Linda McMahon, Wrestlers Deaths and Head Injuries
By Evan Weiner
September 28, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/linda-mcmahon-wrestlers-deaths-and-head-injuries
(New York, N. Y.) -- The wife of World Wrestling Entertainment Czar Vince McMahon and former WWE Chief Executive Officer Linda McMahon is running for the United States Senate for the State of Connecticut. McMahon is apparently running as an outsider who can help create jobs in her state and elsewhere because she ran a successful business. McMahon is no outsider to politics. The World Wrestling Federation lobbied various states to decouple the "sport" from state athletic regulations. The McMahons argued that wrestling was a scripted entertainment and convinced lawmakers that it was really not much different from entertainment shows.
There was a reason that the McMahons wanted to get away from state athletic regulators. Wrestling resides in a murky area in sports and entertainment. The genre has some athleticism but in 1989 Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey State Senate that his product was not a bona fide competition and that wrestling matches were staged events. McMahon was trying to catch some tax breaks from the state of New Jersey for his live shows and his pay-per-view TV offerings by claiming his genre was not a sport.
The McMahon's successful business was built on a house of cards in 1984 after Vince McMahon decided to "rewrite" the rules of professional wrestling and invade other promoters’ territories. McMahon's World Wrestling Federation had the big east coast markets, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and other cities and the other big wrestling promoters, the NWA's Crockett family and the AWA's Vern Gagne totally misread the landscape thinking McMahon had the money to pull off the national expansion. According to one insider, McMahon did everything he could to find money and rolled the dice on Wrestlemania at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1985.
The McMahons won.
Madison Square Garden was packed, the money flowed in and the WWF had a solid financial footing.
McMahon's wrestlers looked like super heroes out of comic books with enormously sculptured bodies. There were also some "steroid-rage" incidents involving some wrestlers outside the ring but steroids were not deemed illegal until President George Bush signed legislation in 1990 banning the substance. Vince McMahon was indicted in November of 1993 on charges of possession of steroids and conspiracy to distribute steroids. McMahon beat the rap after a jury came back with a not guilty verdict on July 22, 1994. In 2005, McMahon’s wrestling circuit was still wrestling with drug issues and following the death of Eddie Guerrero, the McMahons imposed new drug testing policies.
The McMahons knew they had a problem on their hands and according to the WWE website, "(the) WWE implemented a WWE Talent Wellness Program on February 27, 2006. The WWE Talent Wellness Program is administered independent of WWE by (a) team of physicians." The statement goes onto say that "the Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy prohibits the use of drugs by WWE talent for other than a legitimate medical purpose pursuant to a valid prescription from a licensed and treating physician. The use of masking agents and/or diuretics to conceal or obscure the use of prohibited drugs is also forbidden."
Despite the policy, wrestlers are still dying in alarming numbers.
The WWF, now WWE, has not faced the same sort of scrutiny that professional sportswriters and other gadflies heaped upon Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and former Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr. Not many professional sportswriters aside from Frank Deford, Phil Mushnick and some wrestling reporters nor the gadflies around wrestling have bothered to take a closer look at the mortality rate of wrestlers who may have been using banned performance enhancing drugs. The percentage of professional wrestlers who died under the age of 50 in the past decade from a drug overdose or of heart attack, liver or kidney failure brought on by drug abuse is high far than the mortality rate in the general population.
The carnage has been documented and the toll is large especially compared with the number of deaths attributed to steroid drug damage in Major League Baseball. The answer in baseball appears to be zero, although Ken Caminiti died of a drug overdose in 2004 at the age of 41. Caminiti was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1995 and discussed his steroids usage with a reporter from the America magazine Sports Illustrated in 2002. Caminiti did not have steroids in his system at the time of his death.
On Monday, Linda McMahon, the Republican candidate for United States Senator will face off against Connecticut Attorney General and the Democrat's candidate Richard Blumenthal in a debate that is being sponsored by Rupert Murdoch's FOX Connecticut and the Sam Zell Tribune Company's Hartford Courant. The debate will be hosted by FOX correspondent Bret Baier. Apparently Zell has cut the staff at the Courant so thin that there is no one from the newspaper who is capable of performing the job as moderator. Baier does work for a news organization that leans right and specializes in going after an old audience who loves the presentation.
Television news reporters are now being regularly tapped as debate moderators despite some rather dismal performances over the years by PBS' Jim Lehrer, WCBS-TV Channel 2 (New York) reporter Marcia Kramer who was woefully unprepared in a 2000 debate between Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio in the New York Senate campaign and Gwen Ifell, who let Sarah Palin walk all over her in the 2008 Vice Presidential debate. There was an unremarkable performance by ABC's Charles Gibson in a 2008 debate.
It will be rather interesting to see whether a "TV news talent" like Baier will ask McMahon any of these troubling questions about drug usage in McMahon's WWE or the death of wrestlers. To be fair, Baier also must Blumenthal about his remarks about serving in Vietnam even though Blumenthal did not.
Baier also should ask McMahon about former WWF wrestler and former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura interview in 2008 on the Howard Stern radio show that he was fired by the company after Hulk Hogan told Vince McMahon that Ventura was trying to unionize wrestlers.
WWE performers are independent contractors which means that the McMahons do not pay social security benefits, Medicare contributions and unemployment insurance. The McMahons have contended they pay wrestlers extremely well and that makes up for the lack of benefits. It is unknown how many former wrestlers who suffered disabling injuries are now on the government dole getting social security insurance or Medicare to pay medical bills.
If Baier had any backbone, he would ask McMahon what she thinks of social security and health care and how many wrestlers now in their 40s and 50s that performed for her that are getting government support. And to get to a deeper point, FOX's conservative audience that likes morality, Baier's questioning should also include queries about storylines that included something that called the "Mr. McMahon Kiss My Ass Club" where wrestlers performed the act. There should also be a question or two about the debasing of women as part of the on-going “soap opera”.
Linda McMahon has claimed though she was not on the creative side of the business.
But given that Baier is a TV talking head and people look for sizzle not substance in a debate these days, it is unlikely that either McMahon or Blumenthal will getting too many high and hard pitches under the chin.
Congress is beginning to put the spotlight on the devastating injuries that have occurred in the National Football League and how both the league and the National Football League Players Association have failed a good many players whose injuries have permanently disabled them. Former McMahon employees have criticized the company because of there is no union and one father of a deceased wrestler may have touched a nerve that brain damaged football players are beginning to talk about.
Michael Benoit, the father of Chris Benoit -- the wrestler who on June 24, 2007 killed his son and wife then hanged himself -- claimed in a Hartford Courant interview in May that the McMahons didn't take proper care of their employees and just used the wrestlers to line their pockets.
"My son, Chris Benoit, 40, was one of WWE's top superstars. In June 2007, our lives changed dramatically, when he tragically killed his wife, son and himself. The press jumped on steroids as the cause of his actions. But tests showed that brain damage in the form of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, not steroids, was responsible for our loss. CTE, caused by repetitive trauma to the brain, can bring on serious disorders such as a loss of emotional control, addictions to drugs and alcohol, depression, aggressive and violent behavior."
Congress is addressing head injuries in pro football. The very type of head injury that Michael Benoit said his son had from his days as a wrestler. Talk to former football players with brain injuries and they immediately recognize the symptoms.
Baier should ask bring up the whole head injury issue because if McMahon is elected to the Senate and there are additional hearings on football injuries, McMahon just might be appointed to the committee holding hearings. What kind of questions would Senator Linda McMahon ask at a hearing about sports concussions?
Why isn't there a bigger spotlight on professional wrestling's mortality rate? Baier owes it to the non-FOX audience and to the former wrestlers who looked to the government for assistance to really be a moderator and not another FOX pundit. Linda McMahon needs to answer questions about the deaths of the performers in her business.
All of those deaths that should have rattled and ravaged her business, the wrestling industry. Fortunately for Linda McMahon, her husband Vince and daughter Stephanie and her husband Paul Michael Levesque a.k.a. Triple H, there is very little scrutiny of the industry.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner @yahoo.com
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Cablevision-FOX fight is at bad time for N.Y. Giants and Philadelphia Eagles fans
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 11:51
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/cablevision-fox-fight-is-at-bad-time-for-ny-giants-and-philadelphia-eagles-fans
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is nothing better than a fight between a cable television multiple systems operator and a television company when it comes to signing a new "carriage" deal. In New York and Philadelphia, News Corp-FOX Rupert Murdoch's boys (Channels 5 and 9 in New York, Channel 29 in Philadelphia and three of Murdoch's cable networks) are in the red trunks while Chuck Dolan's guys (Cablevision) are in the blue gym shorts. But neither will even get hit with a glancing blow. It will be the Cablevision consumer who will be the one who absorb the punches.
On October 16th, Murdoch's WNYW and WWOR in New York along with Philadelphia's WTXF could disappear from Cablevision's lineup which would deprive Cablevision subscribers of New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and NFL games and would sadden the lives of daytime viewers in the New York area who need a daily fix of luminaries such as Wendy Williams, Dr. Oz and those staged for TV court shows featuring Nancy Grace, Jeanine Pirro, Joe Brown, Harvey Levin and Levin's journalistic effort, TMZ. In Philadelphia, Judge Judy, Judy Alex and Divorce Court aficionados would have to find something else to do along with Wendy Williams, Nancy Grace and Harvey Levin fans.
The subscribers in both areas would also lose the "news" (and miss seeing murder, mayhem, entertainment, sports and weather reports). If things get really sticky, Cablevision viewers will also lose the Major League Baseball Playoffs, the National League Championship Series and the World Series and prime time shows such as "The Simpsons," "24" and "Glee."
Cablevision isn't the only provider of FOX programming. A consumer can always buy an antenna and pull in the Channel 5 and 9 signals in the New York area and the Channel 29 signal in the Philadelphia area. There are also satellite and phone alternatives and for those worried about losing the NFL, there is always DirecTV's Sunday football package.
All is not lost for the over-the-air stations viewers of WNYW, WWOR and WTXF. Nor is it the end of the world for Cablevision subscribers who are fans of FOX Deportes, Nat Geo Wild and the FOX Business Channel. Cablevision subscribers who are so infuriated can look for a different delivery system and Murdoch's people are letting those people know that they have alternatives.
Murdoch's scare tactics for those who cannot remove themselves from their position in front of the TV includes having a website (just like the Disney propaganda sites against Cablevision and Time Warner earlier this year in carriage fights---Disney apparently got what they wanted from the multiple system operators and it will be reflected in higher cable TV fees) that asks people to sign a petition to keep FOX properties on Cablevision.
Keepfoxon.com also includes testimonies from people who are irate about the prospect of losing FOX programming on Cablevision and are telling stories about how they have switched to other sources in the titanic showdown.
To make a long story short, Murdoch and Dolan have been business partners — in 1997 Murdoch picked up 40 percent of Dolan's Rainbow Media Sports Holdings for $850 million. The deal gave Murdoch part ownership of Dolan's National Basketball Association's New York Knicks and the National Hockey League's New York Rangers and have a history of working together to make money for one another. Neither is really concerned about the consumer although Dolan always puts out some nonsense about protecting consumers. In 1998, Dolan's Cablevision "partnered" with Murdoch's News Corporation and Liberty Media and "rebranded" Sports Channel New York as Fox Sports New York (FSNY). Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network also became a part of the FOX Sports Network.
In 2005, Dolan and Murdoch ended their alliance because Dolan had some bills he could not pay. Dolan's Cablevision took full ownership of the Garden and the teams, including the Knicks, Rangers and the WNBA's Liberty, as well as MSG Network, Fox Sports New York, FSN Chicago and Radio City Entertainment and 50 percent of FSN New England. Murdoch's News Corp., which held a 40-percent stake in the joint venture, got full ownership of two Fox Sports Net regional sports channels in Ohio and Florida and the two network's advertising operations.
They are not really foes although Dolan beat out Murdoch to buy Long Island's Newsday a couple of years ago. But if there is to be a fight, Dolan and Murdoch are certainly in the heavyweight division.
Both have the right political connections and both can go the distance.
Dolan is a pesky opponent. After losing the New York Yankees cable TV rights, Dolan decided that the Yankees new YES Network was too pricey to be put on Cablevision in 2002. New York State elected officials stepped into the YES Network-Dolan dispute and arranged a temporary cease fire that put the YES Network on Cablevision systems in 2003. Dolan and the Yankees signed a long term agreement in 2004.
Earlier this year, Dolan and Scripps Network Interactive engaged in an 18-day scrap that kept the Food Network and HGTV off of Cablevision systems between January 3 and 21. Then there was the Cablevision-Disney contract battle in March when Disney pulled WABC TV off of Cablevision systems the day of the Oscar presentation show. Cablevision and Disney reached a deal and the Oscar program was restored some 15 minutes after the Academy Awards show started. Dolan and Disney faced some political scrutiny with New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg chided the two entertainment companies.
Disney extracted money from Dolan for the right to carry WABC on Cablevision systems. Dolan, of course, passed on the cost to consumers.
The high end News Corp/FOX-Cablevision drama will probably end with a whimper. Murdoch will get what he wants, Dolan will get what he wants and the consumer, the third party in this heavyweight face off will have to pay the price.
The consumer has little choice if they want cable TV. They are stuck in a system that gives them little choice in what they want to purchase thanks to the 1984 Cable TV Act passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The law allowed multiple system operators to bundle struggling networks such as ESPN, the Weather Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News onto a basic tier (which was anti-consumer and probably violates antitrust laws) and sell the package as one on a basic expanded tier. Cable TV is an all or nothing business. You buy basic, you buy basic and basic expanded and throw in digital. But you cannot buy an individual sports package or news package. Giants, Eagles, NFL fans along with baseball fans probably don't have to lose too much sleep over the Murdoch-Dolan spat. It will be resolved and if the two heavyweights can't agree, someone in Albany or Trenton or Harrisburg or Washington will get a solution in place very quickly. After all, it is election season and someone will probably want to claim victory for TV viewers.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 11:51
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/cablevision-fox-fight-is-at-bad-time-for-ny-giants-and-philadelphia-eagles-fans
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is nothing better than a fight between a cable television multiple systems operator and a television company when it comes to signing a new "carriage" deal. In New York and Philadelphia, News Corp-FOX Rupert Murdoch's boys (Channels 5 and 9 in New York, Channel 29 in Philadelphia and three of Murdoch's cable networks) are in the red trunks while Chuck Dolan's guys (Cablevision) are in the blue gym shorts. But neither will even get hit with a glancing blow. It will be the Cablevision consumer who will be the one who absorb the punches.
On October 16th, Murdoch's WNYW and WWOR in New York along with Philadelphia's WTXF could disappear from Cablevision's lineup which would deprive Cablevision subscribers of New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and NFL games and would sadden the lives of daytime viewers in the New York area who need a daily fix of luminaries such as Wendy Williams, Dr. Oz and those staged for TV court shows featuring Nancy Grace, Jeanine Pirro, Joe Brown, Harvey Levin and Levin's journalistic effort, TMZ. In Philadelphia, Judge Judy, Judy Alex and Divorce Court aficionados would have to find something else to do along with Wendy Williams, Nancy Grace and Harvey Levin fans.
The subscribers in both areas would also lose the "news" (and miss seeing murder, mayhem, entertainment, sports and weather reports). If things get really sticky, Cablevision viewers will also lose the Major League Baseball Playoffs, the National League Championship Series and the World Series and prime time shows such as "The Simpsons," "24" and "Glee."
Cablevision isn't the only provider of FOX programming. A consumer can always buy an antenna and pull in the Channel 5 and 9 signals in the New York area and the Channel 29 signal in the Philadelphia area. There are also satellite and phone alternatives and for those worried about losing the NFL, there is always DirecTV's Sunday football package.
All is not lost for the over-the-air stations viewers of WNYW, WWOR and WTXF. Nor is it the end of the world for Cablevision subscribers who are fans of FOX Deportes, Nat Geo Wild and the FOX Business Channel. Cablevision subscribers who are so infuriated can look for a different delivery system and Murdoch's people are letting those people know that they have alternatives.
Murdoch's scare tactics for those who cannot remove themselves from their position in front of the TV includes having a website (just like the Disney propaganda sites against Cablevision and Time Warner earlier this year in carriage fights---Disney apparently got what they wanted from the multiple system operators and it will be reflected in higher cable TV fees) that asks people to sign a petition to keep FOX properties on Cablevision.
Keepfoxon.com also includes testimonies from people who are irate about the prospect of losing FOX programming on Cablevision and are telling stories about how they have switched to other sources in the titanic showdown.
To make a long story short, Murdoch and Dolan have been business partners — in 1997 Murdoch picked up 40 percent of Dolan's Rainbow Media Sports Holdings for $850 million. The deal gave Murdoch part ownership of Dolan's National Basketball Association's New York Knicks and the National Hockey League's New York Rangers and have a history of working together to make money for one another. Neither is really concerned about the consumer although Dolan always puts out some nonsense about protecting consumers. In 1998, Dolan's Cablevision "partnered" with Murdoch's News Corporation and Liberty Media and "rebranded" Sports Channel New York as Fox Sports New York (FSNY). Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network also became a part of the FOX Sports Network.
In 2005, Dolan and Murdoch ended their alliance because Dolan had some bills he could not pay. Dolan's Cablevision took full ownership of the Garden and the teams, including the Knicks, Rangers and the WNBA's Liberty, as well as MSG Network, Fox Sports New York, FSN Chicago and Radio City Entertainment and 50 percent of FSN New England. Murdoch's News Corp., which held a 40-percent stake in the joint venture, got full ownership of two Fox Sports Net regional sports channels in Ohio and Florida and the two network's advertising operations.
They are not really foes although Dolan beat out Murdoch to buy Long Island's Newsday a couple of years ago. But if there is to be a fight, Dolan and Murdoch are certainly in the heavyweight division.
Both have the right political connections and both can go the distance.
Dolan is a pesky opponent. After losing the New York Yankees cable TV rights, Dolan decided that the Yankees new YES Network was too pricey to be put on Cablevision in 2002. New York State elected officials stepped into the YES Network-Dolan dispute and arranged a temporary cease fire that put the YES Network on Cablevision systems in 2003. Dolan and the Yankees signed a long term agreement in 2004.
Earlier this year, Dolan and Scripps Network Interactive engaged in an 18-day scrap that kept the Food Network and HGTV off of Cablevision systems between January 3 and 21. Then there was the Cablevision-Disney contract battle in March when Disney pulled WABC TV off of Cablevision systems the day of the Oscar presentation show. Cablevision and Disney reached a deal and the Oscar program was restored some 15 minutes after the Academy Awards show started. Dolan and Disney faced some political scrutiny with New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg chided the two entertainment companies.
Disney extracted money from Dolan for the right to carry WABC on Cablevision systems. Dolan, of course, passed on the cost to consumers.
The high end News Corp/FOX-Cablevision drama will probably end with a whimper. Murdoch will get what he wants, Dolan will get what he wants and the consumer, the third party in this heavyweight face off will have to pay the price.
The consumer has little choice if they want cable TV. They are stuck in a system that gives them little choice in what they want to purchase thanks to the 1984 Cable TV Act passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The law allowed multiple system operators to bundle struggling networks such as ESPN, the Weather Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News onto a basic tier (which was anti-consumer and probably violates antitrust laws) and sell the package as one on a basic expanded tier. Cable TV is an all or nothing business. You buy basic, you buy basic and basic expanded and throw in digital. But you cannot buy an individual sports package or news package. Giants, Eagles, NFL fans along with baseball fans probably don't have to lose too much sleep over the Murdoch-Dolan spat. It will be resolved and if the two heavyweights can't agree, someone in Albany or Trenton or Harrisburg or Washington will get a solution in place very quickly. After all, it is election season and someone will probably want to claim victory for TV viewers.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, September 24, 2010
Some questions NFL players should be asking
FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 08:39
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/some-questions-nfl-players-should-be-asking
Has the Philadelphia Eagles organization weathered the public relations problem of the first week of the National Football League season after Eagles coach Andy Reid put Stewart Bradley back on the field about four minutes after the linebacker suffered a head injury. Quarterback Kevin Kolb also went down with a head injury in the game against Green Bay. Kolb has lost his starting job but it wasn't because of the injury according to Reid. Michael Vick is playing better.
The Eagles franchise was criticized by medical observers for not giving Bradley a full exam before he went back into the game. But the storyline has shifted from the two concussions to Vick as the Eagles starter. Injuries are not great stories to tell for the football narrative. No one wants to know about the wreckage and carnage of football.
That's football.
Players are trained to play through pain and there is a macho man mentality of never showing weakness. A player can get his "bell rung" and after the initial blow get right back into the action. But there was a toll that was paid by former players and many of them don't tell their stories about life after the cheering stops. Big, strong men who played football in their 20s have problems with their short term memory because of head injuries and suffer from depression and might be more prone to Lou Gehrig's disease because of head injuries.
They also are candidates for serious cardiovascular problems according to a Mayo Clinic study.
Sunday and Monday Night warriors are mere mortals as they get older.
It is doubtful that players give much thought to the issue after they began to feel better. Players don't really look ahead and think about what might happen to them 10 or 15 years after their playing careers are done. But Bradley, Kolb and every player in the NFL should be asking some very tough questions of league officials and the leadership of their players association.
The questions should start with a simple query.
Are all NFL players going to get real post retirement health benefits and if a player is physically disabled because of an injury or injuries suffered on the field, will the players association take care of medical bills or will the disability board turn down the former player forcing that player to seek government programs to pay for medical bills?
Will the NFL retirement and disability board take care of them? In the case of Johnny Unitas and many other players, they answer was no. Apparently players had a choice, retirement benefits or disability benefits. In Unitas' case, the retirement checks stopped when he took disability payments.
What happens if an NFL career lasts just a year before benefits really kick in? Who takes care of that player if in that one year of NFL play something happens that won't kick up until years after the career is done but can be traced back to football?
Will the United States Government be responsible for football related injuries? The answer to that question is yes and it doesn't matter if you are for health care or against it or you want social security or are looking to gut the system. That's why Congress is taking a closer look at the violent world of football.
One former player is claiming that owners don't want to pay medical and disability payments to former players and that the players association has gone along with the owners and not helped disabled players.
Another question. Is the Department of Labor's assertion that the NFL Retirement and Disability Board paying more attention to hiring lawyers and spending money there instead on former players with disabilities true?
The players should be looking into that.
The National Football League Players Association has put out some information saying it has spent $13 million or so to help out disabled players. A little while ago, the former Interim Director of the NFLPA Richard Berthelsen who was the association's general counsel for years took issue with the comment that the former Executive Director, the late Gene Upshaw, did very little to help out former players like John Mackey in times of need. Berthelsen said nobody did more for Mackey than Upshaw. The league and the players have a program, Plan 88 (Mackey's old number with the Baltimore Colts) that was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2007 providing eligible retired players with up to $88,000 per year for medical and custodial care resulting from dementia or Alzheimer's.
Mackey, the former President of the National Football League Players Association, is suffering from front temporal dementia. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income due because some doctors have concluded there is no proven link between brain injury and playing football.
The battle between former players and the football industry over whether playing football causes brain injuries continues. The NFL is telling players if you have a head injury report it immediately.
There is a lot of infighting and frustration among former players and the back and forth e-mails in that group are rather enlightening. A major question has popped up with deserves closer attention. If the National Football League Players Association does indeed decertify in an effort to stop NFL owners from locking out the players following the Super Bowl, what happens to their benefits?
Do the retired players also suffer from the lockout? According to one lawyer, there could be some trouble ahead for the former players.
"Essentially they would cease to exist as a union — which they did once before as you know and won (Freeman) McNeil (the former New York Jets running back and seven other NFL players filed a lawsuit in a Minneapolis court room against the league in 1993 because the players felt the NFL's Plan B free agency gambit was too restrictive. A jury agreed with them which forced the owners to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a free agency system) — and their fiduciary obligation to anyone would likely cease, except perhaps as it pertains to the pension board — and then only as board members and not as a union," said the lawyer.
"So the pension fund would continue — the union wouldn't — in theory, although the same people would be involved as board members. What would change this time is the league would likely make attempts to reunionize the players and start new benefit funds and there is significant doubt that (NFLPA Executive Director) DeMaurice Smith could actually hold enough players together this time.
"Also it isn't a dunk shot that the (President Barack) Obama NLRB will permit decertification given their pro-union stance. Or that it truly prevents a lockout legally. However, at least theoretically it should prevent a lockout because the owners would be in breach of contract as to every multi-year contract they have currently in force because there would be no union to lockout. This is part of the super power that decertification gives the players.
"Lockout is a judicially recognized corollary to a' union's right to strike which is explicit in the National Labor Relations Act. Lockout doctrine essentially says that since workers are likely to go on strike to cause the most economic damage, an employer has the right to lock them out once a CBA expires to prevent the harm of an unplanned strike.
"It may be practically harder to sue under these circumstances jurisdictionally as you would be suing pension board members and not a union for failure to represent or breach of fiduciary duty."
There is always a question of pensions and whether former players can get more money out of the league/players association in the upcoming bargaining sessions. It appears that the NFLPA doesn't really care about the former players, players who helped build the association and went through labor battles with the owners going back to 1956. Former players want a say in how the association is run and want a vote in the association's affairs with respect to the retirement benefits. The former players want the same rights that retired United Auto Workers, which includes the right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications.
There is far more to football than a game that is played on the field. Once the cheering stops for many players, the real physical problems of taking a beating on a daily basis between playing games and practice begins. Once the cheering ends, the player fades into oblivion and it appears that the players association has that viewpoint. The players association under Upshaw just looked to get as much money as possible for active association members. Players still don't have guaranteed contracts and there are many questions about retirement and disability benefits.
The labor battles of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were all about money and not about long time ramifications of playing football. Get the most money was the theme but little attention was paid to severance pay, medical benefits and future pensions. The players association made a major blunder in strategy and the players of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are seeing the fruitlessness of the CBAs of those days now.
There are a number of former players getting government assistance flying under the radar screen. Congress is asking questions but no one from either party in Washington has answers.
Football is a violent game and players know that the next play could be their last. The players signed contracts and promised to go through a wall for a team. The teams and the players association have not lived up to their part of the bargain and that should be the underlying theme of the next collective bargaining agreement not just a grab for the biggest part of the money pie.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 08:39
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/some-questions-nfl-players-should-be-asking
Has the Philadelphia Eagles organization weathered the public relations problem of the first week of the National Football League season after Eagles coach Andy Reid put Stewart Bradley back on the field about four minutes after the linebacker suffered a head injury. Quarterback Kevin Kolb also went down with a head injury in the game against Green Bay. Kolb has lost his starting job but it wasn't because of the injury according to Reid. Michael Vick is playing better.
The Eagles franchise was criticized by medical observers for not giving Bradley a full exam before he went back into the game. But the storyline has shifted from the two concussions to Vick as the Eagles starter. Injuries are not great stories to tell for the football narrative. No one wants to know about the wreckage and carnage of football.
That's football.
Players are trained to play through pain and there is a macho man mentality of never showing weakness. A player can get his "bell rung" and after the initial blow get right back into the action. But there was a toll that was paid by former players and many of them don't tell their stories about life after the cheering stops. Big, strong men who played football in their 20s have problems with their short term memory because of head injuries and suffer from depression and might be more prone to Lou Gehrig's disease because of head injuries.
They also are candidates for serious cardiovascular problems according to a Mayo Clinic study.
Sunday and Monday Night warriors are mere mortals as they get older.
It is doubtful that players give much thought to the issue after they began to feel better. Players don't really look ahead and think about what might happen to them 10 or 15 years after their playing careers are done. But Bradley, Kolb and every player in the NFL should be asking some very tough questions of league officials and the leadership of their players association.
The questions should start with a simple query.
Are all NFL players going to get real post retirement health benefits and if a player is physically disabled because of an injury or injuries suffered on the field, will the players association take care of medical bills or will the disability board turn down the former player forcing that player to seek government programs to pay for medical bills?
Will the NFL retirement and disability board take care of them? In the case of Johnny Unitas and many other players, they answer was no. Apparently players had a choice, retirement benefits or disability benefits. In Unitas' case, the retirement checks stopped when he took disability payments.
What happens if an NFL career lasts just a year before benefits really kick in? Who takes care of that player if in that one year of NFL play something happens that won't kick up until years after the career is done but can be traced back to football?
Will the United States Government be responsible for football related injuries? The answer to that question is yes and it doesn't matter if you are for health care or against it or you want social security or are looking to gut the system. That's why Congress is taking a closer look at the violent world of football.
One former player is claiming that owners don't want to pay medical and disability payments to former players and that the players association has gone along with the owners and not helped disabled players.
Another question. Is the Department of Labor's assertion that the NFL Retirement and Disability Board paying more attention to hiring lawyers and spending money there instead on former players with disabilities true?
The players should be looking into that.
The National Football League Players Association has put out some information saying it has spent $13 million or so to help out disabled players. A little while ago, the former Interim Director of the NFLPA Richard Berthelsen who was the association's general counsel for years took issue with the comment that the former Executive Director, the late Gene Upshaw, did very little to help out former players like John Mackey in times of need. Berthelsen said nobody did more for Mackey than Upshaw. The league and the players have a program, Plan 88 (Mackey's old number with the Baltimore Colts) that was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2007 providing eligible retired players with up to $88,000 per year for medical and custodial care resulting from dementia or Alzheimer's.
Mackey, the former President of the National Football League Players Association, is suffering from front temporal dementia. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income due because some doctors have concluded there is no proven link between brain injury and playing football.
The battle between former players and the football industry over whether playing football causes brain injuries continues. The NFL is telling players if you have a head injury report it immediately.
There is a lot of infighting and frustration among former players and the back and forth e-mails in that group are rather enlightening. A major question has popped up with deserves closer attention. If the National Football League Players Association does indeed decertify in an effort to stop NFL owners from locking out the players following the Super Bowl, what happens to their benefits?
Do the retired players also suffer from the lockout? According to one lawyer, there could be some trouble ahead for the former players.
"Essentially they would cease to exist as a union — which they did once before as you know and won (Freeman) McNeil (the former New York Jets running back and seven other NFL players filed a lawsuit in a Minneapolis court room against the league in 1993 because the players felt the NFL's Plan B free agency gambit was too restrictive. A jury agreed with them which forced the owners to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a free agency system) — and their fiduciary obligation to anyone would likely cease, except perhaps as it pertains to the pension board — and then only as board members and not as a union," said the lawyer.
"So the pension fund would continue — the union wouldn't — in theory, although the same people would be involved as board members. What would change this time is the league would likely make attempts to reunionize the players and start new benefit funds and there is significant doubt that (NFLPA Executive Director) DeMaurice Smith could actually hold enough players together this time.
"Also it isn't a dunk shot that the (President Barack) Obama NLRB will permit decertification given their pro-union stance. Or that it truly prevents a lockout legally. However, at least theoretically it should prevent a lockout because the owners would be in breach of contract as to every multi-year contract they have currently in force because there would be no union to lockout. This is part of the super power that decertification gives the players.
"Lockout is a judicially recognized corollary to a' union's right to strike which is explicit in the National Labor Relations Act. Lockout doctrine essentially says that since workers are likely to go on strike to cause the most economic damage, an employer has the right to lock them out once a CBA expires to prevent the harm of an unplanned strike.
"It may be practically harder to sue under these circumstances jurisdictionally as you would be suing pension board members and not a union for failure to represent or breach of fiduciary duty."
There is always a question of pensions and whether former players can get more money out of the league/players association in the upcoming bargaining sessions. It appears that the NFLPA doesn't really care about the former players, players who helped build the association and went through labor battles with the owners going back to 1956. Former players want a say in how the association is run and want a vote in the association's affairs with respect to the retirement benefits. The former players want the same rights that retired United Auto Workers, which includes the right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications.
There is far more to football than a game that is played on the field. Once the cheering stops for many players, the real physical problems of taking a beating on a daily basis between playing games and practice begins. Once the cheering ends, the player fades into oblivion and it appears that the players association has that viewpoint. The players association under Upshaw just looked to get as much money as possible for active association members. Players still don't have guaranteed contracts and there are many questions about retirement and disability benefits.
The labor battles of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were all about money and not about long time ramifications of playing football. Get the most money was the theme but little attention was paid to severance pay, medical benefits and future pensions. The players association made a major blunder in strategy and the players of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are seeing the fruitlessness of the CBAs of those days now.
There are a number of former players getting government assistance flying under the radar screen. Congress is asking questions but no one from either party in Washington has answers.
Football is a violent game and players know that the next play could be their last. The players signed contracts and promised to go through a wall for a team. The teams and the players association have not lived up to their part of the bargain and that should be the underlying theme of the next collective bargaining agreement not just a grab for the biggest part of the money pie.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Whale, the WHA and a Renegade Cowboy
By Evan Weiner
September 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/the-whale-the-wha-and-a-renegade-cowboy
(New York, N. Y.) -- There was an announcement in Hartford, Connecticut that former New England-Hartford Whalers owner Howard Baldwin has taken over the day-to-day business operations of the American Hockey League's Hartford Wolf Pack and the team will be renamed the Connecticut Whale. The Hartford team will still be owned by the New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden but Baldwin would like to bring the NHL back to Hartford. Baldwin brought the World Hockey Association to Hartford in 1974 after two years in Boston and his team joined the NHL in 1979. The team was moved to Carolina in 1997 playing first in Greensboro and finally in Raleigh.
There is significance in Baldwin’s return. Nearly 40 years ago, Baldwin became a pioneer in hockey by joining with owners to form the World Hockey Association. The National Hockey league took notice and tried to cut off viable markets for the new league by expanding to Uniondale, New York and Atlanta, Georgia.
Baldwin helped altered the course of the business of hockey.
Baldwin has been involved in hockey on and off for four decades and was one of the original owners in the WHA back in 1972. The WHA changed the face of pro hockey and in a sense freed NHL players from being tied their entire careers to one team unless they were traded.
A lot has been written about Curt Flood's attempt to control his career in baseball but Flood never did see free agency. Major League Baseball's reserve clause was broken in 1975, three years after NHL players jumped to the WHA after completing NHL contracts. Hockey and basketball players were more successful at getting free agency than their baseball counterparts. The hockey and basketball players had another league to use for negotiating leverage. New leagues are difference makers. Eventually basketball and hockey players would win free agency even though the ABA and WHA leftovers were gobbled up by the older leagues. The American Football league, the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association shook up the established leagues and the newspapers reporters who acted an a public relations arm for the old guard.
Bobby Hull became the first player to make a million dollars a season in hockey. In 1972, the 33-year-old Chicago Blackhawk all-star jumped from the National Hockey League to the upstart World Hockey Association and in the process began a salary escalation in a sport that was notorious for keeping salaries suppressed.
Hull left Chicago for Winnipeg, Manitoba after owner Ben Hatskin agreed to give Hull the money.
"1972, yes you are right, it seems like yesterday," said Hull in a 1990
interview about becoming hockey's first million-dollar player. "That was just by accident. They kept badgering me and badgering me, the WHA, and I told them that I didn't want to go to Winnipeg and I wanted to stay in Chicago and that was the only place I was going to play. Finally, I told them I wanted a million bucks to get rid of me because they wanted to know what it would take to get me to Winnipeg. I told them a million bucks just to get rid of them. Had I known that they were even going to try and raise money, I would have told them ten million bucks or something like that."
Bobby Hull grew up in an age where loyalty meant more than a paycheck, when the National Hockey League had six teams, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and New York in the United States, Montreal and Toronto in Canada. The
National Hockey League didn't even pay its players as well as those in the "minor pro" Western Hockey League. But it was the top league in the world and players literally fought to stay in it.
Hull would eventually sign after the 11 other WHA owners chipped into and gave Ben Hatskin the money to sign the Golden Jet.
"Had I known they that were even going to think about raising a million
dollars," Hull continued. "Who did I think was worth a million dollars back then? I was the first one. I thought if I threw a million bucks at them, they would say who is this renegade cowboy wanting a million dollars and they would leave me alone.
"In all sports, that was it, that's why I thought it was so astronomical, I thought they'd say get lost. Who was this guy? They gave me a million dollars and then I got $250,000 a year to play. That was a bonus. That was the first million dollars, I don't know anybody else who made it. I know none of the boxers made it at that time, the riders, the jockeys; I know none of the golfers had ever made that.
"Right now, knowing what I know now, I would have said 10 and I am sure they would have balked at that."
Bobby Hull had to win a court battle to go to Winnipeg. So did Boston Bruins winger John Mc Kenzie in order to jump to Philadelphia. His contract, as was Hull's contract was done and the NHL was under the impression it had perpetual rights to players. They didn't, at least according to Judge Leon Higginbotham upheld the WHA's legal claim to NHL players who had signed their contractual obligations.
"The NHL is merely sustaining the fate which monopolists must face when they can no longer continue their prior total dominance of the market," Higginbotham wrote on an action filed by McKenzie.
The WHA was never fiscally stable and a lot of franchises moved or simply went out of business. Players didn't get paid on time or never were paid. But the
World Hockey Association was a good thing for players despite its franchise movement and bankruptcies.
"It allowed a player a choice of playing in the NHL or somewhere else," said Senator and Hockey Hall of Famer Frank Mahovlich, who left Detroit for the WHA in 1973. "Up to that particular time, it was a monopoly and you never had an opportunity to increase your salary, and it wasn't that great for the players. In 1972, when the WHA started, it gave us that chance.
"I think Bobby Hull was the first one to go over to the WHA and gave credibility to the league. It increased our salaries and as time went on and we got competitive with baseball."
The World Hockey Association went after 18 year old players and signed them. There is a list of NHL elite players who began in the WHA in the mid to late 1970s that included Rod Langway, Rob Ramage, Ken Linseman,
Mike Gartner, Mark Messier and a 17 year old named Wayne Gretzky.
It was Linseman who would force the NHL to change its draft rules in 1976. Linseman, who was 19 years old at the time, sued the WHA who would not allow him to join the league as players 20 and younger were not eligible to play in either the NHL or WHA. Linseman won his case and opened the door for "underaged" hockey players. Gretzky would sign with Indianapolis. He was traded after a handful of games in 1978 because the team was broke.
After the Indianapolis Racers folded, the WHA was left with Birmingham, Cincinnati, Edmonton, New England (Hartford), Quebec and Winnipeg. The financially ailing league did get a deal done to merge with the NHL, but the Montreal Canadiens owner the Molson Breweries said no and blocked the agreement. Hockey fans and beer drinkers in Edmonton, Quebec and Winnipeg threatened a boycott of Molson's products and ultimately the beer drinkers and Molson's bottom line won out. Edmonton, New England, Quebec City and Winnipeg were admitted into the league.
The NHL owners picked up an expansion fee, Gretzky stayed in Edmonton, Gordie Howe in Hartford and that ended the player war. The WHA changed hockey in numerous ways. The league went to American Sun Belt Cities, signed European talent and Baldwin's Hartford team had a hand in what eventually became the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, ESPN. The Whale is back in Hartford after the team helped transformed hockey and sports.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
September 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/the-whale-the-wha-and-a-renegade-cowboy
(New York, N. Y.) -- There was an announcement in Hartford, Connecticut that former New England-Hartford Whalers owner Howard Baldwin has taken over the day-to-day business operations of the American Hockey League's Hartford Wolf Pack and the team will be renamed the Connecticut Whale. The Hartford team will still be owned by the New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden but Baldwin would like to bring the NHL back to Hartford. Baldwin brought the World Hockey Association to Hartford in 1974 after two years in Boston and his team joined the NHL in 1979. The team was moved to Carolina in 1997 playing first in Greensboro and finally in Raleigh.
There is significance in Baldwin’s return. Nearly 40 years ago, Baldwin became a pioneer in hockey by joining with owners to form the World Hockey Association. The National Hockey league took notice and tried to cut off viable markets for the new league by expanding to Uniondale, New York and Atlanta, Georgia.
Baldwin helped altered the course of the business of hockey.
Baldwin has been involved in hockey on and off for four decades and was one of the original owners in the WHA back in 1972. The WHA changed the face of pro hockey and in a sense freed NHL players from being tied their entire careers to one team unless they were traded.
A lot has been written about Curt Flood's attempt to control his career in baseball but Flood never did see free agency. Major League Baseball's reserve clause was broken in 1975, three years after NHL players jumped to the WHA after completing NHL contracts. Hockey and basketball players were more successful at getting free agency than their baseball counterparts. The hockey and basketball players had another league to use for negotiating leverage. New leagues are difference makers. Eventually basketball and hockey players would win free agency even though the ABA and WHA leftovers were gobbled up by the older leagues. The American Football league, the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association shook up the established leagues and the newspapers reporters who acted an a public relations arm for the old guard.
Bobby Hull became the first player to make a million dollars a season in hockey. In 1972, the 33-year-old Chicago Blackhawk all-star jumped from the National Hockey League to the upstart World Hockey Association and in the process began a salary escalation in a sport that was notorious for keeping salaries suppressed.
Hull left Chicago for Winnipeg, Manitoba after owner Ben Hatskin agreed to give Hull the money.
"1972, yes you are right, it seems like yesterday," said Hull in a 1990
interview about becoming hockey's first million-dollar player. "That was just by accident. They kept badgering me and badgering me, the WHA, and I told them that I didn't want to go to Winnipeg and I wanted to stay in Chicago and that was the only place I was going to play. Finally, I told them I wanted a million bucks to get rid of me because they wanted to know what it would take to get me to Winnipeg. I told them a million bucks just to get rid of them. Had I known that they were even going to try and raise money, I would have told them ten million bucks or something like that."
Bobby Hull grew up in an age where loyalty meant more than a paycheck, when the National Hockey League had six teams, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and New York in the United States, Montreal and Toronto in Canada. The
National Hockey League didn't even pay its players as well as those in the "minor pro" Western Hockey League. But it was the top league in the world and players literally fought to stay in it.
Hull would eventually sign after the 11 other WHA owners chipped into and gave Ben Hatskin the money to sign the Golden Jet.
"Had I known they that were even going to think about raising a million
dollars," Hull continued. "Who did I think was worth a million dollars back then? I was the first one. I thought if I threw a million bucks at them, they would say who is this renegade cowboy wanting a million dollars and they would leave me alone.
"In all sports, that was it, that's why I thought it was so astronomical, I thought they'd say get lost. Who was this guy? They gave me a million dollars and then I got $250,000 a year to play. That was a bonus. That was the first million dollars, I don't know anybody else who made it. I know none of the boxers made it at that time, the riders, the jockeys; I know none of the golfers had ever made that.
"Right now, knowing what I know now, I would have said 10 and I am sure they would have balked at that."
Bobby Hull had to win a court battle to go to Winnipeg. So did Boston Bruins winger John Mc Kenzie in order to jump to Philadelphia. His contract, as was Hull's contract was done and the NHL was under the impression it had perpetual rights to players. They didn't, at least according to Judge Leon Higginbotham upheld the WHA's legal claim to NHL players who had signed their contractual obligations.
"The NHL is merely sustaining the fate which monopolists must face when they can no longer continue their prior total dominance of the market," Higginbotham wrote on an action filed by McKenzie.
The WHA was never fiscally stable and a lot of franchises moved or simply went out of business. Players didn't get paid on time or never were paid. But the
World Hockey Association was a good thing for players despite its franchise movement and bankruptcies.
"It allowed a player a choice of playing in the NHL or somewhere else," said Senator and Hockey Hall of Famer Frank Mahovlich, who left Detroit for the WHA in 1973. "Up to that particular time, it was a monopoly and you never had an opportunity to increase your salary, and it wasn't that great for the players. In 1972, when the WHA started, it gave us that chance.
"I think Bobby Hull was the first one to go over to the WHA and gave credibility to the league. It increased our salaries and as time went on and we got competitive with baseball."
The World Hockey Association went after 18 year old players and signed them. There is a list of NHL elite players who began in the WHA in the mid to late 1970s that included Rod Langway, Rob Ramage, Ken Linseman,
Mike Gartner, Mark Messier and a 17 year old named Wayne Gretzky.
It was Linseman who would force the NHL to change its draft rules in 1976. Linseman, who was 19 years old at the time, sued the WHA who would not allow him to join the league as players 20 and younger were not eligible to play in either the NHL or WHA. Linseman won his case and opened the door for "underaged" hockey players. Gretzky would sign with Indianapolis. He was traded after a handful of games in 1978 because the team was broke.
After the Indianapolis Racers folded, the WHA was left with Birmingham, Cincinnati, Edmonton, New England (Hartford), Quebec and Winnipeg. The financially ailing league did get a deal done to merge with the NHL, but the Montreal Canadiens owner the Molson Breweries said no and blocked the agreement. Hockey fans and beer drinkers in Edmonton, Quebec and Winnipeg threatened a boycott of Molson's products and ultimately the beer drinkers and Molson's bottom line won out. Edmonton, New England, Quebec City and Winnipeg were admitted into the league.
The NHL owners picked up an expansion fee, Gretzky stayed in Edmonton, Gordie Howe in Hartford and that ended the player war. The WHA changed hockey in numerous ways. The league went to American Sun Belt Cities, signed European talent and Baldwin's Hartford team had a hand in what eventually became the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, ESPN. The Whale is back in Hartford after the team helped transformed hockey and sports.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Monday, September 20, 2010
SenatiorWill the New York Giants or Jets be blacked out on local TV this season?
MONDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2010 12:59
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/will-the-new-york-giants-or-jets-be-blacked-out-on-local-tv-this-season
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
On the opening weekend of the 2010 National Football League season, neither the East Rutherford-based New York Giants nor the New York Jets sold out the New Meadowlands Stadium. In theory, neither the Giants- Carolina Panthers game nor the Jets-Baltimore Ravens contest should have been seen in the New York area. On over-the-area, cable (ESPN, NFL Network) or satellite (DirecTV) in a 75-mile radius of New York City. But the game was on television despite the fact that the Giants and Jets did not sell out all of their inventory (seats) to the games.
Apparently the failure to sell club seats and luxury boxes, the really big-ticket items, doesn't count when it comes to National Football League blackout rules. So for TV purposes, the Jets and Giants not being able to sell out seats because they were designated as club seats or luxury boxes gives the two teams some leeway. The two teams New York City area fan base is much better off in terms of TV than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders fan bases. Tampa Bay failed to sell out the team's Tampa stadium during the NFL's opening week in a game against the Cleveland Browns.
The Chargers' home game on Sunday against Jacksonville was blacked out in the San Diego market because the stadium didn't sell out.
The Oakland Raiders home opener against St. Louis was blacked out on September 19 because the team did not sell out the Oakland Coliseum. Oakland's last home game telecast in the San Francisco Bay Area was the opening game of the 2009 season against San Diego.
Other teams will probably not sell out games during the 2010 and that has caught the attention of Congress. Ohio Senator. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has asked the NFL to take a close look at its blackout policy. The Ohio Senator thinks the league should take into consideration that the country has not recovered from the September 2008 economic meltdown and that people cannot afford pricey tickets.
In 2009, there were 22 blackouts across the league. In 2008, there were just five. The NFL will keep the policy in place even though a Senator is asking them to reconsider. This could get nasty at some point this fall if there is a trend of non-sellouts. Congress created the NFL as the league exists today with the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and Congress can make life miserable for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the 31 owners and the people who run Green Bay.
Exhibit A was the 2007 season final Saturday night game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants when New England was on the verge of a 16-0 season. That game was scheduled to be on the NFL Network with just local broadcasts in New York and Boston. The NFL Network was having problems with carriage with various multiple systems operators (including Time Warner, Cablevision and Charter limiting the NFL Network's reach to 43 million households) which meant a great deal of the country could not see the game.
The non-availability of the game caused a stir on the Hill in Washington and by week's end, the game suddenly appeared on CBS, NBC and the NFL Network. When Congress is motivated, things get done in a bi-partisan manner rapidly without rancor.
Particularly in sports.
The NFL blackout rule has been bounced around for six decades. Television is both a blessing and a curse for sports in the minds of some owners and sports officials. What TV really is for sports is a three-hour infomercial selling the product. In this case, the NFL. But in 1950, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell told his owners to blackout home games to get people to buy tickets for home games instead of in front of the television. Bell's plea to his owners came after the Los Angeles Rams ownership saw a 50-percent drop in attendance in 1949 compared to 1948 after the team signed a deal with the Admiral Television Company in Southern California. Admiral was a maker of televisions and used Rams games to sell TVs not unlike David Signoff who put programs on his NBC radio network in the 1920s to sell RCA radios. By 1951, the NFL was in the courtroom defending its blackout policy. In 1953, Judge Allan K. Grim, upheld the league's blackout policy believing that it was not in violation of anti-trust laws.
The blackout problem resurfaced in 1957, when the NFL Championship Game was blacked out in the host city of Detroit despite being a sellout.
Because of the blackout rule, Chicago football fans in the 1950s hardly ever saw a football game. Chicago was the only two-team city in the NFL with the Bears and Cardinals hosting home games on a weekly basis over the course of the 12 game schedule. If the Cardinals and Bears played one another, then one weekend would be freed up for CBS' WBBM in Chicago to televise a game. Eventually the Bidwill family's Cardinals would play two "home" games a year in other locales such as Minneapolis or Buffalo. The NFL finally solved the "Chicago problem" when Bidwill's Cardinals moved to St. Louis on March 13, 1960. The Bidwills went to St. Louis after receiving $500,000 from the Bears, the NFL, and CBS.
Congress really got involved in sports broadcasting in 1961 and changed the sports landscape of the United States. In its early years of television, post World War II, TV contracts were negotiated locally. In the 1950's, the NFL was under a court-ordered injunction that prevented it from signing a single league-wide contract with a network. Instead, each NFL team had a separate deal with a local television station. For instance in 1960, the New York Giants received $340,000 for their deal, but the Green Bay Packers received $105,000. In 1960, the just established American Football League, not limited by the injunction, pooled the broadcast rights and signed a national network contract with the American Broadcasting Company (which was at the time, a limited TV network trying to make inroads against the established Columbia Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company.
On September 30, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Public Law 87-331, better known as the Sports Broadcasting Act, which exempted professional sports leagues from antitrust scrutiny allowing them to sell television rights on a league-wide basis.
After President Kennedy signed the bill, the NFL pooled its television rights and signed a deal with CBS for 1962 for $4.65 million annually.
The blackout policy was challenged again in 1962 when the Giants hosted Green Bay in the NFL Championship at Yankee Stadium. Judge Edward Weinfeld upheld the NFL position and denied an injunction, which would have forced CBS to televise the game in the New York City area. The blackout policy would remain in effect until 1973, when Congress passed experimental legislation, which was supposed to have lasted until 1976, that stated that any NFL game that was declared a sellout 72 hours prior to kickoff be made available for local TV.
The NFL renewed its contracts with CBS for the regular-season and the championship games in the years 1964 through 1967. Sarnoff was extremely unhappy with the NFL spurning his NBC network and decided to bankroll the American Football League. The TV monies poured in but owners had to use those funds to hire expensive talent like Joe Namath who signed a $427,000 deal with the New York Jets in 1965. The NBC-AFL partnership would eventually force the AFL and NFL to merge, a marriage that had to be approved by Congress. That happened in October 1966. By 1969, television income had risen to $1.6 million per team in the NFL and $900,000 per team in the AFL.
Once the leagues merged, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle began dabbling with the thought of a regular Monday night game. In 1966, CBS did two games. But Rozelle thought a regular series would be a ratings grabber. Both William Paley's CBS and Sarnoff's NBC declined because they had hit Monday night programming, but still ratings challenged ABC signed on in 1969 but with the understanding that Monday Night Football would be more than just a game. It had to be entertainment as well, which is why Howard Cosell and Don Meredith became the stars of the show not the players per se. 1969. Monday Night Football debuted in 1970, with ABC acquiring the rights to televise 13 NFL regular-season Monday night games in 1970, 1971, and 1972/
In 1969, four-year television contracts, under which CBS would televise all NFC games (between 1970-73) and NBC all AFC games (except Monday night games), with a division between the networks of the televising of the Super Bowl and AFC-NFC Pro Bowl games, were signed.
Congress created a major revenue source for the NFL by passing the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and to this day, both House and Senate members know that. The NFL may be able to fend off Sherrod Brown but what happens if other lawmakers decide this is an issue? If Brown gets addition support on the Hill, Roger Goodell may be explaining why the NFL still needs a blackout rule and how the Giants and Jets haven't sold all of their Meadowlands inventory and yet the league televises Jets and Giants home games in the New York market with less than a full house but San Diego, Oakland and Tampa can't. Things might get nasty later this fall if teams are not selling out but the consumer wants the NFL.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaking on "The Business and Sports of Politics" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
MONDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2010 12:59
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/will-the-new-york-giants-or-jets-be-blacked-out-on-local-tv-this-season
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
On the opening weekend of the 2010 National Football League season, neither the East Rutherford-based New York Giants nor the New York Jets sold out the New Meadowlands Stadium. In theory, neither the Giants- Carolina Panthers game nor the Jets-Baltimore Ravens contest should have been seen in the New York area. On over-the-area, cable (ESPN, NFL Network) or satellite (DirecTV) in a 75-mile radius of New York City. But the game was on television despite the fact that the Giants and Jets did not sell out all of their inventory (seats) to the games.
Apparently the failure to sell club seats and luxury boxes, the really big-ticket items, doesn't count when it comes to National Football League blackout rules. So for TV purposes, the Jets and Giants not being able to sell out seats because they were designated as club seats or luxury boxes gives the two teams some leeway. The two teams New York City area fan base is much better off in terms of TV than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders fan bases. Tampa Bay failed to sell out the team's Tampa stadium during the NFL's opening week in a game against the Cleveland Browns.
The Chargers' home game on Sunday against Jacksonville was blacked out in the San Diego market because the stadium didn't sell out.
The Oakland Raiders home opener against St. Louis was blacked out on September 19 because the team did not sell out the Oakland Coliseum. Oakland's last home game telecast in the San Francisco Bay Area was the opening game of the 2009 season against San Diego.
Other teams will probably not sell out games during the 2010 and that has caught the attention of Congress. Ohio Senator. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has asked the NFL to take a close look at its blackout policy. The Ohio Senator thinks the league should take into consideration that the country has not recovered from the September 2008 economic meltdown and that people cannot afford pricey tickets.
In 2009, there were 22 blackouts across the league. In 2008, there were just five. The NFL will keep the policy in place even though a Senator is asking them to reconsider. This could get nasty at some point this fall if there is a trend of non-sellouts. Congress created the NFL as the league exists today with the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and Congress can make life miserable for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the 31 owners and the people who run Green Bay.
Exhibit A was the 2007 season final Saturday night game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants when New England was on the verge of a 16-0 season. That game was scheduled to be on the NFL Network with just local broadcasts in New York and Boston. The NFL Network was having problems with carriage with various multiple systems operators (including Time Warner, Cablevision and Charter limiting the NFL Network's reach to 43 million households) which meant a great deal of the country could not see the game.
The non-availability of the game caused a stir on the Hill in Washington and by week's end, the game suddenly appeared on CBS, NBC and the NFL Network. When Congress is motivated, things get done in a bi-partisan manner rapidly without rancor.
Particularly in sports.
The NFL blackout rule has been bounced around for six decades. Television is both a blessing and a curse for sports in the minds of some owners and sports officials. What TV really is for sports is a three-hour infomercial selling the product. In this case, the NFL. But in 1950, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell told his owners to blackout home games to get people to buy tickets for home games instead of in front of the television. Bell's plea to his owners came after the Los Angeles Rams ownership saw a 50-percent drop in attendance in 1949 compared to 1948 after the team signed a deal with the Admiral Television Company in Southern California. Admiral was a maker of televisions and used Rams games to sell TVs not unlike David Signoff who put programs on his NBC radio network in the 1920s to sell RCA radios. By 1951, the NFL was in the courtroom defending its blackout policy. In 1953, Judge Allan K. Grim, upheld the league's blackout policy believing that it was not in violation of anti-trust laws.
The blackout problem resurfaced in 1957, when the NFL Championship Game was blacked out in the host city of Detroit despite being a sellout.
Because of the blackout rule, Chicago football fans in the 1950s hardly ever saw a football game. Chicago was the only two-team city in the NFL with the Bears and Cardinals hosting home games on a weekly basis over the course of the 12 game schedule. If the Cardinals and Bears played one another, then one weekend would be freed up for CBS' WBBM in Chicago to televise a game. Eventually the Bidwill family's Cardinals would play two "home" games a year in other locales such as Minneapolis or Buffalo. The NFL finally solved the "Chicago problem" when Bidwill's Cardinals moved to St. Louis on March 13, 1960. The Bidwills went to St. Louis after receiving $500,000 from the Bears, the NFL, and CBS.
Congress really got involved in sports broadcasting in 1961 and changed the sports landscape of the United States. In its early years of television, post World War II, TV contracts were negotiated locally. In the 1950's, the NFL was under a court-ordered injunction that prevented it from signing a single league-wide contract with a network. Instead, each NFL team had a separate deal with a local television station. For instance in 1960, the New York Giants received $340,000 for their deal, but the Green Bay Packers received $105,000. In 1960, the just established American Football League, not limited by the injunction, pooled the broadcast rights and signed a national network contract with the American Broadcasting Company (which was at the time, a limited TV network trying to make inroads against the established Columbia Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company.
On September 30, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Public Law 87-331, better known as the Sports Broadcasting Act, which exempted professional sports leagues from antitrust scrutiny allowing them to sell television rights on a league-wide basis.
After President Kennedy signed the bill, the NFL pooled its television rights and signed a deal with CBS for 1962 for $4.65 million annually.
The blackout policy was challenged again in 1962 when the Giants hosted Green Bay in the NFL Championship at Yankee Stadium. Judge Edward Weinfeld upheld the NFL position and denied an injunction, which would have forced CBS to televise the game in the New York City area. The blackout policy would remain in effect until 1973, when Congress passed experimental legislation, which was supposed to have lasted until 1976, that stated that any NFL game that was declared a sellout 72 hours prior to kickoff be made available for local TV.
The NFL renewed its contracts with CBS for the regular-season and the championship games in the years 1964 through 1967. Sarnoff was extremely unhappy with the NFL spurning his NBC network and decided to bankroll the American Football League. The TV monies poured in but owners had to use those funds to hire expensive talent like Joe Namath who signed a $427,000 deal with the New York Jets in 1965. The NBC-AFL partnership would eventually force the AFL and NFL to merge, a marriage that had to be approved by Congress. That happened in October 1966. By 1969, television income had risen to $1.6 million per team in the NFL and $900,000 per team in the AFL.
Once the leagues merged, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle began dabbling with the thought of a regular Monday night game. In 1966, CBS did two games. But Rozelle thought a regular series would be a ratings grabber. Both William Paley's CBS and Sarnoff's NBC declined because they had hit Monday night programming, but still ratings challenged ABC signed on in 1969 but with the understanding that Monday Night Football would be more than just a game. It had to be entertainment as well, which is why Howard Cosell and Don Meredith became the stars of the show not the players per se. 1969. Monday Night Football debuted in 1970, with ABC acquiring the rights to televise 13 NFL regular-season Monday night games in 1970, 1971, and 1972/
In 1969, four-year television contracts, under which CBS would televise all NFC games (between 1970-73) and NBC all AFC games (except Monday night games), with a division between the networks of the televising of the Super Bowl and AFC-NFC Pro Bowl games, were signed.
Congress created a major revenue source for the NFL by passing the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and to this day, both House and Senate members know that. The NFL may be able to fend off Sherrod Brown but what happens if other lawmakers decide this is an issue? If Brown gets addition support on the Hill, Roger Goodell may be explaining why the NFL still needs a blackout rule and how the Giants and Jets haven't sold all of their Meadowlands inventory and yet the league televises Jets and Giants home games in the New York market with less than a full house but San Diego, Oakland and Tampa can't. Things might get nasty later this fall if teams are not selling out but the consumer wants the NFL.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaking on "The Business and Sports of Politics" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Jock Sniffers Vaporized USC's 2005 Season and Reggie Bush's Heisman
By Evan Weiner
September 14, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/the-jock-sniffers-vaporized-usc-s-2005-season-and-reggie-bush-s-heisman
(New York, N. Y.) -- Dear National Collegiate Athletic Association or should this be sent to the jock-sniffing presidents, chancellors and provosts of big time college athletic programs? If the University of Southern California and Reggie Bush did not exist in 2005 because Reggie Bush received "improper benefits" while he matriculated in the Los Angeles school --- and played football for now is a ghost team in NCAA record books ---- why aren't you refunding money you took partially based on Bush and his USC teammates prowess to over-the-air and cable television networks, ticket holders to USC games, marketing partners and radio networks who bought your product?
While we are at it, since the 2005 season was vaporized, why shouldn't cable TV subscribers get a refund too for helping to finance college sports programs, particularly the 92 or so percent of the cable TV universe that pays for sports programming as part of the :"basic enhanced" experience and never watches a sports event.
To the people who run USC (and the NCAA), how about a refund on all of those Reggie Bush shirts that you marketed and sold to people. It is funny that schools sell shirts of the team's most popular players yet a lot of those players don't have the means to buy their own shirt. They also don't see a cent from the sales of the shirts.
The NCAA has found fraud based on their rules --- we give the player a scholarship in exchange that allows the player to basically be a pro in training and a school fundraiser --- and the NCAA has penalized the University of Southern California by stripping the school of a title that was won fairly on the gridiron and punishing Bush who is long gone from the school by saying he was ineligible. The 2010 and future teams will be paying the price as USC has been stripped of a number of scholarships.
Bush has given up his Heisman Trophy that he won in 2005. Bush has been vaporized. He and his Trojans teammates don't exist in the paper and viral world anymore. At least according to the jock-sniffers who run the NCAA. So if that's the case, then the NCAA should be returning money to everyone because the august college board has decreed that some sort of fraud has taken place.
But the real crime is that the NCAA is punishing people for violating their rules and yet will not return any money to the victims of the fraud---paying customers, paying marketing partners and television networks. The public according to the NCAA was duped by Bush who took money from what can be best described as friends of the program and thus all of USC's accomplishments of that year have been wiped out.
The jock-sniffing college presidents, chancellors, provosts through their proxy, the NCAA, can say all they want about maintaining the integrity of college sports. The integrity of college sports has never existed. It’s an illusion. Big time college sports is a business. The football and basketball programs are cash cows and colleges will attempt to bend every rule in the book to field a good team.
The jock-sniffing presidents, chancellors and provosts think having strong teams build campus spirit and make alums feel good about the school. They think the alums will become boosters and pump money into the schools. There is a phalanx of financial support that goes into college sports starting with Congress giving big time sports schools a tax exemption. The networks, Sumner Redstone's CBS, Disney's ESPN, General Electric's NBCUniversal, Ruppert Murdoch's FOX, Turner Sports, the regional sports cable TV networks and all of the broadband components that come with the media lords give money. There are the marketing partners and advertisers including a very involved gaggle of sneaker companies, the boosters and the slums---who presumably buy the luxury boxes and the club seats and leave their cars in special parking areas and dine in stadium and/or arena eateries, everyday fans, and the college kids who are given a morsel and able to buy tickets at a discount rate.
All of those constituencies make the college sports industry work. The players are merely a cog in the machine who get scholarships that allow them to take classes and possibly get educated but the football and basketball players' main concerns are playing for good old fill-in-the-blank college or university. The Ivy League schools allegedly de-emphasize sports and don't give scholarships. But they do give grant-in-aid and if you are a player at Harvard or Yale, you have a great rolodex as the schools of the Ivy League give players the phone numbers of important and not so important alums.
Reggie Bush was supposed to just be a cog. He was supposed to play by the rules approved by the real powers of college sports, the jock-sniffing presidents, chancellors and provosts. He was supposed to be a "student-athlete" which was a term invented by college powers in the 1950's to shield colleges from paying workman's compensation in the event a player got injured. Bush and his colleagues are supposed to not receive any more than $2,000 a year for working an outside job. A rule designed to protect schools not players from a player getting a highly paid do-nothing job from an important alum--the rule theoretically evens the playing field as some schools have rather wealthy benefactors while others don't.
Bush and his fellow players are expected to participate in voluntary workouts and perform while their likenesses are sold by the NCAA to video game producers for profit and their uniforms are also sold for profit to adoring fans. The players don't see a dime from the video games. Their names are not used but their likeness is used and there is a court case taking place to decide whether the players are entitled to video game money.
Bush broke the NCAA rules and he gave up his Heisman. It would be rather interesting to see someone launch a class action suit against the NCAA for selling a product that was fraudulent in the world of the NCAA. A world that is stacked against the student-athlete. But the NCAA will escape unscathed. The 2005 season for USC and Bush never existed. That is the determination of the jock-sniffing college presidents, chancellors and provosts who have rigged up a system with a one sided contract that favors schools and gives players little rights.
The players should be grateful that they get scholarships and a chance at an education.
People who watched Bush and USC know that there were games on the field but in the holier than thou bizarro world of college sports, those games never existed yet the NCAA cashed in and made money off of Bush and USC. Bush's exploits are on tape and unless the NCAA gets a court order that destroys the tapes of Bush's 2005 season to destroy all evidence that Bush played, the jock-sniffing college presidents, chancellors and provosts are as fraudulent as they claim Bush is.
If the public was hoodwinked as the jock-sniffers claim, then the people who put up money for the entertainment (and that is what college sports really is) are due damages for investing in a fraud.
Evan Weiner is an award winning journalist, TV-radio commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
September 14, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/the-jock-sniffers-vaporized-usc-s-2005-season-and-reggie-bush-s-heisman
(New York, N. Y.) -- Dear National Collegiate Athletic Association or should this be sent to the jock-sniffing presidents, chancellors and provosts of big time college athletic programs? If the University of Southern California and Reggie Bush did not exist in 2005 because Reggie Bush received "improper benefits" while he matriculated in the Los Angeles school --- and played football for now is a ghost team in NCAA record books ---- why aren't you refunding money you took partially based on Bush and his USC teammates prowess to over-the-air and cable television networks, ticket holders to USC games, marketing partners and radio networks who bought your product?
While we are at it, since the 2005 season was vaporized, why shouldn't cable TV subscribers get a refund too for helping to finance college sports programs, particularly the 92 or so percent of the cable TV universe that pays for sports programming as part of the :"basic enhanced" experience and never watches a sports event.
To the people who run USC (and the NCAA), how about a refund on all of those Reggie Bush shirts that you marketed and sold to people. It is funny that schools sell shirts of the team's most popular players yet a lot of those players don't have the means to buy their own shirt. They also don't see a cent from the sales of the shirts.
The NCAA has found fraud based on their rules --- we give the player a scholarship in exchange that allows the player to basically be a pro in training and a school fundraiser --- and the NCAA has penalized the University of Southern California by stripping the school of a title that was won fairly on the gridiron and punishing Bush who is long gone from the school by saying he was ineligible. The 2010 and future teams will be paying the price as USC has been stripped of a number of scholarships.
Bush has given up his Heisman Trophy that he won in 2005. Bush has been vaporized. He and his Trojans teammates don't exist in the paper and viral world anymore. At least according to the jock-sniffers who run the NCAA. So if that's the case, then the NCAA should be returning money to everyone because the august college board has decreed that some sort of fraud has taken place.
But the real crime is that the NCAA is punishing people for violating their rules and yet will not return any money to the victims of the fraud---paying customers, paying marketing partners and television networks. The public according to the NCAA was duped by Bush who took money from what can be best described as friends of the program and thus all of USC's accomplishments of that year have been wiped out.
The jock-sniffing college presidents, chancellors, provosts through their proxy, the NCAA, can say all they want about maintaining the integrity of college sports. The integrity of college sports has never existed. It’s an illusion. Big time college sports is a business. The football and basketball programs are cash cows and colleges will attempt to bend every rule in the book to field a good team.
The jock-sniffing presidents, chancellors and provosts think having strong teams build campus spirit and make alums feel good about the school. They think the alums will become boosters and pump money into the schools. There is a phalanx of financial support that goes into college sports starting with Congress giving big time sports schools a tax exemption. The networks, Sumner Redstone's CBS, Disney's ESPN, General Electric's NBCUniversal, Ruppert Murdoch's FOX, Turner Sports, the regional sports cable TV networks and all of the broadband components that come with the media lords give money. There are the marketing partners and advertisers including a very involved gaggle of sneaker companies, the boosters and the slums---who presumably buy the luxury boxes and the club seats and leave their cars in special parking areas and dine in stadium and/or arena eateries, everyday fans, and the college kids who are given a morsel and able to buy tickets at a discount rate.
All of those constituencies make the college sports industry work. The players are merely a cog in the machine who get scholarships that allow them to take classes and possibly get educated but the football and basketball players' main concerns are playing for good old fill-in-the-blank college or university. The Ivy League schools allegedly de-emphasize sports and don't give scholarships. But they do give grant-in-aid and if you are a player at Harvard or Yale, you have a great rolodex as the schools of the Ivy League give players the phone numbers of important and not so important alums.
Reggie Bush was supposed to just be a cog. He was supposed to play by the rules approved by the real powers of college sports, the jock-sniffing presidents, chancellors and provosts. He was supposed to be a "student-athlete" which was a term invented by college powers in the 1950's to shield colleges from paying workman's compensation in the event a player got injured. Bush and his colleagues are supposed to not receive any more than $2,000 a year for working an outside job. A rule designed to protect schools not players from a player getting a highly paid do-nothing job from an important alum--the rule theoretically evens the playing field as some schools have rather wealthy benefactors while others don't.
Bush and his fellow players are expected to participate in voluntary workouts and perform while their likenesses are sold by the NCAA to video game producers for profit and their uniforms are also sold for profit to adoring fans. The players don't see a dime from the video games. Their names are not used but their likeness is used and there is a court case taking place to decide whether the players are entitled to video game money.
Bush broke the NCAA rules and he gave up his Heisman. It would be rather interesting to see someone launch a class action suit against the NCAA for selling a product that was fraudulent in the world of the NCAA. A world that is stacked against the student-athlete. But the NCAA will escape unscathed. The 2005 season for USC and Bush never existed. That is the determination of the jock-sniffing college presidents, chancellors and provosts who have rigged up a system with a one sided contract that favors schools and gives players little rights.
The players should be grateful that they get scholarships and a chance at an education.
People who watched Bush and USC know that there were games on the field but in the holier than thou bizarro world of college sports, those games never existed yet the NCAA cashed in and made money off of Bush and USC. Bush's exploits are on tape and unless the NCAA gets a court order that destroys the tapes of Bush's 2005 season to destroy all evidence that Bush played, the jock-sniffing college presidents, chancellors and provosts are as fraudulent as they claim Bush is.
If the public was hoodwinked as the jock-sniffers claim, then the people who put up money for the entertainment (and that is what college sports really is) are due damages for investing in a fraud.
Evan Weiner is an award winning journalist, TV-radio commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Time to allow sports gambling in Atlantic City
MONDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2010 22:24
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/time-to-allow-sports-gambling-in-atlantic-city
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
HAMILTON, BERMUDA — In the capital city of the British Crown colony of Bermuda, Hamilton, there is a rather non-descript store located beneath the Little Theater on Queen Street. There are two signs in front of the property, one in green and the other in white, which describe the place.
"Sea Horses — Live English and U.S. Horse Racing, International Sports Betting, Open Monday-Saturday."
Seahorses Bookmakers is a Bermuda-owned company that is licensed by the Bermuda government and Americans sitting at home can use their computers to bet on American pro and college sports events. Ironically enough, there is no casino gambling on the Bermuda islands.
The Sea Horses betting parlor is around the corner from the Hamilton City Hall and is about two blocks up from the very upscale waterfront that includes the U.K.'s Marks and Spencer. The sports book is the kind of place that exists in the United Kingdom but not in the United States except in Las Vegas and Dover, Delaware. Inside a cutaway in a building under the Little Theater, on the left side is Sea Horses, a place that will never be confused for Las Vegas or Dover or what might be a sports book in an Atlantic City casino.
There are Venetian blinds on the door and window of the store so you cannot look in. Once inside, the room is small and drab with a bank of lower end televisions showing horse races from various tracks around the world and English football, The dozen or so men, it was all men, were going through racing forms, America football games tout sheets, which resembled betting sheets that were used at high schools in the 1970s around the U.S. that looked like they came straight out of mimeograph machine. The games were listed along with game times, all the game times were listed in Atlantic Daylight Time, so all of the NBC Sunday night NFL games don't start until 9:30 locally. The English Premiership Games start in the afternoon or in the morning with the four hour time difference between Bermuda and the U.K. The bettors don't care about times though.
The English football sheets were slick.
"The Football Pools" had all sorts of betting schemes. But there was something striking about The Football Pools. In the middle of the page there was a logo of the English Premier League. The Premiership is an official licensee of The Football Pools, and another football group, the Scottish Premier League, is an official partner of The Football Pools.
The Football Pools happens to be "The Official Pools Partner of the Professional Football Leagues."
Contrast the U.K. and the various football associations globally attitude toward sports betting with that of the United States. Officials connected with the biggest globally sport are partners in gambling. National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern has thought about gambling proceeds as a possible revenue source for his league.
Stern's Women's National Basketball Association has the Connecticut Sun franchise. That team is owned by the Mohegan Sun casino. LeBron James may have not cared for his former boss — the Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert — but Gilbert will own the casino that is being built near the Cavaliers arena in downtown Cleveland.
The owner of the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings and Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers has a stake in a casino. Mike Ilitch technically doesn't own the gambling hall in Detroit, his wife Marian does along with other Ilitch family members. The Ilitch family is interested in bringing a casino to Hawaii and Long Island.
The National Hockey League took a cut from the Alberta Hockey Lottery and has given some of the Alberta lottery money to the Canada provinces two franchises in Calgary and Edmonton. Some casino money in Pittsburgh has been thrown into newly opened arena in that city which houses the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Sports franchises in all sports in North America, even the National Football League, have agreements with casinos and state lotteries. The New York Giants partnered with Connecticut in 2009 on a state lottery promotion.
When gambling suits sports owners, they will embrace the revenues that they derive from slapping a team's logo on a scratch off ticket. But there is still a ceiling on what betting is acceptable and sports books in casinos are not what the owners want and since a good many owners are also one of the powers behind politics, politicians stay away from legalizing betting on pro sports (and colleges) in the United States.
In the 1970s, Major League Baseball Commissioner "suspended" Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for being casino gamblers. Kuhn was worried about the integrity of the game. American sports has never embraced legal gambling because of "integrity" issues and having games fixed. But gambling is widespread across the country and there is legal sports wagering in Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware.
In the 1990s, New Jersey politicians wanted to put a sports book in Atlantic City. Stern was among the sports industry leaders to lobby Trenton officials to give up their foolish thought. But Stern has a casino partner in the WNBA and he absolutely knows that NBA games are on legal betting sheets in Hamilton and other places around the world including Las Vegas.
In 2009, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Football League effectively stopped the establishment of a sports book in Dover Downs and two other spots in Delaware. There is NFL football parlay betting at Dover Downs and in Delaware.
Sports leagues have blocked sports betting in the United States by convincing politicians outside of Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon about the evils of betting. In 1992, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act allowed just four states to have sports books with New Jersey actually qualifying as a fifth state if the New Jersey legislature passed a measure allowing a sports book because there was gambling in Atlantic City.
New Jersey lawmakers failed to pass a bill.
There are a lot of evils associated with gambling and gambling in many areas of the United States is being used as a revenue stream to help municipalities who are suffering revenue shortfalls as a way to help balance budgets. Gambling establishments also remind people in some form or another to be thoughtful about gambling since gambling addictions can cause massive problems in the proverbial cover yourself by issuing a warning that gambling can be self destructive.
The standard bred horsing racing industry in the United States would probably be close to dead without video slot machines inside racetracks. New York State has been playing around for years with establishing a casino at Aqueduct in Queens in an effort to keep thoroughbred racing alive.
In New Jersey, there are all sorts of proposals flying around to bolster Atlantic City and keep the state's horse tracks alive. But no one wants to wade into the let's legalize gambling on college and pro sports on a national scale even though gambling is out there.
Here's a truth about pro sports. It is not a sacred cow that needs to be treated with kid gloves. It is a business and people bet on pro sports. The whitewashing of pro football includes not saying much officially about point spreads. But as Vince McMahon pointed out in 2000, the biggest building block in his plan to build a football league 11 years ago was getting a Las Vegas line. McMahon ultimately failed because of stupid business practices with the XFL. The point spread and the over-under betting has given football fans an interactive experience for decades, long before the term interactive was invented.
The NCAA men's college basketball tournament is all about "brackets" which really is a code word for betting. Politicians don't want legalized betting on college games for integrity reasons. There have been college basketball betting scandals without legal betting.
So that excuse doesn't wash.
In the pro sports, baseball has worried about fixed games for nearly a century and hired Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis as Commissioner to clean up the game in wake of the 1919 Chicago White Sox World Series gambling scandal. But there is a hollow ring to the integrity of baseball issue when the game is closely scrutinized with owners' collusion in the 1980s and the use of banned substances by players in the 1990s. Baseball is not as pure as Caesar's wife as baseball writers probably could attest if they wanted to break baseball's unwritten code of what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse.
There are a lot of "Sea Horses" around the world complete with a website where betting can be found. Betting on professional sports is no big deal in Bermuda, the U.K. and other countries. There sports betting parlors in various parts of the world outside the United States that are in business thanks to professional leagues. Integrity issues disappeared a long time ago in professional sports and the moralists who are disguised as politicians who think of betting as a scourge again sports need to explain away how there a dozens of ways you can spend money on state-based lottery games. Gambling has been a way of generating revenues for states for more than four decades around America.
Politicians might as well go all the way and approve full sports gambling in Atlantic City, Dover and other places. Sports is only sports, an entertainment forum. It's really nothing all that important in terms of lasting culture and legalized betting on sports should be viewed as just another taxation method that brings money into municipal coffers. There is too much hypocrisy and hyperbole around sports and how it builds character and is bedrock for young people. It is just a business. That's all. If people want to bet on sports, which they do, let them go to a casino showroom. What is the big deal? People are going to bet anyway, whether it is in a colorful setting and casinos tend to build the illusion of a setting of glamour or a small, dully-painted square room which looks a little worn around the walls with a cashier's booth tucked underneath a theatre in a capital of a British colony.
Evan Weiner is an award winning journalist, author, radio and TV commentator on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
MONDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2010 22:24
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/time-to-allow-sports-gambling-in-atlantic-city
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
HAMILTON, BERMUDA — In the capital city of the British Crown colony of Bermuda, Hamilton, there is a rather non-descript store located beneath the Little Theater on Queen Street. There are two signs in front of the property, one in green and the other in white, which describe the place.
"Sea Horses — Live English and U.S. Horse Racing, International Sports Betting, Open Monday-Saturday."
Seahorses Bookmakers is a Bermuda-owned company that is licensed by the Bermuda government and Americans sitting at home can use their computers to bet on American pro and college sports events. Ironically enough, there is no casino gambling on the Bermuda islands.
The Sea Horses betting parlor is around the corner from the Hamilton City Hall and is about two blocks up from the very upscale waterfront that includes the U.K.'s Marks and Spencer. The sports book is the kind of place that exists in the United Kingdom but not in the United States except in Las Vegas and Dover, Delaware. Inside a cutaway in a building under the Little Theater, on the left side is Sea Horses, a place that will never be confused for Las Vegas or Dover or what might be a sports book in an Atlantic City casino.
There are Venetian blinds on the door and window of the store so you cannot look in. Once inside, the room is small and drab with a bank of lower end televisions showing horse races from various tracks around the world and English football, The dozen or so men, it was all men, were going through racing forms, America football games tout sheets, which resembled betting sheets that were used at high schools in the 1970s around the U.S. that looked like they came straight out of mimeograph machine. The games were listed along with game times, all the game times were listed in Atlantic Daylight Time, so all of the NBC Sunday night NFL games don't start until 9:30 locally. The English Premiership Games start in the afternoon or in the morning with the four hour time difference between Bermuda and the U.K. The bettors don't care about times though.
The English football sheets were slick.
"The Football Pools" had all sorts of betting schemes. But there was something striking about The Football Pools. In the middle of the page there was a logo of the English Premier League. The Premiership is an official licensee of The Football Pools, and another football group, the Scottish Premier League, is an official partner of The Football Pools.
The Football Pools happens to be "The Official Pools Partner of the Professional Football Leagues."
Contrast the U.K. and the various football associations globally attitude toward sports betting with that of the United States. Officials connected with the biggest globally sport are partners in gambling. National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern has thought about gambling proceeds as a possible revenue source for his league.
Stern's Women's National Basketball Association has the Connecticut Sun franchise. That team is owned by the Mohegan Sun casino. LeBron James may have not cared for his former boss — the Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert — but Gilbert will own the casino that is being built near the Cavaliers arena in downtown Cleveland.
The owner of the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings and Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers has a stake in a casino. Mike Ilitch technically doesn't own the gambling hall in Detroit, his wife Marian does along with other Ilitch family members. The Ilitch family is interested in bringing a casino to Hawaii and Long Island.
The National Hockey League took a cut from the Alberta Hockey Lottery and has given some of the Alberta lottery money to the Canada provinces two franchises in Calgary and Edmonton. Some casino money in Pittsburgh has been thrown into newly opened arena in that city which houses the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Sports franchises in all sports in North America, even the National Football League, have agreements with casinos and state lotteries. The New York Giants partnered with Connecticut in 2009 on a state lottery promotion.
When gambling suits sports owners, they will embrace the revenues that they derive from slapping a team's logo on a scratch off ticket. But there is still a ceiling on what betting is acceptable and sports books in casinos are not what the owners want and since a good many owners are also one of the powers behind politics, politicians stay away from legalizing betting on pro sports (and colleges) in the United States.
In the 1970s, Major League Baseball Commissioner "suspended" Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for being casino gamblers. Kuhn was worried about the integrity of the game. American sports has never embraced legal gambling because of "integrity" issues and having games fixed. But gambling is widespread across the country and there is legal sports wagering in Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware.
In the 1990s, New Jersey politicians wanted to put a sports book in Atlantic City. Stern was among the sports industry leaders to lobby Trenton officials to give up their foolish thought. But Stern has a casino partner in the WNBA and he absolutely knows that NBA games are on legal betting sheets in Hamilton and other places around the world including Las Vegas.
In 2009, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Football League effectively stopped the establishment of a sports book in Dover Downs and two other spots in Delaware. There is NFL football parlay betting at Dover Downs and in Delaware.
Sports leagues have blocked sports betting in the United States by convincing politicians outside of Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon about the evils of betting. In 1992, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act allowed just four states to have sports books with New Jersey actually qualifying as a fifth state if the New Jersey legislature passed a measure allowing a sports book because there was gambling in Atlantic City.
New Jersey lawmakers failed to pass a bill.
There are a lot of evils associated with gambling and gambling in many areas of the United States is being used as a revenue stream to help municipalities who are suffering revenue shortfalls as a way to help balance budgets. Gambling establishments also remind people in some form or another to be thoughtful about gambling since gambling addictions can cause massive problems in the proverbial cover yourself by issuing a warning that gambling can be self destructive.
The standard bred horsing racing industry in the United States would probably be close to dead without video slot machines inside racetracks. New York State has been playing around for years with establishing a casino at Aqueduct in Queens in an effort to keep thoroughbred racing alive.
In New Jersey, there are all sorts of proposals flying around to bolster Atlantic City and keep the state's horse tracks alive. But no one wants to wade into the let's legalize gambling on college and pro sports on a national scale even though gambling is out there.
Here's a truth about pro sports. It is not a sacred cow that needs to be treated with kid gloves. It is a business and people bet on pro sports. The whitewashing of pro football includes not saying much officially about point spreads. But as Vince McMahon pointed out in 2000, the biggest building block in his plan to build a football league 11 years ago was getting a Las Vegas line. McMahon ultimately failed because of stupid business practices with the XFL. The point spread and the over-under betting has given football fans an interactive experience for decades, long before the term interactive was invented.
The NCAA men's college basketball tournament is all about "brackets" which really is a code word for betting. Politicians don't want legalized betting on college games for integrity reasons. There have been college basketball betting scandals without legal betting.
So that excuse doesn't wash.
In the pro sports, baseball has worried about fixed games for nearly a century and hired Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis as Commissioner to clean up the game in wake of the 1919 Chicago White Sox World Series gambling scandal. But there is a hollow ring to the integrity of baseball issue when the game is closely scrutinized with owners' collusion in the 1980s and the use of banned substances by players in the 1990s. Baseball is not as pure as Caesar's wife as baseball writers probably could attest if they wanted to break baseball's unwritten code of what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse.
There are a lot of "Sea Horses" around the world complete with a website where betting can be found. Betting on professional sports is no big deal in Bermuda, the U.K. and other countries. There sports betting parlors in various parts of the world outside the United States that are in business thanks to professional leagues. Integrity issues disappeared a long time ago in professional sports and the moralists who are disguised as politicians who think of betting as a scourge again sports need to explain away how there a dozens of ways you can spend money on state-based lottery games. Gambling has been a way of generating revenues for states for more than four decades around America.
Politicians might as well go all the way and approve full sports gambling in Atlantic City, Dover and other places. Sports is only sports, an entertainment forum. It's really nothing all that important in terms of lasting culture and legalized betting on sports should be viewed as just another taxation method that brings money into municipal coffers. There is too much hypocrisy and hyperbole around sports and how it builds character and is bedrock for young people. It is just a business. That's all. If people want to bet on sports, which they do, let them go to a casino showroom. What is the big deal? People are going to bet anyway, whether it is in a colorful setting and casinos tend to build the illusion of a setting of glamour or a small, dully-painted square room which looks a little worn around the walls with a cashier's booth tucked underneath a theatre in a capital of a British colony.
Evan Weiner is an award winning journalist, author, radio and TV commentator on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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