Tag: sports

Drew Pearson demonstrates the correct way to respond to those who hate you and everything for which you stand. This practically defines the term “open up your hate and let it flow into me.” What would otherwise have been a pedestrian announcement of a second-round draft pick is transformed into a celebration of community pride. 

Also and even so, Drew Pearson pushed off.

The debacle of the European Super League demonstrates the fundamental flaw with libertarian ideology. Whereas communism is rule by the envious, libertarianism is rule by the fraudulent:

Florentino Perez has warned that no club can leave the European Super League after signing binding contracts to participate and denied JP Morgan have pulled their backing to fund the competition.

Speaking out yet again after a flurry of clubs withdrew, Perez – who heads the controversial competition – slammed teams for ‘manipulating our project’ and vowed that the tournament ‘still exists’ and will go ahead regardless.

The Premier League ‘Big Six’ – namely Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham – were the first to pull out of the Super League 48 hours after its official founding, but Real Madrid chief Perez stated earlier this week all 12 clubs involved signed a ‘legally binding contract’.

Speaking to Spanish outlet AS, the 74-year-old has reiterated his point that the plan is only on standby and accused others of ‘manipulating’ what the Super League project is about to mask fears of what they could lose.

When asked what penalties clubs who have withdrawn could face, Perez said: ‘I’m not going to explain now what a binding contract is… But the clubs can’t leave. 

If legality is determined solely by whatever one party can talk another party into signing, then the society that will result is rule by conmen. The 11 clubs were talked into the Super League by Real Madrid, which faces bankruptcy under the current setup due to its profligate spending and massive debts. Now they face the prospect of paying huge fines they can’t afford if they don’t proceed with a plan that will destroy them and harm the sport. 

It’s well and good to point out that no one has to sign a contract… right up until you realize that for all their protests, courts have been upholding the concept of “contracts of adhesion” that don’t require any signatures for decades.

It is the Devil who loves binding contracts. So it should come as no surprise that a society based on contracts soon comes to resemble Hell on Earth.

They killed the Super League despite the best efforts of the banks and the biggest European soccer clubs:

Plans for a European Super League have officially been suspended after all six Premier League clubs announced their intention to withdraw from the controversial £4.6bn scheme. 

On Sunday night, 12 European clubs pledged their support for the controversial breakaway competition that threatened to drastically change the football landscape in England and across the continent.

Six clubs from England – Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal – had agreed to join the league, while three teams from Spain and Italy apiece – Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan – made up the remaining six places.

However, just 48 hours after the monumental announcement did the European Super League begin to unravel, with England’s participating clubs each releasing statements announcing their intention to step away from the competition. 

Imagine what would be possible if conservatives took their politics, and Christians took their faith, as seriously as European soccer fans take their sport. 

The love of money is the root of all evil. 70 years of success isn’t enough to prevent Europe’s biggest soccer teams from falling into the clutches of the bankers:

 A group made up of the biggest soccer clubs in Spain, England and Italy has agreed to join a breakaway league that has the potential to change the landscape of world soccer, according to The New York Times. 

So far, 12 teams have reportedly endorsed or signed up for the super league, including Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid from Spain; Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham from England; and Juventus, A.C. Milan and Inter from Italy. 

The report suggested that each permanent member of the proposed breakaway league, which would begin in 2022, has been promised €350 million ($425 million) with JPMorgan Chase & Co. in discussions to help finance the league….

Under the proposals reviewed at the time, the super league, which would play its matches in the middle of the week, sought to secure 16 top soccer franchises as permanent members and to add four qualifiers from domestic competitions. The clubs would be split into two groups of 10, with the top four teams in each group qualifying for the knockout stages, culminating in a final that would take place on a weekend.

The event would, according to the documents, generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue for the participating teams, which are already the richest clubs in the sport. (An alternative version of the plan proposed 15 permanent members and five qualification spots.) The group had entered into discussions with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to raise financing for the project, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The firm has so far declined to comment.

UEFA found a powerful ally in opposition to the plans in FIFA, soccer’s global governing body. FIFA warned that any player who took part in such an unsanctioned league would be banned from appearing in the World Cup. The statement came after UEFAs president, Aleksander Ceferin, demanded support from his FIFA counterpart, Gianni Infantino, amid mounting speculation that the breakaway would have FIFA’s backing.

European soccer leaders huddled on the telephone and in video conferences over the weekend to forge a counterattack. However, finding a solution to the potential loss of the biggest brands in soccer is not an easy task. The Premier League, for example, would lose much of its sheen — and almost certainly a lot of the commercial appeal that has turned it into the richest league in soccer — should it move to banish its top six teams.

My prediction is that severing the big teams from their domestic leagues is going to backfire, as the combination of foreign players and foreign competition, combined with the extreme convergence that will be imposed upon the new league, will cause them to be replaced by new domestic favorites.

I’m a longtime Arsenal and AC Milan supporter, but I can’t even imagine having any interest in this super league. It’s basically going to be like an All-Star game all season long. UEFA and FIFA are among the most corrupt organizations on the planet, but at least they have a genuine and substantial commitment to supporting the sport at all levels. This new league doesn’t, won’t, and can’t, it’s about nothing but TV money. Which is why kicking out every organization and player involved is the right response.

UEFA were strong in response, announcing that every club and player that takes part in the Super League will be banned from all competitions at both European and  international level – and extends to international level and competitions including the European Championship…. The new league represents the American takeover of elite European football, which will become a closed shop run by its founder members. It is bankrolled by US banking giant JP Morgan and is the brainchild of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and the American owners of three leading English clubs. 

In addition to being proof that too much money ruins everything, it will be an interesting test of nationalism vs financial capitalism. I won’t be surprised if the top six English teams that leave for it eventually become less popular than the teams that stay in the Premier League. 

Sports journalists are less willing than alcoholics to admit they have a problem:

Almost every single sport has experienced a TV ratings erosion over the past year, and dishonest people with an agenda have liked blaming the lower ratings on sports becoming more political.

Well, the least political sport on the planet just got some depressing ratings news. This weekend’s Masters on CBS generated its lowest viewership numbers in 28 years.

I don’t follow golf closely, but to my knowledge, there have not been any golfers who have kneeled during a playing of the national anthem. There have not been many golfers who have protested anything. Courses have not featured political messages.

Yet the biggest tournament of them all just pulled its worst numbers since 1993.

Have a few people here and there stopped watching sports in some ridiculous protest because of politics? Yes. Is it a significant, game-changing number? No.

The obvious and most significant reason for any and all sports TV ratings loss is cord-cutting. People are saying goodbye to cable at a rapid rate. From 2014 to 2020, 23{3549d4179a0cbfd35266a886b325f66920645bb4445f165578a9e086cbc22d08} of households cut the cord. Approximately 6.6 million households cut the cord in 2020 after 6.3 million households cut the cord in 2019.

While we have data on cord-cutting, we don’t have numbers for how the pandemic has changed the viewing habits of sports fans. But it’s obvious people’s lives are different, their schedules have changed and their priorities have shifted. We can’t quantify any of these things, but they are absolutely a factor in sports across the board losing viewers.

Actually, it’s much more likely that there is a knock-on effect. I didn’t watch the Masters, so I have no idea if it was a big diversity fest, although the fact that a Japanese golfer won it for the first time ever does tend to indicate that it might have been.

But at this point, I suspect people are beginning to assume that televised sports are all converged, and they’re actually beginning to preemptively turn them off. I haven’t not only quit watching NFL football, but I’ve quit watching Premiership and Seria A football as well, in addition to the Champions League. I assume that they’re chock full of SJW hectoring, but I don’t actually know, because I preemptively stopped watching them. 

The NCAA is 100 percent committed to equality concerning the non-payment of all student-athletes, regardless of sex or sexual identity:

The National Collegiate Athletic Association Board of Governors said on Monday that it “firmly and unequivocally supports” transgender biological male athletes competing in women’s sports at the college level.

It comes amid an ongoing push by Republican-led states to enact measures that seek to protect female athletes, who are likely to have a biological disadvantage if forced to compete against male-born students.

“The NCAA Board of Governors firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports,” the board wrote in their statement. “The NCAA has a long-standing policy that provides a more inclusive path for transgender participation in college sports.”

NCAA also addressed questions about how the association determines which states will host championship games.

“When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,” the board wrote.

The states should respond to this by passing laws forbidding universities to charge for tickets or for television and merchandising rights to sporting events in which the players are not monetarily compensated.

From Peter King’s weekly football column:

Interesting contrast in your column [from the story about the British book heist that I posted last week] that the 1566 Latin edition of Copernicus’ world-changing theory was valued at $293,000. Meanwhile, the Tom Brady rookie card from 2000 was priced at $2.3 million.

Actually, I think this is a good sign. By the time the West hits rock bottom, the only value of the original Copernicus book in most people’s eyes would be for kindling.

And this is why you should subscribe to Castalia Library while the printing presses still function.

Okay, that’s just ridiculous. My high school didn’t just win its fourth consecutive state title in basketball last night, it demonstrated that it really should be playing in 4A.

Top-ranked Minnehaha Academy won its fourth state tournament championship in as many tries, besting Alexandria 80-29 on Saturday at the Target Center.

The Redhawks (20-1) ending the past three full seasons with Class 2A titles. They moved up to Class 3A last season and won the Section 4 title. But coronavirus canceled the state tournament. Winning Saturday makes Minnehaha the fourth program to win at least four consecutive titles.

Redhawks senior Chet Holmgren, a 7-1 matchup nightmare considered the top college recruit in the nation, made his share of plays. So did freshman Mercy Miller, who scored 15 points. Older brother Hercy poured in 24. Holmgren added 18.

The excellence of the basketball team seems utterly bizarre to me because back in my day, the only winter sport in which MA was even remotely competitive was the ski team, and Minneapolis North was the dominant basketball program. For example, if you remember when UConn won the NCAA title, they were led by a North player, Khalid El-Amin.

That being said, I’m glad that there weren’t so many different levels of competition when I was in high school, even though it prevented me from ever winning a state title. In track, I had no trouble consistently beating all the 1A state champions from Brooklyn Center and Mahtomedi in our conference, but came in third behind two North sprinters in the 2A Regional finals. And while my soccer team was unexpectedly – and unjustly – knocked out in the state semifinals in overtime, beating our archrivals at Minneapolis Washburn in the first round remains my absolute favorite out of all the hundreds of soccer games I’ve played.

Now that was a truly memorable game. It was the only time I can recall a high school soccer game making the 10 o’clock news, as the massive brawl that took place on the field immediately after the final whistle was one of the biggest disruptions to take place in Minneapolis prior to the George Floyd riots. As a result of the two games that season, there was so much bad blood between the teams that the school had to change the annual Super Soccer Day tradition where every team from the C-squads on up would play each other by replacing Washburn with Southwest.

If I’d wanted a state title, I suppose I should have stuck with tennis. The guys with whom I played JV as a freshman before switching to track won state our senior year. But I think titles are considerably less meaningful than the experience of the competition. That’s not sour grapes talking either, as I’ve won nine conference championships, both as a team member and as an individual, at the top high school and NCAA levels.

Anyhow, I think it’s always best to compete at the highest level available to you, even if that means you can’t walk away with a victory. Fortunately for the MA players of today, they’re getting the chance to play against – and even beat – the nation’s top teams outside of the state high school league.

Deshaun Watson is done:

Tuesday’s press conference caused many to view the ongoing controversy involving Deshaun Watson differently. Among the many now viewing the situation differently, apparently, is Nike.

Via CNBC.com, the sports apparel giant has suspended its endorsement deal with Watson.

“We are deeply concerned by the disturbing allegations and have suspended Deshaun Watson. We will continue to closely monitor the situation,” Nike said in a statement.

It’s simply astonishing how people, and organizations, think they can somehow bluster their way through things when they know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, what the other side knows about them.

This isn’t actually about an NFL quarterback….

It’s nice to see a former Minnehaha graduate doing well. At this point, it’s apparent that I’m no longer my high school’s most well-known alum. But I’m almost certainly still the most infamous… not that the academy is any more eager than my university is to acknowledge me as a graduate of their august halls.

He earned his first Division I offer in sixth grade, joined the varsity team at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis as a seventh grader, nabbed his first high-major offer a year later, and won three straight state titles in high school, missing out on a chance at an elusive four-peat after COVID-19 cut short his senior season. He won three gold medals with USA Basketball’s youth teams, and became the highest-rated recruit in Gonzaga history when he committed.

It’s a little surreal for those of us who remember Gonzaga as the ultimate Cinderella team to seriously credit the fact that they are serious contenders for the national championship. I’m not a big basketball fan, although I’ll never forget the 1983 championship when NC State upset Phi Slama Jama on the same night that my church team beat Elim Baptist, a team that had beaten us by 47 points during the season, for the Baptist League title. If I recall correctly, I even scored eight points, which may well have been a season high for me as a non-shooting shooting guard.

Anyhow, good luck to Gonzaga. Favorites or not, they’re still the sort of team you almost have to cheer for come March Madness, like Cleveland State, Richmond, and, of course, Bucknell.