Q: What is the difference between organized crime and big-time college sports?
A: Organized crime has rules.
Q: How do you create a level playing field?
A: Bend them all.
I don’t know why or how, but CBS Sports rings my phone about twice a day and makes me laugh, even though I’ve only just learned how to use a toaster.
“Expert analyst” perspective on the upcoming college football season, loaded with rankings, transfer portal signings, graduate school loophole additions, big contracts, etc. “Big” now often means trading in an expensive new sports car as a bribe for whatever (if any) long term benefit to society.
Since CBS continues to invest heavily in college sports while emulating organized crime legalized by a court system that has neither the will nor the ability to serve the best interests of humanity beyond fleeting cash and flashy items, it is impossible to take this news seriously other than the fact that it is in CBS’s best interest to loudly trumpet what “college” sports is becoming.
The complete absence of written language including academic value — useful, life-enhancing learning — in the $2.8 billion settlement in which the NCAA will pay college athletes full scholarships and amounts far beyond the cash benefits they have received thus far underscores this reality.
Thus, the ostensibly chartered reasons for the existence of American universities for decades, even centuries, have been sacrificed by a legal system’s shortsighted decision to allow complete anarchy even for existing rogue athletic programs.
And academic and financial fraud to help universities win football and basketball games, sell tickets (including forced purchases of mismatches designed for bowl berths), and maintain or increase their value to the network is now a given. pretty Compete with other cheaters.
There is no need to put sanctioned fraud on legal documents because it would be a waste of ink and paper and would violate “Go Green” regulations that are meant to keep campuses clean, not a crime.
This is a crime known among Mafia bosses and district attorneys as racketeering, and just like Division I universities, it involves using their “principal business” as a false front.
Last week, the CBS Sports app broke the news that the Georgia football team was ranked No. 1 despite the “disturbances” suffered by head coach Kirby Smart. Smart, who makes $13 million a year plus perks, is responsible for the presence of full-ride players who have faced a combined 24 reckless driving charges over the past two seasons, including a fatality, but they have not been affected by anything other than the latest hotshots on NIL or NFL contracts.
Kirby and Georgia finally waived receiver Lara Thomas last week following his second felony domestic violence arrest (the second of which also included a “child abuse” charge).
At Colorado, head coach Deion Sanders admitted something few people knew or wanted to know, except for the intelligent and hard-hitting reporters at CBS’s “60 Minutes,” who aired lengthy, flattering profiles of Sanders twice last year declaring him to be a man of the most altruistic acts, including a direct connection to God and incessant boasting during his nearly illiterate speeches.
Would 60 Minutes have investigated Coach Prime’s recent past, including his founding of a fraudulent charter school for promising young black athletes that he humbly named Prime Academy, and his instructing the kids, their parents, teachers and creditors to pray to God for money?
Almost everyone who knows anything about Sanders knew he was a magic elixir peddler, so how could “60 Minutes” have missed that instead of choosing to ignore it?
The two “60 Minutes” segments are pure pandering with no regard for the truth, the latest in a series of selectively cowardly media moves to boost Sanders for no good reason.
Now, an investigative report from Athlon Sports has revealed even more shocking facts.
Under Sanders’s leadership, Colorado’s football team was plagued by reports of violence, massive gambling debts, money laundering and firearms, and a former player described the situation as “like a real-life Grand Theft Auto.”
The well-known national primetime news programs that twice supported and promoted Coach Prime with their fake profiles will no doubt regret having been happy to go through with it and being such willing participants in the fraud.
No doubt, but no possibility.
There is no equality in punishment for racism
Justice now always seems to be a question of who, why, when and where.
WFAN overnight show host Keith McPherson recently mocked a caller who had a Spanish accent. The episode, in which McPherson, who is black, displayed loud, cheesy and open bigotry, was neither funny nor subtle.
The next caller interrupted the call to accuse McPherson of unfairly disrespecting the previous caller’s roots, to which McPherson defiantly responded in similar terms: “Oh no! This is my show. I’m just going to say what I want to say!”
What has WFAN done about it? Nothing so far. McPherson, unlike ESPN’s Doug Adler and longtime NBA Kings announcer Grant Napier, who were both fired for fictitious on-air racism, is continuing on.
As a matter of equality, it all depends on the situation.
Ah, modern media. Charles Barkley’s retirement farewell tour was even shorter than Mike Francesa’s soulful first outing, and now he’s back on TNT. They’re the same fakers.
As you may recall, Barkley was a self-confessed gambler and loser who was heavily in debt at Las Vegas casinos and in need of relief as law enforcement was closing in. Soon he was a well-known paid spokesman appearing in TV ads encouraging young people to gamble on sports. What a champ.
He was then arrested for unexpectedly falling in love with a prostitute in the back of his van.
How many ordinary people could survive just one of the two events and still maintain high social respectability and demand?
However, the media does not report the truth and only reports that everyone loves and respects Sir Charles.
QUIZ: Which teams can actually play?
Name one MLB team this season that has been smartly managed, well-prepared and has good fundamentals. Take some time to think about it.
I had no idea. How about you?
Now, how many MLB teams do you consider to be inferior in terms of how they are managed, how they play, how they prepare to play, meaning they are pretty prone to losing?
I can think of 14. How about you?
The Rangers, the previous year’s world champions, had a record of 54 wins and 61 losses.
These days, if a pitcher can throw eight or more pitches before getting a flyout, TV and radio voices will call it a “good at-bat,” as if he’s worn out the starting pitcher or worn out a “high- or low-leverage” (whoosh!) relief pitcher. (“Hey, what do you expect? I’m a low-leverage pitcher!”)
But the starting pitcher will be replaced in the sixth inning anyway, and many of the relief pitchers will only get one inning, so it’s just an out, not a good at-bat.
I don’t know why so many people are mocking NBC’s decision to hire ex-con rapper Snoop Dogg to host the Olympics, when the ratings at Rikers Island would shoot through the roof of the tallest lifeguard tower!
