journalist, on q&a, columnist and author gregg easterbrook discusses his latest book titled "the king of sports," football's impact on america. host: why did you decide to name your latest book "the king of sports," >> it's the most important, most exciting and popular game and most important game in the world. america used to be baseball but football now is the king of sports. host: what gave you the idea to do this book and what connection does it have with politics and washington and government? guest: for 13 years i've written a weekly football column for espn mainly but also for the nfl

nd publishers have asked me to write a book about football. i was flattered but what could i add? i realized a book that had not been written was a book assessing the role of football in american society. young boys, teaching them how to be men, there are a lot of positives. the public enthusiasm and a lot of negatives. i wanted to weigh the two and try to seek an answer to the question is football fundamentally good or bad and secondly how should it be re-formed? the book builds up to a chapter of re-formed agenda. host: you give some strong opinions in the book. i want to read one. today, most politicians are --

what brought on -- all that on in that? guest: and congratulations on eing able to pronounce "oleaginous." you see some evidence that football has become a cult and i'm talking about coaches there. if all men were like tony dungy the world would be a better place but i think coaches have become substitute father figures for a lot of american society. we don't believe in politicians anymore. businessmen, clergy, etc. but

coaches still seem like people who practice tough love, like a good father would be and i think that has to do with their high standing in society. host: who was a coach you liked? guest: frank boomer, virginia tech. i knew there would be portions very critical but i wanted to also show it could be done in an ethical manner. so i intent the 2011 football season with the virginia tech football program. in the locker room, traveled with them and so on. the book explains how it is that frank boomer has been able to have 20 consecutive winning seasons and yet aggravated assault 77% of his players. if all college programs graduated 77% of their players, college football would not be notorious. host: we got interested in this book for the connection to the taxpayer. i want to show you video from

2006. an economics professor roger knoll from stanford. >> in order for to it be an anti-trust violation for the nfl to negotiate as a league, broadcasting rights, one has to prove that televised football games are a separate market. every time that issue has been lit gated it has been determined to be a separate market. in that case, without the anti-trust exemphasis, not only the nfl but major league baseball and the nba would all be in violation if they sold their broadcasting rights nationally. host: first of all what is an anti-trust law? uest: well, your viewers probably rebel back in the gilded age, it banned certain kinds of price collusion, bans

businesses from forming unified fronts, especially involved in interstate commerce. major league baseball got an from the exemphasis support in 192. professional football got an anti-trust exempts directly from congress as legislation in 1988. at that time there were two leagues, the old a.f.l. and the old nfl. the legislation allowed them to merge. one reason the nfl is so popular, it is exempt from anti-trust law. imagine what apple would be to be exempt from anti-trust law. host: why? why did congress do that? >> i think you can argue that the anti-trust exemption was

good -- good for football as a sport. it allowed the league to distribute revenues evenly and assured quality of competition, common draft. the games are much better games than they would be without an anti-trust exemption. but congress got essentially nothing from the nfl in return. just gave away the store. i've shade congress should either revoke the nfl's anti-trust exemphasis or auction it off and see what the nfl is willing to pay for it. host: what's the motivation by congress to make a special case out of such sports teams? >> -- -- by i think congress is football. you would think that football is so popular, so much money involved, public stadiums, you would think some populous champion would rise up in congress and say yes, i love

football too but let's make these wealthy owners pay their own way. it doesn't happen. i think congress is cowed. they provide photo ops. members of congress love to have their pictures taken sitting in the owner's box of the hometown teams and i think that's why we don't see a populous rise up. and say i want them to stop using public subsidize and show more concern for their safety. host: you talk in your book about one of your childhood heroes, "the forum" senator from new york. >> charles goodell, the father of roger, the current nfl commissioner. my job in high school was to knock on doors for charles goodell and he was renowned for a man of conscious.

he was the first prominent republican to favor environmental protection, one of the first members of congress as a senators to come up post the -- opposed to the vietnam war. that was roughly 1970. he is roger's dad. host: who's roger? guest: roger goodell is commissioner of the nfl. host: what does that mean? guest: people think that means he's in charge of the league but he's not. he's an employee of the owners. very well paid. $30 million a year. nfl headquarters is tax exempt and it pays roger goodell $30 million a year. host: how did that happen? guest: that 1966 piece of legislation that granted the anti-trust waiver, also a classic example of the lobbyists art. it. snuck the phrase into

when congress voted on that bill in 19 6 they essentially said philanthropies, opera houses and professional football leagues are exempt from federal taxes. the individual clubs we assume pay corporate income taxes but since they don't disclose anything we don't actually know that host: $30 million a year. how does he earn that money? guest: people have said that goodell is worth that because the free market has shown that the nfl is success. it certainly is successful. the league rolls in money, almost $10 billion in revenue is expected this year. it's not a free narcotic. the stadiums are built largely or entirely of public expense. it's not a free market at all. why does he pay himself $30

million? because he can get away with it, wambingly. i think that's the difference between he and his father. is it fair to ask a man to be as good as his father is? roger goodell is the kind of person that his own father used to oppose. host: why would he oppose him? guest: his father, charles goodell, was a great man of conscious and i think he'd view s -- his own son as an insider using his advantage. host: didn't charles become a democrat? guest: no, there was the three-way race. charles buckley ultimately won with a minority. host: couldn't you also make a case that the public had turned against the vietnam war and then charlie goodell decided to go against it? guest: i think you could make

that argument about anybody who turned around the war. edmund musky and others of that period. host: let me go back to this paragraph i read earlier. today most politicians are oleaginous hacks. what's that? guest: i'm trying to describe the kind of people you see on tv all day. you see politicians of both parties who hopefully by the time this airs, the budget standoff will be resolved. right now we're in the middle of the budget standoff and where is the great figure of conscious on either side in democrat and republican both seem to be to be re concerned with pleasing their constituents at the moment. host: what does that word mean? guest: it means oily.

host: did you know that world? guest: i actually did know that world. host: couldn't roger goodell say this is a great opportunity to make a lot of money and it's fair and why not? guest: oh, everything that roger goodell does is legal. o one is accusing him of any impropriority but as someone said, the scandal is what's legal. for goodell to call the organization he runs nonprofit, he does that legally. the congress said he could. the assumption in tax laws of nonprofit status should not be used as a subjecter fuge for personal enrichment. that's how he uses it and it's not just him. host: you said earlier this whole area has to do with coaches and the cult of coaches in the country. now coaches, you talk about money, you talk about the kind of money that the coach of alabama gets a year.

how much does he make? guest: nick saban, the coach of alabama. he's paid $6 million a year. that's not bad money either. that equates to $66,000 per year per scholarship player under his supervision. that's good money. hoich how does that happen and does alabama make money for education? guest: all of the big football programs and there are about 50 at this point. alabama, ohio state, etc. they all clear $30 million to $50 million in football. that's just in the last few years because the television rights fees for college football are currently raising at a faster pace than pro football. in the last 10 years, the amount of money that college football programs year has gone from $5

, 40, million a year to $30 year.-- $50 million a host: what do they do with the extra money? guest: they spend it on the athletic department in alabama's case, the $43 million. $4 million went to the school's endowment and the rest was kept by the athletic department. l.s.u. which won the national championship four years ago made a big announcement last summer that from now on they would give 15% of -- 15% of what they cleared to the school's academic endowment. generous, you? host: you have lots of figures in here. how are they collected? guest: that's the department of education who collected the figures. host: what if -- sit u.s.

education department? guest: it's in the exact -- one of those long chains of letters and numbers. it's in the ares to the book and if you give me a minute when we're off camera i'll point it out to you. host: back to college football, what's wrong with any of this and what does the law say they can do in college sports? guest: well, when you talk about college sports, i don't think anything at all is wrong with college sports rolling in money. i think that's fine with me. a lot of parents and students would object to the fact that many schools charge athletic fees to their regular students even though their football programs are rolling in money. we're a few mites from the college park campus of the youth of maryland. if you're an ungraduate you pay $398 per year for an athletic fee and it all goes to the football program, even though the program rolls in money. but i think that's a minor

objection. the quality of the games are consistently fabulous. every weekend there are 50 fabulous college football games but of the division i big college players, only 55% aggravated assault. some would say that's -- it's because the players are not being paid. i think the big problem is they're not graduating because a college by employeea would be worth more to them in economic terms. host: what difference does it make if you're a young man and you can go into college football and get a scholarship and then go right into the pros and make -- what's the average football player make? guest: $1.9 million is the current average in the nfl. host: is there a minimum? guest: $425,000. although most at the minimum level only play a year or two. if i now that i was going to be a number one draft choice in the nfl and sign a huge contract

with a big bonus and live a glamorous life, yeah, i wouldn't need a college diploma. i could always go back and get it later. the problem is this happens to hardly anyone. at the big college level, the best teams, one player in 35 ever receives an nfl paycheck and one player in 90 stays in the nfl long enough to have anything that you and i would call a career. i would call this is grand illusion of college football. that these handsome, muscular hard-workinging young men say i'm going to go to the pros and i'll drive a mercedes and women will chase me and my life will be set and if they don't aggravated assault from college, except for a handful, none of those things will ever happen. host: how many of them would have ever gotten into college in the first place if they're not athletes? guest: that's a good question. there are two things you can get, one is a college

scholarship and also an athletic admission into a college you wouldn't otherwise have been able to get in to. this year the football coaches of all the ivy league schools have 14 athletic -- that they can use. the coaches of other sports, a lesser number. but the football coaches can essentially admit 14 boys who wouldn't have qualified. le so you can either get a scholarship or an athletic admission. the smart kids use the athletic admission and instead of going to a big football factory school, they go to yale and get in and graduate and put their lives on a solid footing but if you used football or any sport to get yourself a college or athletic admission, you've done the smart thing as long as you do go on and aggravated assault. host: could i have only 18 points out of 2,400 on my s.a.t.

and i wanted to go to yale would i -- could i go? guest: not with 800. they use an academic index every year -- i think it requires this year 26 on the s.a.t. they require you to be in the top third of scores. host: you were talking about the university of maryland and ohio state. these are allstate schools. any d. rules for state schools and how much money they can either collect or use for the athletic program or the number of scholarships they can give? guest: division 1 limits scholarships to 85 per year. the university of alabama, they have 85 scholarships. that's the max mum they can use. most of the big programs use their maximum. the smaller programs that much money programs don't use their maximums. the max mum of 63 for division two. division three does in the hospital allow athletic scholarships but does allow

athletic admission. host: when did the coaches' salaries in college skyrocket? guest: guest: it started about 20 years ago. the big money skyrocketed about 20 years ago. in 1984 the supreme court essentially deregular lated college football. the short version is before that the ncaa could control how many games were on per week and very few were on. when college football was essentially deregular lated in 1984 the number of games on tv shot way up. this week in the washington, d.c. area, 46 college football games are going to be aired this led to a huge increase in payments to college teams. i have no problem with that. i think it's great they're getting lots of money but the money has gone mainly to buildling fantastic facilities. the university of oregon now has a football facility that looks like a modern art museum. cost $87 million, tax deductible

to taxpayers paid about a third of it. host: go back to the tax deductible thing. who gets to deduct the taxes paid? guest: the donor. in the case of the university of oregon, phil knight, the guy who founded nike donated $47 million. that's the reported figure. so he could deduct that -- i assume he did, i don't know. but if he used a tax deduction on that, taxpayers would have paid about a third of the cost of building that building. almost all donations to academia are tax deductible, including to football. so you look at ohio state. we want donations to the academic mission of ohio state or any college to be tax detective you believe. the rationale being it serves the larger purposes of society. if you -- but if i give $70 million to ohio state football

program that money is also tax detective and you believe football is fabulous -- deductible, football is fabulous but it does not serve any higher purpose for society. host: how is it that the football coach makes millionings and the president makes half a million? guest: not only the coaches but the assistant coaches. there are 30 or 40 assistant coaches at the college level who make more than the president or any faculty members, including those of the medical school. i think the answer is the same reason roger goodell pays himself $30 million because he can. colleges pay huge amounts to their coaches because they can. the money is rolling in. they want to spend it on themselves not on the academic divisions. currently at ohio state, the athletic department staff is twice as large as the english department statue is even though

roughly 1% of ohio state students are -- ever have any role in the athletic department and almost all students take an english course. so spending the money on themselves. host: kids that go to ohio state, alumni from ohio state love the fact that they have such a hotbed football team or basketball team, for that matter. and doesn't that draw students? guest: in my chapter on college economics, i say one of the good things about college football is it makes people excited about going to college. especially big public universities and big public university expansion began just after world war ii. football excitement began roughly the same time. before world war ii, the ivy league, university of chicago, chose were the football powers. after world war 26r when the big expansion of public universities began, the flower shifted to big

public schools and that's good. people should be excited about going to -- one reason why the united states has more college graduates per capita than any other nation is because of the athletics. young people, especially young men, want to go to college in the united states because it's exciting to be in college. host: i want to show you 1999 video of the late senator arlen specter on the floor of the senate. >> i've sought recognition to introduce the stadium financing and franchise relocation act of 1999. this legislation would require that the national football league and major league baseball act to provide financing for 50% of new stadium construction costs and that the national football league be given a

limited anti-trust exemption to regular late franchise moves this legislation is necessary because baseball and football have for too long had a flick be damned attitude and at the present time, major league sports is out of control on franchise moves for football teams and demands upon cities and states for exorbitant construction costs, which is a form of legalized extortion. host: he comes from philadelphia, big sports town. what would be his motivation and what kind of success did he have with that piece of legislation? guest: senator specter who passed away two years ago. he was the closest thing to a populist champion who was critical of professional sports substance kis. ehurried him say he wanted the

nfl to pay 50% of the cost of its stadiums. the figure is that the public is paying 70% of the cost of building an nfl stadium. host: give us an example of a stadium built with taxpayer money. guest: lukas oil field in indianapolis, where the super bowl was a year and a half ago. fantastic game. giants vs. patriots, a game that ended on that crazy play where the new york giants player stopped himself from -- tried to stop himself from making a touchdown to run out the clock. the ownership family of the colts didn't pay anything for that stadium. the ownership family, the irsays close to a billion in net worth. the public build the -- built the stadium and the irsays keep all the revenue generated. host: give us another example. guest: paul allen, the former microsoft executive, owns the seattle seahawks, a fabulous

playing team right now. the beautiful field opened under the scene of the emerald city. it's a gorgeous place to pay. the public paid for the stadium and paul allen keeps almost all of the revenues generated. he pays a tone rent. in that case about a million a year. that's the kind of thing that made arlen specter mad. makes me mad too. host: who built the dallas stadium and isn't that the largest in the country? guest: the new dallas facility. it's a wonderful facility, very futuristic looking. there were clubs and go-go dancers at every level. jerry jones paid most of the cost but on the other hand his facility operates tax-free. no property taxes. host: why not? guest: because he got a special

deal from the texas state legislature. if c-span built a building there you'd have to pray property taxes. jerry jones pay knows taxes and based on comparable buildings in the same county he should be paying $6 million to $8 million a year. he doesn't pay anything. host: here's a clip from 1996 with john mccain. >> spent over $5 million to repair the anaheim stadium scoreboard. i'm sure that the good people of anaheim appreciate this federal largess and will enjoy watching this new scoreboard but i don't believe that such a repair is a federal responsibility. the anaheim stadium is an entity that charges admission. i would assume it strives to make a profit, yet i've heard of no one offering to pay back the federal government for its

investment in the scoreboard. host: this is a democracy, a republic where the voter has something to say about who's in office. isn't this what the taxpayer wants? guest: maybe, if taxpayers want to be bled dry for sports, i suppose that is their choice. but senator mccain mentions federal construction funds to repair a stay. the place now called the mercedes-benz super bowl in new leans, built entirely with public expense after hurricane christina, badly damaged. when it hosted football games again that was a national feel-good story but the public paid for all the repairs. the league put in a token amount. he league is invested no about a billion dollars with the construction of the superdome and the man who owns the saints

keeps almost all of the revenues generated. why don't people rebel? one, many people don't realize this is taking place. the second reason is they don't feel there's anything they can do about it. it's based on insider deals. the last time there was a vote in miami and the citizens of miami voted strongly against doing that. they got to vote on it. usually people don't get to vote. but i think -- you remember the sociology of the sport. 50 years ago when the antitrust waver was first granted, at that time there was a paltry of money in professional sports. and nfl owners of that period could not have afforded on their own to build a beautiful stadium. so an assumption arose that a stadium was like a public library, something the public

would contribute to and threaten get to use by coming in. that was 50 years ago. today nfl owners roll in money but they established this si -- assumption that the public should pay for their stadiums. instead of people coming in for $5 a game, it costs $150 a game. and it's blacked out on television if not sold out. it's outlived its usefulness. hoich any professional sport not have the anti-trust exemphasis? >> i don't claim to know about basketball or soccer. i know football and baseball and they both do. host: any effort in the last few years to take that away? guest: i think senator specter was the last person who struggled with removing the anti-trust exemphasis and it certainly didn't happen. host: when did you get interested in this and you can tell in your book you are angry.

guest: i am absolutely angry. rich people shouldn't be subsidized by the public. i'm more concerned about the health damage that football does to young people and the correcting effect on college education because these affect a larger number of americans than the various hanky pankey that goes on with the nfl. i started writing my football column for espn the year 2000, 2001, somewhere in there and i thought maybe i should look at some of the health research and i was shocked with what i saw. i have three children. two boys who wanted to play football themselves. i did not allow them to play until they were in middle school. any parents who are wondering they should let their boy or in a few cases girls play youth football, the answer is no. not until the age of 13 or so,

middle school. the pediatric research is ironclad on that point. but with my own boys, i read the research, got involved with helping my boys and coaching them in middle school and high school, etc. i didn't let either play until middle school, did not stop one from being recruited to go on in the ncaa and being a starter. but it also made me think i've been viewing football the way most of the networks view it, as a form of entertainment and it certainly is a form of entertainment, it's a great form but it has health and social consequences that have to be dealt with and that was the genesis of this book. host: who do you think is going to read this book? guest: i would like to think that people who like football but have second thoughts. i was at a social event a few years ago talking to supreme court justice elena kagan, who i think is a wonderful person and

she said i love to watch football games but is it a guilty pleasure, like watching boxing? should ill turn the tv off and not enjoy a football game? so i think anybody who's asked themselves that is question should read this book baud -- because it ends with a reform agenda. host: someone told me he was taking his son to a dallas game and the tickets were $1,200 apiece. guest: that would be a good ticket. host: but why would somebody spend that kind of money on a two 1/2 -- two and a half hour football game? guest: why would somebody spend money on designer clothes? is a b.m.w. meaningful better than a honda? if you have the money i don't object. what i object to is the taxpayers spending a lot of

money on football games. host: what about the anti-trust exemphasis? guest: that -- exemption? guest: that has to do with the with -- negotiates with their broadcasts. otherwise individual teams would negotiate directly with networks. host: there are 32 nfl teams. guest: yes? host: any way there could be enough competition that those pieses -- prices could come down for those seats? guest: oliver wendall holmes, when he did the baseball anti-trust exemption in 1922 famously said interstate commerce does not apply because the entire game is played in one stadium and the stadium sits within the boarders of one statement so if he were to come back today he would sigh an

entirely different landscape. but still, the cost of walking into the kansas city chiefs' stadium is going to apply to you and only you. somebody else isn't going to build a stadium next door and say you can watch the team play here and i'll only charge you half as much. if they didn't have the anti-trust exemption and another huge favor is that image is created in publicly funded facilities can be cited. -- exrithe. that's how the nfl is able to bargain off -- starting next year they'll get about $6 billion from the television rights. the reason is because those images are copyrighted. if they weren't, anybody could go into the kansas city chiefs stadium and film a football game and all the rights would fall extremely rapidly. host: in the cable television

world, the network that you write for, espn, gets dollar 5.5 per customer. this network gets six cents. our number hasn't gone up much other the years. their number keeps going up. you write for them and they pay these extraordinary rights for these teams and the players make extraordinary amounts of money. is espn protected in this business? guest: protected, i don't know. but it certainly is a beneficiary of everything. espn, i think that number works out to 125 times more per month than c-span is paid. host: at least. guest: espn can't be that much more important to society. you can say if people voluntarily made those choices, since i love sports and also c-span i would voluntarily pay both those depees but many would

not voluntarily pay $5.5 for c-span. if they could choose, they would pay for espn and not c-span. whether you look at the landscape of how football is televised, espn is a broadcast partner of the nfl. cbs, fox, nbc, they're all broadcast partners. and abc have abc -- nbc have partnerships. none of them report very much on the things we're discussing today. host: why not? guest: because it's bad for business. host: can you write about it? guest: yes, i've written, including on espn.com, about the economic flaws in the system of the structure of professional sports and this book is full of discussion with the things that are wrong in the economic structure and the things that are wrong with espn, cbs, nbc,

etc., all the networks that broadcast football i think share common faults and i write and talk about them all the time. but i'm an intellectual. the thing that goes out to prime time on "monday night football" or "sunday night football" on nbc, you don't hear a lot about concussions or -- on those shows. host: here's sally jenkins who writes for the "washington post" talking about this same issue. >> the bond issue that taxpayers passed to help finance these stadiums means there's money not going to be spent on something else. it also means bigger deficits. deficits are killing states. why should new jersey be strapped on a $110 million debt on a stadium that no longer exists when they are laying off cops and fighters and public schools for kids. these are questions we ought to

ask more frequently when we talk about spending public money for this great cultural celebration we call football. host: that was in 2011. what's the story on that new jersey stadium? guest: it was torn down to built the current metlife stadium. sally jenkins makes a great point. you mentioned cowboys stadium in arlington, texas, a moment ago. on paper, jerry jones raised most of the money but he raised it using tax-free bonds. so the bonds that the investors pay no taxes on. i don't like taxes, nobody does but jerry jones doesn't pay taxes, meaning average people have to pay more. in the case of new jersey, stadium authorities, most nfl stadiums have been -- the mechanism of their creation is the creation of a thing that's called the stadium authority or

sports exhibition authority that's running it by a county council or via state legislature. those raise money. in the case of new jersey, the stadium torn down to build metlife, that was used by corrupt new jersey politicians. year in, year out, the amount of indebtedness increased rather than declined and the taxpayers of new jersey -- i don't know f-1 10 million is the current figure but the taxpayers of new jersey still owe money on this stadium that no longer exists and they may owe the stadium that now exists far into the future as well. hoich where is there a stadium in the united states that was not paid for in any way by taxpayers? guest: jude it grant law of harvard says if you take into account construction costs and

operating subsidies, construction of parking lots, etc., that the only two stadiums in the country where the owners paid more than 3/4 are metlife, the one in new jersey shared by the jets and giants and the box borrow stadium where the new england patriots -- foxborough stadium where the new england patriots play. host: do you have any idea why they were fair with the public using your words? >> in the case of the patriots, robert kraft, he's one of the best businessmen in the league and yes, he's a real sharp businessman and he loves the dollar sign but he's also has a public spirit. he gave $100 million to columbia, for example, a few years ago. i think he felt it wouldn't be right for the public to pay for a stadium. in the case of the two families that own the jets and giants, they'd heard loudly from the legislatures of new jersey and new york that they weren't going

to be taken advantage of again. in the case of those three sets of ownerships, they might argue we're actually better off owning most or all of our stadium. it gives us more control. in the case of robert kraft, i think it was public spiritedness. in the case of the jets and giants, it was because they didn't have any choice. host: what is your politics? goip i'm a centrist democrat. i always have been. host: i want to explain this to the public. >> he wrote the forward because if there is one other name, one other judicial name associated with the two principal theories f this book, test yulism and originalism, it is frank

easterbrook. if i had to pick somebody to replace me on the supreme court, it would be frank. he and i tend to see things the same because we're both applying the same principles. host: frank easterbrook, seventh circuit judge, chicago, illinois, your brother. how does that nap a family -- i assume you are very different in your thinking? guest: not so much. politically i might be a little bit different. i'm very proud of my younger brother and also my other brother, a teacher at t.c.u. in fort worth. frank is i would say for libertarian than conservative. i would probably be to the left of him on some issues but what i admire about frank is he's incredibly logical. he not only knows the legal

precedent backward and guard but he uses detached logic to arrive at the answers to questions and i think detached logic is the best way to address questions too. now, he's a nominee of president reagan so he comes from they area. he was a good friend of robert boveraget in fact, frank just gave a wonderful speech for robert bork a couple of years ago. my other brother teaches english literature and he's way left of me. host: what was your parents' politics like? guest: my mother, who died when i was young. a public school teacher, very intelligent, high i.q., very left wing. have been ahe would member of congress or college president. my father was a self-made man.

became a dentist, put himself through mental school. i would say he had middle of the road politics. host: where'd you grow up? guest: buffalo, new york. host: where'd you go to college? guest: colorado college. beautiful colorado springs. host: how did that happen? guest: i put myself through college. at that time it charged significantly less than the schools of the northeast did. host: where did you get interested in writing? i assume that's been most of your career. guest: yes, i've spent most of my career as a writer and i'm still at the age of 60 trying to make myself just a book writer. host: here you are, by the way, in 1992 on the -- this network. guest: oh, boy. the pieces on global warming and to summarize it i'd say that it's something that may happen

some day but there's no reason to believe it's happening today. artificial warming anyway. the short version of the article, the signs are shaky. artificial greenhouse may happen some day. most evolving research continue to say it will be less fearsome than earlier predicted but what you would do so stave it off, the case for energy efficiency is very sound. host: over 20 years ago the magazine you were working for, "newsweek" no longer exists. you've changed some since then. guest: that handsome slender guy who -- no longer exists either. host: what is your thinking on global warm something guest: i published a book about it and i think it holds up pretty well with passage of time. in 2005 i switched sides on

global warming because at that time the national academy of sciences vicente jointly issued a statement saying that the national academy had become convinced that artificial global warming was occurring in 1992, the national academy statements issued the same degree of skepticism. when they switched sides i switched sides. i did a series of op-ed pieces in big newspapers saying that i'd switched sides and i'm now convinced that artificial global warming is occurring but also would agree with the 1992 version of myself in saying it doesn't seem to be the calamity that's been predicted. it's just a real problem that we have to deal with. host: let's go back to football and here is your early hero's son, roger goodell testifying in

2009. >> we want to make sure our game ask as safe and we're -- is as safe and we're doing everything we possibly can for our players now. and that is why we've engaged aggressively in making changes to our game. we have done some of the things that have been discussed here on a variety of levels starting with the facts we've made significant rule changes to our game. five this year alone have been made incorporating the safety and welfare of our players. they have had a positive effect and we will continue to evaluate rule changes to make our game safer. many of those changes this year were specific to head injuries. host: how important is this issue? guest: head injuries, it's the number one health question in all of athletics and i will give the nfl some credit. they're certainly saying the right things now, which is

progress compared to 10 years ago. at least they're trying to set a better example. the big concern with neurological damage from football is not in the nfl. there are only 2,000 of them. there are three million youth players and 1.1 million high school players. that's where almost all concussions occur. almost all neurological damage done by football is done to children. youth players or high school players are legally children. 40 to 60,000 concussions per year at the high school level. the figure in youth sports is harder to determine but it's in the tens of thousands and a lot of the research is showing it's not spectacular knockout hits that you might see on "sportscenter" that cause most of the damage. it's the show accumulation of lots of minor hits and what's happened, especially in the last 10, 20 years, the number of kids playing youth football has gone

way up, the number of states that allow year-round high school football has gone way up and that means the slow acouplelation of minor hits to people's heads has gone way up. it can't be good and more and more boys are end anding more and more time bashing each other in the head. host: what about drugs? you write about open adds in your book. something called tordol. how does that spit into the sports world? guest: i think painkiller use is at a much higher level in the nfl that people realize. i think if people realized it they would be scandalized. steroids i think are under control in football. they've been testing for a while. torodol is a very strong injected version of the over-the-counter painkiller aleve. it's ok to take it once in a

while. pro football players, lots illegally get injected with toradol before games when they're feeling fine just so they won't feel pain during the games. this allows them to play fearlessly, making for those knockout hits that "sportscenter" likes to have -- so much but it makes a bad example for kids, throw your body, lead request your heads. they look fine. that's because they were injected with painkillers before the game. i tried hard to get the nfl to release data to me. they would not. i talked to the head of the commission that controls this. he was very cagey on the use levels. you don't no need to know what player got how many shots but you do need to know how much

their using. as recently as 10 years ago the drug plague in the united states was illegal street drugs. now painkillers legally issued to people cause more deaths than street dug doctors g -- drugs do. guys are popping open adds because of their -- because because opioids they're hurting. host: would anybody really care? why do people go watch violence on a football field? guest: some of it is violent. football is an aggressive sport, always will be. i don't have a problem with that. some have made the argument football is professional boxing in helmets and the crowd is

there because they want to see guys' heads go back like that. they want to see guys motionless on the ground. they're adults, they know what they're getting into. nobody put a gun to their head to make them play. yeah, there's an element of that i don't think it's the majority. i think nine out of 10 football fans want to see a clean, hard-hitting game. i think most fans are like that that's certainly what i want to see. but when you create this grand illusion , you see this nfl game where there's incredible contact and everybody gets up and walks away. nobody's really hurt. high school players see that and imitate that behavior and injure themselves and they're never going to get a clean or pro paycheck. host: why has football been so

popular in the united states and not around the world? guest: we're the only country that loves gridiron stile football. canada likes it. but it's ice hockey there. i think it's because we're the only country that could pull it off. football is an athletic inter-- interpretation of what the united states is. our good ask bad. we can do things that are complicated nobody else can do, t a man on a -- the moon and put these players on the field, each wearing a lot of expensive equipment. we're crazy, noisy, loud, sexy. all the things that americans >> that's what football is baseball has a nice past ral elegance to it. it doesn't mike -- make you feel like only a crazy american could do this. football does that. one way it's great that football is so crazy and loud and expensive but that's all -- also

why america could pull it off. host: the green bay packers stands out because they're owned by the public. how have they done it and all the rest of the teams are run by billionaires? guest: the green bay packers are the only professional sports franchise owned by the public because they have public shares. they have to disclose data. so basically everything we know about the other 31 teams is based on extrapolating from the packers. had a r the packers -- payroll of $45 million. they pay almost nothing for their stadium. the packers are so popular in wisconsin, if there was a yes-no referendum on should we subsidize the packers i'm sure it would pass. host: page 69 in your book. nfl owners with pigs at the trough. aren't they?

guest: if ownership family, denise debartolo york who owns the san francisco 49ers, the state of california is in effect building them a stadium in santa clara. i'm sure physical be wonderful. that family has a net worth of more than a billion dollars. they could have paid for the stadium itself. host: you just said it speaks to what this country is. the sports, the football, the nfl, the largest television all of a sudden in history is the super bowl every year. guest: i think if voters understood this gert better and if they had a chance to vote that would normally vote against subsidize of sports. in the case of the green bay packers, no. in miami, florida, the citizens voted against subsidize for the nfl. you know poll questions have so much to do with how the question was phrased.

if the question was do you want your local nfl franchise to go out of business? everybody would say no. if the question was the average nfl franchise has $45 million a year in profit. should they pay for your own stadium in yes. host: you said you were an intellectual. intellectuals have become con i think the use of society. why have intellectuals become con then -- contentious of average people and are you? guest: i try to keep myself in tough by attending and coaching football games. i would base that statement mainly on modern fiction, which i don't think we have time to get into today. host: so we're done. the book is called "the king of sports: football's impact on america," gregg easterbrook. thank you very much for joining us. guest: thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this " q&a.org.sits us at transcripts are also available at c-span podcasts. our encounter x and a presentation continues tomorrow night with the editor of national affairs magazine. he talks about the magazine and web site, which redescribes as a quarterly journal of essays on public policy and political thought. one journalists description of intellectual st conservative of the obama era." thursday at 7:00 p.m. eastern right here on c-span.

>> about 10 or 15 years ago we started look the -- looking at the census department data and something strange pops out. where you look if you look at a map of europe, you see germany, france, ireland, italy. but if you look at the data on where the profits are, italy, france, germany, ireland -- usually a disproportionate amount of profit was in ireland. that was an indication something was going on. >> chief economist for "tax 8:00 on sunday night at c-span's q&a. c-span. we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you. putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, and offer complete gavel-av