The NFL Draft: A Celebration of the Restraint of Trade
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 04/22/10 at 1:43 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/22/the-nfl-draft-a-celebration-of-the-restraint-of-trade/2/
(New York, N. Y.) -- Sometime after 7:00 EST on Thursday night, the celebration of something totally un-American, a restraint of trade, will start when the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams announce which player they want as the first pick in the annual NFL Draft.
Corporate America, everyday Americans and Sunday afternoon couch potatoes celebrate the NFL Draft. It is an off-season party for football fans. Once the season ends, the NFL’s worst team is “on the clock,” and a more than four-month long publicity blitz starts with the league’s worst team in the spotlight, as the talent evaluators from that franchise rate the best college talent ready to join the workforce.
It all culminates in the big party in New York, “The Draft,” a celebration of the stopping of the free market. But it’s all part of the sports package.
Normally, the best 225 college graduates can talk to a number of companies and businesses looking for their services and shop around for a job, but that is not the case for the most talented people coming out of college. The flip side is that the best 225 can look forward to making anywhere in a range of hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions annually during the life of the contract they sign. But the contracts are not guaranteed, and the freshly out-of-college players may end up with a really nice bonus, sometimes in the millions. But if they are cut or fired, they will have to look for another job in a relatively closed field with less than 1,900 positions, many of which have already been taken.
The odds of landing a full-time job in the NFL are slim for a good many of those whose names will be called on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, even if they are the top 225.
The NFL Draft is an accepted part of American life (as are the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League drafts). But no one ever really questions the mechanism. In a few weeks, the non-football members of the class of 2010 will hit the streets looking for jobs. The graduates will be able to look for positions wherever they want, whether it is in Seattle, Washington or Dallas, Texas or Miami, Florida or down the northeast I-95 corridor from Foxboro, Massachusetts to East Rutherford, New Jersey to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D. C.
They can apply for jobs and go for interviews and hope they get an opportunity and possibly leverage the offers. College football players have a slightly different entry into their profession. NFL teams begin scouting players as soon as they hit college campuses, although they know about the players from high school.
NFL personnel people watch them for at least three years (the NFL requires players to play college football for three years and be on a college campus; whether the individual goes to classes or not is immaterial, despite the presence of the Wonderlic test, which allegedly measures a players intelligence). The college football games are the SATs for NFL scouts. But there are other factors that go into deciding whether the individual coming out of college is good enough. The players go to what is called a scouting combine in Indianapolis in the final semester of their four or five year college career for interviews and to see what the player looks like in a t-shirt and shorts. The players also run a variety of sprints.
Then a team makes a decision and puts names on a list. Only 225 or so get drafted. The 230th-rated player has more bargaining power than the last few players taken in the draft. There are some really good players who aren’t drafted, and they can shop around their services and get more money than, say, the “Lowsman Trophy” winner, the last player taken in the grab bag. The NFL slots money for each pick, but the players in the upper echelon of the draft can negotiate a higher bonus, the money they can keep if there are fired.
Very few players can beat the system and play where they want. John Elway wanted no part of playing in Baltimore in 1983 and signed a contract with the New York Yankees to play baseball and used that as leverage to get his way and forced a trade to Denver. Bo Jackson decided to play baseball instead of signing with Tampa Bay in 1986. Jackson would eventually play football for the Los Angeles Raiders after the Major League Baseball season ended. Eli Manning didn’t want to play for the San Diego Chargers even though he was the NFL and the Chargers’ first pick in the 2004 draft and was immediately traded to the New York Giants.
There are just a few players who can work the system.
The “free-agents” or non-drafted players carry a stigma, though. They are “free-agents” and they have to work harder to get a permanent job. Just because a player is drafted, that doesn’t guarantee a permanent position.
The National Football League is what one-time NFL quarterback and the 1996 Republican Vice-President candidate Jack Kemp once called, “the gold standard” in the industry. There are other football businesses, the United Football League, the Canadian Football League and various indoor football leagues but, and this is meant with no disrespect, for football players getting out of college, that is like working at a fast food restaurant.
It is a job, but not the job they want. The UFL, CFL and other leagues might give some players a second opportunity,but NFL teams know within three to four weeks of the opening of training camp how many of the top 225 are legitimate employees. The NFL personnel guys make very few mistakes; the vetting process is pretty good. Most of the 225 won’t have a career that lasts more than three years.
The NFL Draft is a legally sanctioned restriction of the free market, as it is collectively bargained between the NFL owners and the National Football League Players Association. The draft is a celebration for football fans, Christmas in April, as each NFL team selects players that are gift-wrapped for the fans of each of the 32 teams and come with the promise of making the team perform better.
The actual draft in New York is a rather boring affair. The NFL jazzes up the proceedings with smoke and mirrors, literally, as there are video presentations and loud music while fans dress in their “Sunday” (most NFL games are played on Sunday) best complete with the colors of their favorite teams, uniforms and face paint. But the actual selection of players is a boring and tedious process with a lot of wasted time as NFL personnel directors, coaches and general managers’ fight with scouts in a “war-room” at the team’s headquarters scattered around the country. They call into league headquarters the name of the player they want.
On Thursday night, the heavily choreographed NFL Draft kicks off with a big “tailgate” party inside Radio City Music Hall on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Of course, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not going to close off a major artery like Sixth Avenue, so the festivities have to take place inside. ESPN, with more people on camera than were available for either the Democratic or Republican Party national conventions, is capturing every nuance of the crowd as the talking heads assess the gravity of the situation. The NFL Network, also armed with an array of experts, provides another point of view although it is virtually the same as ESPN, just with different talking heads.
As the revelers revel, their thoughts will turn to the St. Louis Rams. Will Sam Bradford, the Oklahoma quarterback or will Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh get the call? National Football League Commissioner will make his appearance; there will be a hush over the crowd. Bradford or Suh? Or will it be someone else?
It is high drama at the old building in midtown Manhattan.
Eventually the hometown Giants and Jets will get their chance. Giants fans booed the selection of quarterback Phil Simms in 1979. And then there’s the “J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets” chant that waffles through the building.
The three day affair leads to rookie mini-camp, which features the lower round picks and players looking to just get a chance to get onto the 80-man training camp roster as the top picks skip the sessions because they haven’t signed a contract. Then there will be the training camp “holdouts” with some rookies haggling for better signing bonus, and eventually the players gear up for a 16 game season.
But that takes place after the best three days of the off-season for the fans. The celebration of an illegal restraint of trade, made legal by two parties (the owners and players) with no relationship to the injured party (the incoming college grads, well not grads except they graduate the football system either after three, four or five years). Football celebrates a system that is really un-American — but no one really seems to care or notice.
After all, it’s only football.
Evan Weiner is a radio-TV commentator, columnist, author and lecturer on “The Politics of Sports Business” and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label St. Louis Rams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Louis Rams. Show all posts
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Monday, October 26, 2009
Limbaugh’s Bid on the Rams: Pundits Analysis Wrong Again
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7562
Limbaugh’s Bid on the Rams: Pundits Analysis Wrong Again
By Evan Weiner
October 20, 2009
7:00 PM (ADT)
(Halifax, Nova Scotia) – Rush Limbaugh is not going to be part of any group that wants to buy the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams. That is a real fact. But the post mortem analysis of the Limbaugh story after he was asked to withdraw from Dave Checketts group’s bid on the franchise from the pundit wing of American media is a bit baffling.
Or is it?
Limbaugh, the ever ready to sprout out utterances conservative philosopher, blamed a group of detractors that included the usual Limbaugh cast of characters including Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and President Barack Obama as part of some Limbaugh blather that that his rejection of as a money man in an NFL franchise bid is part of a menacing Obama future that is dark and bleak.
Limbaugh, the businessman, knows that Obama’s National Football League is not much different than Richard Nixon’s NFL, Gerald Ford’s NFL, Jimmy Carter’s NFL, Ronald Reagan’s NFL, George H. W. Bush’s NFL, Bill Clinton’s NFL and George W. Bush’s NFL. The NFL of today was created in 1961 through the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 that was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy which allowed the 14 partners (owners) of the NFL to sell their TV shows as one entity to a TV network and gave NFL owners protection from United States antitrust statues and use the 14 entities as one which meant they could make more money than selling their games piecemeal or ad hock TV networks.
Limbaugh, the businessman, also knows that it was President Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1966 who approved the American Football League-National Football League merger which created a major monopoly (as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle confirmed as he was on the stand in the NFL-United States Football League antitrust court case in 1986) that gave NFL and AFL owners financial stability as one 24 team entity and led to the creation of the Super Bowl.
Two liberals, Kennedy and Johnson, created today’s moneymaking NFL, a private club that Limbaugh wanted to join.
Limbaugh also has to know that his hero, Ronald Reagan, as the President of the United States signed two bills, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act, that helped the owners get money from cable TV and changed how municipalities funded stadium construction which also aided owners pockets.
Facts never get in the pundits (whether they are from the left or right) way of screaming and yelling, so with that here is a sports primer for such experts on everything like Cal Thomas, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, all of who were recently on FOX displaying their knowledge of how the NFL should work in their world.
For Hannity, who feels bad that Rush probably can never enjoy the NFL again in the same way he used to prior to being dropped as a potential Rams owner; for Coulter who somehow parlayed Rush’s failure into how NFL players probably have more in common with Rush because they are Christians, I am not exactly sure what that has to do with anything, but the players in the Coulter world of absolute punditry correctness could break bread with Rush so much more than his gang of detractors, the Jacksons, Sharptons, the National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and Obama. For good political measure, the blonde carnival barker threw in that the liberal George Soros was also trying to buy into the Rams, which was unverified. And she added for good measure that Soros was a Jewish Nazi sympathizer in Hungary during World War II as a teenager. It was the usual Coulter stuff that is light on accuracy but filled with raw red meat for her fans who fill her pockets with cash by buying her books and listening to her rants. Her fans aren’t the only ones who listen; journalists seem to like her as they seem to promote her endlessly. And for Thomas who is just a blank on the business dealings of football.
As a public service to both sides of the cable TV news network lighter than air discussions which more than not resemble third graders yelling at each other at a school lunchroom table although the third graders probably have more facts at their disposal, here is a sports owners guide for membership.
Have money and keep a low profile. Don’t do anything that might upset them.
Not everyone who wants to buy a sports team gets one. Edward Gaylord, who owned the Daily Oklahoman from 1974 until his death in 2003, twice failed to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team. Gaylord, who was a staunch conservative and The Oklahoman reflected that view, was turned down by the Lords of Baseball in the 1980s because Major League Baseball owners didn’t want Gaylord to turn the Rangers into a national team through his Dallas Cable TV superstation and have the Rangers on a daily basis on national cable TV with the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves. The owners felt another “national” team would further diminish national television revenues. The Rangers franchise ended up with a group that included George W. Bush in 1989.
Gaylord’s political ideology had nothing to do with being turned down. The baseball fraternity was threatened by Gaylord’s technology. The National Basketball Association did not want the Minnesota Timberwolves to leave Minneapolis in 1994 and blocked the sale of the team to a group that was headed by the boxing promoter Bob Arum. Arum planned to move the team to New Orleans, the NBA wanted to stay in the bigger Twin-Cities market. Blackberry partner Jim Balsillie needs to be rehabilitated before he tries a fourth time to purchase a National Hockey League team. Balsillie tried to make demands of NHL owners when he reached an agreement o but Pittsburgh in 2006 and not play nice with Commissioner Gary Bettman and keep the franchise in western Pennsylvania, did the same thing in 2007 when he bought the Nashville Predators and was found unsuitable as an owner this spring/summer when he wanted to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move the team to Hamilton, Ontario.
Those are just three examples. The oilman Marvin Davis had the right stuff to own a Major League Baseball team in 1977 but the Barons of Baseball said no when Davis tried to buy the Oakland A’s franchise and move the team to Denver.
The NFL is a private club, 31 owners plus the public ownership in Green Bay, that picks and chooses club members. One of those members is Alex Spanos who owns the San Diego Chargers and this is going to cause some problems for the carnival barker crowd.
Spanos probably has far more in common with the usual daily fare that Limbaugh fills the public airwaves with 15 hours a week. At least Spanos has a real track record of being politically active. He was number 2 on the list of donations to George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. In 2004, Spanos was a heavy contributor to the 527 Swift Boat attack ads against the Democrat John Kerry in his bid for the Presidency. At the same time, former President George H. W. Bush accompanied Spanos to Athens, Greece as where they served as the official American representatives at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Spanos should be a hero to the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter/Thomas, radio talk show and Roger Ailes’ FOX crowd but Spanos knows there is far more to life than the daily foolishness that is paraded on MSNBC, CNN, FOX, talk radio from Air America or talk radio from Clear Channel (and the fictional) Excellence in Broadcasting network.
Spanos hired Mark Fabiani to help him get a new football stadium and real estate development project in the San Diego area. Fabiani has the credentials to get things done although Spanos might be considered a polar opposite. Fabiani was the Deputy Campaign Manager for Communications and Strategy at Gore for President in 2000 and was the Special Counsel to the President, the Executive Office of the President, the White House, Washington, D. C. between 1994 and 1996.
Fabiani served President Bill Clinton’s White House, Clinton, the mortal enemy of Limbaugh, Hannity, Thomas, Coulter, Ailes, and the rest of the conservative barkers.
The entire game of talk radio and cable news in the United States is shrill whether it is Keith Olbermann or Bill O’Reilly. There is a disingenuous nature to the beast, so much so that one FOX host who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a financial supporter of a stem cell research center in New York City but real life and the strange life of cable TV news and talk radio never intersect and that host cannot give a public pitch for funding research at the facility and the people who helped put together the center would rather not talk about financial contributions from FOX News Channel personnel including some of the higher ups at FOX but take research money. If it became public, that would ruin the illusion. Cable TV and talk radio show punditry is more Wizard of Oz that academic debate and opening the curtain is the last thing that punditry class wants to do.
The strange disconnect extends into what is considered serious Sunday morning American TV news and interview programs. The Conservative George Will is a prime example of not being all that he appears to be. The free market proponent isn’t exactly a hard-core free market advocate. Will, who was on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Padres and the Baltimore Orioles, in 2000 as a member of a blue ribbon committee studying the industry said that he didn’t believe free market principles should be applied to baseball. Will, who is as stuffy in real life as he is on TV, is a hypocrite and this is typical of what passes as real journalism in America.
I should know, I asked Will about his 2000 stance and he declined to opine on the free market advocate who stifled his principles for baseball.
Olbermann, Chris Mathews, the late Tim Russert, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Thomas, Joe Scarborough, Larry King, Don Imus, Anderson Cooper, Campbell Brown, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, Bill O’Reilly, George Stephanopolous, Will, Chris Wallace, David Gregory, Alan Colmes and the rest of the barkers or political operators will never be confused with the people who delivered daily commentaries on the old 1970s CBS Radio Spectrum series which included Murray Kempton, M. Stanton Evans, Jeffrey St. John, Stewart Alsop, Jon K. Jessup and Nicholas Von Hoffman. Nor would any of today’s crowd be confused with the legacy of the American conservative William Buckley. Buckley and Kempton were polar opposites politically but were best friends because of their journalistic integrity something that is clearly lacking in American media. Neither Buckley nor Kempton were abrasive personalities and both were meticulous. The screaming hyenas of today are cherished by radio talk programmers and cable TV network executives as they search for angry listeners and viewers who want the red raw meat and vile instead of intellectual give and take.
Olbermann, who is an intelligent guy with a load of luggage in his background, would never have worked for CBS Chairman William Paley’s news department in the 1960s because of his sports background. Paley would not allow Art Linkletter to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes” because of his game show host background.
The carnival barkers have moved on from the Limbaugh debate and are on some other silly trail looking for viewers and listeners who genuflect at their every word. The barkers on a daily basis vent their spleens not because of ideological stances but the chance to scream for money on issues that appeal to a narrow segment of society.
Limbaugh won’t be joining the NFL anytime soon, but it is wrong for the Coulter crowd to blame their mortal enemies, the Jackson-Sharpton wing of the food fight club. The NFL owners like to keep low social profiles and not cause a ruckus and that is what eliminated Limbaugh from the Checketts group, not the liberals.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Limbaugh’s Bid on the Rams: Pundits Analysis Wrong Again
By Evan Weiner
October 20, 2009
7:00 PM (ADT)
(Halifax, Nova Scotia) – Rush Limbaugh is not going to be part of any group that wants to buy the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams. That is a real fact. But the post mortem analysis of the Limbaugh story after he was asked to withdraw from Dave Checketts group’s bid on the franchise from the pundit wing of American media is a bit baffling.
Or is it?
Limbaugh, the ever ready to sprout out utterances conservative philosopher, blamed a group of detractors that included the usual Limbaugh cast of characters including Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and President Barack Obama as part of some Limbaugh blather that that his rejection of as a money man in an NFL franchise bid is part of a menacing Obama future that is dark and bleak.
Limbaugh, the businessman, knows that Obama’s National Football League is not much different than Richard Nixon’s NFL, Gerald Ford’s NFL, Jimmy Carter’s NFL, Ronald Reagan’s NFL, George H. W. Bush’s NFL, Bill Clinton’s NFL and George W. Bush’s NFL. The NFL of today was created in 1961 through the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 that was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy which allowed the 14 partners (owners) of the NFL to sell their TV shows as one entity to a TV network and gave NFL owners protection from United States antitrust statues and use the 14 entities as one which meant they could make more money than selling their games piecemeal or ad hock TV networks.
Limbaugh, the businessman, also knows that it was President Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1966 who approved the American Football League-National Football League merger which created a major monopoly (as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle confirmed as he was on the stand in the NFL-United States Football League antitrust court case in 1986) that gave NFL and AFL owners financial stability as one 24 team entity and led to the creation of the Super Bowl.
Two liberals, Kennedy and Johnson, created today’s moneymaking NFL, a private club that Limbaugh wanted to join.
Limbaugh also has to know that his hero, Ronald Reagan, as the President of the United States signed two bills, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act, that helped the owners get money from cable TV and changed how municipalities funded stadium construction which also aided owners pockets.
Facts never get in the pundits (whether they are from the left or right) way of screaming and yelling, so with that here is a sports primer for such experts on everything like Cal Thomas, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, all of who were recently on FOX displaying their knowledge of how the NFL should work in their world.
For Hannity, who feels bad that Rush probably can never enjoy the NFL again in the same way he used to prior to being dropped as a potential Rams owner; for Coulter who somehow parlayed Rush’s failure into how NFL players probably have more in common with Rush because they are Christians, I am not exactly sure what that has to do with anything, but the players in the Coulter world of absolute punditry correctness could break bread with Rush so much more than his gang of detractors, the Jacksons, Sharptons, the National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and Obama. For good political measure, the blonde carnival barker threw in that the liberal George Soros was also trying to buy into the Rams, which was unverified. And she added for good measure that Soros was a Jewish Nazi sympathizer in Hungary during World War II as a teenager. It was the usual Coulter stuff that is light on accuracy but filled with raw red meat for her fans who fill her pockets with cash by buying her books and listening to her rants. Her fans aren’t the only ones who listen; journalists seem to like her as they seem to promote her endlessly. And for Thomas who is just a blank on the business dealings of football.
As a public service to both sides of the cable TV news network lighter than air discussions which more than not resemble third graders yelling at each other at a school lunchroom table although the third graders probably have more facts at their disposal, here is a sports owners guide for membership.
Have money and keep a low profile. Don’t do anything that might upset them.
Not everyone who wants to buy a sports team gets one. Edward Gaylord, who owned the Daily Oklahoman from 1974 until his death in 2003, twice failed to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team. Gaylord, who was a staunch conservative and The Oklahoman reflected that view, was turned down by the Lords of Baseball in the 1980s because Major League Baseball owners didn’t want Gaylord to turn the Rangers into a national team through his Dallas Cable TV superstation and have the Rangers on a daily basis on national cable TV with the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves. The owners felt another “national” team would further diminish national television revenues. The Rangers franchise ended up with a group that included George W. Bush in 1989.
Gaylord’s political ideology had nothing to do with being turned down. The baseball fraternity was threatened by Gaylord’s technology. The National Basketball Association did not want the Minnesota Timberwolves to leave Minneapolis in 1994 and blocked the sale of the team to a group that was headed by the boxing promoter Bob Arum. Arum planned to move the team to New Orleans, the NBA wanted to stay in the bigger Twin-Cities market. Blackberry partner Jim Balsillie needs to be rehabilitated before he tries a fourth time to purchase a National Hockey League team. Balsillie tried to make demands of NHL owners when he reached an agreement o but Pittsburgh in 2006 and not play nice with Commissioner Gary Bettman and keep the franchise in western Pennsylvania, did the same thing in 2007 when he bought the Nashville Predators and was found unsuitable as an owner this spring/summer when he wanted to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move the team to Hamilton, Ontario.
Those are just three examples. The oilman Marvin Davis had the right stuff to own a Major League Baseball team in 1977 but the Barons of Baseball said no when Davis tried to buy the Oakland A’s franchise and move the team to Denver.
The NFL is a private club, 31 owners plus the public ownership in Green Bay, that picks and chooses club members. One of those members is Alex Spanos who owns the San Diego Chargers and this is going to cause some problems for the carnival barker crowd.
Spanos probably has far more in common with the usual daily fare that Limbaugh fills the public airwaves with 15 hours a week. At least Spanos has a real track record of being politically active. He was number 2 on the list of donations to George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. In 2004, Spanos was a heavy contributor to the 527 Swift Boat attack ads against the Democrat John Kerry in his bid for the Presidency. At the same time, former President George H. W. Bush accompanied Spanos to Athens, Greece as where they served as the official American representatives at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Spanos should be a hero to the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter/Thomas, radio talk show and Roger Ailes’ FOX crowd but Spanos knows there is far more to life than the daily foolishness that is paraded on MSNBC, CNN, FOX, talk radio from Air America or talk radio from Clear Channel (and the fictional) Excellence in Broadcasting network.
Spanos hired Mark Fabiani to help him get a new football stadium and real estate development project in the San Diego area. Fabiani has the credentials to get things done although Spanos might be considered a polar opposite. Fabiani was the Deputy Campaign Manager for Communications and Strategy at Gore for President in 2000 and was the Special Counsel to the President, the Executive Office of the President, the White House, Washington, D. C. between 1994 and 1996.
Fabiani served President Bill Clinton’s White House, Clinton, the mortal enemy of Limbaugh, Hannity, Thomas, Coulter, Ailes, and the rest of the conservative barkers.
The entire game of talk radio and cable news in the United States is shrill whether it is Keith Olbermann or Bill O’Reilly. There is a disingenuous nature to the beast, so much so that one FOX host who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a financial supporter of a stem cell research center in New York City but real life and the strange life of cable TV news and talk radio never intersect and that host cannot give a public pitch for funding research at the facility and the people who helped put together the center would rather not talk about financial contributions from FOX News Channel personnel including some of the higher ups at FOX but take research money. If it became public, that would ruin the illusion. Cable TV and talk radio show punditry is more Wizard of Oz that academic debate and opening the curtain is the last thing that punditry class wants to do.
The strange disconnect extends into what is considered serious Sunday morning American TV news and interview programs. The Conservative George Will is a prime example of not being all that he appears to be. The free market proponent isn’t exactly a hard-core free market advocate. Will, who was on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Padres and the Baltimore Orioles, in 2000 as a member of a blue ribbon committee studying the industry said that he didn’t believe free market principles should be applied to baseball. Will, who is as stuffy in real life as he is on TV, is a hypocrite and this is typical of what passes as real journalism in America.
I should know, I asked Will about his 2000 stance and he declined to opine on the free market advocate who stifled his principles for baseball.
Olbermann, Chris Mathews, the late Tim Russert, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Thomas, Joe Scarborough, Larry King, Don Imus, Anderson Cooper, Campbell Brown, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, Bill O’Reilly, George Stephanopolous, Will, Chris Wallace, David Gregory, Alan Colmes and the rest of the barkers or political operators will never be confused with the people who delivered daily commentaries on the old 1970s CBS Radio Spectrum series which included Murray Kempton, M. Stanton Evans, Jeffrey St. John, Stewart Alsop, Jon K. Jessup and Nicholas Von Hoffman. Nor would any of today’s crowd be confused with the legacy of the American conservative William Buckley. Buckley and Kempton were polar opposites politically but were best friends because of their journalistic integrity something that is clearly lacking in American media. Neither Buckley nor Kempton were abrasive personalities and both were meticulous. The screaming hyenas of today are cherished by radio talk programmers and cable TV network executives as they search for angry listeners and viewers who want the red raw meat and vile instead of intellectual give and take.
Olbermann, who is an intelligent guy with a load of luggage in his background, would never have worked for CBS Chairman William Paley’s news department in the 1960s because of his sports background. Paley would not allow Art Linkletter to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes” because of his game show host background.
The carnival barkers have moved on from the Limbaugh debate and are on some other silly trail looking for viewers and listeners who genuflect at their every word. The barkers on a daily basis vent their spleens not because of ideological stances but the chance to scream for money on issues that appeal to a narrow segment of society.
Limbaugh won’t be joining the NFL anytime soon, but it is wrong for the Coulter crowd to blame their mortal enemies, the Jackson-Sharpton wing of the food fight club. The NFL owners like to keep low social profiles and not cause a ruckus and that is what eliminated Limbaugh from the Checketts group, not the liberals.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Carnie Has a Right to Buy an NFL Team
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7555
The Carnie Has a Right to Buy an NFL Team
By Evan Weiner
October 10, 2009
5:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- It is really odious to defend Rush Limbaugh but he does have the right to put in a bid for the National Football League franchise that is for sale in St. Louis. The carnie Limbaugh who might or might not believe every word that comes out of his mouth in a bid to startle people to get them to listen to his three hour daily United States radio program, apparently has enough money to join with long time sports executive David Checketts in an attempt to buy the team. If Limbaugh has the money, then he should go ahead with his bid despite his opinions on race, women, politics and anything else. After all, George Preston Marshall once owned the Boston-Washington Redskins and did not employ an African American player until 1962.
Checketts, if Limbaugh is telling the truth about the bid, is a Mormon and apparently is comfortable with the radio character who has made a career out of race baiting along a Nazi fascination and other less than complimentary, rude, hurtful, spiteful comments which would landed him in hot water with many elementary school teachers and principals which could lead to a school suspension and lessons on civility. Of course, Limbaugh’s words came out with a wink; he is only a carnie after all.
There are far more grown ups in elementary school than in the vast cultural wasteland of American radio and TV and that is where the defensive of Limbaugh has to begin. You see the caretakers of the publicly owned radio stations and syndicators are also involved in sports, people like Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers and the National Hockey League Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks. In addition to Hicks, there is the former owner of the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs and the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings Red McCombs.
McCombs and Hicks were Limbaugh enablers but their contribution to the Limbaugh story is pretty much scrubbed from the public record. In 1975, McCombs along with L. Lowry Mays purchased a San Antonio, Texas radio station, WAOI, and founded Clear Channel Communications. In 1996, Clear Channel purchased Premiere Radio Networks and gained control of Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio show. McCombs was the owner of the Spurs at the time and there seems to be no record of NBA Commissioner David Stern expressing any sort of outrage that McCombs had Limbaugh and others of his ilk under his control.
Limbaugh was making money for McCombs and the association flew under the radar screen. In 1999, Hicks' AMFM, Inc. merged with Clear Channel, but neither Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig nor National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman ever voiced any opinion about Hicks owning a company that allowed Limbaugh to rant three hours daily about whatever would get him into trouble with the elementary school principle whether it was race baiting or calling feminists "Feminazis" or other words or radio skits that would be deemed offensive.
The real genius of Rush Limbaugh lies in the fact that he can keep an audience between commercials with whatever inflammatory statements he can think up. The truth is that over-the-air TV and radio along with newspapers depends on keeping the consumer's attention in between commercials that pay the bills. It has nothing to do with political ideology or covering the news, it is all about getting the most consumers and then being able to steer them to buy what the advertiser is selling. Someone has to pay the bills.
It is all about money; Limbaugh has made money for bosses like McCombs and Hicks. McCombs and Hicks sports interests do not dovetail necessarily with their real businesses. McCombs and Hicks perpetuated Limbaugh's brand and they own sports teams.
Selig was not bothered at all that one of his owners, Hicks, was an enabler but Selig developed a social consciousness over two very visible incidents that involved Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott and Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker that sort of echoed the type of programming that Limbaugh and others had on Premiere.
One of the consequences of the absolute lessening of manners and civility of conversation on radio and TV is the diminishing of respect people have for one another. The likes of Don Imus back in the 1970s opened the door to nastiness and it was all in the pursuit of an audience that would spend money on sponsors. Perhaps Rocker, who was a guy in his 20s at the time felt that he could say what we wanted because of pioneers in race baiting, like Limbaugh who had a rap sheet going back to the days of being a radio disc jockey in Pittsburgh.
Of course there has always been this caveat that has been uttered by the likes of Imus and Limbaugh. We are only entertainers.
In December 1999, Rocker did an interview with Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman. Among the quotes that caught the attention of Selig was one response after Pearlman asked if Rocker would ever play in New York.
“I'd retire first," Rocker told Pearlman. "It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing... The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?
Rocker also made it clear he did not like New York.
“Nowhere else in the country do people spit at you, throw bottles at you, throw quarters at you, throw batteries at you and say, 'Hey, I did your mother last night — she's a whore.' I talked about what degenerates they were and they proved me right.”
Pearlman did the interview while driving with Rocker and reported that "Rocker spat on a Georgia 400 toll machine and mocked Asian women. Also, he supposedly referred to black teammate Randall Simon as a "fat monkey".
The interview was a stain on baseball and Selig acted quickly after it was published. Rocker was suspended in spring training and for the first 28 days of the 2000 season without pay and ordered to sensitivity training. It did little good as Rocker continued opening his mouth but his career quickly went downhill. As soon as his left arm wore out rendering him useless, his career was over.
Schott had all kind of things to say about Nazis, including nice things about Adolf Hitler and disparaging opinions on African Americans and Jews along with men who wore earrings. She earned suspensions in 1993 and 1996 and Selig laid out a deal with her in 1998, face a third suspension or sell off your part of the team by December 31, 1998. Schott did sell most of her Reds ownership shares. What Schott said publicly hurt her, but there were baseball owners who said unsavory things but were never caught on the record. Selig had nothing to say in 1994 when it was alleged in a John Helyar book, Lords of the Realm, that New York Mets co-owner Nelson Doubleday said a derogatory remark against Selig and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf to National League President Bill White.
Doubleday was one of the good old boys, Schott wasn’t.
Limbaugh is up front with his mouth. Oklahoma City Thunder minority owner Aubrey McClendon funds anti gay groups. That is McClendon's right but see how differently NBA Commissioner Stern handled McClendon’s political agenda when compared with his actions with Tim Hardaway. Stern did nothing. There could be a reason for that, McClendon is one of Stern's bosses, a commission has to answer to others and Haradway was merely a former player.
During an interview on Dan Le Batard's Miami radio show on February 14, 2007 concerning the recent coming out of former NBA player John Amaechi, Hardaway eventually said that " Well, you know I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States." He also said that if he found out he had one or more gay teammates, he would try to get them fired."
Hardaway was long retired by that point and was an NBA legend. He was supposed honored at the league's All Star Game Weekend festivities a few days after the interview. The NBA banned him from appearing and Hardaway lost his job with the Continental Basketball Association's Anderson, Indiana team. The CBA threw him under the bus. Stern did fine McClendon though but it had nothing to do with his politics. Stern was offended that told an Oklahoma City newspaper that Clayton Bennett and his partners, one of who was McClendon, bought the Seattle SuperSonics with the hope of moving the team to Oklahoma City. In August 2007, Stern levied a $250,000 fine against McClendon for speaking the truth.
Limbaugh does not a criminal record despite his OxyContin problem back in 2003, so that is a plus in his bid for a spot with Checketts group. There is a sports team owner with a Betty Ford Clinic background so that should not matter. But the NFL also has an unfavorable record with Limbaugh as his radio character came out in 2003 when he criticized Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb in a racially charged way, Limbaugh might have been right in his assessment of McNabb the quarterback but he forgot he was on ESPN not the imaginary EIB or Excellence in Broadcasting network and that his audience was not the radio "dittoheads". Limbaugh resigned his ESPN job on NFL Sunday Night Countdown October 2, 2003 after just a couple months on the job.
African American players who are currently employed by the St. Louis Rams are not impressed that Limbaugh wants to bid on the team. Ironically enough, the 1946 Los Angeles Rams hired two African American players, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, and ended a 12-year-old policy of segregation. The rival All American Football Conference started in 1946 and did employ African American players as Paul Brown signed Bill Willis and Marion Motley for his new Cleveland Browns franchise. The 1946 Browns replaced the Rams as Cleveland's team and it was because of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission's deal with Rams owner Daniel Reeves that Washington and Strode signed with Los Angeles. Reeves wanted LA but could only get the Coliseum if he signed Washington. Reeves signed the two players ending NFL segregation.
NFL owners generally never talk about potential partners but Checketts is already a member of the fraternity as an owner of the St. Louis Blues National Hockey League team after running Madison Square Garden for years along with the NBA's Utah Jazz. Checketts is not the problem, the carnie Limbaugh is for numerous reasons starting with his reputation. But Limbaugh has accomplished his primary mission which is all about El Rushbo, but saying he is interested in the Rams, he got people's attention and that probably will put money in his pocket. After all, isn't that what a carnie does?
eweiner@mcn.tv
The Carnie Has a Right to Buy an NFL Team
By Evan Weiner
October 10, 2009
5:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- It is really odious to defend Rush Limbaugh but he does have the right to put in a bid for the National Football League franchise that is for sale in St. Louis. The carnie Limbaugh who might or might not believe every word that comes out of his mouth in a bid to startle people to get them to listen to his three hour daily United States radio program, apparently has enough money to join with long time sports executive David Checketts in an attempt to buy the team. If Limbaugh has the money, then he should go ahead with his bid despite his opinions on race, women, politics and anything else. After all, George Preston Marshall once owned the Boston-Washington Redskins and did not employ an African American player until 1962.
Checketts, if Limbaugh is telling the truth about the bid, is a Mormon and apparently is comfortable with the radio character who has made a career out of race baiting along a Nazi fascination and other less than complimentary, rude, hurtful, spiteful comments which would landed him in hot water with many elementary school teachers and principals which could lead to a school suspension and lessons on civility. Of course, Limbaugh’s words came out with a wink; he is only a carnie after all.
There are far more grown ups in elementary school than in the vast cultural wasteland of American radio and TV and that is where the defensive of Limbaugh has to begin. You see the caretakers of the publicly owned radio stations and syndicators are also involved in sports, people like Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers and the National Hockey League Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks. In addition to Hicks, there is the former owner of the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs and the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings Red McCombs.
McCombs and Hicks were Limbaugh enablers but their contribution to the Limbaugh story is pretty much scrubbed from the public record. In 1975, McCombs along with L. Lowry Mays purchased a San Antonio, Texas radio station, WAOI, and founded Clear Channel Communications. In 1996, Clear Channel purchased Premiere Radio Networks and gained control of Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio show. McCombs was the owner of the Spurs at the time and there seems to be no record of NBA Commissioner David Stern expressing any sort of outrage that McCombs had Limbaugh and others of his ilk under his control.
Limbaugh was making money for McCombs and the association flew under the radar screen. In 1999, Hicks' AMFM, Inc. merged with Clear Channel, but neither Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig nor National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman ever voiced any opinion about Hicks owning a company that allowed Limbaugh to rant three hours daily about whatever would get him into trouble with the elementary school principle whether it was race baiting or calling feminists "Feminazis" or other words or radio skits that would be deemed offensive.
The real genius of Rush Limbaugh lies in the fact that he can keep an audience between commercials with whatever inflammatory statements he can think up. The truth is that over-the-air TV and radio along with newspapers depends on keeping the consumer's attention in between commercials that pay the bills. It has nothing to do with political ideology or covering the news, it is all about getting the most consumers and then being able to steer them to buy what the advertiser is selling. Someone has to pay the bills.
It is all about money; Limbaugh has made money for bosses like McCombs and Hicks. McCombs and Hicks sports interests do not dovetail necessarily with their real businesses. McCombs and Hicks perpetuated Limbaugh's brand and they own sports teams.
Selig was not bothered at all that one of his owners, Hicks, was an enabler but Selig developed a social consciousness over two very visible incidents that involved Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott and Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker that sort of echoed the type of programming that Limbaugh and others had on Premiere.
One of the consequences of the absolute lessening of manners and civility of conversation on radio and TV is the diminishing of respect people have for one another. The likes of Don Imus back in the 1970s opened the door to nastiness and it was all in the pursuit of an audience that would spend money on sponsors. Perhaps Rocker, who was a guy in his 20s at the time felt that he could say what we wanted because of pioneers in race baiting, like Limbaugh who had a rap sheet going back to the days of being a radio disc jockey in Pittsburgh.
Of course there has always been this caveat that has been uttered by the likes of Imus and Limbaugh. We are only entertainers.
In December 1999, Rocker did an interview with Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman. Among the quotes that caught the attention of Selig was one response after Pearlman asked if Rocker would ever play in New York.
“I'd retire first," Rocker told Pearlman. "It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing... The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?
Rocker also made it clear he did not like New York.
“Nowhere else in the country do people spit at you, throw bottles at you, throw quarters at you, throw batteries at you and say, 'Hey, I did your mother last night — she's a whore.' I talked about what degenerates they were and they proved me right.”
Pearlman did the interview while driving with Rocker and reported that "Rocker spat on a Georgia 400 toll machine and mocked Asian women. Also, he supposedly referred to black teammate Randall Simon as a "fat monkey".
The interview was a stain on baseball and Selig acted quickly after it was published. Rocker was suspended in spring training and for the first 28 days of the 2000 season without pay and ordered to sensitivity training. It did little good as Rocker continued opening his mouth but his career quickly went downhill. As soon as his left arm wore out rendering him useless, his career was over.
Schott had all kind of things to say about Nazis, including nice things about Adolf Hitler and disparaging opinions on African Americans and Jews along with men who wore earrings. She earned suspensions in 1993 and 1996 and Selig laid out a deal with her in 1998, face a third suspension or sell off your part of the team by December 31, 1998. Schott did sell most of her Reds ownership shares. What Schott said publicly hurt her, but there were baseball owners who said unsavory things but were never caught on the record. Selig had nothing to say in 1994 when it was alleged in a John Helyar book, Lords of the Realm, that New York Mets co-owner Nelson Doubleday said a derogatory remark against Selig and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf to National League President Bill White.
Doubleday was one of the good old boys, Schott wasn’t.
Limbaugh is up front with his mouth. Oklahoma City Thunder minority owner Aubrey McClendon funds anti gay groups. That is McClendon's right but see how differently NBA Commissioner Stern handled McClendon’s political agenda when compared with his actions with Tim Hardaway. Stern did nothing. There could be a reason for that, McClendon is one of Stern's bosses, a commission has to answer to others and Haradway was merely a former player.
During an interview on Dan Le Batard's Miami radio show on February 14, 2007 concerning the recent coming out of former NBA player John Amaechi, Hardaway eventually said that " Well, you know I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States." He also said that if he found out he had one or more gay teammates, he would try to get them fired."
Hardaway was long retired by that point and was an NBA legend. He was supposed honored at the league's All Star Game Weekend festivities a few days after the interview. The NBA banned him from appearing and Hardaway lost his job with the Continental Basketball Association's Anderson, Indiana team. The CBA threw him under the bus. Stern did fine McClendon though but it had nothing to do with his politics. Stern was offended that told an Oklahoma City newspaper that Clayton Bennett and his partners, one of who was McClendon, bought the Seattle SuperSonics with the hope of moving the team to Oklahoma City. In August 2007, Stern levied a $250,000 fine against McClendon for speaking the truth.
Limbaugh does not a criminal record despite his OxyContin problem back in 2003, so that is a plus in his bid for a spot with Checketts group. There is a sports team owner with a Betty Ford Clinic background so that should not matter. But the NFL also has an unfavorable record with Limbaugh as his radio character came out in 2003 when he criticized Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb in a racially charged way, Limbaugh might have been right in his assessment of McNabb the quarterback but he forgot he was on ESPN not the imaginary EIB or Excellence in Broadcasting network and that his audience was not the radio "dittoheads". Limbaugh resigned his ESPN job on NFL Sunday Night Countdown October 2, 2003 after just a couple months on the job.
African American players who are currently employed by the St. Louis Rams are not impressed that Limbaugh wants to bid on the team. Ironically enough, the 1946 Los Angeles Rams hired two African American players, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, and ended a 12-year-old policy of segregation. The rival All American Football Conference started in 1946 and did employ African American players as Paul Brown signed Bill Willis and Marion Motley for his new Cleveland Browns franchise. The 1946 Browns replaced the Rams as Cleveland's team and it was because of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission's deal with Rams owner Daniel Reeves that Washington and Strode signed with Los Angeles. Reeves wanted LA but could only get the Coliseum if he signed Washington. Reeves signed the two players ending NFL segregation.
NFL owners generally never talk about potential partners but Checketts is already a member of the fraternity as an owner of the St. Louis Blues National Hockey League team after running Madison Square Garden for years along with the NBA's Utah Jazz. Checketts is not the problem, the carnie Limbaugh is for numerous reasons starting with his reputation. But Limbaugh has accomplished his primary mission which is all about El Rushbo, but saying he is interested in the Rams, he got people's attention and that probably will put money in his pocket. After all, isn't that what a carnie does?
eweiner@mcn.tv
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)