Told by one who would know, only the scale of the graft has changed since this was written. Martin Abern, in 1928 Communist Party C.E.C. member and Chicago District Organizer, had been the star of the University of Minnesota football team and expelled (also sentenced to jail) for refusing the draft during World War One.

‘Bankers and ‘Amateur’ College Football’ by Martin Abern from the Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 5. January 7, 1928.

Capitalism turns, or tries to, all it touches into cold cash. From so-called legitimate business and industry, from brothels or from “pure” amateur sports, the aim is money–profits. Employers are broad-minded: they seek their profits without discrimination from all possible sources. And now the bankers have laid their hands on the cash boxes of the college athletic departments. Amateurism is once again defiled. But money makes all things holy.

The Business of Sports Was Very Good in 1927.

1927 saw the greatest crowds in history in attendance at sport events of every description. Indeed we have mass movements toward football fields, ball parks, boxing establishments, etc. In this sense we can say that sports are a mass movement. But of course, the real aim of sports, mass participation and physical upbuilding, is not realized under capitalist conditions. The masses are but spectators to events played by a few skilled ones and profited from financially by even a smaller few.

The Big Fight.

Over a 100,000 persons crashed their way into the Soldiers Stadium in Chicago to witness Jack Dempsey and Tunney slap away at a few rounds of boxing and a like 100,000 watched the college football teams of Notre Dame. and Southern California muss each other “for the glory of God and college,” also at the Chicago stadium. Attendance records were broken by. numerous colleges and universities, as were also those of bicycle racing, boxing, hockey, etc.

College Spirit Becomes Labor-Hunting, Ku Klux Spirit in Labor Struggle.

Sports are pretty well commercialized and recognized so by more people all the time. But college football has paraded always as a pure amateur sport in which the players and the student body are interested through loyalty, enthusiasm and so on for their Alma Mater. As a matter of fact, the enthusiasm, noise and rivalry worked up by the colleges is only the Rotarian, Kiwanian and Ku Klux Klan spirit spending itself harmlessly. It is without intelligence and real constructive aims. This same “loyalty and spirit” could just as easily be worked up into a fever for mobbing and lynching of workers and labor organizations which fight for elementary rights of union organization and better wages.

The Colorado Strike.

The Colorado Miners’ Strike now going on against the Rockefeller corporations is a case in point. With a few militant exceptions the student elements are being lined up against the fighting strikers. Some are scabbing at this very moment. This is the common case in the United States. Very often the athlete is the leader of scabby and reactionary elements of the student body…It would be. interesting to point out how these “amateur athletes” live after leaving college and what is the trend of “college spirit,” but here we are concerned with another angle–the profits from college sports and who gets them.

Vast Stadiums Bring Coin–To Bankers.

Many colleges and universities throughout the country in 1927 and earlier built new and huge stadiums to hold the increasing crowds. Michigan, Ohio State, Minnesota, many Eastern colleges, are but a few of them. Of course this resulted in the employment of thousands of workers, mainly building trades workers. Need I state here that almost without exception the work was done by non-union labor?

The Bankers’ Graft.

At any rate the stadiums were built.

Millions of people throughout the country poured their dollars into the college athletic cash box, or so they thought, if they were at all concerned about the matter.

The vast amounts of money taken in did not go to the college players, it is true, so far as one can say. Coaches and other hired help get their salaries. One might assume that the money goes to more equipment and the drawing in of more elements into athletics. To be accurate, however, the bulk of the money goes into the coffers of bankers. Here’s how.

Huge Sums Needed.

The building of huge stadiums involves large sums of ready money. Material, wages, etc. have to be paid for. A terrific financial responsibility is put on the college or board in charge. The money for building is obtained in the customary business manner, through loans. The loans are made from the bankers. What has resulted?

“Pure Sport” Proves to Be Money-Maker.

One Eastern University, to cite one example, borrowed money from the banks and built a big stadium. As in all things of business and capitalism, slumps came. Receipts of the games were greatly curtailed. THE BANK FORECLOSED AND NOW CONTROLS THE STADIUM. ALL INCOMING MONEYS GO TO THE BANK TO SATISFY PAYMENTS DUE. What is left goes, we presume, to the athletic association treasury. Many of the athletic directors and committees at the universities are lamenting. Sport, in all its lustrous purity, is being dragged in the mud and defiled. Honesty or otherwise, what delusions are theirs? For nowadays the WAY OF ALL SPORTS IS THE BANKERS.

What can these people do? Quit playing? No payments? How crudely then would be exposed the mockery of the “pure” sports of today! And so the games goes on. Capitalism clutches all in its wake: labor, youth genuine loyalty and spirit and crushes them all on its back-breaking wheel. Workers’ Sport Movement Is Answer

To Corrupt Capitalist Sports.

Only the workers, and particularly the working youth, can solve this problem. Youth needs its amusements, its sports and games. It needs physical development and recreation from its labors in field, factory, mill, mine or school-room. Sports are needed and should be participated in by all in an open, honest, comradely fashion: the spirit of fun and development; and not with the cheap, profit aim and competition methods of the business men who control and dominate sports of today and who wither and corrupt all they touch.

A workers sport movement is the answer to capitalist sport corruption. The labor movement must begin to give consideration to the wide development of sports in trade unions, in the shops, etc. and steer clear of capitalist connection and the profit aim. Class sports by and for the working class is the answer to Bankers and Sports.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n005-NY-jan-07-1928-DW-LOC.pdf