Month: February 2023

The NBA trading deadline arrives at 3:00 PM ET today.  Given the level of activity that has gone on in the last few days, one has to wonder if there are any bullets left in the NBA’s gun to bring attention to the league today.  The deal that sent Kyrie Irving from the Nets to the Mavs was a big deal – – but not much of a surprise.  Irving and the Nets’ organization had been less than “buddy-buddy” for more than a year; so, when he demanded a trade, my sense is that the Nets’ braintrust figured they could deal him and be done with him.  So, they did.

I wrote then that the supposed super-team of Durant, Irving and Harden had been reduced to one featuring Durant, Simmons and Dinwiddie.  Little did I know that the Nets had only just begun.  [Hat Tip: Karen Carpenter]  The news this morning is that Kevin Durant has also been shipped out of Brooklyn to the Phoenix Suns along with TJ Warren in exchange for:

• Mikal Bridges
• Jae Crowder
• Cameron Johnson
• Four unprotected first round picks (’23, ’25, ’27 & ’29) plus a first round pick swap in ‘28.

The Suns have a new owner, Mat Ishbia, who has been on the scene for about three minutes.  If this trade shows his willingness to shake things up with his team and in the league in general, maybe he will acquire the moniker of “Earthquake”.  The Suns acquired a bona fide superstar in Durant.  He is under contract for three more seasons; he is 34 years old meaning that he should continue to be a superstar for the duration of his deal – – barring injury.  This trade allows the Suns to play Durant along with Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Chris Paul which is a powerful quartet.  [Aside:  Am I the first to think this could become the “Kevin and Devin Show”?]

As of this morning, the Suns are tied for fourth place in the NBA Western Conference – – ironically tied with the Mavs in the standings – – meaning the Suns are virtually certain to be part of the NBA playoffs.  If those four “core starters” can avoid the injury bug, the Suns are going to be a factor in the Western Conference playoffs.

So, what did the Nets get out of all this?  Well, unless one of those draft picks turns out to be another Kevin Durant, the Nets did not get anywhere near a commensurate level of raw basketball talent.

• Mikal Bridges is a quality player and an elite defensive player.  He may not deserve superstar status, but he is much more than some guy whose main job is to sit on the bench to make sure the bench does not float up to the ceiling.
• Jae Crowder is 31 years old and in his 13^th season in the NBA; the Nets will be his eighth team.  He is not a malcontent but his travels around the league indicate that he is just good enough to be a bargaining chip in player swaps.
• Cameron Johnson is in his 4^th year in the league and is only 26 years old.  He has been injured for much of this season appearing in only 17 games.  Put a question mark by his name and go look to see how he develops over the next season or two as you evaluate this trade.

What the Nets did acquire that they need is those draft picks.  After sending picks away to acquire James Harden, the cupboard was bare.  These picks would appear to be mediocre assets because if the Suns keep the band together, those picks are not likely to be lottery picks.  So, here is the bottom line:

• The Nets took a shot at assembling a super-team and it worked about as well as King Kong playing a game of Jenga.  And this is the price the franchise has to pay as it embarks on a tear-down and rebuild program.

 “O quam cito transit gloria mundi”  [How quickly the glory of the world passes by.]

But the NBA dealing did not end with that blockbuster.  Evidently the Lakers. Timberwolves and Jazz shuffled their rosters last night as well.  Here is what each team gets out of all that:

• Lakers get:  DeAngelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt
• Jazz get:  Russell Westbrook and a top-four protected first round pick in ‘27
• Wolves get:  Mike Conley Jr., Juan Toscano-Anderson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Damian Jones and 4 second round picks.

Here is my quick assessment of this deal:

• The Lakers get a lot younger here and the team can represent that it acted to do something positive for LeBron James in terms of getting him some on-court help.  Russell is probably the best player of the three and his contract expires at the end of this season so the Lakers need to decide if he is an important piece moving forward.
• The Jazz get an expiring contract in Russell Westbrook that will give them cap space and a draft pick 5 years from now.  I guess that appeals to the decision makers in Utah; who seem to be trying to corner the market on future draft picks.
• The Wolves get Mike Conley, Jr. plus three guys and four “Hail Mary” picks in the future.

Finally, six NBA teams made strategic moves in the trading market in the last 72 hours going back to the Nets/Mavs swap involving Kyrie Irving.  Those teams made choices and acted on them.  So, let me close with these words from President Theodore Roosevelt:

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

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

 

 

Today, I want to review some of the numbers that are associated with this year’s Super Bowl game that will happen on Sunday.  It is – by a Secretariat-like margin – the biggest sporting event of the year in the US.  The anticipated TV audience for the game itself is 100 million viewers – – give or take a couple of million.  That number is approximately double the number of viewers for the two Conference Championship games two weekends ago and those two games attracted audiences that were three or four times larger than anything else that is scheduled to be on TV this year.

That huge audience is the reason that FOX can charge – – and has sold – – ad slots of 30 seconds each during the game at a cost of $7M; the average charge for an ad during the game is more than $6.5M for 30 seconds.  Reports say that there are still a few open ad slots in the brutally overdone pregame show and only a few contingent slots in an overtime period should it be necessary.  According to a statement by the network, FOX expects to clear $500M from the Super Bowl this Sunday.

The biggest buyer of ad slots this year will be Anhueuser-Busch; they have purchased 3 full minutes of ad time during the game.  There will be a new category of products advertised this year; Remy Martin has purchased ad time meaning that liquor will join beer and wine as alcoholic beverages making a pitch to that immense TV audience.

There will be a conspicuous product absence this year too.  If you recall, last year’s Super Bowl game featured a whole bunch of ads for cryptocurrency.  This year there is no representation from that product segment for the game or for the pregame according to a statement released by FOX.  I think I will miss crypto ads this year because I really want to know from Matt Damon what comes after:

“Fortune favors the brave.”

For me, the big question about Super Bowl ads is the use of ad time by sponsors to tell the audience about things other than the product they are trying to sell.  Over the past couple of years, there has been a lot of air time devoted to issues other than the merits of a product/service for sale by the advertiser such as sustainability or child welfare.  I wonder if a company like Anheuser-Busch will use its three minutes of ad time during the game to tell me about their various beverages or if they will use that time to tell me about a crisis in the world’s rainforests.  We shall see…

Another numerical aspect for Sunday’s game is the anticipated betting handle. If I counted correctly, 33 of the 50 states in the US now have legalized sports betting; with that expanded reach, the total handle for bets on the game and peripheral wagers tied to the game is expected to be $1.1B.  The State of Nevada no longer enjoys its virtual monopoly on legal sports books in the US; nevertheless, the anticipated handle for sportsbooks in Nevada is $176M which should be the largest handle in the US.

Another number to consider – – albeit one that I will take with a grain of salt – – is an estimate by the American Gaming Association that the total amount of money bet on the Super Bowl including things like office pools, personal wagers and bets placed with local bookies will be $7.6B.  The reason I take that estimate with a grain of salt is that it behooves the American Gaming Association to represent that there is a large reservoir of bets out there in addition to the handle taken in by those legal sportsbooks in those 33 states.  As companies look for opportunities to expand their enterprises, estimates of this sort become valuable talking points.

Having said all that, there is clearly a lot of Super Bowl betting that goes on outside the sportsbooks.  I am not convinced however that the legal handle is only about 15% of the total amount wagered…

And what would the lead-up to a major event like the Super Bowl be without a lawsuit?  About 3 weeks ago, the city of Phoenix was sued over an ordinance referred to as a “Clean Zone”.  What Phoenix wanted to do was to disallow temporary signage in a large section of the city without the approval of the organizing committee for the Super Bowl extravaganza.  A local resident who owns a couple of properties in the area that would be part of the “Clean Zone” sued the city claiming he was harmed by the city ordinance because he could not rent out temporary signage space on his properties.  The city ban was taken to mean there would be no signs using unlicensed Super Bowl LVII trademarks and/or any ads by competitors for sponsors of the local effort to host the game.  Some of those sponsors include Apple Music, Bud Light, Lowe’s and Pepsi.

Last week, a judge in Maricopa County – where Phoenix is – ruled that the “Clean Zone” restrictions were “an unconstitutional delegation of government power”.  Here is what that judge said:

“The Resolution (which established the idea of the Clean Zone) provides no standards to guide decision-maker’s discretion. It was also unconstitutional of the City to delegate this power to an unaccountable private actor.”

The city fathers scrambled to try to amend the Resolution but that too earned them a slap from the judge:

“The first time Plaintiff could take action on a facially constitutional law was at a time when it was too late for him to obtain his own use permit. Any delay is the cause of the City’s conduct and not that of Plaintiff.”

And …

“Mandamus is proper here because the City has refused to consider Plaintiff’s request for a sign because they claim it is too late. Again, as the City caused the delay by enacting an unconstitutional law, and then correcting the problem in way that denies Plaintiff the opportunity to apply to post speech on his property, the only remedy available at this time is a Court order.”

And …

“In summary, the City created the need for this litigation by enacting an unconstitutional resolution. They further exacerbated the problem, by only choosing to remedy their error when it was too late for Plaintiff to apply to exercise his right to speech. The City’s offer that Plaintiff can file his temporary sign application only if permitted by a private entity renders the application of an otherwise facially constitutional resolution to be unconstitutional.”

It sure sounds to me like the city fathers in Phoenix lost out big time in this matter.  I wonder how that ruling which references a restriction of speech might apply to any attempt by another host city to establish a different version of a “Clean Zone”.

Finally, since the elected officials in Phoenix took such a legal drubbing there, let me suggest that they might not want to be bound by this suggestion made by George Bernard Shaw:

“We should all be obliged to appear before a board every 5 years and justify our existence … on pain of liquidation.”

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

 

 

I ran across a report recently that said as a result of firing head coaches with years left on their contracts, NFL owners are on the hook for “more than $500M” in payments to those coaches fired in the last 5 years.  I have not put in the effort to verify that assertion; I take it as a fact and here are my reactions in the order they came to mind:

1. That is a lot of cheese.
2. Much of that total will be offset by coaches’ earnings in subsequent jobs.
3. Nevertheless, that is a lot of cheese!
4. That money is the consequence of a lot of bad decisions.

And that last reaction got me to thinking about why hiring decisions for head coaches in the NFL have such a failure rate.  Sally Jenkins and others believe it is due to a lack of inclusiveness on the part of owners making these hiring decisions.  Maybe they are right, but I think there is a more generic flaw in the process.  I believe the “problem” here is that owners are making these decisions and owners have no idea what it takes to be a successful NFL coach.

NFL owners are billionaires; that is a given.  Some of them got much of their wealth from family wealth – – the Fords, the Waltons, the Hunts the Johnsons.  None of them got their wealth in the game of football unless you want to count George Halas’ oldest daughter as being intimately involved in the game of professional football.  NFL owners are shrewd and competent in various fields:

• Jeffrey Lurie – Eagles – was a successful movie producer.
• Terry Pegula – Bills – made his money in the fracking business.
• Jerry Jones – Cowboys – was making oil and gas money before fracking was invented.
• Stan Kroenke – Rams – is a real estate mogul.
• You get the idea…

With the exception of Jerry Jones who played college football for a major college team (Arkansas), I do not believe that any of the other owners were ever part of a big-time football environment.  With that in mind, it is not all that surprising to me that an owner faced with making a decision to hire Joe Flabeetz as opposed to Sam Glotz as the new coach of his/her team is taking a shot in the dark.  I have no doubt that Terry Pegula would make an effective and informed choice if he were hiring a geological engineer to oversee a fracking operation; that decision is right there in his wheelhouse.  When he has to hire a football coach, he is just as likely to hire a good one as he is to hire a bad one based on his football expertise.  [Aside:  I am not picking on Terry Pegula here.  I use him as example of someone with lots of expertise and experience in a very specialized field who does not have the same level of expertise in the specialized field of “NFL head coach.”]

And then, the problem gets compounded…  These highly successful billionaire owners are used to seeing events progress along a planned trajectory toward success.

• Jeffrey Lurie produces a movie; the movie is shot and edited; the movie is released; the movie is a success.  Naturally…
• Rob Walton (Broncos’ owner) decides to expand Walmart stores into Lower Slobbovia; licenses are acquired; store sites are acquired; logistic chains are established; stores open; Walmart profits expand.  Of course…

That is not always what happens when a new NFL head coach is hired.  Sometimes a mediocre team gets a new head coach and becomes a bad team; sometimes a bad team gets a new head coach and does not get much better.  It is in those sorts of situations where highly successful billionaire owners become impatient.  In the bulk of their business experience things progress according to plan and if the plan needs to be tweaked somewhere along the way, the owner steps up and provides the tweak that moves things ahead smartly.  When an NFL owner is playing that role in his/her field of expertise, that is a positive contribution; when an NFL owner behaves that way with his team, it is often nothing more than meddling.

In the NFL world, that sort of knee-jerk response by ownership to a plan that is not going exactly the way it was supposed to go translates to:

• Fire the guy you hired recently; pay him off and get a new guy in the job who will “get it right”.

And that is how the NFL owners as a group can build up a sunken cost of about $500M in what amounts to severance pay for fired head coaches.

Rather than thinking this “wasted money” is due to a lack of inclusiveness on the part of owners, I prefer to apply Hanlon’s Razor here:

“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Only I would change “stupidity” to “lack of understanding” in the adage…

Finally, I have spent today venturing into an area of speculation where one can easily question my competencies for such speculation(s).  Therefore, let me close with this observation by author Christopher Hitchens – – sometimes labeled Hitchens’ Razor:

“That which can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

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

 

 

Things were bordering on tranquil in and around the Barclay Center in Brooklyn last week.  The only drama involved who might win or lose the next game on the schedule for the Brooklyn Nets.  Then, late last week, Kyrie Irving reacted to that “drama-void” and created a bit – – with him as the centerpiece of course.  He demanded to be traded about a week before the trade deadline arrives in the NBA.  Stephen A. Smith reported that his sources told him that Irving would sit out the rest of this season if his demand was not met.

Irving’s trade demand was probably less than 10 minutes old when the first speculation of a Kyrie Irving/Russell Westbrook swap could happen.  It did not happen; and in my opinion, it was never going to happen for a simple reason.

• Both Irving and Westbrook are on expiring contracts.  Westbrook’s value today is enhanced by that status since it creates cap space for the team that has him on its roster at the end of the season.  However, the Nets already have that “value” in Irving whose contract also expires at the end of this season.  So, that swap – – which would work under the trading rules of the NBA – – provides the Nets with no significant asset that they do not already have.

Instead, the Nets shipped Irving off the Mavericks in return for

• Spencer Dinwiddie
• Dorian-Finney-Smith
• A basket of draft picks

In terms of on-court capability, the Nets did not get an equivalent level of talent.  However, what the Nets did get is Kyrie Irving’s presence in locker room other than theirs.  And that has its benefits all by itself.  And that is something that the Mavericks will need to adjust to for the rest of this season.

Looking back, when Irving and Kevin Durant decided to join forces on the Nets to create a championship contender, everyone focused on the on-court abilities of the two superstars and thought that indeed this could be a juggernaut.  Then, the Nets went out and added James Harden to the mix; and some reporters reached Level 5 on the Ecstasy Meter.  Well, that talent experiment folded like a card-table chair.  The troika of Durant, Harden and Irving is now:

• Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons and Spencer Dinwiddie.

That should be a cautionary tale for the Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban who will be expected to offer Irving a super-max contract at the end of the 2023 playoffs in order to retain Irving’s services – – those services and bushel basket full of other “off-court oddities” that seem to follow Kyrie Irving around just like the dust cloud used to follow Pigpen around in the Peanuts comic strip.  A former colleague with a PhD in Psychology once told me that the single best predictor of a person’s future behavior is that person’s past behavior. If my former colleague is correct in that assertion then Kyrie Irving is the poster child for the Latin phrase, caveat emptor.

In another bizarre basketball story albeit at a far lower level of the game, a 22-year old assistant coach for a high school girls’ JV team donned a jersey and went into the game and played against the team’s opponent.  This was not a scrimmage or a practice session; this was a scheduled game for the two teams.  Here is how this transpired:

• A 13-year old girl was going to miss this school game because she was out of town playing in a tournament for a club team that girl was part of.
• The assistant coach used the missing player’s uniform and played under the missing girl’s name in the scorebook.

The assistant who played in the game, the head coach of the JV team and another assistant have been fired.  If you are wondering why anyone would do such a thing and/or how they thought this would remain “clandestine”, please feel free to join me in such a wonderous state of mind.  Even more confounding is this:

• There is an obvious risk to one’s job and one’s reputation in doing something like this and getting caught.
• So, what is the benefit derived from playing a ringer in a girls’ high school basketball game that is commensurate with that risk?

Switching gears …  There are plenty of examples of silly attempts to alter the English language in order to make something more politically correct.  There is a new “movement” afoot that could reside in the Pantheon of Politically-correct Palaver.  USC and Cal State-Northridge have determined that the word “field” – – as in field study for educators or counselors – – is potentially racist since slaves toiled in the “fields”.  The new politically correct substitution for “field” is “practicum”.  These schools have already renamed entities in the school and now USC has an “Office of Practicum Education”.

• I cannot wait until someone suggests that the radio announcer for USC’s football team proclaim that “Wide receiver Joe Flabeetz is out there on the wide side of the practicum.
• Maybe someone will demand that reruns of The Flying Nun be edited to say that the star of the show was Sally Practicum.
• Somehow Practicum of Dreams does not evoke thoughts of an Iowa corn-practicum.

Sigh …

Finally, let me close today with this entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Lettuce:  A tasteless plant one must include as the base portion of one’s salad bar visit, solely to maintain the illusion that one is eating healthily even though one’s plate will soon be piled high with the mayonnaise-laden macaroni and potato concoctions that got you to the salad bar in the first place.”

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

 

 

About 20 years ago, Guinness had an ad campaign for its draft stout that focused on the time it took to pour a “proper pint”.  As the draft settled in the glass and equilibrated, viewers were told that “Good things come to those who wait.”  I want to suggest this morning that declaration may resonate with football fans who have been waiting for more than 20 years to see the Pro Bowl game dismantled.  Finally, the league and the players dealt with the reality that the Pro Bowl game was a charade and it needed to be shelved.

However, the Pro Bowl does serve some purpose for both the league and the players.  For the league it is a showcase event; it allows for additional sponsorships; it is a “feelgood” time.  For the players – or at least many of them – it is another payday; many players have clauses in their contract for a bonus when/if they are selected for a Pro Bowl game.  Moreover, even players who were not actually selected can cash in here if they replace a selected player who misses the game due to “injury” or due to playing for a team that will be in the Super Bowl next week.

I want to take a short look at three of the selectees this year:

1. Josh Allen was rightfully selected as an AFC Pro Bowl QB.  He declared that he would not show up due to an “injury” – – but that “injury” did not prevent him from showing up and playing in a Pro-Am golf tournament in California this weekend.
2. Derek Carr was selected as an AFC Pro Bowl QB this year.  He was benched for the final two games of the year by the Raiders and the team has said he will not be back with the Raiders next year.
3. Tyler Huntley was selected as an AFC Pro Bowl QB.  He started a total of 4 games this season; he threw 2 TDs and 3 INTs; his QB Rating (on a scale of 0 to 100) was 41.2.

Tyler Huntley is a fine story; he was undrafted coming out of college; he made the Ravens’ team and has started 8 games for the Ravens during his three-year career.  Based on the info I have found at Spotrac.com – a website with plenty of contract specifics for NFL players – Huntley’s contract does not have a Pro Bowl bonus clause possibly because as an undrafted free agent he did not have the leverage to get the team to include one.  And truth be told, based solely on performance on the field in 2022, Tyler Huntley does not belong in the Pro Bowl – – but he is both available and willing to show up and play.

This year, the game itself will be a flag football game.  For the past decade or so, the Pro Bowl games have been almost flag football games but without the flags.  There was very little blocking and virtually no tackling; the players pretended to do those sorts of things, but there was no “gusto”.

“Lack of gusto” is to be expected in a flag football game; so, perhaps seeing that deficiency will not be so dissatisfying.  I will probably tune in for a moment on Sunday at 3:00 PM ET to see if watching elite athletes play flag football is sufficiently entertaining to keep me tuned in for more than a half dozen snaps.

One other Pro Bowl “invitee” demonstrates the lack of seriousness of the game itself.  The league has invited the Commanders’ mascot – – Major Tuddy – – who has been in existence for all of two NFL weekends to show up and “entertain the crowd”.  For those of you who are not familiar with Major Tuddy, he is a creature with a pigface/nose who wears an artillery helmet with the Washington Commanders’ logo on the side.  His “career” consists of two games prancing about on the sidelines and that body of work deems him worthy of Pro Bowl participation.  And I am supposed to take the Pro Bowl seriously…?

Shifting gears …  I ran across a report by the Associated Press with this headline:

“Latvia considers Olympic boycott if Russians compete”

Two thoughts ran through my mind as I read that headline.  First, I wondered if anyone would notice the absence of the Latvian team had they not announced that they would be missing.  Second, we have been down this path before and even when Olympic boycotts are carried out, they do not provide a remedy for the underlying situation that caused some folks to consider a boycott in the first place.

Obviously, the underlying geopolitical issue here is the ongoing situation in Ukraine.  I have no idea what it might take to start the ball rolling toward a resolution of that conflict such that the killing and the destruction comes to an end.  However, I am relatively confident that a Latvian Olympic boycott is not going to get that job done.

Let me remind you of one previous Olympic boycott.  In 1980, the Olympic Games were held in Moscow; in 1979, the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan.  President Carter declared that the US would not send a team to Moscow the next summer and indeed the US boycotted that Olympiad.  So, did the Soviet army leave Afghanistan and stop the shooting/killing?

• Well, if you believe that the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 was somehow directly linked to that boycott in the summer of 1980, then you might believe such a threat in 2023 has the gravitas to settle things in Ukraine.

Pardon me, but I cannot get on that bandwagon…

Finally, since today dealt with two situations that have a farcical element in them, let me close with a theater adage:

“A comedy puts unusual people in real situations; a farce puts real people in unusual situations.”

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

 

 

Yesterday, by the time I emerged from my lair – – known as Curmudgeon Central – – for the purpose of having some dinner, I had received 5 separate emails all containing some variant of this question:

Does Tom Brady mean it this time?

Obviously, I don’t know the answer to that question, but I hope that he does.  His recanting of his retirement last year cost him his family.  Obviously, I do not have the competitive fire that Brady must have to do what he has done; but that is a cost that I would not be able to reconcile.  On the assumption that Brady maintains his retirement status, I think there are two immediate fallouts and one interesting question:

• Fallout #1:  The Bucs have a QB conundrum on their hands.  With Brady gone, the only QB on the roster who is signed for 2023 is Kyle Trask who has never taken a snap in an NFL game.  At the same time, Brady’s retirement will “cost” the Bucs about $35M in “dead money” against their salary cap so that will hinder their maneuverability in the free agent market.
• Fallout #2:  Both Trey Lance and Brock Purdy can relax and focus on their injury rehab regimens without looking over their shoulders to see if rumors of Brady “coming home” to finish out his career in NoCal where it all started have any substance.
• Interesting Question:  FOX has Brady under contract for 10 years after he retires and FOX will televise the Super Bowl a week from Sunday.  I cannot imagine that the FOX execs would stick Brady in the booth with no training/preparation, but might he be part of the larger programming/presentation?

Bob Molinaro posed this question in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot a few weeks ago and maybe we will start to see the outcome:

Sneaky suspicion: What do you want to bet that pass rushers will be granted more latitude once Tom Brady isn’t around anymore to protect?

A: Maybe we’ll find out soon enough…

Another NFL event went down yesterday; Sean Payton was hired to be the head coach of the Denver Broncos.  To make that hire, the Broncos had to trade for Payton since the Saints had him under contract through the 2024 season.  The price that the Saints extracted was a first round pick in 2023 and a second round pick in 2024.  Given the haul of draft picks the Broncos sent to Seattle to acquire Russell Wilson last year, Broncos’ fans have to hope that Payton’s offense and his tutelage can elevate Wilson’s level of play starting next season.  I think this is  an interesting gamble – – sort of like doubling down in blackjack when the dealer shows a face card.

With those two news items leading the way regarding the NFL, an under-the-radar story yesterday was the Houston Texans hiring DeMeco Ryans to be their head coach.  Ryans was the “hot coordinator candidate” for a head coaching job this season and his signing with the Texans is a kind of homecoming for him since he began his playing career as a linebacker for the Texans.  His entire coaching career has been with the Niners starting in 2017 and culminating in his being the defensive coordinator for the last 2 seasons.

The Niners’ brass also seemed to close the door on the possibility of Jimmy G staying with the team next year.  Kyle Shanahan addressed a question about that possibility this way:

“No, I don’t see any scenario of that.”

And that statement leads me to believe that Shanahan and GM John Lynch have a plan in mind for the QB position in SF next year.  If I choose to look at the glass half-empty as is my wont, the Niners now have two very green QBs who are injured and who will miss significant off-season time rehabbing significant injuries.  Trey Lance does not have enough game experience to say he has even had a cup of coffee in the league yet; Brock Purdy was a great underdog story with his winning streak last season but let me say that his résumé is still a bit thin.  The Niners’ defense – even with the departure of defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans – is a top-shelf unit. So …

• Will the Niners stand-pat at QB or are they quietly in the “QB free agent market”?

In the world of college football coaches, there was an interesting story that surfaced earlier this week.  An audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office of the Athletic Department at LSU discovered that the university accidently over-paid head coach Brian Kelly by $1,001,368 back in May and June of 2022.  The overpayment was discovered in November and confirmed in December and arrangements have been made to recover the overpayments.  There is no allegation of any sort of nefarious dooings here; it appears to have been a “paperwork error”.

Here is my take on that situation:

• Wouldn’t it be great to be in a situation where your boss overpaid you by $1M and that mistaken overpayment did not jump out as a “WTF moment” as you did whatever financial management you do?

Finally, since I mentioned Brian Kelly’s financial situation here, let me close with this observation by author Dorothy Parker:

“The two most beautiful words in the English language are “check enclosed.”

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

 

 

`           Yesterday, I discussed the dominant position of the NFL in the world of television.  Today, I want to hypothesize on why that is the case.  Obviously, Americans like the game of football and like to watch it; to get to the level of dominance on TV that the NFL has gotten to, the viewing public must like what they tune into watch.  That is a sine qua non and needs no further discussion.

Another key element for the size of the audience for NFL games is the betting market for those games.  Sportsbooks in 30 states and on the Internet do a huge business in terms of handle for pro football games, and the fact is that viewers like to watch games where they “have a little something riding on the outcome(s).”

However, those two factors – – love of football and the easy access to a place where a wager might be made – – seems not to carry over to major college football where there are rabid fanbases for at least twenty of the top-shelf college teams.  Thinking about that difference leads me to consider two things that I consider to be major factors as to why NFL football enjoys the perch that it does.

1. There are only 17 games per team in an NFL regular season; so, every game is important to about 24 teams who have playoff aspirations at the start of every season.  One NFL game carries the same weight as 9.5 MLB games in terms of the standings; one NFL game carries the same weight as almost 5 NBA games.
2. NFL games are on TV 3 times a week; but in general, there are only 5 games to watch on those days.  Only a third of NFL games are available to fans on “free TV”, so there is a measure of scarcity there.

Let me compare those two situations to other sports as it regards their TV presence:

• College Football:  The 12-game regular season makes “every game matter” even though every major college schedules about 2 games a year where only the final score matters.  However, the fanbases for college teams do not overlap that much for most of the year and there are too many regional situations where fans of Team A have no interest in another conference game in their own conference.  As an example, in recent years, Alabama fans have not been on the edge of their seats waiting to hear about the results of the Missouri/Vandy game.  Truth be told, 99% of Alabama fans could not care less…  Also, for fans of Alabama – – or Georgia or Ohio State or Michigan or … – – virtually every game on the schedule is available for viewing by the fanbase.  So, the audience for major college football is fragmented and it is saturated at the same time for the really rabid fans of individual teams.
• MLB:  There are 162 games in the regular season and it is difficult to see how any matchup in early May is going to be “critical” way down the line in September.  Major league baseball games are occurrences; NFL games are events.  There are ways to bet on baseball games, but statistics say that the handle in sportsbooks during baseball season is only about one eighth of what it is during football season.  People do not bet on baseball games nearly as much as they do on football games and that reduces interest in tuning in to see how your team – – and your “action” – – is doing.
• NBA:   There are too many games in the regular season to hold viewer interest; a November game between two teams that have the same chance of “making a playoff run” as the Washington Generals is simply uninteresting.  Many fans would rather watch a weeknight MAC football game than watch the Detroit Pistons square off against the Houston Rockets.  There is ample interest in wagering on NBA games but there is far too much inventory for TV to handle.  The NFL regular season is 272 games; the NBA regular season is 1230 games.

The NBA and MLB also suffer from over-exposure on TV.  I don’t know if this is the case for every MLB and/or NBA team, but I can see all of my local teams’ games if that is my choice.  That is a lot of time staring at a TV screen.  Think about it; 162 Washington Nats games at 3 hours apiece plus 82 Washington Wizards games at 2 hours apiece equals 650 hours of my life watching a whole lot of games that I knew were irrelevant even before I turned the TV set on.  Meh!

Many years ago – – after the dinosaurs went extinct but before the dawn of the Internet – – there was this thing that MLB did on Saturday afternoons called the “Game of the Week”.  It was an event; I got to see teams from far away from my home viewing area; it was special; I watched those games far more often than not..  That programming is gone and replaced by myriad meaningless games that I have learned to avoid.  MLB has chosen quantity over quality; the NFL does no such thing with scheduling flexibilities that allow for important games to be “flexed” into prime viewing windows; the NFL values quality programming over “whatever programming”.

Basically, the same situation applies to the NBA; quantity trumps quality of their programming into my household.  I very much enjoy watching sports on TV, but I would rather spend two hours comparing health insurance plans than spending two hours watching the Washington Wizards compete in a life-and-death-struggle with the Charlotte Hornets.  In addition, the NBA games have to deal with “load management” games.  Were I to happen to tune in to see the Wizards play the Sixers – – as an example – – , one of the things I would want to see there is the play of Joel Embiid and James Harden.  Now, if one – or both – happen to need a night off to rest up, my interest in watching that game would evaporate about 5 minutes into the first quarter.

And that brings me to my final comparison sport – – college basketball.  I love college basketball; my long-suffering wife has to plan our social life around Conference Tournament Week and March Madness every year.  Notwithstanding the superior skill level demonstrated by NBA teams, I far prefer to watch college basketball to pro basketball.  And having said that, college basketball is so over-exposed on TV that it has become a travesty.

Last weekend, the Washington Post dutifully reported on the various sporting events that would be available to people who had access to various over-the-air channels and cable sports channels in this area.  For Saturday and Sunday there were 31 different college basketball games available and a couple of them were available as replays on channels that did not carry the games live.  Let me do some math for you;

• 31 games involve 62 teams.
• These were not 62 of the 68 teams that will compete in March Madness 2023.  In fact, some of the games involved teams where I was only half-aware that the school competed in Division 1 college basketball.
• College basketball – a sport that I love – is grossly overexposed on TV!

Like MLB, college basketball used to have a regional college game on the weekends along with a national game.  Here in the DC area, we could watch the best ACC game on a weekend and also find a game between – say – UCLA/Notre Dame.  If that is the weekend menu; that is “appointment TV”.   If my TV menu includes Quinnipiac versus Niagara, I would choose to rearrange my sock drawer instead of tuning in.

The NFL has found the “sweet spot”.  It puts lots of games on the air to gather an audience and develop widespread interest.  At the same time, it minimizes the out of area coverage for “meaningless games” and uses scheduling flexibility to assure a good game in most of the big-time viewing slots.  And every regular season game has significant meaning in terms of playoffs and potential championships.  The other major sports in the US have not figured out how to do that – – and unless they do they will never overtake the NFL as a valuable TV property.

Last weekend, the NFL semi-final games drew audiences of around 50 million viewers – – give or take a couple million.  The Super Bowl in two weeks will certainly play to an audience of 95 million viewers or more,  Consider these data:

• 2022 March Madness Final Game attracted 18.1 million viewers
• 2022 FIFA World Cup Final Game attracted 16.8 million viewers (in the US)
• 2022 NBA Final Series averaged 12.4 million viewers
• 2022 MLB World Series averaged 11.8 million viewers
• 2022 NHL Stanley Cup Finals averaged 4.9 million viewers (in the US)

The disparity in the audiences is massive.  I believe the key factors are the importance of every week’s games in the NFL tied to the scheduling that makes fans appreciate the league as well as the local team that fans root for.  Other sports need to do a lot of catching up along those lines…

Finally, since today’s rant was about the NFL’s dominance of the TV marketplace, let me close with this observation from former Jets’ coach Herm Edwards that may have some relevance to the Super Bowl game in two weeks:

“One thing you know about playoff competition is this: If you have a hot quarterback and your defense can take the ball away, you don’t need to have a dominant defense anymore.”

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