Under Penalty of Catapult

My antitrust ebook, Irrelevant Markets, is now available for just $1.99 as a Kindle or ePub file.

Bill Parcells is the only coach among this year’s finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It’s fair to assume Parcells will be inducted, if not this year then within the next couple of years. Parcells remains an iconic figure to many of the same media personalities who monopolize the Hall of Fame voting. This despite his diminishing performance as he moved from the Giants to the Patriots to the Jets and finally to the Cowboys.

Parcells may be elected to the Hall on the same weekend Tom Coughlin could win his second Super Bowl as coach of the Giants, matching Parcells’ accomplishment with the team in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It’s too early to say if the media elites will induct Coughlin into the Hall of Fame when he becomes eligible, but it’s worth noting that his resume stacks up very favorably against Parcells. Especially if the Giants win this Super Bowl.

Coughlin is 65, the same age as Parcells was when he coached his final season with the Cowboys. Parcells was an NFL head coach for more seasons (six) and produced a career regular season record of 172-130-1, or a 57% winning percentage. Coughlin’s record through 2011 is 142-114, or 55.5%. Not a significant statistical difference. Parcells had ten playoff teams (for a combined 11-8) versus eight for Coughlin (8-7). Parcells had eight division champions, Coughlin seven. Both coached in four conference championship games. Both coaches had five losing seasons.

Both won their Super Bowls under a general manager in New York. In Jacksonville, Coughlin was the initial coach of the Jaguars and had full personnel authority. There was no general manager. Parcells operated with similar autonomy in his final three jobs. Coughlin was arguably more successful as an autonomous coach. He took an expansion team — literally nothing — and made the AFC Championship in his second season as a 9-7 wildcard. Parcells produced two notable teams outside of the Giants: his 1996 New England Patriots went 11-5 and lost the Super Bowl; and his 1999 New York Jets team finished 12-4 and lost the AFC Championship Game. Overall, however, Parcells produced average results at two of his post-Giants stops, 32-32 with New England and 34-30 with Dallas.

The big distinction between Parcells and Coughlin is the timing of their championships (again, assuming a Giants win next week). I would think it’s more impressive to win a Super Bowl closer to the end of your career than the start. People tend to remember and emphasize the last thing they saw. (Then again, I’m sure many pundits consider Mike Shanahan a surefire Hall of Fame coach based on two Super Bowl wins that occurred over a decade ago.) And for what it’s worth, if Coughlin wins his second Super Bowl, both will be against a coach with three Super Bowl victories, Bill Belichick, who like Coughlin started out as Parcells assistants with the Giants.

Two unrelated news items today led me to an odd thought. The first item comes from Maury Brown, president of the Business of Sports Network, who noted the combined total contracts of Major League Baseball players Alex Rodriguez, Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols actually exceed the annual GDP of 12 independent nations. The second item involves a corruption scandal in the Vatican government. Not the Roman Catholic Church, mind you, but the actual government of the Vatican city-state, which encompasses less than a quarter of a square mile of territory. (Tellingly, the Vatican was not one of the 12 nations on Brown’s list, which tells you how wealthy the Holy See remains after 2,012 years.)

This got me thinking. The NFL is the richest sports league in the United States. It has a sophisticated internal government with legislative, executive and judicial powers. It has clearly defined symbols, culture, holidays (Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL Draft, et al.), thousands of employees, communications network, and yes, territory in the form of stadiums. So why not just make it official and allow the NFL to declare itself a sovereign nation?

Admittedly, this would be a nation-state lacking in contiguous boundaries. The territory of NFL Nation would include the 30 existing NFL stadiums. The U.S. and its local governments would cede this territory freely, and in exchange NFL Nation would assume all debt, maintenance and future construction obligations as a sovereign power. No more local subsidies for teams. If NFL Nation wants to move or expand to other U.S. locations, it would need to negotiate a treaty directly with the U.S. government — which I’m guessing would be harder to steamroll than a state legislature or city council.

Where would the capitol of NFL Nation be? The league’s present headquarters are in an office building in Manhattan. That’s not a proper capitol. But since it makes sense to keep the government of NFL Nation near New York City, I’d propose ceding the entire Meadowlands Complex in New Jersey (including the Giants and Jets current stadium) and constructing a capitol building where the Meadowlands arena now stands.

For that matter, a number of teams have office complexes that are in different locations than their stadiums (for example, the Redskins have a stadium in Prince George’s County, Maryland, but its offices in Loudon County, Virginia.) These offices would not be ceded to NFL Nation proper, but reclassified as embassies or consulates. The same would go for the NFL’s current Park Avenue offices. That can be their United Nations consulate.

For the NFL, sovereignty would have a number of benefits. Free from U.S. drug laws, NFL Nation could establish its own controlled substance policies and pharmacies (Vatican City has its own pharmacy; good luck getting birth control there). NFL Nation wouldn’t have to follow U.S. labor or antitrust laws. Economically, sovereignty means the NFL can raise even more money by marketing its own coins, postage stamps and top-level internet domain (I’d propose .fb for “football”). NFL Nation could even field its own Olympic team in non-football sports!

NFL Nation could also establish its own bank, but for practical purposes, it would likely continue to use the U.S. dollar, just as Vatican City uses the Euro. NFL Nation would establish and maintain its own internal police force — stadium security — but obviously, it would enter into an agreement with the U.S. for military protection against foreign aggressors.

Citizenship of NFL Nation would mirror Vatican City’s practice of granting passports iure officii, that is by virtue of employment. In other words, a person would hold NFL Nation citizenship while actually employed by the NFL. Citizenship would also extend to spouses and minor children during that time. The U.S. would agree to allow NFL Nation passport holder to retain dual U.S. citizenship. In practice, NFL Nation would have tens of thousands of citizens, including players, front office employees and their families. Incidentally, there’s no reason NFL fans would need a passport to enter a stadium in NFL Nation. You don’t have to show a passport when you visit the Vatican.

So while sovereignty would be a great deal for the NFL, what’s in it for the United States? Well, as noted above, my proposal requires the NFL to assume all outstanding and future obligations related to stadiums. No more bilking off of U.S. taxpayers for stadium construction. But the larger picture is that free of U.S. regulation and bureaucracy, NFL Nation could build a thriving economy that will draw even more people to the surrounding cities. Instead of stadiums that are used less than a dozen times a year, NFL Nation could repurpose those buildings without restriction the rest of the year, say as casinos or  medical marijuana dispensaries.

Come to think of it, sovereignty sounds like a great idea for everyone, not just the NFL. If only we get the U.S. government to sign off on that.

Greg Schiano is reportedly leaving Rutgers and the Big East Conference to take over as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Media and public reaction seems mixed. Schiano supporters cite his ability to turn a cellar-dwelling program into a mediocre program. Schiano is also highly thought of by Bill Belichick, according to Belichick’s media handlers. Given how well Belichick’s own former assistants have fared as head coaches, I’m not sure what that means for Schiano’s chances in Tampa.

In reality, the majority of NFL head coaching hires end in failure. Few coaches retire after winning a Super Bowl. Dick Vermeil did, then promptly changed his mind and had a muddling three-year run in Kansas City. Tom Coughlin was proclaimed dead man coaching a month ago, now he’s on the cusp of a second Super Bowl (which ought to propel his future Hall of Fame candidacy, but that’s another post).

I haven’t got a clue how Schiano will do in Tampa, and neither does anyone else. Schiano is no riskier a hire than an anonymous assistant like Joe Philbin or Dennis Allen, both of whom are newly hired head coaches. And from Schiano’s standpoint, the move makes perfect sense. Even if he gets fired after two or three bad seasons, plenty of colleges will line up to offer him a job. Just ask Bobby Petrino, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban.

The real story here, I think, is that Schiano is abandoning the Rutgers ship as it’s in the process of sinking. Nowhere is the Sports Bubble more visible than Rutgers, as one local newspaper noted just a few weeks ago:

Despite winning on the field this year, Rutgers football and its broader athletic program are among the biggest money losers in the nation, a Star-Ledger analysis shows, and the situation may be getting worse. The shortfall last year forced the university to divert millions of dollars from student fees, tuition and state tax dollars to cover the $64.2 million it spent to run its 24-sport athletic program, records reveal.

Schiano is credited with building Rutgers into a marginal Big East power. But the truth is, Rutgers shouldn’t even be playing football at the top level. It’s a FCS school struggling to fit into FBS-sized pants. The fact that Rutgers spent this much money and still couldn’t win a single Big East title under Schiano should tell you all you need to know. That’s a black mark on the university, not Schiano.

Joe Schad of ESPN said Schiano was “also concerned about perceived uncertainty of the future direction the Big East.” It’s a perfectly valid concern. As I said in my Joe Paterno obituary for Saturday Down South, “University leaders no longer view coaches as the most important decision with respect to football, but conference affiliation.” Rutgers hasn’t even been a factor in conference realignment, and now it’s stuck in an unstable Big East that’s gambling everything on a national expansion including the likes of Boise State. Without a strong conference, Rutgers is doomed to irrelevancy regardless of Schiano’s recruiting abilities or in-game management.

Rabbits are an interesting animal, economically speaking. Humans tend to strictly segregate “companion” animals from “livestock,” yet rabbits straddle the line. Farmers raise meat rabbits. Industrial farms breed rabbits for meat and fur. Some folks keep domesticated rabbits in backyard hutches. Others keep “house” rabbits the same as dogs and cats. Regardless of one’s views on animal rights, the economic truth is that humans domesticate animals to fulfill their needs, whether it’s for food or because they want a cute, furry repository for their unmet emotional needs.

There’s an understandable tension between different factions of rabbit-keepers. If you keep house rabbits, the idea of adorable bunnies raised and slaughtered in massive factories no doubt sickens you. Conversely, many folks view rabbits as a form of vermin no different than rats; rabbits may be cute but they also pose an ecological threat if not properly controlled.

In Canada, there’s recently been problems with feral rabbit colonies. These exist when domesticated rabbits are abandoned by their human owners. These rabbits then reproduce like Tribbles and overrun public spaces. Animal rights groups have organized to save the rabbits from being culled — hunted down — by local government officials seeking to gain control of the situation. I read a plea from one such group recently who wanted to relocate a feral rabbit colony to a special “rabbit sanctuary” — at the cost of about $130 per rabbit.

Some folks would say that’s a waste of money. I spoke to one person, a veterinarian, who suggested it would be better to trap and kill the bunnies and use the meat to feed carnivorous animals in local zoos. He noted that if this were a group of squirrels, instead of rabbits, nobody would talk about setting up an expensive “sanctuary.” But, of course, bunnies are cute.

On some of the Canadian news reports I read, commenters were similarly outraged that a source of cheap meat for people who might be hungry would be so cavalierly disregarded. Rabbit is a lean protein, after all, and given the reproductive rate of the species, you can theoretically produce a lot of it quickly.

But then we have our animal-rights friends who just can’t fathom the idea. Surely, we would never consider eating cats or dogs! Which raises an interesting point. Most companion animals kept by humans are predators. Even though we’ve selectively bred cats and dogs, for the most part, to be cute and adorable, these animals are descended from predatory species like wolves. They are meat-eaters, after all. Rabbits are herbivores and, by natural evolution, prey animals. They live to reproduce quickly because they have a short lifespan and high mortality rate.

Humans keep other small prey as pets, such as gerbils. But those tend to be animals you can easily keep in a small vivarium or cage. As any rabbit lover will tell you, a pet rabbit needs quite a bit more space. Keeping a rabbit in an outdoor hutch is basically torture. You’re confining a prey animal without providing any means of sanctuary or escape. Many outdoor “pet” rabbits die of fright at the mere sight of a predator.

So ideally, you keep a pet rabbit indoors where he has as much space as is practical. Rabbits also have special dietary requirements. They’re social creatures — it’s commonly suggested a person own at least two rabbits to ensure constant companionship — yet they generally don’t like to be handled as aggressively as a dog or even a cat. Again, that’s a function of their nature as prey animals.

The problem is that because house rabbits require so much in terms of resources from humans, they’re more prone to being abandoned than dogs or cats. Most pets, especially when children are involved, are impulse acquisitions. And since rabbits fall between the line separating companions from livestock, people seem to have less inhibitions about simply abandoning rabbits in a public park than a dog or a cat.

In the Canadian cases I reviewed, the problem seems to be that these rabbits are abandoned on public (government-owned) land, so there’s no property owner who can take charge of the situation. When a feral rabbit colony emerges, it becomes a political question pitting animal groups against other residents who view the rabbits as a pest. If I own a piece of land and someone dumps rabbits on it without my consent, that’s a form of trespassing, and I should have the right to compensation from the owner if the rabbits multiply and cause damage to my property. And, yes, I certainly have the right to kill the rabbits to prevent them from causing more damage or, even worse, attracting predators like coyotes to my property.

Likewise, if animal groups want to privately finance and organize “rescues” for these animals, more power to them. Let the market sort things out. I don’t think the pro-rabbit folks should feel bad if they prefer to put their money into saving rabbits over other social causes. I would just note, as my veterinarian friend pointed out, that other animals have a need to survive as well, and they would benefit from the rabbit meat. What larger purpose is really served by saving rabbits from fulfilling their natural function as prey? I recognize that feral rabbits are the offspring of animals expressly domesticated by humans. But if there’s clearly excess supply, isn’t it better that the excess support other wildlife populations as opposed to consuming scarce human veterinary resources?

The National Football League’s owner-operators extended Commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract through 2018, it was announced yesterday. That seems fair. Back during the lockout, I opined that if things went South — that is, if some or all of the regular season was cancelled — the media and public backlash would put Goodell in jeopardy. The owners would need a scapegoat. But since things worked out, Goodell is now rewarded for sitting there and looking pretty the entire time.

In looking back at Goodell’s nearly six years as commissioner, it’s hard to find a signature accomplishment. His media enablers will cite the ten-year agreement that ended the lockout. But the owners did that, not Goodell. If anything, the commissioner put labor peace at risk with his comical and reckless disciplinary policies that needless antagonized the players.

There have been a number of questionable initiatives spearheaded by Goodell: Expanding the draft to three days, lobbying for an 18-game regular season, exporting one regular season game per year to London. There also hasn’t been any real growth in the quality of the NFL product. The NFL Network remains largely an afterthought. There’s still no team in Los Angeles and one in Jacksonville. The Vikings remain frustrated in their efforts to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from Minnesota taxpayers to build a new stadium. Al Davis is dead, so I guess that’s something.

The most positive thing I can say about the NFL during Goodell’s tenure is that the political climate surrounding the league remains stable. I’m not talking about stadiums here. I’m talking about gambling. The fact that the federal government remains committed to persecuting non-state-sanctioned gambling must be a major relief to Goodell and the owners. Legalized gambling might cripple the league. Not because legal wagering on football would corrupt the sports, but because if people could legally gamble on other stuff — be it non-football sports or just plain old blackjack — it would reduce the incentive to gamble on the NFL through quasi-legal means like fantasy football.

I don’t think you can understate the importance of gambling to customer demand for the NFL. A large portion, if not a majority, of NFL customers consume the product via fantasy. It gives them a reason to follow the league on television and the Internet during the weekend. But if all of a sudden, the feds and every state legalized other forms of gambling, suddenly there’d be competition. And the NFL doesn’t fare all that well when there’s competition. That’s why the owners tend to demand subsidies for their less popular stadiums.

Gambling, of course, is not the biggest threat to the league. The biggest threat is the c-word: concussions. It’s been a buzzword for the last couple of seasons, prompting Goodell to adopt his selective punishment strategy to make it appear like he’s concerned with player safety. Only a league apologist — and there are many — know Goodell isn’t serious. American football can not be played “safely.” Eventually, support for the sport at the high school and college level will degrade to the point where the NFL won’t be able to field its product anymore. That won’t happen overnight. But 50 years from now, there probably won’t be a Super Bowl as we know it now.

But what about the RATINGS?! NFL writers are like the NASA executives in that Simpsons episode who obsess over television ratings. The ratings have never been better, so what’s the problem? Well, as I just discussed above, the league has all sorts of unresolved issues. High TV ratings don’t build new stadiums. Ratings are not a measure of profitability.

Furthermore, high ratings expose one of the league’s key fault lines. The NFL’s popularity is due to the fact it’s largely free to consume via television. The league spent like drunken sailors on new stadiums and a host of other luxuries based on the ratings. Now with the stadium model in decline, Goodell and his friends are looking to recoup their losses by slowly eroding the free-television model. That was the whole reason for building the NFL Network in the first place, to siphon games off of free television. That’s why the league maintains its idiotic blackout rule.

The television money won’t last forever either. ESPN is overpaying for NFL rights in an effort to justify its high subscriber fees to cable operators. The cable operators are getting tired of subsidizing ESPN on basic cable. That gravy train will be dead within five years. If “a la carte” cable — long a dream of consumer advocates — comes to pass, ESPN will be dead in the water, taking with it a significant chunk of the NFL’s revenue.

Still, doesn’t the league have lucrative deals with NBC, CBS and Fox? Sure. But what happens if one of those networks goes under? The market for network television hasn’t improved. As television distribution via the Internet continues to grow, it’s likely one of the networks will go down before the decade is out. Take CBS out of the NFL equation and there’s another billion or so down the tubes.

Remember, player compensation in the NFL is tied to a percentage of revenues. If and when those revenues decline, so will player salaries. Add to that the increasing awareness of the adverse long-term health consequences, and ten years from now, the NFL may well be facing a sudden drop in the quantity and quality of college students willing to risk their lives for dwindling paychecks. The NFL has no developmental system. It remains entirely dependent on a monopoly supplier, the NCAA, for its talent. The NCAA is on even shakier ground than the NFL. Half the Division I colleges now fielding football teams could easily be broke and out of business within 20 years.

While the NFL appears invincible to the naked eyes of today, it’s no different than any other large bureaucratic entity dependent on its own legacy. Goodell is a symbol of complacency. He’s a man without aspiration or ambition. He has the job he’s always wanted, and as long as the owners don’t need a scapegoat, he’ll remain secure in that job until he chooses to retire. The next guy will be stuck with presiding over the league’s decline and likely fall.

I previously addressed the Canadian government’s comical obsession with reforming the upper house of that nation’s parliament. But the Mother Parliament is no less obsessed. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that assumed power in the United Kingdom two years ago has been itching to do some major constitutional reform of its own.

The British House of Lords has always been a sore subject. It is, after all, a vestige of pre-democratic class theory. The Lords was historically a small group of peers who inherited their titles. They exercised equal power with the House of Commons until 1911. That’s when the shit hit the fan. The Conservative majority in the Lords thwarted the Liberal government’s efforts to introduce new taxes. The Prime Minister tried to create a bunch of new peerages to give himself a majority in the Lords, but King George V refused. The government called for new elections, prevailed, and the King acquiesced. To prevent a repeat of this stalemate, the government forced through the first Lords reform bill, which basically took away the Lords’ power to veto legislation passed by the Commons. The Lords could still delay legislation for a limited time.

Ironically, one of the few times the Commons used the 1911 reform bill to disregard the upper house was to pass a second Lords reform bill, in 1949. This time, the Labour government wanted to do some large-scale central economic planning without interference from the peers. So the 1949 law further reduced the time the Lords could delay the Commons’ mob rule.

Neither of these reforms altered the basic nature of the Lords as a non-elected body, although what was once a small group of hereditary peers was, by the late 20th century, a nearly 1,000-member chamber dominated by peers appointed for life (I don’t think a hereditary peerage has been created since the 1960s). When Tony Blair’s Labour government took power in 1997, they successfully moved to expel most of the hereditary peers, leaving just 90 with about 700 more life appointees.

Now David Cameron’s coalition wants to finish the job and convert the Lords into a mostly elected body. Last year the government circulated a draft bill that would create a chamber of about 300 members, 240 of them elected for non-renewable 15-year terms. Their terms would be staggered every five years to match scheduled House of Commons elections. The remaining members would be appointed by the government. (The reformed Lords would continue to include some bishops of the Church of England. Don’t ask.)

The government further proposes Lords elections depart from the traditional first-past-the-post system used for the Commons and instead use a single-transferrable vote. This means voters can rank candidates and if their top choice doesn’t win, the vote is then “transferred” to the next-ranked candidate until a candidate is elected. The Liberal Democrat part of the coalition tried to implement a similar system for Commons elections via a failed referendum last year. (I’d note many U.S. libertarians favor such a system for this country.)

Actually, Lords reform really is nothing more than a Liberal Democrat pet project to keep them occupied while the Conservatives run the government. There doesn’t seem to be any genuine enthusiasm among the Conservatives for this proposal. There’s already been numerous objections to the proposed size of the House — 300 is thought to be too small — and fears that an elected Lords would lead to deadlock with Commons. This mirrors the fears raised by opponents of Canadian Senate reform.

Canada provides an interesting compare-and-contrast. While the Canadian Senate is exclusively appointed, its membership is also strictly apportioned by region and province. The House of Lords has no ties to British geography. The proposed reform bill would create electoral districts that are larger than existing Commons constituencies. But the number itself, 240 as proposed, is completely arbitrary. It could just as easily be 400 or 800.

In Canada, the Conservative government is pushing Senate reform in part to strengthen its natural political base in the western provinces. With Britain, the third-place Liberal Democrats are betting that a chamber elected by single-transferrable vote will strengthen its meager standing in Parliament. In both countries, reform critics fear the unknown long-term consequences of holding a second set of legislative elections.

There’s also the common question of why have a second chamber at all. In Canada, the leftist opposition party and several provincial leaders publicly support abolishing the Senate. None of the British elite seem to favor that. There’s widespread agreement than some upper house is necessary. The government itself notes an elected Lords “would continue to scrutinise legislation, hold the Government to account and conduct investigations.” (Similarly, Canadian Senate defenders note it is a “chamber of sober second thought.”)

In both cases, the push for an elected upper house is an admission that the presently elected lower houses aren’t quite doing a thorough job of scrutinizing the government. Obviously, that’s bound to happen when the government controls a majority (or near-majority) of the lower chamber’s seats. The merging of executive and legislative power in the Commons means there’s little incentive for the chamber to scrutinize itself. At the same time, neither the British nor Canadian governments want to give up the “supremacy” of the Commons; they want elected upper chambers, but they don’t want to alter the constitutional alignment of power between the houses.

In my previous post, I sided with the Senate abolitionists in Canada. What concerned me the most was an elected Senate would be a competing body for power rather than a check on it. In particular, I thought an elected Senate might lead to a greater centralization of power by displacing the elected provincial legislatures. That’s not really an issue with Britain. The UK is already a highly centralized state in spite recent devolutions to regional parliaments in Scotland and Wales. The elected Lords would not correspond to or compete with any existing local governments.

Like the Canadian government’s proposed reforms, I also find the British government’s ideas a tad unwieldy. In Canada, there’s a written Constitution with specific amendment procedures. The government is trying to avoid directly amending the Constitution by using elections to “nominate” Senate candidates the government would continue to formally appoint. The British constitution is basically whatever Parliament says it is on any given day. Still, both proposals require the implementation of a complex new election scheme. More elections doesn’t equal better government or a greater protection for individual rights.

If I were the British Liberal Democrats, given my position as a progressive third-party agitator, I would actually go in a completely different direction. Instead of reducing the Lords to 300 elected members, why not just use the current system and appoint every single voter to the Lords? I’m dead serious. Unlike Canadian senators, there’s no statutory limit on how many peerages the Queen may create. So just make everyone a damn baron.

In effect, I’m proposing turning the Lords into a permanent national referendum on the work of the Commons, which is to say the government. Obviously you can’t fit several million people into the Lords chamber, which doesn’t even accomodate the current membership. And you’re not going stage elections, like you would for the Commons, on every single piece of legislation. But you could devise an online system that allows for debate and instant voting on contested measures. Sure, it would take time and money to develop such a system. So would creating and maintaining the elected House of Lords. Why waste those resources just to have 300 more politicians on the public payroll?

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay invited fans to guess who he’ll hire as the team’s next coach. On Twitter, Irsay wrote:

Predict new Indianapolis Colts Head Coach,win 2 Super Bowl Tics! 1 guess only,u must guess by midnight tonight EST,Abby’s hatpick! GOOD LUCK

On a lark, I went through the NFL bylaws, wondering if this sort of thing might be a problem. Lo and behold I stumbled onto Article IX, Section 9.1(C)(6), which states no owner or team employee may

[p]ermit or state in any game program, or by means of its public address system or otherwise, that it, he, or they, offer or agree, either directly or indirectly, to pay or give money or any other thing of value to any member of the public; neither shall any club or other person referred to in this Section 9.1 be permitted to participate at any time, directly or indirectly, in any lottery of any kind…

The rule goes on to exempt clubs that accept advertising from state lotteries and off-track-betting. But on its face, it would seem this rule prohibits Irsay from announcing a lottery for Super Bowl tickets. Having his assistant pick a name out of hat is a lottery, I would think, and the rule bans any non-state-sanctioned lottery.

I’d also point out this section of the NFL bylaws is labelled “PROHIBITED CONDUCT.” And for a league that takes perverse joy in enforcing the minutiae of its rules against mere players, it’d be funny if a high-profile owner just pissed all over what the bylaws consider a major rule.

The Southeastern Conference has won six consecutive BCS national championships. But will the conference continue to dominate off the field as well? I examine that question at Saturday Down South.

At Saturday Down South, I reflect on the former Penn State football coach and the historical meaning of his passing.

I don’t follow presidential politics as much as I used to, but given last night’s events in South Carolina, I’ll offer a few thoughts.

First, I’ve heard talk of a “brokered convention.” The likelihood of such an event is statistically insignificant. Even if the primaries conclude with no one candidate having a majority of pledged delegates, there will be a couple of months before the Republican National Convention for the candidates involved to strike a deal. Let’s assume things shake out with Mitt Romney in 1st place, Newt Gingrich in 2nd, Ron Paul in 3rd and Rick Santorum 4th. Romney and Gingrich will simply strike a deal. Gingrich accepts the vice-presidential nomination and a majority of the delegates ratify the new ticket, at worst on the second ballot. There won’t be some spontaneous movement towards Paul or Santorum. And if Gingrich refuses a deal, his delegates will simply abandon him.

The flaw in Gingrich’s candidacy is that he has no real base of support. What we saw in South Carolina yesterday was a pure protest vote against Romney. Ginrgich may continue to gather protest votes, but he lacks the financing and organization to make anything out of it. His campaign is 80% ego and 20% free media coverage.

Romney, Paul and Santorum each represent one of the GOP’s broad constituencies. Romney represents the chambers of commerce; Paul the libertarians; and Santorum the Christian right. The latter faction, Santorum’s, has been significantly weakened over the past few election cycles. This group is not insignificant, but it no longer scares anyone.

Paul’s libertarian faction is well-financed and well-organized, but it has a natural ceiling. There just aren’t that many libertarians in the Republican Party. Nor for that matter are there many libertarians in the general population. Paul’s campaign can only succeed by drawing in enough independent libertarian votes into the Republican primaries to overcome the entrenched advantage of Romney, particularly in the larger states.

The storyline on Romney is that Republican voters aren’t that excited about him. This is hardly a Romney problem. Look at the last five Republican presidential nominees: John McCain, George W. Bush, Robert Dole, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Only Reagan was “exciting.” Democrats tend to nominate first-time, charismatic candidates like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Republicans operate like a bakery that call your number when it’s your “turn.” Reagan broke through because of his extraordinary charisma and his political base in California. In all other cases, Republicans look to the least threatening white guy available.

That’s not to suggest Romney is the inevitable nominee. Scandals always pop up at unexpected times. And Romney may simply crack under the barrage of constant attacks from his three remaining opponents. A Gingrich nomination is not inconceivable. There’s ample historical precedent for a fiery protest candidate winning the nomination: William Jennings Bryan and Barry Goldwater spring to mind. Of course, both men lost in the general election, so that’s not a good omen for those hoping to unseat Barack Obama.

(As an aside, I’m not terribly worried by the prospect of Obama’s reelection. Contra Gingrich’s view that a a re-elected Obama would be untethered and therefore more dangerous, recent history suggests second-term presidencies often go limp and get bogged down by residual scandals from the first term. I have every confidence the same would be true with Obama.)

The only thing that interests me during election cycles is who are the vice-presidential nominees. I find the superfluous fascinating. Four years ago at this time, I briefly published a blog called “Veepwatch” that speculated as to who the veeps would be. I’m proud to note I was one of the first to seriously float Sarah Palin’s name. I did not directly predict her nomination, but I strongly suggested it as a possibility.

There have already been calls for Obama to dump Joe Biden and replace him with a stronger personality, especially Hillary Clinton. I would consider any move to dump Biden a major upset. Dumping a VP is a sign of weakness that no president wants to show. It doesn’t matter if the president dislikes his number-two. Whatever chance George McGovern might have had in 1972 was destroyed when he was forced to replace his original vice-presidential candidate, Thomas Eagleton, after revelations were published about his medical history. Replacing a VP is a sign you’re giving up.

I don’t think a VP selection has any significant impact on the outcome of an election. Vice presidents are generally not chosen with an eye to the electorate; they’re usually chosen to settle intra-party strife. Sometimes, as with Palin, they’re just desperate attempts to get attention.

If Romney is the nominee, his VP selection may prove moderately interesting. Since he’s an ex-governor, he won’t feel any pressure to “balance” the ticket one way or the other. In other words, he’s not a senator who might feel the need to pick a non-senator. I also don’t think he’ll feel compelled to select a female or non-Caucasian candiate for novelty value. If anything, he may double-down on boring white guydom (hello, Bob McDonell!)

Thomas Mulcair is a Canadian Member of Parliament and deputy leader of the opposition New Democratic Party. He’s married to a French citizen and, in accordance with French law, applied for and received a French passport for himself, making him a dual citizen. According to a Canadian Press report,

Mulcair said he did so 20 years ago after an unsettling incident at Spain’s Madrid airport, where he was separated for 30 minutes from his wife and two then-young children because he was travelling on a Canadian passport while they had both Canadian and French passports.

Seems innocent enough. However, Mulcair is now seeking the leadership of the NDP following the death of former leader Jack Layton last year. If Mulcair wins, he would not only be leader of the official opposition in Parliament, but potentially the next prime minister of Canada if the NDP wins the next election, which will likely take place in 2015.

The Canadian punditry is divided. Some think it’s unacceptable for a potential prime minister to have “divided loyalties” between Canada and France. Others think it’s no big deal. It’s worth noting there is precedent here. Former Liberal Party of Canada leader Stephane Dion also held French citizenship — but, Mulcair’s critics note, Dion’s citizenship was automatic though his mother, whereas Mulcair sought his out. The late Jack Layton also publicly criticized Dion’s dual citizenship, though Mulcair claims Layton privately repudiated those remarks later.

Lorne Gunter, writing in the National Post, tries to explain why Mulcair’s dual citizenship should make Canadians uncomfortable:

Just as no person may serve two masters, it seems wrong that someone who wants to lead our country should also want to be a citizen of another at the same time. It’s almost like being married, but thinking it is okay to fool around on the side. And what does it say about a leader’s commitment to stay here and fight to make the country better when he has an escape card in his back pocket? That’s probably making too much of the situation. Neither Mr. Mulcair nor Mr. Dion before him have given any indication of divided loyalties or part-time commitment, still there is a nagging doubt I cannot get past.

The marriage analogy is interesting given what’s gone on this week in the U.S. Republican Party’s leadership contest. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has angrily denied his ex-wife’s allegations that he divorced her after she rejected his demand for an “open marriage,” where he could stay married to her while continuing to fool around with his mistress (now his third wife). But as Gunter himself acknowledges, that doesn’t seem analogous to Mulcair’s situation. It’s not like he’s also running for office in France while seeking the NDP leadership. Muclair said his dual citizenship was made entirely for the convenience of his family, which seems like a pretty decent motive. And it’s not like France and Canada are mortal enemies.

I’d also point out that in politics, “loyalty” has always been a flexible concept. Take Mulcair’s history of shifting political allegiances. Before he was an NDP leader, he held office in the Quebec legislature under that province’s Liberal Party. He was even a provincial cabinet member under Liberal Premier Jean Charest, the former leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party. Nobody seems to question Mulcair’s character or fitness to lead the federal NDP based on these shifts, which are fairly commonplace in Canada’s complicated federal system.

Then there’s the irony of criticizing Mulcair’s dual citizenship when Canada itself shares a head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, with 15 other independent nations. And she’s a British citizen descended from inbred Germans to boot!

Instead of questioning Mulcair’s “loyalty” to Canada over his French passport, perhaps we need to look at why he felt the need to apply for dual citizenship in the first place. Citizenship and passports are political creations of the state, designed to main control of its resident population. It’s nothing more than a restriction on the free movement of people. Mulcair wanted dual citizenship so he could have the same right to travel through Europe as the rest of his family, who were already dual citizens. The right of travel should not be tied to one’s declaration of “allegiance” to a mob calling itself the government. Then again, given Mulcair’s socialist politics, I doubt he’d appreciate this argument.

In 1998, the British government under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair passed a series of “devolution” measures, reviving local legislatures for Scotland and Wales that had ceased to exist centuries ago. The current devolved Scottish government is controlled by the Scottish National Party, which as the name implies, stands for Scottish nationalism. The SNP plans to conduct a referendum in 2014 on declaring full independence from the United Kingdom’s parliament and government.

Of course “independence” isn’t what it was in 1776 when America broke away from the UK by force. An independent Scotland would likely retain Queen Elizabeth II as sovereign, just as Canada and Australia have. It would almost certainly remain part of the European Union super-state, which infringes just as much, if not more, on the individual liberties of Scottish citizens as the Westminster parliament. And Scotland would not enjoy monetary independence. It would either continue to use the British pound — meaning monetary policy would still be made in London — or join the fast-collapsing Euro.

The original devolution law has a laundry list of subjects that are “reserved” to the British parliament. Obviously the Scottish parliament wants control of those subjects. And therein lies the fraud behind independence. I doubt many of the specific policies now reserved would change much under a Scottish-only government. This is less about independence for the Scottish people and more a competition for political control between the UK and Scottish parliaments.

Secession generally ends badly for individual rights. American secession led to the establishment of a centralized state that now terrorizes its population on a daily basis. Confederate secession from the United States led to a nearly identical central government, and following a bloody invasion by the American state, led to an even stronger “united” government. (Mind you, I’m not totally down on American secession. If nothing else, it helped keep the U.S. out of European in-fighting for over a century.)

To the north, Canada has constantly dealt with secession threats from Francophone Quebec. This has produced the worst of all worlds: A central government desperate to prevent secession by constantly making concessions to Quebecois rent-seekers. Letting Quebec go would be bad for locals but probably good for the rest of Canada.

This isn’t to say more consolidation, a la the EU, is the answer. The goal should be to reduce the overall scope of government, not rearrange monopoly power into smaller boxes where “nationalist” mobs make decisions.

My latest at Saturday Down South deals with South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier’s recent comments about what he looks for in assistant coaches.

I’ve never worked in a human resources office, so maybe there’s some legal angle to this, but I’m always amused when a NFL team fires a head coach without using the word “fired.” Let’s take yesterday’s announcement from the Indianapolis Colts: “The Indianapolis Colts have released Jim Caldwell of his duties as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.” This comes on the heels of newly hired Oakland Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie’s statement, “I informed Coach Hue Jackson that he was relieved of his head coaching duties.” Similarly, “The Tampa Bay Buccaneers relieved Head Coach Raheem Morris Monday after three seasons.”

First of all, is there a difference between “relieving” a head coach and “releasing” him? They’re both euphemisms for “fired.” It’s odd that teams have no problem firing someone, yet they feel compelled not to say the actual word.

I’ve read a few college coaching contracts, and they usually refer to conditions by which the contract may be “terminated.” On occasion, you’ll hear a coach was “terminated for cause,” which is specifically invoked to provide legal cover should the coach sue for wrongful termination. But all contracts allow for termination without cause. Yet you never hear a team press release say, “Coach X was terminated without cause today.”

“Relieved” seems to be the most common way of saying fired. It has a quasi-military feel to it, which fits with the NFL’s authoritarian image. Which makes me wonder why there isn’t a little ceremony where the coach is publicly relieved by the owner or general manager. I guess that would be even more uncomfortable than just saying the guy was fired.

The Colts use of “released” is even more puzzling. That makes Jim Caldwell sound like a pet rabbit being abandoned at the park. Of course, players are usually “released,” not terminated or fired. Sometimes they’re “waived,” which again makes it sound like an abandonment.

I get that organizations don’t like to use the word “fired” because it sounds disrespectful or demeaning to the person getting fired, but given that everyone in the media uses the word “fired” in reporting the event, I doubt you’re saving anyone from further embarrassment in the matter.