The Sports Curmudgeon

I spent last weekend in suburban Philadelphia preparing for my next incarnation as a beast of burden. My brother-in-law was closing one of the stores that he owns and we schlepped “stuff” - - he calls it “inventory” - - from the soon to be defunct locale to other surviving locales. That earned me the opportunity to listen to sports radio in Philly and had me tuned in when Senator Arlen Specter called in to tell two of the hosts there that he did not have his head up his butt regarding his questioning of Roger Goodell and the handling of “Spygate”. No one could call the exchange of views here “illuminating” or “informative”. It was pure politics even though the radio hosts have never been elected to any office. They said they thought the Senator was wasting his time; the Senator said he was doing a public service. Moreover, they said it to each other over and over and over and… So, tell me just how this differs from one of our Presidential “debates”?

I do not think Senator Specter is stupid; he has proven that he is not. Nevertheless, I do not believe that there is any reason for the US Senate – or as they like to refer to themselves, The Greatest Deliberative Body On Earth – to deal with “Spygate”. The Senator demeans himself and the institution of the Senate by saying that he thinks it is possible that the New England Patriots violated the Industrial Espionage Act of Whenever and that is the basis for scrutiny by the Senate.

Please recall that I am not an attorney and have never spent a day of my life in law school. Having said that, I believe that the intent of that act was to criminalize the theft of industrial secrets in those situations where the theft had a direct and meaningful deleterious effect on the United States of America. The law intended to protect intellectual property rights and paid homage to the damage industrial espionage might do to interstate commerce - - which gave the Congress justification for acting in the first place.

Ladies and gentlemen, even if the New England Patriots filmed the practices of all of its opponents and secretly bugged the meetings in which the coaches and players described their hand signals for an upcoming game, I fail to see how this might have a direct and meaningful deleterious effect on the United States of America. Americans love NFL football, but there is nothing about the NFL that begins to qualify as a significant foundation piece for American society. If the NFL dried up and blew away tonight, the United States would continue to exist.

If Senator Specter really believes that the Industrial Espionage Act covers any or all of the things that may or may not have happened with regard to “Spygate”, then Senator Specter and every one of his colleagues in the Congress that passed that legislation deserves censure for writing such an ambiguous law. Stealing signs in football and baseball is not a crime; it may not be within the rules of those games but it is not a crime.

Consider the case where an eighth grade history class is taking an exam on the Civil War. Student A has not studied all that well but is seated conveniently close to Student B who has studied well and is very interested in history to begin with. Student A copies answers from Student B’s paper and submits them as his own. Now suppose all of this comes to light after the papers have been graded and the grades recorded by the teacher.

1. Student A has “misappropriated” the intellectual property of Student B in the sense that A stole B’s answers to test questions.

2. Student A has certainly violated the rules of any classroom/ school test situation.

3. Realizing that Student A and Student B are not likely to be sitting across state lines in a classroom, would this behavior be even remotely related to the intentions of the Industrial Espionage Act if they were?

4. “Spygate” is a lot closer to “cheating on a test” than it is to “criminal behavior”.

The other topic on Philly sports radio last weekend had to do with the NBA All-Star Game - - BORING!! - - and David Stern’s expression of a desire to expand the NBA into Europe. Allow me to summarize my feelings about NBA expansion of any type – within North America or into Europe or on an inter-galactic scale – in just a few words:

This is stupid beyond belief.

The National Basketball Association is already over-expanded. There are far too many marginal players on the court for significant fractions of games. In the NBA of 2008, all it takes to be a championship contender is two outstanding players and a bunch of other guys to fill out the rosters who can avoid tripping over their shoelaces on 90% of their excursions up and down the court. There are too many teams and two few very good players; it’s really as simple as that.

In addition, there are not enough cities in the US that are top-shelf markets for NBA franchises – as the league is learning. The franchises in Atlanta, Memphis, Miami and New Orleans will always struggle unless they are putting a championship product on the floor. Please note, that cannot happen to all four franchises simultaneously. The franchises in Charlotte, Indiana, New Jersey and Sacramento are better than the four mentioned previously, but those markets would politely be described as soft. Add to those eight situations the simple fact that the LA Clippers are the “poor relatives” in the LA market; they have been since the day they moved there and will remain so for the near future.

Note I have not even mentioned the franchises in Seattle and Portland where raging battles over new arenas and arena ownership and lease terms are ongoing. Notice I have not mentioned the inability of the NBA to attract and retain quality owners for every existing franchise; before anyone thinks that’s unimportant let me only give you the names of 10% of their ownership list:

James Dolan

George Shinn

Donald Sterling

Expansion of the NBA is a bad idea. If David Stern wants a big footprint in Europe, then he should take a half dozen of the existing teams in bad markets or soft markets and move those franchises to Athens, Helsinki, Istanbul, Paris, Prague and Sarajevo. However, he needs to recognize that folks in those towns are not used to paying the same prices for a seat at a basketball game that NBA teams in the US have become accustomed to charging. Nor is it likely that local TV/radio deals will be as lucrative as they are here in the States and the time-zone differences will make live coverage of European Division games here less than commanding TV scheduling for US fans.

If you disagree, get some friends together and see if you can scrape up enough money to get hold of one of those new NBA franchises that will be available in Europe. If you are lucky, someone else will get the franchise.

Finally, an observation from Brad Rock in the Deseret Morning News:

“The Lingerie Bowl, a TV event not affiliated with the Super Bowl, was canceled for the second straight year, claiming a problem with negotiations.

“Which proves you can’t simply put bikini bimbos on TV and expect success. You have to have talent, too.

“Otherwise, there would be no such thing as Baywatch.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…