For some reason, the state of Louisiana held its gubernatorial election yesterday — a football Saturday. Its Democratic governor won reelection and chalked up at least part of his success to this:
It just means more. Remember that when Coach O runs for governor in a few years.
Filed under Political Wankery, SEC Football
One reason the NCAA is faring so poorly right now in the face of numerous state legislatures moving to protect college athletes’ NIL rights is because amateurism is a tougher sell when you’re not talking about putting them on a straight salary paid by the schools. I mean, how convincing is yelling “student-athlete!” at the top of your lungs when this is the argument the other side is making?
“At first we got crushed. They beat us in every avenue and we kind of anticipated that,” said Walker, the North Carolina congressman. “But with some of these states taking a look at it, we’ve been able to push back a little bit on what the truth of this legislation is and we believe it’s starting to shift to our side with people saying, ‘Yeah, a 20 year old male or female busted their rear end 40 hours a week on a volleyball court or gymnasium or football field and to tell them they have no access to their name, image or likeness isn’t right.’ Look, Nike isn’t coming in and signing 450,000 college athletes but somewhere the backup quarterback at some university can go back home and pick up 100 bucks for an appearance fee at a restaurant or a car wash or whatever, that individual should have access to be able to do so and not be the only people in this country that are banned from having that access.”
Sadly, I feel pretty sure the NCAA won’t be able to come up with an effective answer until it gets its ass kicked a few more times in the political arena.
Filed under Political Wankery, The NCAA
Meet the next Georgia gold rush.
Four of Atlanta’s major professional sports franchises are putting their weight behind an effort to allow betting on games.
Presidents of the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta United have formed the Georgia Professional Sports Integrity Alliance and sent a letter to state lawmakers asking them to legalize online and mobile sports betting…
Billy Linville, a lobbyist who is representing the coalition of teams, said the franchises would not see any revenue from sports betting, but that allowing the practice would engage fans who tune in to watch and see how their bets play out — driving up viewership and interest in the games.
“The question isn’t if Georgians are going to bet on sports,” Linville said. “It’s whether they’ll wager in an illegal market or bet in a fully regulated environment that protects consumers and integrity of games.”
These guys are so thoughtful, amirite?
If you’re wondering why I post about this, don’t think Butts-Mehre isn’t watching this development with a careful eye, not because they’re concerned about stopping it (although that would be in line with the Georgia Way we all know and love, especially if they could figure out a way to allow only Magill Society folks to bet in Sanford Stadium… I keed, I keed. I think.), but because of the potential revenue streams flowing from legalized online betting.
But West Virginia’s Joint Standing Committee on Finance spent most of its time Monday trying to figure out whether Governor Jim Justice – who owns the Greenbrier – and West Virginia Lottery officials were still pushing plans to offer the major sports leagues a cut of the state’s betting handle or require betting operators to use league-supplied data to judge wagering results. [Emphasis added.]
Ah, the ol’ “integrity fee”, surely one of the great Orwellian phrases of our time, and/or making it a legal requirement to use official conference statistics in online wagering. Expect the latter to be a standard proposal in the South once Greg Sankey is able to get up off his fainting couch.
These people may not be geniuses, but they’re certainly shrewd enough to know how not to miss many meals. It’s coming.
Filed under Bet On It, Political Wankery
Here’s the perfect appetizer for an Alabama-LSU game day thread.
I dunno about you, but if I were an Alabama tailgater today, chatting about Trump wouldn’t be at the top of my list of things to mention to Tubs.
Anyways, I think the ‘Bama defense will be just a little better limiting LSU offense than vice versa. Tide by a touchdown.
Your thoughts are welcome.
Filed under Alabama, Political Wankery
This seems nice.
Is booing a bad call by the refs “disruptive behavior”?
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UPDATE: Damn, I missed the punchline.
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UPDATE #2: Brave Sir Jason has run away.
Filed under Alabama, Political Wankery
Just a reminder — those that can, coach; those that can’t, pander.
Are Auburn fans really gonna vote for this guy?
Here comes California, messing with college football again.
What began as SB 206 in the California assembly— and became known nationally as the Fair Pay To Play Act — has help fuel a revolution in college sports.
Now along comes AB 7, which threatens to play havoc with your Pac-12 kickoff times.
Think those 7:30 p.m. games along the west coast are a too late?
If Assembly Bill 7 becomes law, late-season games on Pac-12 campuses will start at 8:30 p.m.
Sponsored by Assemblymember Kansen Chu — and already approved by voters — AB 7 would place California on Daylight Saving Time all year: No more falling back and springing forward.
California would be permanently sprung forward, with all the lifestyle benefits that come with evening daylight and none of the disruptions to our circadian rhythms caused by changing the clock.
Apparently, if this goes into law in California, Oregon and Washington are prepared to follow suit in short order. And that would make things inconvenient for Mickey.
The entire West Coast would skip the process of falling back, leaving it two hours behind Eastern Time from early November through early March.
That would create a problem for Pac-12 kickoffs in the final month of the season.
ESPN and Fox use three-and-a-half-hour programming windows (approximately) on football Saturdays, starting with 12 p.m. Eastern and followed by 3:30 p.m., 7 or 8 p.m. and then 10:30 p.m.
The final window is reserved for the Pac-12 — the only Power Five conference capable of starting home games as late as 10:30 p.m. Eastern. (And those are sometimes pushed back to 10:40 or 10:45 p.m.)
If the West Coast doesn’t join the East Coast in falling back, the three-hour difference during Daylight Saving Time would become a two-hour difference from early November through early March.
In order for the Pac-12 games to fill the 10:30 p.m. Eastern window, they would have to start at 8:30 p.m. on the west coast.
Pacific Daylight Time in the winter months would be the same as Mountain Standard Time.
Late games would get later.
Eh, not to worry. I’m sure Larry Scott’s on the mother.
