For various and sundry reasons (a cross-country car trip, a multi-day festival of a wedding, coaching the youth of America, among others), I haven't seen a ton of news of late. On the one hand, I feel a bit adrift in the riptide of information that continues to mount unabated. On the other, whenever I encounter something I missed, I get the pleasure of experiencing a frisson of no mo' FOMO.
Case in point, the curious case of the Birmingham-Southern College baseball team and its quixotic run to the Division III College Baseball World Series.
The series in question starts today in Eastlake, Ohio, where seventh-seeded BSC takes on second-seeded Salve Regina. Today is notable for another reason at Birmingham-Southern. After 168 years in operation, the college closes its doors for good this evening.
[Of particular G:TB note, I'm fairly certain that at least one Gheorghie has an ex-wife who went to BSC, and FOG:TB and noted curiosity Bo Noonan played baseball at Salve Regina after he failed to close the deal, degree-wise, at W&M.]
The Panthers of BSC were 13-10 when the school announced its intent to close. The team has won 19 of 23 games since. The players thought their careers in Birmingham were done after dropping the first two games of the Southern Athletic Association tournament, but the NCAA delivered life support in the form of an at-large bid to the Division III tourney.
BSC won a pair of games against heavily-favored Denison in the Super Regional to advance to the World Series. If only it were as simple as that sentence. Multiple Panthers suffered from norovirus during their matchups with Denison, with several players requiring intravenous fluids in the dugout and two team members needing hospitalization.
The Panthers' coach is named Jan Weisburg, but he might as well be called Job for all of the trials and tribulations he's experienced over the past several months. And now we'll see if the screenwriters' luck holds out, as BSC is guaranteed to play at least one game wearing the uniform of a college that doesn't exist. We're rooting for all the chaos. Go Panthers!
I rode in a few cabs/Ubers whilst in SEVA this weekend. My favorite ride was from my hotel in Norfolk to the Coach House. My phone told me that David would pick me up in a blue Chevy Cruze, so when a blue Chevy Cruze pulled up I opened the door and said "David?" and David said "zman?" and I said "yes" and he said "KaMOANen! We GOOOAN!" I nestled into a thick plume of blunt smoke and looked at David's bloodshot eyes in the rearview mirror. I knew this would be a fun 12 minutes.
We made the first right and in a few blocks a clutch of young women dressed as naughty pirates passed in front of us. "UUUUNNNGGHHH!" observed David. "Indeed," I replied, "is there some sort of pirate party going on?" to which David laughingly responded "Pyra parda, pyra parda! Nah, we own Gramma Stree, aw you eveh wan in yo life is own Gramma Stree!" He expressed further opinions regarding Gramma Stree and then asked "You stain right by Gramma Stree, why you goan awway outta Colley?" So I explained that I was in town for a wedding the next day, and I was meeting up with various attendees at a restaurant. David clapped back like Clay Davis.
"Ya boy gettin murrd?!? Y'all gah go tua strip cluuhs on Gramma Stree!!" I demurred, "He already had a bachelor party for his first wedding, I don't think a strip club is in the cards tonight." David was intrigued. "He gen RE-murrd? Sheeeeit, he must have money to get murrd twice!" I replied "I haven't seen his balance sheet so I can't speak to that, but it's actually his third wedding so maybe he does." David was apoplectic. "Cot DAM!" he blurted, "this n***a a freak! Three times, sheeeit! He a freak!"
The music gods intervened to save me, as David's jam came on. I know this because he heard the early strains of the song and said "UUUUNNNGGHHH!" as he did when he saw the naughty pirates and turned the radio up very loud. Our readers know I'm fond of hiphop and I'm no prude, but I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "He can't be saying that" I thought to myself, so I Shazamed it and got this:
I then googled "shake sumn lyrics" and confirmed that yeah, DaBaby was really saying what it sounded like he was saying. I can't do it justice, watch the video.
"Make the ghetto bitches put their hands on their knees" makes me feel like a scene from "10" where Dudley Moore complains about today's youth and their music--I can't find it on YouTube, but here are the lines:
George Webber : If you were dancing with your wife, or girlfriend you knew in high school, and you said to her, Darling, they're playing our song, do you know what they'd be playing?
George Webber : Why Don't We Do It In The Road. Fuckin' hell kind of era is that?
Although I don't plan on pumping "Shake Sumn" from zmobile anytime soon, I might sneak it onto a jukebox the next time I'm out and overserved.
I wasn't able to completely tell this story to anyone because of my long and rambling storytelling style and everyone's general lack of interest in me. One of Whit's high school buddies explained that "Gramma Stree" isn't Grammar Street or Grandma Street as I hypothesized, it's Granby Street, and clarified that there are no strip clubs there (but he wishes there were) and the story dissolved into a noodie bar tangent. Similarly, I met some GTB lurkers and when I introduced David's car I said that it smelled like San Francisco and they recoiled shouting "Ah! San Fran smells like shit and piss and vomit!" and went off on their experiences there so my story dissolved again.
Long, lovely weekend celebrating our boy Whit and his bride, with friendship and joy very much on the menu and Memorial Day traffic both directions very much in the mix. And now we turn to the stuff that makes us love sports and hate it at the same time.
Tonight at 6:30, my kids play in the semifinal of our regional tournament. Win, and we advance to the regional final and secure a berth in the quarterfinals of the state tournament. Lose, and our season ends, and with it the career of seven seniors, many of whom you'll know from our chronicles of their freshman season.
The aftermath of the shootout win in the District tournament final.
One of those kids was just named the District Player of the Year. Two others made the All-District first team. One of those two smashed home the penalty that clinched the District Tournament title. I'm a bit player in this ensemble, and if I'm not ready for it to end, I can't imagine how the kids feel.
We have a very stout defense (in ten regular season and tournament games in District play, we allowed six goals) and an offense that huffs and puffs and generally wins the possession battle but isn't very efficient with its end product (over that same span, we scored 12 goals in eight games if you discount the 16 we scored in two games against a woefully undermatched opponent). As a result, we've played a lot of close matches - we're pretty mentally tough.
We lost to our regional semifinal opponent in a windy, rainswept match earlier in the season. Both goals were lapses by our keeper, who's become much more dependable since that loss. And we outshot them by a 16-3 margin in that game. We're better. And sports are weird.
Pokey LaFarge is a youngish guy whose music Spotify occasionally serves up to me. His sound has evolved over the years from really old timey (like the Squirrel Nut Zippers) to old timey (like J.D. McPherson) to his latest album Rhumba Country which inspired this post. It's not fair to say it sounds like a Beck album, because those are big shoes to fill, but like Beck he melds a bunch of different musical styles together and I dig it.
The first Pokey song I heard was End of My Rope which is one of his more moderately old timey jams from a few albums ago, Rock Bottom Rhapsody.
Here's the title track from his first album. You'll see what I mean about the Zippers.
He made a handful of albums with this general sound, gradually adding more background musicians and improving production quality.
Then in 2020 he released Rock Bottom Rhapsody. I guess the pandemic gave him the opportunity to listen to music that wasn't originally recorded on a wax cylinder and he did some songs like this.
In 2021 he released In the Blossom of Their Shade, probably after listening to a few reggae and surf records. See what I mean?
Continuing his southward musical journey, Rhumba Country includes a few Latin influenced songs. I'm particularly fond of One You, One Me and its nominal hiphop lyrical flow at the beginning.
The rest sounds like something you would get from Dan Auerbach's solo stuff. You know how much I enjoy pseudo-soul jams like this.
All this is a long-winded way of saying I like Pokey LaFarge's new album and encourage you to listen to it.
Today’s dispatch from the Tar Heel State, my current home, regards brave legislators working to keep the citizenry safe. Or something like that.
North Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly recently passed a bill that potentially criminalizes the wearing of face masks for any reason other than as part of a costume. Because nothing reflects conservative ideology like restricting choice and making people think twice about how they look and react to their surroundings.
NC House Bill 237 of course comes mounted on the mantel of law enforcement, hence its title: the Unmasking Mobs and Criminals bill. It would increase the penalties for those who commit crimes while wearing a face mask and attempting to conceal their identity. What it also does is repeal a measure that was instituted early in the COVID-19 pandemic that permitted the state or various localities to implement mask mandates in the name of public health.
Republicans say they’re simply fighting crime. Critics of the bill say that the elderly or those with compromised immune systems, or those who simply want an extra layer of protection in crowds and public spaces, can now be targeted by the po-po for wearing a face mask.
GOP Sen. Eldon “Buck” Newton, the bill’s sponsor and an attorney by trade, said he was befuddled about opposition to the measure, which passed the Senate 30-15 on straight party lines. He accused critics of a basic misunderstanding of law enforcement and of using scare tactics to suggest that anyone wearing a mask can be arrested. He told Charlotte’s ABC affiliate, “I would like to meet the law enforcement officer or the DA that wants to prosecute Granny for wearing a mask in the Walmart. Unless she got arrested sticking steaks in her bag and trying to conceal her identity – then I could see it happening – and that’s what this bill is designed to address.”
Hard to argue with the earnest intentions of a man who after college served as an aide to conservative grenade launcher and noted race-baiter Sen. Jesse Helms, and who during a campaign for attorney general several years ago told a crowd that those who wave rainbow flags are “upset about the way things have always been in this state” and to go back and tell family and friends “how hard we must fight to keep our state straight.”
The House bill’s face mask repeal received most of the attention, but the conservative majority also included down-bill language that would exempt religious institutions from having to follow executive orders or even state or local government orders and restrictions. It also ratcheted up criminal penalties for demonstrators who block roads and highways, and it allows for civil liability against demonstration organizers if emergency vehicles are ruled to have been impeded from reaching victims. Decide for yourself how latter parts of the bill “unmask” mobs and criminals. Or former parts of the bill, for that matter.
To be fair, the bill hasn’t yet reached the state House of Representatives, so it’s not law. If and when it does, there’s no reason to think it won’t pass easily. The legislature has Republican veto-proof majorities in both chambers – 30-20 in the Senate, 71-49 in the House – thanks largely to gerrymandered voting districts that exist at both the state and Congressional level.
The “Unmasking” bill is of a piece with a good deal of Republican legislation and posturing that’s often accompanied by appeals to freedom and fear. Eliminating face masks is about catching criminals. Punishing protesters is about law and order. Vaccine requirements and pandemic mitigation measures are unwanted government intrusion. Voter registration hurdles and voter roll purges are about election integrity despite scant evidence of fraud. Abortion restrictions aren’t about women’s rights and women’s health but the sanctity of human life. Measures to reduce gun violence are an assault on the Constitution. Immigration restrictions are about stemming the tide of all those illegal undesirables. Broad health care and expanded safety nets are socialist giveaways to people who don’t deserve it. Opposition to LGBTQ rights and bathroom accommodations is a bulwark against deviants and predators. Regulation and oversight of corporations are a drag on capitalism and free enterprise.
Both sides of the political aisle are complicit in our present dysfunction. No getting around that. But it’s clear that some will discard masks to score cheap points in one area while using them elsewhere for greater gain.
On Tuesday evening at 10:30 EST, little Loudoun United FC take on mighty Los Angeles FC in the 2024 US Open Cup Round of 16. Loudoun, hometown team for me and Marls, are currently in 8th place in the USL Championship Eastern Conference table with a record of three wins, two draws, and six losses. LAFC have been to the last two MLS Cup finals, having won the first division title in 2022. It's a mismatch on paper, my friends.
As the cliche goes, they don't play games on paper. At least not soccer games.
Loudoun have reached this point in the tournament by defeating the Richmond Kickers in a shootout before traveling to the west coast to vanquish Orange City FC, 2-1. LAFC beat Loudoun's leaguemate Las Vegas Lights FC by a 3-1 count to reach the 16s.
LAFC have World Cup winner Hugo Lloris in the net. Loudoun counter with Cannes native Hugo Fauroux. We see your Hugo, and we call. 'Cause a raise might be impudent.
2023 MLS Golden Boot winner Denis Bouanga leads LAFC with eight goals on the season, while the club awaits the July debut of Lloris' countryman Olivier Giroud. Chatham, New Jersey's own Zach Ryan tops Loudoun with three tallies through the club's 11 matches. There are no French forwards on the way to Leesburg, though midfielder Florian Valot is from Pau, and has two assists on the season. Seems pretty even.
Loudoun midfielder Drew Skundrich is married to USWNT and Washington Spirit midfielder Andi Sullivan. LAFC is part-owned by Drew Carey and Mia Hamm (in addition to Will Ferrell, Nomar Garciaparra, and Magic Johnson). Dammit, one-upped again.
LAFC are known for the 3252, the boisterous fan group that takes its name for the seating capacity of home field BMO Stadium's north end. Loudoun United officially averages 2,664 fans per game in its 5,000-seat hime, Segra Field, and I'm here to tell you that count is generous.
I can't find odds anywhere on the various betting sites, but I assume the touts would have LAFC at somewhere around -1000 to win. Can't really argue that. Loudoun United have never made the USL Championship playoffs, let alone won a title. Hell, the club's never even had a winning season, nor really been close to having one. In the club's five-year history, Loudoun has won 34, drawn 22, and lost 102. Not great, Bob.
Been a good run for the boys in red and white. Here's hoping LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo does the noble thing and rests his starters (and second team) ahead of their MLS match against Atlanta United. That's our best shot. Regardless, Marls and I will be hunkered down at Loudoun Brewing Company, the official matchday home of the Loudoun Stampede, United's supporters group. Let's go Loudoun!
Headed out of Terre Haute in the morning of our third day and into a thick, pervasive fog. The mood was better than the weather, as my kid rolled out a dope alt-rock-country Spotify mix of her own making for the morning.
Indiana's roads were less than excellent, and our little Hyundai Elantra bucked and bounced over I-70's pitted pavement. Not far from the Ohio border, we started seeing billboards for Uranus Fudge Factory. The first read "The Best Fudge Comes From Uranus". It got better, or at least sillier, from there. We managed to capture this billboard:
I encourage you to peruse the website linked above, which includes headings like 'Everything You Need is In Uranus', 'Fudge Packer Favorites', 'We Love to Pack Your Fudge', and 'A Taste of Uranus' among many, many other similarly juvenile and delicious marketeering wordplay. The red states may be going full Handmaid's Tale, but they seem to enjoy puns, so, cool?
Once we got into Ohio, the roads got so much smoother, almost as if government prioritizing certain public accommodations can actually impact things in a positive way. You're not here to listen to an aging liberal whine. Bygones.
Things progressed without incident until we left the Greater Columbus environs. About an hour outside Ohio's capital, I glanced in my rearview and saw a hurlyburly of police lights rapidly gaining on me. I slid into the right lane and watched a late model pickup truck blast past me followed by five police vehicles.
The chase continued for the better part of an hour. Every so often, the road would straighten and we could see the procession off in the distance, the twinkling lights on the cruisers gathering strengths as several other cars joined the party. On a couple of occasions, police vehicles would drop back from the chase and try to slow the traffic on the highway down. At another point, we saw an officer with a spike strip fail to deploy it in time, looking forlornly down the highway as his missed opportunity sped down the road.
Finally, we came around a bend and saw the police caravan stopped by the side of the road, many guns drawn, and officers deployed in tactical positions with weapons pointed down from the highway into a ravine, long guns braced on the guardrail. You can see a little of it in the video linked here, because I can't figure out how to embed it, with our (my) excited commentary. Here's a still:
Friends, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen on a highway, and I've watched FOG:TB DDS Laster try to drive a car. My kid didn't think it was all that interesting, but she's an idiot.
That idiot drove us the final four hours home, which let me watch some golf and text with some Gheorghies, so she's not all bad.
Made it home in 10 hours flat with some inefficient stops. As always, any experiences beyond the time spent with my increasingly open kid are a bonus. That we got fudge puns and cops on parade was more than I could've expected.
I would tell you miscreants that I'm disappointed in your lack of production, but that's not the kind of tiny dictator I choose to be. Instead, I'll give the people what they want. And I know they want this.
Grabbed dinner last night at a hopping little joint called Terminal Public House in downtown Terre Haute, right in the shadow of the Terre Haute Convention Center. As my daughter and I drove the 2.5 miles from our hotel to the restaurant, I thought to myself, "I really thought I'd see some Larry Bird shit here". Alas, the Hick from French Lick was nowhere to be seen.
Until we parked, walked around a corner, and came upon this:
Sitting shotgun while my kid drives us across the Mighty Mississip, so I've got a minute or two to share something that tickled my fancy earlier today.
Caught this traffic sign as we entered into Missouri from Kansas, and wondered how the Missouri Department of Transportation knew where I was.
It's a great time of year if you're into watching throngs of people celebrate their local sporting club advancing to a higher level of competition. Technically, also true if you like watching fans suffer as their club's are relegated, but nobody's that much of a dick. [To be fair, if the Yankees were relegated, I'd do the Ren & Stimpy dance.]
Today's entry comes from Northern Germany, where Hamburg-based FC St. Pauli clinched promotion to the Bundesliga after 13 years in the second division. The team is famously governed by explicitly leftwing principles - some if its fans remain angry that the club sells merchandise and participates in capitalist enterprises, an interesting if possibly self-defeating point of view. The club is also fiercely local and focused on its civic responsibilities, and boasts a 31 year-old American manager. Pauli is one we can get behind, as they'll be one of the most dogged of underdogs next season.
Como are an Italian soccer club with a long history, but not much of a winning pedigree. I Lariani have spent 14 of their 117 professional seasons in Serie A, usually toiling in the second or third divisions of Italian soccer. As the club's website itself hints in claiming Il Gioco Più Bello Del Mondo Nella Location Più Bella Del Mondo ("The Beautiful Game in the Most Beautiful Location"), it's probably not that difficult to accept mediocrity when you're living in Lake Como.
As recently as 2019, Como were playing in Serie D, the lowest rung of Italian professional soccer. Over the past few years, the club made a steady climb towards the top. And yesterday, after a 1-1 draw with Cosenza and Venezia's 2-1 loss to Spezia, Como clinched its first promotion to Serie A since 2003.
Striker Alessandro Gabrielloni joined Como in 2018, after a bankruptcy and recapitalization landed the club in Serie D. He's scored 63 goals in 202 matches in his seven years in blue. And at a time when professional athletes get accused of not caring, he showed how wrong that can be in the agonizing seconds before the final whistle yesterday.
I haven't posted anything in a long time and I don't have anything particular cogent to say, although I've seen a few interesting pieces of political news recently.
First, the New York Times and other major media outlets reported that a parasitic worm ate a portion of RFK Jr.'s brain and then died there. Lest you assert "this is lamestream media bias against the antivaxx crowd!!" I direct you to the portion of the article that quotes deposition testimony given by RFK Jr. in which he said that doctors determined than an abnormality seen in his brain scan "was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died." More succinctly, he testified under oath that he had a dead worm in his brain. He further testified "I have cognitive problems, clearly," and "I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me." In response to the article, RFK Jr. twat (xeeted?) "I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate." So he admits the whole worm thing. And he had mercury poisoning too, which also doesn't bode well for his overall health or his cognition.
Apparently you get worms in your brain by eating undercooked pork, which can carry tapeworms. Typically the tapeworm larvae wind up in your intestines but sometimes they get lost and wind up in your brain.
Once there, they eat your brain but I guess that isn't what they're supposed to nosh on so they die and your body naturally walls them off, forming cysts. Like this.
Just to be clear, you don't want that. All this tapeworm talk reminds me of Irvine Welsh's novel Filth which is partially narrated by the main character's tapeworm. I've been reading more of his stuff lately (once I get used to reading in a Scottish accent I keep going so I don't have to reacclimatize) and it's all good. My two favorite recent passages are "I was differently made: at his age I had testicles as vicious and hairy as the heads of two ferrets" (from Dead Men's Trousers) and "Terry gave thanks for all those years of excessive beer-drinking and takeaways. Without them he would have fallen to certain death. A lesser man, body honed on exercise and diet rather than sloth, indolence and abuse would be dead by now, he reflected. A lesser man." (from Glue).
Second, Donald Trump is running his reelection campaign like a goddamned gangster. And I don't mean "gangster" euphemistically, I mean it literally. He has family all over "this thing of ours." First he installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the RNC. This makes it easier for him to divert super PAC money to his pay legal bills. Second, he plans on making Uday and Qusay Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump "loyalty czars" in his next administration. This means he will only appoint and hire people who pledge complete fealty to DJ Trump. Third, he got 18-year-old Barron Trump named as an at-large delegate for Florida in the Republican national convention.
What do all of these people have in common? They're family, which means they will always be loyal. You can never lose your family.
Finally, Trump's Veepstakes competition is well underway. All sorts of seemingly important people are willing to debase themselves on national television for a shot at being on the ticket. Kristi Noem shot her way out of contention, but there's still plenty of chatter around JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum, and Tim Scott. Like I said in 2016, "he's running his campaign on some next-level reality TV competition three-steps-ahead shit." So it won't be any of those jackals.
Trump needs to win this thing to stay out of jail, and he needs to stay in office for the full four years so he can run again in 2028. There's only one way out of office once he's in (assuming the Big Macs don't get him in his sleep). He's clearly unimpeachable--he literally staged a coup and suffered no consequences in the Senate. All he has to worry about is section 4 of the 25th Amendment, which says in part:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
The key here is that the 25th Amendment can only be triggered if the VP signs on. In order to boot the Prez, you need the Veep. There is absolutely positively no fucking way in hell that Donald Trump is going to give anyone the opportunity to shiv him in the back unless that person is a rock-solid reliable supplicant. And that has to be family. Maybe Tomax or Xamot Junior or Eric, but they're both morons and The Don knows it. I think that means Ivanka, Jared, or Kimberly Guilfoyle.
You're probably saying "No way! No one go for want this!" to which I reply "Oh really?" Think about all the shit DJ Trump pulled over the past 77 years. You think the people who are willing to tolerate that won't tolerate some nepotism on the bottom of the ticket?
Continuing this week's theme of highlighting passionate and modestly weird humans putting themselves out into the world, we give you two-time World Speedgolf Champion Rob Hogan. This is what he looked like back in 2013 when he won his first title:
He's changed his look a bit in the interim:
Hogan excels at Speedgolf, in which competitors are allowed a maximum of 7 clubs, and are scored on the basis of both strokes and time taken to complete 18 holes. In 2015, when Hogan won the world title, he shot a 77 in 40 minutes. Tidy round, that.
Here's a video highlight reel of his victory in the 2022 British Open:
Over the years, Hogan has changed more than his look. He's also evolved from an elite competitor in an esoteric event to a manic, exuberant teacher of the broader game, and that's what we're here to celebrate.
Hogan's @speedgolfrob Instagram account is a careening bender of physiological coaching tips and madman-inflected mental advice. Here are a few samples:
I haven't played golf in a few months, but I've stored up a bunch of new swing thoughts, courtesy of Hogan. And if I'm being honest, possibly a few life lessons, as well.
We love the weird, the whimsical, and the eccentric in these parts. That should come as no surprise. And we embrace the enthusiasts who share their particular interests and in so doing help us both expand our parameters and give us freedom to explore our own peculiarities.
In the spirit of Gheorghiness, I give you today Francis Bourgeois (real name: Luke Nicolson).
This cat loves trains. Like, really loves trains. He's built a social media following in the millions by sharing his genuine enthusiasm for engines and boxcars all over the United Kingdom. He gives British Bill Nye vibes - a goofy, nerdy and unquestionably enthusiastic joy. As an example, here's a bit of his patter from a profile in The Guardian, "“Oh my God… Holy shit!” he yells, arms akimbo. “Look down there, that’s really rare!” Beneath us, a train is trundling along the line. “Usually there are only two locomotives on that service. This time there are four. All in the same livery. It’s verging on impossible. Fuck!” He takes a moment to catch his breath."
The Guardian reporter started the profile a skeptic and was utterly convinced of Bourgeois' genuine emotional attachment to trains. For his unique and utterly total embrace of his own passion, we salute the young man.
As college athletics trundle blindfolded and barefoot through the furniture-filled, Lego-littered room of athlete empowerment and conference upheaval, questions often arise. Among them: Will major college sports look different? And, Is it really all about money?
The answers, respectively, are ‘yes’ and ‘hell yes.’
The next installment of oversized collectives and “Our team has to go where?” commences in the fall when the two alphas – the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences – and the mid-alphabet, reactionary Big 12 and Atlantic Coast conferences re-open for business. The majority of Division I programs will see little difference in how they conduct their affairs, except as witnesses to the yawning financial disparities in the system.
The latest example comes in the form of the College Football Playoff, which expands to 12 teams next season and whose rewards and payouts are heavily tilted toward the SEC and Big Ten. College snoop Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports dropped a well sourced, deep dive into the origins of the new playoff structure. Read it for yourself, but a couple of key takeaways are that the arrangement might not have been so one-sided had all parties been able to agree on a playoff format as recently as a couple of years ago, and the SEC and Big Ten went full brinksmanship and aren’t shy about displaying who’s in charge.
Did I include this image of Greg Sankey and Ted Cruz to damn by association? Hard to say.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said that his conference would have walked away from the playoff and figured out something on its own. “When we ended that set of meetings in January 2022 without a decision, I was clear: If you are going to walk away from this opportunity, we are going to reevaluate our position on format, revenue sharing and governance,” he said in Dellenger’s piece. Tony Petitti, commissioner of the Big Ten, said that “if we couldn’t craft a deal, we’d look at other options. We would have started over. Without seeing better alignment, we weren’t going to sign. We were 100 percent confident and made it clear that we were only going to do a deal that worked for us.”
The Big Ten and SEC already distance themselves financially from the rest of Division I due to their massive football TV contracts. Both are expected to distribute in the neighborhood of $70 million annually to each member school going forward. The ACC and Big 12 will pay out approximately $40-45 million annually to their schools, under terms of their own TV contracts. Now add the new playoff deal, which will pay out an average of about $1.3 billion per year for six years. The SEC and Big Ten each will receive 29 percent of the revenue, the ACC 17.1 percent, and the Big 12 14.7 percent. Notre Dame will receive one percent, and the 64 schools in the so-called Group of Five will split the remaining nine percent, with a few extra nuggets and sweeteners thrown in.
In terms of actual dollars, SEC and Big Ten schools will receive more than $20 million apiece, while ACC and Big 12 schools get $10-12 million each. Totaling it up, the discrepancy between the Big Two and the second two grows from $30-35 million per year to between $40 and $50 million annually. My public school arithmetic skills suggest that means a $200 million gap between first- and second-tier athletic departments inside five years.
The Big Ten and SEC Bigfooted the discussions a) because they reasoned that they were the most successful participants in the playoff historically and brought more value to the table, and b) because they could. Sankey even disclosed that the 29 percent figure in the new deal was a compromise, that the initial proposal was an even greater cut but came down as part of negotiations. That, boys and girls, is leverage.
In any case, upper tier college football will begin to look more like European pro soccer and the English Premier League, excepting things such as relegation and stoppage time and foreign financing – for now, anyway. Everybody’s playing the same game, but there are a handful of deep-pocketed franchises that can afford the best players, the best facilities and simply outspend the competition. It’s already that way to an extent, but the funding gap will make it even more pronounced.
The SEC and Big Ten also reason that they and their schools need more money because their expenses will be greater. Travel ain’t cheap when your league stretches from New Jersey to southern California and the Pacific Northwest, or from central Florida to Oklahoma. Though the newly constituted Big 12 and ACC say: Tell me about it.
The greatest expense, however, will be athlete compensation and whatever form that takes. Toward that end, the SEC and Big Ten have begun preliminary research into areas such as collective bargaining and athletes-as-employee status. Many figure that’s how it will play out in the effort to avoid out-and-out bidding wars, to get a handle on costs, and to produce something resembling consistent spread sheets in the event that private equity firms want to partner up with leagues or schools. What, you thought hedge funds and the mega-wealthy wouldn’t be interested in eight- and nine-figure revenue streams because the company letterhead is attached to college sports? You thought that college presidents and governing boards would decline access to that kind of cash, given those groups' possible mercenary practices? You’re new around here, aren’t you?
Bemoan the fact that money has forever changed the college athletics that we grew up with and get all misty about. Though it’s worth noting that the old system was a charade in many ways – an underground economy hidden behind the mantel of amateurism and the glow of youth. Nine- and ten-figure deals disrupted and distended the system but also brought the entire enterprise into the light and revealed actions and motives. Most important, it gave the primary participants, athletes, additional freedom and a long overdue cut, as the old structure was both unfair and, as courts have repeatedly ruled of late, illegal. Change is afoot, and if we don’t know about the how, at least we have a pretty good idea about the why.
