Hey kids, today I’m introducing a new feature called Economics Corner with Martin!
Before you can scroll to the next story, I know what you’re thinking: “Martin, we come to you for the humor and the mockery. And sure, for the eye candy. But what do you know about economics? Would anybody with any economic sense spend a decade getting a PhD in English? If we want some smart econ talk, we’ll go to the mysterious and powerful CO, or to Christopher Silber.”
To which I can only say, fair enough. I’m no financial brainiac like those guys, with their 10-year-T-bill this, and their Laffer Curve that, and their bitcoin other thing. But in my defense, I have a little something I like to call “horse sense.”
Which, ironically, is the kind of instinct that tells you not to bet on horses. But it also allows me to be smarter about economics than you’d expect, as I will demonstrate with the following two cautionary tales.
The WNBA is a professional basketball league, like the NBA, only with female players. Until a year and a half ago, the most exciting thing to happen in an WNBA game would be a steal, leading to a pulse-pounding sprint down court, ending in a thrilling…lay up.
In addition to routine lay ups, like you might see during your grandson’s middle school basketball games, the WNBA offers something that middle school basketball games couldn’t offer. Lesbians.
So many lesbians.
Unfortunately, these aren’t your Cinemax lesbians, which you might remember from educational women’s prison movies from the 1980s. These films taught viewers that most lady criminals are in their 20s and cute as a button, and that nobody enters a women’s prison without being strip searched, and that the best place to plan a prison break is always the shower room.
Perhaps I’ve said too much.
Anyway, the WNBA lesbians aren’t those lesbians. They’re the kind who look like they could drive an 18-wheeler, or teach shop, or be a hulking defensive presence in the paint. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But alas, it has not made for ratings gold.
The league was started 28 years ago, and it has never made a profit. Despite tons of promotion and oodles of “you go girl” gender cheerleading, reports suggest that on the most optimistic view, the league has lost an average of $10 million per year. Gallingly, the NBA has actually been subsidizing the WNBA all that time.
This situation has flummoxed the marketing geniuses behind the WNBA. Their thinking seems to have been, “We’re giving them lay ups and lesbians! What else do they want?”
But last year, a galvanizing presence entered the league. Caitlin Clark is an excellent player. She’s a skilled ball-handler, a deft passer, and she regularly drains threes from the parking lot. She quickly developed an energized fan base, and her presence on the court guaranteed bigger crowds and higher ratings.
People who know sports and money say that’s she not just a franchise player, she’s an entire league player. Her games have been moved to bigger arenas, and when she’s out with an injury, attendance and viewership drops by over half. She’s truly a Golden Goose for the WNBA.
Which leads me to one of the common-sense economic principles that even I understand: if you’ve got a Golden Goose, you pamper that fine fowl. Make it a soft bed, feed it a good-tasting and nutritious diet, monitor its health and its cholesterol, if geese have cholesterol. Surround it with a security team that will tase first and ask questions later.
You know what you shouldn’t do with a Golden Goose?
Scratch its eyes, knock it down, and then kick it. And then call it racial slurs.
Because Clark is only part Golden Goose; she’s also a swan.
She’s white, is what I’m saying. And that’s a problem in the WNBA, because about 65% of players in the league are black, and many of those are super jealous, and super racist. (Let’s just say that while there has NEVER been a narwhal reference during a WNBA game, there have been plenty of derogatory “white girl” insults thrown her way.)
Most major sports leagues have been smart enough to protect their players, and especially their star players. During the Bulls dynasty the NBA used to have what was derisively called “The Jordan Rules,” which meant that Michael Jordan got many close calls, and the refs got whistle-happy when opposing teams started fouling him too hard.
The NFL has done something similar, evolving their rules to give more protection to quarterbacks, and to minimize the types of plays that usually result in more and serious injuries.
But not the WNBA. They’ve got two main groups making two major economic – and I would say ethical – mistakes. The owners have ignored the racial animus and jealousy directed at Clark, and have allowed a bunch of little-known, angry, and less talented players beat the hell out of her.
They’ve allowed their swan who has been laying golden eggs to be surrounded and set upon by a bunch of no-name Mallard Luther Kings. (Hat tip to Theo Von.) Except that that’s a terrible analogy, since MLK was fighting the good fight, while these harpies are fighting to kill off their own meal ticket.
The other group making a dumb economic decision, sadly, is the players. Before the recent WNBA all-star game, they came out for warm-ups wearing t-shirts saying, “Pay Us What You Owe Us.” Which is the most obnoxiously entitled way to phrase what is an insane economic proposition.
In a free market, you are owed what you earn. And in big-time sports, what you earn is a piece of what you bring in: gate receipts, product sales, tv ratings and ad revenue. Unfortunately for the WNBA players, what they’ve been bringing in is less than zero, for a very long time. If they were paid what they are truly owed, Clark and maybe another 8-10 players would make very good livings, and the rest of the players would have to pay the league to let them play.
And I don’t say that with any animus. I’ve seen bits and pieces of WNBA games and clips over the last year and a half, and the league has some talented players. If they can weed out some of the racism and envy in their ranks, they can put out a good product. They’re not as strong or fast as their male counterparts, but that’s a matter of biology, and non-insane people don’t see that as an insult, or a deal-breaker.
Women’s tennis and golf are popular, and women’s gymnastics are more popular than men’s. But none of those sports are peopled by petty, racists jerks. Because that’s bad for business.
Speaking of bad for business, have you ever heard of an angry, unfunny professional comedian?
If you’ve heard of Stephen Colbert, you have.
You’ve also probably heard that his late night show has been cancelled. Which has unleashed a cavalcade of leftist outrage and general imbecility. Celebrities like Ben Stiller and Jimmy Kimmel panned the decision, as did the actress last seen killing the Snow White IP as dead as Julius Caesar, Rachel Zegler.
Many dimwits saw conspiracies behind the decision. “I am so upset about this. I need more information,” said the once-perky Katie Couric.
A certain Pale Pawnee went further, detecting the malignant influence of an orange hand working behind the scenes. (#wemustneverstopmockingher) Grandma Squanto noted that the axe fell only three days after Colbert had called out CBS’ corporate owner Paramount for settling with Trump for $16 million over his lawsuit against 60 Minutes for dishonestly editing Que Mala’s interview to make her look less idiotic shortly before the election.
Warren self-importantly proclaimed that “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”
Yes. And America deserves to know how a blue-eyed blonde straight from the fjords went to a job interview at Harvard wearing a buckskin dress “Apache Princess” Halloween costume and came out with a tenure-track job. And whether we should ever stop mocking her.
Which we should not, as I may have mentioned before.
You may have noticed that I just slid right past the fact that Colbert had publicly crapped all over his bosses. And then, three days later, his cancellation was announced. Unexpectedly! Many sharp-eyed students of cause and effect might have connected those dots.
But it turns out that there is an even bigger and more obvious elephant in the room. And that elephant is called “economics.”
Colbert’s show brings in $60 million per year, which is pretty amazing, because he despises more than half the country, and spends the lion’s share of his air time being doggedly, relentlessly, remorselessly unfunny.
Unfortunately for CBS and for Colbert, it costs $100 million per year to produce his terrible show. (Which even by my English professor math means that the show is losing $40 million per year.) Colbert’s salary is $15 million, and more than 200 people work on that show, including 20 writers! 20!
By comparison, I write this column all by my lonesome, and my entire overhead is the electricity for my computer and a minimal bourbon budget that covers just enough to lubricate my coy muse. I’ve signed an NDA with CO that forbids me from revealing how much he pays me, but if you guessed, “Less than $15 million per year,” you’d be safely in the ballpark.
My least funny column – it was probably either the one about my dad’s death, or the one after Biden’s election – was still three standard deviations funnier than Colbert’s average show.
And if I ever wrote anything as horrifically unfunny as that musical sketch when Colbert danced around the stage surrounded by gay guys dressed as giant human syringes in service of a creepy propaganda push to urge people to get injected with an experimental, ineffective vaccine, I’d go straight from the studio to a lonely hilltop, where I’d hang myself by the neck until I was dead.
By the way, I loved how CBS twisted the knife with a double insult to Colbert. First, they issued a transparently false fig leaf excuse for his cancellation, claiming that the move was “a financial decision,” and “not related in any way to the show’s performance [or] content.”
Right. The fact that the show was so repellent to audiences that it was bleeding viewers and cash had nothing to do with the show’s performance.
That’s as believable as breaking up with your significant other right after she banged your best friend, got a Swastika neck tattoo and emptied your bank account and sent it to the “Mamdani for NYC” super-pac, and saying, “It’s not you, it’s me.”
Second, they announced that not only is Colbert being cancelled, but he’s so badly damaged the Late Show franchise that they’re permanently ending the program as well. That’s like if I finally realized my life-long dream of playing quarterback for the Bears, and after a few horrendous seasons, the owners decided that they were disbanding the team, dynamiting Soldier Field, and dousing the site with radioactive waste so that no one else will ever go there again.
So congratulations, WNBA and Stephen Colbert! You’ve both failed Econ 101.
WNBA, if you don’t repent and change your ways, you’re going to be the dancing gay syringes skit of the sports world.
And Colbert, you’re already a Caitlin-Clark-less WNBA. May God have mercy on your unfunny soul.
And by the way, Stephen, it’s not us. It’s you.
Colbert/Angel Reese 2028!
Martin Simpson 