Does Linda McMahon know why the N.Y.-N.J. Hitmen and the XFL went out of business suddenly?
THURSDAY, 07 OCTOBER 2010 12:11
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/does-linda-mcmahon-know-why-the-ny-nj-hitmen-and-the-xfl-went-out-of-business-suddenly#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There has been an awful lot said about the Connecticut Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon and her role with the World Wrestling Federation and World Wrestling Entertainment as chief executive officer. When you run for political office, everything is fair game and rightfully there has been a major focus on the McMahon family bankruptcy in the 1970s and questions about former World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment performers who died as young men while either working for Vince and Linda McMahon or shortly after they left the wrestling organization.
But there is one area of the McMahon portfolio that has not been given a lot of scrutiny.
The short-lived XFL.
The XFL was born after Vince and Linda McMahon past on an opportunity to buy the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League and then the entire league in the late 1990s. McMahon and General Electric's NBC division teamed up in early 2000 and started to put together a single entity owned league with each side owning half of the product. The league was scheduled to start in February 2001 and came to life around the same time that Time Warner was thinking about creating a professional football league.
The McMahon-NBC venture failed and was done by May 2001 and left a lot of football people rather bitter because of just how the end played out.
Vince and Linda McMahon did not put the XFL out of business. Ken Schanzer, an executive at NBC Sports did according to numerous insiders who were employed by the league or NFL people who were friends with XFL football people.
The late George Young, who built two New York Giants Super Bowl teams as the franchise's general manager, used to carp about how someone would not allow the football people to run the show. The someone was not Vince McMahon nor was it Linda McMahon. It was NBC personnel that decided to give the league a wrestling persona which included having the network's football analyst Jesse Ventura try to bait the New Jersey-New York coach Rusty Tillman to create some sort of storyline.
The tactic failed miserable and caused George Young one day to complain vehemently to anyone who listened that it belittled Tillman and the other coaches looking for a place to hone their craft. George Young never had a problem with the XFL as it gave people opportunities to play, to coach, to scout, to market and to announce.
People like Bob Costas and John Sterling cut their teeth on upstart leagues.
The story that former XFL people tell is that NBC executives were still miffed at the National Football League for accepting a 1998 CBS offer to get the rights to American Football Conference games, playoff contests and an occasional Super Bowl for $4 billion over an eight year period which was about a 130 percent increase over what NBC had paid for the contract. NBC wanted to stick it to both CBS and the NFL in a rather childish manner and hoped to get good ratings for a late winter-spring product.
It was not until late in the 2001 season when the XFL fell off the map that football people took over the product. The XFL might have lasted into season two, 2002, had Schanzer and NBC not pulled the plug. According to one XFL official who was present at the end, everyone acknowledged that the league had lost some $50 million but ESPN in Bristol, Conn. had interest in picking up the programming in 2002 and TNN would have returned for a second year. UPN had dropped out but ESPN's interest would have more than made up for losing the weak UPN network. But according to the league insider Schanzer, (the insider did not know if Schanzer acted on his own or if a higher authority made the call) and didn't want a competitor.
With that the league disappeared leaving an awful lot of angry football people stewing both in the NFL and XFL.
McMahon wanted to keep going according to the XFL insider.
Western civilization survived the first weekend of the existence of the XFL on February 3, 2001. The first game pitted the New Jersey-New York Hitmen and the Las Vegas Outlaws in the desert. Las Vegas won the game 19-0. The XFL didn't change the world despite the horrors predicted by the very predictable sportswriters of the time who in the Pavlov dog thinking abhorred the thought of somebody starting a new football (or basketball or hockey or soccer) league and other naysayers like George Will.
The XFL didn't prompt China to bringing the tanks back to Tiananmen Square in Beijing; the Wall didn't go up again in Germany, there was no reversal of the Florida Presidential Election results.
The XFL featured just a bunch of football players who played the game in various sites around the country with scantily clad cheerleaders on the sidelines.
Vince McMahon's latest contribution to American society at the time really didn't make very much difference. There was the assertion from then Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell that McMahon was selling sex and violence. But Modell was stopped in his tracks when the name Sam Huff came up and then the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders was the second part added to the conversation.
Nearly 40 years ago, on October 31, 1960, CBS aired as part of the network's Twentieth Century series, "The Violent World of Sam Huff" which was narrated by Walter Cronkite. Huff was the tough New York Giants linebacker who was also the first NFL player to appear on the cover of Time magazine on November 30, 1959. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders became a brand name and were regulars on TV shows.
The XFL was a made for TV show for NBC, the UPN Network (which is now out of business) and the TNN cable network, which is now Spike TV. The first week's TV audience was a pleasant surprise. The actual football though was ragged at best but the XFL was not necessarily going to be about football. Wrestling had storylines and was a soap opera. McMahon and NBC, who had some experience with daytime soap operas on the network, were going to create storylines. But they would have had to go a long way in 2001 to catch the real life drama of some NFL players like Rae Carruth the Carolina Panthers player who was standing trial for the murder of this girl friend, the Baltimore Ravens Ray Lewis, who was arrested on murder and aggravated assault charges (Lewis copped a plea for obstruction of justice and got one year probation) and Green Bay's Mark Churma who just a couple days after the start of the XFL was acquitted of sexual assault charges.
McMahon and professional wrestling in general always presented lowbrow entertainment. There was nothing ever sophisticated about professional wrestling in the TV era and a lot of it resembled Three Stooges shorts. The critics fired at McMahon and the XFL but his presentation was really lame and at best fourth grade humor. The XFL didn't have DWI arrests (a common occurrence in football), wife beaters, coke addicts like the other "established" sports leagues at the time.
But University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson was quoted that he "hopes the league fails" because Professor Sanderson "doesn't want the bar of entertainment to be lowered." Then there was the conservative columnist, baseball shill and member of two baseball franchises' board of directors (the liberal Peter Angelos' Baltimore Orioles and John Moores' San Diego Padres — Moores was a major contributor to Bill Clinton's Presidential campaigns) George Will's comments.
Will worried that the XFL would continue the "further coarsening of America."
McMahon may have come up with a lot of sports and entertainment ideas in his Cape Cod Coliseum incubator but he didn't invent bad behavior in sports.
George Will probably likes to draw a blank on the illegal steroids usage in baseball while he served Angelos and Moores but the former professor, one time Republican political operative and conservative writer and TV talking head is smart enough to know that bad behavior started long before Vince and Linda McMahon.
When the New York Islanders Pat Lafontaine suffered a concussion during a game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers in 1990, Rangers fans blocked the exit out of the Garden for the ambulance and then rocked the ambulance as it was leaving. Jeffrey Lange was arrested at Giants Stadium for throwing a snowball and he wasn't the only one pelting the field with snow and ice balls during a Giants-San Diego Chargers game on December 23, 1995. Lange was arrested with 17 others that day. Some fans in various cities around North America used championship celebrations as an excuse to go on rampages. The XFL crowds were not dangerous. The XFL did not have European soccer crowd lunatics.
The XFL lead TV analyst Jesse Ventura was the governor of Minnesota at the time. George Will didn't take note of this in 2001 because he is a baseball apologist in many ways. But Governor Ventura issued an apology statement after Minnesota Twins fans at the Metrodome pelted former Twins and New York Yankees leftfielder Chuck Knoblauch with garbage from the stands in 2001.
By the time the XFL's life support was pulled by Schanzer, the XFL didn't cause gas prices to rise, the XFL didn't create tension between the US and China, the US and North Korea nor did McMahon cause the US to lose its United Nation's seat on the Human Rights Commission in that body. It was just a TV show but it is interesting to read all of the negative reaction to the McMahons, the wrestling industry and how the real story of the failure of the XFL has never really been fully explained.
The XFL was just entertainment, a made for television show. In 2001, the XFL expired and that aspect of Linda McMahon's life and business has not been explored. It deserves a look, not only for Connecticut voters but for sports business management students who need to see how sports and business intersect. The questions of why the XFL didn't go on should be asked and the first question that Linda McMahon or Schanzer should be asked is this. Did NBC really pull the plug because a Connecticut business, ESPN, wanted to get involved? Nine years later with the senatorial campaign nearing an end, and Linda McMahon claiming she knows how to create jobs, there may be some people who want an answer.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports" and can be reached atevanjweiner@yahoo.com
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Chris Dudley lacking NBA support for gubernatorial run in Oregon
MONDAY, 04 OCTOBER 2010 11:13
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/chris-dudley-lacking-nba-support-in-gubernatorial-run-in-oregon
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern seems to be staying out of this year's Oregon Gubernatorial campaign. There is nothing odd about that until you realize that one of Stern's former employees — the one time New Jersey Nets and New York Knicks center Chris Dudley — has the Republican line in this contest. John Kitzhaber has the Democratic line in the contest.
Stern is a master political operative as a lobbyist but Dudley doesn't really rate on his radar screen. Dudley is not in the same class of pedigree as former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley who, of course, was part of the New York Knicks championship teams in 1970 and 1973. When Bradley decided to run for President in 2000, the entire NBA seemingly was at his disposal.
Not so for Dudley.
Dudley does have a basketball money savior though. NIKE's Phil Knight is a big donor. Dudley, who graduated from Yale and wasn't much of an NBA player, has some political genes as his grandfather Guilford Dudley was the United States Ambassador to Denmark in the Nixon and Ford Administrations.
Back in the days when basketball leagues looked for any available space to play a game, the game had almost no political influence. Over the decades that changed. The National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle persuaded Congress to allow league's to bundle its teams together and have one entity negotiate for a national TV deal. President John F. Kennedy signed the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 on September 30, 1961 and that changed the bargaining power of leagues.
The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was an important factor in the growth of the National Football League and ultimately the NBA. By 1999, Stern, a lifelong Democrat, was holding a league sanctioned political fundraiser at Madison Square Garden for one of the NBA's own, Bill Bradley.
Bradley rolled out a who's who in basketball lore in his bid to raise money for his challenge against Al Gore for the nomination.
Presidential campaigns and Hollywood seem to go hand in hand. Both Democrats and Republicans have sought out actors and actresses to bolster campaigns and money. In fact, Hollywood has produced one President, Ronald Reagan. Others like Fred Thompson, George Murphy, Fred Granby, Sonny Bono and Al Franken went onto Congress. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the Governor of California.
Over the years, the world of sports has not had many players in the Presidential game. Certainly, the NBA did not although there were some owners who in the 1990s were heavily involved in politics. The Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl holds one of the Wisconsin senate seats on Capitol Hill. Former National Football League and American Football League quarterback Jack Kemp, who was also the President of the American Football League Players Association in the mid 1960s, was Robert Dole's running mate for the GOP in the 1996 Presidential election.
Bradley received help at his Garden fundraiser from Kareem Abdul-Jabber, Bob Cousy, his onetime Knicks teammate and roommate Dave DeBusschere, Bill Walton, Bill Russell, three other Knicks teammates Willis Reed, Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier, Bob Petit, Oscar Robertson, Nancy Lieberman-Cline, Wes Unseld, Dolph Schayes, Elvin Hayes, Nate Archibald, Julius Erving, John Havlicek, Dave Bing, Billy Cunningham, Jerry Lucas, Rebecca Lobo and Grant Hill. Spike Lee had a courtside seat along with the actor Harvey Keitel. Tennis great John McEnroe and Pro Football Hall of Famer quarterback Joe Namath were there too. Namath, of course was New York's big star leading the Jets to a Super Bowl championship in 1969 at the same time that Bradley and his Knicks teammates became championship contenders.
Patrons were paying New York Knicks-type prices to enter the Garden as tickets for the fund raiser ranged from $100-1,000. But a major question came up about the fundraiser. Could Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar who served 18 years as a United States Senator from New Jersey, get sports fans out to vote?
Would voters casting ballots in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Democratic primaries vote for a hometown hero who helped New York win two championships or would they vote on the Bradley versus Gore record?
Jerry Lucas thought that Bradley's basketball pedigree was not going to sway voters. Bradley had been a college All-American at Princeton, had two championship rings, was a Basketball Hall of Fame member and enjoyed the support of a cross section of the basketball community, but Lucas thought that voters would scrutinize Bradley the man, not the basketball player.
"He told me he is having the most fun he has ever had in his life," said Lucas of his friend's campaign. "He is very much enjoying his campaigning and what he is doing. He is a very capable and very honest person and I appreciate that in Bill."
It's the human Bill Bradley, not the athlete that Lucas thought would connect with voters. Bradley also had Stern's commitment to help him on the stump.
Bradley wasn't the only 2000 Presidential candidate who had NBA star power around him. Gore picked up the endorsement of Newark native Shaquille O'Neal. That was somewhat interesting in that O'Neal's coach at that time with the Los Angeles Lakers was Phil Jackson who thought of running Bradley's campaign in Iowa but took the Lakers coaching job instead. Jackson was supporting his old Knicks teammate.
In an even stranger twist of sports in politics in the 1999-2000 election cycle, Philip F. Anschutz, who build the new downtown Los Angeles arena and had a piece of the Lakers ownership, rented out the arena for the 2000 Democrat Convention. Anschutz counted the 1996 Republican nominee for the Presidency, long time Kansas Congressman and Senator and one time Vice Presidential candidate Robert Dole as one of his lifelong friends. Jackson was, of course, the Lakers coach.
Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf was closely aligned with the late Ron Brown, the former Commerce Secretary and the Democratic National Committee chairman in 1992. Reinsdorf got the 1996 Democratic Convention at his arena in Chicago when he needed dates to fill and money to pay off costs of the privately funded arena. Owners and politicians do work rather closely.
Lucas said he supported Bradley because he was more than just a friend and he thought other basketball players felt the same way.
"When I played, we didn't support candidates," said Lucas, who competed in the NBA in the 1960s and 1970s.
One NBA big name ran for Congress after his playing days were done. Mikan. He lost in his bid for the House in 1956 to incumbent Democrat Roy Wier. The NBA did not hold a major fundraiser for Mikan in 1956 but then again there was nothing major about the NBA in 1956.
Some athletes like Wilt Chamberlain did attend national conventions. Chamberlain supported the Republican Richard Nixon who served as the American President between 1969 and 1974. Bradley was the first to take basketball players out on the campaign trail.
"People want to help certain people that they appreciate, love and believe in," said Lucas.
The fundraiser didn't help; Bradley was out of the race in March 2000 after Gore picked up most of the delegates available in the Super Tuesday primary including those in New York. His basketball background might have picked up a few votes but not many. In the east, people are not impressed with stars as say in California.
Perhaps Dudley is better off without Stern's involvement. Stern has failed to deliver new arena in Sacramento and seems to have lost a mile off of his political fastball lately. But make no mistake, the NBA is a political entity and wields enormous influence locally and nationally. Stern is still peeved at New Jersey legislators for not building the Nets a building in Newark going so far as saying that New Jersey politicians blew it. Bruce Ratner is building an arena in Brooklyn and the New Jersey Devils are in Newark. But Stern will keep hammering away as the politics of sports business never fades away even if Dudley isn't getting any support from the NBA's home office.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
MONDAY, 04 OCTOBER 2010 11:13
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/chris-dudley-lacking-nba-support-in-gubernatorial-run-in-oregon
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern seems to be staying out of this year's Oregon Gubernatorial campaign. There is nothing odd about that until you realize that one of Stern's former employees — the one time New Jersey Nets and New York Knicks center Chris Dudley — has the Republican line in this contest. John Kitzhaber has the Democratic line in the contest.
Stern is a master political operative as a lobbyist but Dudley doesn't really rate on his radar screen. Dudley is not in the same class of pedigree as former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley who, of course, was part of the New York Knicks championship teams in 1970 and 1973. When Bradley decided to run for President in 2000, the entire NBA seemingly was at his disposal.
Not so for Dudley.
Dudley does have a basketball money savior though. NIKE's Phil Knight is a big donor. Dudley, who graduated from Yale and wasn't much of an NBA player, has some political genes as his grandfather Guilford Dudley was the United States Ambassador to Denmark in the Nixon and Ford Administrations.
Back in the days when basketball leagues looked for any available space to play a game, the game had almost no political influence. Over the decades that changed. The National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle persuaded Congress to allow league's to bundle its teams together and have one entity negotiate for a national TV deal. President John F. Kennedy signed the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 on September 30, 1961 and that changed the bargaining power of leagues.
The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was an important factor in the growth of the National Football League and ultimately the NBA. By 1999, Stern, a lifelong Democrat, was holding a league sanctioned political fundraiser at Madison Square Garden for one of the NBA's own, Bill Bradley.
Bradley rolled out a who's who in basketball lore in his bid to raise money for his challenge against Al Gore for the nomination.
Presidential campaigns and Hollywood seem to go hand in hand. Both Democrats and Republicans have sought out actors and actresses to bolster campaigns and money. In fact, Hollywood has produced one President, Ronald Reagan. Others like Fred Thompson, George Murphy, Fred Granby, Sonny Bono and Al Franken went onto Congress. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the Governor of California.
Over the years, the world of sports has not had many players in the Presidential game. Certainly, the NBA did not although there were some owners who in the 1990s were heavily involved in politics. The Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl holds one of the Wisconsin senate seats on Capitol Hill. Former National Football League and American Football League quarterback Jack Kemp, who was also the President of the American Football League Players Association in the mid 1960s, was Robert Dole's running mate for the GOP in the 1996 Presidential election.
Bradley received help at his Garden fundraiser from Kareem Abdul-Jabber, Bob Cousy, his onetime Knicks teammate and roommate Dave DeBusschere, Bill Walton, Bill Russell, three other Knicks teammates Willis Reed, Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier, Bob Petit, Oscar Robertson, Nancy Lieberman-Cline, Wes Unseld, Dolph Schayes, Elvin Hayes, Nate Archibald, Julius Erving, John Havlicek, Dave Bing, Billy Cunningham, Jerry Lucas, Rebecca Lobo and Grant Hill. Spike Lee had a courtside seat along with the actor Harvey Keitel. Tennis great John McEnroe and Pro Football Hall of Famer quarterback Joe Namath were there too. Namath, of course was New York's big star leading the Jets to a Super Bowl championship in 1969 at the same time that Bradley and his Knicks teammates became championship contenders.
Patrons were paying New York Knicks-type prices to enter the Garden as tickets for the fund raiser ranged from $100-1,000. But a major question came up about the fundraiser. Could Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar who served 18 years as a United States Senator from New Jersey, get sports fans out to vote?
Would voters casting ballots in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Democratic primaries vote for a hometown hero who helped New York win two championships or would they vote on the Bradley versus Gore record?
Jerry Lucas thought that Bradley's basketball pedigree was not going to sway voters. Bradley had been a college All-American at Princeton, had two championship rings, was a Basketball Hall of Fame member and enjoyed the support of a cross section of the basketball community, but Lucas thought that voters would scrutinize Bradley the man, not the basketball player.
"He told me he is having the most fun he has ever had in his life," said Lucas of his friend's campaign. "He is very much enjoying his campaigning and what he is doing. He is a very capable and very honest person and I appreciate that in Bill."
It's the human Bill Bradley, not the athlete that Lucas thought would connect with voters. Bradley also had Stern's commitment to help him on the stump.
Bradley wasn't the only 2000 Presidential candidate who had NBA star power around him. Gore picked up the endorsement of Newark native Shaquille O'Neal. That was somewhat interesting in that O'Neal's coach at that time with the Los Angeles Lakers was Phil Jackson who thought of running Bradley's campaign in Iowa but took the Lakers coaching job instead. Jackson was supporting his old Knicks teammate.
In an even stranger twist of sports in politics in the 1999-2000 election cycle, Philip F. Anschutz, who build the new downtown Los Angeles arena and had a piece of the Lakers ownership, rented out the arena for the 2000 Democrat Convention. Anschutz counted the 1996 Republican nominee for the Presidency, long time Kansas Congressman and Senator and one time Vice Presidential candidate Robert Dole as one of his lifelong friends. Jackson was, of course, the Lakers coach.
Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf was closely aligned with the late Ron Brown, the former Commerce Secretary and the Democratic National Committee chairman in 1992. Reinsdorf got the 1996 Democratic Convention at his arena in Chicago when he needed dates to fill and money to pay off costs of the privately funded arena. Owners and politicians do work rather closely.
Lucas said he supported Bradley because he was more than just a friend and he thought other basketball players felt the same way.
"When I played, we didn't support candidates," said Lucas, who competed in the NBA in the 1960s and 1970s.
One NBA big name ran for Congress after his playing days were done. Mikan. He lost in his bid for the House in 1956 to incumbent Democrat Roy Wier. The NBA did not hold a major fundraiser for Mikan in 1956 but then again there was nothing major about the NBA in 1956.
Some athletes like Wilt Chamberlain did attend national conventions. Chamberlain supported the Republican Richard Nixon who served as the American President between 1969 and 1974. Bradley was the first to take basketball players out on the campaign trail.
"People want to help certain people that they appreciate, love and believe in," said Lucas.
The fundraiser didn't help; Bradley was out of the race in March 2000 after Gore picked up most of the delegates available in the Super Tuesday primary including those in New York. His basketball background might have picked up a few votes but not many. In the east, people are not impressed with stars as say in California.
Perhaps Dudley is better off without Stern's involvement. Stern has failed to deliver new arena in Sacramento and seems to have lost a mile off of his political fastball lately. But make no mistake, the NBA is a political entity and wields enormous influence locally and nationally. Stern is still peeved at New Jersey legislators for not building the Nets a building in Newark going so far as saying that New Jersey politicians blew it. Bruce Ratner is building an arena in Brooklyn and the New Jersey Devils are in Newark. But Stern will keep hammering away as the politics of sports business never fades away even if Dudley isn't getting any support from the NBA's home office.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The Business & Politics of Sports [Kindle Edition]
http://www.amazon.com/Business-Politics-Sports-ebook/dp/B0040SXVI6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1286140877&sr=8-1
The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is being used by professors at SUNY Cortland, NYU and St. Joseph's University. Available for $9.99 from www.bickley.com or amazonkindle.
http://www.amazon.com/Business-Politics-Sports-ebook/dp/B0040SXVI6/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285552786&sr=8-1
The Business & Politics of Sports [Kindle Edition]
Evan Weiner (Author)
No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digital List Price: $9.99 What's this?
Kindle Price: $9.99 & includes wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Available on these devices
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
The Business & Politics of Sports, Second Edition (ISBN: 1-883210-06-2) contains an updated collection of award winning sportswriter Evan Weiner’s columns that span from 1998 to the present; they are categorized into fifteen chapters with introductions.
Evan Weiner has important things to write about. Everybody in America is paying in some way for sports, whether it is through taxes, cable TV bills, tax breaks or incentives. Mr. Weiner not only shows how closely business, politics and sports are interwoven, he has an encyclopedic memory that allows him to include historical background in his articles. Evan doesn’t see himself as brave; rather he does what he thinks a responsible journalist does: research, interview, listen carefully, think, connect the dots and write. Readers benefit from his knowledge and observation.
Since The Business & Politics of Sports first smashed through the insular ivory tower of sports academia in 2005, many colleges and universities have used Evan Weiner’s columns as the basis for class discussion and case studies. Professor Daniel A. Rascher, the University of San Francisco’s Director of Academic Programs, who has hosted Evan’s electronic blackboard classes for the past ten years, believes, “Evan Weiner understands the nexus between politics and the sports industry unlike anyone else. He is able to stir the pot and get at students' passions and emotions about sports, policy, regulation, and politics. His columns and articles are an invaluable resource for any course or program in sport management.”
“In reality, he is probably the most provocative sports writer in the business today,” sums up Thomas P. Rosandich, Ph.D., President and CEO of the United States Sports Academy, which conferred its Distinguished Journalist Award on Mr. Weiner in 2003. “Evan writes on topics that no one else will dare to touch, and he writes them very well. The part that we find to be so exceptional here at the Academy is the amount of research that he does on each and every one of his articles.”
Cooper Union urban historian Fred Siegel, who wrote the introduction to the book’s “Stadiums & Public Policy” opines, “Evan Weiner’s columns are essential public policy reading for those trying to make sense of what is happening with American cities.”
Evan Weiner also has a large following among sports fans, news junkies, political wonks and general readers fascinated to learn something new. Sheldon A. Saltman, former president of FOX Sports, recently remarked, “A bagel, cream cheese and an Evan Wiener column are my breakfast fare. Evan’s wit and cynicism give an offbeat perspective to the rigors of each day. For me, he’s a ‘must read.’"
During the summer of 2010, sports writers brought to the attention of the American public the plight of former NFL players whose lives have been forever changed by brain concussions which they claim have caused permanent physical damage. Mr. Weiner’s extensive July 6th article on NFL 49er George Visger, “The football culture needs to be changed,” has caused quite a stir within the professional football community.
Evan Weiner is a contributing columnist for nhl.com, New Jersey Newsroom, The Daily Caller and The Examiner. He wrote a weekly column for the New York Sun and has written for New York Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Metro Philadelphia, Metro New York, the Washington Examiner and msnbc.com, and was a re-occurring guest on “Politics Live” with Sam Donaldson. His radio commentary “The Business of Sports” aired nationally on a daily basis between June 1999 and June 2006. He is a participant in several Long Distance Learning and electronic blackboard university classes, speaks at colleges across the country, and gives talks to civic groups and on cruises.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Details
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 1084 KB
Publisher: TBE Press, an inprint of TBM Records; Second Edition edition (August 24, 2010)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B0040SXVI6
The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is being used by professors at SUNY Cortland, NYU and St. Joseph's University. Available for $9.99 from www.bickley.com or amazonkindle.
http://www.amazon.com/Business-Politics-Sports-ebook/dp/B0040SXVI6/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285552786&sr=8-1
The Business & Politics of Sports [Kindle Edition]
Evan Weiner (Author)
No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digital List Price: $9.99 What's this?
Kindle Price: $9.99 & includes wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Available on these devices
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Don't have a Kindle? Get yours here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
The Business & Politics of Sports, Second Edition (ISBN: 1-883210-06-2) contains an updated collection of award winning sportswriter Evan Weiner’s columns that span from 1998 to the present; they are categorized into fifteen chapters with introductions.
Evan Weiner has important things to write about. Everybody in America is paying in some way for sports, whether it is through taxes, cable TV bills, tax breaks or incentives. Mr. Weiner not only shows how closely business, politics and sports are interwoven, he has an encyclopedic memory that allows him to include historical background in his articles. Evan doesn’t see himself as brave; rather he does what he thinks a responsible journalist does: research, interview, listen carefully, think, connect the dots and write. Readers benefit from his knowledge and observation.
Since The Business & Politics of Sports first smashed through the insular ivory tower of sports academia in 2005, many colleges and universities have used Evan Weiner’s columns as the basis for class discussion and case studies. Professor Daniel A. Rascher, the University of San Francisco’s Director of Academic Programs, who has hosted Evan’s electronic blackboard classes for the past ten years, believes, “Evan Weiner understands the nexus between politics and the sports industry unlike anyone else. He is able to stir the pot and get at students' passions and emotions about sports, policy, regulation, and politics. His columns and articles are an invaluable resource for any course or program in sport management.”
“In reality, he is probably the most provocative sports writer in the business today,” sums up Thomas P. Rosandich, Ph.D., President and CEO of the United States Sports Academy, which conferred its Distinguished Journalist Award on Mr. Weiner in 2003. “Evan writes on topics that no one else will dare to touch, and he writes them very well. The part that we find to be so exceptional here at the Academy is the amount of research that he does on each and every one of his articles.”
Cooper Union urban historian Fred Siegel, who wrote the introduction to the book’s “Stadiums & Public Policy” opines, “Evan Weiner’s columns are essential public policy reading for those trying to make sense of what is happening with American cities.”
Evan Weiner also has a large following among sports fans, news junkies, political wonks and general readers fascinated to learn something new. Sheldon A. Saltman, former president of FOX Sports, recently remarked, “A bagel, cream cheese and an Evan Wiener column are my breakfast fare. Evan’s wit and cynicism give an offbeat perspective to the rigors of each day. For me, he’s a ‘must read.’"
During the summer of 2010, sports writers brought to the attention of the American public the plight of former NFL players whose lives have been forever changed by brain concussions which they claim have caused permanent physical damage. Mr. Weiner’s extensive July 6th article on NFL 49er George Visger, “The football culture needs to be changed,” has caused quite a stir within the professional football community.
Evan Weiner is a contributing columnist for nhl.com, New Jersey Newsroom, The Daily Caller and The Examiner. He wrote a weekly column for the New York Sun and has written for New York Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Metro Philadelphia, Metro New York, the Washington Examiner and msnbc.com, and was a re-occurring guest on “Politics Live” with Sam Donaldson. His radio commentary “The Business of Sports” aired nationally on a daily basis between June 1999 and June 2006. He is a participant in several Long Distance Learning and electronic blackboard university classes, speaks at colleges across the country, and gives talks to civic groups and on cruises.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Details
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Publisher: TBE Press, an inprint of TBM Records; Second Edition edition (August 24, 2010)
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ASIN: B0040SXVI6
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Linda McMahon, wrestlers deaths and head injuries - National Business of Sports | Examiner.com
Linda McMahon, Wrestlers Deaths and Head Injuries
By Evan Weiner
September 28, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/linda-mcmahon-wrestlers-deaths-and-head-injuries
(New York, N. Y.) -- The wife of World Wrestling Entertainment Czar Vince McMahon and former WWE Chief Executive Officer Linda McMahon is running for the United States Senate for the State of Connecticut. McMahon is apparently running as an outsider who can help create jobs in her state and elsewhere because she ran a successful business. McMahon is no outsider to politics. The World Wrestling Federation lobbied various states to decouple the "sport" from state athletic regulations. The McMahons argued that wrestling was a scripted entertainment and convinced lawmakers that it was really not much different from entertainment shows.
There was a reason that the McMahons wanted to get away from state athletic regulators. Wrestling resides in a murky area in sports and entertainment. The genre has some athleticism but in 1989 Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey State Senate that his product was not a bona fide competition and that wrestling matches were staged events. McMahon was trying to catch some tax breaks from the state of New Jersey for his live shows and his pay-per-view TV offerings by claiming his genre was not a sport.
The McMahon's successful business was built on a house of cards in 1984 after Vince McMahon decided to "rewrite" the rules of professional wrestling and invade other promoters’ territories. McMahon's World Wrestling Federation had the big east coast markets, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and other cities and the other big wrestling promoters, the NWA's Crockett family and the AWA's Vern Gagne totally misread the landscape thinking McMahon had the money to pull off the national expansion. According to one insider, McMahon did everything he could to find money and rolled the dice on Wrestlemania at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1985.
The McMahons won.
Madison Square Garden was packed, the money flowed in and the WWF had a solid financial footing.
McMahon's wrestlers looked like super heroes out of comic books with enormously sculptured bodies. There were also some "steroid-rage" incidents involving some wrestlers outside the ring but steroids were not deemed illegal until President George Bush signed legislation in 1990 banning the substance. Vince McMahon was indicted in November of 1993 on charges of possession of steroids and conspiracy to distribute steroids. McMahon beat the rap after a jury came back with a not guilty verdict on July 22, 1994. In 2005, McMahon’s wrestling circuit was still wrestling with drug issues and following the death of Eddie Guerrero, the McMahons imposed new drug testing policies.
The McMahons knew they had a problem on their hands and according to the WWE website, "(the) WWE implemented a WWE Talent Wellness Program on February 27, 2006. The WWE Talent Wellness Program is administered independent of WWE by (a) team of physicians." The statement goes onto say that "the Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy prohibits the use of drugs by WWE talent for other than a legitimate medical purpose pursuant to a valid prescription from a licensed and treating physician. The use of masking agents and/or diuretics to conceal or obscure the use of prohibited drugs is also forbidden."
Despite the policy, wrestlers are still dying in alarming numbers.
The WWF, now WWE, has not faced the same sort of scrutiny that professional sportswriters and other gadflies heaped upon Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and former Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr. Not many professional sportswriters aside from Frank Deford, Phil Mushnick and some wrestling reporters nor the gadflies around wrestling have bothered to take a closer look at the mortality rate of wrestlers who may have been using banned performance enhancing drugs. The percentage of professional wrestlers who died under the age of 50 in the past decade from a drug overdose or of heart attack, liver or kidney failure brought on by drug abuse is high far than the mortality rate in the general population.
The carnage has been documented and the toll is large especially compared with the number of deaths attributed to steroid drug damage in Major League Baseball. The answer in baseball appears to be zero, although Ken Caminiti died of a drug overdose in 2004 at the age of 41. Caminiti was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1995 and discussed his steroids usage with a reporter from the America magazine Sports Illustrated in 2002. Caminiti did not have steroids in his system at the time of his death.
On Monday, Linda McMahon, the Republican candidate for United States Senator will face off against Connecticut Attorney General and the Democrat's candidate Richard Blumenthal in a debate that is being sponsored by Rupert Murdoch's FOX Connecticut and the Sam Zell Tribune Company's Hartford Courant. The debate will be hosted by FOX correspondent Bret Baier. Apparently Zell has cut the staff at the Courant so thin that there is no one from the newspaper who is capable of performing the job as moderator. Baier does work for a news organization that leans right and specializes in going after an old audience who loves the presentation.
Television news reporters are now being regularly tapped as debate moderators despite some rather dismal performances over the years by PBS' Jim Lehrer, WCBS-TV Channel 2 (New York) reporter Marcia Kramer who was woefully unprepared in a 2000 debate between Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio in the New York Senate campaign and Gwen Ifell, who let Sarah Palin walk all over her in the 2008 Vice Presidential debate. There was an unremarkable performance by ABC's Charles Gibson in a 2008 debate.
It will be rather interesting to see whether a "TV news talent" like Baier will ask McMahon any of these troubling questions about drug usage in McMahon's WWE or the death of wrestlers. To be fair, Baier also must Blumenthal about his remarks about serving in Vietnam even though Blumenthal did not.
Baier also should ask McMahon about former WWF wrestler and former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura interview in 2008 on the Howard Stern radio show that he was fired by the company after Hulk Hogan told Vince McMahon that Ventura was trying to unionize wrestlers.
WWE performers are independent contractors which means that the McMahons do not pay social security benefits, Medicare contributions and unemployment insurance. The McMahons have contended they pay wrestlers extremely well and that makes up for the lack of benefits. It is unknown how many former wrestlers who suffered disabling injuries are now on the government dole getting social security insurance or Medicare to pay medical bills.
If Baier had any backbone, he would ask McMahon what she thinks of social security and health care and how many wrestlers now in their 40s and 50s that performed for her that are getting government support. And to get to a deeper point, FOX's conservative audience that likes morality, Baier's questioning should also include queries about storylines that included something that called the "Mr. McMahon Kiss My Ass Club" where wrestlers performed the act. There should also be a question or two about the debasing of women as part of the on-going “soap opera”.
Linda McMahon has claimed though she was not on the creative side of the business.
But given that Baier is a TV talking head and people look for sizzle not substance in a debate these days, it is unlikely that either McMahon or Blumenthal will getting too many high and hard pitches under the chin.
Congress is beginning to put the spotlight on the devastating injuries that have occurred in the National Football League and how both the league and the National Football League Players Association have failed a good many players whose injuries have permanently disabled them. Former McMahon employees have criticized the company because of there is no union and one father of a deceased wrestler may have touched a nerve that brain damaged football players are beginning to talk about.
Michael Benoit, the father of Chris Benoit -- the wrestler who on June 24, 2007 killed his son and wife then hanged himself -- claimed in a Hartford Courant interview in May that the McMahons didn't take proper care of their employees and just used the wrestlers to line their pockets.
"My son, Chris Benoit, 40, was one of WWE's top superstars. In June 2007, our lives changed dramatically, when he tragically killed his wife, son and himself. The press jumped on steroids as the cause of his actions. But tests showed that brain damage in the form of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, not steroids, was responsible for our loss. CTE, caused by repetitive trauma to the brain, can bring on serious disorders such as a loss of emotional control, addictions to drugs and alcohol, depression, aggressive and violent behavior."
Congress is addressing head injuries in pro football. The very type of head injury that Michael Benoit said his son had from his days as a wrestler. Talk to former football players with brain injuries and they immediately recognize the symptoms.
Baier should ask bring up the whole head injury issue because if McMahon is elected to the Senate and there are additional hearings on football injuries, McMahon just might be appointed to the committee holding hearings. What kind of questions would Senator Linda McMahon ask at a hearing about sports concussions?
Why isn't there a bigger spotlight on professional wrestling's mortality rate? Baier owes it to the non-FOX audience and to the former wrestlers who looked to the government for assistance to really be a moderator and not another FOX pundit. Linda McMahon needs to answer questions about the deaths of the performers in her business.
All of those deaths that should have rattled and ravaged her business, the wrestling industry. Fortunately for Linda McMahon, her husband Vince and daughter Stephanie and her husband Paul Michael Levesque a.k.a. Triple H, there is very little scrutiny of the industry.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner @yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
September 28, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/linda-mcmahon-wrestlers-deaths-and-head-injuries
(New York, N. Y.) -- The wife of World Wrestling Entertainment Czar Vince McMahon and former WWE Chief Executive Officer Linda McMahon is running for the United States Senate for the State of Connecticut. McMahon is apparently running as an outsider who can help create jobs in her state and elsewhere because she ran a successful business. McMahon is no outsider to politics. The World Wrestling Federation lobbied various states to decouple the "sport" from state athletic regulations. The McMahons argued that wrestling was a scripted entertainment and convinced lawmakers that it was really not much different from entertainment shows.
There was a reason that the McMahons wanted to get away from state athletic regulators. Wrestling resides in a murky area in sports and entertainment. The genre has some athleticism but in 1989 Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey State Senate that his product was not a bona fide competition and that wrestling matches were staged events. McMahon was trying to catch some tax breaks from the state of New Jersey for his live shows and his pay-per-view TV offerings by claiming his genre was not a sport.
The McMahon's successful business was built on a house of cards in 1984 after Vince McMahon decided to "rewrite" the rules of professional wrestling and invade other promoters’ territories. McMahon's World Wrestling Federation had the big east coast markets, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and other cities and the other big wrestling promoters, the NWA's Crockett family and the AWA's Vern Gagne totally misread the landscape thinking McMahon had the money to pull off the national expansion. According to one insider, McMahon did everything he could to find money and rolled the dice on Wrestlemania at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1985.
The McMahons won.
Madison Square Garden was packed, the money flowed in and the WWF had a solid financial footing.
McMahon's wrestlers looked like super heroes out of comic books with enormously sculptured bodies. There were also some "steroid-rage" incidents involving some wrestlers outside the ring but steroids were not deemed illegal until President George Bush signed legislation in 1990 banning the substance. Vince McMahon was indicted in November of 1993 on charges of possession of steroids and conspiracy to distribute steroids. McMahon beat the rap after a jury came back with a not guilty verdict on July 22, 1994. In 2005, McMahon’s wrestling circuit was still wrestling with drug issues and following the death of Eddie Guerrero, the McMahons imposed new drug testing policies.
The McMahons knew they had a problem on their hands and according to the WWE website, "(the) WWE implemented a WWE Talent Wellness Program on February 27, 2006. The WWE Talent Wellness Program is administered independent of WWE by (a) team of physicians." The statement goes onto say that "the Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy prohibits the use of drugs by WWE talent for other than a legitimate medical purpose pursuant to a valid prescription from a licensed and treating physician. The use of masking agents and/or diuretics to conceal or obscure the use of prohibited drugs is also forbidden."
Despite the policy, wrestlers are still dying in alarming numbers.
The WWF, now WWE, has not faced the same sort of scrutiny that professional sportswriters and other gadflies heaped upon Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and former Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr. Not many professional sportswriters aside from Frank Deford, Phil Mushnick and some wrestling reporters nor the gadflies around wrestling have bothered to take a closer look at the mortality rate of wrestlers who may have been using banned performance enhancing drugs. The percentage of professional wrestlers who died under the age of 50 in the past decade from a drug overdose or of heart attack, liver or kidney failure brought on by drug abuse is high far than the mortality rate in the general population.
The carnage has been documented and the toll is large especially compared with the number of deaths attributed to steroid drug damage in Major League Baseball. The answer in baseball appears to be zero, although Ken Caminiti died of a drug overdose in 2004 at the age of 41. Caminiti was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1995 and discussed his steroids usage with a reporter from the America magazine Sports Illustrated in 2002. Caminiti did not have steroids in his system at the time of his death.
On Monday, Linda McMahon, the Republican candidate for United States Senator will face off against Connecticut Attorney General and the Democrat's candidate Richard Blumenthal in a debate that is being sponsored by Rupert Murdoch's FOX Connecticut and the Sam Zell Tribune Company's Hartford Courant. The debate will be hosted by FOX correspondent Bret Baier. Apparently Zell has cut the staff at the Courant so thin that there is no one from the newspaper who is capable of performing the job as moderator. Baier does work for a news organization that leans right and specializes in going after an old audience who loves the presentation.
Television news reporters are now being regularly tapped as debate moderators despite some rather dismal performances over the years by PBS' Jim Lehrer, WCBS-TV Channel 2 (New York) reporter Marcia Kramer who was woefully unprepared in a 2000 debate between Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio in the New York Senate campaign and Gwen Ifell, who let Sarah Palin walk all over her in the 2008 Vice Presidential debate. There was an unremarkable performance by ABC's Charles Gibson in a 2008 debate.
It will be rather interesting to see whether a "TV news talent" like Baier will ask McMahon any of these troubling questions about drug usage in McMahon's WWE or the death of wrestlers. To be fair, Baier also must Blumenthal about his remarks about serving in Vietnam even though Blumenthal did not.
Baier also should ask McMahon about former WWF wrestler and former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura interview in 2008 on the Howard Stern radio show that he was fired by the company after Hulk Hogan told Vince McMahon that Ventura was trying to unionize wrestlers.
WWE performers are independent contractors which means that the McMahons do not pay social security benefits, Medicare contributions and unemployment insurance. The McMahons have contended they pay wrestlers extremely well and that makes up for the lack of benefits. It is unknown how many former wrestlers who suffered disabling injuries are now on the government dole getting social security insurance or Medicare to pay medical bills.
If Baier had any backbone, he would ask McMahon what she thinks of social security and health care and how many wrestlers now in their 40s and 50s that performed for her that are getting government support. And to get to a deeper point, FOX's conservative audience that likes morality, Baier's questioning should also include queries about storylines that included something that called the "Mr. McMahon Kiss My Ass Club" where wrestlers performed the act. There should also be a question or two about the debasing of women as part of the on-going “soap opera”.
Linda McMahon has claimed though she was not on the creative side of the business.
But given that Baier is a TV talking head and people look for sizzle not substance in a debate these days, it is unlikely that either McMahon or Blumenthal will getting too many high and hard pitches under the chin.
Congress is beginning to put the spotlight on the devastating injuries that have occurred in the National Football League and how both the league and the National Football League Players Association have failed a good many players whose injuries have permanently disabled them. Former McMahon employees have criticized the company because of there is no union and one father of a deceased wrestler may have touched a nerve that brain damaged football players are beginning to talk about.
Michael Benoit, the father of Chris Benoit -- the wrestler who on June 24, 2007 killed his son and wife then hanged himself -- claimed in a Hartford Courant interview in May that the McMahons didn't take proper care of their employees and just used the wrestlers to line their pockets.
"My son, Chris Benoit, 40, was one of WWE's top superstars. In June 2007, our lives changed dramatically, when he tragically killed his wife, son and himself. The press jumped on steroids as the cause of his actions. But tests showed that brain damage in the form of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, not steroids, was responsible for our loss. CTE, caused by repetitive trauma to the brain, can bring on serious disorders such as a loss of emotional control, addictions to drugs and alcohol, depression, aggressive and violent behavior."
Congress is addressing head injuries in pro football. The very type of head injury that Michael Benoit said his son had from his days as a wrestler. Talk to former football players with brain injuries and they immediately recognize the symptoms.
Baier should ask bring up the whole head injury issue because if McMahon is elected to the Senate and there are additional hearings on football injuries, McMahon just might be appointed to the committee holding hearings. What kind of questions would Senator Linda McMahon ask at a hearing about sports concussions?
Why isn't there a bigger spotlight on professional wrestling's mortality rate? Baier owes it to the non-FOX audience and to the former wrestlers who looked to the government for assistance to really be a moderator and not another FOX pundit. Linda McMahon needs to answer questions about the deaths of the performers in her business.
All of those deaths that should have rattled and ravaged her business, the wrestling industry. Fortunately for Linda McMahon, her husband Vince and daughter Stephanie and her husband Paul Michael Levesque a.k.a. Triple H, there is very little scrutiny of the industry.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner @yahoo.com
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Cablevision-FOX fight is at bad time for N.Y. Giants and Philadelphia Eagles fans
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 11:51
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/cablevision-fox-fight-is-at-bad-time-for-ny-giants-and-philadelphia-eagles-fans
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is nothing better than a fight between a cable television multiple systems operator and a television company when it comes to signing a new "carriage" deal. In New York and Philadelphia, News Corp-FOX Rupert Murdoch's boys (Channels 5 and 9 in New York, Channel 29 in Philadelphia and three of Murdoch's cable networks) are in the red trunks while Chuck Dolan's guys (Cablevision) are in the blue gym shorts. But neither will even get hit with a glancing blow. It will be the Cablevision consumer who will be the one who absorb the punches.
On October 16th, Murdoch's WNYW and WWOR in New York along with Philadelphia's WTXF could disappear from Cablevision's lineup which would deprive Cablevision subscribers of New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and NFL games and would sadden the lives of daytime viewers in the New York area who need a daily fix of luminaries such as Wendy Williams, Dr. Oz and those staged for TV court shows featuring Nancy Grace, Jeanine Pirro, Joe Brown, Harvey Levin and Levin's journalistic effort, TMZ. In Philadelphia, Judge Judy, Judy Alex and Divorce Court aficionados would have to find something else to do along with Wendy Williams, Nancy Grace and Harvey Levin fans.
The subscribers in both areas would also lose the "news" (and miss seeing murder, mayhem, entertainment, sports and weather reports). If things get really sticky, Cablevision viewers will also lose the Major League Baseball Playoffs, the National League Championship Series and the World Series and prime time shows such as "The Simpsons," "24" and "Glee."
Cablevision isn't the only provider of FOX programming. A consumer can always buy an antenna and pull in the Channel 5 and 9 signals in the New York area and the Channel 29 signal in the Philadelphia area. There are also satellite and phone alternatives and for those worried about losing the NFL, there is always DirecTV's Sunday football package.
All is not lost for the over-the-air stations viewers of WNYW, WWOR and WTXF. Nor is it the end of the world for Cablevision subscribers who are fans of FOX Deportes, Nat Geo Wild and the FOX Business Channel. Cablevision subscribers who are so infuriated can look for a different delivery system and Murdoch's people are letting those people know that they have alternatives.
Murdoch's scare tactics for those who cannot remove themselves from their position in front of the TV includes having a website (just like the Disney propaganda sites against Cablevision and Time Warner earlier this year in carriage fights---Disney apparently got what they wanted from the multiple system operators and it will be reflected in higher cable TV fees) that asks people to sign a petition to keep FOX properties on Cablevision.
Keepfoxon.com also includes testimonies from people who are irate about the prospect of losing FOX programming on Cablevision and are telling stories about how they have switched to other sources in the titanic showdown.
To make a long story short, Murdoch and Dolan have been business partners — in 1997 Murdoch picked up 40 percent of Dolan's Rainbow Media Sports Holdings for $850 million. The deal gave Murdoch part ownership of Dolan's National Basketball Association's New York Knicks and the National Hockey League's New York Rangers and have a history of working together to make money for one another. Neither is really concerned about the consumer although Dolan always puts out some nonsense about protecting consumers. In 1998, Dolan's Cablevision "partnered" with Murdoch's News Corporation and Liberty Media and "rebranded" Sports Channel New York as Fox Sports New York (FSNY). Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network also became a part of the FOX Sports Network.
In 2005, Dolan and Murdoch ended their alliance because Dolan had some bills he could not pay. Dolan's Cablevision took full ownership of the Garden and the teams, including the Knicks, Rangers and the WNBA's Liberty, as well as MSG Network, Fox Sports New York, FSN Chicago and Radio City Entertainment and 50 percent of FSN New England. Murdoch's News Corp., which held a 40-percent stake in the joint venture, got full ownership of two Fox Sports Net regional sports channels in Ohio and Florida and the two network's advertising operations.
They are not really foes although Dolan beat out Murdoch to buy Long Island's Newsday a couple of years ago. But if there is to be a fight, Dolan and Murdoch are certainly in the heavyweight division.
Both have the right political connections and both can go the distance.
Dolan is a pesky opponent. After losing the New York Yankees cable TV rights, Dolan decided that the Yankees new YES Network was too pricey to be put on Cablevision in 2002. New York State elected officials stepped into the YES Network-Dolan dispute and arranged a temporary cease fire that put the YES Network on Cablevision systems in 2003. Dolan and the Yankees signed a long term agreement in 2004.
Earlier this year, Dolan and Scripps Network Interactive engaged in an 18-day scrap that kept the Food Network and HGTV off of Cablevision systems between January 3 and 21. Then there was the Cablevision-Disney contract battle in March when Disney pulled WABC TV off of Cablevision systems the day of the Oscar presentation show. Cablevision and Disney reached a deal and the Oscar program was restored some 15 minutes after the Academy Awards show started. Dolan and Disney faced some political scrutiny with New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg chided the two entertainment companies.
Disney extracted money from Dolan for the right to carry WABC on Cablevision systems. Dolan, of course, passed on the cost to consumers.
The high end News Corp/FOX-Cablevision drama will probably end with a whimper. Murdoch will get what he wants, Dolan will get what he wants and the consumer, the third party in this heavyweight face off will have to pay the price.
The consumer has little choice if they want cable TV. They are stuck in a system that gives them little choice in what they want to purchase thanks to the 1984 Cable TV Act passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The law allowed multiple system operators to bundle struggling networks such as ESPN, the Weather Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News onto a basic tier (which was anti-consumer and probably violates antitrust laws) and sell the package as one on a basic expanded tier. Cable TV is an all or nothing business. You buy basic, you buy basic and basic expanded and throw in digital. But you cannot buy an individual sports package or news package. Giants, Eagles, NFL fans along with baseball fans probably don't have to lose too much sleep over the Murdoch-Dolan spat. It will be resolved and if the two heavyweights can't agree, someone in Albany or Trenton or Harrisburg or Washington will get a solution in place very quickly. After all, it is election season and someone will probably want to claim victory for TV viewers.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 11:51
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/cablevision-fox-fight-is-at-bad-time-for-ny-giants-and-philadelphia-eagles-fans
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is nothing better than a fight between a cable television multiple systems operator and a television company when it comes to signing a new "carriage" deal. In New York and Philadelphia, News Corp-FOX Rupert Murdoch's boys (Channels 5 and 9 in New York, Channel 29 in Philadelphia and three of Murdoch's cable networks) are in the red trunks while Chuck Dolan's guys (Cablevision) are in the blue gym shorts. But neither will even get hit with a glancing blow. It will be the Cablevision consumer who will be the one who absorb the punches.
On October 16th, Murdoch's WNYW and WWOR in New York along with Philadelphia's WTXF could disappear from Cablevision's lineup which would deprive Cablevision subscribers of New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and NFL games and would sadden the lives of daytime viewers in the New York area who need a daily fix of luminaries such as Wendy Williams, Dr. Oz and those staged for TV court shows featuring Nancy Grace, Jeanine Pirro, Joe Brown, Harvey Levin and Levin's journalistic effort, TMZ. In Philadelphia, Judge Judy, Judy Alex and Divorce Court aficionados would have to find something else to do along with Wendy Williams, Nancy Grace and Harvey Levin fans.
The subscribers in both areas would also lose the "news" (and miss seeing murder, mayhem, entertainment, sports and weather reports). If things get really sticky, Cablevision viewers will also lose the Major League Baseball Playoffs, the National League Championship Series and the World Series and prime time shows such as "The Simpsons," "24" and "Glee."
Cablevision isn't the only provider of FOX programming. A consumer can always buy an antenna and pull in the Channel 5 and 9 signals in the New York area and the Channel 29 signal in the Philadelphia area. There are also satellite and phone alternatives and for those worried about losing the NFL, there is always DirecTV's Sunday football package.
All is not lost for the over-the-air stations viewers of WNYW, WWOR and WTXF. Nor is it the end of the world for Cablevision subscribers who are fans of FOX Deportes, Nat Geo Wild and the FOX Business Channel. Cablevision subscribers who are so infuriated can look for a different delivery system and Murdoch's people are letting those people know that they have alternatives.
Murdoch's scare tactics for those who cannot remove themselves from their position in front of the TV includes having a website (just like the Disney propaganda sites against Cablevision and Time Warner earlier this year in carriage fights---Disney apparently got what they wanted from the multiple system operators and it will be reflected in higher cable TV fees) that asks people to sign a petition to keep FOX properties on Cablevision.
Keepfoxon.com also includes testimonies from people who are irate about the prospect of losing FOX programming on Cablevision and are telling stories about how they have switched to other sources in the titanic showdown.
To make a long story short, Murdoch and Dolan have been business partners — in 1997 Murdoch picked up 40 percent of Dolan's Rainbow Media Sports Holdings for $850 million. The deal gave Murdoch part ownership of Dolan's National Basketball Association's New York Knicks and the National Hockey League's New York Rangers and have a history of working together to make money for one another. Neither is really concerned about the consumer although Dolan always puts out some nonsense about protecting consumers. In 1998, Dolan's Cablevision "partnered" with Murdoch's News Corporation and Liberty Media and "rebranded" Sports Channel New York as Fox Sports New York (FSNY). Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network also became a part of the FOX Sports Network.
In 2005, Dolan and Murdoch ended their alliance because Dolan had some bills he could not pay. Dolan's Cablevision took full ownership of the Garden and the teams, including the Knicks, Rangers and the WNBA's Liberty, as well as MSG Network, Fox Sports New York, FSN Chicago and Radio City Entertainment and 50 percent of FSN New England. Murdoch's News Corp., which held a 40-percent stake in the joint venture, got full ownership of two Fox Sports Net regional sports channels in Ohio and Florida and the two network's advertising operations.
They are not really foes although Dolan beat out Murdoch to buy Long Island's Newsday a couple of years ago. But if there is to be a fight, Dolan and Murdoch are certainly in the heavyweight division.
Both have the right political connections and both can go the distance.
Dolan is a pesky opponent. After losing the New York Yankees cable TV rights, Dolan decided that the Yankees new YES Network was too pricey to be put on Cablevision in 2002. New York State elected officials stepped into the YES Network-Dolan dispute and arranged a temporary cease fire that put the YES Network on Cablevision systems in 2003. Dolan and the Yankees signed a long term agreement in 2004.
Earlier this year, Dolan and Scripps Network Interactive engaged in an 18-day scrap that kept the Food Network and HGTV off of Cablevision systems between January 3 and 21. Then there was the Cablevision-Disney contract battle in March when Disney pulled WABC TV off of Cablevision systems the day of the Oscar presentation show. Cablevision and Disney reached a deal and the Oscar program was restored some 15 minutes after the Academy Awards show started. Dolan and Disney faced some political scrutiny with New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg chided the two entertainment companies.
Disney extracted money from Dolan for the right to carry WABC on Cablevision systems. Dolan, of course, passed on the cost to consumers.
The high end News Corp/FOX-Cablevision drama will probably end with a whimper. Murdoch will get what he wants, Dolan will get what he wants and the consumer, the third party in this heavyweight face off will have to pay the price.
The consumer has little choice if they want cable TV. They are stuck in a system that gives them little choice in what they want to purchase thanks to the 1984 Cable TV Act passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The law allowed multiple system operators to bundle struggling networks such as ESPN, the Weather Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News onto a basic tier (which was anti-consumer and probably violates antitrust laws) and sell the package as one on a basic expanded tier. Cable TV is an all or nothing business. You buy basic, you buy basic and basic expanded and throw in digital. But you cannot buy an individual sports package or news package. Giants, Eagles, NFL fans along with baseball fans probably don't have to lose too much sleep over the Murdoch-Dolan spat. It will be resolved and if the two heavyweights can't agree, someone in Albany or Trenton or Harrisburg or Washington will get a solution in place very quickly. After all, it is election season and someone will probably want to claim victory for TV viewers.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, September 24, 2010
Some questions NFL players should be asking
FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 08:39
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/some-questions-nfl-players-should-be-asking
Has the Philadelphia Eagles organization weathered the public relations problem of the first week of the National Football League season after Eagles coach Andy Reid put Stewart Bradley back on the field about four minutes after the linebacker suffered a head injury. Quarterback Kevin Kolb also went down with a head injury in the game against Green Bay. Kolb has lost his starting job but it wasn't because of the injury according to Reid. Michael Vick is playing better.
The Eagles franchise was criticized by medical observers for not giving Bradley a full exam before he went back into the game. But the storyline has shifted from the two concussions to Vick as the Eagles starter. Injuries are not great stories to tell for the football narrative. No one wants to know about the wreckage and carnage of football.
That's football.
Players are trained to play through pain and there is a macho man mentality of never showing weakness. A player can get his "bell rung" and after the initial blow get right back into the action. But there was a toll that was paid by former players and many of them don't tell their stories about life after the cheering stops. Big, strong men who played football in their 20s have problems with their short term memory because of head injuries and suffer from depression and might be more prone to Lou Gehrig's disease because of head injuries.
They also are candidates for serious cardiovascular problems according to a Mayo Clinic study.
Sunday and Monday Night warriors are mere mortals as they get older.
It is doubtful that players give much thought to the issue after they began to feel better. Players don't really look ahead and think about what might happen to them 10 or 15 years after their playing careers are done. But Bradley, Kolb and every player in the NFL should be asking some very tough questions of league officials and the leadership of their players association.
The questions should start with a simple query.
Are all NFL players going to get real post retirement health benefits and if a player is physically disabled because of an injury or injuries suffered on the field, will the players association take care of medical bills or will the disability board turn down the former player forcing that player to seek government programs to pay for medical bills?
Will the NFL retirement and disability board take care of them? In the case of Johnny Unitas and many other players, they answer was no. Apparently players had a choice, retirement benefits or disability benefits. In Unitas' case, the retirement checks stopped when he took disability payments.
What happens if an NFL career lasts just a year before benefits really kick in? Who takes care of that player if in that one year of NFL play something happens that won't kick up until years after the career is done but can be traced back to football?
Will the United States Government be responsible for football related injuries? The answer to that question is yes and it doesn't matter if you are for health care or against it or you want social security or are looking to gut the system. That's why Congress is taking a closer look at the violent world of football.
One former player is claiming that owners don't want to pay medical and disability payments to former players and that the players association has gone along with the owners and not helped disabled players.
Another question. Is the Department of Labor's assertion that the NFL Retirement and Disability Board paying more attention to hiring lawyers and spending money there instead on former players with disabilities true?
The players should be looking into that.
The National Football League Players Association has put out some information saying it has spent $13 million or so to help out disabled players. A little while ago, the former Interim Director of the NFLPA Richard Berthelsen who was the association's general counsel for years took issue with the comment that the former Executive Director, the late Gene Upshaw, did very little to help out former players like John Mackey in times of need. Berthelsen said nobody did more for Mackey than Upshaw. The league and the players have a program, Plan 88 (Mackey's old number with the Baltimore Colts) that was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2007 providing eligible retired players with up to $88,000 per year for medical and custodial care resulting from dementia or Alzheimer's.
Mackey, the former President of the National Football League Players Association, is suffering from front temporal dementia. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income due because some doctors have concluded there is no proven link between brain injury and playing football.
The battle between former players and the football industry over whether playing football causes brain injuries continues. The NFL is telling players if you have a head injury report it immediately.
There is a lot of infighting and frustration among former players and the back and forth e-mails in that group are rather enlightening. A major question has popped up with deserves closer attention. If the National Football League Players Association does indeed decertify in an effort to stop NFL owners from locking out the players following the Super Bowl, what happens to their benefits?
Do the retired players also suffer from the lockout? According to one lawyer, there could be some trouble ahead for the former players.
"Essentially they would cease to exist as a union — which they did once before as you know and won (Freeman) McNeil (the former New York Jets running back and seven other NFL players filed a lawsuit in a Minneapolis court room against the league in 1993 because the players felt the NFL's Plan B free agency gambit was too restrictive. A jury agreed with them which forced the owners to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a free agency system) — and their fiduciary obligation to anyone would likely cease, except perhaps as it pertains to the pension board — and then only as board members and not as a union," said the lawyer.
"So the pension fund would continue — the union wouldn't — in theory, although the same people would be involved as board members. What would change this time is the league would likely make attempts to reunionize the players and start new benefit funds and there is significant doubt that (NFLPA Executive Director) DeMaurice Smith could actually hold enough players together this time.
"Also it isn't a dunk shot that the (President Barack) Obama NLRB will permit decertification given their pro-union stance. Or that it truly prevents a lockout legally. However, at least theoretically it should prevent a lockout because the owners would be in breach of contract as to every multi-year contract they have currently in force because there would be no union to lockout. This is part of the super power that decertification gives the players.
"Lockout is a judicially recognized corollary to a' union's right to strike which is explicit in the National Labor Relations Act. Lockout doctrine essentially says that since workers are likely to go on strike to cause the most economic damage, an employer has the right to lock them out once a CBA expires to prevent the harm of an unplanned strike.
"It may be practically harder to sue under these circumstances jurisdictionally as you would be suing pension board members and not a union for failure to represent or breach of fiduciary duty."
There is always a question of pensions and whether former players can get more money out of the league/players association in the upcoming bargaining sessions. It appears that the NFLPA doesn't really care about the former players, players who helped build the association and went through labor battles with the owners going back to 1956. Former players want a say in how the association is run and want a vote in the association's affairs with respect to the retirement benefits. The former players want the same rights that retired United Auto Workers, which includes the right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications.
There is far more to football than a game that is played on the field. Once the cheering stops for many players, the real physical problems of taking a beating on a daily basis between playing games and practice begins. Once the cheering ends, the player fades into oblivion and it appears that the players association has that viewpoint. The players association under Upshaw just looked to get as much money as possible for active association members. Players still don't have guaranteed contracts and there are many questions about retirement and disability benefits.
The labor battles of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were all about money and not about long time ramifications of playing football. Get the most money was the theme but little attention was paid to severance pay, medical benefits and future pensions. The players association made a major blunder in strategy and the players of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are seeing the fruitlessness of the CBAs of those days now.
There are a number of former players getting government assistance flying under the radar screen. Congress is asking questions but no one from either party in Washington has answers.
Football is a violent game and players know that the next play could be their last. The players signed contracts and promised to go through a wall for a team. The teams and the players association have not lived up to their part of the bargain and that should be the underlying theme of the next collective bargaining agreement not just a grab for the biggest part of the money pie.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 08:39
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/some-questions-nfl-players-should-be-asking
Has the Philadelphia Eagles organization weathered the public relations problem of the first week of the National Football League season after Eagles coach Andy Reid put Stewart Bradley back on the field about four minutes after the linebacker suffered a head injury. Quarterback Kevin Kolb also went down with a head injury in the game against Green Bay. Kolb has lost his starting job but it wasn't because of the injury according to Reid. Michael Vick is playing better.
The Eagles franchise was criticized by medical observers for not giving Bradley a full exam before he went back into the game. But the storyline has shifted from the two concussions to Vick as the Eagles starter. Injuries are not great stories to tell for the football narrative. No one wants to know about the wreckage and carnage of football.
That's football.
Players are trained to play through pain and there is a macho man mentality of never showing weakness. A player can get his "bell rung" and after the initial blow get right back into the action. But there was a toll that was paid by former players and many of them don't tell their stories about life after the cheering stops. Big, strong men who played football in their 20s have problems with their short term memory because of head injuries and suffer from depression and might be more prone to Lou Gehrig's disease because of head injuries.
They also are candidates for serious cardiovascular problems according to a Mayo Clinic study.
Sunday and Monday Night warriors are mere mortals as they get older.
It is doubtful that players give much thought to the issue after they began to feel better. Players don't really look ahead and think about what might happen to them 10 or 15 years after their playing careers are done. But Bradley, Kolb and every player in the NFL should be asking some very tough questions of league officials and the leadership of their players association.
The questions should start with a simple query.
Are all NFL players going to get real post retirement health benefits and if a player is physically disabled because of an injury or injuries suffered on the field, will the players association take care of medical bills or will the disability board turn down the former player forcing that player to seek government programs to pay for medical bills?
Will the NFL retirement and disability board take care of them? In the case of Johnny Unitas and many other players, they answer was no. Apparently players had a choice, retirement benefits or disability benefits. In Unitas' case, the retirement checks stopped when he took disability payments.
What happens if an NFL career lasts just a year before benefits really kick in? Who takes care of that player if in that one year of NFL play something happens that won't kick up until years after the career is done but can be traced back to football?
Will the United States Government be responsible for football related injuries? The answer to that question is yes and it doesn't matter if you are for health care or against it or you want social security or are looking to gut the system. That's why Congress is taking a closer look at the violent world of football.
One former player is claiming that owners don't want to pay medical and disability payments to former players and that the players association has gone along with the owners and not helped disabled players.
Another question. Is the Department of Labor's assertion that the NFL Retirement and Disability Board paying more attention to hiring lawyers and spending money there instead on former players with disabilities true?
The players should be looking into that.
The National Football League Players Association has put out some information saying it has spent $13 million or so to help out disabled players. A little while ago, the former Interim Director of the NFLPA Richard Berthelsen who was the association's general counsel for years took issue with the comment that the former Executive Director, the late Gene Upshaw, did very little to help out former players like John Mackey in times of need. Berthelsen said nobody did more for Mackey than Upshaw. The league and the players have a program, Plan 88 (Mackey's old number with the Baltimore Colts) that was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2007 providing eligible retired players with up to $88,000 per year for medical and custodial care resulting from dementia or Alzheimer's.
Mackey, the former President of the National Football League Players Association, is suffering from front temporal dementia. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income due because some doctors have concluded there is no proven link between brain injury and playing football.
The battle between former players and the football industry over whether playing football causes brain injuries continues. The NFL is telling players if you have a head injury report it immediately.
There is a lot of infighting and frustration among former players and the back and forth e-mails in that group are rather enlightening. A major question has popped up with deserves closer attention. If the National Football League Players Association does indeed decertify in an effort to stop NFL owners from locking out the players following the Super Bowl, what happens to their benefits?
Do the retired players also suffer from the lockout? According to one lawyer, there could be some trouble ahead for the former players.
"Essentially they would cease to exist as a union — which they did once before as you know and won (Freeman) McNeil (the former New York Jets running back and seven other NFL players filed a lawsuit in a Minneapolis court room against the league in 1993 because the players felt the NFL's Plan B free agency gambit was too restrictive. A jury agreed with them which forced the owners to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a free agency system) — and their fiduciary obligation to anyone would likely cease, except perhaps as it pertains to the pension board — and then only as board members and not as a union," said the lawyer.
"So the pension fund would continue — the union wouldn't — in theory, although the same people would be involved as board members. What would change this time is the league would likely make attempts to reunionize the players and start new benefit funds and there is significant doubt that (NFLPA Executive Director) DeMaurice Smith could actually hold enough players together this time.
"Also it isn't a dunk shot that the (President Barack) Obama NLRB will permit decertification given their pro-union stance. Or that it truly prevents a lockout legally. However, at least theoretically it should prevent a lockout because the owners would be in breach of contract as to every multi-year contract they have currently in force because there would be no union to lockout. This is part of the super power that decertification gives the players.
"Lockout is a judicially recognized corollary to a' union's right to strike which is explicit in the National Labor Relations Act. Lockout doctrine essentially says that since workers are likely to go on strike to cause the most economic damage, an employer has the right to lock them out once a CBA expires to prevent the harm of an unplanned strike.
"It may be practically harder to sue under these circumstances jurisdictionally as you would be suing pension board members and not a union for failure to represent or breach of fiduciary duty."
There is always a question of pensions and whether former players can get more money out of the league/players association in the upcoming bargaining sessions. It appears that the NFLPA doesn't really care about the former players, players who helped build the association and went through labor battles with the owners going back to 1956. Former players want a say in how the association is run and want a vote in the association's affairs with respect to the retirement benefits. The former players want the same rights that retired United Auto Workers, which includes the right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications.
There is far more to football than a game that is played on the field. Once the cheering stops for many players, the real physical problems of taking a beating on a daily basis between playing games and practice begins. Once the cheering ends, the player fades into oblivion and it appears that the players association has that viewpoint. The players association under Upshaw just looked to get as much money as possible for active association members. Players still don't have guaranteed contracts and there are many questions about retirement and disability benefits.
The labor battles of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were all about money and not about long time ramifications of playing football. Get the most money was the theme but little attention was paid to severance pay, medical benefits and future pensions. The players association made a major blunder in strategy and the players of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are seeing the fruitlessness of the CBAs of those days now.
There are a number of former players getting government assistance flying under the radar screen. Congress is asking questions but no one from either party in Washington has answers.
Football is a violent game and players know that the next play could be their last. The players signed contracts and promised to go through a wall for a team. The teams and the players association have not lived up to their part of the bargain and that should be the underlying theme of the next collective bargaining agreement not just a grab for the biggest part of the money pie.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Whale, the WHA and a Renegade Cowboy
By Evan Weiner
September 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/the-whale-the-wha-and-a-renegade-cowboy
(New York, N. Y.) -- There was an announcement in Hartford, Connecticut that former New England-Hartford Whalers owner Howard Baldwin has taken over the day-to-day business operations of the American Hockey League's Hartford Wolf Pack and the team will be renamed the Connecticut Whale. The Hartford team will still be owned by the New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden but Baldwin would like to bring the NHL back to Hartford. Baldwin brought the World Hockey Association to Hartford in 1974 after two years in Boston and his team joined the NHL in 1979. The team was moved to Carolina in 1997 playing first in Greensboro and finally in Raleigh.
There is significance in Baldwin’s return. Nearly 40 years ago, Baldwin became a pioneer in hockey by joining with owners to form the World Hockey Association. The National Hockey league took notice and tried to cut off viable markets for the new league by expanding to Uniondale, New York and Atlanta, Georgia.
Baldwin helped altered the course of the business of hockey.
Baldwin has been involved in hockey on and off for four decades and was one of the original owners in the WHA back in 1972. The WHA changed the face of pro hockey and in a sense freed NHL players from being tied their entire careers to one team unless they were traded.
A lot has been written about Curt Flood's attempt to control his career in baseball but Flood never did see free agency. Major League Baseball's reserve clause was broken in 1975, three years after NHL players jumped to the WHA after completing NHL contracts. Hockey and basketball players were more successful at getting free agency than their baseball counterparts. The hockey and basketball players had another league to use for negotiating leverage. New leagues are difference makers. Eventually basketball and hockey players would win free agency even though the ABA and WHA leftovers were gobbled up by the older leagues. The American Football league, the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association shook up the established leagues and the newspapers reporters who acted an a public relations arm for the old guard.
Bobby Hull became the first player to make a million dollars a season in hockey. In 1972, the 33-year-old Chicago Blackhawk all-star jumped from the National Hockey League to the upstart World Hockey Association and in the process began a salary escalation in a sport that was notorious for keeping salaries suppressed.
Hull left Chicago for Winnipeg, Manitoba after owner Ben Hatskin agreed to give Hull the money.
"1972, yes you are right, it seems like yesterday," said Hull in a 1990
interview about becoming hockey's first million-dollar player. "That was just by accident. They kept badgering me and badgering me, the WHA, and I told them that I didn't want to go to Winnipeg and I wanted to stay in Chicago and that was the only place I was going to play. Finally, I told them I wanted a million bucks to get rid of me because they wanted to know what it would take to get me to Winnipeg. I told them a million bucks just to get rid of them. Had I known that they were even going to try and raise money, I would have told them ten million bucks or something like that."
Bobby Hull grew up in an age where loyalty meant more than a paycheck, when the National Hockey League had six teams, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and New York in the United States, Montreal and Toronto in Canada. The
National Hockey League didn't even pay its players as well as those in the "minor pro" Western Hockey League. But it was the top league in the world and players literally fought to stay in it.
Hull would eventually sign after the 11 other WHA owners chipped into and gave Ben Hatskin the money to sign the Golden Jet.
"Had I known they that were even going to think about raising a million
dollars," Hull continued. "Who did I think was worth a million dollars back then? I was the first one. I thought if I threw a million bucks at them, they would say who is this renegade cowboy wanting a million dollars and they would leave me alone.
"In all sports, that was it, that's why I thought it was so astronomical, I thought they'd say get lost. Who was this guy? They gave me a million dollars and then I got $250,000 a year to play. That was a bonus. That was the first million dollars, I don't know anybody else who made it. I know none of the boxers made it at that time, the riders, the jockeys; I know none of the golfers had ever made that.
"Right now, knowing what I know now, I would have said 10 and I am sure they would have balked at that."
Bobby Hull had to win a court battle to go to Winnipeg. So did Boston Bruins winger John Mc Kenzie in order to jump to Philadelphia. His contract, as was Hull's contract was done and the NHL was under the impression it had perpetual rights to players. They didn't, at least according to Judge Leon Higginbotham upheld the WHA's legal claim to NHL players who had signed their contractual obligations.
"The NHL is merely sustaining the fate which monopolists must face when they can no longer continue their prior total dominance of the market," Higginbotham wrote on an action filed by McKenzie.
The WHA was never fiscally stable and a lot of franchises moved or simply went out of business. Players didn't get paid on time or never were paid. But the
World Hockey Association was a good thing for players despite its franchise movement and bankruptcies.
"It allowed a player a choice of playing in the NHL or somewhere else," said Senator and Hockey Hall of Famer Frank Mahovlich, who left Detroit for the WHA in 1973. "Up to that particular time, it was a monopoly and you never had an opportunity to increase your salary, and it wasn't that great for the players. In 1972, when the WHA started, it gave us that chance.
"I think Bobby Hull was the first one to go over to the WHA and gave credibility to the league. It increased our salaries and as time went on and we got competitive with baseball."
The World Hockey Association went after 18 year old players and signed them. There is a list of NHL elite players who began in the WHA in the mid to late 1970s that included Rod Langway, Rob Ramage, Ken Linseman,
Mike Gartner, Mark Messier and a 17 year old named Wayne Gretzky.
It was Linseman who would force the NHL to change its draft rules in 1976. Linseman, who was 19 years old at the time, sued the WHA who would not allow him to join the league as players 20 and younger were not eligible to play in either the NHL or WHA. Linseman won his case and opened the door for "underaged" hockey players. Gretzky would sign with Indianapolis. He was traded after a handful of games in 1978 because the team was broke.
After the Indianapolis Racers folded, the WHA was left with Birmingham, Cincinnati, Edmonton, New England (Hartford), Quebec and Winnipeg. The financially ailing league did get a deal done to merge with the NHL, but the Montreal Canadiens owner the Molson Breweries said no and blocked the agreement. Hockey fans and beer drinkers in Edmonton, Quebec and Winnipeg threatened a boycott of Molson's products and ultimately the beer drinkers and Molson's bottom line won out. Edmonton, New England, Quebec City and Winnipeg were admitted into the league.
The NHL owners picked up an expansion fee, Gretzky stayed in Edmonton, Gordie Howe in Hartford and that ended the player war. The WHA changed hockey in numerous ways. The league went to American Sun Belt Cities, signed European talent and Baldwin's Hartford team had a hand in what eventually became the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, ESPN. The Whale is back in Hartford after the team helped transformed hockey and sports.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
September 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/the-whale-the-wha-and-a-renegade-cowboy
(New York, N. Y.) -- There was an announcement in Hartford, Connecticut that former New England-Hartford Whalers owner Howard Baldwin has taken over the day-to-day business operations of the American Hockey League's Hartford Wolf Pack and the team will be renamed the Connecticut Whale. The Hartford team will still be owned by the New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden but Baldwin would like to bring the NHL back to Hartford. Baldwin brought the World Hockey Association to Hartford in 1974 after two years in Boston and his team joined the NHL in 1979. The team was moved to Carolina in 1997 playing first in Greensboro and finally in Raleigh.
There is significance in Baldwin’s return. Nearly 40 years ago, Baldwin became a pioneer in hockey by joining with owners to form the World Hockey Association. The National Hockey league took notice and tried to cut off viable markets for the new league by expanding to Uniondale, New York and Atlanta, Georgia.
Baldwin helped altered the course of the business of hockey.
Baldwin has been involved in hockey on and off for four decades and was one of the original owners in the WHA back in 1972. The WHA changed the face of pro hockey and in a sense freed NHL players from being tied their entire careers to one team unless they were traded.
A lot has been written about Curt Flood's attempt to control his career in baseball but Flood never did see free agency. Major League Baseball's reserve clause was broken in 1975, three years after NHL players jumped to the WHA after completing NHL contracts. Hockey and basketball players were more successful at getting free agency than their baseball counterparts. The hockey and basketball players had another league to use for negotiating leverage. New leagues are difference makers. Eventually basketball and hockey players would win free agency even though the ABA and WHA leftovers were gobbled up by the older leagues. The American Football league, the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association shook up the established leagues and the newspapers reporters who acted an a public relations arm for the old guard.
Bobby Hull became the first player to make a million dollars a season in hockey. In 1972, the 33-year-old Chicago Blackhawk all-star jumped from the National Hockey League to the upstart World Hockey Association and in the process began a salary escalation in a sport that was notorious for keeping salaries suppressed.
Hull left Chicago for Winnipeg, Manitoba after owner Ben Hatskin agreed to give Hull the money.
"1972, yes you are right, it seems like yesterday," said Hull in a 1990
interview about becoming hockey's first million-dollar player. "That was just by accident. They kept badgering me and badgering me, the WHA, and I told them that I didn't want to go to Winnipeg and I wanted to stay in Chicago and that was the only place I was going to play. Finally, I told them I wanted a million bucks to get rid of me because they wanted to know what it would take to get me to Winnipeg. I told them a million bucks just to get rid of them. Had I known that they were even going to try and raise money, I would have told them ten million bucks or something like that."
Bobby Hull grew up in an age where loyalty meant more than a paycheck, when the National Hockey League had six teams, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and New York in the United States, Montreal and Toronto in Canada. The
National Hockey League didn't even pay its players as well as those in the "minor pro" Western Hockey League. But it was the top league in the world and players literally fought to stay in it.
Hull would eventually sign after the 11 other WHA owners chipped into and gave Ben Hatskin the money to sign the Golden Jet.
"Had I known they that were even going to think about raising a million
dollars," Hull continued. "Who did I think was worth a million dollars back then? I was the first one. I thought if I threw a million bucks at them, they would say who is this renegade cowboy wanting a million dollars and they would leave me alone.
"In all sports, that was it, that's why I thought it was so astronomical, I thought they'd say get lost. Who was this guy? They gave me a million dollars and then I got $250,000 a year to play. That was a bonus. That was the first million dollars, I don't know anybody else who made it. I know none of the boxers made it at that time, the riders, the jockeys; I know none of the golfers had ever made that.
"Right now, knowing what I know now, I would have said 10 and I am sure they would have balked at that."
Bobby Hull had to win a court battle to go to Winnipeg. So did Boston Bruins winger John Mc Kenzie in order to jump to Philadelphia. His contract, as was Hull's contract was done and the NHL was under the impression it had perpetual rights to players. They didn't, at least according to Judge Leon Higginbotham upheld the WHA's legal claim to NHL players who had signed their contractual obligations.
"The NHL is merely sustaining the fate which monopolists must face when they can no longer continue their prior total dominance of the market," Higginbotham wrote on an action filed by McKenzie.
The WHA was never fiscally stable and a lot of franchises moved or simply went out of business. Players didn't get paid on time or never were paid. But the
World Hockey Association was a good thing for players despite its franchise movement and bankruptcies.
"It allowed a player a choice of playing in the NHL or somewhere else," said Senator and Hockey Hall of Famer Frank Mahovlich, who left Detroit for the WHA in 1973. "Up to that particular time, it was a monopoly and you never had an opportunity to increase your salary, and it wasn't that great for the players. In 1972, when the WHA started, it gave us that chance.
"I think Bobby Hull was the first one to go over to the WHA and gave credibility to the league. It increased our salaries and as time went on and we got competitive with baseball."
The World Hockey Association went after 18 year old players and signed them. There is a list of NHL elite players who began in the WHA in the mid to late 1970s that included Rod Langway, Rob Ramage, Ken Linseman,
Mike Gartner, Mark Messier and a 17 year old named Wayne Gretzky.
It was Linseman who would force the NHL to change its draft rules in 1976. Linseman, who was 19 years old at the time, sued the WHA who would not allow him to join the league as players 20 and younger were not eligible to play in either the NHL or WHA. Linseman won his case and opened the door for "underaged" hockey players. Gretzky would sign with Indianapolis. He was traded after a handful of games in 1978 because the team was broke.
After the Indianapolis Racers folded, the WHA was left with Birmingham, Cincinnati, Edmonton, New England (Hartford), Quebec and Winnipeg. The financially ailing league did get a deal done to merge with the NHL, but the Montreal Canadiens owner the Molson Breweries said no and blocked the agreement. Hockey fans and beer drinkers in Edmonton, Quebec and Winnipeg threatened a boycott of Molson's products and ultimately the beer drinkers and Molson's bottom line won out. Edmonton, New England, Quebec City and Winnipeg were admitted into the league.
The NHL owners picked up an expansion fee, Gretzky stayed in Edmonton, Gordie Howe in Hartford and that ended the player war. The WHA changed hockey in numerous ways. The league went to American Sun Belt Cities, signed European talent and Baldwin's Hartford team had a hand in what eventually became the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, ESPN. The Whale is back in Hartford after the team helped transformed hockey and sports.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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