Show THE VOICE OF BUSINESS Naders Nader's FANS a real strikeout fly Ily L L. L Lesher Pres Im Chamber of Commerce of the United States Watch out sports fans Ralph Nader is going to you yuu tru knows he may may- even do as much for sports as he did for the Corvair There is he says a rising crescendo of fraud and fast huck buck artistry in the sports world Also greed and arrogance Worse yet the hot dogs are bad Im I'm sure you knew all of this already although you may not have known the cure The cure is surprise I a new Ralph Nader organization It will be called Fight to Advance Advance Ad vance the Nations Nation's Sports so its spell FANS FAtia will I represent the spot consumer before the leagues and players player's associations individual owners the broadcast media Congress and other federal bodies ili es s STat slate and local governments the courts and other appropriate forums It You may wonder what FANS will do about the endless feud between the AAU and the You may wonder how FANS will decide between two cities clUes when a trade or a move Is contemplated You may wonder how the various sports czars will enjoy being second-guessed second by an upstart outside group to say nothing of how the officials will feel about it But most of all you may wonder how FANS will represent you as well as your father law father law in-law your bartender and your boss when you seldom agree with any of them about anything in the sports world Good questions though not beyond someone who already presumes to know what millions of consumers want better than they know it themselves I 1 could point out that sports is already one of the most consumer con sumer oriented sumer-oriented oriented of all businesses The teams live or ordie ordie ordie die on the size of their audiences and nobody knows that better than the owners managers and players Or I 1 could point out that any form of entertainment in in- eluding sports is a luxury Displeased fans are quite freeto free freeto to boycott what they dislike And these days an alternative is often just a channel away I 1 could point out these thin things s. s but Id I'd probably sound like what you'd expect to hear from the president of the US U.S. Chamber of Commerce So Instead Ill I'll be charitable Lets Let's assume that FANS ac ac- ac does accomplish miracles for the sports fan Suppose Officials never made bad calls Popular for or unpopular players were never traded Owners were always delightful people and managers were never fired Ticket prices were low and good seats always available Pitching quarterbacking tending goal etc were always faultless Hot dogs were always hot and beer always cold Suppose all of that and then ask yourself What's left How could anyone possibly enjoy professional sports without something anything ing anything I to to beef about Go help somebody else Ralph and leave us In peace with the games we love to hate haler |