Stan Geiger

Sports and Legalities

It appears there will be an NFL season, as the billionaires and millionaires have come to some sort of agreement as to redistribution of wealth.

It's funny, ain't it? I mean when the term "redistribution of wealth" is used relative to average folks, it's condemned as a socialist concept. When used in terms of millionaires fighting with billionaires, it's capitalism at work.

Anyway, a few weeks back I caught a discussion about the NFL lockout on TV. A female journalist, whose name I didn't catch, raised an excellent legal issue. She questioned whether NFL owners had any kind of right to lock anyone out of stadiums they don't own. The team owners act like they own the stadiums when, in fact, taxpayers own them. Taxpayers paid to build them; taxpayers pay to keep them open.

Our fabulous "iconic" arena in downtown Tulsa falls into that category. And it seems the great white elephant is headed into the red like I and a lot of others predicted it would. Our small-time arena football team, the Tulsa Talons, according to reports, will shut down at the end of the season. There's a lost tenant.

I can't believe our female basketball team, the Tulsa Shock, will last much longer. That will be another lost tenant.

It's girls' basketball, dude. About a dozen people give a crap about it. Beyond that, the members of the team would make super foster parents. They don't beat anybody.

Residents of Tulsa County, along with anybody that happens to wander into Tulsa County to buy something, are still paying taxes to clear the debt incurred to build that son-of-a-whatever. And, of course, taxpayers will have to foot the bill to keep it open whether it does any business or not.

Building that thing was a dumb idea.

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