The Ref Is An Idiot

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/01/27/run-a-mile-in-my-stripes/

Early in the first half of the basketball game I watched Tuesday, I determined a referee had missed a foul call. I am not much for yelling at officials, but this time I had to really, truly resist the urge.

The official who had blown the call was me.

I had not expected to ref last week. My trip to the gym was for the purpose of cheering on my niece in her eighth-grade interscholastic game. However, when we arrived, we noticed the previous game had only one official working it. The faster A-team game in which my niece would play as the visiting squad really required two officials, but it turned out the other man scheduled had gotten stuck at his day job and wouldn’t make it. The small gym was devoid of qualified officiating candidates. So we settled for “kinda qualified.”

Part of my sister’s job at the school my nieces attend includes scheduling officials, so she knows how important it is for kids to have a well-called game. Missi suggested me anyway. As I was giving my 8-year-old niece a hard time about having taken the seat for which I claimed to have purchased a ticket, my sister asked if I would consider reffing. I replied affirmatively, so she spoke to her contacts at the host school and they agreed.

Luckily, I had not worn a three-piece suit to the game, in large part because I don’t think I own one. I do own a referee’s striped shirt, a relic from a long-ago commercial, but don’t generally carry it with me. So I took to the court wearing jeans, walking shoes, an I Am Douglass t-shirt, and Missi’s spare whistle.

I would be working with my new best friend, Johnny. He explained that the officials have to be each other’s best friends, because the coaches and spectators would not necessarily have your welfare in mind. Throughout the game, he would act like my buddy, too, helping me get to the right position and always staying positive about what we were doing.

I appreciated Johnny’s accommodating outlook, because I definitely missed some calls. I hadn’t refereed regularly since college intramurals and it showed. Remembering the details proved tricky. I had to remind myself to count ten seconds, five seconds, and three seconds without moving my lips. In fact, the first time I blew my sister’s whistle nearly came because her daughter had stayed in the lane too long. Thank you, Mia, for getting out of the lane with a second to spare, thereby preventing me from having to explain myself to your grandparents.

At one point in the first quarter, the home coach loudly suggested I should have called traveling. He was probably right. One of the tricky parts with officiating less experienced players is to decide how closely to call the game. Do you call every little thing, even if it kills the flow of the game? Or do you let a few things go?

I remember thinking at one point during the game, “Wait a minute, that’s a double dribble. I’m supposed to call that.” My father later told me he didn’t think she did double dribble, but acknowledged I was a lot closer to the play (which doesn’t mean I didn’t screw it up, though I will note that my brother-in-law agreed with the call).

The most important stuff to whistle, I felt, was anything that could result in danger to a participant. I called a foul with 1.8 seconds to go in the game because I felt like one player shoved the other one in a spot where she could have sent her opponent careening into the stands. While that call wasn’t going to affect the outcome of the game in question, one hopes the offending player learns not to do it in the future.

I missed at least one dangerous play in part because I didn’t look in the right spot. On a drive to the basket, my eyes immediately went to the rim to watch the ball fall through and I missed a push in the back that should have been a foul. I realized that had probably happened when I saw the shooter lurch toward the wall, but by then it was too late to call it. Next time, I would have let Johnny see if the ball went in while I paid attention to the act of shooting.

I got heckled. My family assures me none of the abuse came from them. They did tell me a grandfather was pretty annoyed with my lack of a call on a rebound. I heard him, too, and just for his information, there was contact on both sides and there was no way I was calling a double foul with two minutes left in a 20-point game.

It was a fortunate circumstance that the Falcons (my niece’s team) defeated the Owls by a comfortable margin. I dreaded the idea that a close game could hinge on a call I might make for or against a family member and her friends. At one point early on, I recall thinking that Mia had done a nice job getting around a screen before reminding myself that today she was just number 11.
The final totals : 0 technical fouls called, one Falcon fouled out, and minimal lingering soreness across my aging physique. I’ll take it.

Screaming abuse at game officials has never been my style, and, indeed, I find it deplorable behavior for the most part. In case you didn’t know, those folks have a tough job. If you don’t believe me, try it sometime when your niece’s game is a ref short.



Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Love, Sports-Style

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/01/19/love-sports-style/

courtesy Brad Newton/Texas Rangers

 

Two people attending a sporting event often share an emotional rollercoaster. They experience ups and downs, hanging on what happens next. They calm their nerves by telling themselves it’s only a game, even though they know it’s much more.

And if everything goes well in the end, they go out on a second date together.

On Friday, Feb 5, the Fort Worth Weekly will host LOVE FW: A Curated Singles Event. The brains behind the Weekly’s fine Xs & Ohs blog have created it, and if you’re single in Fort Worth, you should really sign up. Hell, they’re holding it at a brewery. Even if you’ve declared a moratorium on dating, you surely haven’t given up beer (in fact, a relationship with beer often accompanies dissatisfaction in relationships with the opposite gender).

So now that you’ve signed up, thanks for coming back to read the rest of this column, which, like my other Fort Worth Weekly material, involves sports. What if you meet someone at LOVE FW and you’re wanting to figure out where to take this fascinating individual on an actual date? If you’re still reading, you like sports, so why not take him or her on a sports date?

A trip to a game has some advantages for a first date. It’s low pressure, with no awkward need to slow dance when the band breaks into “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” The action on the floor/court/ice can break up awkward silence with the occasional “Wow, did you see him deke that guy into next week!” Because you’re in a casual atmosphere, it removes some pressure to dress up. A game tends to end with a good portion of the evening still left, too, so you can always go elsewhere when it’s over.

Once the date is set, I expect it is probably a good idea to go ahead and buy the game tickets. Advance purchase assures no “oh, um, let’s just get frozen yogurt” moments when you show up and the arena is sold out, plus it makes it tougher for the person you’re courting to back out if you’ve messaged him or her a photo of the tickets. In today’s world, resale markets help you unload them anyway in case the not-yet-significant other gets cold feet or meets someone with better seats.

One cautionary note for sports first-daters: beware the kiss cam. This scoreboard feature picks out random couples in the crowd and shows them on the video board. The expectation is for the pair to then kiss each other. If things are going really well, of course, that may be just what you want. Otherwise, if you spot it before your companion does, that would be a superb moment to offer to head to the concourse for a round of beers or pretzels. I am particularly sensitive to this phenomenon as I know a lot of the crew members who work the shows. Cruel directors and camera operators like nothing better than to embarrass unfortunate friends on a night out.

So where should you go? Certainly if both of you like a certain team or sport that’s in-season, pick that one. Otherwise, I have a few ideas for you.

None of these jaunts carry huge price tags. Of course, you can always splurge for VIP packages, and yes, if you can afford to hire a private jet and fly to the Champions League final, do that. If you’re out with someone who’s meh about sports, you may need to consider adding an extra high-end element so he or she can tell friends about the trip to the suite or the pit passes. For the most part, though, let’s assume you just want a fun North Texas sports experience with a little pizzazz.

Texas Rangers
Buy tickets in Globe Life Park’s Lexus Club Terrace on the left field side, ideally sections 210 and 211. The location tends to get what passes for a summer breeze, plus you have a good view of the game and the main scoreboard. You’re not in the zone, however, where you’re likely to get hit by a foul ball if you’re paying more attention to your paramour than the game. From a date standpoint, it also offers air-conditioned bars just above the seating section. They work well if you want to cool off and just chat over a beverage.

Before or after the game, I like Birraporetti’s in Arlington for their Caprese salad, quality house wines, and relaxed atmosphere.

If you’re wild about a Rangers fan and can’t wait around for baseball season, you can arrange a flower delivery from team mascot Rangers Captain in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day.

Dallas Mavericks/Stars
You’ve got a ton of lovely upscale dining and drinking options in and around American Airlines Center. If you’re not a high roller, and are sitting in the top level, consider the Dr Pepper Fan Zone. If you just want to go somewhere and converse, I have never seen it crowded or noisy. They don’t serve alcohol, but there’s something appealing about just sharing a Dr Pepper. It might even be classified as “cute.” You can always head to one of the bars later.

Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo
The rodeo just started and runs another couple of weeks. You might be hard-pressed to go with someone you meet at LOVE FW, as the final performance happen the following day. However, keep it in mind until then and by all means for next year. In addition to watching some of the best cowboys, cowgirls, and bucking stock in the world, you have the whole Stock Show through which to wander. If you want to mix in some culture before your sports, visit a museum beforehand. Kimbell members park free in the facility’s parking lot.

College Park Center


This might be the best value in local sports, especially given the way the Texas-Arlington men’s basketball team has been playing. They do a lot of double-headers, so you can see both the women’s and men’s teams for $7.00 – $20.00. What I especially like about the UTA game experience is nearby downtown Arlington. I’m partial to the Grease Monkey, but you have lots of good options for pre- or post-game socializing. This summer, the WNBA’s Dallas Wings will play at College Park Center. My guess is that a guy who shows respect for the women’s game might impress a sports-minded female.

Pro Wrestling
It’s part sport, part spectacle, and a good way find out if your partner takes him or herself too seriously. You’ve got Wrestlemania 32 coming up at AT&T Stadium on April 3rd. There are also a number of periodic local smaller-scale wrestling events going on at any given time. I noticed that VIP Wrestling is putting on a “Love, Lies, and Lariats” show on February 12th in Arlington.

Ride The Bike
Differences in ability levels make a lot of participatory sports experiences with someone you barely know potentially problematic. Suggesting you do an iron distance triathlon together if he hasn’t trained for one likely won’t get you far. However, casual cycling, perhaps followed by a coffee or other beverage might set a nice tone. Choose somewhere picturesque and not too taxing. Fort Worth’s Trinity Trails provide some excellent options, I like to start by the Stockyards and ride through Trinity Park past the zoo.

Sports Charity Events


Attending a sportsy fundraiser offers a casual good time and the do-gooder component can’t hurt your chances of making a good impression. Some of these can get a bit pricy, but they also often provide a tax deduction. I worked for years on the Park Place Dealerships Texas Rangers Triple Play Game Show Spectacular and think it would be a fun first date. Many others probably would, too. Charity golf tournaments generally work on a scramble format, which allows a high-handicapper to have a good time playing with someone better.

Bowling
If you don’t want to go to a game, ride a bike, or attend a non-profit event, you and your sports friend can always go bowling. Or, if you somehow discover you’re both truly dedicated keglers, consider a trip to the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame. It’s located in Arlington and offers a wealth of displays you can browse in your shoes with the sizes printed on the outside.

Final Tips
• Do your homework but don’t be a geek. If you know the names of the teams competing, their relative position in the standings, and some basic rules, that should get you through most situations. Spending the entire night explaining the intricacies of the left-wing lock probably isn’t what this is all about. The caveat to that assertion is that if you casually note that the Mavericks just switched to their half-court trap and your date suggests they need to get more aggressive on those double-teams, then the sports talk is on.

• Don’t bring your baseball glove. Not on the first date.

• Don’t eat a Choomongous (the Rangers’ 2-foot Korean beef sandwich). It’s probably best to choose more graceful food.

• Wearing a team shirt to the game is probably fine, but leave the costumes at home. The same goes for painting team logos on your face. Avoid puckheads, blockheads, and flair hair, too.



• Manage your fandom. If your seatmate hates your team, be cool, laugh, and remember it’s just a game. If you only want to date Rangers fans, Major League baseball has a deal with match.com to allow you to meet those of like allegiance.

Conclusion
Most of the suggested experiences don’t just work for first dates, so those of you already in relationships can certainly keep them in mind with Valentine’s Day coming up. My last sports date was to a baseball game in Mexico City. If you want to hear all the details about it, or let me know about your favorite sports date spot, let’s chat February 5th at LOVE FW.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.



RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/in/rusholson

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Football Is Different

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/01/13/football-is-different/

Football is different from other sports.
The ball’s not round, certain players aren’t allowed to touch said ball, and a game can fill 100,000 seat stadiums once a week with fans wearing colors not found in nature.

Should conference alignments reflect its unique character? A basketball game last week served as a reminder of how football’s singularity affects the rest of the collegiate sports world.
In men’s hoops last Monday, the West Virginia University Mountaineers visited their non-historical rival, the Texas Christian Horned Frogs. The ‘Eers traveled roughly a thousand miles to the game, just as their baseball, swimming & diving, women’s basketball, and volleyball teams did or will do this year. A number of TCU’s teams visit Morgantown, too. Why go some 1600 kilometers to play these games? It’s because football is different.
Football always has been the alpha male in the nation’s university environment. There was once a College Football Association to negotiate big schools’ TV contracts in the sport. No such equivalent existed for golf or cross country. Teddy Roosevelt never held a summit to explore making the pole vault safer.

Football has always gotten special treatment, and it’s easy to understand why. The gridiron game is the most popular spectator sport in college athletics. Reputations, egos, and huge dollars depend on it. Those dollars, in fact, drive much of athletic departments’ decision-making. Football’s large roster size and marketing needs, among other things, make it an expensive sport in which to field a team, especially at the FBS level. Choices get made, then with an eye to maximizing the revenue the football program generates.

Certainly any purveyor of sporting contests aims to generate maximal economic returns. Football plays a unique role in college athletics, however, because it is often relied upon to create enough revenue to pay not only for its own costs but also those of sports which do not generate enough funds from sales of tickets, broadcast rights, sponsorships, and “Beat Bama” shirts, plus donor contributions, to pay for themselves. Men’s basketball and, on rare occasions, other sports at certain schools occasionally pay for themselves as well.
There’s not necessarily anything wrong with this arrangement. Fans are certainly entitled to prefer watching one sport over another. If the monies they contribute and facilitate indirectly (like sponsorship and broadcast rights sales) allow students proficient in sports besides the fans’ favored one to realize the benefits intercollegiate athletics provide, that seems a reasonably happy result.

Not all schools break even on their athletic programs, of course. The Washington Post looked the public universities (because government institutions must make the data available) in the Power Five conferences. 28 of the 48 schools they examined lost money on athletics. A USA TODAY study found that more than 200 Division I public institutions didn’t bring in enough income to cover athletic operating costs. In cases where departments don’t fund themselves, student fees tend to make up the difference.

The Post noted that proponents of intercollegiate athletics cite benefits beyond athletic budgets, including publicity that increases applications. Athletic participation certainly also provides benefits to students involved in both the sports themselves and ancillary activities like band, student radio, and valet parking for suiteholders.

It’s an inexact calculation as to whether the costs of intercollegiate athletics outweigh the benefits, and we won’t get into that debate here. But given that even the biggest football schools often don’t pay their own costs, if we could come up with a way for them to run more efficiently, we should take a look at it. That would seem especially important given that many of the institutions in question are public ones, with taxpayers ultimately on the hook for yearly cost overruns plus the infrastructure student-athletes utilize outside the athletic sphere. Given the prevalence of government student aid, that likely holds true for most private institutions as well, since those loans and grants might pay for student athletic fees that subsidize unprofitable athletic departments.

Which brings us back to TCU versus West Virginia (a 95-87 WVU win). They played each other Monday because they’re in the same conference. They’re both Big XII members in large part because of football. When the conference had openings, would either school have gotten in if they didn’t bring national football profiles? No way. Football pedigree clearly factored in the decision more than, say, traditional rivalry or geographic proximity.
So did the conference affiliation make sense from a football perspective? Perhaps so. Did it make sense from a wider perspective? To determine that, let’s look at it through two lenses : student-athlete benefit and overall effect on the state of Texas.

Student-athletes are conceivably supposed to be the most important thing about college athletics. The lessons they learn from playing are a valuable part of their preparation for life. They aim to put in enough time to get the benefits of their sport(s), but not so many hours that their commitment hurts other academic and extracurricular performances.

Football, as previously noted, is different from other sports. You play once a week, usually on Saturdays. Whether you play at WVU or Maine Tech or the Sorbonne, your travel time isn’t too different. Other sports play more frequently and often on school days. The more long road trips students endure, the more classes they miss.

Likewise, a half-dozen lengthy football road trips may not cost that much, and may well be worth the cost if you consider them vital to your gridiron success. Multiple long journeys from baseball, softball, basketball, and the rest of your department’s teams, however, quickly add much larger costs. For the unprofitable schools mentioned earlier, those costs get covered by state resources (like tuition collection, endowment depletion, property tax revenue) that could be directed elsewhere.

A pair of state schools in Texas also field teams that travel to West Virginia annually. They (and their fans) used to be able to travel the much-shorter distances to College Station, Texas for games of similar caliber. However, the public Texas A&M University made a football-related move to the Southeastern Conference and now makes its own trips to Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida.

Do these moves make sense from a student-athlete perspective? Maybe they do from a football standpoint. For the rest of the athletes, however, they miss more class and likely have fewer games their families can attend. The athletic experience they get from playing a Texas school of their caliber is no different from that gained playing one from further away. So we can conclude that football-based conference realignments may well not benefit non-football athletes.

Do the moves benefit the states in which the schools are placed? If long road trips create a lesser academic experience for student-athletes at the schools, that isn’t good. From a fiscal perspective, it seems likely they spend a lot of unnecessary money on non-football travel. The state’s residents may also be hurt economically from scheduling. Let’s face it, a Texas vs. Texas A&M game in any sport is going to be a bigger draw than A&M vs. Vanderbilt or the Longhorns vs. WVU. When the Aggies travel to TCU, Baylor, and Texas Tech, the sales tax dollars generated at local restaurants and hotels stay in-state instead of going to Mississippi or Georgia coffers.

The Aggies may make the case that they bring more TV money to Texas from their move to the SEC than they would have if they had stayed in the Big XII. Indeed, the $31.2 million distribution their conference gave them exceeded the $25.2 million Big XII schools pulled in from theirs. However, each Big XII school retains its rights to so-called third-tier games, and revenue from those might well have come very close to making up the difference. One has to also factor in losses from travel and in-state rivalries to perform a true analysis of the costs and benefits to the state as a whole.

These issues aren’t limited to Texas, either. The Rutgers to Minnesota, Miami (FL) to Boston College, and Arizona to Washington State sojourns leave a lot to be desired, too.

So what’s the solution? If the conference alignments work for football but not for other sports, perhaps the solution is to give football its own special treatment. Set up conferences for that sport that are as national in scope as you want them to be and put the other sports into conferences that make more sense geographically.

Would it work? We already have single-sport conferences in sports without universal participation, like Hockey East or the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, and a number of non-football Division I conferences. BYU’s and Notre Dame’s league arrangements cover most of their sports while leaving football independent. It’s not like colleges have placed any value on stability of conference membership in the last 20 years anyway. Frog fans, remember the WAC and the Mountain West? Or those car trips to Southwest Conference road games?

What would it take to blow up the conference structure? It might need to start with legislation from some budget-minded legislators (if that’s not an oxymoron) in affected states – probably large ones. Or perhaps it could result from a movement started by university presidents eager to make their bottom lines look more robust.

One of the trickiest parts would be the unraveling of current conference television deals, especially those with league-specific networks attached, like the Big Ten Network and the SEC Network. They need the non-football sports to provide enough programming for them to work. It’s possible they could transition to becoming general-interest collegiate sports networks (ESPNU 2, for instance), initially retaining the rights to the individual schools they currently serve through the incumbent system.

Men’s basketball, the second-largest revenue generator among collegiate sports derives most of its take from the March Madness TV deal. It would have to recalibrate the way it splits its money, too, since some of it gets distributed at the whim of conferences. It would take some complicated negotiation, but it could be done.

One hurdle will be stakeholders invested in the current conference system. I sympathize, because they have worked hard to build conference brands over the years. I suggest they embrace the change, because this solution would actually create more conferences. More conferences means more jobs for people like you and me.

In the long run, would a split of football into its own conferences mean more jobs for better-educated student athletes and for Texans who see more monies stay in-state? At the very least, it sounds like a good research project for some bright student-athlete Econ majors – once she gets back from that tennis trip to Morgantown, that is.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Penalizing Football

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/01/05/forbidding-football/

In the sport of American football, violence sometimes begets more violence. I tackle you, you stiff-arm me, your teammate tries to block my buddy, who tries to shove him into both of us, the safety flies in over the top, and we all end up in a heap on the ground. Then we get back up, if we can, and we do it again.

In a recent column in The Guardian newspaper, a writer named Dave Bry suggested we not do it again. In fact, he prefers to go beyond a mere recommendation. He would have us walk off the field and never come back via a legislative ban on the entire sport.

The issue of football’s brutality has found itself much in the news in the past few years. A new Will Smith movie, “Concussion,” has propelled it even more deeply into the pop culture landscape. Bry’s piece, entitled “American football is too dangerous, and it should be abolished,” presents a balanced summary of many of the sport’s injury issues and some arguments for and against getting rid of it. At the end of the article, after determining the NFL won’t give up wearing helmets, he opines, “Which leaves us with one moral option: illegalize it, the whole operation.”
And then the column stops.

Bry didn’t present a vision for what the world would look like when the USA has banned football. It’s possible he just didn’t have the space, and that an upcoming column will detail his football-free future. I decided not to wait, however, because you can only properly evaluate a proposed policy if you consider how it will work once implemented. You don’t want to trade for Herschel Walker and then realize later he doesn’t really fit your offensive scheme.


Firstly, you’d have to think about how you might implement the proscription. Perhaps the Super PAC Mr. Bry founds will facilitate the election of enough anti-gridiron legislators to override the veto of, say, Patriots fan Bernie Sanders, Walker’s former New Jersey Generals boss Donald Trump, or Packers fan Gary Johnson.

Would compromises have to have been made to buy votes? Would existing football interests be able to capture the political process and turn it to their interests? For the sake of argument, let’s assume not. Let’s say the Anti-Touchdown League gets its own Volstead Act, no preceding constitutional amendment required.

So once you’ve gotten the bill passed, what do you do?

Well, there’s a lot of existing football equipment out there already that could be used by miscreants to continue to play the game. One would assume that you’d want to rid the country of those tools. Could you use a mandatory buyback scheme, like they did in 1996 with citizens’ guns in Australia? If so, how would the takings clause of the 5th Amendment require the government to compensate those from whom it took the pigskins, helmets, goalposts, shoulder pads, tackling dummies, and playbooks? You’d need to make sure you raised taxes or borrowed money to fund an appropriations bill for the FEA (Football Enforcement Administration) to pay for both the buyback and the enforcement of the ban. You’d also have to figure out if it were OK to repurpose, say, football cleats for other sports and a helmet as an unconventional flower vase or if that stuff all has to go to the incinerator.

You’d need to make a decision, too, on whether or not to permit entities like the Pro Football Hall of Fame to exist or the Texas Sports Hall of Fame to have football exhibits. You’d think today’s feds would frown on, say, a shrine dedicated to the interstate raw milk sales, imported haggis, or off-the-reservation gambling they prohibit. Do freedom of speech issues exist here? If so, you’d need to plot how you could get around them to keep people from glorying in the achievements of, say, George Preston Marshall.

In his column, Bry identified his most culpable culprits for the evil that is football. He writes, “The onus is on us, the fans (and, more directly, the team owners) who pay the players to hurt themselves for our enjoyment.” The ban on football companies would probably not be too different from scuttling breweries at the start of Prohibition. But if the much more numerous team fanbases bear the brunt of the blame here, restrictions to stop football fandom would seem crucial to the ban’s success. If you decide the Grambling Legends Hall of Fame’s tributes to the likes of Tank Younger and Doug Williams would allow football fans to continue being football fans, do those areas need to be replaced with boxing or CrossFit exhibits and should the memorabilia in question be burned?
While we’re on that subject, you’d need to plan for all the football writers, broadcasters, and bloggers you’d put out of business. Does the takings clause apply to their capital investments? And moving forward, are you allowed to write about football, or would that be giving material aid to the enemy? Might we need to shut down portions of that internet?

Moving on to enforcement, you’ll need to give the FEA sufficient powers to stamp out the vestiges of the sport. You’d need a training budget to ensure the gridiron gendarmes could recognize whether youths in the park were actually playing, say, rugby or whether they needed to spend a few days in juvy. For organized matches, is the referee sufficiently diligent in calling forward passes or is he letting a few too many go uncalled? You’d need to be very precise about what activities are and aren’t permitted in the presence of tackling. Perhaps this effort could double as a jobs program for the on-field officials who lost their jobs in the industry’s purge. You’d also want to add safeguards to ensure the authorities wouldn’t abuse the law, using it as a pretext to harass disfavored groups. After all, nearly 70 percent of NFL players are African-American.

You’d need to determine the criminal penalties to be visited on those die-hards who continued to block, tackle, and cheerlead in defiance of the ban. You’d have to somehow compute the damage caused to society or identifiable victims and make the prison sentences (and potential civil settlements) reflect those calculations. Would effective deterrence require some sort of three-strikes-and-you’re-out law for recidivistic touchdown celebrants (as I unashamedly mix sports metaphors)?
You’d have work to do internationally, too. The NFL has spent a lot of money marketing the game overseas. It’s not the biggest sport in the world, but it has a loyal following some places. You’d want to try pressure other countries into forbidding it as well and to negotiate treaties allowing extradition for Americans caught running fly patterns in, say, Moscow or Beijing. Canada’s likely to be a tough one here, as they have their own long football tradition. Might a wall along our northern border be needed to prevent our footballers from working illegally as Argonauts or Alouettes?
Once Mr. Bry has figured out the answers to all the points raised above, nobody will play American football anywhere in the world, apart, perhaps, from certain rogue lawless states. Somalia might become the world’s leading producer of linebackers.

Of course, you could have some bold commentators continue to address the issue of the football ban, couching it in terms of so-called “legitimate policy discussion.” What if you had someone write, for instance :

“The problem, of course, lies with some basic truths about human behavior. There is a strong demand for football in America. As long as those footballs are illegal, there will be great financial reward to anyone who can provide them.”

or

“The football trade has become as powerful a force in the Mexican economy as any legally sanctioned one. Powerful enough, it seems, to overwhelm any attempts the government might make at cracking down on the collateral effects.”

The phrases above came from a lucid author who puts words together very well. In one of his recent columns, he wrote about his “individualistic positions on . . . drug use (legalize it).” The passages above came from an article that same David Bry penned for BET, but I took some liberties with them. I substituted the word “football” whenever the word “drugs” occurred in the original.
You do have to try to anticipate collateral effects when banning stuff, for sure. Eliminating a violent black market is indeed among them. Would a football ban create a black market? How big would it be? Would the violence associated with such a market beget more violence than that which currently results from football? Would it create any additional unintended consequences? As Mr. Bry begins his campaign to eliminate American football, he will probably want to perform a thorough cost-benefit analysis.

Epilogue :
In another column, Mr. Bry called for a ban on dogs in New York City. My sister and I used to play football with our dog, Fuzzy, when we were kids, though not in NYC. We played tackle. My parents took home movies of it. If the U.S. implements the full Bry agenda, I may be in some trouble.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Making Your Investment in Sport Work

So you’re an investor and you love sports. Can you feed your passion by getting financially involved with a sporting entity and still maintain the fiscal discipline that made you a good investor in the first place? The answer is yes, and the key is to have a clear idea of what to look for and what to expect.

If you love sport, some of your return will be non-monetary. You’re going to enjoy feeling a part of a team, or moving your favorite sport forward, or seeing your investment on television, or interacting with elite athletes, or rewarding your hometown’s loyal fans. Those are worth a lot, but you’d still like to recover your investment, too.

 

I’m a sports business guy, not an investment guy, but I’ve been on the inside of a lot of teams and media outlets and seen what worked and what didn’t. If you’re an experienced investor, you know how to assess rate of return and the intricacies of the finance world. The sports business is different from every other industry, however, and being a sports fan doesn’t necessarily equate to mastery of the sport management trade. Here then, are some insider insights into what to look for.

Let’s start high profile. If you buy into a major league team, you’re looking to win and you’ll pay for it. Expect cash calls for the purpose of bettering the team on the field, especially in non-salary-cap sports like Major League Baseball and European football (soccer). You may make some money during your ownership experience, but the monetary return most likely comes when you sell. NASCAR has historically been an exception, with team sales yielding little value, though that may change with proposed new ownership rules.

Minor league sports represent a low-margin business. You’ve got to truly love the game, but also realistically assess how much that love means to you and how much you can afford to lose feeding it. At the lower levels in the U.S., franchises have historically moved and folded frequently. The right situation can still be a fun and profitable investment, but you have to approach it realistically.

Whether you buy a big or small team, quick cash probably isn’t what you should expect.

You don’t have to buy into a pro team to get into sports, of course. Marketing agencies, television/media projects, and a host of ventures aimed at those who play, attend, and work at sports have the potential to produce value. In fact, many feel a sports background is ideal preparation for becoming an entrepreneur. For what should you look at in the wider sports world?

Connections : If the venture requires an entrée into the world of big-time sports to work, do the organizers have them? If they just have a good idea but not the ability to reach busy decision-makers, this might not be the place to sink your money.

The Smell Test : Even if you’re not an experienced sports businessperson, your sense of sport from the fan’s perspective still counts for something. Does the idea sound cool? Is it something you’d like to see happen? Is it something you’d be passionate about? Because some of your return comes from your enjoyment of the project, passion for the concept counts for something.

Content : Does the venture have the ability to tap into the huge content engine that is sport? We’ve all read about some of the huge TV deals teams and leagues have signed recently. In a fragmented media world, sports retains the ability to deliver the eyeballs of desirable demographic groups. Does the venture have a television and/or radio presence? Can it effectively tap into the digital content space?

Growth Potential : Sports is a saturated market, but there are still profitable niches to be found. Digital technology has pushed the envelope in sport as it has in every other industry. As the world shrinks, international sports initiatives become more viable. Finding untapped markets or disrupting current ones has never been easier (not that it’s easy, by any means).

You may have a passion to grow your favorite sport and see its popularity increase, be it cricket, rugby (union or league), pickleball, jai alai, sumo, or whatever. Is there a venture that furthers that goal while also potentially turning a profit?

Value You Can Add : Can your background or expertise make the venture more viable? It’s important to realize what you don’t know, of course. You shouldn’t take over the draft room or coach the defense just because you bought the team, But if your, say, finance or technical background can help the endeavor grow, that might make it even more enjoyable to be a part of (while also reducing risk). The likes of Mark Cuban, Ted Leonsis, and Bill Veeck brought more than a checkbook to their franchises.

Any investment carries monetary risk (I think I’m supposed to say that somewhere here in case you make your investment decisions based on emails retrieved from your spam folder). That’s true in sports as anywhere else. Luckily, sports also provides a psychic satisfaction that’s hard to reproduce elsewhere. It’s why those of us who have made it our careers invest time, money, and passion into it. At some level or other, we’re all invested - hopefully this article helped you decide which kind of investment might work for you.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his companies, FourNine Productions and Rush Olson Creative & Sports. If you’d like to further discuss points raised in this post, email him any time at rush@rusholson.com.

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/in/rusholson

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports