Yes the originally posted map is not very accurate. In few European countries is prostitution simply legal. It’s often legal itself but the organizing activities like running a brothel are not. Or the new wave of laws you mention making it illegal to be a ‘john’ though not illegal to be a prostitute. And after all the incident in question involves somebody going to a prostitute, not being one. It’s not fully legal in the Asian rich countries either.
Of course they get a ring – why wouldn’t they?
As for visiting such a cheap prostitute, perhaps that was part of the appeal?
AK84 isn’t from the United States, and it might surprise some Americans to know that not everywhere in the world does everything in exactly the same way as the United States.
In a considerable number of world sporting leagues, including some of the most popular and successful leagues on the planet, the owner is not accorded the same accolades and centrality at awards time as American sporting owners are. The owner isn’t the one who receives the trophy, and while the owner will probably have a nice photo with the team, the main focus is on the players.
I know a number of people from outside the US who, upon seeing American sporting ceremonies at places like the Superbowl or the World Series, think it’s hilariously ridiculous that the championship trophy is presented to the owner and not directly to the team captain or the players. I’m not especially interested in arguing whether they’re right or wrong to feel that way, but it’s worth remembering that not everyone does things like America.
You have to figure being the owner of the New England Patriots would be sufficient to get you laid by attractive women of any age you chose. Maybe the very seedy/sketchy nature of it is exactly what turns his crank, so to speak.
Nothing is protecting Kraft but in the end what will make the owners come out against Kraft is a public uprising that hurts their bottom line. Lots of owners have been made to sell for being resist assholes. I remember Marge Shott being kicked out in the mid 90s without doing anything illegal.
Aside from some pointing and laughing there is no public push to remove a guy who likes happy endings. Now if he was busted for his third DUI then that is a crime that might cause him to be forced to sell but one of the Broncos owners was busted driving drunk at 100 mph a couple of years ago. Even massive business feud hasn’t hurt the owner of the Browns so legal issues rarely cause ownership problems as much as fan outrage and there is about a much outrage for misdemeanor prostitution as jaywalking.
Another thing besides being a racist asshole that can lose you your team is pissing off the fan base like Frank McCourt did where attendance and team support dropped low enough that he couldn’t pay his bills and he had to off load the Dodgers.
Being as old as he is, he would know damn well that groupies wouldn’t be throwing themselves at him because he’s such an awesome guy - any younger women sleeping with him would be angling for the financial benefits. There’s NO way he doesn’t realize this. So in his case, just paying for it outright makes a lot more sense, because then there’s no pretense of a relationship and no possibility of gold-digging. OK. But he’s a billionaire. There’s no meaningful difference to his bank account whether he’s paying $79 an hour or $2000 an hour.
This has to be a case of the seediness being part of the appeal. Well, Robert…it’s your life, man. You have so much money that you could build some kind of incredible invention or project that would blow everyone’s mind, and then you could possibly salvage your reputation. I’m thinking, like, a rocket ship or something. Or a really badass submarine.
I agree, I don’t see much potential here for the guy to actually be forced to sell the team. And it’s not ‘hypocritical’ (high on the list of overused words nowadays) if that doesn’t happen because other sports owners were forced to sell for things the fans (and players) simply find a lot more serious (racial stuff, particularly). That’s a judgement call not ‘hypocrisy’, as to treatment of owners.
The potential for some friction about fairness is that other people in sports, players and announcers, have been held to personal conduct standards where they would face action for something like this. A player busted for soliciting prostitutes might face some action under league personal conduct rules (some people might say pro players would never have to pay for it, but they sometimes do for the same reason as billionaires, avoiding gold diggers). Basketball analyst ex-Knick Greg Anthony was suspended ‘indefinitely’ by Turner Sports in 2015 after being busted for soliciting, though was reinstated a few months later.
All assuming Kraft had nothing specifically to do with the human trafficking aspect of the case. But speaking of which, though all the facts aren’t clear, if the public gets the impression the authorities in the case let an operation which was abusing women keep running, under surveillance, so they could make a splash by netting some big name people for relatively legally minor soliciting charges, that might make the public more skeptical of the arrest. It kind of looks that way on the surface.
NHL gives the stanley cup to the captain and then the rest of the players also lift it. Eventually the owner will get hold of it.
The athletes have more to lose. They can really wind up getting taken advantage of by hangers-on of both sexes and many of them are young and very naive when it comes to money. They may be millionaires but they only enjoy this status at the sufferance of the management.
The billionaires who write their checks have a little more security from this, but the fact remains that anyone who is a billionaire has to exercise extreme vigilance in their social life, which includes their sex life. They are inundated with people trying to ingratiate themselves with them, no matter how many gatekeepers and lawyers are at their disposal.
I can’t muster any outrage at Kraft soliciting prostitutes, for this very reason. I’m outraged at the human trafficking part of it, but as being discussed in the other thread, this would be easier for the authorities to crack down on if prostitution were legal and regulated, the way other vices like alcohol and gambling are.
Right. Maybe this is a hangover from its Canadian roots. 
Actually, there is, so far, precious little evidence that there was any actual human trafficking involved in this particular case.
Law enforcement has a tendency to use terms like “human trafficking” with little or no justification, because it’s easier to get the general public to sign on to their moral crusades if they can paint themselves as saviors of downtrodden victims. More often than not, though, prostitution stings are exactly that: people being busted for engaging in consensual sex for money.
Human trafficking, where and when it occurs, is a terrible thing, and all efforts should be made to stamp it out. But it’s often not what’s actually going on.
In a bizarre twist, it appears that the woman who founded that chain of spas is tight with Trump. They need to get new writers, these plot twists are becoming hard to believe.
I started a thread about it.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=872159