Under Penalty of Catapult

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.