Welcome to You’re Probably Getting Screwed, a weekly newsletter and video series from J.D. Scholten and Justin Stofferahn about the Second Gilded Age and the ways economic concentration is putting politics and profits over working people.
If you like watching sports you should be paying attention to the billion dollar trail against the NFL and the Sunday Ticket.
The Owners have the League’s Commissioner office, the players have their Union but what do the fans have? Well, what started as a bar suing the NFL back in 2015 has turned into a class action that applies to more than 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses, mostly bars and restaurants, that purchased “NFL Sunday Ticket” from June 17, 2011, to Feb. 7, 2023.
Here’s a description of what’s the case is really about:
It’s not just the NFL. I live in Iowa and if I buy MLB TV, keep in mind Iowa doesn’t have a Major League Baseball team, I am immediately blocked out of 6 different markets. If all of those teams play other teams on a given night, I am blocked out of 40% of games.
What’s considered “out of market” is outdated. We are living in the streaming era. We, as fans, need these leagues to match where we are and offer reasonable options.
According to MarketWatch, last year’s streaming-only football fans are going to need access to six different streaming platforms, which can run $1,600 or more for the year. And cable users are going to need access to eight different channels or streaming platforms, which can run $2,300 or more for the year.
If things don’t change, these billionaire owners are going to price fans out just so they can get a little richer.
That’s why I am watching this lawsuit and seeing what comes of it.
YOU’RE PROBABLY (ALSO) GETTING SCREWED BY:
CEOs
It kind of feels like this sums up the whole problem:
“Executive pay in the U.S. is skyrocketing at the highest rate in 14 years, widening the income-inequality gap as it increases almost three times faster than overall wage growth. So far this year, Median CEO pay for S&P 500 companies shot up 12%, the Financial Times reports, while average workers are seeing about a 4.1% increase in their paychecks.”
Rand Paul
Billionaires (Specifically the ones that own sports teams)
One of our favorites to share, More Perfect Union, has a new video up detailing the scam that is public funding for sports stadiums. The piece focuses on the effort by GAP heir John Fisher to move the Oakland Athletics baseball team to Las Vegas and includes a look at the inspiring activism that move has generated.
Private Equity
Rolling up everything from surgical centers to HVAC installers to minor league baseball teams is just not enough for the profiteers that run PE firms apparently. Private equity firms are now rolling up car wash companies, including the announcement last week that PE giant KKR is acquiring car wash chain Quick Quack.
Meat Monopolies
Vanity Fair ran an excerpt from a new book called “How the World Ran out of Everything” by New York Times reporter Peter Goodman. The book analyzes what lead to development of our fragile and dysfunctional supply chains. The headline says it all: How the Trump Administration Sacrificed Slaughterhouse Workers for Meat Monopolies.
Movie Studios
After private equity acquired the speciality theater chain Alamo Drafthouse, the results were predictable with workers getting squeezed and the theater falling into financial trouble. But now PE has cashed out with movie studio Sony announcing that it has acquired the theater chain, in a bit of vertical integration that was ended by FDR with something called the Paramount Decrees, which were terminated by the Trump Adminstration. Now studios are once again free to control production, distribution, and exhibition and are taking advantage of it.
Pro-Monopoly Editorials
The Wall Street Journal editorial board is a mouthpiece for fat cats and boy do they not like Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan. Last week they ran the 100th editorial about her since she was appointed to that position. This time for having the audacity to enforce laws protecting small businesses. The American Economic Liberties Project has been tracking it all through their Wall Street Grumble webpage.
Some Good News
Judge takes aim at noncompetes
In a groundbreaking decision Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Sarah Karpinen has ruled that noncompete clauses represent an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act, making the first time an ALJ has ruled this way. This is thanks to the work the National Labor Relations Board has been doing to address these restrictive contracts.
Rhode Island takes aim at noncompetes
Speaking of noncompetes, the Rhode Island legislature has passed a ban on these contracts, although in the Governor recently signed a ban that only applied to advanced practice nurses putting the fate of the broader ban in doubt.
BEFORE YOU GO
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Standing Tall for All,
J.D. Scholten
I don't know if you have written on this topic before, but since it is an unbelievably salient area where all of us are getting screwed – I nominate allowing advertising on prescription drugs to be written about as a way of screwing everyone! New Zealand and the United States are the only two countries where this is even allowed. Since the cost of advertising has to be passed on to the consumer via the insurance company or directly for those without insurance, it seems that this is a particularly ridiculous way of jacking up prices. Every time I see a TV ad for Jardiance – a drug that costs $1700 for 90 days without insurance, I wonder how much it would be reduced if we were not paying for the ad. The cost is so high that even if you have good insurance with Medicare, you hit the donut hole between halfway and 3/4 of the way through the year with Jardiance being the leading cause. From that point on you pay 25% of the list price of the medication