By Evan Weiner

August 30, 2008

(New York, NY) -- Will someone unearth any old KTUU-TV (Anchorage, Alaska), circa 1988, video of sports anchor Sarah Heath reporting on John McCain’s straight talk about whether Arizona should recognize the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday? Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a holiday by an act of the United States Congress and the signature of President Ronald Reagan in 1983. McCain opposed the holiday creation in 1983 as a freshman Congressman from Arizona but sometime around 1990, McCain changed his mind roughly at the same time that the King Holiday issue became a political football in Arizona.

It is unlikely that Heath spoke much about the Arizona Cardinals, McCain or how the NFL pulled a Super Bowl from Tempe because Arizona state officials did not want the holiday during her days at KTUU. It is highly unusual for any local TV sports anchor to be knowledgeable on the politics of sports business, so Heath who married in 1988 and became know as Sarah Palin like many other sports readers or highlight narrators can't be criticized for that. TV news doesn’t really like to spend much time on sports or sports business. But Sarah Palin probably will learn about McCain's positions as his Vice Presidential running mate in the next two months.

Palin like the Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama probably have not given much thought to how the politics of sports business in the US actually works. Mayor Sarah Palin did try to get a municipal sports complex built in Wasilla, Alaska which would house hockey and other events. The Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex was built and opened after Palin left office at a cost of $15 million, seats 2,500 and is the home of the American juniors, North American Hockey League's Alaska Avalanche. The building went up but not without difficulties which drove up the cost of the construction and land acquisition. Palin may have been inexperienced as a politician but she did learn quickly that if a city, no matter what size, wants a team, even a junior hockey league team which features high school kids, the government better be ready to spend tax dollars to land a franchise. The Springfield (Missouri) Spirit moved to Wasilla in 2005.

McCain has been actively involved in sports and sports related legislation throughout his career in the House from 1983-87 and in the US Senate. Obama has no sports record other than being a Chicago sports fan. Representative McCain voted yes for The Tax Reform Act of 1986 which changed the sports landscape in the United States by accident. The legislation capped the amount of revenues generated in a municipally built stadium and/or arena that can be used to pay off stadium and/or arena debts to just eight percent of the monies that were spent in the facility.

Following the enactment of that legislation, municipalities got into the sports stadium/arena construction at record rates and sports owners played city against city to get the best deals possible. Over the years, Daniel Patrick Monahan, the New York Democrat and Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican tried to close that loophole, but got no support from their fellow Senators, including McCain.

The King Holiday was not high on the NFL's radar in 1986 when the holiday that was first celebrated nationally on a state-by-state basis. Former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt had also declared that Arizona would celebrate the holiday in 1987, even though the state legislature failed to pass legislation to officially recognize the holiday. However, newly-elected Governor Meacham rescinded the holiday in 1987 because it was "illegally created."

In 1987, St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill struck out in his four-year bid to get St. Louis to build a new facility for his football club and decided to move to Tempe because the Arizona State University's stadium had a much larger capacity than St. Louis's Busch Stadium, and he preferred the warm climate of the Southwest. It was then that the NFL was forced into the Martin Luther King Day holiday controversy. Bidwill's Cardinals bombed at the gate in their first season and in March 1990 the NFL decided to give Bidwill a boost by awarding Super Bowl XXVII to Tempe. NFL owners knew that Arizona was not celebrating the King Holiday but were given assurances by Arizona business and political leaders that the state would change its stance and recognize the federal holiday. They also knew that there was an economic boycott of the state and that they were going to get involved in a politically sensitive issue in the state.

After Governor Evan Meacham canceled the King Holiday in 1987, performer Stevie Wonder announced that he would boycott performing in Arizona, and convention planners also bypassed the state. The battle was on. In 1989, the state legislature passed legislation to create a state holiday honoring King but opponents managed to get enough signatures to get voters in the state to decide on whether or not to honor King in November 1990. Arizona voters overturned the legislature's decision and the NFL pulled Super Bowl XXVII from Tempe and moved it to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

But that was not the end of the story. NFL owners along with the National Football League Players Association stepped up the pressure on the Arizona legislature and told local politicians that the league would never consider playing a Super Bowl in the Phoenix area unless the state recognized the holiday.

The January 1996 Super Bowl became available, and the NFL was making noises that it was interested in going to Tempe if Arizona finally said yes to Martin Luther King Day. In 1992, Arizona voters had another chance at passing a referendum recognizing the King Holiday, by a vote of 62–38, and approved the establishment of the holiday. About four-and-a-half months later, in March 1993, NFL awarded Super Bowl XXX to Tempe.

McCain was behind efforts to clean up boxing and in the 1990s, the Arizona Senator was a major backer of 1996 legislation that required medical care for boxers and a 2000 law banning conflicts of interest among managers and promoters. Neither law, despite McCain's good intentions, has worked as state agencies have shown very little interest in reforming boxing.

McCain was also a critic of Major League Baseball's drug testing policies in 2004 and told MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr to work out an agreement for stronger drug testing or he would introduce legislation as the Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee that would force the owners and players to accept McCain's solution. Selig and Fehr came up with a new deal.

McCain was also involved with the Olympics and trying to clean up the International Olympic Committee. There was the vote-buying scandal in Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Games. Atlanta (1996) organizers knew that some IOC members were "sleaze bags" who could sell their votes, according to a U.S. Olympics Committee report in 1999. The same report also found evidence of vote rigging in Toronto's bid for the 1996 Olympics.

The USOC report, written by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, received attention on Capitol Hill. McCain threatened to strip the IOC of its U.S. tax exemption, limit tax deductions of international committee sponsors and direct Olympic TV revenue into the U.S. committee. The Senate Banking Committee had a bill that would have extended the federal Corrupt Practices Act to include the bribing of Olympic officials. It was mostly talk from McCain as nothing happened. McCain's legislation never left the committee. McCain also wanted to ban gambling on college sports. Again, it was mostly talk from McCain as nothing has happened.

In 2006, McCain said he was in favor of changing US law and became pro-choice in that he felt that cable TV customers should be able to choose what channels they want to buy. A la carte legislation has never really been considered by the US Congress and is feared by sports operators who get money from everyone who subscribes to basic expanded cable that only a fraction bothers to watch. A la carte legislation would change the North American major league sports landscape.

In the United States, sports and politics are joined at the hip as federal, state and local governments have provided the financial underpinning for the sports industry. McCain has a record that can be scrutinized, Obama doesn't except for an interview with ESPN's Stuart Scott where he said he might have boycotted the opening ceremonies of this year's Beijing Olympics because of the China's human rights record in Tibet and that he hoped the Commissioner of Major League Baseball would take care of internal problems like drug testing. In that sense McCain has a lot of experience with the business of sports, some good, and some bad. But McCain has a record, even Palin has a record, Obama doesn’t other than being a Chicago sports fan, the Bears, the White Sox and the Bulls.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com