The Sports Curmudgeon

Sometime later this week – – or maybe early next week – – I will post my musings about the upcoming college football season.  Therefore, I spent some time this weekend organizing my thoughts in something like an outline form and then looking up all the chazerai* that would be needed to fill out such a rant.

*Note:  Chazerai is a Yiddish word meaning nasty/unpleasant details surrounding “stuff”.

The more I looked around and thought about college football as it is in 2023 and as it will likely be in 2025, the more I became convinced that my idea from years ago which tried to amalgamate 128 Division 1-A football schools into some sort of coherent structure was a really bad idea.  I will now formally renounce that suggestion and perform an act of self-flagellation for ever thinking of it.  The situation boils down to this in 2023 and it will not get any “better” so long as the sport continues along its current trajectory:

• College conferences do not now make much sense and will make less sense as time moves on.
• College football is the biggest money maker for most schools; men’s basketball is a secondary income stream for some schools.
• Predator conferences only pick off the best teams in other conferences.
• NIL money was supposed to reward college athletes who “toiled for nothing” and it was not supposed to be a recruiting mechanism.  Now it is virtually exclusively a recruiting tool.

College football has taken a vector heading that turns college football into low-level professional football.  Please do not allow anyone to say such a thing within earshot of NCAA HQs in Indianapolis, IN; the good folks there would probably succumb to seizures in such a circumstance.

When Oregon and Washington join the Big-10, there will be 18 teams in the conference.  [Aside:  The Count from Sesame Street would be VERY confused by such an alignment …] But imagine if the Big 10 just added two more teams to make 20 teams – – meaning they could have 4 divisions of 5 teams each and then have a 4-team conference playoff to determine its conference champion.  Think about the TV money for those games and drool …

Apply the same thinking to the SEC – – and maybe to the Big-12 which will also have lots more than 12 teams competing in it by 2025.  That potential deluge of TV money in December might be limited by another factor:

• The Big-10, the SEC and the Big-12 all have perennial weak-sisters in their midst.
• TV execs love to show Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC, Washington et. al. playing one another.  They do not like having to telecast Rutgers/Maryland or Illinois/Indiana.  Remember, money talks and bulls[p]it walks …

Why would not the next phase of college football realignment involve the top 3 conferences splitting off their 6 best programs and then poaching the best two other schools they can find to make up THE SUPER CONFERENCE OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL?  Hey, this worked wonderfully in England with its football/soccer structure about 30 years ago when it created THE PREMIER LEAGUE out of whole cloth.  I am not saying this is guaranteed to be the outcome for college football conferences, but it will not shock me to see this start to happen sometime before I shuffle off this mortal coil.  [Hat Tip: William Shakespeare]

Because I believe this is an inevitable future target for college football, I say:

• Why not make this easier to effect when the time comes to do so?

So, now I make four suggestions about college football and college athletics:

1. It is time to separate college football from all other collegiate sports – – the ones that do not pay their own way in 99% of the situations.  Let college football teams form and reform conferences to maximize revenue.
2. Put all other intercollegiate sports into geographically sensible conferences such that the women’s softball team from West Virginia need not trek to Tempe, AZ to play Arizona State and so that the Oregon wrestling team need not wend its way to Rutgers for some competition.
3. THEN, separate the football programs from the schools completely and have the football programs pay the universities for the rights to use the school affiliation which is a significant basis of its TV popularity.  Those revenues to the schools would be used to fund the non-revenue sports.
4. Make recruiting rules and retention rules for college football that are different from the rules for recruiting and retention for fencing teams.  Create an oversight entity for college football only and leave the NCAA to try to oversee the rest of its athletics without the overwhelming presence of football programs and their boosters who can bully the NCAA into declaring that the moon is made of green cheese.  [Aside:  I have it on good authority from senior NASA officials that the moon is NOT made of green cheese.]

Next Saturday, college football will limp its way onto the sporting stage in the US demonstrating that there are not enough top-shelf games for the sport to offer to its viewing public.  Navy and Notre Dame will play in Dublin, Ireland.  That will be a huge economic boost for Dublin and Ireland, but it should not be of any major consequence regarding college football in 2023.  And that semi-interesting game next weekend is far and away the best and the most important game out of the 10 games that will happen on August 26^th.  One game – – UMass/ New Mexico St. – – pairs two teams that are usually contending for my mythical SHOE Tournament ignominy in any given season.  In case you think I am kidding or exaggerating, here are three games scheduled to kick off at the same moment this weekend:

• UMass at New Mexico St – 8 (44.5):  This is about a 2300-mile trip one way for the Minutemen.  To what end …?
• Ohio at San Diego St. – 3 (49):  This is merely a 2000-mile trek one way for the Bobcats.
• Fordham at Albany (no lines posted as of this morning).  This trip is only a bus ride for the Rams’ players/coaches, and it is also a game where no one outside the extended families of the coaches and players gives a rat’s ass.

These games all kick off at 7:00 PM EDT this Saturday.  Which one would you tune in to see?  The answer is NONE unless you are an alum, or you have a relative participating in the game.  But that is the best that college football can offer up for its “Opening Weekend” in 2023.

I love college football and it has nothing to do with football glory in my undergraduate days in college; I went to an Ivy League school; football games were dating opportunities and not sporting competitions involving a huge ego investment.  I see college football veering off onto a vector heading that will not benefit the sport nor the intuition(s) that put the logos on the helmets.  Change has been happening – – but it has not been happening either efficiently or effectively.  College football needs a leader to create a 20 or 24 team Super Conference which can offer up at least two if not four top-shelf games every weekend.  Maybe there is a relegation/promotion system involved here too which would make lots of other games that might be of only secondary interest much more compelling as an entertainment product.

Notwithstanding anything I said here, I am truly looking forward to the college football season in 2023.  Nevertheless, the product of college football as an entertainment vehicle on TV can be significantly improved as the years go by.

Finally, I feel today like the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament.  His fundamental prophesy was that judgment from God was coming to the Israelites because they were idolators and disobedient to the commands of God.  Jeremiah was right; the Israelites were sent into captivity/exile in Babylon after they did not heed Jeremiah’s words.  I doubt that college football will suffer exile or captivity, but it would benefit itself if it took the ideas presented here seriously and worked to implement them.

Bu don’t get me wrong I love sports………

 

 

The final game of the Women’s World Cup tournament will happen this weekend; it will air on FOX at 6:00 AM EDT.  Spain and England will play for the cup and Spain is a 4-to-5 favorite to win the game.  Like American football, there are many ways to place a wager on soccer games and this game has plenty of betting opportunities posted.

Of course, you can wager on who will be the winner; that is obvious.  In addition:

• You can wager on when the winning goal will be scored – – in regulation time, in extra time or on penalty kicks.
• You can wager on the total number of goals scored in the game somewhat differently that in American football.  For the World Cup Finals, you will get different odds if you bet over a certain total or under a certain total or exactly a certain total.  Moreover, there are 5 choices of “total goals” to choose from so there are 15 possible betting elements there.
• You can wager on whether both teams will score or only one side.  As of this morning the “No” side of that line is favored at 4-to-5.
• You can wager on whether a specific player will score a goal.  But that’s not all …  You can also wager on whether that goal will be the first one of the game or the last one of the game or just anytime during the game.
• You can wager on whether a specific player will be “booked” in the game.  Booking refers to a player receiving a yellow card from the referee and having the player’s number recorded in the little book that the referee carries in his pocket.

I watched both teams win their semi-final games; to my untutored eye, Spain fields the faster and more athletic side and England is the more focused/intense squad.  I will sleep in the living room on Saturday night so that my alarm at 5:30 AM will not wake my long-suffering wife; I will definitely be watching the final game.

Next up …  Given the failure of the USWNT to come close to expectations for this tournament, there is no surprise in the announcement this week that the coach has stepped down.  Vlatko Andonovski said this in part at the time of his resignation:

“While we are all disappointed by the outcome at this year’s World Cup, I am immensely proud of the progress this team has made, the support they’ve shown for each other, and the inspiration they’ve provided for players around the world. I will be forever thankful to the U.S. Soccer Federation for giving me the chance to coach this remarkable team.”

Well, at least he did not say he was resigning to spend more time with his family.  Andonovski’s record as coach of the team over almost 4 years on the job was 51-5-9 but his record in “major tournaments” over that period was a less gaudy 3-2-5.

The current assistant coach for the USWNT, Twila Kilgore, will be the interim coach as the team figures out how to regroup and prepare for the Olympics that begin in Paris in July 2024.  The US team is already qualified for the Olympics next year, but they still have work to do in the time leading up to the Games in Paris.  Kilgore is expected to be the coach of the USWNT for its next appointment games – – two friendlies against South Africa in late September of this year.  The US Soccer organization will conduct a search for a new permanent coach; frankly, given all the buzzwords uttered by the head of the search committee, I think this will be a painful process.  Here is just part of the management-speak:

“It is imperative that we continue to evolve and innovate, and we are excited about the path that lies ahead.  We understand the challenges and have engaged with stakeholders from various corners of our sport — players, coaches, and other individuals within the soccer landscape. The insights and perspectives gathered during these discussions have been instrumental in shaping our forward-looking plan.”

Moving on …  I think everyone here recognizes that I am not in favor of allowing post-pubescent transgender male athletes to compete against cisgender female athletes in sports involving strength and/or speed.  I believe that sports exist in a positive sense only if there is a level playing field.  Having said that, I was amused to read yesterday this headline on an AP report:

• “World chess federation bars transgender women from competing in women’s events”

First of all, I was not aware that chess had a men’s division and a women’s division.  Now that I do know that differentiation exists, my question is “WHY?”  As you might expect, this decision from the chess mavens has drawn criticism from transgender rights activists.  My position on the eligibility of transgender athletes is not anywhere near what transgender rights activists seek to be the prevailing norm; there are no transgender activists who would call me an ally for their cause.  However, in this specific case, the activists and the transgender women chess players are totally correct.

• This is an unnecessary and self-inflicted irritant created out of nothing by the chess mavens.
• Chess competitions have no more need for gender-identification divisions than do poker tournaments.  And the World Series of Poker is a unisex event.

Finally, since everything today has something to do with women’s sports/competitions, let me close with a few observations about women:

“Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.”  [Nicholas Murray Butler]

And …

“When women kiss, it always reminds me of prize-fighters shaking hands,” [H. L. Mencken]

And …

“Women who insist on having the same options as men would do well to consider the option of being the strong, silent type.”  [Fran Liebowitz]

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

 

 

A friend sent me an email yesterday afternoon that contained a picture of Nolan Ryan wearing a Texas Rangers’ cap.  The caption on that picture read:

“Nolan Ryan’s arm was so damaged by the first 5000 innings of his career he was only able to strike out 16 Blue Jays when he no-hit them at age 44.  It’s a cautionary tale for all young pitchers.”

Nolan Ryan was hardly your typical MLB pitcher.  Let me toss a few items on the table here to demonstrate that assertion:

• Ryan’s MLB career spanned 27 seasons.
• He threw a total of 5386 innings.
• He holds the career records for walks (2795) and strikeouts (5714)

To put that strikeout record in perspective, imagine a young pitcher starting his career in MLB.  If that youngster had a 20-year career, he would need to strike out 285.7 batters in each of his 20 seasons to equal that record.

Moving on …  The folks at Netflix thought it was important to produce a documentary on the life and career of Johnny Manziel.  I am certainly not one to pretend to have marketing expertise; but as soon as I read about the existence of this programming, I thought it should have the title of Trainwreck.  But what do I know?

The folks at Netflix think a better title is Untold: Johnny Football.  Given Manziel’s college accomplishments – – winning the Heisman Trophy and leading Texas A&M to a win over Alabama in Alabama – – the rest of his story is maddening and frustrating enough without the “untold parts”.  Manziel is in that category of highly hyped young athletes who found ways to self-destruct and to prevent their talents from reaching full expression.  In the case of Johnny Manziel, the biggest demon evidently was alcohol.

A successful NFL player at any position needs to have football as the primary focus of his life for the duration of his career; his dedication to football must include physical readiness and mental readiness.  In Manziel’s case, it appears that a lack of sobriety intervened to assure that he was not physically or mentally able to flourish in the NFL.  Manziel is now 30 years old, and it is not clear that he has committed to a life of sobriety.  Even if that were the case, I doubt that any NFL team would even allow him in a training camp given the outlandish focus on him that would take place.  His talents on the football field will never show themselves again.

I think the most interesting aspect of this documentary is the reaction to it by Ryan Leaf who also saw a potential NFL career crash and burn.  Leaf’s reaction to the documentary is that it told “the wrong part” of Johnny Manziel’s story; there was no attention paid to his current state and perhaps what a future for him might be.  Said Leaf:

“Once again, people have taken advantage of Johnny Manziel. There were no solutions. There was no addressing the bipolar diagnosis and how he’s dealing with it and how he’s living with it around his substance abuse.”

Johnny Manziel is indeed a cautionary tale at best and probably a tale that need not have been told.  If you want to read reactions to that Netflix production, here is one link and here is another.

Switching gears …  I thought the Netflix documentary should have been named Trainwreck; in another part of the sports world, there is a trainwreck about to happen and it looks as if the team involved will be the Philadelphia 76ers.  The team that went through “The Process” and exposed its fans to about a decade of horrible basketball appears to be on the brink of starting a new chapter in “The Process”.  Let me review the bidding:

• In its zeal to rid itself of the head case known as Ben Simmons, the Sixers took on James Harden.
• After Harden disappeared in the final playoff game against the Celtics earlier this year, he sought a max contract, and the Sixers did not come forth with one.  In that matter, the Sixers were correct; Harden is 34 years old and clearly on the downslope of his career.
• Harden exercised his player option in his previous contract to play for the Sixers at $35M for one year.  As soon as he exercised that option, he requested a trade; according to reports, his desired destination was the LA Clippers.
• Trade talks between the Clippers and the Sixers did not yield a deal.  Harden went to China to build his brand there and show off Adidas shoes and gear.  In China, he went nuclear on Sixers’ GM Daryl Morey calling him a “liar” and stating more than once that he (Harden) would never be part of a team run by Morey.
• After that tirade, Sixers’ player PJ Tucker seemed to side with Harden in the matter and Sixers’ star player, Joel Embiid, disconnected himself from the Sixers social media presence.

Harden’s declaration that Morey is a “liar” is interesting in terms of where he chose to reveal that news.  Daryl Morey is persona non grata in China; recall that he spoke out in favor of the Hong Kong protesters seeking more democratic controls in that part of China.  For that Morey lost his job in Houston prior to signing on with the Sixers.  Harden’s revelation while in China pits him as the good guy against the evil guy in the mind of his audience there.

Harden says he will show up for training camp which is much worse for the Sixers than if he were to sit at home and rail on social media about the lies he has been told.  This confrontation has catastrophic potential too.  If Joel Embiid gets caught up in this mess and he too demands a trade, the Sixers will be lucky to win 20 games next year.  If this is going to be a 5-Act drama, my guess is that we are just at the end of Act 1.

Finally, I’ll close today with this observation by the theoretical physicist, Erwin Schrodinger:

“If you cannot – in the long run – tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless.”

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

 

 

The recent kerfuffle in the Washington Commanders’ training camp regarding some offensive players not taking kindly to Eric Bienemy’s tough love coaching style seems to have faded into the background.  Just as a reset, several players went over Bienemy’s head to coach Ron Rivera and complained about his coaching style/method.  At first, it seemed as if Rivera sided with the players a bit but then he clarified his position that everyone needs to focus on team objectives and not personalities.  Amid the confusion, several of Bienemy’s former players rose to his defense saying his coaching tactics had made them better at what they do.  Local media here who cover the team in training camp have characterized Bienemy and his coaching style as “intense” and “direct”.

This is probably a tempest in a teapot, but I think there might be a nugget of information here to explain a seemingly unrelated matter:

• Eric Bienemy has been the media darling among NFL coordinators who are candidates for head coaching jobs – – but he never seems to get one of the open jobs.
• The narrative that results from that situation is that race is the reason for Bienemy’s rejections.

Not being privy to any of the interviews or hiring deliberations involved there, let me say that racism may indeed be front and center here.  But maybe there are other factors too.  The average NFL owner who is going to make the final call in most circumstances regarding who will be the team’s head coach is a billionaire who has spent a lot of his life giving direction and not taking direction.  So, if Eric Bienemy approaches his coaching interviews with a style that might be described as “intense” or “direct”, might that be off-putting to the billionaire owner who is used to being on the delivery end of such discussions and not the receiving end.

I said I don’t know why Bienemy has never gotten the nod as a head coach, but this little training camp kerfuffle makes me wonder if the cries of “racism” might be overly simplistic.

One other element comes to my mind when I think about this supposed unrest among offensive players on the Commanders:

• If players think Bienemy is “too tough” on them in camp, what does that say about the previous Offensive Coordinator(s) for the Commanders given that the team averaged less than 19 points per game last year?

Switching gears …  Losing CFL football games continues to haunt the Edmonton Elks.  As of this morning the Elks record in 2023 is 0-9 and the average margin of defeat has been 12.9 points.  Stretching back to last season, the Elks have lost 13 games in a row and their losing streak in home games is a staggering 22 consecutive losses at home.  The last home victory for the Elks was on October 12, 2019.  That losing streak at home is worse than any comparable streak in the NFL.

However, the Edmonton Elks have a long way to go if they are to challenge the NFL record for consecutive games lost.  Remember, the Elks’ current losing streak stands at 13 games which does not begin to match either of these examples of futility:

1. The expansion Tampa Bay Bucs lost their first 26 games in a row in 1976-77.  That is the longest NFL losing streak since the NFL/AFL merger.
2. The Chicago Cardinals lost 29 consecutive regular season games between 1942 and 1945.

This might be a difficult stretch for Elks’ fans, but they have a long way to go to challenge the two levels of ignominy that the NFL can put forth.  And changes are already happening in Edmonton.  News this week is that the team’s Board of Directors fired the team president and CEO who had been on the job since January 2022.  The spin is that this action was taken because the team wanted to move in a different direction and the outgoing CEO says he wants time to focus on his family.  Elks’ fans would like the team to focus on winning a few games …

Next up …  The Baltimore Orioles are a great on-field story in 2023.  On Opening Day, they had the 29^th highest payroll in MLB; remember, there are only 30 teams in MLB.  Notwithstanding that frugality, as of this morning, the O’s have the best record in the American League (74-46) and are second only to the Atlanta Braves in all of MLB.  The team is young, it is very good, the players are enthusiastic; it is fun to watch the Orioles.

Off the field, the Orioles are a strange entity.  We saw the business of play-by-play announcer, Kevin Brown, disappearing for two weeks only to return as if he never missed a beat.  And then I read a report that was even stranger:

“The Baltimore Orioles’ lease that would allow them to stay at Camden Yards is set to expire at the end of the year. Despite optimism, negotiations to renew the lease aren’t moving as swiftly as some hoped, causing some concern for state officials and frustration for fans.”

Camden Yards was built by the State of Maryland and has been the home of the Orioles since 1992. Camden Yards represented the change in baseball venues away from the multi-sports stadiums like Shea and the Vet and Three Rivers; I doubt that too many folks lament those losses.  Yes, Camden Yards can use some upgrades and the Governor has said that is in the cards, but somehow all this business has come down to some brinksmanship with the expiration date looming.

If there is another baseball facility anywhere near Baltimore where a MLB team might consider playing its home schedule in 2024, I do not know where that facility is hiding.

Finally, let me close with this observation by the Israeli statesman, Abba Eban, and hope it applies to the Orioles/Camden Yards situation:

“Men and women do behave wisely, once all other alternatives have been exhausted.”

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

 

 

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………