Month: February 2025

The Luka Doncic/Anthony Davis trade created an eruption of reporting and opinionating – – including here.  I believe the Lakers got the better of the deal in the long-term simply because Davis is 5 years older than Doncic, but time and events will make clear if I am correct or not.  There was one report here on CBSSports.com that brought up an old stalking horse of an argument; and as usual, it is so hyperbolic that it misses the point.

Dennis Schroder is a guard in the NBA; he has been in the league for 12 years and has been with 8 teams in his career.  Schroder is from Germany, and he owns a professional basketball team that plays in Germany; he has been traded 5 times in his NBA career.  Much of what he says according to this report is understandable; he thinks there needs to be less trading/dealing of players after those players and their teams have been together for a while.  He suggests that issue should be addressed in the CBA that codifies things like trades and players’ rights which is also logical and potentially constructive.  However, this is where he went out of orbit:

“It’s like modern slavery.  It’s modern slavery at the end of the day. Everybody can decide where you’re going, even if you have a contract. Yeah, of course, we make a lot of money, and we can feed our families, but at the end of the day if they say, ‘You’re not coming to work tomorrow, you’re going over there,’ they can decide that. They got to change that a little bit.”

Let me make my objection here very clear:

• This is NOT slavery – – modern or ancient.  Trying to invoke slavery as a mental construct for thinking about this situation completely ignores the reality of slavery as an institution.

Slaves were bought and sold – – similar to NBA players who are subject to being traded.  However, slaves were not under contracts that they or their agents negotiated with slave owners.  Slaves had no say at all where they might have chosen to work; most NBA players enjoy that privilege at least several times in their careers.

Slaves did not have a “union” who could negotiate working conditions on their behalf; a slaveholder could be cruel, or he could be benevolent but there was no counterbalance to his behavior and his treatment of his slaves.  NBA players have a union, and they have a mechanism to try to get the union to focus its attention on specific issues related to the work environment.

Slaves could not “withhold services” and just walk out of things like practice sessions – – or whatever might have been the analog to practice sessions in the time of slavery.  NBA players can do that – – and at least one is doing that as we speak.

Slaves could not demand a trade or oppose a trade from one owner to another.  NBA players demand to be traded and then make themselves into pains in the ass to motivate teams to trade them.  I don’t believe that such a strategy would have been benevolently tolerated back in real slavery situations.

Slaves were not paid for their labors; at best they were provided adequate food and shelter.  Schroder acknowledges that NBA players make “a lot of money and we can feed our families”, but he glosses over just how much they do make.  According to Spotrac.com:

• He will make $13M this year.
• He has made $103M over the course of his NBA career.
• He will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2025 season.

Slaves got no salary let alone ones that might generate total earnings of nine figures but even more importantly, slaves had no such thing as “free agency”.  The closest thing to free agency for people held as slaves was to run away – – creating a situation where they could be hunted down and brought back to the place they ran away from.  If that is the “closest thing” to free agency for slaves, it remains quite distant from the free agency that Schroder will enjoy later this year.

I am not suggesting here that the NBA is a perfect working environment for players; certainly, there is room for improvement.  Nevertheless, when players invoke “slavery” or a “plantation mindset” on the part of owners and GMs, they do not raise the level of support that they seek by using such imagery.  It is not realistic, and it detracts from the reality that players may be trying to bring attention to by means of their rhetoric.

Moreover, I am not “picking on” Dennis Schroder; he is merely the most recent athlete to use the slavery imagery to describe how things work in a professional sport.  NBA and NFL players have gone here before Schroder, and I have called them out in those instances too.  And so, let me offer up one idea that might address a bit of Schroder’s concerns.

• If a player has been with a team for a designated period of time – – say 3 seasons just for a start – – he can veto a trade by his team to another team if he will accept a percentage reduction in his salary for the duration of his contract – – say 10% just for a start.
• This is sort of like the mirror image of the NFL’s franchise tag that is put on players by teams.  Here the player is “putting a tag” on the team.

That is not a perfect idea.  It came from about 15 minutes of thinking, but it is a start.  And it does not involve hyperbolic rhetoric about the institution of slavery.

Finally, these words from Fredrick Douglass:

“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.”

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

 

 

             A while back in this space, I said that I did not yet consider the Kansas City Chiefs an NFL dynasty of the same sort as Lombardi’s Packers or Noll’s Steelers or Belichick’s Patriots.  I do not want to relitigate that issue, but I do want to say something about dynasties in various sports.  Here is my bottom line:

• Dynasties are a good thing for sports enterprises.

Much of the basis for that assertion is my fundamental idea that sports leagues at the professional level and the so-called “revenue sports” at the collegiate level in the US are at their core entertainment enterprises.  All of what we now consider the “major sports” in the US had their beginnings as shoestring operations that hoped one day to be profitable commercial undertakings.  They have succeeded in that economic dimension significantly because enough members of the general public have chosen to devote some of their discretionary dollars and/or some of their spare time to following and supporting the games put on by the leagues.  Sports created a demand among fans; fans responded by “paying for” their entertainment either directly with ticket sales or indirectly with TV ratings.

So, why are dynasties good for the leagues?  Dynasties create emotional reactions; fans either love them or hate them.  From the league perspective, it does not matter if the dynasty organization is loved or hated; the bigger point is that the dynasty organization is the focus of emotion for lots of fans meaning more attention to the entertainment product.  The love/hate aspect of dynasties is always present; the balance of love versus hate will vary from situation to situation, but it is always there.

In baseball, the Yankees have had several “dynastic” eras.  In the present, MLB exploits the love/hate aspect of the Yankees by featuring them on national telecasts an inordinate number of times.  Do you think it is by chance that so many Yankees/Red Sox games get scheduled for Sunday nights?  Are you surprised that Yankees/Red Sox games draw higher ratings than Guardians/Rockies games?

In football, fans had an intense love/hate relationship with Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the entire Patriots franchise for at least a decade.  Again, the NFL presented that team to fans nationally as often as possible because people who loved the team tuned in to see them conquer their opponent and people who hated the team tuned in with the hope that the Pats would get their comeuppances that day.

There was no real national television presence for the Celtics in their great dynasty of the 1950s and 60s, but once the NBA got a foothold in the national TV landscape, it was “Showtime” for the Lakers that dominated until it became the “Bad Boy Pistons” and finally the “Jordan Bulls” that everyone saw at every possible opportunity.

When Tiger Woods was dominating golf, TV ratings were much higher than they are now that there is no dominant figure on the PGA Tour.  In fact, when Tiger Woods was dominating golf, the entire golf industry was on a more solid financial footing than it is today.  And more than a few folks were tuning in hoping to see Woods botch a key shot that would cost him the tournament.

Here is the deal in a nutshell:

• Dynasties drive interest.
• Interest increases involvement.
• Involvement can be monetized.

In most situations, I do not subscribe to the concept that even bad publicity is good for an organization because that bad publicity draws attention to the organization and attention is a good thing.  When someone tries to use that argument with me, my canned response is to ask them to check with the Archdiocese of Boston to see how that turned out for them.  But regarding the case of dynasties and sports, I think “negative” feelings and passions are good things just as are “positive” fan reactions.

If you browse around the Internet a bit, you will find prognostications of imminent and sweeping fan apathy washing over the NFL and MLB.  The argument goes:

• Fans are tired of the Chiefs and the only reason they win is because the league has directed the referees to ensure that they win.  Here is the problem with that “logic”.  Last year, 123 million people tuned into the Super Bowl and the projection for this year is 125 million viewers.  That may not be a staggering increase in viewership, but it is not “cratering” by any definition.
• Fans have given up on baseball because the Dodgers have bought up all the best players, rendering the lengthy MLB regular season a mere formality.  Well, MLB game attendance has risen by more than 7 million paying customers over the past two seasons; attendance in 2024 was more than 71 million fans; that does not square with “widespread fan apathy”.

The fact is that “dynasties” ebb and flow.  The Yankees had some rough times in the 70s and 80s; the Dodgers went more than 20 years without a championship; the Pats were bad before Belichick and are bad once again in 2025; is anyone worried about the Pistons or Bulls dominating the NBA any time soon?  As that ebb-and-flow proceeds, it sweeps in more fans for that love/hate relationship that can be monetized.  As Sonny and Cher once sang:

“And the beat goes on …”

The Kansas City Chiefs – – notwithstanding my failure to consider them as a dynasty as of today – – will play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl in 4 days and the TV audience is expected to be in the neighborhood of 35% of the entire US population.  Some folks will only tune in for the ads and for the halftime show; some will hope to see their favorite team win and others will tune in hoping to see their least favorite team fail on the big stage.  But fans are not revolted by or repulsed by a “dynasty” team.

Finally, sports dynasties extend beyond sports themselves; they can become indicators of periods of time as in this statement by Rudy Giuliani:

“I was Mayor of New York during a great Yankees dynasty. I got to preside over the city during four Yankees championships.”

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

 

 

MLB has fired one of its umpires, Pat Hoberg, after a “lengthy investigation” for sharing a legal betting account with someone who bet on baseball games.  It was the friend who shared the account(s) who did the betting and not Hoberg which introduces various levels of strangeness into this situation.  Please take a moment and follow this link to a report at espn.com for a summary of the details in this case; the evidence is not nearly as open-and-shut here as it was in the Tim Donaghy matter in the NBA about 20 years ago.  Hoberg admits to errors of judgment but “adamantly denied” to Commissioner Manfred that he ever bet on baseball.

The “shared accounts” became a thing due to Iowa law regarding legal online sports betting.  To use those betting accounts, the bettor had to be physically in Iowa and the phone or other device used to place the bet had to register as connected to a site that showed it was in Iowa.  The friend was not always in Iowa when he wanted to make a wager and asked Hoberg to join his account(s) to place wagers for him when he was out of state.  Agreeing with that request was the first error in judgement; and unfortunately, it was not the last one.

According to the ESPN report, Hoberg was regarded as the best ball-and-strike umpire in MLB.  He will be eligible to petition for reinstatement no earlier than the opening of Spring Training 2026; it will be interesting to see how MLB handles any such petition because in the official statement announcing this termination, it says that there is no evidence that Hoberg bet on baseball games but that his friend did.

Moving on …  There was an announcement last week that FOX signed Jameis Winston to be a “Super Bowl sports correspondent” this year.  When I read that, my first thought was that Carson Wentz must have been otherwise occupied …

Switching gears …  The NFL’s international footprint will undergo another expansion in 2026.  According to a report in the Herald Sun – a newspaper in Melbourne, Australia – the NFL will play 3 games in Melbourne starting in 2026 with the games to take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  This venue is the largest sports stadium in the Southern Hemisphere according to Wikipedia and it can seat just over 100,000 fans.

I can attest to the popularity of NFL football in Australia.  We went on a trip to Australia and New Zealand that would have had us in flight as the Super Bowl was in play; that was unacceptable; so, we flew to Australia two days early to adjust to jet lag and then to go and see the game live at a sports bar in Sydney.  The game happens there on a Monday morning starting at 9:00 AM for pre-game “stuff”.  The sports bar we found was a 4-story building with one floor devoted almost entirely to betting on the game; the other three floors were packed with people on a Monday morning to watch the Super Bowl.  Moreover, Australian fans know the game and the rules; this is not the only game they watch during a season.

To put that observation into perspective, we were there in 2012 – – the second time Eli Manning and the Giants beat Tom Brady and the Pats in the Super Bowl.  Assuming that level of interest has grown in the intervening years, it is possible that Australian fans will fill that 100,000-seat venue for that regular season game.

The dominance of the NFL as a sports enterprise continues to amaze me.  Think about this season for a moment:

• Three of the worst teams in the league are in three of the largest markets in the country – – the Bears, the Giants and the Jets.
• Three of the best teams in the league are in three much smaller markets – – the Bills, the Chiefs and the Vikes.
• No problem with dwindling fan interest under those circumstances; the league just keeps on keeping on.
• The upcoming “Australian regular season games” will mark the fourth continent to experience NFL regular season football.  There are only seven continents and one of them is Antarctica which will never be considered for NFL football.

Elsewhere …  NBA Commish, Adam Silver, was a guest on a podcast and said that he was in favor of reducing NBA games from 12-minute quarters to 10-minute quarters which is the length of college games and international pro basketball games.  Silver admitted that he might be in a significant minority by liking this idea, but he did not walk away from it.  People have experienced the phenomenon of “shrinkflation” at the grocery store; if Adam Silver were to get his way, shrinkflation would come to the NBA.  You pay the same price; you get less product.

It would be interesting to see what might be the network reaction to a serious proposal for “shrinking” NBA games.  On one hand, the networks just paid $76B for 11 years of “48-minute basketball” and not “40-minute basketball”.  On the other hand, shortening the game on the court might allow for tighter scheduling for the networks as games fit into smaller time windows.  I don’t know which way the networks might come down on that.

Finally, consider this observation by former Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda:

“If Mike Scioscia raced his pregnant wife, he’d finish third.”

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

 

 

Fay Vincent died yesterday at the age of 86; the cause of death was bladder cancer.  Vincent was MLB Commissioner from 1989 through 1992.  His time as the head of the sport was tumultuous to say the least; in those three years he dealt with the banishment of both Pete Rose and George Steinbrenner, league expansion and labor unrest leading to a lockout.  He also happened to be in the Commissioner’s seat when the World Series was “interrupted” by an earthquake.

Rest in peace, Fay Vincent.

The other piece of big news from last weekend is the NBA trade involving Luka Doncic to the Lakers and Anthony Davis to the Mavs.  The analysis of that exchange at CBSSports.com has this lead sentence:

“The Dallas Mavericks just made the worst trade in NBA history.”

When you consider that Wilt Chamberlain was traded (twice) and Kareem Abdul Jabbar was traded and Kobe Bryant was traded, that lead sentence might be a tad hyperbolic, but the Mavs should have been able to get more than Davis and a first round pick out in the future for a 25-year-old Luka Doncic.  While just about everyone assigns the Lakers as the winners in this exchange – – as do I – – one of the losers is Doncic himself.

Had he been a Maverick this summer, he would have been eligible to get a “super max contract extension”.  The NBA salary cap rules are Byzantine at best so let me go on what reports say about his contract situation without the details.

• “Super Max” would be worth about $345M over 5 years BUT only the Mavs can make that offer based on Doncic’s years in the NBA and who drafted him and how long he had been with that team before being traded.
• The best extension he can get now is about $230M over 4 years and he can get that deal from the Lakers or anyone else if he becomes a free agent.
• Moreover, Texas is a state with no income tax; California has an income tax with the top marginal rate being 13%.

The pairing of Doncic with LeBron James makes the Lakers into championship material for 2025.  The move from Dallas to LA might wind up costing Doncic tens of millions of dollars.  Do not shed crocodile tears over that “loss”; Doncic’s current deal has another year to run, and he will make $43M for the 2025/2026 season before any sort of monster extension contract might kick in.

Moving on …  According to a story that broke in the Baltimore Banner, Ravens’ kicker, Justin Tucker, has been accused of “improper behavior” regarding masseuses in the Baltimore area.  If this sounds to you like a reprise of the Deshaun Watson situation in Houston, you would be correct.  Skipping all the sordid details, the only significant difference in the two sets of accusations is in the number of women making allegations in the two cases.  Watson faced accusations from almost two dozen women; Tucker’s total is still approaching one dozen.

These alleged improprieties have been going on for a while because one of the accusers filed a document with the spa that employed her about such behavior back in 2015.  That tidbit of course leads to the question of why this is coming to light now and not back in the past proximal to the time of the behavior.  Not to worry, the NFL is investigating and that should take somewhere around a couple of years to come to a conclusion that will never be made public thereby clearing up this matter in the minds of fans and other parties who are interested in it for publicity purposes.

It will be interesting, however, to see how the NFL deals with Tucker in comparison to how the NFL dealt with Watson given that the alleged behaviors involved are quite similar.

• Watson is a QB; Tucker is a Kicker.  QBs in general are more valuable and more visible to a franchise and the league than kickers.
• Watson is a middling QB; Tucker is one of the best Kickers ever.
• Watson was fined and suspended by the league for a full season’ Tucker … TBD.

Tucker says the accusations made by all these women are “unequivocally false”.  This story is nowhere near over …

Switching gears …  I read a report that the eight United Football League teams will be “headquartered” in Arlington, TX.  There is some confusion here, but it seems that games will be played in the “home cities” of the teams but that all game prep and administrative functions for the eight teams will be in Texas.  This does not seem to be a return to the concept of the UFL playing all its games in the Birmingham area; it seems that Arlington will be “home” for players and for practice facilities and the like but that games will be distributed to the places where the teams are nominally representing.

If I have it right, the only justification for such an arrangement would be financial benefit and that reminds me that even with FOX and ESPN TV deals in place, the UFL remains a work in progress as a viable economic entity.  In any event, the start of the 2025 UFL season is going to begin on March 28^th – – right in the midst of March Madness.  The regular season will be ten weeks long – – with no BYE Weeks thankfully – – and will culminate in the UFL Championship Game on Flag Day, June 14^th.

Finally, having mentioned Justin Tucker above who is a Baltimore Raven, let me close with this observation by Edgar Allan Poe:

“I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.”

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