If you are going to follow professional sports in the future, you are well advised to purchase a map.

The traveling circus that is the NFL, plans on making stops in Baltimore and Houston next season.

The Winnipeg Jets’ proposed move to Phoenix is another case of an NHL team moving from the Great White North to a location where they don’t know the difference between icing and offsides.

Being a big fan of the NFL, it almost breaks my heart to see the Browns leave Cleveland.

No fans of any team in sports have shown as much loyalty, enthusiasm and dedication to their team as the Cleveland Browns fans have over the past five decades. The fanatics who sit in the endzone at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, affectionately called the “Dawg Pound,” have caused more than one veteran quarterback to shake in his cleats because of the noise, not to mention dog bones being thrown at their helmets.

In what could only be described as reverse poetic justice, the Browns will move to Baltimore. Baltimore fans know all to well what the Cleveland fans are going through, having lost their beloved Colts a decade ago. The only NFL fans who had shown as much loyalty to their team as Cleveland fans were Colts fans.

Who do I blame for all this nonsense? Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland/Baltimore Colts? No, not entirely. I do think that Modell is one of the biggest jerks in the NFL, but it’s not his fault.

I place most of the blame on the laws of our country. I am not proposing a law that would forbid sports franchises.

To the contrary, I think the owners of these teams should be held to the same free-enterprise principles that they always cry about when anyone complains about their relocations.

No owner has ever moved a pro sports franchise without being promised millions of dollars from either a city or a state. I may be wrong because I have never taken any advanced economic courses, but I think that is a form a socialism.

How come whenever sports owners want to move their franchises, they claim it is their God-given right under our free-enterprise system, but then they turn around and accept government money to move their team.

It seems the owners always want to have their cake and eat it too.

I think as sports fans it is our duty to stop these socialists from ruining the sports that we follow so loyally. It is time the legislators of this fine country actually did something and pass legislation that would prevent the owners from giving the public the shaft.

I don’t think city and state governments in this country should be in the business of trying to lure sports franchises with promises of public money.

The bill I would propose for Congress would outlaw government municipalities from handing out public money to any business or franchise to entice them to relocate.

This would apply to any industry, not just sports. It is about time that someone put an end to this money-chasing game that sports owners have played for years.

The way things are right now, the sports owners are getting the public money and the public is getting the shaft.

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Bill Kopatich is a sophomore in journalism from Des Moines.