Hey there, I'm Stephen Dubner and this is a Freakonomics Radio Extra.

Our full interview with Dominique Foxworth who appeared in bits and pieces in our Hidden

Side of Sports series.

I've known Foxworth for a while now.

He's one of the most thoughtful athletes I've ever encountered.

But this conversation surpassed my already high expectations, not just for his thoughtfulness,

but his willingness to wrestle with contradiction and his hardcore candor.

As you'll hear in this episode, Foxworth was an NFL player for several years then served

as president of the NFL Players Union and, after getting an NBA from Harvard, was the

COO of the NBA Players Union.

It turns out he didn't like that job too much.

You'll hear why.

As our conversation begins, Foxworth is talking about his belief that the professional sports

players unions should be dissolved.

I asked why.

Yeah, I think that where we are with professional athletes and how big a business has gotten

in how well they are compensated, I think, is a product of sacrifices made by players coming

up.

And many players lost long seasons where blackboard out of the league and had their careers

really torn apart by their ambitions of free agency and pensions and all those things.

And they never really got to fully reap the benefits from that.

And I think back in those days, the unions, the player unions were a lot like what we

...