On the heels of one of the most exciting and upset prone March Madnesses ever, the NCAA seems to be laying the ground work for diluting its finest championship event.  See link.  College Football’s so called national championship (which is not run by the NCAA) is already a joke and despised by most fans.  The bowl season whose “tradition” supposedly is one of the reasons why Division 1A football is the only major sport in the country without a playoff gets diluted each year with the addition of new bowl games.  The scintillating match ups of teams with 6-6 records evokes a collective yawn.  But in the midst of this, college basketball delivers possibly the most exciting championship playoffs in the country.  But it was too much to expect that the money hungry overseers of a supposedly non-profit organization and coaches hoping for job security by getting their mediocre teams into the playoffs would not spoil a good thing.

A few years ago the NCAA allowed the camel to get his nose in the tent by expanding the bracket from 64 to 65 (two unfortunate teams play a one game playoff for the last spot on the brackets used in pools across the country).  Now the camel is all set to barge in with the bracket expected to expand to 96 teams.  The regular season (the holy grail in denying us a playoff in college football) now matters even less.  In the current format a 16 seed has never beaten a 1 seed.  What are the chances of a 24 seed doing anything in this bloated playoff?

A rare word of praise to baseball in this blog.  It provides the toughest challenge for a team to make the post season, providing some exciting match ups in the home stretch.  That will change in March Madness.  At present the major conferences send between 30-50% of their teams to the playoffs.  The proverbial NCAA bubble provides some exciting match ups in February as teams are fighting for their post season lives.  Now that tension is likely gone.  Making the tournament will feel very similar to little leaguers all getting a trophy.  It will be hard to generate enthusiasm for the remaining bottom feeders with losing records on the new tournament bubble.

Mammon wins out once again.

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Selection Sunday arrived and soon causal and serious sports fans will furiously start filling out brackets in office pools across the country.  March sees the college basketball world caught up in tourney madness as the United States focuses in possibly the most entertaining sports post-season in the country.  At the end a champion will be crowned based on performance on the field and nobody will quibble that a deserving championship contender was somehow left out.

It provides a stark contrast to the short-sighted greedy leaders who run and are slowly ruining the most popular college sport in the country – Division 1A College Football.  Unwilling to share the revenue pie with smaller schools (who in any genuine playoff would have to have a shot at the title) the leaders of major colleges come up with an increasing array of excuses as to why a playoff (which every other sport including Division 1B, 2 and 3 football implement with little trouble) would not work.

Given the popularity of football, one would think that the TV revenues and fan attendance for a meaningful post-season decided on the field rather than by coaches and media polls would be a revenue bonanza.  Instead in the name of tradition and “protecting the players” we are treated to an array of bowl games between mediocre teams and no guarantee that the “national champion” deserves the title.

Enjoy the coming sports extravaganza while thinking of what could also happen in late December.  And also pray that March madness is not diluted by the pending asinine proposal to expand the number of teams from 65 to 96.  Let the madness commence.

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A pending federal class action case could change the landscape of college sports.  See link.  This case does not deal with the issue of compensating current athletes.  The issue is whether a one year scholarship gave the NCAA the perpetual right to market a college player’s name and likeness and keep the proceeds.

The concept of amateur athletics is steeped in class issues.  The wealthy and upper middle-class idealized the amateur as a true lover of the sport.  Needless to say it helps when your pocket books are so comfortably lined that you can take time off to indulge in your hobby.  This is a luxury unavailable to the economic underclass.  The NCAA fudges the issue by permitting its members to offer academic scholarships to athletes with the understanding that they will not be paid.  The system probably works for the non-revenue sports which do not attract as intense  a fan and alumni following.  In the revenue sports (particularly men’s basketball and football) the system is a joke.

The rules prohibiting players have frequently been broken with punishment being meted out for the most blatant violations.  The NCAA’s enforcement mechanism is already somewhat a joke given its propensity to make an example of smaller programs while giving the major programs (the cash cows) a slap on the wrist.  And herein lies the problem.  The NCAA pretends that college athletes in major college football and basketball are their for an education.  The reality is that major college football and basketball are essentially minor league training leagues for the National Football League and the National Basketball Association.  Insult is added to the injury when major colleges enroll athletes in lightweight majors and courses that do them no good (assuming they graduate) in the job market.  Coaching salaries at major programs run into millions of dollars and successful a athletics program is a cash cow for these schools.

The myth that these athletes are there for an education also results in a bunch of rules to protect college programs.  Transferring athletes have to sit out for a year (something other students do not have to) and transfers within a conference have more draconian consequences.  Meanwhile coaches come and go as you please.  Scholarships are on a year to year basis and totally at the discretion of the coach.  So a hard working player who maintains his grades can still be cut because he did not have the athletic talent the coach thought he did.  Coaches regularly oversign players beyond the permitted scholarship numbers and can trim their rosters with no consequences if too many players qualify.  All of these are the hallmarks of a commercial and not an educational venture.

Then there are NCAA double standards for two sport athletes who turn professional in one of them.  University of Colorado football player Jeremy Bloom happened to be an Olympic caliber skier.  But to afford to ski competitively he had to turn professional which means accepting endorsements.  Seeing this as a backdoor to allowing players being paid the NCAA terminated his college football career.  Meanwhile it is possible for college football players to play professional (generally minor league) baseball.  So in 1998 the Texas Rangers (owned by University of Texas alumnus Tom Hicks) purchased the rights to University of Texas running back Ricky Williams (who everyone knew would play pro football in the future).  This is perfectly fine with the NCAA.

The professional leagues also encourage this fiction of the NCAA’s academic mission with arbitrary minimum ages for entering athletes.  After all they have a good thing going.  They get a minor league system they do not have to pay for and protect themselves from the desire to draft an athletic specimen who still needs to refine his skills.  So they prate on about the value of an education and player maturity.  One should note that similar concerns are rarely expressed for sports like tennis, gymnastics and golf dominated by white middle class kids.

The solution to this is simple though a bit expensive.  Create a genuine minor league system and/or remove the arbitrary age limits for playing in the professional leagues.  The success of Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James makes the basketball age limit even more offensive.  The kids who have not matured yet or cannot hack it at the next level will go to college.  College basketball does have cause to tremble, since more kids will consider the path taken by Brandon Jennings who skipped the sham of one year in college to play in Europe.

Most college athletes will never get a chance to play professional sports.  Careers are often cut short by injury, whims of coaches and a lack of talent to play at the next level.  Given the NCAA’s limp enforcement of academic standards for major programs it seems even more egregious to permit them to keep raking the money from their former indentured servants.

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CBS has been drawing some deserved fire in the past week over how it selects “advocacy” advertisements for the Superbowl after agreeing to run the advertisement with Florida QB Tim Tebow and his mother on the hot button topic of abortion.  See link.  Count me in among the crowd who thinks the Superbowl should be a 3 hour respite from politics (and I did not approve of the government’s heavy handed logically flawed anti-drug advertisements in past Superbowls either).  Also if CBS in its dash for cash is willing to accept advocacy advertisements, its censorship board should be far more fair and balanced.  CBS has previously rejected the United Church of Life for an advertisement announcing that they welcomed gays and lesbians and (for this Superbowl) an advertisement for a gay dating site that showed two men kissing.  See link.

The Tebow advertisement has also drawn criticism (independent of his anti-abortion views which he is obviously entitled to state) for seeming to encourage expectant mothers to ignore medical advice and play Russian roulette by relying on God to keep them from harm.  See link.

Tebow has never been shy about his faith.  However, for all the articles about how he is risking his financial future one must note that he practices the majority faith of the country in a region and a sport populated by fellow believers.  Similar public displays of religiosity do not seem to have cost the now retired Kurt Warner.  Likewise, for all the ire CBS has drawn for airing this advertisement it is still catering to the beliefs of the dominant religion in this country.  If CBS seeks to run advocacy advertisements during sporting events it should have the gumption to also run advertisements that could cause some discomfort to the same group, something freedom of speech is all about.  If it cannot live up to its obligations as a media entity, it should keep sporting events free of such advocacy advertisements involving politics and religion.

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Ever since the notorious Bodyline series in 1932-33 caused a diplomatic incident between England and Australia, politics has rarely stayed away from the game.  In stark contrast to many other team sports, international cricket has generally been played at the national level with various domestic leagues within cricket playing countries.  While some like English county cricket occasionally brought in a few foreign players, domestic cricket as the name suggests generally consisted of teams stocked with local lads.

Until the formation of the Indian Premier League two years ago, cricket did not have a private league (and even this one was started by the Indian cricket board with private team owners) akin to the various soccer, baseball, basketball and ice hockey leagues around the world.    The new IPL also had to reach an accommodation with various national cricket boards to make sure that players would be available for international tournaments.  A very different setup than that which exists in the United States where the MLB and NHL seriously consider not making their baseball and hockey players available for the Olympics.

But these controversies pale before the brouhaha sweeping the subcontinent today.  It started when the latest IPL player auction failed to select a single player from World Twenty20 champion Pakistan.  See link.  This promptly brought tit for tat exchanges between the Pakistani and Indian governments.  Pakistan alleging that this was orchestrated by an Indian government not serious about peace with Pakistan and the Indian government retorting that they had placed no restrictions on the operations of the private league Pakistan should look to themselves as to why the snub occurred.  The Pakistani media has resorted to its typical bout of conspiracy theories involving the Indian spy agency RAW, the local mafia and hard right nationalist politicians.  See link.  Stung by the snub, Pakistan has revoked future participation by its players in the IPL.  See link.

I think Occam’s razor rather than any deep conspiracy to humiliate Pakistan probably provides the likeliest explanation.  Emotions in India still run high from the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the half-hearted Pakistani attempts to suppress the terror groups Pakistan spawned. The 2009 IPL season was played in South Africa due to concerns for player security (not helped by the attack on the Sri Lankan team visiting Pakistan).  It is likely that the IPL owners simply did not want to deal with the security hassles involved with Pakistani players.

Then there is the issue of local xenophobes disrupting play.  Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray has already lashed out at film actor Shah Rukh Khan (the owner of an IPL team) for suggesting that he would have signed a Pakistani player.  See link.  While purists can hope for the old Olympic ideal of suspending hostilities during a major athletic event, the reality never lives up to the ideal.  Right wing nuts like the Shiv Sena have been disrupting Indian-Pakistani cricket matches scheduled to be played in India for the past 20 years.

It is hard not to sympathize with IPL owners for wanting to avoid this headaches.  It is not the only one they have had to deal with.  Thackeray has also turned his fire on the Australian cricketers as scapegoats for the rash of attacks on Indian students in Australia in the past year.  Now the Australians are considering skipping the lucre offered by the IPL.  See link.  A group in the Telangana region agitating for statehood within the Indian union is promising to disrupt local matches as this would distract from their pet cause.  See link.

While Pakistan sulks and opportunists and xenophobes bask in the sun, the toxic mix of nationalism, xenophobia and idiocy threaten to deny cricket fans an entertaining sports spectacle.

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• Just how bad are the Chicago Bulls?  Opposing player with the ball ties his shoes in live play and no Bulls player even tries to take the ball.  See link (includes video).
• Not a shocker.  Vladimir Putin hints that he may run for President and take back his previous office in 2012.  Meanwhile legal institutions and the rule of law in his country atrophy.
• Nicolas Sarkozy shoots off his mouth, ticks off the United Kingdom.
• Former Pakistani dictator’s graft amnesty challenged in court.  It could affect the ability of President Zardari formerly known as Mr. Ten Percent to stay in power.
• Iraq may have finally got a deal to hold its elections.  Previous blogs here and here.  The electoral deal staves off a potential civil war over sharing power and oil revenues.  Here’s hoping it holds.  Maybe we can finally start satisfying some of the other benchmarks George Bush talked about.

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Its that time of the year again.  When the traditional American meritocratic process falls sway to the blind appeal of tradition.  When the BCS Cartel starts spinning reasons why the atrocity of a post season is justified behind pointless slogans like “Its all for the student athlete” “In the current system every game is a playoff”  ”The tradition of the bowls are essential to college football” “There is no way to devise a playoff that will satisfy everybody”  Concerned with fan unrest that shows over 80% of the fan base disliking the current system, the cartel hired former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer to peddle the increasingly laughable talking points for the current system.

After the last three seasons it is laughable to suggest that the virtue of the current system is that every game is a playoff.  Two years ago the national title game consisted of a 1 loss Ohio State team and a 2 loss LSU team (somehow more deserving than all the other 2 loss teams) both of which lost their last home game.  Last year’s title game was a match up of one loss teams (magically deemed superior to the other one loss).  Oklahoma made the title game primarily because of a 3 way tie-break that relegated a team from Austin with a castrated bovine mascot to a lot of teeth gnashing.  This year the title game participants were chosen out of FIVE unbeaten teams.  The team from Austin that whined last year got to the title game largely based on pedigree, not having beaten any team of substance this year.  Yet the argument persists and will be repeated each year.  Just tell TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State this year how every game is a playoff.

College football’s ruling chiefs made it clear how much they cared about the welfare of the student-athlete (at most of the football factories the student appellation is a bit of a joke) when they raised the regular season to 12 games.  The change allowed the larger schools to rake in more revenue with an additional home game.  Somehow college basketball and baseball seasons survive across two semesters, but a playoff induced extension of the season into early January would be unbearable to the football player ( a ridiculous argument made worse by the scheduling of the so called national title game in the second week of January).

Other than the fans of the schools participating, most fans don’t care about the proliferation of bowls featuring teams with 6-6 records.  The college basketball playoff shows just how popular a football playoff could be.  Unfortunately, it will not happen in the near future.  The real reason is one which everybody knows but will never be uttered by the BCS honchos.  Money.

A playoff would require money to be shared equally among conferences.  The current system keeps the premier bowls and as result the lions share of the bowl money with the major conferences.  Under congressional pressure, the BCS reluctantly modified its rules a few years ago to make it easier to accommodate small conference schools.  This year with Oklahoma State’s belly flop against Oklahoma, Pittsburgh’s failure to knock off Cincinnati and Nebraska’s failure to shut the door on that school in Austin they reluctantly feature two small conference schools – TCU and Boise State.

And so the cycle continues.  This rant will return next year as a meaningless venting exercise.  Half of college football will start the season knowing that even perfection will not give them a share of the national title (Utah last year and TCU/Boise State/Cincinnati this year).  Even though every other sport and every other division of football somehow manages a playoff this will somehow be impossible to structure in the top tier of college football.  So the “championship” will remain decided by generally clueless media voters and not on the field.  Cartels of the world rejoice…you have college football shackled in chains.

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Fans of Adam Sandler who modeled their golf game on “Happy Gilmore” beware.  The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia has ruled the “Happy Gilmore swing” is dangerous and breached the standard of care even though the cause of the accident at issue probably had more to do with the copious amounts of alcohol consumed by the golfing party.

France sneaks into the Football World Cup aided by Thierry Henry’s hand.  Raises a question whether sportsmanship is passe or whether I am being naive.  It brings to mind Diego Maradona’s infamous hand of god that ultimately overshadowed possibly the best goal ever scored.  Too much money and raw national pride appears to be at stake for sportsmanship to win out.  I cannot help but remember the defining idiom of the then gentlemanly game that I grew up with – That’s not cricket.   Of course cricket today is rife with dubious ungentlemanly tactics.