League of Fans

By Ken Reed

For the last 32 years, New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden (MSG), a for-profit business, has not paid a cent in property tax to New York City. MSG was granted a tax exemption in 1982. There is no expiration date.

For the tax year beginning in July, the Garden will save […]

By Ken Reed
The Huffington Post
May 23, 2014

In recent months, I’ve taken on a variety of current sports issues through this column. My topics have ranged from concussions in sports, to pay-for-play in college athletics, to the racist nature of the Redskins nickname, to tyrannical and demeaning coaches, to fighting […]

By Ken Reed

Anyone who watched League of Denial, the Peabody Award winning PBS documentary about the NFL’s grossly unethical approach to player brain injuries, will not be shocked to learn the details of a new lawsuit brought by former players against the league. The suit, which seeks class action status, alleges that the NFL […]

By Ken Reed

I’ve always thought that the use of cheerleaders by professional sports franchises was disgusting. The practice clearly exploits and objectifies women. Despite the thousands of female football fans in attendance at games and watching on television, NFL cheerleaders were designed simply to satiate the stereotypical male team sports fan’s three primary desires: […]

By Ken Reed

The case against football, based on growing evidence that the sport is dangerous to the human brain, continues to get stronger.

The latest research report on football and brain trauma is published in The Journal of the American Medical Association this week.

The findings aren’t pretty for America’s favorite game. A group […]

By Ken Reed

Where else in society do we allow more screaming, belittling, demeaning and abusive “leaders” than in the field of sports coaching?

“I can’t think of another place in society where we so willingly give people dispensation from what is socially and morally acceptable,” writes Timothy R. Clark, an Oxford-educated former college […]

By Ken Reed

I have to be honest, I never knew much about Los Angeles Clippers’ suspended owner Donald Sterling. Oh sure, I knew he was one of the worst owners in professional sports and that he oversaw one of the most inept teams in sports history. But I never knew he was also an […]

By Ken Reed

I’m on record as saying that high school football will be history ten years from now.

The reasons?

For one, there will be a growing backlash against school-sponsored football from mad mothers (and fathers). It will be kind of a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) phenomenon. Parents won’t want their children’s […]

By Ken Reed

Three concussion-based lawsuits against the NHL, on behalf of about 24 former NHL players, have been filed in recent months. More are expected to follow.

These lawsuits are very similar to those filed against the NFL by former football players. They are based on charges of negligence and fraudulent concealment.

However, […]