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1. Class and Sports
2. Book of the Month: What's My Name Fool
3. Class and Sports Online Reading: Sports, the New Luxury Commodity
4. February Action Against Classism
5. Resources: Class and Sports Articles and Links
6. Share your experience: Class Action Survey
7. Host a House Party
8. Cartoons and Illustrations Sought
9. Upcoming Programs
10. Other Events
1. Class and Sports
The Super Bowl, the most widely shared “public” annual event in the United States, is fast approaching. What better time to explore how sports today help us understand — and maybe even challenge — our contemporary class politics.
Inside this month’s Class Action E-news you’ll find a variety of resources and observations that can help you get past the box scores and see sports in a revealing new perspective. Have an opinion on sports? Who doesn’t! We welcome your feedback.
2. Book of the Month: What's My Name Fool: Sports and Resistance in the United States (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005).
David Zirin has emerged, over the last few years, as the most vibrant progressive analyst of the American sports scene. We have a Class Action review, by Peter Redington, of his thoughtful — and entertaining — new book. Read more...
More information and other recent book recommendations can be found in our book corner.
3. Class and Sports Online Reading: Sports, the New Luxury Commodity
The wealthy owners of professional sports franchises, down through the years, have always needed average working people. A sports franchise, the conventional wisdom used to assume, simply couldn’t flourish without support from working class fans.
But that assumption, in today’s grotesquely unequal United States, no longer holds.
In the new America, income and wealth tilt toward the top, and owners tilt that way, too. They no longer covet the “average” fan. The average fan spends only average money.
The real money, in today's unequal America, rests in affluent pockets, and movers and shakers in sports today spend their every waking hour trying to get their hands in those pockets. The result? We have, in city after city, ballparks and arenas that revolve around luxury boxes, seat licenses, and situational pricing. In stadiums the nation over, working class fans have essentially become persona non grata.
How did this happen? What have the new class dynamics of sports done to the sports experience as shared by generations of working class families? Long-time labor journalist Sam Pizzigati takes on these questions and more in “Sports without Winners,” a chapter from his award-winning book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives, now available for a free online read.
4. February Action Against Classism
Hundreds of millions of dollars a year in public subsidies are currently going into the construction of sports palaces customized to create, on the one hand, pleasure for sports consumers with deep pockets and, on the other, staggering profits for the owners of private professional sports franchises.
At Field of Schemes, an imaginative and comprehensive Web site, you can find links to all the local groups fighting these giveaways of public tax dollars. From New York to Sacramento, from Dallas to Minneapolis, grassroots activists are mobilizing to beat the subsidy buzzer. You can help. Your common-sense home team needs you!
More classism action info at our action page.
5. Resources: Class and Sports Articles and Links
Edge of Sports
Keep current on the ongoing battles to take back sports for working people with Edge of Sports, the weekly sports column by activist analyst David Zirin.
FC Barcelona
A top-flight pro sports team that places “values of citizenship, sport, and democracy” before profits? Impossible, you say. Meet the winner of last year’s European Championship, FC Barcelona in Spain, one of the world’s finest soccer teams.
FC Barcelona first started evolving its unique approach to pro sports during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, as the top rival to Real Madrid, the favorite team of fascist Francisco Franco. Barcelona has been the only big-time soccer club in the world not to carry ads on its jerseys, a principled move that has cost the team millions in euros each year.
But this year Barcelona jerseys will sport ads — for Unicef! The club’s new five-year deal with the United Nations children’s agency will generate no money for FC Barcelona. Instead, the club will donate nearly $2 million a year to Unicef, with the first program to benefit an AIDS education project for children in Swaziland.
FC Barcelona, sums up team president Joan Laporta, sees itself “as a defender of freedom and democratic rights and facing up to others in a time of governments without tolerance.”
George Steinbrenner, are you listening?
The Center for the Study of Sport in Society
This Northeastern University program, a self-described “social justice” organization, is working to “use sport to create social change both nationally and internationally.”
The Fan Cost Index
This data-rich site documents just how working class-unfriendly the sports arenas and ballparks of the United States have become.
For each team in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League, the index calculates how much a family of four would have to spend to attend and enjoy a game, based on the cost of four average-price tickets, four small sodas, two small beers, four hot dogs, two game programs, parking, and two adult-size caps.
Last year, to see the Los Angeles Lakers — from averaged-priced seats — a family of four had to shell out over $396.14 for an evening’s entertainment. That’s $70 more than what the typical American worker makes in wages for a whole week.
Super Bowl: Show me the money
From $4,000 game tickets to $150,000 mansion rentals, Sunday's Super Bowl XLI in Miami is all about "bling."
6. Share Your Experience: Class and Sports
How do you feel your class situation has impacted your experiences in or with sports?
Let us know at our survey page.
Read the varied responses to last month's survey on Class and Higher Education.
7. Host a Class Action House Party
Over the past two months, volunteers hosted nine house parties to benefit Class Action. The parties ranged from small living room gatherings to community events held at local cohousing communities. The parties introduced Class Action to new people, resulting in new volunteers, new consulting opportunities and raising over $10,000. We appreciate all of the hosts and guests who made these events such a success.
Looking for a way you can get involved with Class Action? Consider hosting a house party! Hosts invite people who they know, and provide a meal or dessert. Class Action provides the program, including the short film Enough. For more information contact Dana Gillette by e-mail or call her at 413-585-9709, ext. 207.
8. Cartoons and Illustrations Sought
Class Action seeks class-themed cartoons and illustrations for use in our publications, trainings and on our web site. Consider creating and donating your original artwork, or giving us permission to print previously published art. Immediate need exists for art that reflects working-class and low-income experience for inclusion in our upcoming Cross Class Dialogue Manual. Questions? Contact Peter via email or call at 413-585-9709, ext. 204.
9. Upcoming Programs
Exploring Class - Northampton
March 10, 2007
Northampton, MA
More info...
Exploring Class - Philadelphia
March 17-18, 2007
Philadelphia, PA
More info...
Enough at Northampton Jewish Film Festival
March 25, 2007
Northampton, MA
More info...
Out and About with Class Action
Class Action consults with a range of organizations and educational institutions.
The following is a sampling of recent Class Action activities:
Casey Family Services Diversity Journey Conference
Keynote speaker
Bedford, NH
Williston Northampton School,
Diversity Day Presentation
Easthampton, MA
Annie E. Casey Foundation
Staff professional development workshop
Baltimore, MD
Guest Lecturer
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA
11. Other Events
Institute for Peaceable Communities
Sociocracy Workshop (all day)
February 3, 2007
Northampton, MA
SOCIOCRACY: a form of governance that values equality of power and transforms ownership structure
More info...
Contact: Jerry at 413-549-1747
Read Class Action's past eNews:
January 2007: Class Action in 2006
December 2006: Class and Climate Change
November 2006: Class and the Military
October 2006: Class and Televsion
September 2006: Class and Higher Education
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