More Cuts at ESPN

Jenner had always been a relatively outspoken conservative. Why would giving an award to Jenner for courage be a political statement. I think you will respond that there are soldiers everyday who risk their life and that requires more courage. Which it does but those guys are not famous athletes who ESPN hands out awards to. And I think what Jenner did required a certain kind of courage. Why is that a political act?

 

Well, you have to dig back into how the whole protest started. It wasn't about racism. Not initially. It was in part about grad students - of which the student was one - not getting health subsidies. And then it was about the university ending a Contract with planned parenthood. And then, after a couple reported incidents, it morphed into concerns over racism and thus began a hunger strike. I'm not sure at the time the players knew everything that was involved when they participated.

 

OK.

And again... what does the wealth of the hunger striker's family have to do with anything? Is he not allowed to take a stand on behalf of fellow students if his dad has money? If a black student says he has been treated poorly on campus because of his race -- but his dad has money -- is the treatment of black students then automatically not a concern?

And given what the protest had grown into by the time the football team got involved, does it matter if it began as something else?

And is it automatically "really, really liberal" for a sports network to honor a group of athletes -- predominantly white -- who chose to use their clout to address concerns about the treatment of black students on campus? Is the automatic conservative position necessarily "shut up and entertain me for free"?

 

I'm sure the players didn't know everything about the situation. Few would.

I am also sure that wealth plays a large role in college protests. People who are working to pay for an education generally don't have the time or energy to participate in too many hunger strikes.

I'm also fairly sure that the sum total of ESPN's recent actions could clearly designate a political slant.

 

I wonder what a conservative sports network would sound like? Would it be against the mercy rule? Would it demand a return to players not being draft-eligible until their class finished college? Would it restore freshman ineligibity? Maybe cut salaries to the point that players would have to work in the offseason just like the good ol' days? The Dodgers would have to return to Brooklyn, no?

 

I'd settle for returning to covering sports and not using Twitter as the driving force for every segment. Maybe a few other things, too.

 

The players not being draft-eligible for college is one thing. Another, I'd imagine, is to get rid of free agency, because playing a sport is a privilege, not a job, according to them, and they should be totally loyal to their billion-dollar franchise.

College coaches would also be encouraged to bully players, because it makes them tough. Bobby Knight is their hero.

 

The first name mentioned as one of the cuts: Per Awful Announcing, Adam Rubin's contract was not renewed.

 

Kiss Title IX goodbye too. In fact, women's basketball may have to go back to six-on-six.

 

Heck, while they're at it, they'll only allow women's sports that pay their own way. And even then, it's begrudgingly, because everyone knows women's natural roles are to stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.

 

I was not that familiar with Clay Travis. This seems spot on though.

I've had three kids. In theory I should have shopped around for the hospital that would offer me the best care for the best price when it came to delivering my kids. Just like I would shop around for a hotel or a car or a house, I should have shopped around for a planned health care expense. Again, once my wife got pregnant it was evident that we were having a baby, this wasn't a car accident or a sudden illness or injury.



Every person reading this right now knows what their house or car cost them because it was a planned purchase. And everyone doesn't have the same kind of car or the same kind of house. You buy what you can afford or what you're willing to spend. All situations are different.



Yet when my wife went to tour the maternity wards of hospitals do you know what they sold us on? Private rooms, wifi, their new bamboo floors, the quality of their doctors, the safety of the baby after he or she was born, not one person ever mentioned price on these maternity ward tours. So my wife picked the hospital she felt the most comfortable with and we've had all three of our kids there.



But I have no idea if our hospital was a better or worse deal than the other hpsitals we considered.



Those babies were not cheap -- I looked at the itemized bills -- and each of my kids cost over ten thousand dollars. Next time you get a hospital bill actually look at the damn thing. It's incredible how every little thing is coded in there. You get billed for so many things you never even realized cost anything.



In theory we should have shopped around and found the hospital and the maternity service that fit our budget and hospitals should have to compete with each other for our business just like car companies and real estate agents do. That would drive down cost and increase efficiency. That's the entire point of capitalism. But that's not what happens with health care.

 

I would guess that the Missouri football players are less affluent than the typical Missouri undergraduate. I say this because higher percentage are black than the undergraduate population at Missouri and black families make less on average than white families in the United States. And I am 100% sure that Missouri football players work much harder than the typical Missouri undergraduate, given the demands of big-time football. And they choose to support the protest.

So you have a group of not particularly affluent people who have worked very hard to receive and maintain college scholarships risking them for a cause. Why is that not courageous?