DOJ Finally Does its Anti-Trust Job, But it’s Too Late & Not Enough

Back at the beginning of September, I subscribed to Tune-In for live game listens of my favorite NFL and College teams — primarily because I now live in Massachusetts and my teams are back in Seattle — which are the Seattle Seahawks and University of Washington Huskies(football).

In listening to the college broadcast, the “Washington IMG Sports Network” announcement prior to commercials airing between game plays was now “Learfield IMG Sports Network”. The team no longer had their title in the broadcast, which told me something bad had happened: a non-collegiate entity had taken over broadcast and other rights. Questions were, “Was it because the UDub had voluntarily “leased” the rights to their games and associated revenue streams?” or “Was it because the UDub had their rights strong-armed away from them because their revenue was down thanks to local advertiser struggles?”

Answer: It’s a mob strategy perpetrated by non-mob entities, Learfield and IMG. They took advantage of the economic downturn that had been growing since 1980 when the taxes were cut for the top 400 families whose income was over $10 million a year. They were cut again in 2001, and again in 2017. (99% of the country pays that % share + the richest families and entities would-be share; if things were balanced, that wouldn’t be the case.)

Learfield and IMG had strong-armed the rights to compete between themselves, shutting out smaller firms. Then they merged and shut out everyone, forcing the universities to lease to them and no one else. Local broadcast radio stations, tv networks, and advertisers were forbidden from bidding to the local university, NCAA or no NCAA. Thankfully, the NFL teams own the rights to their own programs, BUT The NFL corporation still dictates rules and regulations for teams to be allowed into the NFL itself, and to remain a part of it. Still, those rules and regulations are barely enforced.

This mob strategy against Universities is why they’re against K-thru-16 (aka “free college”). Except it wouldn’t be free. It’d be paid for with taxes, just like public schools are — the only reason public schools have a bad rap is because the state and federal government has lowered the “grant” money due to public schools, diverting funds into Privately-owned Charter schools, which was illegal until the new Department of Education Secretary rewrote the regs and diverted even more public funds from public schools and funneled it into her Charter school preferences.

All Charter schools are intended to make a revenue stream that only benefits the stock ownership of Charter schools. Even with the bad rap that schools have, their usefulness is still significantly higher compared to Charters, who have bad teacher certification and bad syllabi.

( Although it must be said that the history textbooks used by public schools are written by conservatives who aren’t interested in telling the truth.)

Even with the bad rap Charters have, Public schools continue to grade poorly (pun intended) because their funding continues to be cut. When that happens, poor stats are inevitable. Only a few chosen public schools in districts with giant corporations like Boeing get decent funding, but even then, public school teachers make shit pay.

Now, with that illegal grab over all competition by Learfield IMG, the DOJ had no choice but to step in and put a halt to Learfield IMG’s shenanigans. They “settled” with the DOJ with, IMO, a bad deal.

Read the settlement here: DOJ Reaches Settlement with Learfield IMG College Over Alleged Unlawful Agreements Not to Compete.”

There’s no “alleged” about their illegal behavior, but to avoid taking responsibility for it, “alleged” has to be put in headlines and content.

Until things change (the “free college plan” put forth by Progressive candidates for president along with “Medicare For All”), Learfield IMG will force universities to accept only their bids, then gain a permanent foothold over public schools on behalf of Charter schools and corrupt politicians like Betsy DeVos. It would inevitably forbid local schools from competing with local stations and advertisers. Their goal, and hers, is to kill public schools altogether. So where would the 99% go to school? Either they pay a Charter school money they can’t afford, or their kids get no education.