Month: August 2023

In the wee hours of this morning, the Spanish Women’s National Team defeated the Swedish team 2-1 and advanced to the Finals of the Women’s World Cup.  In the early morning hours tomorrow, England will play the hosts, Australia, for the honor of meeting the Spaniards in the Finals.  The Australian team – – known as The Matildas from the song Waltzing Matilda – – have come a long way to achieve this status.  The Matildas played in their first Women’s World Cup tournament in 1995 and lost all three games in the Group Stage by a combined score of 13-3.  It was not until 2007 that the Aussies graduated to the Knockout Round in a World Cup tournament and here they are in 2023 one game away from the Finals.  The Matildas will enjoy a lot of hometown advantage and they must be the sentimental favorites here.

In other soccer news, the English Premier League saw its first weekend of action but did not exactly put out the welcome mat for the three teams that were promoted to the Premier League as a result of last year’s action.

1. Burnley:  This team won the English Championship League last year to earn promotion.  They opened this year on the road against powerhouse, Manchester City and lost 3-0.  Man City should be in the thick of the fight for the top spot in the Premier League this year, so perhaps this result is not as bad as it looks.
2. Luton Town:  This is the Cinderella story of the EPL this year.  In 2009, Luton Town was demoted out of the professional leagues in England and had been found guilty of “financial irregularities”; the team was on the verge of dissolution.  Since then, Luton Town has fought its way up the five levels of professional soccer in England and clawed its way into the EPL for now.  Luton Town opened this season at home against Brighton and lost convincingly 4-1.
3. Sheffield United:  The Blades – as the team is called – were last part of the EPL in 2019 and the team holds a distinction that cannot be matched.  In 1993 when the EPL was formed, Sheffield United was in the league and the Blades registered the first goal ever in EPL competition.  Sheffield United opened league play this year on the road against Crystal Palace and lost 1-0.

Moving on …  I have mentioned in the past that there is an ongoing investigation in Iowa of college football players improperly betting on sports.  There are new developments on that front according to the Des Moines Register.  The most outrageous allegation is that a defensive tackle for Iowa State, Isiaha Lee, bet on Iowa State games in which he played and in at least one of those wagering events, he bet against Iowa State.  Forget any consideration of the” bad optics” that might be associated with such behavior; I doubt you could find any ethicists who might say that this behavior exists in a positive light in the ethical universe.

If Isiaha Lee really did what is alleged here, then his behavior dwarfs the actions of another player identified as part of this investigation.  Jirehl Brock – a running back for the Cyclones – is accused of “tampering with records” because he placed bets in accounts registered to someone other than himself.  According to the Des Moines Register, Brock bet on four Iowa State games including two that he played in.

Iowa State coach, Matt Moore, has said that when a young man makes a mistake, that is not a reason to “give up on him”.  Considering that Jirehl Brock was his leading rusher last year and that Moore’s starting QB is also implicated in this investigation, you can write off some of that thinking to enlightened self-interest.  Even though it is unquestionably true that young males tend to “make mistakes” and do dumb things, there are certain categories of “mistakes” that transcend your “garden variety youthful indiscretion”.  Betting on the outcome of a game in which you are a participant – – and even worse betting against your team – – separates out into an elite category of “mistakes”.  If these allegations are proven to be accurate, these young men deserve a lifetime ban from collegiate athletics and nothing less.

Switching gears … It seemed as if the investigation into improper recruiting by Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines during the “dark period” caused by the COVID outbreak had come to a conclusion.  Reports said that Harbaugh would be suspended for the first 4 games of this season.  That was not even a slap on the wrist because those four games were against three out-of-conference cupcakes and then Rutgers.  But this matter took an unusual turn last week.

The NCAA seems to have rejected the reported deal and any resolution would be pushed back until after the upcoming college football season.  Then the Committee on Infractions would take up the matter – – raising the question, who has been working on this issue for the past several years if not the Committee on Infractions?  Here is the distillation of the alleged infractions in the case from an NCAA official:

“The Michigan infractions case is related to impermissible on and off-campus recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period and impermissible coaching activities …”

On the surface, it would appear that this could be resolved in less than several years, no?

Finally, here is an entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm pertaining to soccer:

“Football:  1.  An American sport in which men try to get a teardrop shaped ball from one end of a big field to another while grunting, piling on top of one another and giddily jumping up and sown when they succeed.  Homoerotic?  You decide.  2.  An English sport in which the fans could kick the ass of just about any of the players.”

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

 

 

FS1 has had Skip Bayless and his faux debate show, Undisputed, off the air for about a month as Bayless and the network seek to find a replacement debating partner for Bayless.  Last week, there were reports that Richard Sherman was signed on for that role but not completely.  One report I read said he was signed up to appear on 100 episodes which makes sense because that would have him on the air with Bayless for the balance of the NFL season.  Clearly, Sherman’s expertise is professional football and if he were to show up on Undisputed as is the plan in late August, that would have him in a sweet spot.

Additionally, there have been reports that Bayless will also do some programs with rapper, L’il Wayne and that the rapper has composed and performed a new theme song for the program.  [Aside:  I do not know L’il Wayne from Wayne Newton, Olivia Newton-John, John Wayne, Wayne Brady, Tom Brady or Tom Thumb.]  According to reports, L’il Wayne is an avid sports fan and folks say he might pair well with Bayless.  So, on the surface it would appear as if things are looking up over at FS1 – – except there are other rumors/reports out there saying:

1. FS1 is considering Michael Irvin as another sparring partner with Bayless – – AND – –
2. FS1 Is considering Keyshawn Johnson as another sparring partner with Bayless.

Now if those rumors/reports are also correct, I wonder how Undisputed is going to be seen once football season is over and things like March Madness and the NBA and MLB take center stage in the sports world.  I have this hunch that there are still chapters to be written in the FS1 search for Bayless’ partner …

Moving on …  There was an announcement last week that the NFL had reached an agreement with a slot machine manufacturer that would allow NFL logos to appear on the slot machines. One of the NFL execs characterized this move this way:

“The unveiling of the first NFL-themed slot machines represents an opportunity to bring the League closer to our fans in a new area.”

Nonsense!  This unveiling of NFL-themed slot machines represents a new revenue stream for the league.  That’s it; that’s all there is to it.

However, this new “partnership” raises an interesting question:

• Since the NFL prohibits its players, coaches, team employees, etc. from gambling on team flights or at team facilities or at game stadiums, how might players or coaches playing an NFL-themed slot machine fit into that paradigm? 

Remember, the league rule says that if a player or coach is sitting in a practice facility and uses a phone-betting app to place a wager on a horse race two time zones removed from the facility, that player or coach is in violation of the league rule/policy.  The appearance is that the NFL does not want itself or its players to be associated too closely with gambling – – which is a smart decision on their part.  So, how might the league react if one of its prominent players was videoed and shown on Instagram collecting a big payout from an NFL-themed slot machine?

My guess is that will happen eventually so maybe a clarification/declaration from the NFL Executive Suite before the fact would be a good idea.  No?

Switching gears …  San Francisco Niners’ CEO, Jed York, is being sued in two separate cases alleging that he engaged in insider trading resulting from his position on the Board of Directors of Chegg, Inc – – and educational company.  Chegg gained notoriety when it was accused of assisting college students to cheat on online exams starting back in the COVID isolation days and these new accusations allege that Chegg management filed false and misleading statements with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and then managers and board members dumped Chegg stock before the scope of the cheating scandal were revealed.

Frankly, those charges have little to do with football or sports, but they do interest me a bit because of a linkage.  The former owner/CEO of the Niners was Eddie DeBartolo; he never sold the team, but he was eased out of his ownership role with the team in the late 90s because he was involved with a payoff to Louisiana governor, Eddie Edwards, to get himself a casino license there.  DeBartolo got that license but got caught up in corruption investigation into Gov Edwards and DeBartolo was charged with not reporting a felony.  He pleaded guilty to that charge and was fined $1M, forced to withdraw from the casino project and given 2 years’ probation.  The NFL also fined him and suspended him from being part of the Niners’ organization for 1 year.

When the 1-year suspension was over, DeBartolo handed over his interest in the team to his sister – – who was and is married to Jed York, the subject of the Chegg lawsuits.  And the wheels on the bus go round and round …

Last item today …  I think everyone here knows that I do not care much about Exhibition Games in the NFL, but one result over the weekend is worth a passing mention:

• The Ravens beat the Eagles 20-19.
• That extends the Ravens’ Exhibition Game winning streak to 24 games in a row.
• The last time the Ravens lost an Exhibition Game was on September 3, 2015 against the Atlanta Falcons.
• In that game, the Ravens lost by the same 20-19 score.

Finally, let me close today with this comment by the Swedish playwright, August Strindberg:

“I loathe people who keep dogs.  They are cowards who haven’t’ got the guts to bite people themselves.”

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

 

 

Yesterday, I mentioned that former Raiders’ WR, Henry Ruggs III, was sentenced to jail for 3-10 years after a guilty plea to a variety of charges that resulted in the death of a young woman in a major auto accident.  The prosecution, the defendant and the family of the late woman all issued statements indicating closure of the matter – – as best as it could be under the circumstances.  And then came a twist …

OJ Simpson also issued a statement saying that the Ruggs did not get sufficient comeuppance in the matter to satisfy the victim’s family.  He pointed out that he got a longer jail sentence in the same Las Vegas court for a crime where no one was even injured.  Seriously, OJ Simpson is speaking out on behalf of a victim’s family …

• That is sort of like Vlad the Impaler calling colonoscopies “fun experiences.”

Next up …  Just in case you think that OJ Simpson’s comment evidenced just a bit of “tone deafness”, let me suggest that tone deafness broke out in a couple of places yesterday.  Reports – – and photos confirming the veracity of the reports – – yesterday revealed some assistant coaches at Northwestern University wearing T-shirts that said:

• “Cats Against the World”

No problem there; it is pretty standard fare for a football team to play with a mindset that the team is all there is and that anything outside the team is either irrelevant or it is opposition.  But the assistant coaches’ shirts had an added wrinkle; the shirts also had the number “51” on them.  Fifty-one is the number fired head coach Pat Fitzgerald wore when he played at Northwestern and Fitzgerald has just been fired by Northwestern in the wake of reports of hazing activities while he was the head coach there.

It is perfectly OK for assistant coaches to think Fitzgerald should not have been fired but it is a tad tone deaf for them to express that displeasure when their employer is still investigating and trying to do damage control for existing and impending lawsuits against the school.  The AD at Northwestern specifically called this happenstance “tone deaf”.  I think this behavior goes beyond that and falls squarely into the category of:

•  “Pink slips at the end of the season.”

Switching gears …  I also mentioned yesterday the suspension of Orioles’ announcer Kevin Brown based on some critical remarks he made about the way the team had played in Tampa over the past couple of seasons.  SI.com reports today that Brown will return to microphone tonight in a game against the Mariners and that Brown is going to have to walk on eggshells until this mess recedes into memory.  He will be asked about this, and he will have to temper his remarks lest the owners get their knickers in a knot once again.

Kevin Brown will need to parse anything he says or Tweets very carefully but that is not the case for other announcers such as:

Al Michaels: “They should suspend the doofus that suspended Kevin Brown.”

Jon Miller: “The best thing that happened to me is that I didn’t stay there.”  [Aside:  Miller was formerly the lead play-by-play announcer for the O’s.]

Stephen Nelson closed out a Dodgers’ game broadcast saying, “Free Kevin Brown!”

Moving on … The Tennessee Titans are going against the grain in their first exhibition game against the Bears tomorrow afternoon.  Normally, for a meaningless game so early in the team-building process, the coach announces the team starting QB and indicates in general terms how much that starter will play and who might be seeing action after him.  Left unsaid is the fact that the offense will be plain vanilla which should be just fine since the opposing defense will also be plain vanilla.  But this year, the Titans threw a wrinkle in that normal process.

Head coach, Mike Vrabel announced yesterday that the team has made a decision as to which of the team’s three QBs on the roster will start; but when asked specifically if that QB would be Malik Willis, Vrabel said that it is “not a decision we are going to share.”  I know that Coach Vrabel spent much of his career playing for Coach Belichick in New England where things are buttoned up as tight as possible, but failing to reveal the starting QB for a meaningless exhibition game in early August … ???

And Vrabel and the Titans did not stop there in terms of shaking up NFL orthodoxy.  For the Bears’ game tomorrow, Vrabel will not be the head coach; that role will be played by Terrell Williams who is the defensive line coach/assistant head coach for the team.  Vrabel said he will be on the sidelines for the game and that he would be involved in setting up the coaching goals for the game, but that roster management and game decisions would be Williams’ responsibility.  So:

• Kudos to Mike Vrabel and the Titans for giving a minority coaching aspirant a significant experience to put on his résumé – – and simultaneously – –
• A big Bronx Cheer to Mike Vrabel and the Titans for being secretive about the team’s starting QB for a first exhibition game.

Finally, I’ll close today with this declaration by the humorist/journalist, Calvin Trillen:

“I’ve decided to skip ‘holistic.’  I don’t know what it means, and I don’t want to know.  That may seem extreme, but I followed the same strategy toward “Gestalt’ and the Twist and lived to tell the tale.”

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

 

 

It has been almost two years since Raiders’ WR Henry Ruggs III was involved in a car crash that killed a young woman and saw Ruggs charged with felony DUI, driving 156 mph, possessing a firearm and vehicular manslaughter.  After two years of legal wrangling, Ruggs pleaded guilty yesterday to reduced charges and was sentenced to prison for 3 to 10 years.  Ruggs is 24 years old; if he is released after 3 years, he might be able to resume an NFL career; if he serves the full 10 years, I doubt he would have any chance for a return.

Speaking obliquely about the Raiders, someone sent me a link to a listicle of the “Ten Most Hated Players In The NFL”.  Lists like this are usually silly at best and I would not even try to set up any sort of measurement scale that might confirm this list either in aggregate or in order.  But I did find it notable that none of the ten “most hated players in the NFL” are Las Vegas Raiders.  I suspect that Al Davis is somewhere in the cosmos wondering what has happened to his squad …

Yesterday, I mentioned that this year’s USWNT had 11 of the highest paid women’s soccer players in the world and the team’s early exit demonstrated that big payrolls do not necessarily translate into championships.  In MLB, the 2023 New York Mets would be the poster children for such a circumstance; so, I went back to check just how far short of dominance that squad fell.

Here are some data:

• The Mets’ Opening Day roster of 40 players totaled $376M.
• The Mets were “sellers” at the trade deadline and had to eat portions of the bloated contracts they traded away.
• In total – – including the infamous Bobby Bonilla contract from more than 20 years ago – – the Mets are paying $155M to players who are not playing for the Mets.

[Aside:  If I have counted correctly, there were 10 MLB teams that started the 2023 season with 40-man roster payrolls BELOW $155M.]

• This morning the Mets are 7 games behind the Marlins in the NL East.  On Opening Day, the Marlins payroll was $130M.  The Mets’ contractual commitments were 290% of the Marlins’ commitments, and yet …
• This morning the Mets are 2.5 games ahead of the Nationals in the NL East.  On Opening Day, the Nationals payroll was $93.1M.  The Mets’ contractual commitments were 404% pf the Nationals’ commitments, and yet …

Success in professional sports requires owners to spend money on players and good players cost more than scrubs.  Those two statements need no historical litany.  But the important and intangible element for success is roster building – – and roster building involves signing some top players to big contracts and pairing those players with young talent that can perform at a high level but does not have the history that allows them to command top dollars – – yet.

What the Mets tried to do was to buy top-shelf talent up and down the roster and did so by paying big money to good players.

• Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander were to make $43.1M each this year.
• Francisco Lindor was to make $32.4M this year – – and he is signed at that figure or higher through 2031.
• Starling Marte was to make $21M this year – – and he is clearly on the downward arc of his career.

You get the idea.  The Mets were committed to overpaying at far too many positions and they were concentrating their spending on players who were not likely to improve their performances as compared to previous performances.  The Mets were paying players for their lifetime achievements in many cases and not for what might be reasonably expected as results in 2023.  As of this morning, sportsline.com gives the Mets a 0% chance to win the NL East and only a 4% chance to make the NL Playoffs.

Moving on …  I got an email from Dwight Perry earlier this week.  I miss his Sideline Chatter column in the Seattle Times, but it is good to hear from him periodically.  His note this week dealt with “Pac 12 Stuff”.  This is the kind of stuff that is below the surface here on the East Coast but is clearly worth knowing:

“A couple things among the Pac-12 rubble: Washington State is also left holding the bag to the tune of a $100 million athletic deficit, for paying extravagant coaching salaries and making facilities upgrades while anticipated/promised income from the Pac-12 Networks fell way short of anticipated projections. But they were still getting $25-30 million a year in TV revenue; now they might get a quarter of that.

“Check my figures, but I think Oregon State is $80 million in the hole. The Beavers, ironically, are a solid threat to win the final Pac-12 (as we knew it) football title this year. [Aside:  I like Washington in this final PAC-12 season …]

“The most logical solution to this mess I’ve seen is to let football break off on its own and keep all the other sports in their traditional, regional conference set-ups. I know I’m not salivating at the thought of Washington’s softball team making a cross-country road trip for a riveting three-game series at Rutgers.

“Also, I saw a headline where the NCAA president is ‘deeply concerned’ about the latest conference realignment/implosion. In a related story I think I saw a chihuahua with a wolfhound’s tail.”

Finally, I will close today with these words from George Orwell:

“On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.”

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

 

 

Fallout from the early exit of the USWNT from the Women’s World Cup continues.  The woman who has come away in a positive light from the loss to Sweden is Carli Lloyd the former captain of the USWNT who is doing on-site studio analysis for the tournament on FOX.  Even before the survival game against Portugal, Lloyd said the team was complacent and underprepared; then, after one of the players attributed the loss to a video replay call that had a blocked penalty kick only a millimeter over the goal line, this was Lloyd’s commentary:

“No, it was not a millimeter. This was years in the making. This is going to haunt the players. I’ll give them credit in saying that they came out and they played; they played well, they just didn’t score a goal. But you can’t stay complacent and not evolve, and that is exactly what has happened.  This is on the players, this is on coach Vlatko Andonovski, U.S. Soccer, that has contributed to this failure and this exit at the World Cup. The team was not prepared, and a lot of these younger players, we’re going to see a new era, and a lot of these younger players, I hope, will use this as a huge learning experience to get better in the future.”

Carli Lloyd was on the USWNT from 2005 until 2021 and she appeared in 316 games over that time period; let there be no question about her “expertise” here; she played soccer at its highest level.  In her first chance as a broadcaster, Carli Lloyd is “bringing it”; lots of former players – and former coaches to be sure – soft-pedal any criticisms they might offer but Lloyd is giving viewers exactly what she thinks about a less-than-positive situation.  Lloyd took some heat for her bluntness and her lack of empathy – – but that did not stop her.

The FOX team is still covering the tournament and on the air after the dust had settled over the USWNT elimination, Carli Lloyd said:

“They have to take their time, but they also need to quickly figure out what to do with the Olympics looming.  Players shouldn’t be involved with this. In the past, players have been involved. I think someone needs to come in, they need to be ruthless, they need to make tough decisions.  This is a very, very important decision and a coach should not be friends with the players.”

Regarding the thought that this team was complacent, here is an interesting bit of information I ran across about the USWNT:

• The 2023 USWNT had on its roster eleven of the fifteen highest paid women players in the world and nine of the top ten highest paid women players in the world.

I have no way to know if that data created a sense of complacency or nonchalance, but it is another example to demonstrate that amassing a roster with the highest payroll is not necessarily going to wind up successfully.

I do not know what the broadcasting situation is for the soccer competitions – – men’s and women’s – – in next year’s Olympics, but I sure hope Carli Lloyd is part of the studio team and that she continues to “bring it”.

The other “announcer news” of the moment involves Kevin Brown who is the play-by-play announcer for the Baltimore Orioles.  He was suspended earlier this week by the team for remarks he made on the air a couple of weeks ago that highlighted the Orioles’ losing record over the past several years against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.  Moreover, it is not as if Brown went and dug up arcane stats for his commentary; the stuff he offered to the viewers was taken from the scoreboard information in the Rays’ stadium.  It was a simple acknowledgement that for the last several years, the O’s have been dominated by the Rays.

For those of you who are not in the Baltimore/Washington area, Kevin Brown is a very good play-by-play guy.  He is young; he is engaging; he is enthusiastic, and he does not drown the audience in verbiage.  So, I was glad to see that there was a huge outcry against his suspension and calls from lots of places for him to be back on the air immediately.  Orioles’ fans in Camden Yards made their preference known with chants of “Free Kevin Brown!  Free Kevin Brown!”

The latest reports say that he will return to the booth on Friday of this week which should placate the fans and at the same time it gives the Orioles’ ownership some degree of face-saving” having Brown sit out about 15 games.  As Willy Shakespeare once said:

“All’s well that ends well…”

Finally, since I praised Carli Lloyd for “bringing it” today and since Kevin Brown will be reinstated from suspension for comments that his bosses did not like, let me close today with this example of unmitigated scorn offered up by William F. Buckley, Jr. regarding France and the French people:

“A relatively small and eternally quarrelsome country in Western Europe, fountainhead of rationalist political manias, militarily impotent, historically inglorious during the past century, democratically bankrupt, Communist-infiltrated from top to bottom.”

Other than that …

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

 

 

I said there were two calamitous events in the sports world over the weekend and yesterday was devoted to the early departure from the World Cup by the USWNT.  Today, let me chew on the implosion of the PAC-12 to its current state as the PAC-4.  With all the so-called “4-Corner Schools” now aligned with the Big-12 and with Washington and Oregon going to the Big-10 along with USC and UCLA, the entity that Bill Walton loves to call the “Conference of Champions” is reduced to:

1. Cal
2. Oregon State
3. Stanford
4. Washington State.

That’s it; that’s the list.  And consider that Washington and Oregon fled this sinking ship because they took only a partial share of the revenue stream(s) from the Big-10 for several years because half of something is better than all of nothing.  What happened over the weekend is that the Power 5 has become the Core Four.

• [Aside: This has happened before to college football.  About 10 years ago there were six major college football conferences but then the Big-East evaporated leaving the Power 5 and now the PAC-12 has gone the way of all flesh …]

And don’t those folks at San Diego State who “resigned from the Mountain West Conference” and were supposed to join the PAC-12 just before the implosion look smart for running home to the Mountain West.  Let me start with the bottom line here which is TV money.  The PAC-12 has been trying to get a new media rights deal to tack onto the one they now have through the end of 2024, and they cannot get one that is even marginally interesting.  That fact tells you a lot about PAC-12 football and basketball – the two sports that generate the revenues that allow all the other sports to exist.

• Even before the start of the demise of the PAC-12, it was an uninviting product.

With all the sports-focused networks out there along with the mainstream networks and new streaming services that appear to generate spontaneously every two weeks, there is ample room for “content” to find a home or multiple homes.  Networks are paying real money for the broadcast rights to things like pickleball and cornhole and professional bull riding and professional fishing.  But they would not pay enough to keep the PAC-12 from imploding …

The fundamental underpinning of the PAC-12’s demise demonstrates that we can no longer pretend that college football is “amateur football”.  It is not; it may not be the NFL or even the XFL/USFL, but it is not “amateur” in any sense of that word.

There was an interesting element of hypocrisy embedded in this story as the vultures were circling above the PAC-12 waiting for it to succumb.  SEC Commissioner, Greg Sankey, sought to stay above the fray and stated that he was sorry to see the damage wrought upon the PAC-12 and called for cooler heads to prevail.  That would be a statesmanlike position absent a smidgen of reality:

• It was Sankey and his SEC that kicked the snowball over the cliff here when they poached Texas and Oklahoma from the Big-12.

There are plenty of losers in this collapse.  Oregon State and Washington State are huge losers; both will have to hope to beg their way into the Mountain West Conference even if it means a swift kick to their wallets.  The Rose Bowl becomes a huge loser so long as long as its contract to have the Big-10 champ play the PAC-X champ holds.  Ohio State/Oregon State anyone?  Cal/Wisconsin?

Athletes on PAC-12 teams in the “non-revenue sports” are going to lose out too.  The women’s softball team and/or the men’s tennis team – – just as examples – – are going to be playing a bunch of “away games” at far-flung venues.  The PAC-12 used to cover two time zones; now athletes in Washington’s non-revenue sports will cover all four US time zones.  Football teams – and maybe a few men’s basketball teams – fly charter to away games; softball and tennis teams fly commercial.  How about those connecting lights from State College, PA to Eugene, OR?  Sounds like fun to me.

One more loser for the moment is the agreed upon formula for putting teams in the expanded CFP.  Current rules call for the champions of the top six conference champions to get automatic bids to the CFP; well, is that going to work if one of the top six is the PAC-4?  No, it will not work and so it will need to be changed causing even more agita in the college football world.

Moreover, please do not think this is the end of the line for college football realignment/reshuffling/reorganization because it is not.  As school athletic programs become addicted to huge revenues generated by college football, there will be a natural tendency to want to continue to grow those revenues.  At some point – – probably not imminent but inevitable somewhere down the road – – the networks that pay for those expensive media rights will turn to the Big-10 people and say something like:

• We would offer lots more money for rights to more games like Michigan/Ohio State or Penn State/USC, but we have too many Purdue/Illinois and Rutgers/Maryland games in the package for us to raise our bids above this number.
• Imagine the same topic coming up in SEC media rights negotiations and in Big-12 negotiations.
• Then imagine the media rights deal that would go to the “Big Guys” from all three “Big Conferences” if all those “Big Guys” might come together to for the “Biggest Conference of All”.

Unless you can show that you predicted all the current machinations about 10 years ago, please do not say that my scenario is “impossible” or “unthinkable”.  I may not be alive to see this sort of upheaval come to pass, but it would not surprise me at all.

There is a rumbling in the college football world that says all this turmoil may not be at an end.  The ACC has been quiet through all this; recall that it was the ACC that picked apart the Big East in the last reshuffling of the college football landscape; this time the conference has done nothing.  But there are plenty of reports that Florida State is unhappy that there has been insufficient escalation of ACC media rights and other reports that Miami wants to play Florida regularly and to monetize that “special game”.  I have no idea if anything will come out of those rumblings down south in the ACC, but I never thought Arizona State and West Virginia would be conference rivals either.

As strange as all these college football doings are, let me assure everyone that I am on record with a reinvention of college football that is far more radical than is evidenced by the status quo.  In January 2017, I wrote here about a new world for college football.  Some of the features of my reinvention are:

• A “Big Boys” Category consisting of 8 divisions of 8 teams aligned geographically.
• A “Little Boys” Category consisting of 8 divisions of 8 teams aligned geographically.
• Relegation and promotion annually between the two categories.

If you find those sorts of ideas – – and they are not the only changes I propose – – interesting, here is the link to my rant from January 19, 2017.  It is never going to happen, but it is not nearly as outrageous to consider in the current environment as it was back then.

Finally, since it is probably too early to know if all these changes are for the good and too early to know who the “good guys” are as opposed to the “bad guys”, let me close with these words from the French poet, Anatole France:

“It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law.  Nature has no principles.  She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected.  Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.”

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

 

 

The overall label for sports news over the weekend would have to be “subsidence” or “collapse” or maybe even “disintegration”.  Two major stories of that sort dominated the sports landscape and the one that was noted globally was the loss by the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) in the Women’s World Cup in the Round of 16.  That is the earliest elimination for a USWNT since 1991 when FIFA initiated a women’s tournament.  In the eight previous tournaments, the US women finished third or better every time.  The hype going into this tournament was that there could be a “three-peat” for the women and that had never been done before.

Last week, I said that the women had made it to the Knockout Round but had not looked anything like impressive in their Group Stage games.  The team played better against Sweden but never put the ball in the net – the same thing that plagued them in Group Stage games.  Consider:

• This USWNT – – seeking a “three-peat” don’t you know – – scored a total of 4 goals in 4 games and 3 of them came against the team from Vietnam, a team that really did not belong in the tournament in the first place.
• The USWNT closed out its 4-game appearance in this year’s Women’s World Cup on a goal drought that lasted for 238 minutes.

The USWNT roster will change dramatically soon; ten players on the roster are 30 years old or older.  Megan Rapinoe has already announced her retirement from professional soccer and while some of the other veteran players may choose to continue competing, they are not likely to be around much past the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris – – if they make it to that competition.  And, of course, there will be those who pin the blame for this underachievement on the coach, Vlatko Andonovski, ignoring the patently obvious fact that he never appeared on the pitch for even a moment in the tournament.

What happened to cause this seeming catastrophe?  I have no interest in trying to read the minds of the players and I will not try to do a mass psychological assessment of the team from afar and without the requisite knowledge even to attempt such an undertaking.  I think the root cause of the relatively early ouster for this year’s USWNT is this:

• The world has caught up to the US.  In previous World Cup tournaments, the USWNT won the cup 4 times and medaled in every tournament based on having a greater number of elite athletes on the squad.  Looking at their games this year against Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden, the US women are no longer clearly better athletes because those teams have gotten better.

In no way should anyone take that assessment as a negative statement about the USWNT; rather, it is a compliment for women’s soccer programs and progress around the world.  The USWNT set a high standard for performance in women’s soccer and plenty of other countries have chosen to take on the challenge of meeting that standard.  Next year’s Olympic competition should be very interesting viewing.

[Aside:  The USWNT has won a medal in every Women’s World Cup Tournament and in every Olympics save for the 2016 Olympics and this year’s Women’s World Cup.  In both of those events, they were eliminated by Sweden on penalty kicks.  Cue Rod Serling …]

This situation – – where the world catches up to a standard set by the US – – should not be a total surprise to sports fans.  For years, the US dominated men’s basketball so thoroughly that the US sent teams of collegians to play against much older competition and won just about all the time.  By the late 80’s the rest of the world had progressed to the point where its adults were better than our college players and that led to the US putting the “Dream Team” out on display.  The Dream Team showed that the world still had a way to go to match up against the best pro players, but the fact of world improvement was clear to anyone who watched the competitions.

Look today at the state of men’s basketball here in the US.  In our NBA, I would argue that 4 of the top players in the NBA today are “foreigners” who learned to play and honed their skills outside the US:

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo
2. Luka Doncic
3. Joel Embid
4. Nikola Jokic

If Victor Wembanyama lives up to 80% of his hype, he will join that list of 4 dominant foreign basketball players.  The world does not produce the same quantity of top basketball players as does the US in 2023, but we should recognize that the best players from “over there” have the talent and the ability to compete and to excel in the modern NBA.  The world caught up to the US in men’s basketball and I believe that has also happened in women’s soccer.

So, what’s next for the USWNT?  As I said above, the coach will take some heat for this “embarrassment”.  With the Olympic competition less than a year in the future, it might be difficult for a new coach to take over a team that will likely have significant roster changes.  Coach Andonovski is on a hot seat to be sure.

As noted above, the current roster is dominated by veteran players.  The overseers of US women’s soccer need to be sure that there is a pipeline of similar talent coming up through the levels of US women’s soccer to replace retirees.  Maybe player development for future USWNT squads will need to include sending some youngsters to Europe where women’s soccer is a year-round undertaking.  Practice makes perfect …

The way the USWNT has dominated the sport in the past has been by scoring lots of goals with an attacking and finishing style of play.  This year’s team attacked but rarely finished.  I will not pretend to have figured out the key that will unlock that “finishing potential” for the women in next year’s Olympics – – but someone who knows more about soccer strategy and tactics than I do had better figure that out quickly.

I said at the start that there were two stories from the weekend about “collapse”.  The other one involves the disintegration of the PAC-12 into the PAC-4.  That will be the lead topic in tomorrow’s rant.

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

 

 

There were far too many trades at the MLB deadline to tally all of them here with a smidgen of commentary on many of them.  Rather, let me mention a few of the player movements that I think will be most impactful:

• Justin Verlander back to the Astros:  The Astros need pitching help; they are only a half game behind the Rangers in the AL West as of this morning despite injuries galore to their starting rotation.  Verlander is big-time help there …
• The Rangers added pitching too:  Speaking of the Rangers, they strengthened their staff too with the addition of Max Scherzer and Aroldis Chapman.
• The Angels keep Otani and add pitching:  The Angels resisted the temptation to trade a superstar for a ton of prospects and make a run for it in 2023.  They are only 3 games out of a wild card slot as of today.  They did add another starter to the rotation in Lucas Giolito, which should help a bit.
• Tommy Pham to the D-Backs:  He adds a career OPS of .790 to the D-Backs’ outfield.  He is also the “other guy” the Mets cleared out of Queens this year.
• Michael Lorenzen to the Phillies:  Lorenzen was an All-Star about three weeks ago and is having the best year of his career.  The Phillies’ starting rotation is strong.
• Jeimer Candelario to the Cubs:  His OPS this year is .823 which is .084 higher than his career average and he is not an embarrassment in the field.  The Cubs’ lineup got better.

I think the AL West race will be the most interesting one to watch this year.  The Rangers and Astros are neck-and-neck.  They each got an aging starting pitcher from the Mets at the trade deadline; the Astros have hung in there while Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve were on the IL, and both are back now.  My advice for baseball fans is to keep a close eye on that race even if your favorite team is not involved in the race in any way.

Moving on …  The US Women’s National Team made it out of the Group Stage and into the Knockout Round of the Women’s World Cup tournament – – but by the skin of their teeth.  I missed about 15 minutes of the game against the Netherlands but watched the rest of the US team’s games, and they have looked anything but dominant except against Vietnam.  Put that game in perspective; if FIFA had not expanded the field for the tournament this year, Vietnam may never have made it to New Zealand for the competition.

Against the Netherlands, the US women managed to get a draw, but were outplayed for most of the time I was tuned in.  Against Portugal, the US women showed no superiority in any phase of the game and were saved from elimination by a late shot that hit the goal post and bounded out of the goal and not into the goal.

I am not nearly sufficiently familiar with the subtleties/technicalities of soccer to know what the problem is there, but this team is not nearly as dominant as ones in the past have been.  If they continue to play as they have, they could easily be an early team to pack up and go home.  If that happens, there could be an interesting irony to the situations:

• The US Women protested their second-class status as compared to the US Men in terms of pay and perks.  One argument was that the US Women won World Cups and the US Men always disappointed.
• This year marks the start of equal sharing of earnings and perks for the women and the men.
• Will this year be the start of equal disappointment on the pitch for the two teams?

Next up … Gregg Drinnan’s blog, Keeping Score has been tracking the futility of the Edmonton Elks of the CFL in their home games.  The Elks lost the last time they were at home to the BC Lions by a score of 27-0.  Shutouts in the CFL are unusual in themselves, but this game was far more than merely unusual:

• That was the Elks’ 21^st consecutive home loss.
• That is now the longest home losing streak by any North American sports franchise surpassing the St Louis Browns who lost 20 home games in a row in 1953.
• The Elks’ last home victory was in October 2019
• In those 21 straight home losses, the Elks have been outscored 660-365 if my calculations are correct.
• That was the second meeting between the Elks and the Lions; the first one was also a shutout by the Lions, 22-0.  That is the first time since 1970 that one team has shut out another team twice in a season.
• Since the start of the 2021 season, the Elks’ cumulative record – – home and away – – is 7-33.  For the 50-year period between 1970 and 2020, the Elks – – then known as the Eskimos – – only missed out on being in the CFL playoff 5 times.

The Elks’ next home game will be on August 10 when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers come to visit.  The Bombers are 5-2 so far this year; that is not a good omen for Elks’ fans.

Finally, let me close again today with another anecdote involving the poet, Dorothy Parker:

• A woman told Parker, “I really can’t come to your party, I can’t bear fools.”  To which Parker replied, “That’s strange, your mother could.”

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