree with you here: "It doesn’t matter how much money they earn, how big their current contract is, or how they perceive their status in the game, these men are no more autonomous, on or off the court, than the child worker in a Nike factory in Malaysia."
Frankly, I'm offended you'd even consider that. A brand-new Nissan 300ZX with vanity plates and sweatshop workers: never the twain shall meet.
Perhaps what we need is a more flexible idea of autonomy--some way of scaling the loss or erosion of it. Otherwise, we continue talking past each other. I'd take the NBA life and all its autonomy-loss over
the sweatshop gig and all its life-loss. Wouldn't you?
One other point: when you accuse me of paternalism, don't stuff words in my mouth to make the point. Your response is the only place you'll find the words “poor, downtrodden sweatshop worker” run together in a sequence like that.
TJ-
Getting stuck on the amount of a fiat currency a person holds, or a receiving a 300ZX from your owner rather than sweatshop pay is missing the "crux of the biscuit."
Both are manifestations of a lack of autonomy - period. There is no if and or but to that.
An analogy: I'm a poor black person in a ghetto. Some cracker walks up to me and calls me "nigger." Because I'm bustin' my ass just to make ends meet with my bullshit public school education and my mom's a crackhead and my dad's in prison, I can rightfully punch the cracker in the mouth.
But, if I'm an upper-middle class black person who was educated in private schools and have a jobby job makin' half a mil annually and the same cracker walks up to me outside my 6-bedroom Victorian, I'm supposed to be like, I got cabbage. I got a 6-bedroom Vic. Whatever white man - and just walk.
NO!
The ONLY reason I don't punch people like that anymore is because I matured. I was the kid who grew up with the dad with the scrilla-havin' upper-echelon government jobby-job (how's that for a series of hyphenated words!:), going to the best private schools in the country and getting called "nigger" on the regular. My economic status didn't preclude me from meting out the only punishment I thought was commensurate to the word uttered.... same with autonomy.
See, once a person gets beyond the "idea" of autonomy and into the definition of autonomy, which is independent of status - monetary or otherwise, the battlefield becomes much clearer and we're able to fight the lack of autonomy everywhere with equal vigor on every level on which it exists. Additionally, we can then have mutual respect for whatever facet of this problem a person chooses to fight.
As far as the paternalism thing goes, I remember you calling McCann paternalistic. Which I felt was "snipey" at least, reprehensible at most.
"Paternalism refers usually to an attitude or a policy stemming from the hierarchic pattern of a family based on patriarchy, that is, there is a figurehead (the father, pater in Latin) that makes decisions on behalf of others (the "children") for their own good, even if this is contrary to their wishes."
IMHO, when dealing with being subjugated, picking sweatshop workers, concessionaires, etc. OVER athletes, i.e. saying it's ai'ight to be owned if you have cabbage, is dangerous ground on which to tread.
As Mumia said, "Don't save me, save your community." There are myriad communities and many battlegrounds in the "War on Autonomy" (damn, now wouldn't you love to see THAT scroll across the ticker on Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC!).
Speaking of Mumia, D, let me ask you a hypothetical. Are you saying that the autonomy of a brother unjustly imprisoned in San Quentin is no different from the autonomy of the dudes iced-out in Staples? I'd actually love to hear what Mumia has to say on that point.
I understand what you mean by the difference between the "idea" and the "definition" of autonomy. And I'm not saying it's "ai'ight to be owned if you have cabbage."
However, I do agree with McCann when he writes that autonomy is a situational concept--the definition varies based on the context. When that fan talked nastiness to Mutombo, I wanted Dikembe to crack him in the nose...same as if some white dude talked that way to you. Insofar as racism seems bound up with the NBA, its contracts, and operations, I do think there's an autonomy issue at stake. You've convinced me of that. All I'm saying is that I can find more worrisome fights for my multi-syllabic fists.
Also, quit calling me names. So far I've swallowed "naive," "specious," "snipey," and "reprehensible."
Yes, I do think what Abbott said sounded paternalistic. He told me that the best thing that could happen to a disgruntled autoworker is for Eddy Curry to set an enabling legal precedent. Isn't that the definition of paternalism, believing the poor are dependent on the crumbs of wealthier others? And if that's the case, again, shouldn't we be talking about the autonomy of the autoworker?
Some of my best friends are disgruntled autoworkers, and I know they'd prefer access to the same attorneys in Curry's rolodex, rather than wait for a handout from Curry himself. As long as we're imagining best possible scenarios, let's get outside the box a little.
As far as Schmucker Carlson goes, I'm sure we'd agree on the best possible scenario for him.
...sorry about the names. They really weren't meant to be personal attacks. I needed to pay more attention and be more careful to contextualize what i was attempting to convey. I definitely dislike it when someone resorts to personal attacks in a heated discussion.
Again, it wasn't my intention, but it happened - and I'm truly sorry.
D, no apologies needed. It's all good for ratings anyway.
Onto the comments... I took Henry's autoworker-Eddie Curry statement as using one level of subjugation as a mirror to hold up to subjugation in aspects of life that are in the shadows. That's just my take. Henry's the only person who can clarify his statement.
And though it appears twisted, because I feel that lack of autonomy is pervasive, yes I am saying they are the same thing. One seems more maddening than the other, but look at it this way: all that ice, all the ESPN shout-outs, all the groupies and "glory" is used to dull the senses to the point that the plight of a brother like Mumia and myriad others doesn't even exist.
One way of subjugation, that of Mumia's, is overt and in your face. The other way is just as heinous because it's so covert, so slick, such the perfect psy-op that we're getting bogged down on LEVELS of subjugation, instead of its raw pervasiveness in our society.
And though I often concentrate on black people (black people being my reference point), the shit is the same for everybody.
Check this: Every white parent can look at their newborn son and think, "In this country son, no matter where you start in life, one day you can be the president of the U.S." I'm not saying every parent says this, but the idea is out there actively working on the psyches of white people (look at how Bill Clinton's youth is portrayed!). However, in reality that idea couldn't be farther from the truth. Plenty of white people are getting cracked over the head or set up for crimes they didn't commit, or being portrayed as something they're not. It just looks different when it's Paul Wellstone's plane crashing or James Trafficant gettin' tax-screwed (among other things) all because they stuck to their guns while figurative guns were in their faces.
In the case of the president thing, the psy-op is subjugation through false elevation - just like elevating the black baller to mythic status, when he's still just another high-jumpin' slam-dunkin' step an' fetchit in the eyes of too many of his white beholders, when the white father is, in the eyes of his beholders, just another hick-ass, scrum-bum autoworker whose entire life can be reduced to rubble at the drop of a hat when the factory in which he worked is closed and moved to another country where the process of subjugation can begin - though on another level, with other faces - all over again.
Whew!... and I got your email, but I've been up all night and immersed in my blog, too. I'll write you from there later.
peace
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