Picking up on yesterday’s rant about the “devalued running back” in today’s NFL, the news this morning is that Saquon Barkley will sign a 1-year deal with the Giants and will not be a holdout in training camp or in the regular season. There is an element of face-saving to the reported terms of the deal, but to me, the Giants are the clear winner in this negotiation.
- The deal is for one year only. Barkley wanted a longer-term deal and reportedly wanted more than $20M guaranteed. Barkley’s agent can say that they were forced to take a 1-year deal because of a provision in the CBA involving players who have a franchise tag that they refuse to sign by a certain date. The net result is that the Giants did not accede to player demands.
- Under the franchise tag, Barkley would have made $10.1M guaranteed. Under the deal signed today, he will make $10.1M plus $900K in incentives meaning he could make as much as $11.0M. Two million of that total goes to Barkley immediately as a signing bonus.
That leaves the Raiders’ and Josh Jacobs as the remaining team/running back battleground. Like Barkley, he can sign his franchise tag and make $10.1M guaranteed this year; also, like Barkley, he has said he will not report to training camp and has contemplated sitting out the entire 2023 regular season. I think there are two circumstances in the Jacobs/Raiders negotiations that are unique:
- Last year, the Raiders chose not to pick up Jacobs’ fifth-year option on his rookie contract. Had they done so, he would be under contract this year for a little over $8M and none of this would be in play.
- Raiders’ head coach, Josh McDaniels, had success in New England running an offense that did not use a “featured running back”. His offense with the Pats was basically “running back by committee”; so, Jacobs and his agent may be trying to get McDaniels to behave contrary to the way he did in the past that was successful for him.
Stay tuned here …
Moving on … The NFL has suspended another player for the 2023 season due to gambling infractions. The NFL simply said that the suspension was based on the player betting on NFL games. That such behavior would be contrary to NFL policy as set forth in the CBA should be patently obvious to anyone with two motor neurons close enough to play pickleball with each other. And yet, here we are … The player cannot petition for reinstatement until next July meaning that he will not be able to take part in any off-season/free agent/trade situations until then.
Next up … Disney Corp CEO, Bob Iger, has said that there can be major restructuring of assets within the company; everything is on the table including possibly selling off part of ESPN to “strategic partners”. [Aside: I would not take that literally; I doubt Disney would sell off all or part of the Mickey Mouse brand.] Normally, news like that tends to get traction on the “Financial Pages” of your morning newspaper and would have no place here until and unless a deal is made whereby ESPN is bought out by National Veeblefetzer. But this story took an interesting twist early out of the gate. I ran across a report with this headline:
- Disney Reportedly Talked To NFL, NBA, MLB About Equity Partnership In ESPN
As of this morning, Disney owns 80% of ESPN and Hearst Communications owns the other 20%. So, there is plenty of room for any or all those sports leagues to jump in and become a strategic partner with Disney. And if that were to happen, it would be such a bad turn of events.
Look, the major sports leagues already have their own TV networks on cable. MLB Network is the best of the lot by a mile, and it is NEVER the first thing I tune in to see what’s going on. NFLN and NBA TV are virtual wastelands of saccharine-sweet babbling and fawning over anyone associated with those leagues. ESPN is certainly not perfect as a programming entity, but is that what sports fans want ESPN to become?
The state of “real journalism” at ESPN is on life-support. But there is more there than at any of the league-owned networks. Take the Daniel Snyder situation. If there ever was a network that had access to people knowledgeable about the situation, it would be NFLN. Is that where stories broke or where reports advanced the process that led to what amounted to a forced sale of the Washington Commanders? No, all that impetus came from reporting at ESPN and at The Washington Post. Any “investigative journalism” that might survive at ESPN if a sports league “buys a piece” would surely focus on some other sports league(s). The precedent and the example for this already exists in full view.
In addition, when leagues negotiate with ESPN for media rights or media rights renewals, that would put the leagues on both sides of the negotiation table. Can anyone spell “awkward”?
This is such a bad Idea that I think it has a better than 50/50 chance of happening. If the NFL – for example – bought a 35% stake in ESPN, it could fold or at least drastically contract NFLN meaning cost savings. Moreover, when ESPN takes in advertising dollars involved with NFL games, 35% of those dollars are essentially revenue to the league. It would open another revenue stream and the NFL has never been averse to such a turn of events.
Finally, let me close today with these words from Casey Stengel:
“A lot of people my age are dead at the present time.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
Josh Jacobs is a stud and I expect him on the Mile Hight Field on Sept. 10.