How Adolf Hitler and the Nazis cost the Giants and Jets $30 million a year
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 13:40
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/how-adolf-hitler-and-the-nazis-cost-the-giants-and-jets-30-million-a-year
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
Had all gone according to the original plan, the first "American" football game, which will be played on Monday night at the new Meadowlands Stadium between the East Rutherford-based New York Giants and the Florham Park-based New York Jets, would have had the name Allianz attached to the stadium. The Munich, Germany-based financial services and insurance company was negotiating with the Giants-Jets stadium management group to be the naming rights partner of the new East Rutherford stadium but those talks ended on September 9, 2008 after news broke that the two football teams were negotiating a deal with the Munich company which had ties to the Third Reich and Nazi Germany.
According to some reports, Allianz was willing to pay as much as $30 million annually for the naming rights. The Giants-Jets group is still looking for a naming rights partner in what has become an extremely difficult financial environment. Many companies don't see the value in purchasing naming rights to a stadium. The one-year old Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas still does not have a corporate naming sponsor which is a bit surprising in that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is hosting the 2011 Super Bowl next February and the Super Bowl is a prime advertising vehicle.
The Giants-Jets stadium will host the 2014 Super Bowl.
It is not unusual for a non-American company to buy the naming rights of an American arena or stadium. LM Ericcson, a telecommunications company based in Sweden, bought the naming rights for the new Charlotte football stadium in a ten-year, $25 million deal that started in 1996.
Last January, the Canadian insurance company Sun Life Financial signed a five-year, $20 million agreement with Miami Dolphins owner (and New York-New Jersey real estate magnate) Stephen Ross for the naming rights to the Dolphins' Broward County stadium. Sun Life, which is Canada's third-largest insurer, was looking to increase the company's visibility in the United States and probably did well on the deal as the Sun Life name and signage was plastered all over last February's Super Bowl broadcast. That exposure was more important than the other aspects of the deal which included having the Sun Life name printed on tickets to sporting events at the stadium.
Two other Canadian financial institutions have their names affixed on arenas in the United States. In 2005, TD Bank bought the naming rights to the arena that houses the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics and the National Hockey league's Boston Bruins The building is called TD Banknorth Garden. Royal Bank reached an agreement with the Carolina Hurricanes ownership in 2002 for the naming rights to the Raleigh, North Carolina arena. The venue is known as the RBC Center.
If the New Jersey Nets franchise does ever move to Brooklyn, the building will be called Barclay's Center. The England-based Barclay's does not have any bank branches in the United States but the bank does have a number of global locations.
The Giants-Jets/Allianz deal was stopped when Jewish groups and holocaust survivors learned of the talks. The Giants-Jets negotiations brought to light Allianz's history with Adolf Hitler and Nazi, Germany. A little history lesson needs to be told to understand the opposition to Allianz putting the company name on the sides of the East Rutherford stadium.
In 1993, Allianz's CEO Henning Schulte-Noelle decided to take a look at Allianz's corporate history and research the role the company might have played between 1933 and 1945 with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government. By 1997, Schulte-Noelle found the man he needed to do the research in at Cal-Berkeley, Dr. Gerald Feldman, who was the director of the University of California's Center for German and European Studies. Dr. Feldman had spent a good chunk of his adult life studying all aspects of German history. Dr. Feldman's 2001 book, "Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933-1945," explained how Allianz had given money owed to Jewish life insurance policy beneficiaries to the Nazi government.
Among Dr. Feldman's findings were records which showed that Allianz insured the property and personnel of the Auschwitz extermination camp, as well as the Dachau concentration camp. Additionally, Allianz also insured the engineers working at the IG Farben Company, the company that oversaw the manufacture of the Zyklon B cyanide gas used at concentration camps to kill Jews and other victims. Allianz provided insurance throughout the war to Nazis who had seized valuables from those victims captured and forced into the camps.
Dr. Feldman also related that Allianz Chief Executive Kurt Schmitt was Hitler's Economy Minister from June 1933 until January 1935, and found a picture of Schmitt wearing an SS-Oberführer's uniform. Allianz General Director Eduard Hilgard led the "Reich Association for Private Insurance" and helped create and enforce termination and refusal policies to pay off any life insurance policies issued to Jews. Beneficiary payments went directly sent to the Nazis instead.
Feldman said in a 2001 interview that is posted on the Allianz website that he had "unrestricted freedom" to do independent research.
Allianz had hoped that the company would have been able to do business in the United States like other German companies that had ties to Hitler and Nazi Germany and pleaded that the present day company leaders had nothing to do with the Nazi era. Allianz and four other German insurance companies were key backers of the "International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims" and Allianz was a founder of the German Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future." Dr. Feldman's findings in the book along with Allianz taking responsibility for being involved with the Third Reich did nothing to sway Holocaust survivors who were aghast at the thought of Allianz putting the company moniker on the East Rutherford football stadium.
Allianz has never dabbled much into the sports world. The company has the naming rights for the football (soccer) stadium in Munich that houses two clubs, FC Bayern Munich of the Bundesliga and TSV Munich 1860 of the Second Bundesliga. The company also owns Gornik Zabrze, a Poland football club and Allianz also is a sponsor of the AT and T Williams Formula 1 racing team.
On Monday, Allianz joined Adidas, BMW, Lufthansa and Finanzgruppe in financial support of Munich's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. The 1972 Munich Summer Games was the scene of killing of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in the Olympic Village by the Palestinian Black September terrorist cell. Annecy, France, Munich and PyeongChang, South Korea have moved to the final round of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games bid process. The 2018 Games winning bid will be announced by the International Olympic Committee in July 2011. Munich is attempting to become the first city to host a Summer and Winter Olympics.
There will be no corporate name on the Giants-Jets Stadium on Monday night. Naming rights deals have been dwindling although the Jacksonville Jaguars National Football League franchise did get a five-year, $16.6 million contract signed with EverBank at the end of July. That is slightly more than $3 million a year and stipend won't cover the annual contract of a good offensive lineman. The EverBank-Jaguars deal nearly fell through because the city of Jacksonville was entitled to 25 percent of the money. On Tuesday night, the Jacksonville City Council voted 14-3 to give up the approximate $4 million that the city was contractually due and took one for the financially troubled team. City leaders are afraid that Wayne Weaver will move his franchise because there is a lack of support for the team and every million helps. Presumably the Giants-Jets business arrangement is still looking for someone ready to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in naming rights to help pay down the stadium debt. Jerry Jones is still looking for a big payday in Arlington, Texas for Cowboys Stadium. Companies have tightened spending which is why the East Rutherford football venue is called the New Meadowlands Stadium.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on the "Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Alex Rodriguez and Rush Limbaugh faring far better than Tom Hicks and Red McCombs these days
Alex Rodriguez and Rush Limbaugh faring far better than Tom Hicks and Red McCombs these days
MONDAY, 09 AUGUST 2010 18:09
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/alex-rodriguez-and-rush-limbaugh-faring-far-better-than-tom-hicks-and-red-mccombs-these-days
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
It was not a good week for two Texas moneymen whose portfolios included separate ownerships of sports teams and a piece of the ownership of Clear Channel, a radio syndicator and outdoor advertising company. Thomas O. Hicks' Hicks Sports Group hit the financial skids sometime after the economic meltdown in September 2008. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers along with the lease at the team's Arlington stadium and land that surrounds the park from a group that included then Texas Governor George W. Bush for a reported $250 million in 1998. The Hicks Sports Group started when he purchased the NHL's Dallas Stars in 1995 for a reported $82 million. In 2007, Hicks along with then-Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett bought Liverpool FC in the English Premiership for about $430 million.
Hicks was finally relieved of his baseball team last week. Liverpool backers are hoping for the same outcome. In 2007, this reporter while in the U.K. spoke to some Liverpool fans and they said they feared Hicks and his partners would Americanize English football bringing with them luxury boxes and club seats. They did and local football supporters have rued the day that Hicks got the team. The hockey team has drawn some interest but the problem according to some in the know is that Hicks did everything right in Dallas but the team is a money loser.
Meanwhile one of Clear Channel board members, Red McCombs found out last week he may owe the Internal Revenue Service $45 million. McCombs was one of the founders of Clear Channel in 1972 when it was just WOAI radio in San Antonio and ended up owning the ABA/NBA's San Antonio Spurs, the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. McCombs sold the Vikings in 2002 after failing to get the Minnesota legislature to spend money on a new football facility in Minneapolis.
The Hicks Sports Group became an awful investment. In April 2009, Hicks defaulted on $525 million in loans when interest payments were missed. The Rangers franchise declared bankruptcy in May 2010 in an "effort" to speed up the process to get a deal to sell the franchise to a group led by former Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan and Pittsburgh investor Chuck Greenberg on track. The sale of the Rangers ended up in a bankruptcy court last week with the Ryan/Greenberg group battling Mark Cuban and his partner Jim Crane for the franchise.
Ryan and Greenberg group was the highest bidder for the team.
It is interesting to note that while Clear Channel's Rush Limbaugh was again playing the role of whatever is required of Limbaugh to make people notice him and hold attention between commercials that promise to pay off debt and push erectile dysfunctional remedies, Limbaugh made no mention of Hicks problems or the allegations against McCombs. Limbaugh trotted out the same type of lines that got him in hot water while he worked as a football analyst with Disney's ESPN when he complained about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb being protected by the media but this time applied it to First Lady Michelle Obama. Limbaugh quit ESPN on October 1, 2003 three days after he said "McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed." Limbaugh took aim at the media (it must be hard for Limbaugh to figure out what the media is since he is not one of them nor did he every cover a story) because they were not criticizing Mrs. Obama's trip to Spain enough to meet the Limbaugh standard.
"As far as the media's concerned, Mrs. Obama deserves this. Look at the sordid past. Look at our slave past, look at the discriminatory past. It's only fair that people of color get their taste of the wealth of America too," he said on his Friday show.
Hicks was still part of Clear Channel in 2003 when the wrath of the NFL came down on Limbaugh. McCombs is still very much a part of Clear Channel. Silence is golden for Clear Channel executives when it comes to Limbaugh.
Limbaugh must be getting stale as he is recycling old thoughts instead of using that talent that was allegedly on loan from a higher authority. Limbaugh is heard locally on WABC in New York and WPHT in Philadelphia.
Hicks, as the Vice Chairman of Clear Channel, never stood in the way of Limbaugh's daily utterances. Limbaugh, the highly paid carnival barker, was putting a lot of money into Clear Channel's coffers or was he? Limbaugh was paid handsomely by Clear Channel but Clear Channel as a business which included Hicks and McCombs on the board was eight billion dollars in debt.
By all accounts, Hicks was a model owner with both the Rangers and Stars. He signed Alex Rodriguez to baseball's most lucrative contract ever in 2000. He literarily built a youth hockey program in Dallas by constructing ice rinks in the Metroplex while the hockey team became an NHL power. There will be players joining the NHL in years to come because of Hicks and his Stars President Jim Lites endeavours. Hicks was the 1996 co-chair of the "Dallas Jewish Coalition for the Homeless "Vogel Alcove" project, and received the 2000 "Henry Cohn Humanitarian Award" from the Anti-Defamation League.
Yet Hicks is one of the people who allowed Limbaugh and his tirades to fill up the airwaves on hundreds of stations nationally. To be fair, Clear Channel also employed Randi Rhodes who is just as distasteful from the liberal side. CBS (WFAN Radio in New York) and MSNBC fired Don Imus after some banal name calling about the Rutgers women's basketball team. It is hard to tell why someone gets fired for saying something stupid while others get suspended and others skate free. Limbaugh is the darling of the media in that he knows how to get attention and probably still has a sizeable portion of listeners while Imus was fading in the ratings. The question of why anybody takes any of these people seriously needs to be examined. Drug addicts, gamblers, adulterers, political operatives and yes, even criminals set the political discussion and most of these people have no basis to command that type of respect. Yet Limbaugh is given credit as the head of the Republican party. Limbaugh is a genius that he has fooled so many esteemed journalists and politicians or the esteemed journalists and the politicians are not very smart and fall for the circus performer(s).
Talk radio on the AM dial has been a savior for some radio stations that could not compete with the FM dial and then satellite radio. But most of AM talk radio is inane conversation featuring babblers whose sole job is to inflame people and hold their attention between radio commercials.
Clear Channel stations and programming have had a desultory impact on society. The strategy of narrowly targeting an audience is nothing new in radio but the problem is that other media take radio talk show hosts seriously when most of them are just performers with no journalistic background and play the role of courtyard bullies. Ironically, the Clear Channel sprint to the top of the radio industry was made possible by one of Limbaugh's most frequent targets, Bill Clinton. In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Telecommunications Act which allowed Clear Channel and Infinity to gobble up as many stations as they could. Before the 1996 legislation, a company could only have 14 AM and FM stations and only one AM and one FM per market. The two companies did buy and buy and buy but neither company has had financial success and the two companies have put thousands of professional disc jockeys, reporters and other radio staff out of work by consolidating operations. Infinity, CBS or whatever name that CBS is using these days corporately owns New York's two news stations, WINS and WCBS, and WFAN along with a number of FM stations including WCBS-FM.
In terms of profitability, neither Clear Channel nor Infinity has done well. In truth, the entire 1996 Telecommunications Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton, was a fiscal disaster for all except a few like Limbaugh.
The still financially struggling Clear Channel and the company's partner Premier Networks have Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jim Rome, Ryan Seacrest, Bob & Tom, Delilah, Steve Harvey, Blair Garner, George Noory, John Boy and Billy, Big Tigger, Dr. Dean Edell, Elvis Duran, Jason Lewis, Randi Rhodes, Kane, Nikki Sixxon the roster and distribute FOX Sports Radio. Clearly, this is a company that only cares about selling commercials to numerous demographics more than content. Critics contended that Clear Channel was too close to the Bush Administration and pushed for support of the Iraq War. But the truth is, Clear Channel has no ideological agenda and just like Rupert Murdoch, the company was looking for a niche were they could get the most money from advertisers. There is one ideology in radio and TV.
Get as much money as possible in ad sales.
Hicks' baseball legacy will not get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Despite having Alex Rodriguez on the roster (and paying him $252 million to boot---some of ARod's money was deferred and may be in play in the aftermath of the bankruptcy), Texas was never a major player for a title. Hicks never developed the land around the Arlington baseball stadium while ARod was with Hicks' Rangers as planned. Part of the reason ARod signed with Hicks besides the money was that Hicks would develop the acreage around the stadium with ARod as his signature employee and possible spokesman. It never panned out.
Hicks' hockey team won the Stanley Cup in 1999 and he is reviled in Liverpool.
Hicks has left MLB and had Alex Rodriguez wondering about his back pay. Limbaugh and Beck never talk about the people who give them a platform. They should show they are more than just one dimension cartoon characters whose sole purpose is to fill time between selling your gold and sleep deprivation spots. But if they did, they might blow the cover on what radio talk shows are all about, no nothings who scream the loudest and call people names like schoolyard bullies.
It wasn't a good week for Hicks and McCombs, two people who are never in the spotlight but should never be ignored as they are the deciders of how we think and how we are entertained whether it is in sports or on the radio.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
MONDAY, 09 AUGUST 2010 18:09
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/alex-rodriguez-and-rush-limbaugh-faring-far-better-than-tom-hicks-and-red-mccombs-these-days
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
It was not a good week for two Texas moneymen whose portfolios included separate ownerships of sports teams and a piece of the ownership of Clear Channel, a radio syndicator and outdoor advertising company. Thomas O. Hicks' Hicks Sports Group hit the financial skids sometime after the economic meltdown in September 2008. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers along with the lease at the team's Arlington stadium and land that surrounds the park from a group that included then Texas Governor George W. Bush for a reported $250 million in 1998. The Hicks Sports Group started when he purchased the NHL's Dallas Stars in 1995 for a reported $82 million. In 2007, Hicks along with then-Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett bought Liverpool FC in the English Premiership for about $430 million.
Hicks was finally relieved of his baseball team last week. Liverpool backers are hoping for the same outcome. In 2007, this reporter while in the U.K. spoke to some Liverpool fans and they said they feared Hicks and his partners would Americanize English football bringing with them luxury boxes and club seats. They did and local football supporters have rued the day that Hicks got the team. The hockey team has drawn some interest but the problem according to some in the know is that Hicks did everything right in Dallas but the team is a money loser.
Meanwhile one of Clear Channel board members, Red McCombs found out last week he may owe the Internal Revenue Service $45 million. McCombs was one of the founders of Clear Channel in 1972 when it was just WOAI radio in San Antonio and ended up owning the ABA/NBA's San Antonio Spurs, the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. McCombs sold the Vikings in 2002 after failing to get the Minnesota legislature to spend money on a new football facility in Minneapolis.
The Hicks Sports Group became an awful investment. In April 2009, Hicks defaulted on $525 million in loans when interest payments were missed. The Rangers franchise declared bankruptcy in May 2010 in an "effort" to speed up the process to get a deal to sell the franchise to a group led by former Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan and Pittsburgh investor Chuck Greenberg on track. The sale of the Rangers ended up in a bankruptcy court last week with the Ryan/Greenberg group battling Mark Cuban and his partner Jim Crane for the franchise.
Ryan and Greenberg group was the highest bidder for the team.
It is interesting to note that while Clear Channel's Rush Limbaugh was again playing the role of whatever is required of Limbaugh to make people notice him and hold attention between commercials that promise to pay off debt and push erectile dysfunctional remedies, Limbaugh made no mention of Hicks problems or the allegations against McCombs. Limbaugh trotted out the same type of lines that got him in hot water while he worked as a football analyst with Disney's ESPN when he complained about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb being protected by the media but this time applied it to First Lady Michelle Obama. Limbaugh quit ESPN on October 1, 2003 three days after he said "McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed." Limbaugh took aim at the media (it must be hard for Limbaugh to figure out what the media is since he is not one of them nor did he every cover a story) because they were not criticizing Mrs. Obama's trip to Spain enough to meet the Limbaugh standard.
"As far as the media's concerned, Mrs. Obama deserves this. Look at the sordid past. Look at our slave past, look at the discriminatory past. It's only fair that people of color get their taste of the wealth of America too," he said on his Friday show.
Hicks was still part of Clear Channel in 2003 when the wrath of the NFL came down on Limbaugh. McCombs is still very much a part of Clear Channel. Silence is golden for Clear Channel executives when it comes to Limbaugh.
Limbaugh must be getting stale as he is recycling old thoughts instead of using that talent that was allegedly on loan from a higher authority. Limbaugh is heard locally on WABC in New York and WPHT in Philadelphia.
Hicks, as the Vice Chairman of Clear Channel, never stood in the way of Limbaugh's daily utterances. Limbaugh, the highly paid carnival barker, was putting a lot of money into Clear Channel's coffers or was he? Limbaugh was paid handsomely by Clear Channel but Clear Channel as a business which included Hicks and McCombs on the board was eight billion dollars in debt.
By all accounts, Hicks was a model owner with both the Rangers and Stars. He signed Alex Rodriguez to baseball's most lucrative contract ever in 2000. He literarily built a youth hockey program in Dallas by constructing ice rinks in the Metroplex while the hockey team became an NHL power. There will be players joining the NHL in years to come because of Hicks and his Stars President Jim Lites endeavours. Hicks was the 1996 co-chair of the "Dallas Jewish Coalition for the Homeless "Vogel Alcove" project, and received the 2000 "Henry Cohn Humanitarian Award" from the Anti-Defamation League.
Yet Hicks is one of the people who allowed Limbaugh and his tirades to fill up the airwaves on hundreds of stations nationally. To be fair, Clear Channel also employed Randi Rhodes who is just as distasteful from the liberal side. CBS (WFAN Radio in New York) and MSNBC fired Don Imus after some banal name calling about the Rutgers women's basketball team. It is hard to tell why someone gets fired for saying something stupid while others get suspended and others skate free. Limbaugh is the darling of the media in that he knows how to get attention and probably still has a sizeable portion of listeners while Imus was fading in the ratings. The question of why anybody takes any of these people seriously needs to be examined. Drug addicts, gamblers, adulterers, political operatives and yes, even criminals set the political discussion and most of these people have no basis to command that type of respect. Yet Limbaugh is given credit as the head of the Republican party. Limbaugh is a genius that he has fooled so many esteemed journalists and politicians or the esteemed journalists and the politicians are not very smart and fall for the circus performer(s).
Talk radio on the AM dial has been a savior for some radio stations that could not compete with the FM dial and then satellite radio. But most of AM talk radio is inane conversation featuring babblers whose sole job is to inflame people and hold their attention between radio commercials.
Clear Channel stations and programming have had a desultory impact on society. The strategy of narrowly targeting an audience is nothing new in radio but the problem is that other media take radio talk show hosts seriously when most of them are just performers with no journalistic background and play the role of courtyard bullies. Ironically, the Clear Channel sprint to the top of the radio industry was made possible by one of Limbaugh's most frequent targets, Bill Clinton. In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Telecommunications Act which allowed Clear Channel and Infinity to gobble up as many stations as they could. Before the 1996 legislation, a company could only have 14 AM and FM stations and only one AM and one FM per market. The two companies did buy and buy and buy but neither company has had financial success and the two companies have put thousands of professional disc jockeys, reporters and other radio staff out of work by consolidating operations. Infinity, CBS or whatever name that CBS is using these days corporately owns New York's two news stations, WINS and WCBS, and WFAN along with a number of FM stations including WCBS-FM.
In terms of profitability, neither Clear Channel nor Infinity has done well. In truth, the entire 1996 Telecommunications Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton, was a fiscal disaster for all except a few like Limbaugh.
The still financially struggling Clear Channel and the company's partner Premier Networks have Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jim Rome, Ryan Seacrest, Bob & Tom, Delilah, Steve Harvey, Blair Garner, George Noory, John Boy and Billy, Big Tigger, Dr. Dean Edell, Elvis Duran, Jason Lewis, Randi Rhodes, Kane, Nikki Sixxon the roster and distribute FOX Sports Radio. Clearly, this is a company that only cares about selling commercials to numerous demographics more than content. Critics contended that Clear Channel was too close to the Bush Administration and pushed for support of the Iraq War. But the truth is, Clear Channel has no ideological agenda and just like Rupert Murdoch, the company was looking for a niche were they could get the most money from advertisers. There is one ideology in radio and TV.
Get as much money as possible in ad sales.
Hicks' baseball legacy will not get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Despite having Alex Rodriguez on the roster (and paying him $252 million to boot---some of ARod's money was deferred and may be in play in the aftermath of the bankruptcy), Texas was never a major player for a title. Hicks never developed the land around the Arlington baseball stadium while ARod was with Hicks' Rangers as planned. Part of the reason ARod signed with Hicks besides the money was that Hicks would develop the acreage around the stadium with ARod as his signature employee and possible spokesman. It never panned out.
Hicks' hockey team won the Stanley Cup in 1999 and he is reviled in Liverpool.
Hicks has left MLB and had Alex Rodriguez wondering about his back pay. Limbaugh and Beck never talk about the people who give them a platform. They should show they are more than just one dimension cartoon characters whose sole purpose is to fill time between selling your gold and sleep deprivation spots. But if they did, they might blow the cover on what radio talk shows are all about, no nothings who scream the loudest and call people names like schoolyard bullies.
It wasn't a good week for Hicks and McCombs, two people who are never in the spotlight but should never be ignored as they are the deciders of how we think and how we are entertained whether it is in sports or on the radio.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, August 6, 2010
Will the IOC rehabilitate BP’s image?
Will the IOC rehabilitate BP’s image?
FRIDAY, 06 AUGUST 2010 08:25
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/will-the-ioc-rehabilitate-bps-image
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
It's a good thing that Dr. Jacques Rogge is fine with the efforts of British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup. If Dr. Rogge was upset with BP, it would be absolutely disastrous for the International Olympic Committee, The United States Olympic Committee and the 2012 London Summer Olympics because the Belgium medical doctor happens to be the President of the International Olympic Committee and the oil company is a major Olympics sponsor/partner and pours millions upon millions of dollars or pounds into the Olympics movement. Dr. Rogge seems fine with the oil company that is responsible for the largest oil spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.
The April 20 explosion of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and unleashed a spill of hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. But the oil well is being permanently capped and BP is cleaning up the mess and so whatever problems there are with fishermen not being able to earn a living or the eco system has been damaged or the beaches that cannot be used is probably a minor nuisance. It's being cleaned up and as Dr. Rogge pointed out to the Associated Press, "If a company would have been negligent, that's another issue. Everyone can be exposed to an accident."
An accident. That's about it according to Dr. Rogge.
Rogge is fine with the pace of the clean up and why not? In the world of the International Olympic Committee (which is an exclusive men's club made up of Dukes, Lords, Generals, Dictators, Fascists and others---look at the lineage of the Olympics movement leaders), BP is paying the London Organizing Committee about 50 million pounds (about $80 million) and London needs every quid available to pay the ridiculous amount of money it costs to stage an Olympics.
Dr. Rogge, Lord Sebastian Coe (the head of the 2012 London's Olympic Committee), General Electric's NBC Universal media platforms including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network and the Olympics movement may be more important than the possible rebranding of BP than changing the BP name in the United States to Amaco in the hard sell of rehabilitating BP. Because of the money involved and the sponsorship, there will be a see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil mentality will take hold when it comes to BP and the Olympics.
BP has one of those multi-million multi-year Olympics deals.
There are 10 Global sponsors for the 2012 Games, Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos Origin, GE, McDonald's, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung and Visa. The IOC wants two more. GE is General Electric and GE is paying billions for the rights to show the London Olympics so there probably will be a shift soon at NBC in terms of BP.
As the Olympics near, the London event is still two years away, BP could be rehabilitated, at least as far as the Olympics interlocking five rings and the Peacock (NBC) network are concerned.
That's what Olympic sponsorship is all about. The interlocking five rings logo is globally recognized by marketing partners and all of the negative publicity surrounding the Games has whitewashed all the warts about the Olympics. What is forgotten is the debt left behind by the 1976 Montreal Games, the 2000 Sydney Games and the 2004 Athens Games along with the carnage of the 1972 Munich Games, the boycotts of the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Games along with the 1996 Atlanta bombing and the 2010 death of the Georgia luger in Vancouver. There has not been a number attached to the debt that was accrued in the Vancouver Games yet politicians in Canada are already thinking of a possible 2022 bid for the Winter Olympics in Quebec City. If something has the interlocking five rings on it, then all is right with the world.
Peter Ueberroth either enhanced or destroyed the Olympics in 1984 because the Los Angeles Olympics Committee made money and that caught the IOC's eye and that was quickly rectified by the Lords of the Rings.
Ueberroth ran the 1984 Games.
In 1978, the LAOOC (Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee) traveled to Mexico City to meet with the IOC President, Lord Killanian (Ireland) and other IOC officials. LAOOC wanted the Games in 1984 in Los Angeles. John Argue, a Los Angeles attorney, headed the committee. Argue was given instructions by the Mayor Tom Bradley that the city would not be financially responsible for the Games.
"LA was the only bidder for the Games at that time," said an LA insider. "Lord Killanian said no and they could always take the Games back to Munich. LAOOC members said 'do it' and the meetings were over. Mayor Bradley's assistant called him to say we were not going to get the Games as the IOC said the rule has to stand.
"On the way back to the hotel, Argue said he was going to take one more shot at it. Somehow, he convinced Killanian and the IOC officials to put rule aside one time. With that LA got the Games. Argue had one man in mind to run the 1984 Games, and that was Peter Ueberroth.
"Ueberroth opened a bank account with $100 of his own money.
Peter wanted to have as many American corporate sponsorships as possible. And basically, he got them. One interesting item: Companies like Fuji was waiting in line, but Peter wanted Kodak. He was asking $ 4 million from each company. He went to Rochester, New York and met with one of their executives. He told Ueberroth Kodak would give them $1 million. Pete said it was $4 million for everyone. The man said, "Mr. Ueberroth, see that door? When you want to accept $1 million you can come back." Peter said thank you, went to the nearest phone and told Fuji they had the film rights for $4 million. Kodak fired the man."
Los Angeles was the only city that wanted the Games after the Montreal financial fiasco.
"Of course, LA had all the venues and the sports federations were delighted with them," said the LA insider. "However, there was no Olympic swimming pool (the one from the past LA Games was covered over) and a velodrome. He asked McDonalds to pay for an Olympic pool that was built on the USC campus. He asked 7-11 to pay for the velodrome in Carson. (Peter asked his friend, the President of 7-11 to pay for it. The guy said OK, and then said by the way, Peter, what is a velodrome?) UCLA was going to build a new four-story building on the edges of its campus in Westwood. Peter said house us there for a while and he would give UCLA the $four million to construct the building.
"There were 21 Commissioners of the sports. Peter paid them $5,000 a year. Someone asked him how he could pay millionaires 5 grand a year. Ueberroth said because I can fire them. It is difficult to get rid of volunteers and if these men and women were volunteers their head would not be in it. Of course, he didn't have to fire anyone. Everything on the Games went according to clockwork. Peter, Harry Usher (his #2) and Mike Mitchell (Financial and logistics) were superior."
With that Peter Ueberroth changed the Olympics. The IOC made sure that the organization would make sure local and national governments picked up the tab for losses. (When George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, he put aside $100 million for losses in the event that either Houston or Dallas landed the 2012 Games.)
"Of course, the Russians didn't come in retaliation for USA not going to the '80 Moscow Games," said the LA insider "Ticket sales were slow in January, but when the Torch Run across the country took place, tickets went like hot cakes. I believe the Games sold 93% of all tickets.
"The Games made money ($250 million). The deal with ABC (television) was that if the ratings went up and the sponsors paid addition revenue it would be shared. Peter told (The President and Chairman of ABC News) Roone Arledge he wanted his share ($100 million). Roone said the contract called for the Russians to participate. Roone told Peter he would see him in court. Peter became the Baseball Commissioner and Roone paid him the $100 million.
"Ueberroth shared the money. The IOC got a big payday. But he kept $100 million and started a foundation for LA's inner city kids and put money into facilities, equipment, etc. The interest on the money was the foundations budget every year.
"The IOC hated Ueberroth for making all that money and not giving it all to them. (IOC President Juan Antonio) Samaranch had a good relationship with Peter, but he was smart enough to change the rules so that the city/country got stuck and the IOC got the money. Samaranch wanted to open it up to women. He put in women's softball and men's baseball in the Games."
Men's baseball and women's softball are gone, golf and rugby are in. The IOC has never forgiven Major League Baseball for not sending the best professional players in the game to the Olympics party (the IOC's nasty battle with MLB over steroid usage in the sport was the result of MLB's refusal and ultimately one of the reasons Congress called hearings on steroid/performance enhancing drugs was because of IOC pressure on the federal government---the IOC acts like a sovereign nation even though it is nothing more than a global sports operation). The IOC delegates also dropped softball in spite because American women were so dominant.
BP may have been the cause of the worst oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico but that's not a problem for the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee and the London Games. Eleven dead, the local economy wrecked, ecosystems ruined, yet as long as BP cleans up the Gulf, all is well with Dr. Rogge and his group.
It's all about money, money thrown into the IOC, USOC and London Organizing Committee's coffers.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com.
FRIDAY, 06 AUGUST 2010 08:25
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/will-the-ioc-rehabilitate-bps-image
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
It's a good thing that Dr. Jacques Rogge is fine with the efforts of British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup. If Dr. Rogge was upset with BP, it would be absolutely disastrous for the International Olympic Committee, The United States Olympic Committee and the 2012 London Summer Olympics because the Belgium medical doctor happens to be the President of the International Olympic Committee and the oil company is a major Olympics sponsor/partner and pours millions upon millions of dollars or pounds into the Olympics movement. Dr. Rogge seems fine with the oil company that is responsible for the largest oil spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.
The April 20 explosion of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and unleashed a spill of hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. But the oil well is being permanently capped and BP is cleaning up the mess and so whatever problems there are with fishermen not being able to earn a living or the eco system has been damaged or the beaches that cannot be used is probably a minor nuisance. It's being cleaned up and as Dr. Rogge pointed out to the Associated Press, "If a company would have been negligent, that's another issue. Everyone can be exposed to an accident."
An accident. That's about it according to Dr. Rogge.
Rogge is fine with the pace of the clean up and why not? In the world of the International Olympic Committee (which is an exclusive men's club made up of Dukes, Lords, Generals, Dictators, Fascists and others---look at the lineage of the Olympics movement leaders), BP is paying the London Organizing Committee about 50 million pounds (about $80 million) and London needs every quid available to pay the ridiculous amount of money it costs to stage an Olympics.
Dr. Rogge, Lord Sebastian Coe (the head of the 2012 London's Olympic Committee), General Electric's NBC Universal media platforms including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network and the Olympics movement may be more important than the possible rebranding of BP than changing the BP name in the United States to Amaco in the hard sell of rehabilitating BP. Because of the money involved and the sponsorship, there will be a see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil mentality will take hold when it comes to BP and the Olympics.
BP has one of those multi-million multi-year Olympics deals.
There are 10 Global sponsors for the 2012 Games, Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos Origin, GE, McDonald's, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung and Visa. The IOC wants two more. GE is General Electric and GE is paying billions for the rights to show the London Olympics so there probably will be a shift soon at NBC in terms of BP.
As the Olympics near, the London event is still two years away, BP could be rehabilitated, at least as far as the Olympics interlocking five rings and the Peacock (NBC) network are concerned.
That's what Olympic sponsorship is all about. The interlocking five rings logo is globally recognized by marketing partners and all of the negative publicity surrounding the Games has whitewashed all the warts about the Olympics. What is forgotten is the debt left behind by the 1976 Montreal Games, the 2000 Sydney Games and the 2004 Athens Games along with the carnage of the 1972 Munich Games, the boycotts of the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Games along with the 1996 Atlanta bombing and the 2010 death of the Georgia luger in Vancouver. There has not been a number attached to the debt that was accrued in the Vancouver Games yet politicians in Canada are already thinking of a possible 2022 bid for the Winter Olympics in Quebec City. If something has the interlocking five rings on it, then all is right with the world.
Peter Ueberroth either enhanced or destroyed the Olympics in 1984 because the Los Angeles Olympics Committee made money and that caught the IOC's eye and that was quickly rectified by the Lords of the Rings.
Ueberroth ran the 1984 Games.
In 1978, the LAOOC (Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee) traveled to Mexico City to meet with the IOC President, Lord Killanian (Ireland) and other IOC officials. LAOOC wanted the Games in 1984 in Los Angeles. John Argue, a Los Angeles attorney, headed the committee. Argue was given instructions by the Mayor Tom Bradley that the city would not be financially responsible for the Games.
"LA was the only bidder for the Games at that time," said an LA insider. "Lord Killanian said no and they could always take the Games back to Munich. LAOOC members said 'do it' and the meetings were over. Mayor Bradley's assistant called him to say we were not going to get the Games as the IOC said the rule has to stand.
"On the way back to the hotel, Argue said he was going to take one more shot at it. Somehow, he convinced Killanian and the IOC officials to put rule aside one time. With that LA got the Games. Argue had one man in mind to run the 1984 Games, and that was Peter Ueberroth.
"Ueberroth opened a bank account with $100 of his own money.
Peter wanted to have as many American corporate sponsorships as possible. And basically, he got them. One interesting item: Companies like Fuji was waiting in line, but Peter wanted Kodak. He was asking $ 4 million from each company. He went to Rochester, New York and met with one of their executives. He told Ueberroth Kodak would give them $1 million. Pete said it was $4 million for everyone. The man said, "Mr. Ueberroth, see that door? When you want to accept $1 million you can come back." Peter said thank you, went to the nearest phone and told Fuji they had the film rights for $4 million. Kodak fired the man."
Los Angeles was the only city that wanted the Games after the Montreal financial fiasco.
"Of course, LA had all the venues and the sports federations were delighted with them," said the LA insider. "However, there was no Olympic swimming pool (the one from the past LA Games was covered over) and a velodrome. He asked McDonalds to pay for an Olympic pool that was built on the USC campus. He asked 7-11 to pay for the velodrome in Carson. (Peter asked his friend, the President of 7-11 to pay for it. The guy said OK, and then said by the way, Peter, what is a velodrome?) UCLA was going to build a new four-story building on the edges of its campus in Westwood. Peter said house us there for a while and he would give UCLA the $four million to construct the building.
"There were 21 Commissioners of the sports. Peter paid them $5,000 a year. Someone asked him how he could pay millionaires 5 grand a year. Ueberroth said because I can fire them. It is difficult to get rid of volunteers and if these men and women were volunteers their head would not be in it. Of course, he didn't have to fire anyone. Everything on the Games went according to clockwork. Peter, Harry Usher (his #2) and Mike Mitchell (Financial and logistics) were superior."
With that Peter Ueberroth changed the Olympics. The IOC made sure that the organization would make sure local and national governments picked up the tab for losses. (When George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, he put aside $100 million for losses in the event that either Houston or Dallas landed the 2012 Games.)
"Of course, the Russians didn't come in retaliation for USA not going to the '80 Moscow Games," said the LA insider "Ticket sales were slow in January, but when the Torch Run across the country took place, tickets went like hot cakes. I believe the Games sold 93% of all tickets.
"The Games made money ($250 million). The deal with ABC (television) was that if the ratings went up and the sponsors paid addition revenue it would be shared. Peter told (The President and Chairman of ABC News) Roone Arledge he wanted his share ($100 million). Roone said the contract called for the Russians to participate. Roone told Peter he would see him in court. Peter became the Baseball Commissioner and Roone paid him the $100 million.
"Ueberroth shared the money. The IOC got a big payday. But he kept $100 million and started a foundation for LA's inner city kids and put money into facilities, equipment, etc. The interest on the money was the foundations budget every year.
"The IOC hated Ueberroth for making all that money and not giving it all to them. (IOC President Juan Antonio) Samaranch had a good relationship with Peter, but he was smart enough to change the rules so that the city/country got stuck and the IOC got the money. Samaranch wanted to open it up to women. He put in women's softball and men's baseball in the Games."
Men's baseball and women's softball are gone, golf and rugby are in. The IOC has never forgiven Major League Baseball for not sending the best professional players in the game to the Olympics party (the IOC's nasty battle with MLB over steroid usage in the sport was the result of MLB's refusal and ultimately one of the reasons Congress called hearings on steroid/performance enhancing drugs was because of IOC pressure on the federal government---the IOC acts like a sovereign nation even though it is nothing more than a global sports operation). The IOC delegates also dropped softball in spite because American women were so dominant.
BP may have been the cause of the worst oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico but that's not a problem for the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee and the London Games. Eleven dead, the local economy wrecked, ecosystems ruined, yet as long as BP cleans up the Gulf, all is well with Dr. Rogge and his group.
It's all about money, money thrown into the IOC, USOC and London Organizing Committee's coffers.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Tank Younger, Eddie Robinson and James Harris and the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Tank Younger, Eddie Robinson and James Harris and the 1964 Civil Rights Act
By Evan Weiner
(New York, N. Y.) -- About 19 years ago, Eddie Robinson was holding court at a hotel off of Route 17 in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey talking about his 50-year career as the football coach at Grambling University and about two players in particular, Tank Younger and James Harris. Younger was one of Robinson's first great players and yet there was a question of whether he could land a job in the National Football League with the Los Angeles Rams in 1949 because of the color of his skin. Harris was a quarterback with skill, but there was a question about his ability to become an NFL quarterback. It also had to do with his skin color.
In 2010, there is once again talk about race in the United States. The latest salvo was caused by a media that is far too sloppy in a rush to produce "Good TV" or "Good radio" in an effort to keep viewers and listeners attention from commercial to commercial. A doctored video of a speech by former Department of Agricultural employee Shirley Sherrod that was circulated by conservative blogger Andrew Beirtbart unleashed the usual cable TV news discussion about race which featured the usual talking heads "debating" the subject in a far than less scholarly fashion.
Radio and TV bookers should pay attention to history and talk to people who experienced life before and after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 instead of rounded up the unusual suspects that are herded into the cable TV news studio to give their viewpoint which is usually designed to bolster ratings than be reviewed by future generations as a matter of public record.
Higher ratings mean higher ad revenue for the cable TV news channels although most of the operation is funded by cable subscribers who are forced to pay for the channels whether they want the or not if the consumer wants the basic expanded tier. The news networks are bundled by multiple systems operators thanks in part to the Cable Act of 1984 which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.
Why cable TV news outlets and the rest of the fourth estate take Breitbart and his ilk from both sides of the aisle seriously is a question that can only be answered by editors and TV executives. But it has a lot to do with a media psychology that people will watch or listen to or read about train wrecks instead of a well reasoned conversation. A lot of opinion makers in radio seem to have a commonality, abuse problems whether it is drugs, alcohol, gambling, sexual harassment allegations, libel charges or jail time. They also call people names acting like a bully knowing that they are safe in a studio and it is a one way conversation that is controlled by the talk show host. The discourse would never be tolerated in elementary school with the student who emulated a talk show host being brought into the principal's office facing possible suspension.
Americans expect more out of a fifth grader's behavior than a radio talk show host.
The talk show host's instructions from upper management is to go after disgruntled listeners who are angry with their life, their job, their spouse, their kids and anything else and get them even angrier. These are the people that media executives, particularly in radio, have hired to be opinion makers. Whether people liked William Buckley's politics or not, Buckley was always civil in his discussions except with Gore Vidal. Buckley was not alone in being polite and civil.
Eddie Robinson coached Grambling University's football team between 1941 and 1997. He died three years ago. In that hotel room back in 1991, Robinson talked about Younger who played before the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964 and of Harris who had the ability to play in the NFL in 1968, four years after the law was passed. He spoke about the NFL reluctant to have a black quarterback on the team because Negros, blacks and African Americans were not smart enough to play quarterback in the NFL.
Tank Younger was the guy that really needed to make it according to Robinson in 1949. If Younger failed, the NFL might not have taken a chance with a player from a predominantly black college.
The National Football League had no Negro, black or African-American players between 1933 and 1945. One of the conditions attached to the Rams franchise move from Cleveland to the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1946 was that the Rams hire Negro players. The rival All American Football Conference did hire Negro players in 1946.
Younger was selected as the Black College Player of the Year in 1948 but he wasn't drafted by any NFL teams. He was signed as a free agent by Los Angeles.
"Younger was the first one, we had a time with him. They didn't want to give him. it was a matter of about six thousand and a coach told me, he said Eddie it would be better if you let us pay him four, because there is going to be a lot of great guys in camp and it might be between Tank and a guy who is making six and they would go ahead and keep Tank," said Robinson. "I said you give him the six and if he doesn't show you, cut him. The coach didn't want to do that but Tank made it. It was only because we spent all day talking about just giving him the chance to play and if he wasn't worth the six-thousand dollars he didn't need to be in the league He was our first football player to make the NFL and I guess when Tank left Grambling, he was in the best shape of any football player. He practiced all summer, he'd run the sprints, he caught the passes and he had done everything.
"And when we carried Tank, back in those days was real popular. We carried Tank to the train that stopped and one of the kids asked Tank, 'you think you are going to make it?' he said if they are playing football. If they are playing basketball, I probably won't make it.
"Sometimes you think about what might have happened if Tank hadn't made it. He opened it up and since that time the people from the NFL teams have always been coming to our campus."
A decade later, the Cleveland Browns took an offensive lineman named Willie Davis. Cleveland didn't think too much of his ability and let him go. Davis went to Green Bay where Vince Lombardi turned him into a defensive end and that was the start of not only a successful football career but a highly decorated business career for the player who was not good enough in Cleveland. Davis owned radio station and served on many board of directors after his playing days ended in 1969. Davis is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The American Football League paid close attention to Grambling and the traditional black colleges with the Kansas City Chiefs leading the way. Kansas City took one of Robinson's stars, Buck Buchanan with the first pick of the 1963 AFL draft. To illustrate the difference between the leagues, Buchanan was a 19th round selection by the New York Giants. The AFL showed a willingness to sign black players while Congress literarily had to force Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall to hire in black player in 1962.
"I knew Lloyd Wells (the magazine photographer/football scout with Kansas City who uncovered many talented black players), the guy with Otis Taylor. (Don) Klosterman (the Chiefs General Manager) was one of top persons at that time and he was friendly with Lloyd Wells and all of those people. They would come over to Grambling and have a great session."
Kansas City had Buchanan, Taylor and a host of black college players and by 1966, Kansas City had a Super Bowl.
Robinson had another Hall of Fame caliber player too who signed as a free agent with an American Football League team in Willie Brown. Willie Brown signed with Houston and was cut, he went to Denver and ended up with Al Davis in Oakland and became a great player.
Robinson was turning out players but the NFL still had an unwritten rule about black quarterbacks. The NFL had none in the 1960s. The last black quarterback was Willie Thrower who took a few snaps for the Chicago Bears in a game on October 8, 1953 against San Francisco. Chicago lost and Thrower was just three for eight in passing for 27 yards. Thrower led Michigan State to a national college championship in 1952. He was ignored by the 12 NFL teams in the 1953 draft and signed a deal with Chicago as a free agent.
There were just a little more than a dozen black players in the NFL in 1953. Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney voted against moving the New York Yankees to Dallas for the 1952 season because Rooney was feared for the safety of black players in Dallas. That was the NFL back in the 1950s.
NFL coaches also didn't think to quote the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball executive in an interview on ABC's Nightline in April 6, 1987 that blacks "did not have some of the necessities" to be a quarterback, center or middle linebacker in football. In 1987, Campanis was talking about why there were no black managers or general managers in Major League Baseball at the time. He could have easily been talking about the NFL of the 1950s as well.
In 1962 Sandy Stephens was drafted by the NFL's Cleveland Browns and the AFL's New York Titans. Stephens was a great quarterback for the University of Minnesota and finished fourth in the 1961 Heisman Trophy balloting but neither the Browns (who took him in the second round) or the Titans (he was the fifth player selected in the AFL Draft) wanted him as a quarterback. He ended up with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes.
In the late 1960s, a number of years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, there was still the question. Why weren't there any black quarterbacks in the NFL? Robinson thought he had a guy that could be an NFL starter in Harris but the "necessities" issue was a problem.
While Harris was a senior at Grambling in 1968, the AFL finally had a black starting quarterback in Denver as Marlin Briscoe took snaps for the Broncos. But the NFL still had not had a black field general (quarterbacks used to call plays on the field) since 1953.
"I wanted whatever it was to try to change whatever I needed or whatever could change in football," said Robinson. "You know they came to me and said the black quarterback didn't have the mentality to make it in the league. Then I know Howard Cosell and he had always been a friend of mine and asked me to be on the (TV) program when I came up here (New York). I did. I was afraid he was going to ask a lot of questions that might embarrass me but I knew he really didn't want to embarrass me but he promised he wouldn't and the first question he asked me he said, “Eddie, after you have been in the game for the great number of years you have coached, do you feel you have the ability that you can train a quarterback who play, lead a team, in the NFL? Nobody had done it before.
"I told him yeah. Yeah, I can do it, I think I can do it. I told him I knew he was going to ask me a question like that. But I got on the airplane, I went straight back to Louisiana. We were recruiting James Harris (1964). I went to James Harris and got James up after I got off the airplane and his mother and I told them we wanted him to be the first quarterback to start in the NFL. The first requirement was graduating. If you have a diploma, you have some kind of intelligence. He did and we got him."
Robinson was right about Harris although Harris was just a mid-level draft choice by the Buffalo Bills in the 1969 combined AFL-NFL Draft. Harris was Buffalo's starter on opening day in 1969. Ironically Denver sent Briscoe to Buffalo where he switched positions and became a wide receiver catching balls thrown by Harris.
Harris had an up and down NFL career with Buffalo, Los Angeles and San Diego. He was the first black quarterback ever to start a conference championship game in 1974 and was the MVP of the 1974 Pro Bowl Game. He has had a long career in football and among the titles he has held was the Vice President of Player Personnel of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Robinson had one other quarterback who made history. Doug Williams was the first black quarterback ever to lead a team to a Super Bowl victory in Washington's win over Denver in Super Bowl XXII. Williams was the Most Valuable Player of the game.
Rand Paul and Andrew Breitbart reignited a discussion of race relations in America this year. Breitbart should not have gotten as far as he did with his doctored video but today's journalism is long on sensationalism and short on explanations especially on the cable news networks or talk radio, two mediums that give carnival barkers a bad name. If cable TV and the radio talkers want to really do a service, there are still plenty of people around who can tell them stories from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s instead of the rabble rousers who present one sided arguments on radio or the fabricated "debates" on cable news which are all designed to keep the attention of the aging core demographic of sixty years and older so that they listen or watch long enough to hear some commercial for some pill to relieve some pain.
Evan Weiner is an award winning radio-TV commentator and columnist who lecturers on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com.
By Evan Weiner
(New York, N. Y.) -- About 19 years ago, Eddie Robinson was holding court at a hotel off of Route 17 in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey talking about his 50-year career as the football coach at Grambling University and about two players in particular, Tank Younger and James Harris. Younger was one of Robinson's first great players and yet there was a question of whether he could land a job in the National Football League with the Los Angeles Rams in 1949 because of the color of his skin. Harris was a quarterback with skill, but there was a question about his ability to become an NFL quarterback. It also had to do with his skin color.
In 2010, there is once again talk about race in the United States. The latest salvo was caused by a media that is far too sloppy in a rush to produce "Good TV" or "Good radio" in an effort to keep viewers and listeners attention from commercial to commercial. A doctored video of a speech by former Department of Agricultural employee Shirley Sherrod that was circulated by conservative blogger Andrew Beirtbart unleashed the usual cable TV news discussion about race which featured the usual talking heads "debating" the subject in a far than less scholarly fashion.
Radio and TV bookers should pay attention to history and talk to people who experienced life before and after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 instead of rounded up the unusual suspects that are herded into the cable TV news studio to give their viewpoint which is usually designed to bolster ratings than be reviewed by future generations as a matter of public record.
Higher ratings mean higher ad revenue for the cable TV news channels although most of the operation is funded by cable subscribers who are forced to pay for the channels whether they want the or not if the consumer wants the basic expanded tier. The news networks are bundled by multiple systems operators thanks in part to the Cable Act of 1984 which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.
Why cable TV news outlets and the rest of the fourth estate take Breitbart and his ilk from both sides of the aisle seriously is a question that can only be answered by editors and TV executives. But it has a lot to do with a media psychology that people will watch or listen to or read about train wrecks instead of a well reasoned conversation. A lot of opinion makers in radio seem to have a commonality, abuse problems whether it is drugs, alcohol, gambling, sexual harassment allegations, libel charges or jail time. They also call people names acting like a bully knowing that they are safe in a studio and it is a one way conversation that is controlled by the talk show host. The discourse would never be tolerated in elementary school with the student who emulated a talk show host being brought into the principal's office facing possible suspension.
Americans expect more out of a fifth grader's behavior than a radio talk show host.
The talk show host's instructions from upper management is to go after disgruntled listeners who are angry with their life, their job, their spouse, their kids and anything else and get them even angrier. These are the people that media executives, particularly in radio, have hired to be opinion makers. Whether people liked William Buckley's politics or not, Buckley was always civil in his discussions except with Gore Vidal. Buckley was not alone in being polite and civil.
Eddie Robinson coached Grambling University's football team between 1941 and 1997. He died three years ago. In that hotel room back in 1991, Robinson talked about Younger who played before the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964 and of Harris who had the ability to play in the NFL in 1968, four years after the law was passed. He spoke about the NFL reluctant to have a black quarterback on the team because Negros, blacks and African Americans were not smart enough to play quarterback in the NFL.
Tank Younger was the guy that really needed to make it according to Robinson in 1949. If Younger failed, the NFL might not have taken a chance with a player from a predominantly black college.
The National Football League had no Negro, black or African-American players between 1933 and 1945. One of the conditions attached to the Rams franchise move from Cleveland to the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1946 was that the Rams hire Negro players. The rival All American Football Conference did hire Negro players in 1946.
Younger was selected as the Black College Player of the Year in 1948 but he wasn't drafted by any NFL teams. He was signed as a free agent by Los Angeles.
"Younger was the first one, we had a time with him. They didn't want to give him. it was a matter of about six thousand and a coach told me, he said Eddie it would be better if you let us pay him four, because there is going to be a lot of great guys in camp and it might be between Tank and a guy who is making six and they would go ahead and keep Tank," said Robinson. "I said you give him the six and if he doesn't show you, cut him. The coach didn't want to do that but Tank made it. It was only because we spent all day talking about just giving him the chance to play and if he wasn't worth the six-thousand dollars he didn't need to be in the league He was our first football player to make the NFL and I guess when Tank left Grambling, he was in the best shape of any football player. He practiced all summer, he'd run the sprints, he caught the passes and he had done everything.
"And when we carried Tank, back in those days was real popular. We carried Tank to the train that stopped and one of the kids asked Tank, 'you think you are going to make it?' he said if they are playing football. If they are playing basketball, I probably won't make it.
"Sometimes you think about what might have happened if Tank hadn't made it. He opened it up and since that time the people from the NFL teams have always been coming to our campus."
A decade later, the Cleveland Browns took an offensive lineman named Willie Davis. Cleveland didn't think too much of his ability and let him go. Davis went to Green Bay where Vince Lombardi turned him into a defensive end and that was the start of not only a successful football career but a highly decorated business career for the player who was not good enough in Cleveland. Davis owned radio station and served on many board of directors after his playing days ended in 1969. Davis is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The American Football League paid close attention to Grambling and the traditional black colleges with the Kansas City Chiefs leading the way. Kansas City took one of Robinson's stars, Buck Buchanan with the first pick of the 1963 AFL draft. To illustrate the difference between the leagues, Buchanan was a 19th round selection by the New York Giants. The AFL showed a willingness to sign black players while Congress literarily had to force Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall to hire in black player in 1962.
"I knew Lloyd Wells (the magazine photographer/football scout with Kansas City who uncovered many talented black players), the guy with Otis Taylor. (Don) Klosterman (the Chiefs General Manager) was one of top persons at that time and he was friendly with Lloyd Wells and all of those people. They would come over to Grambling and have a great session."
Kansas City had Buchanan, Taylor and a host of black college players and by 1966, Kansas City had a Super Bowl.
Robinson had another Hall of Fame caliber player too who signed as a free agent with an American Football League team in Willie Brown. Willie Brown signed with Houston and was cut, he went to Denver and ended up with Al Davis in Oakland and became a great player.
Robinson was turning out players but the NFL still had an unwritten rule about black quarterbacks. The NFL had none in the 1960s. The last black quarterback was Willie Thrower who took a few snaps for the Chicago Bears in a game on October 8, 1953 against San Francisco. Chicago lost and Thrower was just three for eight in passing for 27 yards. Thrower led Michigan State to a national college championship in 1952. He was ignored by the 12 NFL teams in the 1953 draft and signed a deal with Chicago as a free agent.
There were just a little more than a dozen black players in the NFL in 1953. Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney voted against moving the New York Yankees to Dallas for the 1952 season because Rooney was feared for the safety of black players in Dallas. That was the NFL back in the 1950s.
NFL coaches also didn't think to quote the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball executive in an interview on ABC's Nightline in April 6, 1987 that blacks "did not have some of the necessities" to be a quarterback, center or middle linebacker in football. In 1987, Campanis was talking about why there were no black managers or general managers in Major League Baseball at the time. He could have easily been talking about the NFL of the 1950s as well.
In 1962 Sandy Stephens was drafted by the NFL's Cleveland Browns and the AFL's New York Titans. Stephens was a great quarterback for the University of Minnesota and finished fourth in the 1961 Heisman Trophy balloting but neither the Browns (who took him in the second round) or the Titans (he was the fifth player selected in the AFL Draft) wanted him as a quarterback. He ended up with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes.
In the late 1960s, a number of years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, there was still the question. Why weren't there any black quarterbacks in the NFL? Robinson thought he had a guy that could be an NFL starter in Harris but the "necessities" issue was a problem.
While Harris was a senior at Grambling in 1968, the AFL finally had a black starting quarterback in Denver as Marlin Briscoe took snaps for the Broncos. But the NFL still had not had a black field general (quarterbacks used to call plays on the field) since 1953.
"I wanted whatever it was to try to change whatever I needed or whatever could change in football," said Robinson. "You know they came to me and said the black quarterback didn't have the mentality to make it in the league. Then I know Howard Cosell and he had always been a friend of mine and asked me to be on the (TV) program when I came up here (New York). I did. I was afraid he was going to ask a lot of questions that might embarrass me but I knew he really didn't want to embarrass me but he promised he wouldn't and the first question he asked me he said, “Eddie, after you have been in the game for the great number of years you have coached, do you feel you have the ability that you can train a quarterback who play, lead a team, in the NFL? Nobody had done it before.
"I told him yeah. Yeah, I can do it, I think I can do it. I told him I knew he was going to ask me a question like that. But I got on the airplane, I went straight back to Louisiana. We were recruiting James Harris (1964). I went to James Harris and got James up after I got off the airplane and his mother and I told them we wanted him to be the first quarterback to start in the NFL. The first requirement was graduating. If you have a diploma, you have some kind of intelligence. He did and we got him."
Robinson was right about Harris although Harris was just a mid-level draft choice by the Buffalo Bills in the 1969 combined AFL-NFL Draft. Harris was Buffalo's starter on opening day in 1969. Ironically Denver sent Briscoe to Buffalo where he switched positions and became a wide receiver catching balls thrown by Harris.
Harris had an up and down NFL career with Buffalo, Los Angeles and San Diego. He was the first black quarterback ever to start a conference championship game in 1974 and was the MVP of the 1974 Pro Bowl Game. He has had a long career in football and among the titles he has held was the Vice President of Player Personnel of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Robinson had one other quarterback who made history. Doug Williams was the first black quarterback ever to lead a team to a Super Bowl victory in Washington's win over Denver in Super Bowl XXII. Williams was the Most Valuable Player of the game.
Rand Paul and Andrew Breitbart reignited a discussion of race relations in America this year. Breitbart should not have gotten as far as he did with his doctored video but today's journalism is long on sensationalism and short on explanations especially on the cable news networks or talk radio, two mediums that give carnival barkers a bad name. If cable TV and the radio talkers want to really do a service, there are still plenty of people around who can tell them stories from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s instead of the rabble rousers who present one sided arguments on radio or the fabricated "debates" on cable news which are all designed to keep the attention of the aging core demographic of sixty years and older so that they listen or watch long enough to hear some commercial for some pill to relieve some pain.
Evan Weiner is an award winning radio-TV commentator and columnist who lecturers on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
NFL’s concussion warning poster a small step for football
NFL’s concussion warning poster a small step for football
TUESDAY, 03 AUGUST 2010 15:47
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfls-concussion-warning-poster-a-small-step-for-football
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
When Brent Boyd reported to the Minnesota Vikings training camp in 1980 after being selected in the third round of that year's draft, the last thing on his mind was testifying before a Congressional panel about the plight of former National Football League players who suffered head injuries doing their jobs as professional football players. Boyd was a guard and like a lot of rookies, he was eager to make a favorable impression of Vikings coach Bud Grant.
Twenty-seven Septembers later in 2007, Boyd was telling members of the United States Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that he suffered brain damage from concussions, and how a disability review board rejected the opinion of two doctors who said his health problems were caused by football and sided with a third doctor who didn't agree with the other two. Boyd testified that the NFL and NFLPA were battling links between long-term health problems and concussions in the same way tobacco companies once fought links between cancer and cigarettes.
Nearly three years later, a good number of retired players are frustrated and wondering whatever happened to NFL provided healthcare after they left the NFL and why the public — both football and non-football fans — is paying their healthcare.
Boyd is still battling for NFL — not public — health benefits.
Boyd has been one of the most vocal critics of the National Football League and the National Football League Players Association. He remembered the game that would ultimately change his life. It was the final pre-season game of the 1980 season, Boyd's Vikings took on the Miami Dolphins at the old Orange Bowl. Boyd was knocked out on a play and lost sight in his right eye. He was on the sidelines telling his coach that he could see out of his right eye, the coach said can you see out of your left eye, Boyd said yes and went back into the game.
He had his bell rung. It wasn't a concussion or anything serious, he was wobbly, dizzy and couldn't see out of his right eye but as soon as all of that went away, he would be fine. It was like hitting your funny bone. Boyd was a rookie hoping to make the team and would do anything not to be cut including staying in the game. It was the turning point of Boyd's life. He made the team but his health was severely compromised. It was the first of dozens or maybe even hundreds of concussions he suffered. The injury would eventually cost him his career, a possibility of going to law school, his marriage, his post career jobs and his house. It was not until 1989 he said that he found out that the constant dizziness and fatigue were caused by the head injuries.
Boyd was out of football by 1987 at the age of 30. "Guys who retire in their 20s and 30s have a regular life ahead of them. Careers, family, you have to pay mortgages. It took away my mind, my potential dreams and goals," he said. But Boyd because of the multiple concussions could not have that and became the "father of the new movement on concussions" instead.
Out of that Boyd founded "Dignity After Football" which is a group that is fighting for the "decent benefits and dignity" for former American and National Football League players who performed in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s before the explosion of salaries in the game. Boyd wants to get the message out to the people who fund the game, TV partners, marketing partners, the people who buy luxury boxes, club suites, park in valet parking and use in-stadium restaurants and buy merchandise along with just everyday football fans. The group that includes Roman Gabriel, Joe Kapp and Ed White wants people to know that "former players live out their lives above the poverty lines and did not know how playing on Astroturf, which was developed by Monsanto, (or polyturf) would impact their bodies and the players were never told about the dangers of 'getting your bell rung' which was a concussion with serious long term effects."
The National Football League has, at least, publicly posted a warning to players which will be posted in NFL locker rooms that comes complete with a warning which seems similar to the little blurbs on cigarette packs that say smoking can be harmful. The NFL's poster includes a warning — that concussions "can change your life and your family's life forever." The warning has slogans such as "Let's Take Brain Injuries Out of Play" and has information about concussions such as facts, symptoms, and poses questions such as "Why Should I Report My Symptoms" and "What Should I Do If I Think I've Had a Concussion."
The NFL seems to be willing to acknowledge there is a problem after years of denial but for former players like Boyd, the operative word here is seems. There is little movement to help the older players like the 53-year old Boyd who rely on government programs such as Social Security and Medicare for their health care.
"There is no health care," said Boyd. (The injuries) drains bank accounts, forces divorces. We (as football players) went in with the understanding that there was a safety net."
But there was no safety net and that leads to two questions. Were members of the National Football League Players Association underrepresented under their Executive Directors Ed Garvey and Gene Upshaw and should municipalities be liable for some of the injuries because ultimately municipalities ran stadiums that players knew were unsafe? Players would tell anyone who listened that the municipally owned stadiums in Philadelphia and Houston were the worst playing surfaces around and that the "artificial turf" under any name was taking a toll on the players well being.
Could the players go after the NFLPA in court for not getting benefits as part of the collective bargaining agreement with the owners? Could the players go after the municipalities or someone for installing Astroturf or polyturf or some other surface which was on top of a thin rubber pad on top of asphalt or cement? Is it too late to go after all the municipalities that had unsafe fields?
Boyd is not sure about a class action suit by the former players against their former association but the municipality liability is a question that might be worth pursuing.
The ersatz turf had bubbles and seems which players didn't think much about during the course of doing their jobs. Some players suffered knee injuries just hitting a seem, players that were knocked down hit the ground hard on a turf that the rug on top of the rubber on top of the asphalt or cement, the brain could not handle that type of impact.
In addition to his head injuries, Boyd has had knee replacements and has bad hips. The need replacements were paid by the United States government insurance programs, not the NFL.
Boyd has taken his case to Washington and is hoping that the United States Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other members of the Senate and the House of Representatives will put pressure on the NFL and the NFLPA to take care of the older players.
A lot of the former players though are keeping quiet publicly. Privately there are e-mails from former players such as this one whose name will not be identified.
"I just had neck surgery and I am scheduled to have lumbar (L3 L4 L5) surgery in November. I am thinking about trying the Oxygen chambers for my recovery as well as, using the Oxygen chambers to reduce some of the pain in my lower back that I suffer with daily.
"Question: Will this treatment (Oxygen chamber) help me? How will it help? How often should I administer this treatment in order to see the benefits? However, it's $$Very Expensive. I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thank you for any assistance that you can provide on this matter and concern."
Some former players are pushing for the NFL to install hyperbaric oxygen chambers at training facilities and stadiums to help players (and former) players with head injuries and memory loss.
There is also a new collective bargaining agreement that needs to be negotiated between the owners and players. The present agreement ends shortly after the Super Bowl is played in February. So far there is no political pressure on the owners and players to address the old players needs however that could change if Congress decides to take a closer look at the NFL.
Why should Congress be involved? Congress created today's NFL. The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was Brooklyn Congressman Emanuel Cellar's gift to then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and NFL owners. Cellar got the bill passed in the House, The Senate agreed and President John F. Kennedy signed it into law on September 30, 1961. The bill allowed the NFL to sell all 14 teams as one entity to a TV network. CBS beat out NBC with a major contract that was worth more than all 14 individual local NFL TV networks combined and started the NFL gold mine. The American Football League's 1964 agreement with NBC made it possible for the league to challenge the NFL financially and ultimately force a merger between the competitors in 1966.
Congress had to approve the merger. Both the House and Senate signed off on the merger and President Lyndon Johnson's signature in 1966 created a super football league and the Super Bowl.
Additionally two Congressional bills that were signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the Tax Act of 1986 greatly benefitted the NFL (and all major league sports in the United States). Owners were able to make billions because of the changes in the cable TV structure which a basic expanded tier and ruled out a la carte selections by consumers and the changes in the tax code changed the way municipalities funded stadiums. Municipalities could get as little as eight cents on the dollar from stadium revenues to pay off stadium debt. It is not a coincidence that most new or renovated stadium and arena facilities in the United States were built after 1986.
Boyd thinks the National Football League Players Association should have taken better care of the players but the players have never really looked after much except getting paid more money. Boyd was the Vikings player rep during the 1982 strike and said that the players had to be sold on paying union dues as it was voluntary in those days and that players just concentrated on ending the strike of 1982 and getting back on the field. An effort to include players who played before 1959 in a benefits package failed in 1982. These were the same players who formed the NFLPA back in 1956.
The players wanted more immediately and never thought about the future and the Garvey-Upshaw team always concentrated on getting more money but some players privately complained about making sure that someone took care of playing conditions and severance/health packages.
Money won out. A pension and disability plan lost. Twenty five years after the 1982 strike, pension and disability remained a problem that Congress wanted to know about.
"We fought for the salaries and benefits (today's players get); it would be a classy thing for today's players (to give some benefits). You are only allowed the benefits you negotiate," Boyd said.
Boyd is one of the few who is visibly out in the public talking about the old players. The old players do talk among themselves about injuries but there is a football mentality of suck it up. They know football is a violent game and that a player will get injured. But it is still for them, take one for the team or as the Giants defensive lineman Jim Burt said after the 1987 strike when the players folded like a cheap suit, "we are used to be hit over the head but its okay."
The mentality has not seemed to change much after retirement.
"There is a touch of machismo," said Boyd. "There is fatalism, an embarrassment. Why do it if nothing is going on?" The fatalism comes out. "I don't know how many years I have left but I don't feel robbed (by playing football). I made uninformed decisions, that's what you made. I feel robbed that I didn't have that information (on head injuries), there is an irony at the same time the NFL is being the good guy with the posters about concussions, they denied (Boyd's) disability."
The poster is up in NFL locker rooms on concussions. But the former players who have had life altering injuries have seen no real change. For a good many of them, they are out of sight and out of mind even though they were the guys immortalized by the voice of John Facenda on NFL Films, sportswriters and TV networks, and built the National Football League into the America's most popular game.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
TUESDAY, 03 AUGUST 2010 15:47
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfls-concussion-warning-poster-a-small-step-for-football
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
When Brent Boyd reported to the Minnesota Vikings training camp in 1980 after being selected in the third round of that year's draft, the last thing on his mind was testifying before a Congressional panel about the plight of former National Football League players who suffered head injuries doing their jobs as professional football players. Boyd was a guard and like a lot of rookies, he was eager to make a favorable impression of Vikings coach Bud Grant.
Twenty-seven Septembers later in 2007, Boyd was telling members of the United States Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that he suffered brain damage from concussions, and how a disability review board rejected the opinion of two doctors who said his health problems were caused by football and sided with a third doctor who didn't agree with the other two. Boyd testified that the NFL and NFLPA were battling links between long-term health problems and concussions in the same way tobacco companies once fought links between cancer and cigarettes.
Nearly three years later, a good number of retired players are frustrated and wondering whatever happened to NFL provided healthcare after they left the NFL and why the public — both football and non-football fans — is paying their healthcare.
Boyd is still battling for NFL — not public — health benefits.
Boyd has been one of the most vocal critics of the National Football League and the National Football League Players Association. He remembered the game that would ultimately change his life. It was the final pre-season game of the 1980 season, Boyd's Vikings took on the Miami Dolphins at the old Orange Bowl. Boyd was knocked out on a play and lost sight in his right eye. He was on the sidelines telling his coach that he could see out of his right eye, the coach said can you see out of your left eye, Boyd said yes and went back into the game.
He had his bell rung. It wasn't a concussion or anything serious, he was wobbly, dizzy and couldn't see out of his right eye but as soon as all of that went away, he would be fine. It was like hitting your funny bone. Boyd was a rookie hoping to make the team and would do anything not to be cut including staying in the game. It was the turning point of Boyd's life. He made the team but his health was severely compromised. It was the first of dozens or maybe even hundreds of concussions he suffered. The injury would eventually cost him his career, a possibility of going to law school, his marriage, his post career jobs and his house. It was not until 1989 he said that he found out that the constant dizziness and fatigue were caused by the head injuries.
Boyd was out of football by 1987 at the age of 30. "Guys who retire in their 20s and 30s have a regular life ahead of them. Careers, family, you have to pay mortgages. It took away my mind, my potential dreams and goals," he said. But Boyd because of the multiple concussions could not have that and became the "father of the new movement on concussions" instead.
Out of that Boyd founded "Dignity After Football" which is a group that is fighting for the "decent benefits and dignity" for former American and National Football League players who performed in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s before the explosion of salaries in the game. Boyd wants to get the message out to the people who fund the game, TV partners, marketing partners, the people who buy luxury boxes, club suites, park in valet parking and use in-stadium restaurants and buy merchandise along with just everyday football fans. The group that includes Roman Gabriel, Joe Kapp and Ed White wants people to know that "former players live out their lives above the poverty lines and did not know how playing on Astroturf, which was developed by Monsanto, (or polyturf) would impact their bodies and the players were never told about the dangers of 'getting your bell rung' which was a concussion with serious long term effects."
The National Football League has, at least, publicly posted a warning to players which will be posted in NFL locker rooms that comes complete with a warning which seems similar to the little blurbs on cigarette packs that say smoking can be harmful. The NFL's poster includes a warning — that concussions "can change your life and your family's life forever." The warning has slogans such as "Let's Take Brain Injuries Out of Play" and has information about concussions such as facts, symptoms, and poses questions such as "Why Should I Report My Symptoms" and "What Should I Do If I Think I've Had a Concussion."
The NFL seems to be willing to acknowledge there is a problem after years of denial but for former players like Boyd, the operative word here is seems. There is little movement to help the older players like the 53-year old Boyd who rely on government programs such as Social Security and Medicare for their health care.
"There is no health care," said Boyd. (The injuries) drains bank accounts, forces divorces. We (as football players) went in with the understanding that there was a safety net."
But there was no safety net and that leads to two questions. Were members of the National Football League Players Association underrepresented under their Executive Directors Ed Garvey and Gene Upshaw and should municipalities be liable for some of the injuries because ultimately municipalities ran stadiums that players knew were unsafe? Players would tell anyone who listened that the municipally owned stadiums in Philadelphia and Houston were the worst playing surfaces around and that the "artificial turf" under any name was taking a toll on the players well being.
Could the players go after the NFLPA in court for not getting benefits as part of the collective bargaining agreement with the owners? Could the players go after the municipalities or someone for installing Astroturf or polyturf or some other surface which was on top of a thin rubber pad on top of asphalt or cement? Is it too late to go after all the municipalities that had unsafe fields?
Boyd is not sure about a class action suit by the former players against their former association but the municipality liability is a question that might be worth pursuing.
The ersatz turf had bubbles and seems which players didn't think much about during the course of doing their jobs. Some players suffered knee injuries just hitting a seem, players that were knocked down hit the ground hard on a turf that the rug on top of the rubber on top of the asphalt or cement, the brain could not handle that type of impact.
In addition to his head injuries, Boyd has had knee replacements and has bad hips. The need replacements were paid by the United States government insurance programs, not the NFL.
Boyd has taken his case to Washington and is hoping that the United States Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other members of the Senate and the House of Representatives will put pressure on the NFL and the NFLPA to take care of the older players.
A lot of the former players though are keeping quiet publicly. Privately there are e-mails from former players such as this one whose name will not be identified.
"I just had neck surgery and I am scheduled to have lumbar (L3 L4 L5) surgery in November. I am thinking about trying the Oxygen chambers for my recovery as well as, using the Oxygen chambers to reduce some of the pain in my lower back that I suffer with daily.
"Question: Will this treatment (Oxygen chamber) help me? How will it help? How often should I administer this treatment in order to see the benefits? However, it's $$Very Expensive. I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thank you for any assistance that you can provide on this matter and concern."
Some former players are pushing for the NFL to install hyperbaric oxygen chambers at training facilities and stadiums to help players (and former) players with head injuries and memory loss.
There is also a new collective bargaining agreement that needs to be negotiated between the owners and players. The present agreement ends shortly after the Super Bowl is played in February. So far there is no political pressure on the owners and players to address the old players needs however that could change if Congress decides to take a closer look at the NFL.
Why should Congress be involved? Congress created today's NFL. The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was Brooklyn Congressman Emanuel Cellar's gift to then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and NFL owners. Cellar got the bill passed in the House, The Senate agreed and President John F. Kennedy signed it into law on September 30, 1961. The bill allowed the NFL to sell all 14 teams as one entity to a TV network. CBS beat out NBC with a major contract that was worth more than all 14 individual local NFL TV networks combined and started the NFL gold mine. The American Football League's 1964 agreement with NBC made it possible for the league to challenge the NFL financially and ultimately force a merger between the competitors in 1966.
Congress had to approve the merger. Both the House and Senate signed off on the merger and President Lyndon Johnson's signature in 1966 created a super football league and the Super Bowl.
Additionally two Congressional bills that were signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the Tax Act of 1986 greatly benefitted the NFL (and all major league sports in the United States). Owners were able to make billions because of the changes in the cable TV structure which a basic expanded tier and ruled out a la carte selections by consumers and the changes in the tax code changed the way municipalities funded stadiums. Municipalities could get as little as eight cents on the dollar from stadium revenues to pay off stadium debt. It is not a coincidence that most new or renovated stadium and arena facilities in the United States were built after 1986.
Boyd thinks the National Football League Players Association should have taken better care of the players but the players have never really looked after much except getting paid more money. Boyd was the Vikings player rep during the 1982 strike and said that the players had to be sold on paying union dues as it was voluntary in those days and that players just concentrated on ending the strike of 1982 and getting back on the field. An effort to include players who played before 1959 in a benefits package failed in 1982. These were the same players who formed the NFLPA back in 1956.
The players wanted more immediately and never thought about the future and the Garvey-Upshaw team always concentrated on getting more money but some players privately complained about making sure that someone took care of playing conditions and severance/health packages.
Money won out. A pension and disability plan lost. Twenty five years after the 1982 strike, pension and disability remained a problem that Congress wanted to know about.
"We fought for the salaries and benefits (today's players get); it would be a classy thing for today's players (to give some benefits). You are only allowed the benefits you negotiate," Boyd said.
Boyd is one of the few who is visibly out in the public talking about the old players. The old players do talk among themselves about injuries but there is a football mentality of suck it up. They know football is a violent game and that a player will get injured. But it is still for them, take one for the team or as the Giants defensive lineman Jim Burt said after the 1987 strike when the players folded like a cheap suit, "we are used to be hit over the head but its okay."
The mentality has not seemed to change much after retirement.
"There is a touch of machismo," said Boyd. "There is fatalism, an embarrassment. Why do it if nothing is going on?" The fatalism comes out. "I don't know how many years I have left but I don't feel robbed (by playing football). I made uninformed decisions, that's what you made. I feel robbed that I didn't have that information (on head injuries), there is an irony at the same time the NFL is being the good guy with the posters about concussions, they denied (Boyd's) disability."
The poster is up in NFL locker rooms on concussions. But the former players who have had life altering injuries have seen no real change. For a good many of them, they are out of sight and out of mind even though they were the guys immortalized by the voice of John Facenda on NFL Films, sportswriters and TV networks, and built the National Football League into the America's most popular game.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, July 30, 2010
There was a time when the Canadian Football League was a serious threat to the NFL
There was a time when the Canadian Football League was a serious threat to the NFL
FRIDAY, 30 JULY 2010 08:42
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/there-was-a-time-when-the-canadian-football-league-was-a-serious-threat-to-the-nfl
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The New York Giants and Jets are opening up training camp in the next few days and all eyes will be on SUNY Cortland for Jets fans and SUNY Albany for Giants fans as the teams prepare for the 2010 season. But once upon a time, the National Football League and the Giants were considered a real alternative to the Canadian Football League.
The CFL paid better salaries.
In 1953, the NFL would set an attendance record and by 1954 most of the NFL teams had local TV contracts. No matter, the NFL was a step above semi-pro football and another league had set its sights on a war with the NFL.
The Canadian Football League.
The CFL signed the 1952 Heisman Trophy Winner Billy Vessels, along with Eddie LeBaron and Gene Brito. In 1955, LeBaron, Brito, Norb Heckler, Alex Webster and Tom Dublinski left the CFL for NFL teams after representatives from the two competing leagues failed to work out a no raiding treaty.
The CFL gave up on competing with the NFL by 1956, but Frank Tripucka who was the Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback said people should not have dismissed the CFL as just another league somewhere north of the United States border. Tripucka was with the Dallas Texans franchise that played in Akron and practiced in Hershey, Pa.
"A lot of people think, even in those days, that the National Football League was the almighty league but it really wasn't," said Tripucka.
The National Football League in those days was haphazard.
"I'd come home here (to New Jersey, after the CFL season had ended) and I'd watch the Giants play at the Polo Grounds and you could walk up to the ticket window and buy yourself a ticket to anywhere in the place that you wanted. I am talking about 1952, 53, 55. The time the Giants turned it around was the time they moved from the Polo Grounds to the Yankee Stadium in 1956.
"They had the playoff game for the National Football championship against that Baltimore which was that Dallas franchise. I was their property, but I decided, I came home and I was going to call it quits.
"I was totally disenchanted with football, so I came back here to Bloomfield, New Jersey to call it quits and I get a call from Saskatchewan and the fellow says what would it take you to come up here and play? I'm making a big $12,000 at that time, so I hurrily say $25,000 and he says you got it. That was the year they opened up the Canadian League to eight Americans, prior to that they only had three Americans on each team.
"The instructions they had given us was that if you were coming to Canada, don't tell anybody. Because they were going to put an injunction against you, so what most of the players did was say they were going to retire and then they went to Canada and started practicing.
"By that time the Canadian courts wouldn't send you back so you could play the season. If the National Football League wanted to sue you, they would sue you after the season was finished. Most of them didn't bother you, so that's how we got away with it."
Tripuka recited the names of Kenny Carpenter, Mac Speedie, Neill Armstrong, Bud Grant, Frankie Albert, John Henry Johnson who jumped from the NFL to the CFL.
"These were the all the type of people who went up there, so you can see the National Football League in those days wasn't that almighty so to speak. We all went up there and it was great because we played 14 games, you got up there in July and you were home in November. Whereas in the National Football League you were in January when you got home and you were making double the money.
Tripucka started with the Chicago Cardinals and ended up in Dallas in his brief NFL career, but he knew one thing about the National Football League. Bert Bell might have been the Commissioner but George Halas was running the league in the early 1950s.
"He was the founder and he pretty much ran that league," said Tripucka of Halas' influence thirty years after the NFL got its start in a Canton auto dealership. "Many a time we used to kid on the field on sideline that a referee would reach into his pocket and first look over on the sideline to George Halas. If Halas didn't give him any sign, he'd throw the flag. If Halas shook his head no, he wouldn't throw the flag."
When the CFL stopped competing, the owners had another problem. In 1956, an early form of the National Football League Players Association formed and started pushing for a minimum salary of $5,000 and pension benefits.
Canadians playing in the CFL were working a fulltime job and playing football. The Americans were commanding big salaries and Tripucka said in many ways, the CFL of the 1950s resembled the NFL in the 1920s.
"We didn't have too," he said, "The funny thing about is this is why the native Canadians liked the Americans because they felt this was going to raise their salaries up. Because these poor kids were playing for $50 just like our semi-pros down here.
"You talk to some of these old-timers from the National Football League, when the league first started they were getting $100 a game, $50 a game. Well it was the same thing up in Canada. Of course when they brought the Americans in and raised those salaries then the Canadian kids started to get more money.
Tom Landry actually started his career with the New York Yankees of the AAFC in 1949 and moved to the NFL in 1950 when the Yankees folded with the AAFC. Landry and four others joined the New York Giants. Landry would stay there until 1955, and then coach the defense through 1959.
Landry actually was planning to get out of football because it was not a professional that paid much money and going into private business around the Dallas area at the end of the decade.
"Well I think the 1950s was an interesting era," said Landry. "In that nobody made any money. I signed for $6,000 when I started and a $500 bonus. We didn't make any money but I think we had a good time playing the game.
"We weren't concerned about the other guy who made more money than we did. We weren't worried about those things. We just went out to play football. I think that's what the guys really feel good about the fifties."
Despite becoming more and more popular in the 1950s, the NFL was a part time operation. Stan Jones was an offensive lineman with George Halas' Chicago Bears and would report to training camp in July and finish his season in December and look for another job. In fact, Halas wasn't even around in the off-season.
"We weren't a full time operation. A lot of people don't realize that. The football teams closed up after the last game of the year and packed everything away and George Halas wasn't a fulltime football man himself.
"He had a sporting goods business and all the other caches would go on their life's work," said Jones, a pro football Hall of Famer. "And everybody would get together next July and back to football. In the off-season, you couldn't find the Chicago Bears other than the ticket office which was in the Halas and May Sporting Goods Company. There wasn't anything at Wrigley Field because that was the Cub home ballpark. There wasn't any place where you could say this is where the Chicago Bears are."
Life at the Chicago Bears training camp in the 1950s wasn't too much different from the other 11 teams. None of the players were paid during the eight weeks of preparation. In fact, the players didn't even have their own equipment except for shoes.
"They used the old gym at St. Joseph's College and they got out all duffel bags out and dumped everything on the floor and you went down and found a pair of shoulder pads that fit. A pair of hip pads that fit. And if nobody else claimed them, they were yours," said Jones.
"Of course you had to bring your own shoes. What happened, a lot of guys would get cut and when they were about to leave, one of the older players would say I'll give you three dollars for your shoes. Then he would sell the shoes at $10 and make a hell of a profit. We had a bunch of older players who were trading shoes. They pick them up cheat from guys who got cut, they needed the money to go home and the guy coming in needed a new pair of shoes, the old guys gave them a deal."
But shoes weren't the only things available on the player's black market. Fans were a major commodity at the central Indiana school as there was no air conditioning.
"A guy would come in and she I'm dying in here," Jones continued. "I'd say, we will sell you a fan. You couldn't buy them at Montgomery Ward's because they would be sold out in a real hot summer.
So you'd have these fans. Guys would get cut and you'd say, hey I like your fan, I'll give you five dollars for it. The next guy coming in, you'd sell it for $10.
"You never got your first paycheck until after I made the team in September unless you got cut and then they would give you money to go home with. On the other hand, they took care of all your expenses and things like that. But if you wanted to go out and get a beer, it was on your own money."
While Jones was responsible for his shoes in Chicago, Steelers players didn't have that problem.
"I used to go to camp, actually since the time I was five years old, we did issue equipment. We didn't just throw it out for them," said Dan Rooney, the son of Steelers owner Art Rooney. "We used to get in some battles with them about different things. I will tell you a great aside, when the union, their first demand was a second pair of football shoes. As you know today when you go into the locker room they have 30. But there was the demand back in 1958.
"Jack Butler, who was a great player for us and had gone to the Pro Bowl and probably should be in the Hall of Fame, he wore the same shoes for three years because they were his luck shoes and he had taped them on. We said, hey you can't be doing that. We did give them one pair each year. We said use the new shoes. He thought they were good luck the shoes that he had. He wore them literarily out."
When the season ended in the 1950s, so did football as a main vocation. New York fans may have wildly cheered the New York Giants defensive lineman Andy Robustelli on six Sundays a season, but on the Monday after the final game, it was back to work in the civilian world. Robustelli was a great player for the Los Angeles Rams between 1951 and 1955, playing in the Pro Bowl twice. But Robustelli's fortune was to be made at his Connecticut businesses not on the playing field of the Los Angeles Coliseum and he requested a trade to the New York Giants because he simply couldn't afford to live in Los Angeles, spent eight weeks without being paid for training camp and then play a 12 week season 3,000 miles away. Without the trade, Robustelli would have retired.
"Each player the day that the season was over, you were free and you looked for a job. You wouldn't see each other until next year. I think, and with all respect to the modern ballplayer, I hope the modern ballplayer appreciates, not only the opportunity, but...football is a stepping stone it's not the end of life," said Robustelli who became a successful businessman in Connecticut once his Giant days were through.
It was a different time, a different life for players who literally played for nothing and had few, if any benefits. There were no great business minds in the NFL of those days, the names that are saluted now, Halas, Rooney, Tim Mara, Bert Bell were actually second rate thinkers that had no vision for their product. It seems absurd to think that Saskatchewan could outbid NFL teams for talent but in the 1950s, the Green Bay Packers held fund raisers throughout Wisconsin and literally passed the hat so the team could operate season to season and in some cities, owners could not even give away NFL tickets. Today there are multi-billion dollar TV contracts, stadiums that cost more than a billion dollars in East Rutherford, N.J., and Arlington, Tx., thanks to two bills passed by Congress in the 1960s and signed by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson -- the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and the 1966 AFL-NFL merger -- which made the league the cash cow it is today.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
LAST UPDATED ( FRIDAY, 30 JULY 2010 08:42 )
FRIDAY, 30 JULY 2010 08:42
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/there-was-a-time-when-the-canadian-football-league-was-a-serious-threat-to-the-nfl
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The New York Giants and Jets are opening up training camp in the next few days and all eyes will be on SUNY Cortland for Jets fans and SUNY Albany for Giants fans as the teams prepare for the 2010 season. But once upon a time, the National Football League and the Giants were considered a real alternative to the Canadian Football League.
The CFL paid better salaries.
In 1953, the NFL would set an attendance record and by 1954 most of the NFL teams had local TV contracts. No matter, the NFL was a step above semi-pro football and another league had set its sights on a war with the NFL.
The Canadian Football League.
The CFL signed the 1952 Heisman Trophy Winner Billy Vessels, along with Eddie LeBaron and Gene Brito. In 1955, LeBaron, Brito, Norb Heckler, Alex Webster and Tom Dublinski left the CFL for NFL teams after representatives from the two competing leagues failed to work out a no raiding treaty.
The CFL gave up on competing with the NFL by 1956, but Frank Tripucka who was the Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback said people should not have dismissed the CFL as just another league somewhere north of the United States border. Tripucka was with the Dallas Texans franchise that played in Akron and practiced in Hershey, Pa.
"A lot of people think, even in those days, that the National Football League was the almighty league but it really wasn't," said Tripucka.
The National Football League in those days was haphazard.
"I'd come home here (to New Jersey, after the CFL season had ended) and I'd watch the Giants play at the Polo Grounds and you could walk up to the ticket window and buy yourself a ticket to anywhere in the place that you wanted. I am talking about 1952, 53, 55. The time the Giants turned it around was the time they moved from the Polo Grounds to the Yankee Stadium in 1956.
"They had the playoff game for the National Football championship against that Baltimore which was that Dallas franchise. I was their property, but I decided, I came home and I was going to call it quits.
"I was totally disenchanted with football, so I came back here to Bloomfield, New Jersey to call it quits and I get a call from Saskatchewan and the fellow says what would it take you to come up here and play? I'm making a big $12,000 at that time, so I hurrily say $25,000 and he says you got it. That was the year they opened up the Canadian League to eight Americans, prior to that they only had three Americans on each team.
"The instructions they had given us was that if you were coming to Canada, don't tell anybody. Because they were going to put an injunction against you, so what most of the players did was say they were going to retire and then they went to Canada and started practicing.
"By that time the Canadian courts wouldn't send you back so you could play the season. If the National Football League wanted to sue you, they would sue you after the season was finished. Most of them didn't bother you, so that's how we got away with it."
Tripuka recited the names of Kenny Carpenter, Mac Speedie, Neill Armstrong, Bud Grant, Frankie Albert, John Henry Johnson who jumped from the NFL to the CFL.
"These were the all the type of people who went up there, so you can see the National Football League in those days wasn't that almighty so to speak. We all went up there and it was great because we played 14 games, you got up there in July and you were home in November. Whereas in the National Football League you were in January when you got home and you were making double the money.
Tripucka started with the Chicago Cardinals and ended up in Dallas in his brief NFL career, but he knew one thing about the National Football League. Bert Bell might have been the Commissioner but George Halas was running the league in the early 1950s.
"He was the founder and he pretty much ran that league," said Tripucka of Halas' influence thirty years after the NFL got its start in a Canton auto dealership. "Many a time we used to kid on the field on sideline that a referee would reach into his pocket and first look over on the sideline to George Halas. If Halas didn't give him any sign, he'd throw the flag. If Halas shook his head no, he wouldn't throw the flag."
When the CFL stopped competing, the owners had another problem. In 1956, an early form of the National Football League Players Association formed and started pushing for a minimum salary of $5,000 and pension benefits.
Canadians playing in the CFL were working a fulltime job and playing football. The Americans were commanding big salaries and Tripucka said in many ways, the CFL of the 1950s resembled the NFL in the 1920s.
"We didn't have too," he said, "The funny thing about is this is why the native Canadians liked the Americans because they felt this was going to raise their salaries up. Because these poor kids were playing for $50 just like our semi-pros down here.
"You talk to some of these old-timers from the National Football League, when the league first started they were getting $100 a game, $50 a game. Well it was the same thing up in Canada. Of course when they brought the Americans in and raised those salaries then the Canadian kids started to get more money.
Tom Landry actually started his career with the New York Yankees of the AAFC in 1949 and moved to the NFL in 1950 when the Yankees folded with the AAFC. Landry and four others joined the New York Giants. Landry would stay there until 1955, and then coach the defense through 1959.
Landry actually was planning to get out of football because it was not a professional that paid much money and going into private business around the Dallas area at the end of the decade.
"Well I think the 1950s was an interesting era," said Landry. "In that nobody made any money. I signed for $6,000 when I started and a $500 bonus. We didn't make any money but I think we had a good time playing the game.
"We weren't concerned about the other guy who made more money than we did. We weren't worried about those things. We just went out to play football. I think that's what the guys really feel good about the fifties."
Despite becoming more and more popular in the 1950s, the NFL was a part time operation. Stan Jones was an offensive lineman with George Halas' Chicago Bears and would report to training camp in July and finish his season in December and look for another job. In fact, Halas wasn't even around in the off-season.
"We weren't a full time operation. A lot of people don't realize that. The football teams closed up after the last game of the year and packed everything away and George Halas wasn't a fulltime football man himself.
"He had a sporting goods business and all the other caches would go on their life's work," said Jones, a pro football Hall of Famer. "And everybody would get together next July and back to football. In the off-season, you couldn't find the Chicago Bears other than the ticket office which was in the Halas and May Sporting Goods Company. There wasn't anything at Wrigley Field because that was the Cub home ballpark. There wasn't any place where you could say this is where the Chicago Bears are."
Life at the Chicago Bears training camp in the 1950s wasn't too much different from the other 11 teams. None of the players were paid during the eight weeks of preparation. In fact, the players didn't even have their own equipment except for shoes.
"They used the old gym at St. Joseph's College and they got out all duffel bags out and dumped everything on the floor and you went down and found a pair of shoulder pads that fit. A pair of hip pads that fit. And if nobody else claimed them, they were yours," said Jones.
"Of course you had to bring your own shoes. What happened, a lot of guys would get cut and when they were about to leave, one of the older players would say I'll give you three dollars for your shoes. Then he would sell the shoes at $10 and make a hell of a profit. We had a bunch of older players who were trading shoes. They pick them up cheat from guys who got cut, they needed the money to go home and the guy coming in needed a new pair of shoes, the old guys gave them a deal."
But shoes weren't the only things available on the player's black market. Fans were a major commodity at the central Indiana school as there was no air conditioning.
"A guy would come in and she I'm dying in here," Jones continued. "I'd say, we will sell you a fan. You couldn't buy them at Montgomery Ward's because they would be sold out in a real hot summer.
So you'd have these fans. Guys would get cut and you'd say, hey I like your fan, I'll give you five dollars for it. The next guy coming in, you'd sell it for $10.
"You never got your first paycheck until after I made the team in September unless you got cut and then they would give you money to go home with. On the other hand, they took care of all your expenses and things like that. But if you wanted to go out and get a beer, it was on your own money."
While Jones was responsible for his shoes in Chicago, Steelers players didn't have that problem.
"I used to go to camp, actually since the time I was five years old, we did issue equipment. We didn't just throw it out for them," said Dan Rooney, the son of Steelers owner Art Rooney. "We used to get in some battles with them about different things. I will tell you a great aside, when the union, their first demand was a second pair of football shoes. As you know today when you go into the locker room they have 30. But there was the demand back in 1958.
"Jack Butler, who was a great player for us and had gone to the Pro Bowl and probably should be in the Hall of Fame, he wore the same shoes for three years because they were his luck shoes and he had taped them on. We said, hey you can't be doing that. We did give them one pair each year. We said use the new shoes. He thought they were good luck the shoes that he had. He wore them literarily out."
When the season ended in the 1950s, so did football as a main vocation. New York fans may have wildly cheered the New York Giants defensive lineman Andy Robustelli on six Sundays a season, but on the Monday after the final game, it was back to work in the civilian world. Robustelli was a great player for the Los Angeles Rams between 1951 and 1955, playing in the Pro Bowl twice. But Robustelli's fortune was to be made at his Connecticut businesses not on the playing field of the Los Angeles Coliseum and he requested a trade to the New York Giants because he simply couldn't afford to live in Los Angeles, spent eight weeks without being paid for training camp and then play a 12 week season 3,000 miles away. Without the trade, Robustelli would have retired.
"Each player the day that the season was over, you were free and you looked for a job. You wouldn't see each other until next year. I think, and with all respect to the modern ballplayer, I hope the modern ballplayer appreciates, not only the opportunity, but...football is a stepping stone it's not the end of life," said Robustelli who became a successful businessman in Connecticut once his Giant days were through.
It was a different time, a different life for players who literally played for nothing and had few, if any benefits. There were no great business minds in the NFL of those days, the names that are saluted now, Halas, Rooney, Tim Mara, Bert Bell were actually second rate thinkers that had no vision for their product. It seems absurd to think that Saskatchewan could outbid NFL teams for talent but in the 1950s, the Green Bay Packers held fund raisers throughout Wisconsin and literally passed the hat so the team could operate season to season and in some cities, owners could not even give away NFL tickets. Today there are multi-billion dollar TV contracts, stadiums that cost more than a billion dollars in East Rutherford, N.J., and Arlington, Tx., thanks to two bills passed by Congress in the 1960s and signed by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson -- the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and the 1966 AFL-NFL merger -- which made the league the cash cow it is today.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
LAST UPDATED ( FRIDAY, 30 JULY 2010 08:42 )
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The business of college sports in 2010 is to find money
The business of college sports in 2010 is to find money
WEDNESDAY, 28 JULY 2010 07:10
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/the-business-of-college-sports-in-2010-is-to-find-money#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The Pacific 10 – soon to be the Pacific 12 – college sports conference is a rather interesting study in the politics of sports business, There are a number of elements that have a striking resemble to professional sports in that the Pac 10 depends on government support, cable TV and corporate underwriting just like any other major pro sports league in the United States. The conference also has global ambitions, just like all other major sports leagues in the United States.
There is a question that needs to be asked about what appears to be an endless need for more and more money for big time college sports. Why are college presidents and chancellors hiring people like Larry Scott, the Commissioner of the Pac 10, and turning every stone they find to see if there is money underneath the rocks to fund sports programs?
The answer is rooted in the economy and shrinking revenues for public schools like Arizona, Arizona State (Arizona is selling off state office buildings in an effort to control costs), Cal and UCLA (both part of the University of California school system), Oregon and Oregon State, Washington and Washington State, all public schools and all members of the Pac 10. Two other PAC 10 schools, USC and Stanford are private institutions.
Two more universities will join the Pac 10 in the next two years. Utah joins the conference in 2011 and Colorado enters the fold in 2012, both are public schools and both schools will increase the Pac 10, or Pac 12's television footprint as the conference will be represented in two time zones, the Mountain and Pacific. That is an important move for television coverage and should bring the Pac 10 or Pac 12 a sizeable amount of additional TV income.
"Well, I think the answer is pretty straightforward in college sports, at least in the Pac 10," said Scott. "With the economy, state funding for higher education is shrinking and that is putting a lot more pressure on athletic departments. They have to be more entrepreneurial, more creative, more aggressive and conferences to generate more revenue because what is at stake if they don't, sports are going to get cut.
"Student athletes are going to lose opportunities, student athlete support programs are going to get dropped and schools will find it more and more difficult to stay competitive nationally in terms of facilities, in terms of coaches and so there is an awful lot at stake right now.
"It all starts with the soft economy, decreased state funding and universities and their stakeholders like faculty not willing to subsidize athletics. It all trickles down to less money from the government and that is forcing all kinds of cuts. Faculty going on furloughs, salary freezes, programs getting cut. There is tremendous financial pressure and that is the underlying story that often doesn't get told. People focus on, money, money, money but you got to dig a little deeper and you realize the focus on money and entrepreneurialism and creative and seat license is that if you don't come up with these inventive ways to generate more money, kids are going to lose opportunities."
Big-time college sports are not immune to the 2008 economic breakdown and hustling for a buck is now the job of people like Scott.
"There is a lot of discussion about it (the soft economy and state cutbacks), it is no secret, I don't know about other parts of the country," Scott said.
Larry Scott has been on the job for a little more than a year. He is a New York City native who played tennis at Harvard and left Cambridge with a B. A. in European history. Scott was former professional tennis player and served as Chairman and CEO of the Women's Tennis Association and as President and COO of ATP Properties, a division of the Association of Tennis Professionals. He is an unusual choice for a college conference commissioner in that he was not involved with college athletics. Perhaps because his background is not the college ranks, he is able to move in "non-traditional" directions. He has hired the Creative Artists Agency of Los Angeles to handle a lot of what Scott sees as the entertainment business. CAA is a high-powered agency whose clients include Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Will Smith, David Letterman and Derek Jeter.
"It is not unusual for a conference to hire media advisers," said Scott. "That was something we were looking to do but CAA will basically play three roles for us. One is they got a group of people who are very seasoned in terms of the media industry and they will do the kind of analysis, research and advisory work one would expect before what would will be a major TV negotiations we got coming up. As part of that, they are helping us building a business plan for a potential Pac 10 branded TV network. CAA keeps their finger on the pulse of what is happening in the industry and makes sense of it for us.
"Secondly, they played a critical role in us analyzing and evaluating expansion possibilities. So there was a lot of behind the scenes granular analysis and work about what their value would be if different scenarios – they played a critical function for us there.
"Thirdly, being in LA and in our territory and being the largest and most prolific entertainment agency in the world, they are very much going to help us with our new marketing and our promotional endeavors. We hope to steal a few pages from the worlds of entertainment and media in terms how best we promote our conference in its own unique way and being in LA, being on the west coast and being in the entertainment capital of the world, we thought they would be a great fit for our conference."
CAA has been brought in to get more money from TV both in the United States and possibly on the global stage. No college conference has really looked into expanding beyond the United States. The Pac 10 or Pac 12 may become the Pac 16 eventually and all of the colleges will be in the United States but the college sports teams will be traveling to other locales. Just how many will that be 12? 14? 16? Scott isn't sure.
"I know for our conference, we are done with that evaluation at the moment," said Scott. "My sense is that our conferences probably are for now. We are moving forward as the Pac 12 going forward and I expect that we are going to lock in long term media deals on that basis. Having said that, I think there was a lot of interest and excitement around our vision for a 16-team super conference. We figured out a way to get the economies of scale but still have the smallness of divisional structures that did not create an undue burden for schools and student athletes. So my sense, based on the excitement our concept generated and the reaction I got from people is that it is an idea whose time will come. I just can't say when."
Scott contended that the Pac 10 didn't rush into any conference expansion and wasn't pushed by the Big Ten's desires to increase the conference's geographical footprint for television purposes.
"For us, there wasn't the rush. I got hired in July of 2009 and as I assessed the Pac 10 situation, was we were going to start negotiations for a new broadcast deal in early 2011. We had about an 18-month runway to decide any significant changes we were going to make," Scott said. "We brought in a new (management) team; we branded the conference, new marketing initiatives. A part of that in my view, if we are going to expand we ought to do so before we going out and monetize our value to me it was kind of a common sense, logical business approach. I cannot really comment on other conferences and what the motivation was with them. But that is what it was for us. Now we are locked in and building plans around it. But we also are prepared if there is movement and interest in other scenarios going forward we will certainly be looking at that time."
There is only so much money that can be squeezed in the United States and at the Pac 10 schools, so Scott and CAA are looking elsewhere and might seek out pesos, yen and Yuan's.
"I think we got tremendous opportunity particularly in the Asian-Pacific region, maybe Latin America, The west coast is the gateway to the Pacific Rim. We get big Asian-American populations where we are and a lot of our schools are held up on an aspirational platform by the Asian-American communities and schools. I have spent a lot of my life marketing pro tennis internationally with a major focus on the Asia-Pacific region, China and particularly and I am convinced that we have – particularly with our Olympic sports – maybe football not as much interestingly. But you think of sports like basketball, golf and tennis and volleyball and swimming. I think we have a tremendous opportunity to play competitions over there and invite teams to come play at Pac 10s schools, to have information sharing, knowledge transfer and ultimately get some of our games broadcast in Asia and develop commercial opportunities around that. That would be great for Pac 10 athletics but it also would open up opportunities for our schools more broadly to tell their story.
"We are looking at the moment at golf, basketball, baseball but it could be a variety of sports but those are the sports that have expressed a real interest."
The Pac 10 has had very little exposure on the United States east coast. The schools are far away although UCLA was once the gold standard of college basketball and USC, tarnished or not by scandal, had a great run under Pete Carroll. The Pac 10 is in two major media markets, LA and San Francisco but there is a push for national recognition, which, of course, might mean more funding through cable TV dollars and marketing partners.
"Before we structure new media agreements, we were somewhat limited in what we can do," Scott explained. "I am looking for the conference to get more national exposure. We are very strong in our region. But we are looking for national exposure and there really are two things we are focused on there -- showing a little flexibility with our broadcast partners (Rupert Murdoch's FOX and Disney's ESPN) trying to get us windows to get us more national exposure. Secondly, marketing the conference more aggressively, being more proactive. Getting out here (New York) telling our story a little bit different. Doing things for the first time that have not been done before. Getting people to open their eyes and minds a little bit to the to the Pac 10 and just get more in the national narrative."
The rush to get more money has changed the playing field in college sports. The recent multi-billion dollar deal between Sumner Redstone's CBS and Turner Sports for the NCAA's March Madness Men's Basketball Tournament will fund a lot of sports programs but football is driving the conference realignments. There is a copious amount of money that conferences get from football, particularly cable TV if the conferences land packages on ESPN or form their own networks on basic-expanded where all cable subscribers pay for what a fraction of subscribers watch.
College sports used to be thought of as an amateur endeavor. Big time college football and basketball are professional businesses. The athletic director of a school runs a multi-million dollar business and depends on the same formula for success as pro leagues --government support, cable TV and corporate dollars. The difference between the pros and the colleges is that big-time college sports don't pay the athletes although they will argue that a scholarship is enough. Football and men's college basketball coaches get paid handsomely, in the multi-million dollar range. Colleges get big money deals from TV networks, boosters, alums, marketing partners and they all have a say in what happens in the industry. There is nothing amateur about big time college sports except maybe the players.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
WEDNESDAY, 28 JULY 2010 07:10
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/the-business-of-college-sports-in-2010-is-to-find-money#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The Pacific 10 – soon to be the Pacific 12 – college sports conference is a rather interesting study in the politics of sports business, There are a number of elements that have a striking resemble to professional sports in that the Pac 10 depends on government support, cable TV and corporate underwriting just like any other major pro sports league in the United States. The conference also has global ambitions, just like all other major sports leagues in the United States.
There is a question that needs to be asked about what appears to be an endless need for more and more money for big time college sports. Why are college presidents and chancellors hiring people like Larry Scott, the Commissioner of the Pac 10, and turning every stone they find to see if there is money underneath the rocks to fund sports programs?
The answer is rooted in the economy and shrinking revenues for public schools like Arizona, Arizona State (Arizona is selling off state office buildings in an effort to control costs), Cal and UCLA (both part of the University of California school system), Oregon and Oregon State, Washington and Washington State, all public schools and all members of the Pac 10. Two other PAC 10 schools, USC and Stanford are private institutions.
Two more universities will join the Pac 10 in the next two years. Utah joins the conference in 2011 and Colorado enters the fold in 2012, both are public schools and both schools will increase the Pac 10, or Pac 12's television footprint as the conference will be represented in two time zones, the Mountain and Pacific. That is an important move for television coverage and should bring the Pac 10 or Pac 12 a sizeable amount of additional TV income.
"Well, I think the answer is pretty straightforward in college sports, at least in the Pac 10," said Scott. "With the economy, state funding for higher education is shrinking and that is putting a lot more pressure on athletic departments. They have to be more entrepreneurial, more creative, more aggressive and conferences to generate more revenue because what is at stake if they don't, sports are going to get cut.
"Student athletes are going to lose opportunities, student athlete support programs are going to get dropped and schools will find it more and more difficult to stay competitive nationally in terms of facilities, in terms of coaches and so there is an awful lot at stake right now.
"It all starts with the soft economy, decreased state funding and universities and their stakeholders like faculty not willing to subsidize athletics. It all trickles down to less money from the government and that is forcing all kinds of cuts. Faculty going on furloughs, salary freezes, programs getting cut. There is tremendous financial pressure and that is the underlying story that often doesn't get told. People focus on, money, money, money but you got to dig a little deeper and you realize the focus on money and entrepreneurialism and creative and seat license is that if you don't come up with these inventive ways to generate more money, kids are going to lose opportunities."
Big-time college sports are not immune to the 2008 economic breakdown and hustling for a buck is now the job of people like Scott.
"There is a lot of discussion about it (the soft economy and state cutbacks), it is no secret, I don't know about other parts of the country," Scott said.
Larry Scott has been on the job for a little more than a year. He is a New York City native who played tennis at Harvard and left Cambridge with a B. A. in European history. Scott was former professional tennis player and served as Chairman and CEO of the Women's Tennis Association and as President and COO of ATP Properties, a division of the Association of Tennis Professionals. He is an unusual choice for a college conference commissioner in that he was not involved with college athletics. Perhaps because his background is not the college ranks, he is able to move in "non-traditional" directions. He has hired the Creative Artists Agency of Los Angeles to handle a lot of what Scott sees as the entertainment business. CAA is a high-powered agency whose clients include Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Will Smith, David Letterman and Derek Jeter.
"It is not unusual for a conference to hire media advisers," said Scott. "That was something we were looking to do but CAA will basically play three roles for us. One is they got a group of people who are very seasoned in terms of the media industry and they will do the kind of analysis, research and advisory work one would expect before what would will be a major TV negotiations we got coming up. As part of that, they are helping us building a business plan for a potential Pac 10 branded TV network. CAA keeps their finger on the pulse of what is happening in the industry and makes sense of it for us.
"Secondly, they played a critical role in us analyzing and evaluating expansion possibilities. So there was a lot of behind the scenes granular analysis and work about what their value would be if different scenarios – they played a critical function for us there.
"Thirdly, being in LA and in our territory and being the largest and most prolific entertainment agency in the world, they are very much going to help us with our new marketing and our promotional endeavors. We hope to steal a few pages from the worlds of entertainment and media in terms how best we promote our conference in its own unique way and being in LA, being on the west coast and being in the entertainment capital of the world, we thought they would be a great fit for our conference."
CAA has been brought in to get more money from TV both in the United States and possibly on the global stage. No college conference has really looked into expanding beyond the United States. The Pac 10 or Pac 12 may become the Pac 16 eventually and all of the colleges will be in the United States but the college sports teams will be traveling to other locales. Just how many will that be 12? 14? 16? Scott isn't sure.
"I know for our conference, we are done with that evaluation at the moment," said Scott. "My sense is that our conferences probably are for now. We are moving forward as the Pac 12 going forward and I expect that we are going to lock in long term media deals on that basis. Having said that, I think there was a lot of interest and excitement around our vision for a 16-team super conference. We figured out a way to get the economies of scale but still have the smallness of divisional structures that did not create an undue burden for schools and student athletes. So my sense, based on the excitement our concept generated and the reaction I got from people is that it is an idea whose time will come. I just can't say when."
Scott contended that the Pac 10 didn't rush into any conference expansion and wasn't pushed by the Big Ten's desires to increase the conference's geographical footprint for television purposes.
"For us, there wasn't the rush. I got hired in July of 2009 and as I assessed the Pac 10 situation, was we were going to start negotiations for a new broadcast deal in early 2011. We had about an 18-month runway to decide any significant changes we were going to make," Scott said. "We brought in a new (management) team; we branded the conference, new marketing initiatives. A part of that in my view, if we are going to expand we ought to do so before we going out and monetize our value to me it was kind of a common sense, logical business approach. I cannot really comment on other conferences and what the motivation was with them. But that is what it was for us. Now we are locked in and building plans around it. But we also are prepared if there is movement and interest in other scenarios going forward we will certainly be looking at that time."
There is only so much money that can be squeezed in the United States and at the Pac 10 schools, so Scott and CAA are looking elsewhere and might seek out pesos, yen and Yuan's.
"I think we got tremendous opportunity particularly in the Asian-Pacific region, maybe Latin America, The west coast is the gateway to the Pacific Rim. We get big Asian-American populations where we are and a lot of our schools are held up on an aspirational platform by the Asian-American communities and schools. I have spent a lot of my life marketing pro tennis internationally with a major focus on the Asia-Pacific region, China and particularly and I am convinced that we have – particularly with our Olympic sports – maybe football not as much interestingly. But you think of sports like basketball, golf and tennis and volleyball and swimming. I think we have a tremendous opportunity to play competitions over there and invite teams to come play at Pac 10s schools, to have information sharing, knowledge transfer and ultimately get some of our games broadcast in Asia and develop commercial opportunities around that. That would be great for Pac 10 athletics but it also would open up opportunities for our schools more broadly to tell their story.
"We are looking at the moment at golf, basketball, baseball but it could be a variety of sports but those are the sports that have expressed a real interest."
The Pac 10 has had very little exposure on the United States east coast. The schools are far away although UCLA was once the gold standard of college basketball and USC, tarnished or not by scandal, had a great run under Pete Carroll. The Pac 10 is in two major media markets, LA and San Francisco but there is a push for national recognition, which, of course, might mean more funding through cable TV dollars and marketing partners.
"Before we structure new media agreements, we were somewhat limited in what we can do," Scott explained. "I am looking for the conference to get more national exposure. We are very strong in our region. But we are looking for national exposure and there really are two things we are focused on there -- showing a little flexibility with our broadcast partners (Rupert Murdoch's FOX and Disney's ESPN) trying to get us windows to get us more national exposure. Secondly, marketing the conference more aggressively, being more proactive. Getting out here (New York) telling our story a little bit different. Doing things for the first time that have not been done before. Getting people to open their eyes and minds a little bit to the to the Pac 10 and just get more in the national narrative."
The rush to get more money has changed the playing field in college sports. The recent multi-billion dollar deal between Sumner Redstone's CBS and Turner Sports for the NCAA's March Madness Men's Basketball Tournament will fund a lot of sports programs but football is driving the conference realignments. There is a copious amount of money that conferences get from football, particularly cable TV if the conferences land packages on ESPN or form their own networks on basic-expanded where all cable subscribers pay for what a fraction of subscribers watch.
College sports used to be thought of as an amateur endeavor. Big time college football and basketball are professional businesses. The athletic director of a school runs a multi-million dollar business and depends on the same formula for success as pro leagues --government support, cable TV and corporate dollars. The difference between the pros and the colleges is that big-time college sports don't pay the athletes although they will argue that a scholarship is enough. Football and men's college basketball coaches get paid handsomely, in the multi-million dollar range. Colleges get big money deals from TV networks, boosters, alums, marketing partners and they all have a say in what happens in the industry. There is nothing amateur about big time college sports except maybe the players.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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