Oscar Gamble Society

In all the commentary on the NBA ref scandal, one rather important economic point seems to have been overlooked - the 2007-08 season is the final season for the NBA’s current television contracts. The current cable and broadcast contracts pay just under $800 million per year. In exchange for these sums, networks have gotten a league whose players increasingly look like extras from “Oz,” and assault fans in the stands, and the players’ criminality is now exceeded by the refs. As they prepare to negotiate new multi-year contracts, I’m guessing the networks won’t feel compelled to cough up the same kind of money, let alone the 50%-plus increases that have been the norm ever since Larry Bird and Magic Johnson came into the league. Fun fact: when Bird and Johnson came into the league, network contracts were worth just under $20 million per year.

I am on record in believing that the impact of team finances on baseball teams’ success is wildly overstated. I am increasingly coming to believe, though, that the effect of team finances on NASCAR drivers’ success may be much greater than acknowledged, to the point of dwarfing the impact of differences in drivers’ skills.

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Pending the NFL’s “review” of the charges. It seems likely to me that Vick’s career as a professional football player is over, and in fact that he is likely to do time. Good.

This may be a frequent topic moving forward, as there’s no dearth of material to wow and amaze from the world of SportsTalkRadio… that little corner of the world where intelligence and common sense sometimes take a considerable beating.  To wit:

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The Vick case is nothing like the Duke lacrosse case. In the Duke case, there was zero evidence that any crime other than underage drinking ever occurred. In this case there is a mountain of evidence that can leave no sentient person doubting whether felonies occurred at Vick’s property.

The Vick case is nothing like the Kobe Bryant case. In Kobe’s case, it was agreed that he and his paramour had sex, though at issue was the context - whether it was consensual or forced. If the act occurred under one set of circumstances, it was a crime. It it occurred under another set of circumstances, it was not a crime. And inevitably in cases pitting one person’s word against another’s, there is a gray area where it may be difficult to know which it was. You could draw a venn diagram. But in the venn diagram for the Vick case,  the set of circumstances under which what we know happened was not a crime do not exist; it is the null set.

If there must be a comparison, let me suggest Michael Vick has much more in common with Jeffrey Dahmer. In each case there is a pile of innocent corpses with only one remotely plausible explanation for how they got there.

Yesterday Simone the greyhound and her human, Vicki, were the only signs of protest outside the NFL’s offices at 280 Park Avenue. Today she will get a great deal of company. PETA - generally a little extreme for my tastes - is holding a protest, including Al Sharpton - who is just NOT my kind of guy, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, as they say - and Russell Simmons, whose energy and enthusiasm I really admire even when he pursues causes I disagree with. I’ll take some pictures if I have a chance to get down there.

One significant aspect to the protest is that it includes two of New York’s most prominent  African-American leaders. There has been a bit of a racial undercurrent to the Vick case to the extent that he and the other defendants, as well as other athletes who have been found to be involved in dogfighting, are all African-American. I find it very encouraging, with respect to both the outlook for this case, and more broadly for the society we live in, that revulsion at unvarnished sadism transcends racial identity.

I got this passed along to me via e-mail, and the source of this excerpt is unknown, but I’ve got to pass it along (without comment, for now)….

“While examining a 17-year-old pitcher for a knee injury last year in Nashville, Dr. Damon H. Petty was asked a chilling question by the teenager and his father: If reconstructive elbow surgery were performed on his healthy throwing arm, might he gain some speed on his fastball?

Dr. Petty said he dissuaded them, explaining that was a myth, a “dangerous notion to entertain,” and that ligament reconstruction on a healthy arm would not improve his pitching “one iota.”"

May I just say that this site is extremely more interesting when Tank is contributing.  Good to have him back.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07202007/news/columnists/nba_in_a_fix_columnists_murray_weiss.htm

Wow….. I don’t know what to say here.  This is a far more important story than any steroids related issue.  Sports has grown to the point where it is virtually impossible for gangsters to influence players in professional sports.  They make too much money…. but refs are another story.  I don’t think they get paid that much, and they clearly can influence a game.  There is pretty much a foul on every play… it is just a question of what is going to be called.  A ref can call 2 quick fouls on Shaq and disrupt the game.   I have a feeling this story is going to be huge….. even David Stern will not be able to fix it.

I was walking down Park Avenue this afternoon and happened by 280 Park Avenue, the Deutsche Bank building which houses, among other things, the head office of the NFL. That block is a frequent home to Falun Gong protests, especially when Chinese dignitaries are staying at the Waldorf Astoria across the street. Today though, if Roger Goodell went into the office, he saw Simone the greyhound. I’ll put pictures up asap. Simone is the first of what I anticipate will be many protesters, canine and otherwise, making themselves heard by the Commissioner, whose office is only two miles as the crow flies from the national headquarters of the ASPCA. Anyone with a strong stomach and curiosity can download a pdf of the Michael Vick indictment at the website of the Humane Society. The site also contains a link to an online petition as well.

The New York Sun has a good article today on the situation Goodell faces in deciding whether, when and how to discipline Vick.  In the article, John Goodwin of the Humane Society points out that the Feds don’t bother bringing dogfighting cases unless they are very solid:

“They have done just five or six dogfighting cases, but are batting 1.000.”