Will COVID-19 be the needle that finally bursts the sports bubble?

Well, I’m not a conservative in most ways. So, there’s that.

Football coach said dumb thing. That’s not news. But it’s made into news because, dammit, clicks.

 

Good lord, this is disingenuous.

He's the football coach at a major university who just said they need the players on the field in three weeks because they need to start making money for the state and with their age and "builds" they'll probably survive when they get the virus.

You can continue to pretend he meant something other than what he very clearly stated if you like. You can insist that people who find it appalling are the real problem here if you like. It's become your schtick here. Just don't expect many people to take it seriously.

 

The problem is not the stupid things that overpaid jocks say; it's the criticism of those coaches' warped values. That's the real scourge. Don't blame the authorities. Blame the messengers.
The problem is not Trump. It's the criticism of Trump.

 

I've covered a few boxing and MMA cards at the Palace. Definitely the middle of nowhere. Most of the fights were in the bingo hall of the casino or an outdoor amphitheater. (For the latter, I was seated right behind the card girls). Good luck getting a comment from the tribe. But, agreed, a bad idea.

 

Does the tribe have its own commission or does the CSAC regulate events there?

 

Nefarious oligarch gathers the world's best fighters for a tournament on a private island. Real life is turning into a video game far faster than I expected -- and unfortunately it's not the new Animal Crossing.

 

Not sure what's going on out there since it's been about five years since I've dealt with it.

They used to have their own MMA division, pretty much the MMA equivalent of the minor leagues. Boxing was handled by the late Dan Goossen, who every once in a while would get them a card that would be featured on ShoBox or ESPN's Friday Night Fights. Of late, they've been a sponsor of WBC light welterweight champ Jose Ramirez's fights in Fresno, but just about all the heavy lifting is done by Top Rank.

I do remember, when I called the hotel office to get a comment when Ramirez had a fight in 2013 at West Hills College Lemoore, they got back to me a day later via an email from an intern, the same day my story ran. So, like I said, good luck.

 

Sports have been a big bubble-- every sport ridiculously over-expanded beyond demand.
Sports have been a factor contributing to the skyrocketing cost of college tuition. Every college wants to "compete" by launching gluttonous campus expansion and new projects.
Ticket prices were outrageous. TV contracts have involved so much money that they threaten to take down or drastically slash entire chunks of media companies.
My sport (tennis) was so over-expanded that tournaments were being played 12 months out of the year with no off-season. The demand just wasn't there-- many of those tournaments were on the brink of insolvency before this hit.
The pandemic has now put a needle right in the sports bubble.
I think during the recovery, we will see a return to quality in sports. Sports will be pared down and more reflective of market demand.

 

So how do we get the coronavirus to the CFB playoffs?

 

it’s like anything else: the minute they people who run things figure out we like something they exploit every possible angle to try and bilk more attention and money. take college football:

I didn’t need a 12 game regular season. 11 was just fine.

I didn’t need a bunch of mega-conferences loaded with teams that have no relationship.

I didn’t need all of those leagues to play a conference championship game, adding yet another game and another weekend.

I definitely don’t need 678 bowl games.

And I sure as fuck don’t need a Big 10 Network, an SEC network, an ACC Network or the fucking Longhorn Network.

college football as it was in 1994 was just fine. At least then you could pretend these were actual students. In its current form? Shit. I’ve done a lot of thinking on this and, if this virus is what burns down a lot of this structure, fuck it. Light the match. And if that harms my schools team, so be it. The biggest reason Dabo and Gundy are Bitching is that this May impact their wallet at some point. Well, their wallet shouldn’t have been as big as it is to begin with. Jim Harbaugh makes $9 million a year. To coach unpaid college kids. Fuck all that.

 

Forde with a very pessimistic outlook

https://www.si.com/college/2020/04/08/college-football-future-2020-ncaa-coronavirus