First, let’s all agree on something; despite giving us three great, highly anticipated match-ups to look forward to, the BCS is a sham. Period.
How ironic, that in America, a country built upon winning – both in history and hypothesis – we support a major college football television product that offers us full seasons of drama and action that boil to a climax, but in the end fail to deliver a clear and decisive winner. Excuse me?
This year’s Bull Crap Show (BCS) season finales will tease the audience once again. With four of the five (yes, there are FIVE) undefeated teams in the country pitted against each other in their scheduled bowls, the season will inevitably end with at least two teams still undefeated, and a computer arbitrarily naming one of them the winner.
Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?
I consider it unfair to whine about something unless you can offer a better solution.
Here’s my solution:
President Obama almost had it right when he offered up his 8-team playoff idea in a 60 Minutes interview last year. But he proposed a playoff that would begin after the regular bowl schedule commenced, and that won’t work. The “Academics” of the NCAA would pooh-pooh a schedule that has their student athletes playing football through the winter, and well into the second collegiate sports season.
Instead, I say, use the pageantry of the four existing BCS bowls to kick off the BCS Playoffs.
As it is now, the bowl season starts December 19th. We don’t even need to start that early. Start Christmas weekend. Start with the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange Bowls showcasing the ‘Elite Eight’ weekend of College Football. Two games can be played the following week, on New Year’s Day (see also “Big Ad Money”). Then the BCS Championship game can be played on January 7th, the exact date on which it’s already scheduled to occur. Winner take all. Done.
As for the old money, the tradition of conference winners typically playing in certain bowl games needs to end. A spot in a bowl must be earned by finishing in the “Top 8.” If it makes everyone more comfortable, a “Top 8” finish for a Big Ten team could earn it a priority pass directly to Pasadena. Heck, Jim Tressel can even wear a Rose boutonniere on his vest. And his Got-Hot-At-The-Right-Time-Buckeyes could do a lot of damage from the 8-seed. Starting to sound fun, huh?
As for the real money, group the ABC deal for the Rose Bowl and the Fox deal for the other BCS games into one big sum, and divvy out the money to the conferences in the order that their teams finish in the Final BCS Standings. Twenty-five percent goes to first place, eighteen percent to second place and so-on, until the conferences are compensated FAIRLY for their teams’ performance. Uh-Oh! Look out for the Mountain West Conference. Of course, such a plan would force the “Academics” to swallow hard and confess the dirty little secret that their schools are actually playing for money. Scandalous.
And, as for the city of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl Committee, they’ll just have to add ‘Float Building,’ to their ‘Pre-Holiday Things To Do’ list. They have 331 (but who's counting) rainless days per year. They can handle it.
Let’s not kid ourselves here. College Football is Minor League NFL. And what better way exists to evaluate a player’s talent than to make him perform under the utmost pressure, against the stiffest competition?
In the end, fans would get to see two more classic games; nobody would have to pretend to care about the Orange Bowl; the NCAA, the schools, and most importantly, the Scholarship Foundations would reap the benefits of a 7-game playoff in which ALL of the games matter. And, incidentally, a winner would actually be crowned.
A winner? In this country? Um, yes please.
For now, we’re talking about baseball, so if you’re not sure how to answer the question above, I’ll give you three choices:
First, you could be Fan #1. He goes to a game once a year, twice maybe, but most likely, the second game is at the invitation of a friend who paid for his ticket. He probably never played baseball on any organized team, and he only watches the MLB playoffs if his hometown team is playing.
Or, maybe you’re Fan #2. He reads about his home team most mornings when he wakes up. He had season tickets at one point, but he doesn’t anymore. He watches the playoffs partly because he likes baseball, but mostly because he wants to be able to talk about the games with his coworkers. He can tell you who the best teams in the league are, but he’d look at you funny if you said ‘Zack Greinke.”
If you’re truly obsessed, you may be Fan #3. He loves baseball. He loves it because it ties him to his father, and his grandfathers, and the men who built this country before them. He loves the magnificently cerebral experience that is a game of baseball. He definitely played, or, if not, wrote about his high school team. He watches Baseball Tonight whenever he can. If he doesn’t have season tickets, its because he either doesn’t live in his hometown, or simply can’t afford them.
It doesn’t matter what kind of fan you are. Major League Baseball will take us all.
But, if you play the game, manage the game, own the game, announce the game, promote the game, write about the game, or really, really care about the game, you must be Fan #3. You must love the game. You must stand up for it.
This week, I stood up for baseball.
In his article, which you can read by clicking here, William C. Rhoden of the New York Times claims that a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would be the only great match up for baseball. He says:
What follows is the letter I sent to Mr. Rhoden and his editors at The Times.
Dear Mr. Rhoden,
I write to commend you on your October 11th column, in which you claim that a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would be the best match-up for baseball, the only truly ‘Great Series’, and a ‘Series for the ages.’
The intention of your piece is a good one. Clearly, you care about the future of the game, and in searching for a good story you found an option that may provide a therapeutic moment of closure to the steroid era. But, I also write to challenge you, since, I would ask, “For once, why can’t baseball, alone, be the story?”
We’ve been so conditioned to dig for the ancillary plot lines, I’m afraid we’re missing the obvious beauty in the game itself. It can’t be ignored that the four teams left standing are the best four teams from the 2009 season. When was the last time that happened? These four teams finished first or second in each of their leagues, and they were the top four teams in all of baseball when playing teams with winning records. The Dodgers and Phillies are in the midst of a heavyweight bout. They traded devastating offensive blows in Game 1, and then gave us a pitching duel for the ages in Game 2. The Yankees, on the other hand, needed every bit of muscle they could muster to outlast the scrappy Angels in 13 rainy innings late into Sunday morning.
In match-ups this close and with teams this talented, the speed of the game is breathtaking. The pressure each team puts on its opponent influences every play, since any mistake could be the difference in the game, and the Series. And with games this good, the two best teams will inevitably advance to the World Series.
Besides, any way you slice it, the World Series will sell itself.
A Dodgers-Angels final would put Baseball’s biggest stage under America’s brightest lights in Los Angeles.
A Yankees-Phillies series would pit the two deepest offensive clubs against each other, and bring the defending champs back to the ring to face the most dominant franchise in World Series history.
A Phillies-Angels battle – clearly the least attractive for Fox – would still include two of the top 5 major markets in the country, and pair the two most fundamentally balanced teams in the game.
And, yes, if a Yankees-Dodgers series is what we get, it too will be great. It will be great for pitting the Yankees, a group of championship veterans managed by a second year coach, against the Dodgers, a group of future champions who are managed by the Yankees’ old veteran skipper. It will be great for matching up two teams that refused to lose in 2009. But for all the reasons that a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would be a great one, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez aren’t on that list of reasons.
If we really want to move on from the steroid era, then let’s stop talking about it altogether. Because hyping Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez – two whose faces will forever be etched in the steroid era’s stone of Mount Mash-More – would only remind America of baseball’s tainted past. It would only reinforce the persistence of baseball’s soiled decade, and the dishonesty of the game’s heroes.
Mr. Rhoden, for those of us who love the game, who care about the game, who want the steroid era to be a transgression of the past, let us not perpetuate the continuation of this sour topic. Let us instead prop up the great teams left standing, with honest heroes named Jeter, Howard, Hunter and Kemp. And let us pass on to the newest fans a postseason of great games, a strategy of winning baseball, and a tradition that is purely exhilarating.
Respectfully,
DJ Gregory, Philadelphia, PA
I have acted as a therapist of sorts all season.
Mostly, my clients have been Philadelphians. Since I live on the west coast, and can therefore watch from afar instead of being sucked into the funnel of worry and cynicism that is the local Philadelphia sports opinion, I can approach things from a slightly less emotional place. I’m a rational guy. I believe in things that make sense.
I believe in The Phillies. The Phillies make sense.
It makes sense when Charlie Manuel makes the tough decision to start JA Happ last night, a lefty, the sort that the Rockies don’t hit well.
It makes sense when he has the conviction to pull the young starter in the top of the fourth. Cholly makes tough decisions.
It makes sense when Carlos Ruiz, who, by the way, since the NLCS against the Dodgers last year is now batting .341 with 7 RBI in the post season, helps his staff out with two RBI hits tonight. Chooch is clutch.
And then the ninth inning arrives, and all you can do is hope. You just hope things keep making sense.
You hope that your leadoff hitter, Jimmy Rollins, is gutsy enough to tough out his early post season struggles to slap one through and get on base. You hope Victorino can get the bunt down and make it interesting by flying to first. You hope Utley busts it down the line, even if the ball DID go off of his shin, even if he WAS out at first base, just to give the umpire the chance to call him safe for his hustle. You hope Howard can hit a fly ball. You hope.
And on a cold night at Coors Field, it kept making sense, until…
…Brad Lidge walked in from right field, and nobody knew what made sense anymore. That’s what made last night’s finish ‘epic,’ as my dad so appropriately texted.
The moment he walked out of the bullpen I started jumping around like a 6-year-old on Christmas Eve, pulling the hair on my head from its roots, screaming, “He’s coming in! He’s coming in!”
Though Carlos Gonzales did his best to single handedly keep the Rockies in the playoffs, Lidge was clutch. With nobody but the struggling Myers, the young Bastardo, and the questionable Kendrick left behind him, Brad Lidge stepped up, rode the momentum of his team’s loyalty and got three big outs. He saved the game, and, ultimately, it makes no sense.
Side note, I’d have paid a few ‘G’s’ to have been a ‘fly on the mound’ for Charlie Manuel’s think tank session before Helton’s at bat in the ninth. Seemed like he said something like, “Pitch around Helton, I know you’ve got Tulowitzki…oh, and don’t screw up again.”
For a game that relies so heavily on numbers, and trends, and rationale, the climax of Game Three was an unforgettable moment in Philadelphia sports history where the hero closer who limped into the playoffs got reinvented by postseason pressure; resurrected by pure emotion.
The Phillies proved themselves to be the resilient bunch they claimed to be all week with a gutsy, come from behind victory, in a frigidly hostile environment, capped by an unimaginable ninth inning. They found a way to win when it made sense. They found a way to win when it made no sense.
They know how to do it.
After all, they’re still the champs.
When did the American Dream become the American Expectation? How did the struggle of our fathers and grandfathers get twisted into the sense of entitlement of today’s youth? Why is a victory no longer a reward for excellence, but instead, a birthright demanded by every competitor in every arena?
For two weeks now, America has been sitting on the couch, scrolling through the channels, nearly frantic to escape the line-up of whiners, crybabies, and sore-losers clogging the bandwidth. Video, indeed, has killed the radio star.
During President Obama’s healthcare address, Congressman Joe Wilson wasn’t being told what he wanted to hear, so he shouted, “You Lie!” He lost his cool, and may lose his house seat.
When Taylor Swift won her first MTV Video Music award – beating out Beyonce Knowles – Kanye West was so disheartened by the results, he stole the 17-year-old’s mic, but not her MoonMan (the statue presented to winners), and since then, everyone from Jay-Z, to Wilbon, to The Commander In-Chief himself thinks Kanye should be sent to the Moon, man.
Serena Williams… well, you know what Serena did. The call didn’t go her way. She pouted for a second, stared in disbelief, and then flipped the lunatic switch and tarnished her image as a great American champion, maybe, forever.
And, after last week’s college football opener, Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount, disgusted in defeat, threw a post-game sucker punch that dropped Boise State’s Byron Hout to the ground. The punch also dropped Blount from a 2nd round NFL draft prospect to, as one scout put it, “…totally undraftable.”
From Michael Jordan to Roger Federer, to Jerry Jones, I could continue, but I’ll stop.
I’ll stop because while every one of these public outbursts was an inexcusable, condemnable, pathetic tantrum by some spoiled brat unsatisfied with a given outcome, in the end, the brat becomes the loser. All of them become losers. They all let their passions get the best of them. They all stood up as individuals, and as individuals they all fell down. They all apologized – some more sincerely than others – and they all suffered. And for all of those reasons, none of the aforementioned embarrassments goes down as the most appalling of the last fortnight.
So, what does?
Monday night the Buffalo Bills flew to Foxboro to welcome Tom Brady back to the NFL. In his first game back from knee surgery, Brady was stymied by a competent Bills defense, and with just over five minutes left in the game, Buffalo led by 11 points. But after a vintage Brady touchdown drive, Leodis McKelvin, in an attempt to improve the Bills’ field position and all but ice the game, fumbled the ball during the return of the ensuing kickoff. Uh Oh.
Cue the spotlight.
Cue the hero music.
Close on Brady’s determined gaze.
Touchdown.
Pats win.
When Leodis McKelvin returned to his home in Buffalo Tuesday morning, vandals had spray painted the final score of the game, along with a large penis, on his lawn.
Hideous.
First, you’re a fan. Period. You’re not an elected official. You’re not an icon of the music industry. You’re not arguably the greatest female tennis player of all time. You’re not trying to win a national championship. (Not that any of these roles stand for an excuse). You’re a fan; that’s it; a spectator; a consumer of entertainment. You enjoy yourself at the game, or you don’t, but either way, you go home afterwards, you avoid Sportscenter, and you go to bed.
Second, as the passage goes, “He is not a full man who does not own a piece of land.” No matter how large the arena, or how grave the disappointment, to take a matter to a man’s home, to trespass and to threaten are acts of a felon, not a fan. If Serena torched the rulebook on the lawn of the line judge, or if LeGarrette Blount crashed the Boise State after-party to start a brawl, they both would go to jail.
But Third, and most critically, the cowardice revealed in the Buffalo defacement is frightening. The mob mentality in sports’ fans across the country and around the globe is dangerous in its anonymity. Just because 60,000 other goons share your displeasure with the outcome on the field doesn’t mean you cease to be an individual. Your retaliation may be faceless, or so you think, but the hurt isn’t, and your punishment won’t be either. You see, it all starts with a sneaky beer toss at an umpire in Yankee Stadium. It escalates to a spray painting in Buffalo. But it ends with a gunshot, or 12, to be exact, fired by a ‘fan,’ that killed Andres Escobar, the Columbian footballer whose misplay caused his team to be ousted from the 1994 World Cup.
On Thursday, two Buffalo teens turned themselves in for the incident at McKelvin’s house. He refused to press charges. The Erie County DA’s office may have other plans.
Of the countless video bytes I have watched this week, my most favorite was one of Jay Leno interviewing Kanye West. Speaking of Kanye’s mother, who Leno previously met, and who has since passed away, Jay asked, “Kanye, what would your mother have said about this?” All Kanye could muster were tears.
As football season heats up, and the baseball playoffs begin, this act of idiocy stands as a reminder. No matter how many people share our discontent, in the end, we are all individuals. In the end, we are not a mob. And in the heat of the moment, we shouldn’t forget to ask ourselves, “What would my mother have to say about this?”
If you want to watch your home team play on Sunday, you might have to move.
This week, a barrage of articles were written criticizing Roger Goodell and the greedy NFL for threatening to blackout locally televised games – as they always have – if the home team doesn’t sell out the stadium 72 hours prior to kickoff. With blackouts likely in at least 5 cities, and 75% of Sunday afternoon ticket dropouts pointing to a lack of funds as their reason for cancelling subscriptions, crusading journalists are begging for the mercy of loyal fans; fans too strapped to buy a ticket; fans, who, without a local broadcast, will be unable to see their home team play.
Stop whining. And, as my father would say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
In 1961, then commissioner Pete Rozelle (a genius), looked into the eyes of the NFL owners and said something like: “You want to make money? You want your franchises to be worth more than they are now? Then stop being selfish. Make the success of the league your priority, and your team will be richer for it.”
Did it work? You’re darn right it did.
The “League Think” mentality gave birth to a joint television deal with CBS for $2.3 million per year that has now grown to include FOX, ESPN, NBC, and DIRECTV at a whopping $2.3 BILLION per year. Rozelle basically printed his own winning Mega Millions ticket and handed it to the league.
For a revenue sharing system to work, however, there must be accountability. The big market Cowboys, Redskins and Patriots shouldn’t be asked to blindly concede 40% of their gate receipts to the greater good if small market teams, like the Jaguars, and Lions, and Rams (Oh, My!), aren’t going to do their part by fielding a competitive team and diligently marketing the product to local fans. This isn’t a free ride to The Emerald City, folks.
“We tried our best, but the economy is in shambles,” they cry!
The economy crumbled 11 months ago, and NFL owners were on the front lines. This fraternity of financially savvy tycoons knew what was in store for the American consumer a year ago. They knew full well that season ticket subscribers would be lost. They knew full well that wallets would be empty. And how did they react? Who was running their marketing departments, Laurel and Hardy? And, would someone please tell me, whatever happened to ‘thinking outside of the box?’
Every other moneymaking entity in America has been forced to adapt to the pressures of a bear market. NFL teams should not be exempt. The average NFL ticket cost $72 last year. Why not offer discounts? Why not offer single game options, or even 2 or 4 game packages, rather than the full 8-game plans that fans are now held hostage by? Why not spare season ticket holders the pain of pre-season detention, having to watch the taxi squad three or four times, when they would rather just stay at the beach for the weekend?
Here’s an idea: if so many Americans are unemployed, why not hire a few, on a commission basis, to investigate thriving local businesses in your area and recruit those profiting companies and their employees to buy up your newly vacant seats? Because let’s be real; this isn’t a 162 game baseball schedule nor an 82 game basketball schedule.
It’s a 16 game season! Only 8 are played at home! EIGHT!
That means there are only 400,000 seats to sell. That number pales in comparison to the 1.6 million tickets the flailing, basement dwelling, small-market, I-can’t-name-more-than-two-guys-on-the-team Pittsburgh Pirates of baseball sold this season.
If NFL teams failed to address these basic economic concerns, then they’re flat-out stupid. But worse, if they knowingly watched ticket sales drop while secretly hoping the league would bail them out in the end, then please, say it with me, “KEEP THEM DARK!” Punish these franchises that planned on riding the coattails of an otherwise thriving economic system.
“But, it’s the fans who suffer!” Yes, it is. That’s what they get when they root for a team run by Al Davis.
Being a football fan is a funny thing. Because, while a guy in Jacksonville might say he’s a fan of the Jaguars, and a young girl in Detroit will claim to be a Lions fan, they’re both wrong. They are both fans of the NFL. Period.
The product is not an individual team. The product is a competitive contest, between two fairly matched teams, with an unpredictable outcome. That is why we watch the games. That is why we manage fantasy teams. That is why NFL gambling is a multi-million dollar industry in Las Vegas. And, thanks to 4 major networks, satellite TV and the internet, a fan who can’t watch the Raiders from his home in Berkeley can just as easily become a fan of the Vikings, the Steelers, the Colts, or a handful of other small-market teams whose exciting, sold-out, raucous stadiums will be aired every week by a league proud to show you such an overwhelming sensory experience.
If there is any criticism to be made of the NFL, it is in its policing of non-sharable revenues. Thanks to the efforts of individualists like Jerry Jones, teams that own their own stadiums can create alternative streams of income from concessions to parking to summer concerts. And if these capitalistic ventures remain unbridled, small market teams will not be able to keep pace with an ever-rising salary cap and competitive economic demands. The very semi-socialistic foundation that has lifted the NFL to great heights will surely come crumbling down.
For now, the system works. Stop whining. Get creative. Sell some tickets.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.