Meh, it's an NFL team and commish being grilled by Congress. Maybe a little partisan since it seems like Republicans want to make a mockery of even having the hearings. But mostly it's about the Washington Commanders being publicly flogged. Seems like more of an NFL story than a political one.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dan Snyder allegedly had an employee secretly pour milk on the floor in Mark Lerner&#39;s FedEx Field suite so that it would smell sour when he came to a game. He was allegedly upset over a deal the two had done. <a href="https://t.co/cSK8sJ9Yi2">https://t.co/cSK8sJ9Yi2</a></p>&mdash; Grant Paulsen (@granthpaulsen) <a href="https://twitter.com/granthpaulsen/status/1539992881741561856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

But it’s not a regular company. If it were he would’ve been ousted decades ago. He is protected by congressional antitrust rules. It’s absurd that the only way to get rid of an owner is a 2/3 vote of owners. The commissioner of the league said he can’t do anything about it.

And how are you supposed to indict him when he’s abusing power to compromise the investigation? The nfl is complicit in a top secret investigation where they’re not only hiding info, they’re using that privileged info to blackmail and threaten witnesses.

My main interest in this is I think it’s absurd that taxpayers who pump millions into a team and have an obvious entertainment interest in a city having a good team have zero stake in deciding who owns the team that represents them. It shouldn’t be this hard to get rid of an owner and snyder is making a mockery of it by showing at an extreme level how much he can get away with. I think bad owners should be WAY easier to get rid of. Look at how bad it has to get and he STILL might get away with it.

It’s not like we’re talking about a bad actor. We’re talking about one of the worst actors imaginable who has abused his power while capitalizing off of billions in public money. If not for this, then who holds him accountable? To date, the answer is nobody.

It doesn't have to be political, but I'm sure the knuckle dragging troglodytes that just can't help themselves will eventually get it moved anyway.

I think the big non political question to ask is how do you get rid of really bad owners? And it’s especially important because unlike a product you shouldn’t have to force fans to root for a different team. Snyder is proving that nothing an owner does, short of murdering someone on national tv, will hold an owner accountable.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Former Washington COO David Pauken has testified to the House Oversight Committee about Daniel Snyder, and it is something. <a href="https://t.co/sgQDeTj6ER">https://t.co/sgQDeTj6ER</a></p>&mdash; ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) <a href="https://twitter.com/ProFootballTalk/status/1540005097563979777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Antitrust rules do not protect anything he has done. If you want to get rid of those rules you would be ending sports as we know it.

There are also crimes for destroying evidence, blackmailing threatening witnesses etc. Seems like the government can not prove a crime and wants to by pass that little technicality and jump right to sentencing phase.

Not disagreeing on not pumping public funds into his team or NFL. My disagreement is the ability to step in and interfere with how the NFL runs their business. IF they have no problem with Snyder as an owner the fans have the option of not being entertained by his team.

I never paid that much attention to this whole scandal or whatever it's called, but these stories are pretty amazing.

It absolutely protects what he has done. Because of revenue sharing snyder gets to be a shitty shitty owner and pay zero consequence because other owners pick up his tab. If it’s true that he was fraudulently withholding revenue sharing with owners then he also violating that which makes this an ftc violation. The nfl also abuses this power to get away with shit nobody else can. Can you imagine if any other company refused to show their books the way sports owners do? Not even just publicly, they are allowed to hide their books in collective bargaining. That’s absurd. Owners can get away with anything because they feel zero impact when they do shitty things.

And it means they can hold cities hostage by threatening to leave or they can steal from the public by demanding public funds while making no effort to provide a quality product. That’s a horrible experience if the suggestion is a lifelong Washington fan simply find another team instead of the simpler solution which is to get rid of the owner that’s failing them. Bad owners who alienate fans should lose money. When they suffer from gross misconduct they should feel the hurt, not just a throwaway $10m fine. And the cities that “employ” him should have the leverage to do something about bad ownership. It should not be in the hands of other owners who don’t care if Washington is shit.

And that’s not even getting into the legality of all this. If the nfl is complicit in helping Washington break laws then an outside party should absolutely step in. The same way they did and should have for steroid use. Who would’ve stopped the blatant doping if not for congressional investigation? They are investigating enormous misconduct of a multibillion dollar business. Maybe Congress can be focused on something else but it’s not like they’re overreacting.

Unsurprisingly chiefzilla completely skims over the part where congress has a slush fund to handle sexual harassment cases and doesn't see the hypocrisy of this.

Seems like your in favor of the public taking private property anytime they do not like how the property is being used.

I have zero faith in Congress to do things the right way. I’m just saying this is a case that deserves to be scrutinized.

This isn’t private property. Owners may own the team but they report to the nfl. The stadiums they play in are subsidized through massive amounts of public money. No, I don’t believe owners should abuse this power to hold publicly funded assets hostage for personal gain. Owners should have financial accountability for their ownership. If Congress is going to allow revenue sharing as a special arrangement, which basically shields owners from accountability, there has to be ways to hold owners accountable for bad management. In an ideal world if an owner can’t fill seats he should lose money. Like I said, I don’t have an issue with the Dallas mavericks or I’m sure the many teams in pro sports that have their own share of sexual harassment issues. Here we are talking about grosser than gross misconduct.

Sure it is private property. All governed by contracts. The cities contracted to pay x amount if the team moved there and built a stadium and played in it for y years. In this case I think the city covered 70 million of the 250 million to build Fed Ex. But it does not change the fact Snyder now owns the property which includes the stadium, team, equipment etc. The city received the increased tax revenue from the games, concerts and other sporting events for the last 25 years. Which probably total well in excess of the 70 million.

All the assets are privately owned. it seems like gee we do not like that guy so let's take his team is a bad precedent to start.

Up until I saw this thread, I didn’t realize that the Redskins had changed their name again. I actually thought this was about a USFL team.