Lawyers give love a bad name
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 06/15/10 at 6:41 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/15/lawyers-give-love-a-bad-name/
This is the kind of week in sports that lawyers love.
As the college sports map evolves, National Football League players question the legality of the NFL’s television deals with Disney Company (ESPN), General Electric (NBC), Sumner Redstone (CBS), Rupert Murdoch (FOX) and DirecTV, which promise that the 32 NFL teams will continue to get rights fees even if NFL owners lock out the players or if there are no games during the 2011 season.
And then there’s the case of the National Collegiate Athletic Association imposing sanctions on the University of Southern California’s athletic program.
The sports industry in the United States benefits from an extreme lack of public accountability. The people who cover sports – whether in print, digitally, on TV or on talk radio – have no idea how the business actually operates and, as a result, fail to report a large amount of standard, everyday business that would most likely upset fans were they to get wind of it.
But the U.S. is not alone to perpetrate this crime. The National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney will tell you Canada is just as guilty.
Maloney, a Canadian who has lived most of his adult life in the New York City area, criticized the way the Canadian media covered his team’s bankruptcy and compelled fans to move the franchise back to the other side of the 49th parallel into Hamilton, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba. And for all intents and purposes, Maloney’s criticism was justified. Toronto-based sportswriters acted more like welcome-wagon hosts than journalists in their effort to jockey the debt-ridden franchise to Hamilton. Most of the Canadian sports media wore its best red and white suit, complete with a red maple leaf lapel pin, when it wrote about the Phoenix franchise and deliberately chose to ignore the fact that the National Hockey League has the right to put a franchise where it desires. This basic business tenet was backed up by a Phoenix-based bankruptcy judge.
The Canadian media wants another team in the Toronto area. But as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle once said as he stood on the witness stand during the 1986 United States Football League-National Football League antitrust suit, leagues are natural monopolies and the business does what it wants.
Meanwhile, hourly lawyer fees continue to pile up as the Coyotes franchise fate hangs in the balance. A group called Ice Edge Holdings is still trying to nail down a lease with the city of Glendale, Arizona, that would include the establishment of a new tax and bonding district around the city-owned arena and Westgate City Center. Naturally, Canadian sportswriters have derided the plan and Ice Edge Holdings’ alleged money problems, and have counseled Winnipeg residents to patiently await the Coyotes franchise’s return to the city.
Yet while Glendale politicians devise a way to keep the NHL Coyotes in town, big-time college athletic directors along with their presidents, chancellors and boards of trustees try to figure out how to squeeze more money into their sports programs. Football is the big money maker for college sports. But just how much money do programs need?
At Wisconsin University, Badgers sports is a $90 million a year business.
Basic math shows that 800 athletes each awarded $40,000 in scholarship money makes approximately $30 million, give or take a few million for “labor”. The CBS-Turner Sports deal is worth about $800 million a year to be split among numerous schools. But it’s not enough money to fund every school. Something has to be done.
College sports and schools need more and more money due to rising salaries, health insurance and travel costs.
And despite the revenue stream that comes to big time college programs – in the form of luxury boxes and club seats at the stadium, concession dollars, merchandise sales and marketing partners – the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is being depleted through deals with and the creation of cable TV networks, such as the Big Ten’s partnership with FOX cable.
The Big Ten currently gives member schools an annual $22 million cut from cable TV revenues, but that could grow to a larger sum if the Big Ten Network reaches 60 million subscribers and charges two dollars per head. In order to reach the 60 million subscriber target however, the Big Ten needs a bigger geographic footprint than its Midwest-based business. The Big Ten has taken small steps in this direction by adding Nebraska (from the Big 12) and looking to add some schools in the east and south. The bigger the Big Ten geographic footprint, the more leverage the conference has in its ability to convince multiple cable system operators to add the network at $2 a month. Do the math: 60 million subscribers at $24 a year makes $1.5 billion, give or take a hundred million here and there to be divided among the schools.
That’s big money.
The pursuit of big money from cable TV is the reason why the Pac 10 conference hired Creative Artists Agency, a big time Hollywood representatives firm, to “advise” it on future expansion techniques. The Pac 10 didn’t miraculously fall in love with the thought of visiting the Colorado Rockies, nor did it develop a deep fondness for the song, “Deep in the Heart of Texas;” it saw revenue opportunities and went for them.
In the end, the promise of TV money from ESPN and FOX (coming from people with no stake in college football) kept the Big 12 going. The Big 12 lost Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado to the Pac 10 but kept Texas with the other nine schools.
A curious line from Big 12 Commissioner Don Beebe deserves some attention: according to a story at CNNSI.com, Beebe said establishing “super” conferences could lead to “more governmental, legal and public scrutiny.”
Apparently the entire governing system of big time college sports wants to operate in a vacuum and wants to downplay things like schools being “tax exempt” entities when dealing with earnings for sports and possibly being forced to pay players for services.
Big time college sports programs presidents and chancellors have a single mantra now: find new revenue sources.
Cable TV is that source. Multiple system operators can make or break a conference. The Big Ten Network was a struggling entity until Comcast agreed to place the channel on the basic expanded tier on cable TV giant’s systems within the Big Ten footprint. Conversely, the NFL Network has never reached the heights league officials envisioned because the network has not been able to secure a basic expanded tier with Time Warner and Cablevision, among others.
The basic expanded tier is the ultimate goal for conferences that intend to bulk up by adding schools because simply said, that’s where the money is. The 1984 Cable TV Act, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, not only ensured cable networks’ survival but made them thrive. The basic expanded tier allows multiple system operators to bundle channels they think consumers want and sell them as one group to customers. The basic expanded tier allowed CNN, the Weather Channel, ESPN and other financially struggling networks of the mid-1980s to grow even though the bundling was in clear violation of antitrust laws and all the tenets of free market theory.
The basic expanded tier lineup is decided by multiple system operators and does not allow the consumer to choose what he or she wants to buy. It drives down the price of each channel because 90 million or more subscribers pay for ESPN, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC or Comedy Central on a monthly basis. But the system also begs the question of whether it is fair for 100 percent of customers to pay for what maybe one or two percent watch. College football is popular among a subset of Americans that forms less than eight percent of the 95 million or so subscribers that form the cable universe.
The re-regulation versus a la carte issue came up before Congress in the spring of 2004. In the end, cable operators, sports franchises, and cable news networks scored a huge victory when Republican Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia conceded that he did not have the support of fellow House and Senate members to introduce legislation calling for the re-regulation of cable television and giving cable customers the liberty to choose which channels they wanted to purchase.
As long as big time college sports make billions of dollars off of people who have no interest in the product, Congress will not change cable TV laws anytime soon.
The NFL gets a slice of cable and satellite TV money as part of the overall deal; and while it’s a significant share, a good amount of the NFL’s $4 billion licensing fee for TV comes from Redstone’s CBS, GE’s NBC and Murdoch’s FOX. Over-the-air networks pay for the NFL from mere advertisement while Disney’s ESPN and DirecTV get subscriber fees and advertising dollars. The National Football League Players Association is very mindful of how the NFL is funded and is concerned that CBS, NBC, ESPN, FOX and DirecTV seem to be willing to underwrite a lockout of the players in 2011 and line the pockets of the 31 franchise owners and the Green Bay with the usual nine figure license fees whether the league plays a game or not.
The NFLPA filed a claim before Special Master Stephen Burbank of the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, contending that the league took lower revenue from the five media partners in exchange for guaranteed money in the event of a lockout in 2011. The owners, in the players’ mind, have a war chest and can easily afford to lock out the players.
Some of that money is coming from cable TV subscribers who don’t care about football and have no idea that they are contributing to the owners’ war chest and an NFL lock-out.
In 1984, President Reagan and Congressional leaders had probably never even considered the possibility that the legislation would lead to a complete realignment of big time college sports and give the owners some money in a labor action. Cable TV subscribers are still waiting for refunds for missed games from the 1994-95 Major League Baseball players’ strike, the 1994-95 National Hockey League owners’ lock-out, the 1998-99 National Basketball Association owners’ lock-out and the 2004-05 National Hockey League owners’ lock-out which lasted an entire season.
No cable TV subscriber has ever filed a class action suit requesting a refund for missed games, probably because they have no idea how much they are paying for sports on ESPN, Versus, the NFL Network, the MLB Network (which is also owned by multiple system operators), the various cable TV regional sports that are owned by Murdoch’s FOX, Brian Roberts Comcast or teams such as the New York Knicks and Rangers (MSG Network), the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets (YES) , the New York Mets (SNY), the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins (NESN), the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals (MASN), the Cleveland Indians (Sports Time Ohio), the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets (Altitude), the Big Ten Network and the Mountain West Network.
And if that isn’t enough, what happens if the Bowl Champions Series decides to strip the University of Southern California of the Trojans’ 2004 football championship? Will the NCAA face a lawsuit for defrauding ticket holders, cable TV and over-the-air TV networks along with marketing partners by admitting that USC cheated? Five years after the fact, the NCAA has declared that USC cheated which could mean that all games featuring USC’s football team between December 2004 and December 2005 were not legitimate contests. Does that mean that there is a chance that the college football record book would have an unusual line in the honor roll of national champions?
Although the Bowl Championship Series might vacate the USC championship, the Associated Press will not rescind the news organization’s 2004 college football champion (and why is a news organization handing out college football championships?). It’s the BCS’ right to do what it wants and the BCS may have a legal leg to stand on if the title is vacated thanks to a 3rd Circuit Court panel’s decision in May relating to the New England Patriots’ secretly videotaping their opponents’ signals.
New York Jets season ticket holder Carl Mayer, who is a lawyer, was seeking $185 million in damages for Jets fans in a civil case on the basis that the game’s outcome had been predetermined. Patriots coach Bill Belichick knew the Jets defensive signals due to his espionage. Mayer’s complaint centered on the New England-New York Jets season opening game in 2007. The Patriots won the game 38-14. The NFL fined Belichick and the Patriots for the team’s dishonesty and took away a first round draft pick in 2008. The whole issue was taken up by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter who met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell because of the enormity of the situation on the world stage.
Meyer’s case was thrown out by a three-judge panel in Philadelphia.
“We do not condone the conduct on the part of the Patriots and the team’s head coach, and we likewise refrain from assessing whether the NFL’s sanctions [and its alleged destruction of the videotapes themselves] were otherwise appropriate,” Senior Judge Robert E. Cowen wrote.
“At best, [Mayer] possessed nothing more than a contractual right to a seat from which to watch an NFL game between the Jets and the Patriots, and this right was clearly honored,” he added.
In other words, caveat emptor or let the buyer beware. You buy your tickets, so stop complaining.
It must be good to be a lawyer in sports these days: so many opportunities to make money on so many fronts. As George Young, the one time General Manager of the National Football League’s New York Giants, once said, “You show me a guy who says he is playing for the love of the game and I will show you a liar. It’s all about the money.”
Showing posts with label NCAA basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NCAA basketball. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski challenges NCAA to do something for 'student-athletes'
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski challenges NCAA to do something for 'student-athletes'
Monday, 17 May 2010 21:52
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
After a Philadelphia policeman tasered a teenager running around the outfield during a Phillies home game on May 2, there was a suggestion that perhaps the Phillies and the other 29 Major League Baseball franchises should just go out and hire college football players and have them near the field in the event someone decides to trespass during a baseball game and that a beefy college football player would know what to do with an interloper and would deliver the same sort of punishment to the person as a running back looking to pick up a few yards.
It was a better alternative than tasering a teenager looking for a moment of fame.
But there is a major problem with the hiring any athlete from a big NCAA sports playing school for an 81 game baseball season even at minimum wage. You can only pay that athlete up to $2,000 a year, anything more and that athlete risks losing his or her scholarship. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, an organization that runs commercials talking about how much they care about "student-athletes" and education, is so concerned about the welfare of athletes that they impose a limit on an athlete's wages during the calendar, not the school year from any line of employment.
The term "student-athlete" was invented by the NCAA after the University of Denver lost a workman's compensation case in 1953 in the University of Colorado v. Nemeth. A Colorado Supreme Court determined that a full-time enrolled student and football player was an employee injured in the course of his employment and was therefore entitled to workers' compensation benefits. The NCAA thought a subtle change in nomenclature to "student-athlete" would shield schools from claims by injured students who were hurt while playing sports.
There are major differences between athletes on scholarships playing sports at big time schools and the rest of the student body, even those on other types of scholarships.
If someone in the school band, who is attending a college on a band scholarship, wanted to work during the school year and was able to pick up paying gigs or got a job giving music lessons there would be no cap on earned income.
The stars of the sports shows, the athletes — who play the games and get a scholarship which pays for school, room and board and incidentals like books — cannot even get a part time job that pays more than an average of $40 a week during their years of sports eligibility. On the other hand, big time college sports programs have invested huge sums of money for tutors and academic advisors to keep the students eligible with a minimum of a 2.0 GPA.
Those are the rules and Duke University's Men's Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski cannot even let his players coach and speak at his basketball camp unless they make under $2,000 in salary for the year.
Everyone gets a shot at big money at big time college sports schools except the athletes.
Sumner Redstone's CBS television network, the Disney Company (the ones that make family friendly programming for TV and the movies) and the Disney operated ESPN and ABC television networks, General Electric's NBC TV, Rupert Murdoch's FOX over-the-air and regional cable TV networks and Time Warner's Turner Sports are forking over billions of dollars for rights fees, marketing partners are handing colleges who engage in big time sports hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorships, sneaker companies are buying off schools with multimillion dollar contracts which outfit the coaches and the school teams in that label's products and boosters are flooding the market with dollars. The players are glorified in video games, although not named, with their images complete with their number of their nuances. The players get no compensation in return (there are two lawsuits dealing with college players, their images and who controls a players likeness before the courts now).
The NCAA allows the schools to literally sell the shirts off the backs of the superstars in football and basketball and the superstar does not see one cent of the revenue derived off of his talent.
The real stars of the show — the athletes — play under a salary cap in their off time.
"There are still are (restrictions)," said Krzyzewski picking up on a conversation that started about a decade ago when he complained that he could no longer hire Duke Blue Devils basketball players at his camp. "I don't think the NCAA has kept up to date with what we do for the student athletes. I think we should do more for the student athlete, especially the student-athlete in revenue sports.
"They have more asked of them. They have more commitments made for them. But that could be done in certain allowances without actually paying a student athlete like just giving them money. There is a thing called the scholarship-umbrella where you have benefits whether it be books, board, tuition or whatever.
"We have to look at that and see how we are able to help them and to unveil some summer opportunities. For the last 15 years or more, our kids can't go and speak in camps. I think it is a bad thing."
The NCAA is raking in billions to run programs and there is no thought of paying "student-athletes" for their time for practice, sports classroom study and games not to mention the "involuntary" voluntary practices in the off-season. But the NCAA doesn't even want "student-athletes" to get a job and earn money because the august body that supervises the college sports industry is afraid that some appreciative booster will take care of a player with a cushiony no-show job with a satchel filled with cash that no one knows about except the booster and player.
Krzyzewski is of the opinion that paying players at his (and others) camps would accomplish two things.
"That is a way they can be missionaries and ambassadors for our sport while actually earning money and being able to speak publicly. But because there was one abuse or two abuses then all of a sudden, it was just taken away," the coach explained. "To keep looking for ways to help the student-athletes, I am in favor of it.
"A kid cannot actually work during the school year. We should not have it where kids try to make money during the school year because going to school and doing your sport is work enough. But during the summer months and sometimes you have as many as four months, you can make some money and get good experiences."
Krzyzewski can get his players at his camp but he isn't paying them enough money so they can do things paying for a date. Krzyzewski is not the only big-name coach who has even voiced an opinion that the NCAA has to back off the salary cap. Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and long time college basketball coach Rick Majerus have been openly vocal about the NCAA's draconian rule.
"We can hire our players to work our camp if they are paid at the same amount as another high school coach but you don't make much money doing that and it is tough to do that while they are in summer school but speaking at camps would be a better way of doing it."
The NCAA is the overseeing body on all that encompasses college sports. But there are so many fiefdoms within the college sports structure that the NCAA President does not have the final say in what is a de facto salary cap. Do coaches lobby the NCAA President or do they lobby college presidents and chancellors or do they go to the conferences. When it comes to making TV deals, there is the NCAA and then the conferences. There are a lot of turfs that are being defended within college sports.
"Who do you go to?" said Krzyzewski. "There is a maze of how to get things changed in the NCAA and a coach does not have a vote and most of the time doesn't have any voice. So somebody has to take that who is at an administrative level, whether it be a conference, a conference commissioner and stuff like that to be an advocate. For coaches to change things, it would be impossible."
College sports is constantly under the scrutiny of either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Most of the recent Congressional hearings dealing with sports have centered around how the Bowl Championship Series is executed and how BCS teams get big dollars for being within that exclusive group and that the rest of the college football playing schools are on the outside looking in when it comes to generating the same revenues as BCS schools and playing for a national championship.
Congress will probably also bring up the topic of why there is not a college football championship again while deftly forgetting a number of topics that relate to the "student-athlete" including the salary cap for outside work.
Congress has held periodic college sports hearings even though the United States is fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the unemployment rate is high, the economy nearly melted down in September 2008 and immigration was left on the table during the Bush Presidency.
"I wish, Congress should be running our country and we should do a better job of running college basketball. I think if there was a single entity in charge of college basketball---there is none. Like who is in charge of college basketball? It is a committee, we need somebody who is following it on a day-to-day basis where you have pinpoint responsibility, this is happening in this sport what about it Mr. So and so or Mrs. So and so and we don't have that and as a result, it gets diluted and you go through a maze.
"It is a maze.
"Our sport is a billion dollar sports which funds over 90 percent of the activities of the NCAA and it should be run by a group under the NCAA umbrella and have a person who is totally in charge. Football has a different, their rules are governed by the NCAA but the money is all with the BCS. So they have a greater chance at changing rules because you can pinpoint who is in charge of the BCS right now and they are kind of running college football, you cannot do that with men's college basketball.
The money train is picking up steam as conferences make plans to grow in size and hand out big fees to people like Paul Tagliabue and entertainment companies like Creative Artist Agency to come up with strategy so that they can generate even more TV, broadband, marketing and sponsorship dollars. Everyone gets a shot at money except the entertainers — the "student-athletes" — the real stars of the show.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Last Updated ( Monday, 17 May 2010 23:23 )
Monday, 17 May 2010 21:52
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
After a Philadelphia policeman tasered a teenager running around the outfield during a Phillies home game on May 2, there was a suggestion that perhaps the Phillies and the other 29 Major League Baseball franchises should just go out and hire college football players and have them near the field in the event someone decides to trespass during a baseball game and that a beefy college football player would know what to do with an interloper and would deliver the same sort of punishment to the person as a running back looking to pick up a few yards.
It was a better alternative than tasering a teenager looking for a moment of fame.
But there is a major problem with the hiring any athlete from a big NCAA sports playing school for an 81 game baseball season even at minimum wage. You can only pay that athlete up to $2,000 a year, anything more and that athlete risks losing his or her scholarship. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, an organization that runs commercials talking about how much they care about "student-athletes" and education, is so concerned about the welfare of athletes that they impose a limit on an athlete's wages during the calendar, not the school year from any line of employment.
The term "student-athlete" was invented by the NCAA after the University of Denver lost a workman's compensation case in 1953 in the University of Colorado v. Nemeth. A Colorado Supreme Court determined that a full-time enrolled student and football player was an employee injured in the course of his employment and was therefore entitled to workers' compensation benefits. The NCAA thought a subtle change in nomenclature to "student-athlete" would shield schools from claims by injured students who were hurt while playing sports.
There are major differences between athletes on scholarships playing sports at big time schools and the rest of the student body, even those on other types of scholarships.
If someone in the school band, who is attending a college on a band scholarship, wanted to work during the school year and was able to pick up paying gigs or got a job giving music lessons there would be no cap on earned income.
The stars of the sports shows, the athletes — who play the games and get a scholarship which pays for school, room and board and incidentals like books — cannot even get a part time job that pays more than an average of $40 a week during their years of sports eligibility. On the other hand, big time college sports programs have invested huge sums of money for tutors and academic advisors to keep the students eligible with a minimum of a 2.0 GPA.
Those are the rules and Duke University's Men's Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski cannot even let his players coach and speak at his basketball camp unless they make under $2,000 in salary for the year.
Everyone gets a shot at big money at big time college sports schools except the athletes.
Sumner Redstone's CBS television network, the Disney Company (the ones that make family friendly programming for TV and the movies) and the Disney operated ESPN and ABC television networks, General Electric's NBC TV, Rupert Murdoch's FOX over-the-air and regional cable TV networks and Time Warner's Turner Sports are forking over billions of dollars for rights fees, marketing partners are handing colleges who engage in big time sports hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorships, sneaker companies are buying off schools with multimillion dollar contracts which outfit the coaches and the school teams in that label's products and boosters are flooding the market with dollars. The players are glorified in video games, although not named, with their images complete with their number of their nuances. The players get no compensation in return (there are two lawsuits dealing with college players, their images and who controls a players likeness before the courts now).
The NCAA allows the schools to literally sell the shirts off the backs of the superstars in football and basketball and the superstar does not see one cent of the revenue derived off of his talent.
The real stars of the show — the athletes — play under a salary cap in their off time.
"There are still are (restrictions)," said Krzyzewski picking up on a conversation that started about a decade ago when he complained that he could no longer hire Duke Blue Devils basketball players at his camp. "I don't think the NCAA has kept up to date with what we do for the student athletes. I think we should do more for the student athlete, especially the student-athlete in revenue sports.
"They have more asked of them. They have more commitments made for them. But that could be done in certain allowances without actually paying a student athlete like just giving them money. There is a thing called the scholarship-umbrella where you have benefits whether it be books, board, tuition or whatever.
"We have to look at that and see how we are able to help them and to unveil some summer opportunities. For the last 15 years or more, our kids can't go and speak in camps. I think it is a bad thing."
The NCAA is raking in billions to run programs and there is no thought of paying "student-athletes" for their time for practice, sports classroom study and games not to mention the "involuntary" voluntary practices in the off-season. But the NCAA doesn't even want "student-athletes" to get a job and earn money because the august body that supervises the college sports industry is afraid that some appreciative booster will take care of a player with a cushiony no-show job with a satchel filled with cash that no one knows about except the booster and player.
Krzyzewski is of the opinion that paying players at his (and others) camps would accomplish two things.
"That is a way they can be missionaries and ambassadors for our sport while actually earning money and being able to speak publicly. But because there was one abuse or two abuses then all of a sudden, it was just taken away," the coach explained. "To keep looking for ways to help the student-athletes, I am in favor of it.
"A kid cannot actually work during the school year. We should not have it where kids try to make money during the school year because going to school and doing your sport is work enough. But during the summer months and sometimes you have as many as four months, you can make some money and get good experiences."
Krzyzewski can get his players at his camp but he isn't paying them enough money so they can do things paying for a date. Krzyzewski is not the only big-name coach who has even voiced an opinion that the NCAA has to back off the salary cap. Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and long time college basketball coach Rick Majerus have been openly vocal about the NCAA's draconian rule.
"We can hire our players to work our camp if they are paid at the same amount as another high school coach but you don't make much money doing that and it is tough to do that while they are in summer school but speaking at camps would be a better way of doing it."
The NCAA is the overseeing body on all that encompasses college sports. But there are so many fiefdoms within the college sports structure that the NCAA President does not have the final say in what is a de facto salary cap. Do coaches lobby the NCAA President or do they lobby college presidents and chancellors or do they go to the conferences. When it comes to making TV deals, there is the NCAA and then the conferences. There are a lot of turfs that are being defended within college sports.
"Who do you go to?" said Krzyzewski. "There is a maze of how to get things changed in the NCAA and a coach does not have a vote and most of the time doesn't have any voice. So somebody has to take that who is at an administrative level, whether it be a conference, a conference commissioner and stuff like that to be an advocate. For coaches to change things, it would be impossible."
College sports is constantly under the scrutiny of either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Most of the recent Congressional hearings dealing with sports have centered around how the Bowl Championship Series is executed and how BCS teams get big dollars for being within that exclusive group and that the rest of the college football playing schools are on the outside looking in when it comes to generating the same revenues as BCS schools and playing for a national championship.
Congress will probably also bring up the topic of why there is not a college football championship again while deftly forgetting a number of topics that relate to the "student-athlete" including the salary cap for outside work.
Congress has held periodic college sports hearings even though the United States is fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the unemployment rate is high, the economy nearly melted down in September 2008 and immigration was left on the table during the Bush Presidency.
"I wish, Congress should be running our country and we should do a better job of running college basketball. I think if there was a single entity in charge of college basketball---there is none. Like who is in charge of college basketball? It is a committee, we need somebody who is following it on a day-to-day basis where you have pinpoint responsibility, this is happening in this sport what about it Mr. So and so or Mrs. So and so and we don't have that and as a result, it gets diluted and you go through a maze.
"It is a maze.
"Our sport is a billion dollar sports which funds over 90 percent of the activities of the NCAA and it should be run by a group under the NCAA umbrella and have a person who is totally in charge. Football has a different, their rules are governed by the NCAA but the money is all with the BCS. So they have a greater chance at changing rules because you can pinpoint who is in charge of the BCS right now and they are kind of running college football, you cannot do that with men's college basketball.
The money train is picking up steam as conferences make plans to grow in size and hand out big fees to people like Paul Tagliabue and entertainment companies like Creative Artist Agency to come up with strategy so that they can generate even more TV, broadband, marketing and sponsorship dollars. Everyone gets a shot at money except the entertainers — the "student-athletes" — the real stars of the show.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Last Updated ( Monday, 17 May 2010 23:23 )
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Big Ten expansion to start game of musical chairs among big time college sports schools
Big Ten expansion to start game of musical chairs among big time college sports schools
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 15:38
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-expansion-to-start-game-of-musical-chairs-among-big-time-college-sports-schools
Rutgers in position to be big winner or loser
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The future of the Big East Conference and Rutgers University's athletic program are going to become a major topic of conversation among the college sports industry and various cable TV networks in the next few weeks as the Big Ten Conference meets next week to consider future plans. Rutgers may or not be part of the Big Ten Conference's future.
There is one thing certain according to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. There is change in the air and that might start with the Big Ten adding a school or a number of colleges to the present 11-team conference.
"The dust has not settled yet from expansion of a number of years ago (2003)," said the Duke coach. "Because, it wasn't as clean. There are teams left out, the Big East, you have 16 teams, eight of them are football schools, eight of them are not. It lends itself to other options and the Big Ten is the catalyst now. If they do something, a lot of dominos will fall."
The Big Ten needs a 12th team so they could have a conference championship game, which they could put out for bid before over-the-air and cable networks which will be in additional cash.
The Big Ten may have Rutgers and Pittsburgh on the radar screen or maybe not. The Big East is concerned that other conferences may come after some of the conference's teams, such as Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse or Connecticut and the conference hired former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as a special advisor on "strategic planning" in an effort to keep the conference going. The Big East is not the only one that has added an "advisor." The Pac 10 has a new Commissioner, Larry Scott and has gone Hollywood as it has hired Creative Artists Agency to see what they can do about forming a network to enhance TV coverage by 2012.
The Big East is a basketball conference, not a football alliance and it is football, not basketball, that drives college revenues.
Krzyzewski knows that and so does Geno Auriemma, the coach of the University of Connecticut's women's basketball squad.
"I keep hearing different reports of which schools are going to be approached," said Auriemma. "You don't know which to believe and which not to believe. The one thing you can be sure of, something is going to happen. The Big East as we know it today will probably won't exist in the future. For me, ideally it would be great if we can keep the league the way it is because it has been successful and we have proven it can be successful. Who are the teams that are going to leave and what impact they are going to have, I think everybody is waiting to see.
"The dilemma that colleges have right now, if you are one of those teams that is approached by another league, whether it is the Big Ten or anybody else, do you turn your back on existing rivalries and loyalties and just go? Financially they have made it that yes, that is exactly what teams are going to do. If you are one of the teams that is not asked, do you sit around and wait for someone to leave and you pick up the pieces or do you now start to become pro-active and you are looking for someplace to go. I think whether you are asked or not asked, everybody is moving in some direction."
In 2003, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) invited three Big East schools, Boston College, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech to join that collection of
schools which forced the Big East into realigning. The Big East has some schools that are attractive to other suitors. Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers have football and basketball programs. The ACC took three football schools in 2003.
Rutgers, in theory, would be a good fit for a Big Ten expansion because of geography in that the Big Ten Network, a cable TV partnership between the 11 universities in the conference and FOX Cable Networks. That network has 45 million subscribers and contributes to each school getting an annual check for $22 million from TV revenues. The Big Ten could increase the cable TV footprint by adding Rutgers which, is in Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner territory. An increase in a cable TV footprint means more cable TV revenues from subscribers. Comcast can put the Big Ten Network on any of the company's systems outside of the Big Ten and carries the network on systems with the Big Ten territory so New Jersey would get the network if Rutgers joins the conference.
But adding Rutgers does not necessarily mean that the Big Ten will "get" all of the New York market as neither Charles Dolan's Cablevision nor Time Warner, the other big New York area MSOs are locks to take the channel. Rutgers also has a problem in terms of the size of the stadium. As one time NCAA President, the late Myles Brand pointed out; you need between 80 and 90 thousand seats in a football stadium to really make money.
The Big Ten has to look at both sides of the coin in terms of adding Rutgers. The Big Ten has had Rutgers on a list of schools that make sense for conference expansion. But conference expansion is really not all that complicated according to Auriemma.
"This is all going to come down to college president's deciding this is what is best for our university from an academic standpoint and certainly financially, none of these moves would be happening if it was not financially rewarding."
No one is talking about Connecticut moving out of the Big East, not yet anyway. But Connecticut has a 40,000 seat football stadium, two top notch basketball programs and also claims part of the New York City market in terms of a following. If Maryland jumped from the ACC to the Big Ten, Connecticut might be a good fit in the ACC.
It is the new domino theory.
"Georgetown, St. John's, Syracuse back in the day (1979) were the reasons why the Big East became the Big East in basketball," said Auriemma. "Well if you look at the Big East now, Connecticut is one reason the Big East is the Big East. Are we going to stay and become the linchpin of that league or someone thinks we are attractive enough now that we bring a lot to the table.
"I don't know of any school in our league or in a lot of leagues that brings more to the table academically and program wise up and down the entire sports spectrum."
Auriemma did say he has no idea how others view Connecticut.
Is conference expansion good?
For TV money yes, but schools lose local rivals and in Connecticut's case there are now long trips to the south to play in Florida or in the Midwest instead of the I-95 corridor. But the money is too good to pass up.
"From a cable standpoint, if you got your own network like the Big Ten does, sure you want to expand that network all over the country. Absolutely," said Auriemma. "But in terms of bringing a market (into a conference) when you don't have your own TV network, it doesn't do anything for you.
"Unless a league, and the Big Ten is way ahead of everybody in this regard, has their own TV network and is able to expand that and is looking for acquisitions that is going to give them that coverage all over the country, just to get in a league because ESPN, CBS or somebody may do this, that or the other thing. That has proven that doesn't work. I live in New England and I don't know everybody in the Boston area who says, hey BC is playing Clemson tonight, I got to get a ticket for that.
"These decisions are going to be made for financial reasons that are going to be impacting these schools 20 years from now, 25-years from now. Creating these super conferences probably and I would bet you that everybody involves with these sees a scenario where they are going to be like what the BCS has done in football."
It is all in the pursuit of money. The money has changed college sports.
"If the Big East is giving Connecticut $7 million and our budget is $50-55 million, whatever it is, and somebody is offering us $22 (million), now you say wow, we can compete now. What I would imagine in these discussions, people are saying, okay well your budget is $100 million, and so is mine and so is his and so is his, so we are all thinking the same thing, we are all going after the same thing so let's all form our own little club and let's compete against each other. If you are one of those other guys you are out.
"Is that fair? No, it is not fair but that is where the world is right now and these people are taking advantage of an opportunity. They saw the model, you have this sized stadium, you produce the revenue and you can join our club, if you don't you are out."
And that leads to a question, has the big time college sports industry gotten out of hand?
"I don't know if it has gotten out of hand as much as it is still in the process of change," said Krzyzewski. "Things change but when our sports is such that if one conference changes, it is going to have a rippling effect. If the Big Ten changes, it is going to change or could change four other conferences or more and I am not sure that is all bad. Change isn't bad. You are constantly looking for ways of improving and if the resources that are needed to fund all the programs each school has, it is not just basketball or football, you have to produce a certain amount of money to do that and if these changes produce that while still giving a quality experience for a student athlete, then I am all for it."
The times, they are a-changing in big time college sports. What makes a school attractive? That is what the solons of the Big Ten will deliberate upon next week. Is Rutgers attractive? Or does Pittsburgh, Missouri, Nebraska and Notre Dame work out better individually or collectively for the Big Ten? If Rutgers is "the other guy" as Auriemma referred to those not asked to join a conference, and if the Big East falls apart what happens?
That is a good question. Rutgers might end up in the ACC or the South East Conference. The game of musical chairs for money is about to begin.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics and Business of Sports." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com .
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 15:38
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-expansion-to-start-game-of-musical-chairs-among-big-time-college-sports-schools
Rutgers in position to be big winner or loser
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The future of the Big East Conference and Rutgers University's athletic program are going to become a major topic of conversation among the college sports industry and various cable TV networks in the next few weeks as the Big Ten Conference meets next week to consider future plans. Rutgers may or not be part of the Big Ten Conference's future.
There is one thing certain according to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. There is change in the air and that might start with the Big Ten adding a school or a number of colleges to the present 11-team conference.
"The dust has not settled yet from expansion of a number of years ago (2003)," said the Duke coach. "Because, it wasn't as clean. There are teams left out, the Big East, you have 16 teams, eight of them are football schools, eight of them are not. It lends itself to other options and the Big Ten is the catalyst now. If they do something, a lot of dominos will fall."
The Big Ten needs a 12th team so they could have a conference championship game, which they could put out for bid before over-the-air and cable networks which will be in additional cash.
The Big Ten may have Rutgers and Pittsburgh on the radar screen or maybe not. The Big East is concerned that other conferences may come after some of the conference's teams, such as Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse or Connecticut and the conference hired former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as a special advisor on "strategic planning" in an effort to keep the conference going. The Big East is not the only one that has added an "advisor." The Pac 10 has a new Commissioner, Larry Scott and has gone Hollywood as it has hired Creative Artists Agency to see what they can do about forming a network to enhance TV coverage by 2012.
The Big East is a basketball conference, not a football alliance and it is football, not basketball, that drives college revenues.
Krzyzewski knows that and so does Geno Auriemma, the coach of the University of Connecticut's women's basketball squad.
"I keep hearing different reports of which schools are going to be approached," said Auriemma. "You don't know which to believe and which not to believe. The one thing you can be sure of, something is going to happen. The Big East as we know it today will probably won't exist in the future. For me, ideally it would be great if we can keep the league the way it is because it has been successful and we have proven it can be successful. Who are the teams that are going to leave and what impact they are going to have, I think everybody is waiting to see.
"The dilemma that colleges have right now, if you are one of those teams that is approached by another league, whether it is the Big Ten or anybody else, do you turn your back on existing rivalries and loyalties and just go? Financially they have made it that yes, that is exactly what teams are going to do. If you are one of the teams that is not asked, do you sit around and wait for someone to leave and you pick up the pieces or do you now start to become pro-active and you are looking for someplace to go. I think whether you are asked or not asked, everybody is moving in some direction."
In 2003, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) invited three Big East schools, Boston College, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech to join that collection of
schools which forced the Big East into realigning. The Big East has some schools that are attractive to other suitors. Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers have football and basketball programs. The ACC took three football schools in 2003.
Rutgers, in theory, would be a good fit for a Big Ten expansion because of geography in that the Big Ten Network, a cable TV partnership between the 11 universities in the conference and FOX Cable Networks. That network has 45 million subscribers and contributes to each school getting an annual check for $22 million from TV revenues. The Big Ten could increase the cable TV footprint by adding Rutgers which, is in Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner territory. An increase in a cable TV footprint means more cable TV revenues from subscribers. Comcast can put the Big Ten Network on any of the company's systems outside of the Big Ten and carries the network on systems with the Big Ten territory so New Jersey would get the network if Rutgers joins the conference.
But adding Rutgers does not necessarily mean that the Big Ten will "get" all of the New York market as neither Charles Dolan's Cablevision nor Time Warner, the other big New York area MSOs are locks to take the channel. Rutgers also has a problem in terms of the size of the stadium. As one time NCAA President, the late Myles Brand pointed out; you need between 80 and 90 thousand seats in a football stadium to really make money.
The Big Ten has to look at both sides of the coin in terms of adding Rutgers. The Big Ten has had Rutgers on a list of schools that make sense for conference expansion. But conference expansion is really not all that complicated according to Auriemma.
"This is all going to come down to college president's deciding this is what is best for our university from an academic standpoint and certainly financially, none of these moves would be happening if it was not financially rewarding."
No one is talking about Connecticut moving out of the Big East, not yet anyway. But Connecticut has a 40,000 seat football stadium, two top notch basketball programs and also claims part of the New York City market in terms of a following. If Maryland jumped from the ACC to the Big Ten, Connecticut might be a good fit in the ACC.
It is the new domino theory.
"Georgetown, St. John's, Syracuse back in the day (1979) were the reasons why the Big East became the Big East in basketball," said Auriemma. "Well if you look at the Big East now, Connecticut is one reason the Big East is the Big East. Are we going to stay and become the linchpin of that league or someone thinks we are attractive enough now that we bring a lot to the table.
"I don't know of any school in our league or in a lot of leagues that brings more to the table academically and program wise up and down the entire sports spectrum."
Auriemma did say he has no idea how others view Connecticut.
Is conference expansion good?
For TV money yes, but schools lose local rivals and in Connecticut's case there are now long trips to the south to play in Florida or in the Midwest instead of the I-95 corridor. But the money is too good to pass up.
"From a cable standpoint, if you got your own network like the Big Ten does, sure you want to expand that network all over the country. Absolutely," said Auriemma. "But in terms of bringing a market (into a conference) when you don't have your own TV network, it doesn't do anything for you.
"Unless a league, and the Big Ten is way ahead of everybody in this regard, has their own TV network and is able to expand that and is looking for acquisitions that is going to give them that coverage all over the country, just to get in a league because ESPN, CBS or somebody may do this, that or the other thing. That has proven that doesn't work. I live in New England and I don't know everybody in the Boston area who says, hey BC is playing Clemson tonight, I got to get a ticket for that.
"These decisions are going to be made for financial reasons that are going to be impacting these schools 20 years from now, 25-years from now. Creating these super conferences probably and I would bet you that everybody involves with these sees a scenario where they are going to be like what the BCS has done in football."
It is all in the pursuit of money. The money has changed college sports.
"If the Big East is giving Connecticut $7 million and our budget is $50-55 million, whatever it is, and somebody is offering us $22 (million), now you say wow, we can compete now. What I would imagine in these discussions, people are saying, okay well your budget is $100 million, and so is mine and so is his and so is his, so we are all thinking the same thing, we are all going after the same thing so let's all form our own little club and let's compete against each other. If you are one of those other guys you are out.
"Is that fair? No, it is not fair but that is where the world is right now and these people are taking advantage of an opportunity. They saw the model, you have this sized stadium, you produce the revenue and you can join our club, if you don't you are out."
And that leads to a question, has the big time college sports industry gotten out of hand?
"I don't know if it has gotten out of hand as much as it is still in the process of change," said Krzyzewski. "Things change but when our sports is such that if one conference changes, it is going to have a rippling effect. If the Big Ten changes, it is going to change or could change four other conferences or more and I am not sure that is all bad. Change isn't bad. You are constantly looking for ways of improving and if the resources that are needed to fund all the programs each school has, it is not just basketball or football, you have to produce a certain amount of money to do that and if these changes produce that while still giving a quality experience for a student athlete, then I am all for it."
The times, they are a-changing in big time college sports. What makes a school attractive? That is what the solons of the Big Ten will deliberate upon next week. Is Rutgers attractive? Or does Pittsburgh, Missouri, Nebraska and Notre Dame work out better individually or collectively for the Big Ten? If Rutgers is "the other guy" as Auriemma referred to those not asked to join a conference, and if the Big East falls apart what happens?
That is a good question. Rutgers might end up in the ACC or the South East Conference. The game of musical chairs for money is about to begin.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics and Business of Sports." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com .
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
March Madness is Really Madness
March Madness really is madness
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 03/09/10 at 12:40 AM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/09/march-madness-really-is-madness/
It is nearly March Madness time and if there ever was a sports tournament appropriately named madness, it is the Men’s College Basketball Tournament. Somehow people have been conned into believing that the 65-team event is a seminal moment in sports and that the excitement of the games transcends sports.
But a closer look at the tournament reveals something else. It is not just a sports event, it is a business, a huge business that is nothing more than a television series funded by CBS and that the people behind the tournament are guided far more by money than an athletic event. How else do you explain the constant stories for the past three months that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) members are thinking about expanding the tournament from the present 65 teams to 96 and with an expansion of the tournament would come more television money from some source, whether it is Sumner Redstone’s CBS or from merger of Comcast and NBC (which will include the Versus network), or Disney’s ESPN-ABC or Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp/FOX.
The expansion of the tournament to 96 teams talk coincides with an escape clause in the 11-year, $6 billion agreement between Redstone and the college basketball governing body. CBS will pay the NCAA more than two billion dollars over the final three years of the contract in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Money talks in college basketball where everyone seems to be making money but the game’s performers—-the players. CBS is doing rather well selling advertisements for this year’s March Madness matches, the big name coaches seem to be doing rather well financially and the successful coaches at midsize schools will be showing off their wares and possibly get a chance to move up to a school looking to turn around a mediocre or losing program and make a pile of cash from various sources including the school, the school’s cable TV partner, a sneaker company who outfits the coach with clothing attire, the school with uniforms and sneakers and from boosters along with marketing and advertising partners.
Coaches can break contracts and move on while the players….well the players could transfer to another school and have to sit out a season. The players get a scholarship but catch players at the right time away from the team environment that might tell you it is almost impossible to be a student and a player at the same time because of the commitment that the coach requires from that player because of practices, travel and the actual game.
Sure the players have tutors available but graduation rates among college basketball players as a whole are terrible and the NCAA can deride studies showing poor graduation rates but even the colleges know they are shortchanging the players. A player is a slave to the scholarship and the games come first.
College and university presidents and chancellors will look the other way when coaches commit violations in an effort to build a tournament team.
CBS will have the pom poms waiving and with the sports writing community extolling the virtue of some coach and the greatness of college sports. The people buying tickets in the arena will ignore the business aspect of college sports. Journalists become Sgt. Hans Schultz, the guard who watched over Stalag 13 in the old television show Hogan’s Heroes. Schultz reported to Colonel Klink and when asked about the prisoner’s activities, he would tell Klink, “I know nothing.”
The NCAA requires cities to bid for each round of the tournament and that means that the college body is getting big money guarantees from someone in those cities and the Final Four is now played in domed football stadiums with huge seating capacities and tickets are very expensive. The performers—the players—may be amateurs and not getting compensated but there is nothing amateur about the Men’s Basketball Tournament. There are coaches making millions, there are advertisers paying millions for marketing partnerships and big rollers buying club seats and luxury boxes.
This is the big leagues even though the performers who are the real stars of the show are not getting a check.
But all of the major league trappings are not enough for the NCAA. Getting bigger seems to be the formula needed to get more cash into the coffers.
The NCAA is looking for more TV money which is why the body is thinking of expanding the field for the championship. NCAA negotiators know that CBS, which does not have a cable TV sports partner, cannot pay them as much as Disney’s ESPN or possibly the Comcast-NBC (Versus and possibly USA, CNBC and MSNBC set up) entity. The negotiators know the Disney (ESPN) has given the Bowl Championship Series a four year, $495 million for five games a year. CBS might turn to Turner Sports as a cable partner. Murdoch has some regional cable sports networks but would need a real partner to land the tourney.
Disney’s ESPN can spend wildly on sports fee because of the Cable TV Act of 1984 which allowed the bundling of then-dying cable TV networks like ESPN, CNN, The Weather Channel to be bundled and sold as one to cable TV subscribers on a basic-expanded tier which means 100 percent of those buying the basic expanded tier are paying for an entity that a fraction of the cable TV universe are using, ESPN. The legislation, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, allows cable networks who manage to land on the basic-expanded tier (multiple system operators (MSO), not consumers, decide what ends up on the basic-expanded tier which is why the National Football League has been fighting with operators like Time Warner and Cablevision for a spot on that vaunted tier, the MSOs have decided the NFL Network is not worth the price that NFL has attached to the network. ESPN is charging subscribers more than $4 a month for the network. ESPN can get high prices despite mediocre ratings because there is a perception that men between 18 and 34 watch a lot of sports and 18-34 year old males are a hard to reach advertising demographic and that advertisers can reach them en masse during a televised sports event.).
ESPN can outspend over the air network rivals because it gets a month fee from more than 95 million subscribers along with advertising dollars.
The various conferences are also chasing more TV dollars. Why else is the Pacific 10 considering expanding with the conference TV contracts with Disney’s ESPN, the Fox Sports Network and Versus ending in two years? The Pac 10 may also want to start a cable TV network like the Big Ten, the Mountain West or the Southeast Conference.
In pursuit of more TV money, the Atlantic Coast Conference raided the Big East in 2003 and took Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech to make the ACC more attractive for a TV network and advertisers. The Big East filled the holes by taking three colleges, Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida from Conference USA. Other conferences poached other conferences and things have calmed down since 2003 although the Big Ten took a run at Rutgers and may go after the University of Pittsburgh. The state of Connecticut sued the ACC for poaching the Big East and weakening the college sports conference. Eventually the two conferences settled.
Money talks in college sports.
March Madness captivates the sporting public for three weeks and has caused some problems in the workplace on the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament with people at work watching games on the internet instead of doing their job. That is how wrapped up people have become in the tourney. Meanwhile CBS never delves into questions that academia poses privately about the pursuit of a basketball tournament which includes why teams are traveling far away from their campuses to play games which seem to also coincide during the midterm time period.
CBS, the NCAA money partner, never brings up the question of whether players are really student-athletes or if they are merely fund raisers for a program. There is also another component worth pursuing. Are the most talented freshmen who know they are leaving for the NBA following the college tourney attending class during the second semester of the school year?
College routinely holds hearings on the college sports industry, after all the colleges do have a antitrust TV exemptions thanks to the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and enjoy tax exempt status, but those hearings seem to center around the unfairness of the Bowl Championship Series which prompted Texas Republican Joe Barton to introduce legislation in January 2009, the College Football Playoff Act of 2009 (HR 309).
Barton’s bill was aimed at the BCS’ championship game. HR 309’s language was simple. “To prohibit, as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, the promotion, marketing, and advertising of any post-season NCAA Division I football game as a national championship game unless such game is the culmination of a fair and equitable playoff system.”
The bill went nowhere as did President Barack Obama’s call for a college football championship contest.
The Madness starts soon, and because of the chance of scooping up more money, the Madness will get even bigger in the future and everyone will make a buck except the stars of the show—the players.
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 03/09/10 at 12:40 AM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/09/march-madness-really-is-madness/
It is nearly March Madness time and if there ever was a sports tournament appropriately named madness, it is the Men’s College Basketball Tournament. Somehow people have been conned into believing that the 65-team event is a seminal moment in sports and that the excitement of the games transcends sports.
But a closer look at the tournament reveals something else. It is not just a sports event, it is a business, a huge business that is nothing more than a television series funded by CBS and that the people behind the tournament are guided far more by money than an athletic event. How else do you explain the constant stories for the past three months that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) members are thinking about expanding the tournament from the present 65 teams to 96 and with an expansion of the tournament would come more television money from some source, whether it is Sumner Redstone’s CBS or from merger of Comcast and NBC (which will include the Versus network), or Disney’s ESPN-ABC or Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp/FOX.
The expansion of the tournament to 96 teams talk coincides with an escape clause in the 11-year, $6 billion agreement between Redstone and the college basketball governing body. CBS will pay the NCAA more than two billion dollars over the final three years of the contract in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Money talks in college basketball where everyone seems to be making money but the game’s performers—-the players. CBS is doing rather well selling advertisements for this year’s March Madness matches, the big name coaches seem to be doing rather well financially and the successful coaches at midsize schools will be showing off their wares and possibly get a chance to move up to a school looking to turn around a mediocre or losing program and make a pile of cash from various sources including the school, the school’s cable TV partner, a sneaker company who outfits the coach with clothing attire, the school with uniforms and sneakers and from boosters along with marketing and advertising partners.
Coaches can break contracts and move on while the players….well the players could transfer to another school and have to sit out a season. The players get a scholarship but catch players at the right time away from the team environment that might tell you it is almost impossible to be a student and a player at the same time because of the commitment that the coach requires from that player because of practices, travel and the actual game.
Sure the players have tutors available but graduation rates among college basketball players as a whole are terrible and the NCAA can deride studies showing poor graduation rates but even the colleges know they are shortchanging the players. A player is a slave to the scholarship and the games come first.
College and university presidents and chancellors will look the other way when coaches commit violations in an effort to build a tournament team.
CBS will have the pom poms waiving and with the sports writing community extolling the virtue of some coach and the greatness of college sports. The people buying tickets in the arena will ignore the business aspect of college sports. Journalists become Sgt. Hans Schultz, the guard who watched over Stalag 13 in the old television show Hogan’s Heroes. Schultz reported to Colonel Klink and when asked about the prisoner’s activities, he would tell Klink, “I know nothing.”
The NCAA requires cities to bid for each round of the tournament and that means that the college body is getting big money guarantees from someone in those cities and the Final Four is now played in domed football stadiums with huge seating capacities and tickets are very expensive. The performers—the players—may be amateurs and not getting compensated but there is nothing amateur about the Men’s Basketball Tournament. There are coaches making millions, there are advertisers paying millions for marketing partnerships and big rollers buying club seats and luxury boxes.
This is the big leagues even though the performers who are the real stars of the show are not getting a check.
But all of the major league trappings are not enough for the NCAA. Getting bigger seems to be the formula needed to get more cash into the coffers.
The NCAA is looking for more TV money which is why the body is thinking of expanding the field for the championship. NCAA negotiators know that CBS, which does not have a cable TV sports partner, cannot pay them as much as Disney’s ESPN or possibly the Comcast-NBC (Versus and possibly USA, CNBC and MSNBC set up) entity. The negotiators know the Disney (ESPN) has given the Bowl Championship Series a four year, $495 million for five games a year. CBS might turn to Turner Sports as a cable partner. Murdoch has some regional cable sports networks but would need a real partner to land the tourney.
Disney’s ESPN can spend wildly on sports fee because of the Cable TV Act of 1984 which allowed the bundling of then-dying cable TV networks like ESPN, CNN, The Weather Channel to be bundled and sold as one to cable TV subscribers on a basic-expanded tier which means 100 percent of those buying the basic expanded tier are paying for an entity that a fraction of the cable TV universe are using, ESPN. The legislation, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, allows cable networks who manage to land on the basic-expanded tier (multiple system operators (MSO), not consumers, decide what ends up on the basic-expanded tier which is why the National Football League has been fighting with operators like Time Warner and Cablevision for a spot on that vaunted tier, the MSOs have decided the NFL Network is not worth the price that NFL has attached to the network. ESPN is charging subscribers more than $4 a month for the network. ESPN can get high prices despite mediocre ratings because there is a perception that men between 18 and 34 watch a lot of sports and 18-34 year old males are a hard to reach advertising demographic and that advertisers can reach them en masse during a televised sports event.).
ESPN can outspend over the air network rivals because it gets a month fee from more than 95 million subscribers along with advertising dollars.
The various conferences are also chasing more TV dollars. Why else is the Pacific 10 considering expanding with the conference TV contracts with Disney’s ESPN, the Fox Sports Network and Versus ending in two years? The Pac 10 may also want to start a cable TV network like the Big Ten, the Mountain West or the Southeast Conference.
In pursuit of more TV money, the Atlantic Coast Conference raided the Big East in 2003 and took Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech to make the ACC more attractive for a TV network and advertisers. The Big East filled the holes by taking three colleges, Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida from Conference USA. Other conferences poached other conferences and things have calmed down since 2003 although the Big Ten took a run at Rutgers and may go after the University of Pittsburgh. The state of Connecticut sued the ACC for poaching the Big East and weakening the college sports conference. Eventually the two conferences settled.
Money talks in college sports.
March Madness captivates the sporting public for three weeks and has caused some problems in the workplace on the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament with people at work watching games on the internet instead of doing their job. That is how wrapped up people have become in the tourney. Meanwhile CBS never delves into questions that academia poses privately about the pursuit of a basketball tournament which includes why teams are traveling far away from their campuses to play games which seem to also coincide during the midterm time period.
CBS, the NCAA money partner, never brings up the question of whether players are really student-athletes or if they are merely fund raisers for a program. There is also another component worth pursuing. Are the most talented freshmen who know they are leaving for the NBA following the college tourney attending class during the second semester of the school year?
College routinely holds hearings on the college sports industry, after all the colleges do have a antitrust TV exemptions thanks to the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 and enjoy tax exempt status, but those hearings seem to center around the unfairness of the Bowl Championship Series which prompted Texas Republican Joe Barton to introduce legislation in January 2009, the College Football Playoff Act of 2009 (HR 309).
Barton’s bill was aimed at the BCS’ championship game. HR 309’s language was simple. “To prohibit, as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, the promotion, marketing, and advertising of any post-season NCAA Division I football game as a national championship game unless such game is the culmination of a fair and equitable playoff system.”
The bill went nowhere as did President Barack Obama’s call for a college football championship contest.
The Madness starts soon, and because of the chance of scooping up more money, the Madness will get even bigger in the future and everyone will make a buck except the stars of the show—the players.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
“Money, It’s Gotta Be the Shoes.”
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7568
“Money, It’s Gotta Be the Shoes.”
By Evan Weiner
November 5, 2009
4:00 PM EST
(New York, N. Y.) – American sportswriters can rejoice, the college basketball season has started and now American sports journalists like Seth Davis can get back to what they enjoy the most --- watching college basketball games --- without the little interruptions of the off season of 2009 like the troubles at the Binghamton University in central New York, Rick Pitino’s extortion problem with a waitress in Kentucky, and coach John Calipari jumping to Kentucky just before the NCAA invalidated his Memphis State 2008 NCAA tournament runner up finish because one of Calipari’s players -- Derrick Rose -- had his SAT invalidated by the NCAA. USC coach Tim Floyd’s resignation after the NCAA’s investigation of the recruitment of O. J. Mayo, some players backing out of their commitments to play at a school.
Davis wrote in August in his CNNSI column that college basketball needed some feel-good stories and that he was not feeling too good about the off-season.
Davis and his ilk don’t like it when outside business influences college basketball but college basketball is a business and in the college industry it is just second to college football complex in producing revenues for members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The sports writing community still buys into the student athlete fairytale that sprang up in the 1920s despite all the evidence that suggests that college sports is made up of money partnerships between the colleges and TV networks, colleges and marketing partners, money that pours in from boosters, the building of new or renovation of arenas and stadiums complete with revenue producing club seats and luxury boxes and in-venue eateries with big prices on parking and heavy duty sales of school related merchandise.
The NCAA gets $545 million annually from CBS following the 2006 signing of a CBS-NCAA partnership that is worth $6 billion over an 11-year period. The NCAA also enjoys a federal gift -- tax-exempt status.
The feel good start to the season has already evaporated because Michael Jordan’s son decided to wear an Air Jordan brand basketball shoe instead of an adidas shoe in a game. The problem is that Marcus Jordan is a member of the University of Central Florida’s basketball team and that school had a five-year deal with adidas that requires all University of Central Florida athletes to use and wear adidas products.
Jordan wore his father’s shoe, which is manufactured by NIKE, in a game against St. Leo. adidas didn’t like that so the sneaker company terminated the deal with the school and cost the school money.
College sports is a business and this is where the sportswriters created college sports fantasy meets reality. Marcus Jordan has lived very comfortably because of his father’s deal with Phil Knight and NIKE. Sure Jordan has a multi-year contract with the school and let’s get right to the point, a college athletic scholarship is a multi-year deal that gives him the right to play sports at the school in exchange for a scholarship. Any athlete also gives up various rights to the school including his (or her) name on merchandise which the school or the school’s license holder sells to consumers with the athlete receiving nothing in return.
The whole issue of sponsorships and marketing partnerships between NCAA member schools and the NIKE, adidas and other companies like EA Sports is never really addressed with any sort of constant seriousness. The old saw is the players get a scholarship and they should be happy with that and the schools run deficits in having many athletic teams with the only money makers being football and basketball.
So the attitude is shut up with any criticism and let us run our business and be grateful you are covering a major event and don’t make waves. Sports journalists who follow college usually tow the line and enjoy the game. That is the beauty of sports; newspapers give free coverage along with magazines which helps market the product.
Television networks, regional and national cable TV networks have to pay for games or engage in a revenue sharing deal and then colleges allow some highlights from games as the non-rights holders (and even rights holders) are restricted to a certain amount of time. Still there is some free coverage at news conferences and after game interviews. But over-the-air TV is not capable of producing investigative reporting and most cable TV news reporting is either endless highlights with grade D talent trying to deliver funny lines or like in the news division, people on talk shows saying nothing while making a lot of noise. Radio is just carnival barking so real issues are never brought up except in a few cases. Partners like CBS and ESPN will not do true investigative reports into the industry.
The NCAA is making millions off of football players even when they aren’t playing in the video game genre. The NCAA cannot use a players name but in the video games there a major similarities between well known college players and the players portrayed in a game, so much so that Sam Keller filed a class action suit on behalf of himself and others because he feels EA Sports and the NCAA used his likeness in a video game and he did not receive compensation.
The NCAA claims it does not violate any players rights and the sports organization has by-laws that prohibit the commercial licensing of a player’s name picture of likeness. Of course if that were the case, CBS would not be able to promote the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament with video of players in commercials pushing the tournament. Nor could ESPN, various regional sports cable TV networks or other NCAA partners. But there is a Form 08-3a that a player must sign in order to receive a scholarship that allows the NCAA or a third party NCAA partner (like CBS) to use a players name in championships, activities, events and programs.
The student-athlete gives up marketing rights. His or her coach does not nor does the school. The player is getting a scholarship and that should be more than enough. The players should be grateful that a sneaker company is giving them a shoe.
The school’s coach gets endorsement money from the sneaker company, the athlete – the stars of the show – get nothing. Jordan is in a unique position, he has money unlike a good many college athletes in Division I who are barred from making more than a NCAA dictated set amount of money for the year.
The whole college sports industry never gets a close scrutiny from Davis and his colleagues and that also may stem from the newspaper industry’s cozy relationship with sports. Newspaper executives (and sportswriters) believe that sports coverage is a driving force in newspaper daily sales (although the industry continues to lose readership and newspaper circulations have fallen about 10 percent in the last year). There is major interest in sports though as television ratings are up but people are getting sports news, really team and game information, from sources other than newspapers.
Perhaps if newspapers began reporting, real reporting, on issues that might attract more interest. It might even sell newspapers.
Jordan’s shoe story will produce a predicable response of he should be more of a team player, his decision is costing his school money and what do you expect from a spoiled rich kid? NIKE more than David Stern’s NBA publicity machine defined the Michael Jordan business brand in his early days with the Chicago Bulls. Jordan’s son understands business.
There is money in the shoes.
College sports is a business.
Marcus Jordan understood that when he wore his father’s shoes. As Mars Blackmon once said in a NIKE-Jordan commercial, “Money, It’s Gotta Be the Shoes.”
“Money, It’s Gotta Be the Shoes.”
By Evan Weiner
November 5, 2009
4:00 PM EST
(New York, N. Y.) – American sportswriters can rejoice, the college basketball season has started and now American sports journalists like Seth Davis can get back to what they enjoy the most --- watching college basketball games --- without the little interruptions of the off season of 2009 like the troubles at the Binghamton University in central New York, Rick Pitino’s extortion problem with a waitress in Kentucky, and coach John Calipari jumping to Kentucky just before the NCAA invalidated his Memphis State 2008 NCAA tournament runner up finish because one of Calipari’s players -- Derrick Rose -- had his SAT invalidated by the NCAA. USC coach Tim Floyd’s resignation after the NCAA’s investigation of the recruitment of O. J. Mayo, some players backing out of their commitments to play at a school.
Davis wrote in August in his CNNSI column that college basketball needed some feel-good stories and that he was not feeling too good about the off-season.
Davis and his ilk don’t like it when outside business influences college basketball but college basketball is a business and in the college industry it is just second to college football complex in producing revenues for members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The sports writing community still buys into the student athlete fairytale that sprang up in the 1920s despite all the evidence that suggests that college sports is made up of money partnerships between the colleges and TV networks, colleges and marketing partners, money that pours in from boosters, the building of new or renovation of arenas and stadiums complete with revenue producing club seats and luxury boxes and in-venue eateries with big prices on parking and heavy duty sales of school related merchandise.
The NCAA gets $545 million annually from CBS following the 2006 signing of a CBS-NCAA partnership that is worth $6 billion over an 11-year period. The NCAA also enjoys a federal gift -- tax-exempt status.
The feel good start to the season has already evaporated because Michael Jordan’s son decided to wear an Air Jordan brand basketball shoe instead of an adidas shoe in a game. The problem is that Marcus Jordan is a member of the University of Central Florida’s basketball team and that school had a five-year deal with adidas that requires all University of Central Florida athletes to use and wear adidas products.
Jordan wore his father’s shoe, which is manufactured by NIKE, in a game against St. Leo. adidas didn’t like that so the sneaker company terminated the deal with the school and cost the school money.
College sports is a business and this is where the sportswriters created college sports fantasy meets reality. Marcus Jordan has lived very comfortably because of his father’s deal with Phil Knight and NIKE. Sure Jordan has a multi-year contract with the school and let’s get right to the point, a college athletic scholarship is a multi-year deal that gives him the right to play sports at the school in exchange for a scholarship. Any athlete also gives up various rights to the school including his (or her) name on merchandise which the school or the school’s license holder sells to consumers with the athlete receiving nothing in return.
The whole issue of sponsorships and marketing partnerships between NCAA member schools and the NIKE, adidas and other companies like EA Sports is never really addressed with any sort of constant seriousness. The old saw is the players get a scholarship and they should be happy with that and the schools run deficits in having many athletic teams with the only money makers being football and basketball.
So the attitude is shut up with any criticism and let us run our business and be grateful you are covering a major event and don’t make waves. Sports journalists who follow college usually tow the line and enjoy the game. That is the beauty of sports; newspapers give free coverage along with magazines which helps market the product.
Television networks, regional and national cable TV networks have to pay for games or engage in a revenue sharing deal and then colleges allow some highlights from games as the non-rights holders (and even rights holders) are restricted to a certain amount of time. Still there is some free coverage at news conferences and after game interviews. But over-the-air TV is not capable of producing investigative reporting and most cable TV news reporting is either endless highlights with grade D talent trying to deliver funny lines or like in the news division, people on talk shows saying nothing while making a lot of noise. Radio is just carnival barking so real issues are never brought up except in a few cases. Partners like CBS and ESPN will not do true investigative reports into the industry.
The NCAA is making millions off of football players even when they aren’t playing in the video game genre. The NCAA cannot use a players name but in the video games there a major similarities between well known college players and the players portrayed in a game, so much so that Sam Keller filed a class action suit on behalf of himself and others because he feels EA Sports and the NCAA used his likeness in a video game and he did not receive compensation.
The NCAA claims it does not violate any players rights and the sports organization has by-laws that prohibit the commercial licensing of a player’s name picture of likeness. Of course if that were the case, CBS would not be able to promote the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament with video of players in commercials pushing the tournament. Nor could ESPN, various regional sports cable TV networks or other NCAA partners. But there is a Form 08-3a that a player must sign in order to receive a scholarship that allows the NCAA or a third party NCAA partner (like CBS) to use a players name in championships, activities, events and programs.
The student-athlete gives up marketing rights. His or her coach does not nor does the school. The player is getting a scholarship and that should be more than enough. The players should be grateful that a sneaker company is giving them a shoe.
The school’s coach gets endorsement money from the sneaker company, the athlete – the stars of the show – get nothing. Jordan is in a unique position, he has money unlike a good many college athletes in Division I who are barred from making more than a NCAA dictated set amount of money for the year.
The whole college sports industry never gets a close scrutiny from Davis and his colleagues and that also may stem from the newspaper industry’s cozy relationship with sports. Newspaper executives (and sportswriters) believe that sports coverage is a driving force in newspaper daily sales (although the industry continues to lose readership and newspaper circulations have fallen about 10 percent in the last year). There is major interest in sports though as television ratings are up but people are getting sports news, really team and game information, from sources other than newspapers.
Perhaps if newspapers began reporting, real reporting, on issues that might attract more interest. It might even sell newspapers.
Jordan’s shoe story will produce a predicable response of he should be more of a team player, his decision is costing his school money and what do you expect from a spoiled rich kid? NIKE more than David Stern’s NBA publicity machine defined the Michael Jordan business brand in his early days with the Chicago Bulls. Jordan’s son understands business.
There is money in the shoes.
College sports is a business.
Marcus Jordan understood that when he wore his father’s shoes. As Mars Blackmon once said in a NIKE-Jordan commercial, “Money, It’s Gotta Be the Shoes.”
Sunday, March 15, 2009
In Binghamton, what is the cost for March Madness?
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2009m3d15-In-Binghamton-what-is-the-cost-for-March-Madness In Binghamton, what is the cost for "March Madness"
March 15, 1:00 PM
Here is hoping that Dr. Lois B. DeFleur and George Pataki are enjoying Binghamton University's first trip to March Madness, the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament, more than say Bryan Steinhauer. Hopefully both Dr. DeFleur, the President of Binghamton University, Pataki, the New York Governor between 1995 and 2007, along with members from both houses of the New York State Legislature who approved Binghamton's step up to Division I men's basketball and allowed some $33.1 million in funds to go into the construction of an new athletic facility, to house the program, will keep Steinhauer in their thoughts.
But why should they? He wasn't a major contributor to Binghamton's success this year. In fact he wasn't even in school this year.
You see Steinhauer will forever be the symbol of what happens when a school chooses to house a big time sports program. The cost is more than just money. In Steinhauer's case, he was left in a coma after one of Binghamton basketball recruit, Miladin Kovacevic got into a bar brawl with Steinhauer in the early hours of May 4, 2008. Kovacevic, who is 6-9 and weighs 260 pounds, got into a fight with Steinhauer who was 5-9 and about 100 pounds lighter. Kovacevic beat Steinhauer into a coma. The only reason Kovacevic, who came from Serbia, was at Binghamton was his ability to play basketball.
Steinhauer finally emerged from a coma but doesn't remember the incident. Meanwhile Kovacevic fled to Serbia after being arrested with the help of the Siberian consulate. United States officials have demanded that Siberian officials return him to New York where he would face a trial, but Serbia claims they cannot do that because Serbia's constitution does not allow for extradition to the United States.
After the beating, Dr. DeFleur and New York Governor David Patterson along with members of the legislature should have suspended the program and looked into what the school got itself into by reaching for the big time. Instead it was business as usual. Prepare for the 2008-09 season and win the America East Conference under Coach Kevin Broadus.
Dr. DeFleur acted like so many other college and university presidents and chancellors. She overlooked the criminal incident like her peers at the University of Nebraska and other big time schools. The thinking seems to be something like this when it comes to the presidents and chancellors. Maybe in due time people will forget that some college athletes act like thugs and are arrested but somehow continue playing sports. Kovacevic lost his scholarship according to school officials before the Steinhauer incident, possibly because he was injured in 2007-08. Coaches can take scholarships away as easily as handing them out.
Binghamton University along with Buffalo, Stony Brook and Albany are the crown jewels of the New York State University system. All have gone Division 1 in many sports. Buffalo and Stony Brook are football schools, Binghamton and Albany are basketball schools. There was no need to go big time in Binghamton, yet in April 2003 when Binghamton was recruiting students, one of the school's selling points at an assembly aimed at parents who were helping their child in the school selection process was the commitment to basketball and that one day Binghamton would beat perennial powerhouse Syracuse in a match up. That is how important basketball became to Dr. DeFleur.
Basketball has become too much of a burden for a school that is rated one of the best academic state colleges or universities in the United States.
Of course it could be argued that Binghamton, a Northeastern rust belt city, has been in a recession after losing IBM and other companies for more than a decade and a half along with a lot of upstate New York municipalities and needed something to attract students other than classes and a few seedy downtown bars and a basketball team competing on a Division 1 level could do just that. Also, with a D-1 school, alumni and boosters would pump more money into the school's sports programs.
But America East schools don't play big time basketball like the Big East, the ACC, the Pac-10 and other conferences. America East schools lose money on sports and America East games are not must see TV even when the few that do get on TV are shown.
That of course leads to the question. Why is Binghamton going full throttle on building a basketball program? Another question. At what price does a school sell its soul?
A few weeks ago, the New York Times wrote a less than flattering article on the whole culture of the Binghamton University basketball program which included the Kovacevic incident and other incidents including a story about Malik Alvin was charged with assault and theft at a local Wal-Mart. Alvin was charged with stealing condoms, an item very much available on campus free of charge. The charges were dropped. In January, Dwayne Jackson was suspended for violating team rules and Devon McBride quit the team for his “loss of interest” in the game. McBride in that article also claimed that his teammates, most of whom were under the legal drinking age of 21 were consuming alcohol and smoked pot, which is illegal.
The mess at Binghamton University is what Dr. DeFleur, a former college basketball player, has on her watch. The mess is what former Governor Pataki has on his watch. Of course, the Binghamton University president has gone on the offensive and told the New York Times that "All of our basketball players are eligible and are making progress toward graduation." Dr, DeFleur also added that "Since we’ve been Division I, all of the players that have stayed in the program have graduated.”
It would be refreshing if in the coverage of March Madness if the National Collegiate Athletic Association's television and broadband partner CBS or its radio partner Westwood One would devote some time to real journalism on the presentation but don't expect that. CBS is paying the NCAA billions and while the network can dictate the times games tip off, they, despite paying all of that money to the NCAA, dare not criticize or even suggest that college sports is plagued with problems like graduation rates, arrests, allegations that professors have been coerced into giving "student-athletes" better grades and a host of other issues including "student-athletes" rights and the fact that coaches make money off endorsements on the players backs. But all CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone, CBS President Leslie Moonves, CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus and other network officials want are good ratings on TV and record numbers of visitors to the streaming videos of the games. There will be fluff pieces on CBS network news programs promoting March Madness, but don't expect any pieces on Kovacevic and the United States Department of State and New York Senator Charles Schumer's attempts to get the Serbian basketball player back to face assault charges. That would get in the way of entertainment and what the big time playing football and basketball schools want.
Fantasyland.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
March 15, 1:00 PM
Here is hoping that Dr. Lois B. DeFleur and George Pataki are enjoying Binghamton University's first trip to March Madness, the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament, more than say Bryan Steinhauer. Hopefully both Dr. DeFleur, the President of Binghamton University, Pataki, the New York Governor between 1995 and 2007, along with members from both houses of the New York State Legislature who approved Binghamton's step up to Division I men's basketball and allowed some $33.1 million in funds to go into the construction of an new athletic facility, to house the program, will keep Steinhauer in their thoughts.
But why should they? He wasn't a major contributor to Binghamton's success this year. In fact he wasn't even in school this year.
You see Steinhauer will forever be the symbol of what happens when a school chooses to house a big time sports program. The cost is more than just money. In Steinhauer's case, he was left in a coma after one of Binghamton basketball recruit, Miladin Kovacevic got into a bar brawl with Steinhauer in the early hours of May 4, 2008. Kovacevic, who is 6-9 and weighs 260 pounds, got into a fight with Steinhauer who was 5-9 and about 100 pounds lighter. Kovacevic beat Steinhauer into a coma. The only reason Kovacevic, who came from Serbia, was at Binghamton was his ability to play basketball.
Steinhauer finally emerged from a coma but doesn't remember the incident. Meanwhile Kovacevic fled to Serbia after being arrested with the help of the Siberian consulate. United States officials have demanded that Siberian officials return him to New York where he would face a trial, but Serbia claims they cannot do that because Serbia's constitution does not allow for extradition to the United States.
After the beating, Dr. DeFleur and New York Governor David Patterson along with members of the legislature should have suspended the program and looked into what the school got itself into by reaching for the big time. Instead it was business as usual. Prepare for the 2008-09 season and win the America East Conference under Coach Kevin Broadus.
Dr. DeFleur acted like so many other college and university presidents and chancellors. She overlooked the criminal incident like her peers at the University of Nebraska and other big time schools. The thinking seems to be something like this when it comes to the presidents and chancellors. Maybe in due time people will forget that some college athletes act like thugs and are arrested but somehow continue playing sports. Kovacevic lost his scholarship according to school officials before the Steinhauer incident, possibly because he was injured in 2007-08. Coaches can take scholarships away as easily as handing them out.
Binghamton University along with Buffalo, Stony Brook and Albany are the crown jewels of the New York State University system. All have gone Division 1 in many sports. Buffalo and Stony Brook are football schools, Binghamton and Albany are basketball schools. There was no need to go big time in Binghamton, yet in April 2003 when Binghamton was recruiting students, one of the school's selling points at an assembly aimed at parents who were helping their child in the school selection process was the commitment to basketball and that one day Binghamton would beat perennial powerhouse Syracuse in a match up. That is how important basketball became to Dr. DeFleur.
Basketball has become too much of a burden for a school that is rated one of the best academic state colleges or universities in the United States.
Of course it could be argued that Binghamton, a Northeastern rust belt city, has been in a recession after losing IBM and other companies for more than a decade and a half along with a lot of upstate New York municipalities and needed something to attract students other than classes and a few seedy downtown bars and a basketball team competing on a Division 1 level could do just that. Also, with a D-1 school, alumni and boosters would pump more money into the school's sports programs.
But America East schools don't play big time basketball like the Big East, the ACC, the Pac-10 and other conferences. America East schools lose money on sports and America East games are not must see TV even when the few that do get on TV are shown.
That of course leads to the question. Why is Binghamton going full throttle on building a basketball program? Another question. At what price does a school sell its soul?
A few weeks ago, the New York Times wrote a less than flattering article on the whole culture of the Binghamton University basketball program which included the Kovacevic incident and other incidents including a story about Malik Alvin was charged with assault and theft at a local Wal-Mart. Alvin was charged with stealing condoms, an item very much available on campus free of charge. The charges were dropped. In January, Dwayne Jackson was suspended for violating team rules and Devon McBride quit the team for his “loss of interest” in the game. McBride in that article also claimed that his teammates, most of whom were under the legal drinking age of 21 were consuming alcohol and smoked pot, which is illegal.
The mess at Binghamton University is what Dr. DeFleur, a former college basketball player, has on her watch. The mess is what former Governor Pataki has on his watch. Of course, the Binghamton University president has gone on the offensive and told the New York Times that "All of our basketball players are eligible and are making progress toward graduation." Dr, DeFleur also added that "Since we’ve been Division I, all of the players that have stayed in the program have graduated.”
It would be refreshing if in the coverage of March Madness if the National Collegiate Athletic Association's television and broadband partner CBS or its radio partner Westwood One would devote some time to real journalism on the presentation but don't expect that. CBS is paying the NCAA billions and while the network can dictate the times games tip off, they, despite paying all of that money to the NCAA, dare not criticize or even suggest that college sports is plagued with problems like graduation rates, arrests, allegations that professors have been coerced into giving "student-athletes" better grades and a host of other issues including "student-athletes" rights and the fact that coaches make money off endorsements on the players backs. But all CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone, CBS President Leslie Moonves, CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus and other network officials want are good ratings on TV and record numbers of visitors to the streaming videos of the games. There will be fluff pieces on CBS network news programs promoting March Madness, but don't expect any pieces on Kovacevic and the United States Department of State and New York Senator Charles Schumer's attempts to get the Serbian basketball player back to face assault charges. That would get in the way of entertainment and what the big time playing football and basketball schools want.
Fantasyland.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Monday, February 23, 2009
Should a college coach ne the highest paid state employee in Connecticut
Should a college coach be the highest paid state employee in Connecticut?
Add a Comment
February 23, 10:56 PM
by Evan Weiner, Business of Sports Examiner
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Ken Krayeske in all likelihood will be a forgotten man by the time college basketball's March Madness rolls around in a few weeks. But Krayeske should have opened up a legitimate debate about the salaries that state colleges give to head football and head basketball coaches at big time football and basketball playing schools. At the news conference following Saturday's University of Connecticut-South Florida game in Hartford, Krayeske asked a fair question. He wanted to know if Calhoun would return a part of his $1.6 annual million salary to help the state of Connecticut as the state legislature deals with a significant budget deficit of about a billion dollars that could result in firing of state employees.Calhoun was also asked about his other contracts which include a TV deal and a sneaker company agreement and answered Krayeske with the claim that the basketball team brings the school $12 million annually. That may be true but college sports programs are generally considered money losers. Some schools do get libraries or labs with some monies generated by sports teams but big time college sports is a very expensive proposition. Schools offer multiple sports beyond football and basketball.The exchange between Krayeske and Calhoun was highly unusual. Post game news conferences are boring affairs unless someone brings up a point to a losing coach who doesn't like the question or wants to embarrass the questioner or just wants to make a dramatic point and that coach goes ballistic and starts yelling at the media. Reporters think nothing of being abused by coaches or players because it is all part of the game. The reporters take one for the team or the sport.
Krayeske should have made journalists, elected officials and people think. Why is Calhoun, who is a basketball coach, paid more than Governor Jodi Rell? The governor has the responsibility of the welfare of the entire population of the state. Calhoun recruits players, runs practices and sends players onto a court to play a game. Calhoun isn't the only basketball or football coach among the highest paid state employees in the US. Two of Calhoun's colleagues at the University of Connecticut are also well compensated. Football coach Randy Edsall and women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma will each earn between an estimated $1.5 and $1.6 million.The entire college sports business is all about money. Schools, whether they are public or private, have been in an arms race to satisfy coach's money demands. Schools find an identity through sports. But once a school decides to go "big time" that school also becomes a professional organization except in one area. They get away without paying players and those players should be happy with the possibility of getting a fully paid education in exchange for their sweat, blood and tears.The coach makes his or her money off of their unpaid players backs. The coach gets a TV deal off of unpaid players backs. The coach gets a sneaker endorsement contract off of unpaid players backs. Calhoun was angry with Krayeske, who by the way has been dismissed as a political activist and freelance reporter, and told Krayeske to get his facts right.
But the facts in Connecticut include the possibility of cutbacks among the number of workers in police and fire departments and in public education or hiking public colleges bills. No use sugar coating it in Connecticut, the state is a billion dollars in the hole and while the economic stimulus will send money into Connecticut, New Haven is still looking for about $10 million in givebacks from its public employees.
It's time to stop pretending that Division I college football and basketball are some sort of amateur or scholastic endeavor for students. Colleges and universities are supposed to be places where students matriculate and get ready for the real world. For Division I schools, though, the real world is filling stadiums and arenas with well- heeled boosters, signing deals with corporations for stadium-naming rights, getting money from shoe companies for outfitting their teams and putting the best product available on the field or court to justify the multi-million-dollar broadcasting contracts for their games.
Putting the best product available on the field or court means that spending millions for the best coach or coaches and in Connecticut, three of the highest state employees are two basketball coaches and a football coach.The Calhoun-Krayeske confrontation comes at a time when President Barack Obama and Congress along with others in Washington are trying to find a solution to fix the economy. California almost went broke before a state budget deal was brokered. Kansas is in serious financial trouble, In New York Governor David Patterson is threatening to cut state jobs. Job cuts and unpaid furloughs are on the table as ways to close budget deficits yet no one is suggesting that a state employee like Rutgers' football Greg Schiano of New Jersey will see a pay cut but it seems out of whack that state employees like football and basketball coaches are getting raises and bonuses while classes at Rutgers have been cut and tuition along with student fees are being hiked for the average student, a good many of whom have to borrow money to pay for their educations.
Krayeske threw a curve ball at a news conference and while it was reported, it has not gone any further and it probably will not resonant with the public. There should be a thorough discussion of big time college sports and how states are paying millions in tough economic times for coaches. Don't expect CBS on any of its broadcast platforms to bring up the Krayeske-Calhoun exchange, it would not be good for Sumner Redstone and his faltering CBS business or its partner, the NCAA, or Calhoun. Silence in this case is golden.
evanjweiner @yahoo.com
Add a Comment
February 23, 10:56 PM
by Evan Weiner, Business of Sports Examiner
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Ken Krayeske in all likelihood will be a forgotten man by the time college basketball's March Madness rolls around in a few weeks. But Krayeske should have opened up a legitimate debate about the salaries that state colleges give to head football and head basketball coaches at big time football and basketball playing schools. At the news conference following Saturday's University of Connecticut-South Florida game in Hartford, Krayeske asked a fair question. He wanted to know if Calhoun would return a part of his $1.6 annual million salary to help the state of Connecticut as the state legislature deals with a significant budget deficit of about a billion dollars that could result in firing of state employees.Calhoun was also asked about his other contracts which include a TV deal and a sneaker company agreement and answered Krayeske with the claim that the basketball team brings the school $12 million annually. That may be true but college sports programs are generally considered money losers. Some schools do get libraries or labs with some monies generated by sports teams but big time college sports is a very expensive proposition. Schools offer multiple sports beyond football and basketball.The exchange between Krayeske and Calhoun was highly unusual. Post game news conferences are boring affairs unless someone brings up a point to a losing coach who doesn't like the question or wants to embarrass the questioner or just wants to make a dramatic point and that coach goes ballistic and starts yelling at the media. Reporters think nothing of being abused by coaches or players because it is all part of the game. The reporters take one for the team or the sport.
Krayeske should have made journalists, elected officials and people think. Why is Calhoun, who is a basketball coach, paid more than Governor Jodi Rell? The governor has the responsibility of the welfare of the entire population of the state. Calhoun recruits players, runs practices and sends players onto a court to play a game. Calhoun isn't the only basketball or football coach among the highest paid state employees in the US. Two of Calhoun's colleagues at the University of Connecticut are also well compensated. Football coach Randy Edsall and women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma will each earn between an estimated $1.5 and $1.6 million.The entire college sports business is all about money. Schools, whether they are public or private, have been in an arms race to satisfy coach's money demands. Schools find an identity through sports. But once a school decides to go "big time" that school also becomes a professional organization except in one area. They get away without paying players and those players should be happy with the possibility of getting a fully paid education in exchange for their sweat, blood and tears.The coach makes his or her money off of their unpaid players backs. The coach gets a TV deal off of unpaid players backs. The coach gets a sneaker endorsement contract off of unpaid players backs. Calhoun was angry with Krayeske, who by the way has been dismissed as a political activist and freelance reporter, and told Krayeske to get his facts right.
But the facts in Connecticut include the possibility of cutbacks among the number of workers in police and fire departments and in public education or hiking public colleges bills. No use sugar coating it in Connecticut, the state is a billion dollars in the hole and while the economic stimulus will send money into Connecticut, New Haven is still looking for about $10 million in givebacks from its public employees.
It's time to stop pretending that Division I college football and basketball are some sort of amateur or scholastic endeavor for students. Colleges and universities are supposed to be places where students matriculate and get ready for the real world. For Division I schools, though, the real world is filling stadiums and arenas with well- heeled boosters, signing deals with corporations for stadium-naming rights, getting money from shoe companies for outfitting their teams and putting the best product available on the field or court to justify the multi-million-dollar broadcasting contracts for their games.
Putting the best product available on the field or court means that spending millions for the best coach or coaches and in Connecticut, three of the highest state employees are two basketball coaches and a football coach.The Calhoun-Krayeske confrontation comes at a time when President Barack Obama and Congress along with others in Washington are trying to find a solution to fix the economy. California almost went broke before a state budget deal was brokered. Kansas is in serious financial trouble, In New York Governor David Patterson is threatening to cut state jobs. Job cuts and unpaid furloughs are on the table as ways to close budget deficits yet no one is suggesting that a state employee like Rutgers' football Greg Schiano of New Jersey will see a pay cut but it seems out of whack that state employees like football and basketball coaches are getting raises and bonuses while classes at Rutgers have been cut and tuition along with student fees are being hiked for the average student, a good many of whom have to borrow money to pay for their educations.
Krayeske threw a curve ball at a news conference and while it was reported, it has not gone any further and it probably will not resonant with the public. There should be a thorough discussion of big time college sports and how states are paying millions in tough economic times for coaches. Don't expect CBS on any of its broadcast platforms to bring up the Krayeske-Calhoun exchange, it would not be good for Sumner Redstone and his faltering CBS business or its partner, the NCAA, or Calhoun. Silence in this case is golden.
evanjweiner @yahoo.com
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