(Pre-apologizes for the mile long rant and the roughness. A lack of brevity is my greatest weakness interview question answer. And you're welcome for the random terrible digital painting. Symbolism or something.)
We’ve already seen his ability to draw big checks both in the past from Comedy Central and in the present from Netflix. He could get Chris Rock and Dan Harmon or whoever together and say, "We're starting our own network and our own youtube. One that will be against censorship. We'll have honest news shows. We'll focus on paying the creators fair amounts. We're going to pump millions into producing these shows to end all of the garbage hogging up all of the money on the big networks." He could push to buy a broadcast channel (with more backing of course) like the CW, if he couldn't start a new one out right(1). If he got on the air he would reach that many more people. If he could strip away their viewers with real shows, he would bury them. They're all constantly struggling by a thread, they couldn't take a serious drop in viewership from a newer outside competitor.
He could negotiate the terms on the advertising. Bring it down to a very mild distraction taking up a smaller piece of the pie. Have some standards about what you'll be allowed to be advertised to the viewers. Less scammy stuff that we all know shouldn't be up there taking advatage of the ignorant. Less inundation by Geico too please. Less shady charities and causes. Less stuff getting swept under the rug with the media's help.
They could start an honest news company in the vein of Elon Musk wanting start a media company to rate journalists. More focus on the real news people want to talk about. Real investigative journalism that doesn't just parrot the gov't line. Real truth-focused pundits that call out both sides when they do wrong, that don't pull punches and that don't get roped into their own stories. Real experts on subjects. Hell, give Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders a talk show and have them and highly enlightened and educated guests debate us into the promised land.
There could have an entire set of channels. News. Comedy. Game shows. Sports. Sports?
Just like Dave, there are people in society with very large amounts of power. Individuals and relatively small groups. They could start their own thing tomorrow if they wanted to. They could takeover their own industries.
Tom Brady could call for a NFLPA meeting and say that they should all go start their own league tomorrow. Same teams, players, if the coaches and staff want to come, great. They lease playing fields from schools or if they get blocked, buy land and build their own fields. If they get blocked from airing on TV, they should stream them from their own websites.
Blocked because I'm sure the owners of the current NFL will sue them into oblivion. But they can't stop a group of men from playing a game. And they can't stop someone from filming that and showing it to people. They could fly right over the border if somehow they actually pushed the gov't to phyically stop them.
This sport has been a great and wonderous spectacle and any reward owed for contributing to that has been paid in full, what is owned now is purely intellectual property. Property. A thing of value that takes money to defend.
They could spend years in court and when their brands plummet in value and the court cases end because they have no more money to chase it and then the REAL NFL can buy the NFL name and the team names and uniforms and stadiums and everything we had before. Either way, they can't stop them from playing exactly as they do now under different names and continue every other aspect, unhindered.
And say they somehow did. No-compete clause. Who knows. They should all do it for charity for as long as it takes. We will buy whatever they’re promoting to get them some money. If the NFL makes billions, surely the ads would be worth some useful fraction of that. Worst case we could create a gofundme/kickstarter/whatever to keep the lower paid players afloat while the set players cover themselves and help out. Aren’t there millions of fans tired of the nonsense? We are strongest when we actually stand together.
We also have this college system where kids play and could get hurt and end up penniless and hobbled for life all for the the shaky promise of an education and the dream of millions and fame. Where only hundreds get a slice of the pie instead of the thousands being profited from. Maybe the college players could do something similar if the new NFL backed them instead of keeping the system in place for their own benefit.
I think most of our demons are only on paper and if we, individually (if you can) or collectively otherwise, walk away from things we only thing hold us. I read about the bus boycott yesterday. Imagine that. Forty thousand people walked to work instead of continuing to be oppressed. That's obviously a more extreme example. Tom Brady is not at the back of the bus. But I can't help but think that a kid who did everything that was asked of him and got a professionally-disqualifying spinal injury a few years earlier in college practice got pretty screwed by the system too.
And either way the real question is: Are there people at the front who no longer deserve that place? That's for the market to decide. If a no name player walked off the field, it would easy for the league to downplay. Could Brady make that stand completely alone? Of course not. Kaepernick and Reid are feeling that right now. If the league weren't controlled by a handful of people, individual members of that organization might be more free to support causes instead of safe PR approved pink and military causes and sponsors of booze and heart problems. How many causes had their ads turned down because they didn't agree with the fussy old owners?
So they can take it back. If not simply because they only own thin air and replaceable dirt. Yes, they currently own the soul of it. Have it locked in a cage and have it come out and dance on the weekends, sometimes Mondays and Thursdays. But it can be bought back for pennies on the dollar I'm sure once we all stop believing in this Freddy Krueger. We don’t need the colors and the names and the jerseys for the game to be just as good.
And think about the other side of it too. Think about how the owners and other beneficiaries of these systems use their money. Supporting nutcase's candidacies and who knows what else. Think about what that money would do if it were spread out better over thousands of people and their communities. How many more schools and businesses would be built in communities that need them. How it could happen in other sports.
Why are we (well,them) agreeing to this split? Why is it that some of the at least hundreds of multiple millionaires created by these systems who have enough notoriety and trust, haven't stepped forward and made a lunge for the steering wheel? (Well, a couple have successfully made it to the White House.)
The NFL is a unique example, but it’s also a relatable subject. And I think other industries have similar disparities and potential for meaningful change. Maybe there could be a wider movement where these individual movements band together and support each other’s efforts financially, spiritually and on social media. I think there’s far too much apathy floating around lately when we’re very much in an imaginary prison. Some of these same institutions fight to maintain that image desperately with all sorts of distractions. Things that never get fixed so they can constantly be tossed between groups in the pit to fight over for ratings while the real issues that would bring about real change are occasionally alluded to, but always dangled just outside arms reach.
Here’s to hoping one of those people(2) reads this and takes a stand for change.
Keep fighting the good fight until your fingers bleed.
Peace, friends.
(1) Last time I looked into it, the FCC isn't issuing new licenses. Yep and that's been the case for at least a few years. That's the biggest conspiracy not talked about. There's plenty of static on TV, why can't someone else get a channel? Or is just just some barrier to entry bullshit?https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/how-to-apply#Television
(2) Or anyone. Yes, it is easier to talk than do. Oh, me? I’m doing my own thing too. There’s an artist in everyone. Like I started out with - Dave could be a billionaire if he wanted to. What about you? What if you found your thing. What is that worth, in total? Not one-thousandth of Dave? I think it's within most anyone's grasp. Most of us won’t do it, but most of us could do it. Some will ultimately either A) never find their thing because they didn’t try hard enough or it was too obscure, B) get busted by the uncontrollable and/or unfair aspects of society or the market of ideas. (We popularize so many stupid things and give millions to morons, until it eats our brains from inside out.) Or C) just die prematurely. But we could have a system that is human-focused. Where we support each other. We recognize what’s trivial and what’s really dangerous. The pieces are all there, we just need to use technology to meet the needs of the world instead of the needs of the few. We need to get better at recognizing who’s really there to help and who’s just trying to get rich(3). And stop supporting the latter.
(3) I know this is a curious statement in the face of the title. His goal would be trying to help, being a billionaire would be incidental. The title could just as easily be "How Dave Chappelle Could Save the World". He could do half of what I said and be a billionaire, by not giving it back to the artists nearly as much and just hold more pieces for himself. Tom Brady could demand a large percentage for getting involved. But a starting premise was aiming for the net good and not the money specifically. And it could be anyone with his star power, I just chose Chappelle specifically because of how he’s called out the system numerous times. I think another good candidate, though less famous, would be Russell Brand. Money itself shouldn’t be our goal either, just the medium used here. Many people would be happy with next to nothing as long as they had other things. Just saying that the thing you're good at might have value, not matter how obscure. There are billions of people on this planet eager to read, watch, buy whatever everyone else has at a fair and agreeable rate. That should be a force for good as pure as we can make it, not be exploited. Wow. That was a 3 song encore. Peace.
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