The SportsThink Review #122
April 25, 2025: Hiring Fair
The SportsThink Review highlights my favorite sport-related content. Most things I share are recently published, but some are not; the only rule is that I’ve read or encountered them recently. Some are relevant to my day job as a professor teaching courses on the business, history, and philosophy of sports. Others are just plain interesting, relevant to my lifelong obsession with the games we play. I also occasionally share articles and assorted musings on Twitter.
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Happy Friday, everyone, hope life is treating you well. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week…
NFL Draft Weekend: All American Socialism
Do you remember those Peyton Manning MasterCard commercials? “What if we cheered for normal jobs the way we cheer for athletes” was the device, more or less. Peyton at the grocery store deli counter, “CUT THAT MEAT!” Those were good ads. It’s hard not to think of those this weekend, as 250,000 (!!) people descend upon Green Bay for the NFL Draft, which is basically a hiring fair. Tens of millions will watch on TV. This is weird, made all of the more weird by the fact that ~90% of picks are accurately predicted in the months ahead by draft experts in the media. There is occasional drama, but it still boils down to four days of sitting around and waiting for someone to say a name out loud every 15 minutes. You’re hired!
Before you come at me with your reasons for watching the draft, know that I get it. I’ve been there. At some point in my early 20s, I spent an entire Saturday inside of a pool cabana in Las Vegas watching the draft. My much wiser friends were actually in the pool, as young men in Las Vegas should be. But me? For reasons I will never be able to explain, it was VERY IMPORTANT that I watched every pick live, grazing on soggy melon from the “complimentary” fruit tray. With 4+ decades under my belt, I have no shortage of embarrassing moments, but this is a contender for my all time cringiest behavior.
But you can recover! These days, I do the audacious thing and simply read the list of picks at some point. This seems to work ok.
Perhaps the most amusing thing about the draft (and all other American pro drafts) is how it drives home just how un-American our most American sports product is. This assumes that you’d label socialism un-American. I mean: we reward the worst teams with the first picks. Instead of punishing the losers for being bad at business, we give them a chance to seize the (offensive) means of production. Of course that’s not the only anti-capitalist behavior in American pro sports: strong unions and collective bargaining, revenue sharing, salary caps…it’s no wonder they call it the Red Zone.
Here’s your reminder that while a tiny handful of leagues in other countries have US style drafts, the vast majority rely on this thing called the “market.” Soccer in the rest of the world has no drafts. SOCCER!!!
Then again, maybe this is an apt indictment of the shortcomings of socialist states. Despite these various mechanisms, the same teams suck for extended periods of time and the winners keep winning, despite being handicapped with low draft picks. There goes Mahomes, politburo QB, suffocating the proletarian Raiders one five yard plan at a time.
Before you come for my job—ostensibly teaching young people how to succeed in the sports industry—trust that I understand why things are this way. But this doesn’t mean I’m not going to point it out, laugh at it, and try to make sense of it. And it all makes perfect sense given the nature of the pro sports: where athletes are the labor force and a product at once, something I grapple with for my comrades in my Sports are Weird and Sport Integrity Ecosystem manifestos.
Draft Reads
I have never come across a great history of the NFL Draft or US drafts in general. Seems like a great dissertation for someone to write. (Also if you’re familiar with a good piece on this, please send it my way) These aren’t bad though…
NFL.Com is a decent starting point
A solid explainer-type piece from ESPN
I’m not supposed to do this as an academic, but Wikipedia is probably the best of the bunch
As this remains a Longhorn-forward publication, I’ll note that we had three first round picks yesterday. Hook ‘em and all that. So this seems like a good moment to share Jonathan Wells’ newsletter dedicated to Longhorn history. I’ve shared his writing before and I remain a big fan. Must read for my fellow Horns, but please check this out if you are even remotely interested in sports history, it’s just such consistently great work. Here’s his most recent piece, on the draft, of course.
As always, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed today's newsletter, I'd be incredibly grateful if you'd share it with someone in your life who might like it too (just click the button below). Every share means the world to me. Thanks for thinking sports with me.
See you next time,
Tolga
I appreciate the plug. Thank you!