Sports: Dont be naive

I would worry about dating myself, but that ship has long ago sailed. You know what Virginia, when it comes to sports there just may not be a Santa Claus. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain? ESPN, Twitter, Facebook and the like have made that impossible.

I love sports, I really do. When I was a kid there was one major league baseball game on each week. Saturday at 2pm on NBC. That was it. No nightly highlights and yapping by a panel of a dozen former players, coaches and front office execs. Music and news were the only things on the radio. No sports talk. Al Gore had not yet invented the internet. Old timers will tell you that players played for the love of the game. Unlike the selfish players of today.

Well things change. There was a time that neither women or blacks could vote. Thankfully things do change. Some change is great and some not so much. Generally that’s a matter of opinion.

 There are a multitude of games on every night now. Entire television and radio networks devoted to sports. All of that information has pulled the curtain down and completely exposed the man behind it. We now know everything that goes on in sports. On and off the field of play.

All of that has also greatly increased the interest in sports. That interest has also generated billions of dollars for the sports industry. Yes, I see my beautiful girlfriend Tina rolling her eyes and hating the day that I ruined sports for her by exposing too much.

Sports are not fun and games anymore. Old players played for the love of the game? Well yeah, there was not much else to play for. There was no free agency or arbitration. Once you signed with a team, you were property of that team forever. Even after your contract ran out. It was up to that team to then offer you another or trade you. Ralph Kiner won the NL home run championship and was offered a pay cut. The Pirates’ owner’s explanation? We finished last with you, I’m pretty sure we can do that without you. He either accepted that contract or left baseball.

All of the money filters down and effects every level of sports. Please don’t be naïve and think that college athletes are there to play for the honor of State U. It’s about getting to the next level. That’s starting at about age 10 with jockeying to get on the right travel team.  Then fielding offers from private high schools to convince you to go there instead of the public school whose district you live in.

Then it really gets crazy if you are in the hunt for a Division I scholarship. Did someone really offer Cam Newton’s considerable football skills to Mississippi State for $180,000? I don’t know. Does that happen? Supposedly then Southern Cal basketball coach Tim Floyd’s recruitment of OJ Mayo consisted of Floyd cutting a check to the “street agent” who offered Mayo to USC.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but sports is a huge multi billion dollar industry. It is that because we the sports fans have chosen to make it such. And that’s ok if that’s what you want. But you have to be realistic about it and understand what it is. It is not a bunch of kids playing on a sandlot. It’s an industry and to the people involved it’s their profession, which they take very seriously. Don’t for one second think that the old players would have been any different than today’s if they had the same financial opportunities available to them. It’s a completely different world. Accept it.