Sportscialism

It's the summer of sports and socialism! Connell (River Valley DSA) and Jason (Connecticut DSA) join us to talk about socialist fandom, the political economy of sports in the US, and how sports can bring us together as an organization.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Hi comrades, welcome to CLASS, the podcast of Democratic Socialists of America's National Political Education Committee, or NPEC. My name is Michaela, and I'm currently chair of NPEC and a member of North New Jersey DSA. Before we dive in, a reminder that CLASS is available on all major podcast platforms. Please consider becoming a DSA member by following the link in the podcast description. You can also send us a message about the episode and sign up for Red Letter, NPEC's monthly newsletter, using the provided links. I also wanted to remind you all that for a few more weeks, our summer schedule is less frequent, which is why last week we didn't have an episode. But starting back in the fall, we'll have a full class schedule back in place. As is typical in many American families, the common experience of sports in my house was highly gendered and centered around watching the game on TV, primarily football, favorite team the Seahawks, and was devastatingly boring to me, as nerdy as they come. I was a fast kid and wasn't too bad at some sports, but the aforementioned nerdiness interfered with my um social experience, and I'm sure many listeners know exactly what I mean. Over time and growing up, however, it became more clear to me how sports have appeal, going outside the strictures of the home, as public entertainment, as a way to see your friends and meet new people, as engaging in the experience of collective hope, and depending on the outcome, shared commiseration or shared joy. Sports may not be exclusively or typically socialist, but community principles are for many people internationally at the very heart of what it means to enjoy and experience sports. The World Cup is ending now with just a few more games to go. Despite FIFA's legendary corruption and the outrageous expense, the World Cup is a weeks-long celebration of the international passion for a sport that working class people on almost every continent play together in the streets by the millions. In New York City, Mayor, DSA member, and avid soccer fan Zaron Mamdani has impressed global commentators by dropping science on the beautiful game and has endeared himself even more to the world by incorporating community pickup games on the lawn of the mayor's mansion, holding lotteries for $50 tickets for members of the public to be able to afford to take in a match, and inviting union members on group trips out to the stadium. And I would be remiss not to mention the Knicks historic NBA championship series, where the entire city was invited by the Mamdani administration to watch the games together on public screens and then, when the miracle finally happened, to experience that collective effervescence of winning together in the streets. Occasionally, Cynics Online would accuse new fans or people who aren't really into basketball of bandwagoning or just getting into it when it's trending. But to us, to DSA, the bandwagoner and the diehard fan are beautifully socially equal. I realize this is a hot take from a nerd. The mailbox is open for comment. Before I get too deep in trouble with my own mouth, with me today to discuss their perspectives on sports as fans and socialists are Connell, a member of Marxist Unity Group from River Valley DSA in Western Massachusetts, and Jason, a Communist Caucus member from Connecticut DSA. Welcome, Connell and Jason.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Hello. Hey, great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Hey, thank you so much for coming by. And we always ask the same question to our DSA comrades. How and why did you become a socialist? And how and why did you join DSA? We'll go with uh you first, Connell, since you're on my left.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Sure. Um so I remember back in 2016 around uh you know I was excited about Bernie, um, and obviously Trump's election really sucked, and I had heard of DSA, um, but I wasn't sure yet. I was like, oh, should I join this group? Should I try to join the town democratic party committee and try to make it better? Thank God you didn't do that. Yeah, yeah. I I got busy at work at things uh and you know, didn't end up doing either. And then in 2020, um, you know, obviously, you know, Bernie ran two in COVID. I was like, wow, everything is terrible. I have to do something. And by that time I had made my choice, so I I joined DSA and I've been here ever since.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Cool. So you would say that maybe your like socialist awakening also came through Bernie, which is super common, but also like I need to join something and figure out kind of like where I sit in this like moment, which also common. Jason, what about you? What was your awakening?

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, so I guess uh similar to Connell, I was um, you know, I was a supporter of Bernie Sanders in 2016, voted for him in the primary. Um, I had dropped out of college uh the year before in 2015, 2014-ish, um, and was looking to uh sort of change my life around. So I was uh moving between jobs at the time. Um didn't really know how to get involved in politics beyond voting for Bernie Sanders in the in the primary. Um so uh didn't really find out about DSA until 2018 when Alexandria Icacious-Cortez won. Uh at the time I was working as a uh a janitor in a um in a school. Uh so I was uh really interested in the labor movement, trying to get into the union there, uh, and found out that DSA was organizing anti-ICE rallies around me. So I I found out about the local chapter and joined up in Connecticut.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Cool. Wow, so that was an early ICE convert. Um it's interesting to talk to people and figure out like what the different like nodes were, and if people have been in long enough, it usually is something about Bernie AOC. But what draws them in and gets them involved is is different. But today we're here to talk about sports, which as I said in my intro, not everyone always associates socialists with sporting or sports fandom. Um, but I'm interested to find out like how did you all become sports fans? I'm assuming it like long predated your socialism. So, Jason, why don't you talk about that? And then I just want to kind of facilitate a conversation with you both. Cause as I said also in my intro, this is not my 100% wheelhouse, but I've also just become interested in it. So it's super great to just have two hardcore sports fans here to talk to. But yeah, how'd you get into it? Like what was the thing that drew you in?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, I guess for me, um, maybe against the stereotype, I was actually uh it was after COVID that I really started getting into sports uh more than just like as a casual observer. Um, I was uh starting up work at a factory and I had a lot of time where I was just sort of working by myself, uh, needed things to kill the time, and podcasts and audiobooks weren't cutting it. Uh I had grown up watching the Yankees with my dad, uh, so I decided to put on the Yankees game on the radio as something free I didn't have to pay for, um, just to start listening to things. Uh, and I got really hooked on it. Um, my whole family's been Yankees fans since I was a little kid, so it was very easy for me to like start to learn about it, talk to family members about what I should be following, what I should be doing. Uh, I had been to games before, but never really like that often. Uh so getting into it for me was like a work experience. Uh and yeah, it happened after I was already a socialist.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

So can I just uh paint a picture real quick? Was it you on the factory floor just being like, if I have to listen to another podcast, I'm going to off myself? And then you're like, why don't I just turn on the radio and listen to live sports?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah, exactly. So I I um I've I've listened to so many like podcast episodes. Uh I was a voracious audiobook reader. Uh, but if you if you read listen to audiobooks, you know that you can kill like a 20-hour book in like one work week uh if you're just listening to the one book. Uh so after like a dozen of those, I was like, I need something to fill my time that's not like four men talking. Uh so nine or so men running around bases, which was much more entertaining.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah, I can see, I can see the appeal. What about you, Connell? How'd you get into sports fandom?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, so I, you know, I grew up with yeah, we would have, you know, uh football and basketball and baseball on, you know, watched it with my dad or at family events, different things. Um, you know, grew up playing sports. I'm from Springfield, Massachusetts, home of the greatest sport on earth, basketball. Um, and which you know is not unfortunately not the the sport for me, uh height-wise. But yeah. Uh yeah, so I would say now it's always been part of my life. Um I really I these days I really watch women's sports primarily, the WNBA, the NWSL. Um, but you know, for men's sport, I yeah, all you know, the World Cup, the different championship events, all the big stuff. I'll I'll I'll check that stuff out. Um and yeah, it's yeah, it's just always been like there as like something that I watched and enjoy following.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah, so it sounds also like both of you kind of had it around. It was like the water you swam in, and maybe you rediscovered like a way to be part of it that was maybe a little distinct. Like for you, Jason, it was once you became a working stiff and needed, you know, to kind of revisit that. But then Connell also um I know you pretty well, and I know that your uh your um fan status for women's sports can only probably is beyond compare anyone else I know. I probably will hear from somebody else that that's not true. I'm I'm a bigger sports fan than than Connell. But I'm wondering though, like as socialists or even just like what you've observed in the world, like there sports is huge. Like sports is um in the United States, commercial sports is huge. You know, a lot of people, I was around a lot of sports when I was younger, um, didn't adopt it into my life the same way because I would I was kind of more bookish. Um, there was definitely a nerd versus jock divide in my my house. Um, but I'm wondering either if you experienced or have you noticed any like social barriers to being a sports fan as a socialist, just because there is this sense that this is a commercial endeavor, it's like belongs outside, and even like maybe this is an unfair stereotype, but a lot of like sports fans are kind of like older men or primarily men who are um maybe more into more broad other broad like categories of entertainment rather than politics, especially left politics. This is also just me kind of playing devil's advocate to give you like something broad to talk about. But what about the social barriers that that might develop? Either of you can can come to that. I'd like to hear about this and kind of riff on it a little.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, Connell, I'm curious for your experience, but for me, um I definitely think baseball gets like the worst rap of being like a primarily a sport for old white men who have time to like sit in front of the TV or listen to the radio. Uh and I think that to a certain extent that is still true, but I also think in general, sports has been like a really easy way for me to like break down social barriers with people I don't know at all. Um I I was just having internet installed in my new apartment, and uh we had the Optimum Technician come. Uh, and when he was waiting for it to start the hookup, he pulled out his phone and started watching World Cup clips. Uh and I it's a great way to just ask, like, oh, who what team are you following? Uh and he was following Morocco. And it gives you something to talk about for like five minutes. And I think in general, uh sports has really seen a big upswing with younger people more recently, especially as I mentioned, like post-COVID when people are looking for new things to do to fill their time, um, especially things that are offline and not as plugged in. Uh, I know baseball has seen a big uh upsurge with women, uh, a lot of people uh attending games, talking about it in a context of as fans who are women. Um queer nights, LGBT nights, pride nights are huge at minor major league games, always packed with different types of people. Um and I think that the the more that this has been happening, the easier it's been for me as a socialist to to plug in and find and just find random new people to talk about sports with. Uh rather than just assuming like uh my coworker who is like uh a woman or um uh might be from another country might not be interested. Oftentimes I'll just ask like what type of sports do you follow? Because it it's sometimes just an easy way to to break down the barriers that might exist between us.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yeah, um, yeah, I think one thing I want to say about that also is like it's really easy to sort of treat sports as like a monolith, as like as if it's an entertainment category that just like kind of uh exists on its own as one thing. Like you just there's so much variety within it, right? Like as you're saying about baseball's reputation, you know, like my uh primary league is WNBA, that fan base is totally different, right? Like you have a league that's you know mostly black women, many of them queer. Um, you know, the fan base is much more progressive, I think, um, in a lot of different ways. Um, and that's not to say there aren't uh you know conservative or racist fans who have entered the arena on their own reasons, but um as we've seen lately. Uh but yeah, there's you know, there it's a lot of different things. And I think for people that you know care really deeply about politics and about you know other people in the world, uh it there's just definitely stuff that can put people off of things, right? Like um when you have as you're saying, these are massive, massive businesses. Um and you know, there's nothing good comes of looking at sports ownership, right? Like the the you there's no point in like trying to find the most ethical sports team. You're like, oh wow, I love this team. Great. The owner is some sort of you know uh mega landlord, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Or a super big like Trump donor or something.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah, or the you know, the logo on the chest of the jersey for my favorite player is this, you know, terrible, terrible company, um, or all of these different things, or this league has covered up sexual assault and you know, all of these things. It's like the politics and the problems that people face, like it's it's all part of everything, and those things kind of um, you know, uh it's tough to deal with in a lot of ways. Um it's just I think just part of the human experience. I'd like like the this stuff is everywhere no matter sort of where you get your entertainment, I think. Um so yeah, it's just very unfortunate that I as we're seeing today, like the uh I I didn't get a chance to read it yet, but we're recording this today as a uh Supreme Court decision just dropped, I think, like allowing discrimination against trans women um in in um in women's sports. And yeah, these again, all of these things can like really put people off of stuff. Um and yeah, it can be very heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah, I'm interested in hearing because it sounds like there's a bit of a like a contradiction there. It brings people together, but it also, just like many other things, like the workplace, like under capitalism, there's always a potential to divide people, right? There's always a potential for something to be ruined, you know, by capitalism. Um, but what you said, Jason, earlier about how both you can kind of maybe clock somebody as an obvious sports fan, if they're like, you know, working class person, like coming in to, you know, install your internet or something, and there's a big sports event going on. The World Cup is happening right now, almost and it's happening in the United States. So of course, there's a lot of excitement kind of underlying that. But then you also said that you can maybe even reach out to someone who might not typically be asked about sports, might be stereotyped or clocked as somebody who doesn't care about this thing, and then find out they actually do have an attachment to it. Yet what you're saying, Connell, too, is that there is also this internal alienation because of how commercial it is and how fraught I would say it is, because in the United States, especially, the culture war and the class war really are tied together forcefully. Um, so I do want to talk about that. Sports have become these multi-billion dollar businesses, and now we also have this explosive rise in online sports betting, which is like a scourge, right? Um, and so the capital aspects of sports in various ways are just even more intensified and arguably more harmful for the working class as we enjoy it this particular form of entertainment. Like you said, Connell. It's like it is fun, but it also has these harms. So I'm wondering, you know, as people who are so engaged in this culture, how do you reconcile those harms? Are we kind of in the area of like, well, capitalism ruins everything, so we have to try to ignore it, like a lot of other cultural or social enjoyments? Or what's what about organizing? What about like these various other ways that we can like maybe see some wins? For example, unions for players, um, various other kinds of victories that um might uh beat back some of these harms. So please hold forth. I would love to hear about what you think about this uh this tangled web and contr contradiction that like lies within your favorite thing. Connell, why don't you start?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Sure. Yeah, so I think uh, you know, it's I think sports can be, you know, showed the best of us and the worst of us, right? Like you um, you know, it can be these totally transcendent moments of just like what human beings can do. And all of a sudden you're celebrating with like literally the entire world is watching something and full of joy. Um and it can be uh absolutely terrible that you know the sports betting stuff I think is destroying lives right now. It's uh you know, I it's uh frankly, you know, annoying and like distasteful to me. I think that how much of the the betting content is part of things now, but that's just you know that's uh small potatoes compared to what it's doing to people in debt. Um and you know, I think uh that uh yeah, there it does feel like uh one of those things that's really tough to grapple with and that I think um you know would would need to be, you know, we I think that you know, at the end of the day, I think if we had a s a society that was built for people, um, you know, there would there would be a way to have uh you know, it's it's fun, you can like have wagering with your friends, right? Like that, like totally fine, totally fun. Um, but when it's built up into this really predatory extractive industry, um it's just totally out of control. Um I think uh, you know, uh I think there's a lot of ways, whether, you know, uh cool down periods or regulations on the advertising and promotions or uh separation of different things, like we got the the teams and leagues not being able to be connected at all with the the betting platforms. Um I think that these are things that uh you know, frankly, we should be trying to deal with as part of our politics. Um, you know, whether that's the sort of kind of harm mitigation stuff as I'm talking about compared to like going back to uh prohibition. Like, um I I don't know, frankly, like which which direction we should go. I think we should be talking about it as an organization. Um, but yeah, it's it's really tough to see it happening.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah, I appreciate that, Connell, because I think um I I've had some like interactions at my my current job. I'm a teamster. I work at a factory that's um it's a pretty old factory, lots of older people who work there. And there's a big cultural difference in the gambling that I see. Um I think I see I've I've worked at many workplaces where they hold like um the you might need to clip this, but what's it called? The uh the lip the uh the pools that they have, like the betting pools where they'll bet on like a big uh the final season in front of the NBA or the um the the NFL, um, where you buy the little box that uh the squares. Yeah, the little squares where you buy the the the box based on like how many points you expect the team to win, etc. And it's a deeply social experience where you have one coworker going up to every coworker in a building and asking them to like throw a few dollars into the betting pool uh and asking everybody to participate. Um I've I've heard of stories at other workplaces of people uh organizing to start a women's pool because the men would not involve the women in the betting. Uh, and I think that's like a deep, deeply. Social experience versus just today I had a coworker come up to me and was like, Look, Jason, I just won $50 placing 50 cents on DraftKings. And I'm like, I don't care about that dog. But also, it's um it's an antisocial experience. You're looking at your phone, thinking you're making money, throwing money down, versus having a social engagement with the rest of your coworkers. Uh, and I see this, I think uh there's some recent studies at Northwestern University in the last couple of years that pointed to like something like 45% of men have participated in sports betting versus something like 20% of women. So it is like a deeply gender segregated at the moment uh industry uh that I think ties into what we were talking about with like the culture war going on in sports. Um, a point that I I was really moved by was someone told me that men really only seem to care about women's sports when they can stop something going on in it. Um, that there seems to be a very frequent effort to control women's bodies, trans people's bodies through the avenue of protecting women. And that has translating into this sports industry where um women in sports in the same le in the same sports are often paid much less than the men who are performing the same sport. Uh, and that gender pay gap is in some ways being even more rigorously enforced through this gender segregation and this attack on trans people. Um so I really think like this element of like the culture war and the gambling industry uh and the way that they are trying to monetize these up-and-coming sports uh are deeply linked as they try and expand the reach and power of these small uh monopoly of owners.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, that's super interesting that you mentioned that because I also, I mean, obviously there's the Supreme Court case that just came down that has this um men in girls' sports framing that is about like protecting high schoolers or protecting like college students. But the way that I think it's linked up to trying to suppress um women's earning power and their ability to have like a part of this larger pie that is so lucrative. I mean, here we're talking maybe to the side of the scourge of sports betting, but we're talking about like the multi-billion dollar industry. The thing is too, is that more fans always means more money, right? Like it's more viewership, it's more um ad revenue, it's more of all of that stuff. So capital doesn't care if it's a socialist, capital doesn't care if it's a progressive, like watching the game. What capital cares about is being able to control the flow of production, being able to control the labor. And sports are also, you know, as people might know who are listening, highly unionized. Some of the unions are um more, I don't know, business unionist. I think all of them are pretty much business unions, um, but some of them maybe have a little bit more of a radical history. Um, but I do know, and maybe Connell, you can speak to this, is that um the WNBA was able to win like a huge uh pay increase um through uh contract negotiations recently, and it made a really big splash precisely because it was like the WNBA, right? Like it's not something that people might have thought of and they would have been right that it is like as lucrative as men's sports. And the pay gap is still there, but it's less now. Um and it's kind of a, you know, maybe touchy subject among socialists because what we might want to see is capital leaving this this um area and people being able to play competitive sports and enjoy the entertainment without the profit motive that would allow people to make this like absurd amounts of money for, you know, I'm gonna make you guys mad, but for playing a game. Um, but yeah, maybe we can also speak to that. Like, what is it about like the the sort of labor piece, the production piece, and the capital piece that like fits in? And how are you able to reconcile that? Not in like a now I can enjoy it more kind of way, but as you know, thinking political agents here. Like, what's the analysis of how to reconcile those big gains? Because of course, sports betting, we can agree, I think, that like this is also an addiction. There's all kinds of other social issues alongside of it, but it has to do with the fact that this is like major business. Like people are able to, you know, bet off of each other and bet on these games, like historically, because of how much they rake in and how and how many people are participating in like the actual viewership and everything. So, yeah, give me some give me some uh sports labor.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah, I don't mind uh starting up. I I think that uh I'm definitely curious to hear more about the WNBA uh contract fight because I think that was huge uh in recent memory. Um, but uh a lot of people don't maybe know that labor history and sports are are deeply intertwined. Uh as a lot of the union fights that we read about as socialists and study were happening in the in the late 1800s, those were also starting up in professional sports in the United States. Uh the oldest sports union uh was the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players, uh, founded by John Montgomery Ward, a graduate of Columbia Law School at the time that he was founding it uh in 1895. Um they were uh organizing to defeat the ownership uh that were maintaining a reserve clause, which was basically the right of the owners to uh decide where the player could move as a player, what teams they could apply for. Um that was not defeated until the more recent union, the Major League Baseball Players Association was formed in the 60s. Uh so that is uh almost 70 years of uh owner control and labor uh fighting for control of their rights as players. Um and a lot of the issues that uh workers on the field fight for are the same issues that we fight for wages, hours, conditions. Um the Major League Baseball Players Association is probably the strongest union in sports. Uh, they are notorious for maintaining a uh a right to have no salary cap. Uh so unlike uh basketball, soccer, other major sports, uh baseball players can make whatever they negotiate uh in contracts with the team. Um I think the highest played paid player right now is Shohei Otani, uh, making something like $300 million on a contract that has a deferment clause that lets him wait to be paid on all of it for several years, uh, which is maybe an anti-labor practice, but we don't we don't talk about that too much. Um and a lot of players they defend this because they say we are worth millions of dollars. They're the people who are making all the money, and the the owners are the ones who are profiting off of their labor. Um and I think players are in the baseball uh union are very keen on the fact that they are, they would not have these rights if players did not act to defend them. Uh players have been locked out and gone on strike uh several times over the decades, uh, and they are very knowledgeable about the fact that if they did not do that, they would probably have lost several of these rights. Uh the Major League Baseball Association is in contract negotiations right now, uh, heading into what is likely going to be another lockout uh at the end of this year after the this season. Uh and the reason for that is players uh owners want to remove that clause that lets them be paid whatever they're able to negotiate. They want to set a salary cap. Um and this deeply divides like commentators. Commentators on baseball love to say that like it's anti-fan, they're raising ticket prices, or they're they're just playing a kid's game. It they're playing a kids' game, but it's a kids' game that I like to watch, that I can't play myself in a major league baseball stadium. I can't hit a home run 300 something feet out of Yankee Stadium. Um, so I think that a lot of fans are looking to this and saying, yeah, I I want my favorite players to be making a shit ton of money, and I want my team to pay to keep them. Uh I think we saw that with uh with the Yankees with Juan Soto, uh, who was bought by the Mets uh for several hundreds of millions of dollars. Uh and people were mad because he's a great player, uh, and it is it's sad that the Yankees were like willing to lose him. But um ultimately that is that is what labor fighting is about. It's about saying that we are worth the amount of money we say we are. The owners are taking more money than uh we get in our paychecks, and we want to have the right to not just make more money, but have control over our industry. Um and I'll just say on this last point that uh that uh union organizer I mentioned, John Montgomery Ward, when he uh was organizing, he actually founded a players league when the when the bosses, the the owners refused to negotiate with him. Uh it didn't last long because the owners were like, we'll give you some concessions, and uh the business owners backing that venture did not see a lot of profit in it. But uh it it was an experiment in saying that these industries don't have to be owned by uh at that time millionaires and now billionaires.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Yeah, and if that was the you know, 1890s, there also was it was on the tail of a lot of like socialist experimentation. So there's no reason why something like popular sports wouldn't end up getting kind of maybe sucked into it partially, right? So it's thinking about this is a little bit of a tangent, but thinking about this in terms of like communes that were like, you know, rising up and people were obviously the union movement was going, but then there were also all these other like maybe there's other ways to live, and maybe there's other ways to like find human satisfaction in all of these different areas. So it actually sounds like this person caught the bug a little bit and was just like, well, what if we socialized sports? If we're gonna talk about socializing everything, why don't we just socialize this thing that people are gonna make a, you know, probably had no idea that in the future it would be this like multi-billion dollar business the way it is now, but still like, you know, something that people are attracted to and that was becoming an extractive market, like it's like, okay, well, why not socialize it?

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, on that point, real quick, um, there's a recent book, uh, Metropolitans, about the labor history of the New York Mets and uh New York baseball and labor politics in general. Uh, and there's a fun story in there about uh how before the electrification of uh baseball stadiums, before they had lights, it was an exclusively daytime activity. Uh so you would have to leave work, sometimes without permission, to go watch a baseball game. Uh and I think that uh that's what we're fighting against oftentimes, of saying that the the boss wants to commodify baseball and make it only an activity that rich people can afford to attend in person. Uh and with all sports, uh that's that seems to be the case. So uh the more we can fight back against it and say these are things we want to do on the job, uh we want to leave work to have time to do it, not just uh pay out the year to have the experience.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, absolutely. Um yeah, so I would say there's a lot of really interesting stuff to think about for labor in women's sports specifically. Um so what they this is obviously changing as you know the as more money goes in and they are you know winning bigger and better contracts, but uh depending on the league and uh uh up until very recently, these the salaries for women's athletes like they are either totally inadequate or just like much closer to a sort of you know uh regular job that you might have. You know, like it's only we're only a few years out. So the National Women's Soccer, like the NWSL, um just a few years back, they had to do like a whole like one job should be enough campaign. Like they, you know, when they affiliated with the AFL CIO, they were saying like some of these players, they were working second, third jobs, you know, being a professional soccer player and then you know, going to drive for Uber or I think some work in an Amazon warehouse, you know, like uh how can you rest? How can you recover? You're going to get injured, you know, like it's I just uh it's really, really different, right? Like the this you should be able to have this be your job that you're paid to do and not be cobbling together these things um that uh you know totally destroy your body as you're trying to perform on this high level. Um so it's uh uh and then you see as uh and basically when they again they started to they affiliated with the age of uh with the CIO a couple years back, some of the teams they would go I think it was uh I should have looked this up. I think it was the Nabisco strike. I think the uh the I believe it was the Portland Thorns went out to a factory. One of I think one of the goalkeepers stood in front of a truck a truck trying to make a delivery and turned them around. Like it's really, really cool stuff to see them, you know, uh, you know, just being part of the labor movement. Um and I think for sports units in general, I think with the level of union activity in the country, it's you know, it's a different type of job, there's different dynamics involved. But it's great for both people to be like, what what does this mean? Why what is a CBA? Why are why are they in a contract fight? Um, all these different things. Um so and they can you know really tackle you know not just the um not just the you know the salary stuff, but also really important um quality of life and sort of uh control of the league things. So again with the soccer league, uh their most recent contract, they bargained to end the draft. Um if you're not a sports fan, the draft system is uh in the United States, uh you go to college for some amount of time um or graduate and then you enter a draft, and the teams kind of get to pick players in a set order, and you don't get a choice about where you're going to play. Um this particularly for women's sports is uh um is really tough. You know, a lot of these players, you know, they may be queer or like getting, you know, getting to send to these states where their rights are different or you know, where the reproductive justice laws are terrible. Um and you know, they want to be able to decide where they're living because of this. Um so that was you know, that was a really big deal to them. Uh and that was a huge win that they're able to do that. And the players just again have that much more agency over where you're living, which is you know, something I think you know we most of us take for granted. Like I'm not going to get shipped off with my rookie contract. Um but you know, it's just a very different world in terms of how your employment works.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Yeah, I mean, well, I also think that's becoming more and more the case for a lot of people who just work, actually. Like you often don't have a choice about where you're going to work, um, and everything is very mediated. Um, but yeah, it's obviously a very different kind of work. But the difference also is um the difference is also sort of flattened in a way by the amount of money that is being extracted and the things that are going on, like in the sort of capital side of this, which is mass amounts of profit. And the complaints, I'm really interested in this like commentator feud or or what however you described it, Jason, like this idea that commentators are taking sides on this, and some of them are saying that the players are anti-fan because you know that this is a union busting kind of tactic, right? Like um, to try to kind of get it out into the media that the the um the union is greedy, right? Or that the uh the the players don't they have enough or the workers they have don't they have enough. Now they're gonna be passing on the costs to the consumer. Um, right. So this is also, and I want to definitely talk about this. This is about the enjoyment of this particular kind of, as you all have very well um, I think, you know, kind of settled here, it's a very social activity. And a socialist believes that social activities should be free and accessible, right? Um, obviously it's a treat to be able to afford, but also to be able to go to these live things. I actually do enjoy live sports, despite the fact that I'm not like a sports fan. It's really fun. Like I remember um hockey was big at my high school, so going to hockey games was really exciting and fun. Um, even though I don't know much about baseball, I feel like what I see is what I get in baseball a lot more than maybe other sports. But I really I do enjoy also going to baseball games. But this kind of gets us to this question about the social aspects of sports for two reasons. One is that historically, sport has been integrated into some socialist mass party life. For instance, Social Democratic Party of Germany has been held up often as a comparison to DSA, but a sort of model for modern socialist party building, they had gymnastics and cycling clubs as well as like other clubs that people could get involved in that were like, you know, social and physical activities. Um, and I also just would be remiss not to mention the kind of like post-Knicks or even like during like the Knicks playoffs, how our socialist mayor, I'm not in New York, but we we take we take some ownership of him as DSA. Our socialist mayors around Mamdanny, made this, the, the whole city kind of like a a stadium, right? And even um criticized both the Knicks owner and the owner of uh Madison Square Garden for like kind of not allowing people to enjoy it. And he's like, well, everyone can watch it wherever they want, like in the city. And like there was just this huge kind of upswell of um, you know, socialization. And of course, there was some people who were like, uh, people are bandwagoning. But honestly, like socialists should encourage bandwagoning. Socialists should be down for like people getting swept up in the the sort of fun, positive, like social aspects of something that's a shared experience that is, you know, maybe we've just talked about how it's there's some harm related to it. But the the win and like the the kind of like common humanity of it um is very, very potent, you know, people cheering. And of course, now that the World Cup's going on, people also have that going on, all the view parties and everything. So maybe we could just talk about like what lessons socialists can learn from like the history of sports in socialism or sports in party building, but also your thoughts on like kind of this maybe um can sports be redeemed through like kind of more free accessible uh like party building in the streets kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Yeah. Um really quick, wanted to say thank you, Connell, for that brief inner insight into like the women's sports unionization. Because I I think it like as someone who followed the minor league baseball unionization drive, like it it really closely correlates between their struggle for like really basic rights of like having one job, not having to work two, three jobs doing delivery on the side just to make ends meet. And I think that um all sports kind of shares that issue of like players are easily exploited because they couldn't imagine themselves doing any other job. They want to be playing sports professionally. Um, and when an injury can eliminate your career one year, two years into it before you get that massive paycheck, uh, it makes it all the easier for owners to exploit these workers. Um but on the on the cultural question, I think that there is um a lot to learn. Um, first of all, like there's there's sports groups all around you. People don't often think about it, but uh I've been following online uh people who organize, for example, like trans baseball leagues, uh softball, uh professional uh rule baseball, uh, just around their cities, just starting to organize those themselves. Um there are in my town uh or in Connecticut, there's uh in New Haven a uh a baseball league, like an amateur baseball league, uh that has uh a group called the New Haven Bat and Ball Society, which is uh play on the skull and bones uh society that our president George Bush was a part of. Very cute. So these things exist all around us pickup leagues, uh youth leagues. Um I do think that they have uh seen a resurgence post COVID as people have sort of sought like in person experiences more. Uh, but they have a deep history all around us, and and I do encourage people to look into those and maybe form like a DSA contingent at them. Um but in terms of like the party culture, I really think that there's a lot to learn from the way. That we saw Mamdani and other people in New York City really try to push that the Knicks are the people's team. It was really heartening for me as somebody who was on the bandwagon to see a lot of people just sort of I I knew DSA members who traveled down to New York City just to go hang out and have a good time because they knew there would be a lot of people out in the streets. They knew there would be an awesome, safe, fun time for them and their friends uh to really celebrate something. Um and I think the the history that we have of um the Social Democratic Party in Germany, uh the Communist Party in Cuba organizing baseball games like in the year, immediate years after the revolution. There's some great pictures that I have of uh Fidel Castro wearing uh a barbudos, uh a bearded men uh baseball jersey, because all the revolutionaries had beards living out in the Sierra Maestra. That's me, buddy. And of course, uh um Bernie Sanders organizing baseball games up in in uh in Vermont when he was uh uh the mayor there. Um I think that uh this these lessons give us uh some insight into um or rather, these are uh ways that people have gotten organized in a way that increases people's association with uh political life. Uh there's oftentimes like a deep I was talking with some fr uh labor organizers here in Connecticut about how people tend to do socialism as a hobby. They do it in like their free time when they're outside of work rather than talking to coworkers and neighbors about their politics. And I think that this sort of inverses it. It it makes your free time a socialist activity by involving people in a game, like something that you can invite somebody to socially uh without the expectation that they're going to drop everything and become a socialist immediately. Uh, but showing up at the local ballpark or the soccer pitch and uh and wearing all your red shirts and saying, like, you're the I think the Denver uh chapter has like a basketball team called the Red Stars. That's all cute. Like it's it's great to be able to say, I can bring my kids or my coworker to an event um and just have a good time uh and get to know people socially in a way that's not a high pressure situation where you're asking somebody to like commit to canving or uh commit to or organizing a union at their workplace. Um I obviously we're talking about this in the party context, but I I've done this at work too, where when I started a new job, I'll instead of like immediately talking to people about getting involved in the union or um or forming a union, the question is like, do you want to come hang out outside of work with me and maybe watch a sport game? Uh baseball for me, of course. But uh the same applies for the World Cup. There's uh every TV in the country and internationally is tuned into games right now. Obviously, you don't want to stereotype, but if you have coworkers who are uh a member of a nationality who have a team in the World Cup, odds are, even if they're not a sports fan, they're probably following. Because, like with the Knicks, there's this level of like civic nationalism where you have this like pride in seeing people who are from your country, maybe from your neighborhood, um, like Alvarado and the Knicks, uh, a Queens guy. Um as Zaren said, like winning for all five boroughs. I think that appeal for people is very strong. And they want to see uh people celebrating that. And uh as somebody who like doesn't care about the US uh men's team in in the World Cup, uh I have a great time talking with coworkers, Mexican coworkers especially, about how like I I'm rooting for them. I I really like to see their team succeed, and uh it's a great, great way to introduce yourself to people.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think it and I think Jason, I think we've both organized trips for uh around like DSA conventions and stuff to go to go to games together with uh you know people from all over the country, like let's all go to a game together. It's always a blast. Like I highly recommend people always do that with just like the chapters around you, like it's always a good time. Um but uh yeah, just to go back to the uh so the SPD in Germany, just super quick. Um, so they started in the 1800s, they were the first mass party DSA were kind of the same model as them. Um and one thing that people talk about a lot is that they had a lot of these clubs and societies. I mean, all sorts, not just you know, singing, dancing, cycling, whatever it is you wanted to do, you could do it there. And people talk about it a lot, and I think one of it it's kind of easy to just surface a lot, like, oh they had clubs, like that's cool. Yeah, we should have like membership clubs, like um, but I think uh it's uh yes, we all know membership committees are important, but there's a lot that you can get like uh from a like kind of a deeper look at it. Uh so for a period of time, you know, they were made illegal, right? There were these anti-socialist laws. During that time, they actually they quadrupled the amount of votes that they got, right? Like this is this was not the end of the road for them. Part of what helped them survive this period were these clubs and associations. Um there was still repression, they would get investigated. Um you know, it's like you know, they knew the the workers, uh the workers' movement, clubs, they were suspicious, but you know, it let you kind of oh we're having we're having our meeting with well, we all happen to be socialists here, how funny. Um and uh but you know, while doing these different hobbies and pastimes, um, but it it let them have a way to keep connecting and talking to people. And when you read about it, it's like they had all the same organizing problems that we do, and you know, the same things to to do with them, right? Like the uh they had a word, the the locale problem that's very familiar to all of us. Where are you holding your chapter meeting? You know, like how much time have we all spent trying to book the spaces? You know, this was a big problem for them, and so they had to come up with, okay, we have to find a friendly bar owner, we're gonna promise to buy the food and drink, and then you know let us hide the flags and the songbooks and the equipment under the counter. Um and these things, they uh they were organizing opportunities for people. Um, like we're part of our job as socialists, you know, we're always trying to expand the opportunities people have to exercise control over their own lives and to be part of something that we're creating together. So, you know, just like in your chapter, like the um, you know, when you had when you went to the meeting to say, all right, how are we going to run the cycling club? You got to be part of a democratic association and ha and you might have some responsibility in that for the first time ever. And people found, oh, they're now rising to that occasion. They they can become part of something. Um and joining these clubs, it was like a way to signal some political affiliation and then put you in the position of being able to hear more about it. Um so you know, it uh it really like helped people grow like as organizers and as you know, members of this political movement. Um, but just like it happens now with many you see, certainly New York City has a ton of sports teams and running clubs and all this stuff, and a lot of chapters around the country do as well. Um, I think these things are really, really great because you can have that angle in of like you know, watching professional sports together or you know, organizing your own things together. Um if I can uh indulge us for a second. So uh back when Michaela and I were uh co-chairs together of River Valley DSA.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Yes, big reveal. We were co-chairs together of River Valley DSA.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Yeah. That's Connecticut River Valley DSA, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um but uh you know, we were really trying to invest in our you know membership and retention work. Uh so we had we, you know, we had a lot going on with the membership committee, and we had a few different kickball socials, and it was very funny. Like uh then a few weeks later, someone had found in you know the like queer exchange Facebook group kind of thing. Someone's like, hey, I'm new to the area, I'm looking for a political group, and someone said River Valley DSA, and another person's like, uh, they're not serious. All they do is play kickball.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

That's so funny because I don't remember a ton of people going. Like we were like we were a small chapter, but like it's funny that people noticed that we played kickball because it's like Yeah. You had to have been there. I mean, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yeah, um, it would it was really was like we do so much more. Um but somehow that was what caught caught in their in their memory. Um but yeah, there's and all of these things, you know, I think people shouldn't force it, right? If if you're not like I mean, I think people should try it out. You might actually like it. Like a lot of people find, oh, actually I don't like this thing that I grew up with my family watching, but this other thing actually I think is super cool. If you look around and see what's out there. Um but yeah, you don't have to force it. Uh people can do the different, you know, membership committee activities with whatever their hobbies are, whether that's uh board games or basketball or different things. Um and you know, just all these different ways to bring people together and connect. Um you know, it's it's really important part of of the work that we all do.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

I I just uh want to hear what Jason wants to say too, and we're having the end of our time, but like something that I think this makes me think of is this tweet that has been circulating around that says that DSA should be more like a mega church. Um that caused me to be pretty like, what? Because I don't believe the person who tweeted grew up in any kind of evangelical or organized church, um, much less a megachurch. But all of the things that he was saying we should we should try to do as DSA, we should try to have weekly this, weekly that, like, you know, weekly moments of collective effervescence, which I'm just like, how can you plan that? Like, like that is so weird. Like, how would you like how would you like even do that? But I just thought it was funny, well, maybe not funny, haha, but like weird, funny to me that the the idea that we should try to be more like this thing that is so tied to the right, it actually has mega churches do have like deep ties to um capital. There, I just read this book about multi-level marketing, and it talks about the ways in which multi-level marketing genealogy connects to the business of megachurches. Um but I think that what to be generous, what this person is trying to get at was this idea that there's a culture of collectivity and a a kind of expectation of like collective participation in these kinds of things. I actually think, and this goes to what you were saying, Connell, about not not forcing it, is that in DSA, our political project is what we do. We are we're trying to make more and better socialists. That is that is the primary thing that we're trying to do. And we're trying to do it democratically. And the ways that you connect to people, I don't think can be separated from those things, the ways that we conduct our democratic culture. Because, and this makes me think of time in River Valley, it's like if you have a good democratic culture, you can actually lose by one vote and still be able to go out to the bar after the meeting and hang out with people because it feels legitimate to you, the activity that you just did. So the ways I mean, part of what we're talking about here is friendship and comradeship and internal institutional culture and the way that those things kind of tie together around something that is popular. You know, sports is popular, both playing sports as well as watching sports is popular. Um, and you know, just to kind of finish out, I'm just wondering, you know, I will ask the the forbidden question before we before we go out. But um I'm wondering, like, you know, in your views, like what is kind of your experience being part of DSA and participating in this stuff. You talked about like the kinds of things that we tend to do, but like what's been the change in you, or what's been like your experience being a socialist and a sports fan at the same time, and like what's that developed in you?

SPEAKER_00 57:10

Yeah, I guess um for me it's been like I said, I I kind of got into socialism before I I found my way back to sports. Uh, but for me, I um I've gotten a really great reception on doing the as Conan was saying, not forcing it, but offering up these spaces and saying, I'm gonna be doing this. Uh, does anybody want to do it with me? Um I had some great experiences just after the end of the pandemic uh closures, uh, organizing chapter attendance at um the Hartford Yard Goats, our minor league baseball team here in Connecticut.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

That's such a cute name.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

It's a cute name because they they pulled the trains at the train yard, so they're the yard goats. Um and uh every every baseball stadium, I'm sure many other sports have labor nights uh where you can or queer nights, uh LGBT Pride nights, national nights, uh Roberto Clemente nights for Puerto Ricans, um, where they celebrate um labor, uh national holidays, uh pride, as we said. And those are great nights where you can get a crew of people to go, buy a whole section, even, uh, and attend a game as a as a group. Um, and it's a deeply social experience. I've fundraised for our chapter off of it. Uh, I've gotten to know some people and their relationship with sports uh for just offering up my ability to organize these things uh and take the time out of my day to uh to share something I love with my comrades. Um and obviously that's not something uh everybody can do. Not everybody necessarily has a sports stadium near them. Uh, but even just going out and playing some, kicking some kicking a ball around in the break between uh a convention, um, bringing like the uh the ball and mitts to uh an outdoor social, um, having these opportunities to share something that you care about with comrades builds this connection that might not otherwise exist. Uh as you were saying, uh, we do want to be friends with these people or at least friendly with everyone in a way that we can have a um a meaningful conversation, meaningful disagreements, and still be able to organize with each other at the end of the day. Um I think a lot about how um in our uh New Haven Federation of Teachers, they have a wall of um labor history, because it also serves as the Greater New Haven Labor History Association. Um and one of the uh the monumental pictures there is uh the the uh International Ladies Garments Workers Unions basketball team from the 1930s. Uh and there's some um yeah, there's some history that's been written in the local newspaper about how um young women will find out that their grandmother or great-grandmother played for the uh union women's basketball team uh and rediscover their connection to labor that way and their their history in the labor movement. Uh and I think I think a lot about how like when I see like kids at at uh socialist meetings, we just had our convention recently. Um it can feel sometimes like, oh, we're just having them sit here and and wait for the adults to be done uh with their meeting. Um but we we are trying to induct them into this long socialist tradition that should include family life and should include social life. Uh and I I want to see uh kids uh feel comfortable saying, like, hey, socialists, I deserve respect too. I want you to throw the ball around with me. Because uh I do think like that, building that sort of intergenerational long-term fight is what we're here for. And I I think a lot about how I want that uh for my socialist organization.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:43

Oh my gosh. So in the last uh 10 seconds, you basically just said children should organize around the demand for respect and the ball within socialist organizations. Connell, what about you? How's how's this uh unity of socialism and and sports kind of like, you know, made you think about yourself differently or like an you know as an organizer? What's it changed in you?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

Yeah, no, I think there's a ton to learn. I think it's easy to forget because a lot of us maybe started you know planning or watching these things as children, right? So you forget how much learning went into something um about just oh, how am I gonna shoot this basketball or what are the rules of this game? It's all stuff that's like a long time ago. Um, but when we think about uh you know growing our organization, like we always want to make sure to be welcoming and like bringing people in and you know helping them grow as socialists and organizers. There's a lot of really good lessons that you can take from from sports. Um and uh you know, you want uh you see people, some people are really good at oh, we're here to grow the game, right? Like we are here to welcome in new fans or like help them, and you can have people that are you know, usually the I don't know, the the like sports guy, like the stats, oh what do you know about this roster from this year? That that kind of attitude that can push people away. It's like no, we're here to welcome people in. Um this is the uh back to that uh idea of you know things we can take from the churches or whatnot. Yeah, like you always want to have a welcoming committee and make sure there's references available, uh there's people to reach out to that can help you through things. Um and these are all just you know part of how we you know grow a movement, and it's uh you know, there's obviously things we can leave behind, um, but we can take the good lessons from them.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

Speaking of, we need to teach our audience a lesson by asking you two the forbidden question, which I I was warned not to ask it, but I think I'm just gonna go ahead and ask it and ask both of you to make your your pitch. Um what is the more working class sport? Baseball or soccer? Or is it baseball or basketball? Which one?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

Um I say the my favorite sport is basketball.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

What's your argument that it's the working class sport?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Oh no, my I'm very clear that the the sport of the international workers of the world is soccer. Uh it's the World Cup, the whole world, the whole world is in it. There's just nothing compares.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

Okay. So this is the internationalist perspective, but I feel that Jason might have a different view, and it's going to be uh potentially one rooted in um um good old American socialists and labor history, potentially.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:53

Yeah, this is where I reveal that I'm a patriotic socialist. No, unfortunately not.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:57

Hey, we are close to the 4th of July here.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

I do think uh my pitch, uh, and I do love the pun of we're we're pitching, so this is baseball victory already.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:06

Um and soccer pitch.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:08

Oh shit, I forgot about that one. Um I do think that in the United States, uh, we have colonized the rest of the Americas with our baseball obsession, uh, at least North America and the surrounding uh countries of the Gulf and the Caribbean. Uh and despite that, uh everybody I know who is uh Latino uh plays or knows somebody who has played or watches baseball. Baseball hats are a working class accessory. Uh you can tell because you're not allowed to wear one in court. Uh and uh oftentimes they yell at you in a business uh casual environment for wearing your baseball hat. Um it's also the highest paid, the best union. Therefore, it's the most working class.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

Okay. There you have it, folks. Um, obviously, if you have uh any disagreements, go ahead and write into the show and I'll uh pass it along to Connell and Jason so that they can uh argue about it in the future online, potentially. You might even see it. Uh thank you so much for being here, you all.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

Thank you for having us. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Thanks as always to our guests and our production crew, Emma, Michael, and Tim, who put this all together. CLASS is a podcast of DSA's National Political Education Committee, NPEC, which works to expand the knowledge of DSA members and non-members in the service of winning the struggle for socialism and democracy. You can find out more about NPEC by searching for us online or following us on social media. But the best way to find out what our committee is up to is by signing up for Red Letter, NPEC's monthly newsletter. And if you aren't already, you can become a DSA member by following the link in the podcast description. Okay, until next time, solidarity.