The Hightower Lowdown

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Superstars of Sports Avarice

Let's go to the Sports Desk for another edition of the "Wide, Wide, Wide, Wild World of Sports."

Today's feature: The All-Stars of Avarice. These are not the ballplaying stars down on the field, but the game-playing owners up in the suites. Come with me as we look inside a couple of the sports suites of San Diego -- a city that seems plagued with a hall-of-fame level of ownership greed.

Let's kick it off with the Spanos family, the multimillionaire developers who own the San Diego Chargers football team. In 1995, after the team made it to the Super Bowl, the Spanos boys hustled local taxpayers for a $60 million renovation of their stadium, plus a guarantee that if the team sold less than 60,000 tickets per game, the taxpayers would pay for the unsold tickets. The owners then promptly quit recruiting top-quality players, the team became one of the biggest losers in the game, disgusted fans quit coming, and taxpayers have had to eat $25 million in unsold tickets.

"There are some things that are going to have to change," said owner Dean Spanos. Like him fielding a competitive team? No, like San Diego taxpayers building a brand new stadium for the Spanos sports barons ... or else, they say, they'll abandon the city and move the team to Los Angeles.

San Diegans already were staggering from the debt of building a new stadium for John Moores, owner of the Padres baseball team. In exchange for the public subsidy, Moores promised big things for the fans, and he delivered ... in the form of big losses. He presently has his team solidly in last place.

Moores is no novice at financial squeeze plays. His software corporation, Peregrine Systems, is a wreck, with its once high-flying stock now down at junk status of 40 cents per share. Moores, however, cashed out before the collapse with $646 million.

What an example of sportsmanship we're getting from these superstars of sports greed!

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The American Way

The greatest thing about America ... is Americans!

Today's Powers That Be prefer that we ordinary people feel powerless, as though any struggle against them is hopeless, so why bother? But such a defeatist attitude is not only anti-democratic, it's downright un-American, for ours is a nation born in rebellion. It doesn't get much national coverage from the establishment media, but this rebellious spirit against the powerful is in play every day somewhere in our land.

For example, out in Chelan, Wash., the multibillion-dollar McDonald's burger chain recently got a taste of America's grassroots democratic spirit. It's been my joy to visit Chelan, a small resort town that draws tens of thousands of tourists annually. The charm of Chelan is that it's the exact opposite of slick tourist towns and plastic DisneyWorlds. Situated on a beautiful lake, its resorts and restaurants are locally owned, giving visitors a most relaxing hometown feel.

Symbolic of this feel is the beloved Lakeview Drive-In, a 45-year-old burger joint that's right out of American Graffiti. The city owns the parkland and building where Lakeview is located, leasing the treasured spot to a local mom and pop operator. But in August, people were stunned to learn that their City Council was in the final stages of secret negotiations to oust mom and pop and turn the lease over to McDonald's, which was offering almost double the lease money that the local operators could afford.

And that would have been that ... except that townspeople and tourists alike exploded in rebellion, deluging the council with calls, e-mails, and screams of outrage: "IS THE COUNCIL STUPID, OR JUST NUTS?" shouted a typical e-mailer. Just one week later, the chagrined Chelan council voted 7-0 to end negotiations with McDonald's.

Not only was this a victory up for local authenticity over franchise plasticity, but also for people power over corporate power ... and that's the American Way.