The Sports Curmudgeon

Tony Bennett – the singer, not the UVa basketball coach – died las week at age 96.  He was an infantryman in Europe in WW II, he sang duets with Pearl Bailey, Aretha Franklin and Lady Gaga and he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Famously, he left his heart in San Francisco.

Rest in peace, Tony Bennett.

One of the current sports refrains deals with the “devalued running backs” in the NFL.  Three RBs were saddled with a franchise tag over the off season meaning that they will make “only” $10.1M if they sign that offer and play in 2023.  Tony Pollard (Cowboys) signed his tag; Saquon Barkley (Giants) and Josh Jacobs (Raiders) have not signed, and both have threatened to sit out the 2023 season.  Lots of commentators have offered up opinions as to why this is the case and why teams are wrong in devaluing the position of running back.  I think the reason behind the devaluation comes down to elementary economics and I am not so sure that the idea of devaluating the position of “running back” is a bad idea.  Let me explain.

For the last 20 years or so, every time the NFL made a rule change, the new rule favored the offense.  In particular, many of those rule changes favored the passing portion of the offense.  Therefore, tight ends and wide receivers became bigger contributors to total offense thereby commanding higher prices as free agents.  The same dynamic applied to QBs who could reliably get the ball to those newly valued tight ends and wide receivers; so, wage demands for “elite” QBs skyrocketed.

At the same time, the NFL has a salary cap.  That salary cap brings into play a fundamental principle of economics:

• You cannot spend the same dollar twice.

Another way to state that economic principle is that asset allocation in a system where assets are capped becomes a zero-sum game.

With rising costs for QBs and pass catchers, teams have had to make decisions about how to allocate the remaining dollars constrained by the cap limits.  So, let me go through one logic chain that leads to the conclusion that “running back” ought to be devalued as a position on an NFL team in 2023.  Please note, I am not saying this is the only way to think about roster structure or cap spending models; I am saying that maybe Barkley and Jacobs should think very hard about sitting out the 2023 season á la LeVeon Bell.

• The added value placed on QBs means that it makes sense to invest resources in protecting QBs.  Hence, the percentage of cap money devoted to offensive tackles should be increased too.
• Because opponents will likely seek to exploit the current rules that favor the passing game, defensive resources also must slant toward stopping the passing game as best one can.  Therefore, teams put a premium on “edge rushers” and “cover corners” – – to the detriment of inside linebackers and safeties by the way.
• Punters should become more valuable under the new rules because when an offense is forced to turn over the ball, a punter who can reliably give his defense advantageous field position is important.  The defense is fighting an uphill battle to begin with; it can use all the help it can get.
• So, since you cannot spend the same dollar twice and there is a limit on how many dollars one is allowed to spend, there needs to be diminished allocations for the other generic positions on the team such as interior defensive linemen (unless they excel at pass rushing), interior offensive linemen, kickers and running backs.

[Aside:  One of the best interior offensive linemen in the league, Zack Martin (Cowboys), is also unhappy with his contract and has declared that he is “underpaid”; Martin will make $13.5M in 2023.]

The running back position also suffers from a supply/demand problem.  The “devaluation” of the position means that teams will look for bargains in the marketplace rather than look for gaudy acquisitions.  That means teams can choose – – and have chosen – – from a plentiful supply of young, inexpensive running backs coming out of college every year.  The Chiefs’ leading rusher last year was Isiah Pacheco; he was a 7^th round draft pick, and he signed a 4-year deal with the Chiefs in May 2022 for a total of $3.74M.

• Is Isiah Pacheco as good or as productive as either Saquon Barkley or Josh Jacobs?  No.
• Is Isiah Pacheco “good enough” for the Chiefs?  Well, the Chiefs are the defending Super Bowl champs, so the answer must be that he is.
• Isiah Pacheco will make $870K in 2023; Barkley and Jacobs want more than $10.1M; are they worth 11.6 times more than Pacheco?  I don’t think so.

I am not an NFL GM, and I certainly would not assert that my reasoning here is the only smart way to come at this conundrum.  However, I do not think that I would be particularly motivated to accede to the contract demands made by either Barkley or Jacobs.  Late last week, Melvin Gordon was signed by the Ravens; his contract there is for 1 year at $2.5M.  Still out there on the market are veteran RBs including:

• Dalvin Cook
• Ezekiel Elliott
• Leonard Fournette
• Kareem Hunt

If NFL GMs take Gordon’s deal with the Ravens as any sort of benchmark for the “going price of a veteran RB”, Barkley and Jacobs are going to be more than frustrated with any sort of negotiations for a long-term deal with guaranteed money in the eight-figure range.

Finally, Andrew Brandt is a former assistant NFL GM, a lawyer, a former agent for athletes in various sports and – – you get the idea.  Someone posed a question to him on Twitter, and I want to close today with his response:

• Q:  Now that Snyder is gone, who is the worst owner in the NFL, Bidwell?
• A:  George Santos

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

 

 

Whenever a Congressthing stands up to speak on a subject, he always asks unanimous consent to “revise and amend” his remarks.  I will not ask for unanimous consent here – – because I know there will be objections just for the fun of objecting – – but since this is my rant, I will simply declare that I am going to revise and amend remarks from recent rants.  As is often the case, my revisions arise from information that arrived in my inbox from the “reader in Houston” – – the maven of sports stats.

In an email earlier this week, he added to the information that Doug found about the team with the worst run differential in MLB history.  Doug’s citation of the Boston Red Sox in 1932 is correct for the so-called “modern era” of baseball, but the “reader in Houston” pointed out that the thoroughly rancid Cleveland Spiders were worse in 1899.  That year, the Spiders’ record was 20-134 and posted a run differential of minus-723 runs.  The Spiders lost by an average of 4.7 runs per game.

Just for fun, the ‘reader in Houston” included another Spiders’ stat that is interesting.  In 1899, the Spiders team batting average was .253 and the “reader in Houston” pointed out:

• “That is higher than 17 MLB teams are currently hitting.”

And then, two days later, I received a second email from the same source pointing out that the Minnesota Twins had lost 18 consecutive playoff games not the 17 that I mentioned yesterday.  I had the right data; I made a math mistake.  Mea culpa and thanks again to the “reader in Houston” for the clarifications.

I mentioned yesterday that there would be celebrations in the DC area commemorating the removal of Danny Boy Snyder from the local sporting scene.  One such celebration “sponsored by” one of the local radio stations was cleverly dubbed:

•  “Burgundy and Sold”.

In the lead story of the day on the front page of the Washington Post there is a report about the findings in an investigation of Snyder and the franchise carried out by Mary Jo White.  Here is the lead paragraph from that report:

“Outgoing Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder will pay the NFL $60 million as part of the closing of the sale of his franchise after a league investigation conducted by attorney Marry Jo White concluded that the team withheld revenue it should have shared with other franchises and that Snyder sexually harassed a former team employee.”

I will now demonstrate my to-the-core-curmudgeonness with the following assertion – – for which I have exactly NO evidence.

• I believe that the owners were more inclined to rid themselves of Snyder because he withheld revenues that he should have passed along to them rather than the fact that he sexually harassed a former team employee.

Moving on …  Earlier this week, Yahoo! Sports reported that San Diego State University (SDSU) would stay in the Mountain West Conference after announcing its intention to leave that conference about 6 weeks ago.  That previous announcement started two things:

1. It fired up legal wrangling between the school and the conference about how and when the departure might occur.
2. It fired up speculation that SDAU would join the PAC-12 as a way for the PAC-12 to reestablish a presence in Southern California with the imminent defection of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten.

According to the most recent statements from the school and the conference, SDSU withdrew is letter informing the conference of its intention to resign from the conference and the conference informed the school that it could still be welcomed as a member of that conference.  I believe that is the legal equivalent of “lets kiss and make up” …

SDSU never said where it intended to go once it had seceded from the Mountain West; all that business with the PAC-12 was speculation that made sense at the time.  And because it made sense at the time, I think it makes sense to keep that thought in mind.  There is a huge disparity in college sports when it comes to the media rights fees that the various conferences can demand from broadcasters/streamers.  That disparity is the basis of the decision by USC and UCLA to abandon the PAC-12 for the Big Ten.  And when you consider how small by comparison the TV deals are for Mountain West schools as compared to the so-called Power 5 conferences, it makes sense for the upper tier schools in the minor conferences to aspire to Power 5 status.

Since 2010, SDSU football has been to bowl games in eleven consecutive years – – remember there were no minor bowl games in 2020.  Over the period from 2010 through 2022, SDSU football has posted an overall conference record of 67-26.  I think it is reasonable to label the Aztecs as an “upper tier” school in terms of Mountain West football.  And last April, SDSU made it to the Final Game in the NCAA basketball tournament losing there to UConn.  So, it will not shock me to learn that SDSU examines its options and compares long-term existence in the Mountain West versus “other venues”.

Finally, lest anyone thing that I take too much pride in my “to-the-core-curmudgeonness”, let me close today with a few notes from the Gold Standard Curmudgeon, H. L. Mencken:

“Conscience:  The inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.”

And …

“Immorality:  The morality of those who are having a better time.”

And …

“Lover:  An apprentice second husband; victim no. 2 in the larval stage.”

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

 

 

Here in the DC area, today is one of great anticipation.  Unless there is a snag that derails about six months of momentum, today is the day that Daniel Snyder will let loose the reins on the Washington franchise in the NFL.  If there are Commanders’ fans out there who will be sad to see him go, I have not run across any of them.  The team’s fanboy websites are preparing to sing the song from The Wizard of Oz with these final lyrics:

“Ding-dong! the merry-o sing it high, sing it low
“Let them know the wicked witch is dead.”

There are two categories of people around here, however, who might actually miss Snyder’s presence as the owner of a local pro franchise:

1. The two other owners of pro franchises in this area might miss him because as long as he was around, those folks looked better by comparison.  Now that he is gone, some may start to wonder about the local baseball franchise who gave up on and could not sign Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto and Trea Turner.  Now that Snyder is not around to pollute the air, some may look at the owner of the Wizards and the Capitals and wonder what he has done so positively over the last 20 years or so.
2. The sportswriters at the Washington Post and the Washington Times might miss him because his arrogance, ineptitude and sleaziness always provided material for a report or a column for the day.  It was never really a slow news day with Snyder in town.

Notwithstanding the possibility that those two groups of folks might wish Danny Boy was around occasionally, there will be generalized joy around here later today.  Unless, of course, at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute …

Speaking obliquely about other franchise owners in this area, the Wizards and the Capitals are owned by an entity called Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MS&E) headed up by Ted Leonsis who made his fortune as part of the senior leadership of a little company known as AOL.  Recently, MS&E took on a minority partner; it sold a 5% share of the enterprise to the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) for a reported $200M.  So, the situation now is that the Saudis “own” golf and the Qataris now have a piece of the action in the handful of sports franchises contained in MS&E.

For the record, QIA has owned the French soccer team, Paris-St. Germain, for about 10 years and has partial ownership of a Portuguese soccer team too.  QIA is said to be interested in buying Manchester United in the English Premier League if the current ownership puts the team up for sale; so, there is plenty of history of QIA being involved in sports ownership.  And with the deal between MS&E and QIA, the so-called sovereign wealth from the Middle East has a toehold in ownership of professional basketball and hockey here in the US.

The NBA and the NHL obviously permit sovereign wealth/institutional wealth investors to purchase minority shares of their franchises.  Currently, the NFL forbids either type of investor in its ownership groups.  I believe the NFL will “come around” on this issue purely for economic reasons.  Sovereign wealth funds and large hedge funds here in the US have the wherewithal to bid up the prices of franchises they are interested in joining.  When franchise prices go up, the owners of every franchise see their bottom line increasing.  Connect the dots here…

Moving on …  Don’t look now, but the Baltimore Orioles are in first place in the AL East by .005 in win percentage over the Tampa Bay Rays.  And, the NY Yankees are alone in last place in that division 9 games behind the O’s.  Who had that as a prediction back in March?  Not I.

And speaking of MLB, let me present you with information I received from a former colleague who is never as happy as the times when he can present someone else with baseball trivia.  We were speaking on the phone about a week ago and he gave me two gems:

1. The Minnesota Twins have lost 17 consecutive playoff games.  He posed the question by asking me for the longest current losing streak in playoff games and I guessed it was 6 thinking that a team that got swept in a World Series might have then lost a couple more playoff games in a row.  I was incredulous at the number 17, so I went to verify and indeed the last time the Twins won a playoff game was in 2004.
2. The Pittsburgh Pirates had the overall #1 pick in the MLB Draft this year.  To put the futility of the Pirates in perspective, my friend had me guess how many times since 2000 the Pirates have had a pick in the Top 4 of the MLB Draft.  My guess was 5; the answer is 10.  I have said here before that I think baseball scouting is a VERY difficult endeavor.  The Pirates’ record over the past couple of decades juxtaposed with the number of high-level picks they had would seem to confirm that assertion.

Finally, here is a remark made by humorist, Tom Lehrer, about 40 years ago which has relevance today:

“In my youth, there were certain words you couldn’t say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can’t say ‘girl’.”

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

 

 

The Women’s World Cup begins tomorrow at 3:00 AM EDT when New Zealand as a co-host for the tournament takes on Norway and then at 6:00AM EDT the other co-host team from Australia plays Ireland.  The field consists of 32 national teams and the finals will happen on August 20 in Australia.  There will be plenty of focus on the US team here because the US women have won the last two Women’s World Cups and that has elevated that team and some of its players to a celebrity status here that is not matched by the US Men’s team.

Such is not necessarily the case in other parts of the world.  And the fact that men’s soccer is valued more highly in other parts of the world – – particularly in Europe – – can be shows by this information I found in a report at FrontOfficeSports.com:

“FIFA reportedly fell roughly $100 million short of its goal for Women’s World Cup broadcast rights fees ahead of the tournament’s kickoff in New Zealand on July 20.

“The organization aimed to sign deals to value the WWC’s global broadcasting rights at $300 million, but it will instead settle for closer to $200 million, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. FIFA is on track to bring in about $50 million in new broadcast rights sales since last year’s men’s World Cup—about a third of the $150 million new fees it hoped to secure.”

At one point in the negotiations the European broadcasters put forth such a lowball offer that FIFA president, Gianni Infantino threatened to black out European countries entirely.  That broke the logjam, but still the revenue that FIFA anticipated from this tournament will fall short of the goal.  This all needs to be put in perspective, however.

This is the first time that FIFA has sold media coverage rights for the women’s tournament.  In the past, any broadcaster who bought rights for the men’s tournament was given the rights to the women’s tournament as a “freebie”.  [Aside:  Sort of like those infomercials at two in the morning … “But wait!  There’s more…]  So, if you look at the revenues from this year’s women’s tournament, it is a huge revenue increase for FIFA.  But in terms of the size of this revenue stream, consider these data:

FIFA reached agreements with the five biggest TV markets in Europe bringing in $65M – – but that is less than half of what FIFA had projected as the price for those media rights in Europe.

I think that FIFA should also consider that media rights for programming that will take place in the early morning hours in Europe and/or the US will be less desirable for broadcasters.  I will make time to watch some of the games in the tournament, but I will not be setting my alarm for 2:45AM tomorrow so I can see the initial kickoff in the tournament; that is less than merely inconvenient.

Moving on …  In other soccer-related news, Lionel Messi is now officially a member of Inter Miami in US Major League Soccer.  This carries on a longstanding tradition of GREAT players coming to the US as their playing careers were coming to an end.  It began with Pele in 1970s when he left Brazil to come to play for the NY Cosmos in the now defunct North American Soccer League.  Other notables are:

• Franz Beckenbauer
• David Beckham – – now an owner of Inter Miami
• Johan Cruyff
• Thierry Henry
• Zlatan Ibrahimovic
• Wayne Rooney

If the signing of Pele is a guide, MLS teams will sell out their stadia when Messi and Miami come to town; there won’t be any “walk-up tickets” available for those games.  Once the game kicks off, I think some fans are going to be surprised by Messi’s play with a not-very-good MLS team.  Messi is as much a facilitator on the pitch as he is a scorer – – and he is a prolific scorer.  But for him to facilitate others, they need to play a game that can be orchestrated and not a helter-skelter game.

Switching gears …  I read an announcement that Golden Gate Fields – the last remaining horse racing facility in Northern California will shut down after this racing season.  Bay Meadows and Golden Gates Field were the two major facilities in that part of the country and now both will be shuttered at the end of 2023.  As I have noted before in these rants, the horse racing industry is on a slow and tortuous death march.  Fifty years ago, every major newspaper in every big city in the US carried racing news.  They published the results of yesterday’s races somewhere nearby and had a list of entries for today’s races too.  Many papers had writers who used horse racing as their beat and that job was highly desirable among the sports staffs of the day.  Not nearly so anymore…

Horse racing is an “important story” for a couple of days leading up to the Kentucky Derby and then for a couple of days leading up to the Preakness – – because if the Derby winner can win again, that sets up a Triple Crown possibility.  Only if there is a Triple Crown possibility is there any buzz around the Belmont Stakes.  The Breeders’ Cup races were once a big thing but even those races have receded from view over the past decade or so.

Horse racing is probably going to go away.  Most sports fans will hardly notice its absence.

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

          Yesterday, I said that I could not find the MLB record for the worst run differential by a team in a season.  Soon after I posted the rant, Doug put this in the comments section:

“Worst ever: 1932 Boston Red Sox at – 349

“Best ever: 1939 NY Yankees at +411”

Thanks to Doug.  I am honored to have a cadre of smart and interested readers here.  Moreover, Doug’s data show that the 2023 Oakland A’s are still on track to make history.  Not good history, mind you; but history.

This year’s Oakland A’s are on pace to have a minus-442 run differential which is almost 100 runs worse than the record now held by the 1932 Red Sox.  At this rate, the A’s might blow by the old record sometime around Labor Day with maybe a couple dozen games left on the schedule.  Yowza!

Moving on …  Forbes is often useful as a data source for these rants when I need information about someone’s personal wealth or an estimate of a sports franchise’s value.  However, today I want to provide a quote from Forbes about BetOnline – – one of the companies that offers Internet based sports wagering:

“BetOnline is the brand behind the bold move to offer the first-ever Special Olympics odds. Operating globally in the online gaming sector for more than 25 years, BetOnline is known for setting the industry bar when it comes to creativity and innovation.”

I will stipulate that the good folks at Forbes know lots more about international companies in that business sector than I do, and I take at face value their assessment that BetOnline is the creative/innovative genius in that sector.  Having said that, I think it is just a bit sleazy to take bets on the Special Olympics AND I think that anyone who “gets down” on an event in the Special Olympics needs an intervention from his/her family and friends.

Next up …  In the regular Olympics – – the games that will take place in Paris in 2024 – – the Associated Press reports that a new competition will take place there and then.  The event will be called “Artistic Swimming”; for those wondering what that might be, you can think of it as “Men’s Synchronized Swimming”.  The AP report quotes one of the men who will try to qualify for the Olympics in Artistic Swimming saying:

“I think it’s a huge opportunity for the sport to grow and attract more men.  By keeping men out you’re limiting the sport. By including men you’re going to see an upshift in the popularity and the numbers.”

I agree with that statement simply because I think it would be very difficult to create a situation where I would see a downshift in “popularity and the numbers”.

Switching gears …  With Shannon Sharpe having abruptly left FS1, the network has not been able to come up with a “debate opponent” for Skip Bayless on the show Undisputed.  So, the show has gone into a two-month hiatus and is scheduled to return around the end of August.  While I am not a regular viewer of contrived sports debate programs like Undisputed and/or First Take over on ESPN, I am a bit surprised that a sports network would not be able to find a temporary fill-in while it searched for a permanent presence on the show.  I am interested, however, in speculative reporting that appears sporadically about who might be in line to take Shannon Sharpe’s place.  So, far, I have seen these five names floated:

1. Richard Sherman:  He has the requisite level of bombast for the job and can certainly handle “debates” involving football.  Does he know enough/care enough about other sports?
2. Michael Irvin:  Ditto everything I said about Richard Sherman above…
3. Stephen A. Smith:  The thinking there was that Smith is unhappy at ESPN because Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pat McAfee all make more money than he does, and he would jump to FS1 to rejoin Bayless as an on-air tandem.
4. LaVar Ball:  Wow!
5. Jay Mariotti:  If FS1 wants the “debate topics” to be “hotly contested”, this is a pairing that would achieve that end.  Mariotti was the most combative of the panelists on Around the Horn when he was a staple on that program.  Moreover, there was a time when Bayless and Mariotti were lead columnists at rival newspapers in Chicago.  I would surely tune in to see some of the confrontations staged by these two guys.

One more thing …  I read a report that Netflix is going to do another one of its docuseries programs on – – wait for it – – Jerry Jones.  Ten each one-hour episodes on Jerry Jones.  If you forced prisoners of war to watch that in its entirety, I think you would be in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Finally, I shall close today with an item from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Karaoke:  A once-in-a-lifetime chance for lonely untalented people to be even more sad and pitiable than they are in everyday life.”

[Aside:  I believe the word “karaoke” derives from a Japanese word that means, “No, you can’t sing either.”]

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

 

 

The MLB regular season has figuratively entered its second half with the All-Star break behind us.  The All-Star Game was disappointing to execs in MLB and at the networks; the game drew only 7 million viewers and a 3 rating.  By comparison, All-Star Games in the past have drawn as many as 30 million viewers and pulled down ratings near 20.  It was probably 15 years ago that I advocated for all sports leagues to abandon their All-Star Games because they were nothing but garish spectacles where the players obviously did not care nearly as much about winning as was necessary for an entertaining product.  The MLB All-Star Game is far and away the best All-Star spectacle of the four major US sports – – and yet, it is pretty threadbare.

One of the interesting things from the first half of the 2023 MLB season is the lack of correlation between “Opening Day Payroll” and “Current Standings”.  A lot of big money teams have disappointed, and a lot of low-priced teams have surprised.  In business these days, the term “sustainability” has become a cliché; however, this year’s baseball season raises questions of sustainability for some of those surprising teams.  Some data from Statista.com:

• NY Mets:  Highest Opening Day Payroll in MLB history at $353.6M.  The Mets are 4^th in the NL East and are 18.5 games behind the Braves this morning; their record is 43-50.  CBSSports.com projects the Mets with only a 15.1% chance to make the playoffs.
• NY Yankees:  Opening Day Payroll was second highest for this year at $277.0M.  The Yankees and Red Sox are tied for last place in the AL East 9 games behind the Rays.  The Yankees’ record is 50-44.  At least the Yankees are projected to have a 52.9% chance to make the playoffs.
• San Diego Padres:  Opening Day Payroll was third highest for this year at $249.0M.  The Padres are in 4^th place in the NL West and are 10 games behind the Dodgers.  The Padres’ record is 44-50.  Playoff probability is projected to be only 10.4%

So far in 2023, the lack of a salary cap in MLB has not provided the “big spenders” with dominance.  In fact, the best stories for 2023 to date are how the “little guys” have held on for the first half of the season.  More data from Statista.com:

• Baltimore Orioles:  Opening Day Payroll was only $60.7M.  The O’s are in second place in the AL East only 1 game behind the Rays with a record of 57-35.  The O’s’ have won 8 games in a row and their road record is 28-17 which is the best road record in the AL.
• Tampa Bay Rays:  Opening Day Payroll was $73.3M.  This is not all that shocking; the Rays always get more bang for the buck than one would expect.  This year they lead the AL East with a record of 60-36.
• Cincinnati Reds:  Opening Day Payroll was $83.3M.  The Reds are second in the NL Central this morning only 2 games out of first place.  Their record is 50-44.
• Miami Marlins:  Opening Day Payroll was $91.7M.  This morning, the Marlins’ record is 53-42 and they would be a wild-card team if the playoffs began tomorrow.
• Arizona Diamondbacks:  Opening Day Payroll was $116.5M.  The D-Backs are in third place in the NL West only 2 games behind the Dodgers in that division.  Their record to date is 52-42.

Back in March as Spring Training camps closed down, anyone who had this status obtaining in mid-July would have been considered a tad “off-center”.  And yet, here we are.  “Sustainability” is sometimes a nonsense word/concept when it is tossed about in the business world; “sustainability” is at the heart of whatever drama exists in the second half of this year’s MLB regular season.  Those 5 “low-payroll teams” are all playoff eligible as of today …

There is one direct correlation between payroll and performance to date in 2023 that needs to be made.  I refer to the Oakland A’s whose Opening Day Payroll was the lowest in MLB at $56.9M.  The A’s have performed pretty much as one would expect the lowest paid team in MLB to perform.  Consider:

• The A’s had been on pace to shatter the Mets’ standing record of 120 losses in a season until a spasm of competence produced a 7-game win streak.
• Now, the A’’s are projected to lose “only” 117.5 games over the entire regular season.
• The A’s record is 25-70 but that does not tell the entire story.  In those 95 games, the A’s have a run differential of minus-259 runs.  Over 162 games, that projects to a final run-differential of minus-442 runs or a staggering 2.73 runs per game.

[Aside:  I went looking for the worst run-differential posted by a team in MLB history but was not able to find it.  If anyone digs that up, please leave it as a comment here.  I would not be surprised to learn that minus-442 runs for a season would be an all-time record.]

Moving on …  Gregg Drinnan had this in his blog, Keeping Score last week.  It is sort of a CFL story of futility that meshes with the Oakland A’s status just above:

“ICYMI, the Edmonton Elks lost their 20th straight home game on Thursday, dropping an ugly 37-29 decision to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in front of a whole lot of empty seats. The Elks now share the professional sporting record for most consecutive home losses with the 1953 St. Louis Browns, who moved to Baltimore once that season was over. The Elks will have two weeks to stew over this one. Will Chris Jones still be running things in Edmonton when the B.C. Lions come calling on July 29? He has so many titles there that he likely would have to fire himself and that isn’t going to happen.”

Finally, since I mentioned the Baltimore Orioles as a surprising team for 2023, let me close here with an observation from “The Bard of Baltimore”, H. L. Mencken:

“It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.”

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

 

 

This has been a dark week for sports journalism in the US.  Let me start with the largest city in the US – – NYC – – where we got an announcement from the NY Times that it will drop its sports section in the print edition and turn over sports coverage to The Athletic in its online editions.  For the moment at least, there have not been firings/layoffs from the sports section; reporters who covered various aspects of sports – – say business of sports – – were “reassigned” to other sections of the paper – – the business section in the example here.  Sorry to be so cynical here, but I wonder how long it will be until those other sections appear “bloated” to the bean counters and buyouts/layoffs begin.

• Over/Under here is December 1, 2023 …

The motto of the NY Times has been:

“All the news that’s fit to print.”

So, I wonder if that tag line must change now that the Times will no longer print anything related to sports.  Somehow, that news is “unfit to print”?  Here is how management chose to spin this announcement:

“We plan to focus even more directly on distinctive, high-impact news and enterprise journalism about how sports intersect with money, power, culture, politics and society at large.”

Translation:

• We will publish periodic erudite fluff pieces tangentially related to sports.  Sports fans will read the first three paragraphs before tuning out – – but the online clicks will still count.

Having said all the above, this is not such a great loss to sports fans in NYC because the Times sports section has been outpaced by the NY Post for at least the last 20 years if not longer than that.

Moving along to the second most populated city in the US – – Los Angeles – – we got an announcement from the sports editor of the LA Times that they were “reimagining the sports section”.  Because the LA Times sold off its printing presses – – let that sink in for a moment – – and because they recently laid off more than 50 copy editors and consolidated that function within the newsroom, the LA Times would require reporters to have their stories for tomorrow’s paper done by 6:00 PM PDT.  Think about that for just a moment and realize that games involving the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, Clippers and Kings almost always begin after that deadline.  So, a report or column centered on a game on Monday night cannot find its way into the paper until at least Wednesday.  By that point, sports fans will likely have moved on to another game/story/issue.

It seems to me that some of the top decision makers at the LA Times have chosen a path that leads to the demise of the print edition of the paper and its continued existence to be carried on by the Internet.  The previously taken decision – – and the acting on that previous decision – – to sell the printing presses must make a rational person shake his/her head in confusion.  Radio stations don’t sell their antennas; farmers don’t sell their fields; Microsoft doesn’t sell its computers – – unless there is some longer-term plan in place to get out of the current business model.  But a newspaper can sell its printing presses without anyone even raising an eyebrow?

Down the road from LA in San Diego there is news that the owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune is selling the paper to Alden Global Capital.  If history is any guide, the folks at Alden will sell off assets, lay off employees and leave the paper as a shell of what it used to be.  According to one report, the Union-Tribune now has 108 editorial/reporter staff employees – – down from almost 400 about 15 years ago – – and just about every report on this transaction expects layoffs to come quickly under Alden’s ownership.  San Diego is not a city that is considered to be a “sports hotbed” in the US, so I suspect the sports department there will devolve to a handful of folks doing live coverages and a lot of AP reporting.

And finally, in the third largest city in the US – – Chicago – – the remnants of the two papers that used to dominate the news scape in the city – – the Sun-Times and the Tribune – – both got scooped and put out to dry by the college paper at Northwestern University – – The Daily Northwestern.  The story involved hazing in the Northwestern football program which was corroborated by an independent investigation; that led to the president of the university announcing a two-week suspension for Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald to be served prior to the opening of this year’s training camp.  Reporters for the “big-boy papers” took that at face value even though such a suspension is not even a slap on the wrist.  The school kids dug in deeper.

Based on their reporting about details of the hazing and the extent of the hazing, the university had to do a major course correction and in about 2 days it announced that Pat Fitzgerald was terminated as the Head Coach even though the football season will start in about 7 weeks.  It took the Sun-Times and the Tribune a couple of days just to catch up on reporting about the findings in the Daily Northwestern that set all this in motion.

This is not all that surprising because both Chicago papers have gone through their own downsizing/reimagination in prior years.  Today, these are not the newspapers that had writers like Mike Royko or Jay Mariotti or Steve Rosenbloom or Dan Pompeii.  My guess is that the LA Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune are on a path to look like the Chicago papers in about 3-5 years.  The NY Times will continue to exist and be respected because it is the NY Times, and it never needed a sports section to bring any attention to itself.

It was a dark week indeed for sports journalism in the US…

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

 

 

Adam Silver and others in NBA management have been musing about the idea of an “in-season tournament” for several years now.  The idea is taken from European soccer where such things happen annually and there is significant interest in both the regular soccer season and in the tournament(s).  For example, the FA Cup tournament in England is a huge success.

Until now, there was a sticking point.  The existing CBA did not allow the Commish to pronounce the existence of such a tournament, but that CBA expired on 30 June 2023 and the new CBA allows for this in-season tournament.  Before I get to what I know about the specifics here, let me take a moment to tell you why I believe Adam Silver & Co. are so anxious to make this happen.

Numbers don’t lie; notwithstanding the common narrative that the NBA is exploding in popularity, the TV audiences for NBA games have been shrinking significantly.  Consider these data:

• In 1998 (25 years ago) the NBA Finals matched the Bulls and the Jazz.  The average TV audience for that 6-game series was just over 29 million viewers.
• In 1998, the sixth-and-final game of that series – – won by the Bulls with Michael Jordan – – drew a TV audience of more than 35 million viewers.
• In the 2023 NBA finals just concluded between the Heat and the Nuggets the average TV audience for the 5 games was less than 12 million viewers.

I am not cherry-picking data.  The NBA’s TV audiences have been in decline for a while, and I will not even try to point to the numbers from the COVID-affected seasons of 2020 and 2021.  From 2015 through 2017, the NBA Finals had average TV audiences between 20 and 21 million viewers.  The trend is down, and the trend is persistent.  In fact, let me give you two more data points that I would not have predicted.  Remember, the average TV audience for the Nuggets/Heat series just concluded was 11.7 million viewers.

1. For the Final Game of this year’s March Madness, the audience was 14.4 million viewers.  UConn/San Diego St. outdrew the NBA Finals by more than 20%.
2. For the Final Game of this year’s Women’s College Basketball Tournament, the audience was 9.9 million viewers.  The NBA Finals outdrew the Women’s collegiate final game by less than 2 million viewers or only 15%.

Moreover, the NBA’s current media rights deals are about to come up for renegotiation in two years.  Adam Silver needs something to happen to make TV audience numbers look more promising than beating out a women’s college game by less than 15%.  He thinks the in-season tournament will spark enough interest; I doubt it, but I am willing to review the numbers when they come in.

There will be an in-season tournament during this regular season.  All the specifics have not yet been announced but here is what I know so far:

• The results of tournament games in the Group Stage will count as part of the teams’ regular season record.  That is not the case with the English FA Cup for example; the NBA’s tournament will simply label some regular season games as “dual-interest games” because they count in two different sets of “standings”.
• All 30 NBA teams will participate in a “Group Stage” much the way many soccer tournaments are structured.  There will be six Groups; it is not clear to me if there will be Conference crossovers in the selected groups; that that a “TBD” for the moment.
• Also unclear at the moment is a statement on how the teams will be assigned to various groups.  The statement from the league I read said it would be done “by a random draw based on a team’s winning percentage last season.”  Maybe I am just dense, but that is not crystal clear to me.
• Each team will play 4 games in the Group Stage within its group.  The team in each group with the best record in Group play will advance to the “Knockout Round” – – again much the way soccer tournaments proceed.
• There will also be two “wild card teams” added to the Knockout Round to create a bracket of 8 teams.  The Knockout Round will be single elimination and we know that the Final Four of this tournament will be played in Las Vegas this year.

Somehow, and in some way, this in-season tournament is somehow going to spike the size of the TV audience for the NBA Finals next June. Hey, it could happen – – just as it could happen that next year’s Kentucky Derby winner will be a latter-day Mr. Ed and give his own interviews after the race.

Finally, let me close today with some observations by Adam Silver’s predecessor as NBA Commissioner – – David Stern:

“Everyone knows that if you can keep on making money, everyone’s happy.”

And …

“I actually don’t hope for a legacy.  I think it impedes your ability to make the hard decisions if you sit around saying, ‘How will this affect my legacy?’”

And …

“My own basketball background was ripping up my ACL in a lawyer’s league.”

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

 

 

Since I spent yesterday pondering the NFL’s gambling rules as they relate to NFL players, I thought I would check around and see what the NCAA might be doing along similar lines.  College football does not draw as much betting interest as the NFL, but I can tell you from direct observation that plenty of people have a significant interest in “having something riding” on the outcome of college football games.  It turns out that the NCAA recently modified its punishments for various levels of offense.

In the past, the NCAA had a blanket rule for all of its student-athletes:

• Players may not bet on any sport offered by the NCAA and the punishment was a loss of one-year of eligibility.

The NCAA has had some bizarre rules in the past; so, let me assume that this rule only applies to collegiate games in various sports.  It is difficult for me to imagine how “the integrity of college football” might be endangered by an offensive tackle somewhere betting on the outcome of the World Series – – even though the NCAA offers baseball.  Recently, the NCAA has refined that one-size-fits-all rule as follows:

• Players who do something to affect the outcomes of games they are involved in or who provide any information to people who wagered on games they are involved in can face a penalty up to and including complete loss of collegiate eligibility.  This prohibition extends beyond games in which the player participates and extends to any game in any sport at their school.  [Aside:  I like this rule; it has teeth; I wonder if it would ever be applied.]
• Players who bet on their own sport but involving teams from different schools can face up to a half season suspension and loss of a half year of eligibility.  [Aside:  This seems a bit harsh, but this is a distinction that should be made.]
• When players violate other betting restrictions – – not spelled out in the reports I read – – the NCAA will consider the amount(s) of the wagers.  Presumably, that means a wager causing the loser to buy lunch for the winner would be treated on a sliding scale when compared to a wager involving several thousand dollars.  The punishments here would similarly involve various amounts of eligibility loss.  [Aside:  I guess the rectitude of this provision really depends on what “other betting restrictions” turn out to be.]

Here is part of a statement by the NCAA regarding the impetus for the rule modifications/clarifications:

“These new guidelines modernize penalties for college athletes at a time when sports wagering has been legalized in dozens of states and is easily accessible nationwide with online betting platforms.  While sports wagering by college athletes is still a concern — particularly as we remain committed to preserving the integrity of competition in college sports — consideration of mitigating factors is appropriate as staff prescribe penalties for young people who have made mistakes in this space.”

Speaking of sports betting – – now legalized in 38 states don’t you know – – one popular form of betting is known as “Futures”.  As we speak, one can bet on the “future” outcomes for all the NFL Division races among other future happenings in the NFL such as Super Bowl participants and number of games won by any team.  I read a report last week that the NFC North Division is the one getting the most action in Futures betting this year and that the Detroit Lions are the betting favorite in that division.  According to BetMGM:

• The greatest number of Futures bets so far this year involve the winner of the NFC North Division.
• The Lions have more money bet on them to win their division than any other team in the league.
• In this heavily bet division, the Lions command 71% of the money wagered on the division as a whole.

Remember, the Vikings are in the NFC North and the Vikings won 13 games last year.  Obviously, the betting public does not think that is going to happen again.  For the record, here are the odds on the betting favorites to win their respective divisions in the upcoming regular season:

• Bengals at +120
• Bills at +130
• Chiefs at minus-165
• Eagles at minus-110
• Jags at minus-165
• Lions at +105
• Niners at minus-165
• Saints at +125

Finally, apropos of nothing, let me close today with this note from artist Georgia O’Keeffe:

“I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.”

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