Is the NCAA's Foundation Beginning to Crumble?

The timing of yesterday's ruling by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board that some members of the Northwestern University football team are employees of the university and therefore have the right to form a union could not have been more perfect. It comes right in the midst of the sporting world's biggest money-maker, the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. You know, the basketball extravaganza that Americans spend $12 billion gambling on, generates more than a billion in ad revenues, and supposedly costs companies millions in lost productivity. The timing of the ruling is perfect because a lot of people make a killing off March Madness. Everyone except the players.

It will likely be a long time before we know the full ramifications of this ruling (broken down in great detail by SB Nation), but for now it only affects Northwestern football players on scholarship. Northwestern has said it will appeal the decision, and some legal analysts have said the case could wind up in the Supreme Court. Still, it is an intriguing milestone in the brewing debate over whether college athletes (most notably, the players in the two largest revenue sports, football and basketball) should be compensated beyond their scholarships. It's an argument that is being made by an increasing number of people, most forcefully by civil rights historian Taylor Branch in a 2011 Atlantic article. "Big-time college sports," he writes, "are fully commercialized. Billions of dollars flow through them each year. The NCAA makes money, and enables universities and corporations to make money, from the unpaid labor of young athletes."

Their can be little argument that the NCAA is not fully commercialized, or that collegiate basketball and football programs don't generate a lot of money for the NCAA. The current contracts to televise the new college football championship tournament alone is $7.3 billion over 10 years, while the contract to televise March Madness is more than $10 billion over 14 years. Last year, the Big 10 (or 12 or 14 or whatever it is) distributed more than $25 million to each of it's member schools (Northwestern among them), most of that money coming from the conference's TV deals with ABC/ESPN and the Big Ten Network.  Where does all that money go? Back into the athletic departments, where it helps to fund scholarships and pay for many of non-revenue sports, which athletic directors will be sure to remind you. The question is, should the players be able to get a piece of this pie?

Defenders of the current system will use up a lot of oxygen exalting and defending the notion of the student-athlete, a notion that has been blurry for decades now. The idea is simple: athletes receive scholarships to pay (fully or partially) for their education, and in return they compete for their university. But the reality of modern-day college athletics is that the athletes in the revenue sports are spending most of their time preparing for competition. Yesterday's ruling made no bones that the concept of the student-athlete, at least as the NCAA views it, is a fallacy. “It cannot be said that the employer’s scholarship players are ‘primarily students,’ ” wrote NLRB regional director Peter Ohr in his ruling. He went on to break down the numbers in explaining his decision:

“The players spend 50 to 60 hours per week on their football duties during a one-month training camp prior to the start of the academic year and an additional 40 to 50 hours per week on those duties during the three- or four-month football season. Not only is this more hours than many undisputed full-time employees work at their jobs, it is also many more hours than the players spend on their studies.”

If players at Northwestern, not known as a football powerhouse, are spending 40-50 hours per week (which would be 20-30 more hours than allowed under the NCAA's bizarre countable hours rule) on football duties, how many hours are players spending on football at perennial powers like Michigan and Ohio State? When you think about those numbers, it's hard to suspend your disbelief over the idea that the student comes before the athlete.

Defenders of the current system will argue that the scholarships athletes receive should be enough payment, and there is some fairness to that argument. Getting a full ride to an elite university like Northwestern is a tremendous benefit, especially in an era of overwhelming student loan debt. But how many big time college football and basketball players are taking advantage of that, or even have the time to? Furthermore, as Big Ten Network analyst Stephen Bardo, a former University of Illinois basketball player, noted today on the show BTN Live, "I paid for my college tuition in the twelfth game of my freshman season. Every game after that was profit for the university." So is the scholarship enough when the student-athletes, particularly the football players, are putting their bodies on the line for their schools? Or when schools are profiting off the use of the players likenesses, an issue that will be reviewed in the O'Bannon case?

I'm on the fence on this one. Despite it's commercialization, their is still a faint whiff of purity about college athletics that I buy into, and changing the current system will forever alter that, for both fans and players alike. If yesterday's decision ultimately leads to a new system in which players get some form of compensation beyond scholarships, will athletes simply go the highest bidding college? Will there be different levels of compensation for players depending on position (one pay rate for a quarterback, for example, and another for an offensive lineman)? And if schools have to start paying basketball and football players, will that mean reduced budgets for the non-revenue sports, and perhaps the elimination of those sports altogether?

Ultimately, the issue here is fairness, and I'm not sure I can say that it's fair for the athletes not to share in the billions they generate. Only a fraction of these athletes will turn pro and make some of that money back. Whatever the outcome, the fallout from this ruling will be interesting to watch.

The Thrill of the Unknown

Toward the end of my time as a news producer at Minnesota Public Radio, I joked about a new segment I wanted to create called "Rank Speculation," in which the host and a guest would spend 10-15 minutes openly speculating, surmising and throwing out theories, however plausible or implausible, on the various news events of the day. The civil war in Syria, Governor Dayton's tax plan, vaccines, the state of the housing market, you name it. I thought it had a lot of potential but the idea never really got off the ground.

It was a joke based in some part on the frustrating reality of the news business. Some times things get a little slow out there, but even so you still have to fill up the time, preferably with something interesting. And what's more interesting than baseless speculation? 

In all honesty, the fact that I didn't put that type of programming on the air is one of the things I took pride in as a producer. As has become painfully clear over the past several years, the cable news networks have no such reservations, because cable news networks abhor a vacuum. To fill that vacuum, they do whatever they have to do to maintain your attention. What you get is a visual stew of partisan talking heads, crime stories, weather, celebrity gossip and personal interest stories masquerading as news. You gotta fill the time, right? Into that gaping maw steps the mystery of Flight 370, because nothing feeds the beast better than a mystery.

As we all know by now, the Malaysia Airlines 777 disappeared from radar 14 days ago on its way from Kuala Lampur to Beijing, without sending any distress signals or giving air traffic controllers any indication that it was having problems, or providing any wreckage to show that it actually crashed. Add to that the Malaysian government's less-than-stellar handling of the investigation, and you have a made-for-cable-news mystery. Where is the plane? Did it actually crash? Did it head north into Central Asia or south into the Indian Ocean? Was it hijacked and taken to some secretive location for nefarious purposes? The possibilities are endless! I can almost hear the producers mimicking Seinfeld nemesis Kenny Bania. "That's Gold, Jerry. Gold."

We've been well into the swirl of breathless speculation for several days now. Last Friday, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the plane's transponder had been shut off manually, things really began to ramp up. CNN's Piers Morgan had a panel of about 54 people chiming in on his show, and throughout the hour he practically begged them to come up with every cockamamie theory they could possibly think of to explain the jet's disappearance. Thankfully the panelists, for the most part, refused to take the bait. My favorite moment was when New York Times reporter Matthew Wald, after being asked by Morgan what we were to make of the pilot having a flight simulator in his home, replied with a grin "it means he likes his work." Piers, surprisingly, appeared somewhat dismayed by that answer.

 

The speculation has only grown more hysterical since then. On Tuesday night, after several outlets reported that the plane's left turn had been programmed into the onboard computer, CNN's Don Lemon went into full conspiracy mode, throwing out theories from viewers to his panel. Among them: Maybe the plane was stolen so it could be resold on the black market! Maybe the plane was flown to Christmas Island! ("it fits, and explains everything" noted the emailer). Maybe a satellite hacked into the plane and dumped it in the ocean! This time, the panelists were more than willing to go along, with the exception of Ask a Pilot blogger Patrick Smith, who repeatedly took the panel to task for engaging in baseless speculation. Said Smith:

We're all playing armchair investigator here. That's the problem. Us and everybody out there watching. I think we just don't have enough information yet. And we need to sit back, stop all the crazy speculation, and see what happens. I think we'll get to the bottom of this eventually. We might not, and people should be prepared for that, but I think we will. 

To which Don Lemon countered with " I think [they're] all plausible scenarios, especially when we don't know anything." Really, Don? What about the possibility that there were snakes on that plane?

I don't mean to beat up on CNN here. They're not the only network going to town on this story. And the theories are abundant on the interwebs. And I understand that a mystery like this is bound to provoke conspiracies. Science writer Maggie Koerth-Baker had a piece in the New York Times Magazine late last year on what scientist are learning about the brain and conspiracy theories. She writes:

 

Economic recessions, terrorist attacks and natural disasters are massive, looming threats, but we have little power over when they occur or how or what happens afterward. In these moments of powerlessness and uncertainty, a part of the brain called the amygdala kicks into action. Paul Whalen, a scientist at Dartmouth College who studies the amygdala, says it doesn’t exactly do anything on its own. Instead, the amygdala jump-starts the rest of the brain into analytical overdrive — prompting repeated reassessments of information in an attempt to create a coherent and understandable narrative, to understand what just happened, what threats still exist and what should be done now. This may be a useful way to understand how, writ large, the brain’s capacity for generating new narratives after shocking events can contribute to so much paranoia in this country.

Left to our own devices, many of us following the Flight 370 story might arrive at some of the theories being thrown about. And when the story involves flying, a routine act that nonetheless still makes many people nervous, the public mind is going to generate new narratives in the search for answers. But do we really need the cable news networks feeding our analytical overdrive? How about we just sit tight until we have more, you know, facts?

I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I think I might have found a taker for that "Rank Speculation" segment.

Haters Gonna Hate

I recently returned from a trip to the Wisconsin Dells, which, for those of you not familiar with this Upper Midwest waterpark mecca, is a slice of Americana unlike any other I know of. I was there to spend a few days at a water park with family, as part of a birthday celebration for my nephew, Buddy. While for my daughter and her cousins the annual Wisconsin Dells waterpark trip has become a treasured part of the never-ending Upper Midwest winter, for me it's always a bit of a mixed bag. The water slides are a thrill, my daughter is in heaven, and spending time with family is a blessing. But the sight of so many beer guts and hairy backs, not to mention the gallons of unflattering body ink, is disconcerting, to say the least.

That's not what I wanted to talk about, however. Like all road trips, the 3.5 hour journey from the Twin Cities to the Dells is a fine excuse to enjoy that staple of the great American road trip, the mixed tape. (Mixed CD, Playlist, whatever you want to call it, it will always be the mixed tape. But the fact that you no longer have to perfectly time out each side has taken some of the challenge out of its creation.) Nothing makes the mind-numbing American interstate system more palatable than a well-thought-out collection of songs.

 

While I usually consider myself the master of the mixed tape, since I wasn't driving on this journey, I was captive to the musical whims of my brother-in-law, Bob, and his son Buddy. Together they had compiled two cds worth of music, alternating selections between father and son. It was, to say the least, an eclectic mix, fusing Bob's combination of 60s and 70s am radio staples, Bluegrass, and Great American Songbook with Buddy's more modern musical sensibilities. Think Steely Dan followed by Macklemore, with some Jackson Browne and Pharrel thrown in around Miley Cyrus and Ella Fitzgerald. As incongruous as that may sound, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

But it was the song that began the second CD that got me thinking about this post. It was "Hotel California" by the Eagles, perhaps one of the most iconic and recognizable pop songs of the past 40 years, and a song I thoroughly loathe, along with the rest of the Eagles catalogue.

Articulating my feelings about the Eagles has never been easy, and other writers have conveyed their hatred for the band far better than I ever will. But I'll give it a try. It's not that I think they're without talent, or that they don't deserve the reputation they've built over their many decades in the music business. As one of the best-selling bands of all time, they've clearly done something right. Everyone knows at least one Eagles song, and probably most of the lyrics to that song. Nonetheless, I've been a full-on Eagles hater for a good 25 years now. And I don't see that changing any time soon.

 

When I was in college, fully immersed in critical theory and alternative rock, my hatred of the Eagles stemmed from what they embodied: the bloated, smug, corporate, coked-up excess of 70s American rock. Though they were the offspring of the country-rock movement that began with Gram Parsons and the Byrds' landmark 1968 album "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," they ended up as far musically from that genre as Wonderbread is from a baguette. I could find no grit, no rough edge, no lyrical depth to their music. It seemed calculated for the broadest popular appeal. They were like the Dallas Cowboys, America's Band, the beautiful winners of the music world. They sold bazillions of records, and when you're an 18-year-old listening to Husker Du and the Replacements, that can only be a bad thing. Don Henley's perm and Glenn Frey's mustache didn't help either. Oh how I despised them.

Over time, my feelings about the Eagles have softened and evolved, but not enough to make me come around to them. See, what I love about music is the feeling I get from it. Name almost any song I like, and I can articulate a feeling generated by that song. When I hear an Eagles song, I feel nothing, an emptiness as ethereal as the California sunshine and women that seem to occupy all their songs. And I've always blamed them for that lack of feeling. Their music has a veneer, both musically and lyrically, that makes any attempt to find a true, authentic emotion nearly impossible. I love country-tinged rock, tight harmonies, well-structured songs, and a lyrical vision. The Eagles had those in spades, and knew how to create a winning formula from that combination. But their music does nothing for me. I've never slept with a woman in the desert, I've never seen a tequila sunrise, I've never lived life in the fast lane. They seemed to be singing about a uniquely American experience that no one has actually ever had (except for the guys in the Eagles).

 

So, in the end, is it possible to say in the same breath that I respect an artist's craftsmanship but disdain their art? We can debate that. But even if I lose that debate, you won't be finding any Eagles songs on my next mixed tape.

The NBA, it's....um...fantastic?

If you watched NBA basketball at all from the early 1980s through the early 1990s, you might remember that ad campaign. It was David Stern's attempt to capitalize on what was a golden era for the game, a time when Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and a handful of other players made NBA basketball the hottest ticket in many towns. Their skill, athleticism, and intense desire to win made the game fun to watch, exciting, and compelling. It was fantastic.

Fast forward 30 years later, and too often NBA is none of those things. Sure, the talent level is as good as it's ever been. Players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant will at some point be considered to be among the best to ever play the game. And on any given night, you can see a well-played, fast-paced, perhaps even thrilling game. But that seems to be pretty rare these days.

Which brings me to tonight's Minnesota Timberwolves game against the New York Knicks. The Timberwolves came into the game fresh off a 4-1 road trip that had provided some oxygen for their fading playoff hopes, while the Knicks had lost seven in a row in a season in which it seems they've done everything they can to get their coach fired. Two teams going in different directions. One with momentum, the other, not so much. A no brainer, right? I tweeted before the game that if the Timberwolves lost this game, they were dead to me.

So, of course, the Timberwolves let the Knicks get off to 9-0 start, score 66 points in the first half, and ultimately cruise to a 118-106 victory. At one point in the game, as my blood pressure was rising, I told my daughter that Minnesota should be beating the Knicks because they're a better team. "It sure doesn't look like it," she responded. She's perceptive, that one.

Now, in an 82 game season, these things happen. Sometimes teams can't miss, as was the case with the Knicks, led by elite scorer and consummate ball hog Carmelo Anthony. Sometimes teams come out flat and can't hit the side of the backboard, as was the case with the Timberwolves. And when neither team plays defense or really seems to be all that invested in the outcome, the team that's hitting their shots is going to win. And that's where we are with today's NBA. I think I saw more intensity and dedication to their craft from the halftime act, the Sandou Russian Bar Trio (who may or may not have been doing an acrobatic interpretation of the situation in Crimea).

Part of this is a rant about the Timberwolves. I split season tickets with a former colleague this year, and seeing this team up close 10 times has exposed me to all their flaws. While they're certainly talented offensively, have a phenomenal player in Kevin Love, and can be fun to watch, they show no interest in playing defense, and they melt at the first sign of adversity. And that's where this becomes more of a critique of the NBA, because that statement probably applies to 20 of the 30 teams in the league. There are too many nights where it just seems like NBA players don't give a shit. I'm not asking every NBA player be a win-at-all-cost A-hole like Michael Jordan, but at least show me you care.

And the fans know the deal. Maybe Minneapolis isn't a great basketball market (let's face it, the Timberwolves haven't given us much to cheer about over their 25 year existence), but on the nights I've been at the Target Center this year, the place has been dead. NBA players are some of the most gifted athletes in the world. It should be a thrill to watch them. But when you can sense they're going through the motions, it's hard to get excited. The loudest I've heard the crowd at Target Center is when they do the T-shirt giveaway in the 4th quarter (and I swear I better get a T-shirt before this season is over, or my daughter is going to disown me).

I grew up New York, and I can remember the first Knicks game I attended at Madison Square Garden. It was against the Chicago Bulls in 1980. After several down years, the Knicks were winning again. I was 9, and I went with my dad and my brother. It was thrilling. It felt like the place to be, for the entire game. There was a brief moment tonight (it may have lasted 3 minutes) when Minnesota pulled to within 2 points late in the third quarter and looked they might take the lead. All of a sudden you could feel the energy in the building rise. It was palpable. It felt like the place to be. And then the Knicks hit a few shots and they were up by 10, the moment was gone, and the crowd started filtering out.

I know that I'm never going to have the feeling about a sporting event that I did when I was 9. Too much has changed. And Target Center is never going to be Madison Square Garden (although that $100 million renovation should help). But if I'm going to drag my ass down there on a cold March night, at least give me more than 3 minutes of compelling basketball. How about a whole game full? And a free T-shirt, too? That would be fantastic.

The First Step is Always the Hardest

Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. I guess I should be aware that there's an audience now, no matter how small it might be. Well, since we're all here now, it's probably time for me to begin. This here is the first official post on my new blog, The Casual Fan. After throwing out several terrible possibilities, I settled on this name because it best represents what I'd like to do on this blog.

This is not a sports blog, or at least it's not solely a sports blog. I'm a fan of many things besides sports: music, great writing, radio, movies, Guinness, Triscuits, flannel shirts, gummy bears...just to name a few. But when you look up the word fanatic, it doesn't really apply to the way I feel about any of these things. I'm not particularly obsessive or zealous about anything I would consider myself a fan of. (Well, except for the New York Metropolitans. I'm fairly obsessive about the Mets, and the reason for that can only reside somewhere deep inside my psyche). I wouldn't say I'm a dilettante either, though I suspect some might say that's exactly what I am. But I do care about the things that interest me, and I try to think deeply about them, with the hope that doing so will lead to greater insight. At least that's my hope. 

In either case, I think The Casual Fan will try to chart a course somewhere in the middle of these two poles, which is usually where I find myself. So on this blog you'll find posts about sports, but also  thoughts on music, movies, books, culture, politics and current events (I do have journalism background, after all), and maybe some writing of a more personal nature. And even if you don't care about any of the things that I care about, I hope I can write about them in an entertaining way. I guess you'll be the judge of that.