“A long, long time ago,” as Don McLean might begin singing this post, sports, the games and its participants, were where a young American sprout could find role models, innocent fun, and reliable ethics values. “Those were the days,” Mary Hopkin would warble back.
Item: Judge Claudia Wilken ultimate approval for the House v. NCAA settlement last night. approved the landmark, multi-billion dollar settlement of three separate antitrust cases against the NCAA and its conferences. Universities that opt into the settlement terms will be able to pay athletes directly through a revenue-sharing pool starting July 1, capped at roughly $20.5 million in 2025, the first year of the structure. About $2.8 billion will be set aside as back-pay damages for former college athletes athletes dating back to 2016 who did not have the opportunity to get compensated for their name, image and likeness Oh yeah, this will work out well. Didn’t colleges once exist for the purpose of educating all of its students rather than as big time sports money machines? You know, when sports were innocent entertainment and avocations, built character and social skills, student athletes weren’t employees, and college teams weren’t primarily the minor league systems for billion dollar professional sports leagues?
Item: A year after Major League Baseball suspended four minor league players for betting on baseball, all four are eligible to play again. Relievers Andrew Saalfrank and Michael Kelly, starter Jay Groome and infielder Jose Rodriguez were suspended for 364 days on June 4, 2024 for violating Rule 21, which prohibits betting on baseball. None of their bets involved teams they were playing on, but so what? Baseball players aren’t supposed to bet on their sport at all. Meanwhile, Rob Manfred, baseball’s ethics-challenged commissioner, has ended the permanent ban on the players kicked out of the game, which diminishes the stain on their record as well as the perceived condemnation of their misconduct, and ads for fan gambling platforms are now more plentiful than beer ads.
“(The enforcement of) rules and policies governing gambling conduct is a critical component of upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” Manfred wrote last year at the time of the four suspensions. “The longstanding prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those in the sport has been a bedrock principle for over a century.”
Sure, Rob.
Ethics Alarms 
When do the rest of you all admit, as I did many years ago, that there is no “college sports” especially in football, and basket ball., and baseball.
College athletics ended when “recruitment” began and “admission criteria” were disregarded.
College athletics ended when remedial classes were required for the ‘athletes”.
College athletics ended when coaches were compensated at levels higher than the budget for most academic departments.
College athletics has received the final blow with the priority now given to the compensation of the player for his namesake, rather than than degree earned through applied his academics.
These now compensated “athletes” no longer represent their school. they represent themselves are are represented by agents.
Heartily agreed. Big time college sports have nothing to do with education. I’m glad the charade is over. Keep the players out of the classroom and off the campus. The goofy fans can still cheer for what are their chosen minor league team. The villainous, rapacious presidents, athletic directors and coaches can continue to pull down their outrageous salaries and the TV networks, beer brewers and online betting operations can all flourish and the athletes will get a part of the action. Not a great look, but better than what’s been going on for decades. Next: elite high school kids suing for their share.
Back in the 90s was when I started to realize that college administrators no longer cared about the fans and tradition of sports.
What caused that realization? Well, back then the Southwest Conference was not doing well, it had already lost one of its major teams (Arkansas to the SEC) and the Big 8 Conference was deciding it was too small to compete.
So they merged, kicking four of the Southwest Conference colleges to the curb. As a part of that process, football rivalries that meant the world to fans and alumni were simply abandoned. The one that hit closest to me was Nebraska-Oklahoma who had had a huge rivalry over many decades. But there were others — Baylor-TCU had a century old rivalry.
It became clear to me that money trumped all for the people running universities.
This has become increasingly blatant over the past 10-20 years. People around this area tend to assume that the UNC-Duke rivalry, especially in basketball, is sacrosanct. I will tell them — give either school enough money and they’ll be gone in a heartbeat. I mean, the Atlantic Coast Conference includes Stanford? The Big Ten includes UCLA and Southern Cal?
Sheesh. The people who are in for a hard time, I am convinced, are the ones playing the ‘minor’ sports. It’s one thing to fly the football or basketball team from North Carolina to California. The tennis team? Wrestling? How long can that go on?
Football and basketball have been paying for “minor” sports ever since they became a thing. Their days are limited. Much as the days of the humanities are limited as college concentrations. If everyone’s getting a degree in economics so they can work as consultants. Who wants to be an English major could be the name of a failing television game show.
By the way, I believe Oregon State is playing Florida State in a PAC 12 “Super Regional” baseball game. Go figure.
Not directly on point, but the dust up between Simone Biles and Riley Gaines is interesting. Biles accused Gaines of fostering anti-trans hate, them told her to suck it up that she isn’t a huge medal winner, and that Gaines should work for transathlete inclusion.
Gaines responded by accusing Biles, who suffered sexual assault from the US gymnastic team doctor, of selling women’s sport down the river and, as a retired athlete, would not have to deal with competing against men in her sport. Biles told her too go bully a guy get own size (whatever that means).
Good on Gaines for fighting back.
jvb
Biles competed in a sport where trans females couldn’t compete if they wanted to, and women’s gymnastics would not be accommodating to those who underwent puberty as males. As you know from earlier EA posts about Niles, I am not impressed with her character. Just another example of why.