The Freedom 250 IndyCar Race Only Looked Like MAGA Propaganda if You Already Hate Trump

· Reason

Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! Happy new school year, and best of luck in gym class.

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I went to the Freedom 250 IndyCar race on the National Mall this weekend, so let's talk about it. Then we'll move onto a major story: players going from NFL rosters to the NCAA transfer portal. We'll close with some brief thoughts on what sports can tell us about immigration.

Also, after 76 straight weekly issues since this newsletter's birth, I am finally taking a break. But thanks to Reason's never-ending quest to bring you great content, my colleague Eric Boehm will be taking over the newsletter next week. Be kind! I'll be back after Labor Day, just in time for NFL kickoff (you can already join our ESPN NFL Survivor group here).

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The Freedom 250 Wasn't a Political Event, It Was a Racing Event

It was sometime around lap 28, and I was thinking about this November's midterm elections. Racing had just resumed after the second yellow flag of the Freedom 250 race on the National Mall. Kyle Kirkwood led Alex Palou by over a second, and the cars seemed to be stretching out with a second or two between each.

I was sitting atop a wall next to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to get a higher view of the action, perhaps 30 yards from a sign that said "DO NOT CLIMB." All I could see was a brief stretch of track, so I had the TV broadcast on my phone with headphones giving me audio and also a little hearing protection. FOX's Jamie Little was doing a softball interview with First Lady Melania Trump, who spoke about how, growing up, her dad introduced her to racing and she "loved it, every minute of it."

Was this, or the race, or any of the related festivities, supposed to turn me or anyone else in the country into a MAGA Trump supporter? Was it all just a way to rally voters for Republicans in the midterm elections?

Hardly. In person, political paraphernalia was few and far between, other than the occasional red "MAKE RACING GREAT AGAIN" hat being sold at the Team Penske merchandise truck. The probable out-of-towners on the wall next to me were chatty and politics never came up. Granted, while grabbing a prerace lunch I missed perhaps the most political moment in the stands, when President Donald Trump did a lap around the track in the presidential limo (apparently this was received mostly by cheers).

But this is Washington, D.C., where everything is seen through a political lens. If your side does something it's great, and if the other side does something it's evil—even if they're doing the same thing. I had seen online a great wailing and gnashing of teeth from some who hated the politics of the race. But having spent a combined nine hours at the event between Saturday and Sunday, I hadn't seen much in the way of politics.

Or had I? The Trump administration was certainly a major presence on Sunday. In addition to the presidential hot lap and first lady interview, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum gave the command to start your engines (the National Mall falls under his purview). Giant banners on office buildings credited Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for the race.

In a way, all that free visibility could be seen as one big ad to support Republicans and the Trump administration. Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) called it one of Trump's "self-aggrandizing distractions."

Most people, I would think, did not see it that way (including IndyCar driver Graham Rahal).

Seeing race cars drive by Smithsonian museums and national monuments is not going to make people more Republican (maybe a little more statist, though). If Democrats think it is, they have bigger problems on their hands.

Should the Freedom 250 Race Return to Washington, D.C.?

Pretty much all of the important people expressed a desire for racing to return to the National Mall, from drivers to to congressional leaders to the Trump administration to Mayor Muriel Bowser (who leaves office in January, to be replaced by a socialist). But it was originally planned as a one-off event, so turning it into an annual affair isn't as simple as going to everyone involved and saying "same time next year?"

For one, there's the taxpayer cost, though that's not as high as you might think. Taxpayers footed roughly $11 million on security for the event. Part of the $68 million given by the Interior Department to Freedom 250 (the organization, not the race) would have gone toward the event, though I assume the vast majority of it was used on July 4 festivities.

Most of the cost is covered by the Penske Corporation, the majority parent company of IndyCar. As a one-off event, they did not intend to make a profit, their company president told NBC 4 Washington. It's unclear what their budget was, but it far exceeded the $22 million budget of a race in Detroit. How much money will they end up losing on this year's race? Would they be willing to eat those costs year after year, or do they think a different type of arrangement would make it profitable? Or would they start to ask for city or federal government funds to cover the gap?

It's also hard to imagine the level of fan interest will be as high in future years, whether for TV or in-person viewing. Everyone involved went big for this year, how could they top it? 

The economic impact of big events like this is never as generous as organizers predict. I would guess a majority of the attendees were locals from the greater Washington, D.C., area, though by accent or clothing it seemed other parts of the country were well-represented (Indiana, an IndyCar hotbed, was the state I saw most often represented). Restaurants inside the race zone weren't happy about road closures slowing down their business, and some commuters weren't happy about their delays (I don't think people are entitled to a life free from disruption in a big city, but they're welcome to complain about it).

A joint race weekend with NASCAR would help raise interest. But the event surely has to happen in August, when disruption in D.C. would be at its lowest, and NASCAR, at least for next year, already has three of its August weekends spoken for.

Furthermore, the racing itself wasn't great. Kyle Kirkwood dominated the race, and major position changes were pretty rare (though it was amusing that IndyCar legend Alex Palou committed gaffe after gaffe on a day he could have clinched this year's title). It's hard to imagine good TV ratings in the future if the racing can't uphold its end of the spectacle.

From an in-person attendee perspective, it was mostly well-run. Everyone agrees it needed more grandstands (perhaps those should have been paid tickets instead of free via lottery like most attendees) and large screens for seeing the broadcast. Security lines moved pretty swiftly. The Metro ran mostly well. I had a great time with my family and a friend.

The views on TV looked great. The in-person views, especially not in a grandstand, were just fine. I, for one, was less awed by the spectacle of IndyCar racing on the National Mall and more interested in racing that was easy to get to from my house in the suburbs.

That's probably why I'd go again. There are only a handful of racetracks in the world that you can get to without driving or taking a bus. But I'd be just as happy to spend the same 40 minutes driving from my house to the country to watch dirt track racing.

Pros Going Back to College Is Weird. It's Probably Not the New Normal.

If you think about how the NFL doesn't really have an official minor league feeder system, it's not all that weird for players on the bubble of preseason rosters to go back to the NCAA, right?

That's absolutely not a popular opinion. It certainly feels weird because it's never happened before. It's also weird to have a confusing mix of federal and state judges seemingly changing the rules weekly, if not daily.

In case you missed it, LSU plans to add tight end Dae'Quan Wright to the roster—assuming he clears NFL waivers—after getting dropped by the Cleveland Browns. LSU is also adding defensive lineman Zxavian Harris, who was waived by the New Orleans Saints. On the basketball side, power forward Jaxon Kohler played for the Utah Jazz in the NBA Summer League but just committed to play at BYU this year.

All of this may also just be a temporary problem—the NCAA now lets most athletes have five years of eligibility, and the class that just finished their fourth year is fighting in court to get that fifth year too. If the new NCAA eligibility rules hold up in court long-term, we won't have a revolving door every fall of athletes returning to college after not gaining traction in the pros.

Still, there is plenty of blame to go around, but basically everyone involved is acting in their short-term self-interest. Schools accepting once-professional athletes are hoping it means more wins, because wins mean more publicity, which means more student applications, which means more students and more money. Coaches accepting once-professional athletes are trying to not get fired for losses. Players going back to college, with no intent of learning, are focused on their money and their playing careers.

Even the NCAA and the conferences may be getting what they want in the long-term sense—the mess is being used as a justification for passing the Protect College Sports Act through Congress, which would make the federal government more involved in the whole process. For the time being, though, the power four conferences seem prepared to ban these types of players. That ban might end up in court, too. (Billable hours remain undefeated.)

In a perfect world, I wish the NCAA could enforce the eligibility requirements it wants without government interference from legislators or judges. We'd all like to go back to the quaint era of true student-athletes who are focused on academics during class and crushing rivals the rest of the day. That ship has sailed.

What Sports Teach Us About Immigration

I saw Vice President J.D. Vance post something about immigration on Monday that felt way oversimplified, and sports can help explain why.

"If an American corporation needs workers, it should hire and train Americans," Vance posted on X in response to news about a $103,265 charge for H-1B visas.

Vance makes it seem so simple: Hire Americans and train them to be great instead of hiring a talented immigrant. But let's say you're a certain professional baseball team based in Los Angeles—you can't just train some American, even a talented baseball-playing American, to replace Shohei Ohtani. The Dodgers, MLB, and baseball fans would all be worse off. Multiply that across every foreign player in MLB, and you see how crazy it is when the occasional nutjob says only Americans should play in America's professional baseball league.

If a tech start-up sees a potential immigrant employee with an awesome idea in their narrow field, it probably can't just train an American to deliver the same product instead (even if it could, it would cost scarce time and money). Or if a corporation needs a specific foreign engineer or designer who can meet a specific need the business has, the two options might be hiring that person (if the employer and employee can navigate the complicated immigration system) or not at all.

Reason has the same issue. People can't just be trained from scratch to be a great writer or video producer. There are certain skills and traits you have to have already. We can take a good writer and make him or her a great writer, but not any random American person off the street. Add in our unique ideological mission, and it makes it even harder for us to find the right talent to work here.

There are various kinds of immigration visas that might apply to these situations, not just H-1B visas, but the response to Vance's oversimplified argument is the same.

Workers aren't just round pegs who can fit in any round hole with enough training. They're more like puzzle pieces, and markets are the most efficient way to help each piece find which puzzle, and where in that puzzle, it belongs.

Replay of the Week

One more week until college football takes over this spot, but in the meantime—I still can't believe the height on this catch.

That's all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of college football's week zero: North Dakota State against Jacksonville State (Saturday, 5:30 p.m. Eastern, on CBS Sports Network).

The post The Freedom 250 IndyCar Race Only Looked Like MAGA Propaganda if You Already Hate Trump appeared first on Reason.com.

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