Many fans, players and others affiliated with the NBA have been up in arms over some recent racist comments by LA Clippers' owner Donald Sterling. Many people in these various constituencies have mulled what to do to send a clear message that racist attitudes will not be tolerated, neither publicly nor privately, by anyone associated with the NBA.
The problem is, short of forcing Sterling to step down as the owner of the Clippers, there isn't a lot that will have Donald Sterling come away as anything but a winner when it's all said and done.
His comments are crass, his actions deplorable and his attitude inexcusable but Sterling, and others like him, won't suffer as a result.
There is, of course, one way for the players, the league and the fans to come away as winners and have Sterling be the one that pays a severe price, all while sending a clear message that racist attitudes and behaviors will not be tolerated in the NBA in any way. Of course, it's unlikely any of these parties will take that action.
What, for example, can the players and coaches do? Continue to play? Persevere through the adversity, triumph in the face of the controversy? Win an NBA championship despite the turmoil? Wow. That's a story right out of Hollywood, right? Except, what happens to Sterling in that scenario? He wins an NBA championship, too.
But what about the fans? What can they do? Not go to the game? Stay home? Keep away from Staples Center as if to say, no, we won't support a team financially--with our purchases of merchandise, concessions and other things--as long as Sterling is the owner? Of course they won't do that. They love their players and it's the playoffs. So what happens to Sterling then? People who hate his attitude prove a point by giving him money? Boy, that sends a strong message.
And the league? What can they do? Fine him? Sure, the last thing NBA owners have is a pile of money. A fine, even a big one, a really, really, really big one, will do little to show Sterling his attitude and comments can't be tolerated. He'll still own the team and still benefit from the team's success...which is perpetuated by the fans showing up to games and the team playing and winning.
So what can be done, then? Turn our shirts inside out. Yeah, that'll show him!
Try this: Don't play and don't show up.
That's the real message being sent in this situation. In fact, it's the ONLY message that can be sent. The fans, players and league, short of that, are in their own way enabling Sterling's attitude. By not playing, the players will be saying to Sterling and everyone else, our beliefs are more important than a championship. We are willing to sacrifice our shot at our ultimate goal to stand for what we believe. It's a painful and difficult decision, but certainly one that clearly demonstrates a conviction of belief.
Civil rights advocates were willing to go to jail for what they believed, and it wasn't just Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, but so-called everyday people, jailed by the hundreds. But they went to jail to prove a point and it was eventually a point well-made.
Surely NBA players and fans don't think an NBA championship is too great to make such a selfless sacrifice for.
And what happens in that scenario? The players and fans boycott until Sterling is removed and then what happens? ESPN and Turner don't have games to broadcast, the Clippers forfeit games and therefore their shot at a the title, advertisers lose out on potential ad spots during the games, the league loses out through the perpetuation and expansion of the distracting controversy...and all of these loses are spelled out easily in a language these groups can all readily understand and that's revenue.
When billion-dollar corporations have to take a major financial hit, it won't be long before they collectively pressure Sterling to step down or sell the team. Heck, I know a group in Anaheim that will buy the team. They can keep their brand, keep their fanbase, move from out of the shadow of the Lakers, be without their racist owner and still have several quality seasons ahead to make a serious title run.
But does anybody have the courage to make such a stand? I doubt it.
So come Tuesday, fans will still decide to give their money to a racist, players will still choose to work for and be paid by a racist, the networks will continue to financially support a racist and corporations will gladly buy in to the system that helps protect a racist.
And exactly what kind of message do you think that sends?
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Five Things So Far
Here we are, just a few months into 2014 and I've already learned five very important lessons in the world of sports:
1. Dominance, for lack of a better term, is good...except in women's sports. Normally, a dominant program in some sport or another leaves opposing teams with two very simple choices: keep getting your heads handed to you or do what you can to improve. Whether its the NFL, NBA, NASCAR or some other sport, the presence of a team like the Miami Heat or a competitor like Jimmy Johnson forces the others to work harder. This doesn't, for some reason, seem to apply as much in women's sports. Certainly lesser women's teams are working as diligently as possible to catch up to UConn in basketball, for example. It's not really working. The women's college basketball final featured two previously undefeated teams and the result wasn't even close. Had two unbeaten men's teams played in the finals and one team defeated the other by 21 points, pundits would have called it the biggest anticlimax in the history of sports. And it's not just UConn in basketball. Penn State has won five of the last seven championships in volleyball; North Carolina has won half of the championships in soccer in the past 10 years; and with only moderate additional diversity, Pac 12 schools have won softball titles in 11 of the past 15 years. Women's sports, in that light, still have some progress to make. When Mercer beats Duke in the women's basketball tournament, then we'll know we've made progress.
2. Baseball umpires can wreck anything. The 2014 MLB season started with the lure of more conclusive and correct calls and fewer arguments with the introduction of expanded instant replay. While all parties agreed there would be some necessary tweaks over time, few thought a major flaw would be illustrated just two games into the season. During a game between the Diamondbacks and Giants, San Francisco pitcher Matt Cain tagged a runner at the plate attempting to score. The umpire ruled the runner safe. Upon further review, Cain clearly applied a tag. It was the sort of clear-cut, plain-as-day review that the process dreams about. Except...there was no further review. The Giants had previously (and unsuccessfully) challenged a play at first base and lost their challenge. The umpire couldn't review it on his own. The Giants couldn't challenge, so the plain-as-day video was meaningless. And what is the purpose of instant replay, you ask? It's so the umpires can get the call on the field correct...except...
3. A Duke education is not worth much. Now, this is a ridiculous statement. Sure, I'm no fan of Duke basketball, but even I'm willing to concede that Duke can dispense a top-level education. Or can it? I read recently that Duke freshman Jabari Parker is "seriously contemplating returning to Duke next season..." If that's true then Duke must not be capable of imparting wisdom to its students after all. Parker is easily--and I mean easily--a top five draft pick in the upcoming draft. The purpose of college is to prepare you for the future. Mission accomplished. Only bad things can come from an extra year at Duke. Such as, you ask? A minor injury, which could raise draft questions. A major injury, which, at worst, would end his career and rob him completely of any NBA potential. A freak situation off the court--like what? Who knows? That's why it's a freak situation. Freak situation-plus NBA-equals some money. Freak situation-plus Duke-equals questionable future. Duke will also have a deeper team next season, which means either fewer chances to showcase his abilities and growth or a greater insistence to not have fewer touches, thus painting him as a selfish player who puts the team second. Any or all of these factors will cause his draft stock to fall. Very few things I can think of will cause it to rise appreciably. Either Duke cares about its players and will convince him its in his best interest to go to the NBA or Duke cares about itself and won't.
4. NASCAR is both smart and stupid. NASCAR, above all other major sports, does more to alter rules so races are more competitive and as entertaining for fans as possible. They've done a pretty good job, as well. New rules this season have motivated riskier decisions by crew chiefs and drivers, opening the door for a wider array of drivers to win races, keeping the folks dressed in M&M's shirts, Mountain Dew hats and carrying Lowe's coolers to leave the track happy. But I don't understand their race pattern. The season starts in Daytona. OK. Got it. Start with a bang at the biggest event of the year. Races in recent weeks have taken place in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia...though not in that logical of an order. Does NASCAR simply hate the car hauler drivers? West coast, east coast, back to west, then east, now to Texas. Why not just go LA, Vegas, Phoenix, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia? The hauler drivers can't be trusted in Vegas for 2-3 days? Who can, really? I get that there's a "third Saturday in October" element to race scheduling, but surely a few minor adjustments can be made.
5. The NFL is powerful. The NFL is powerful...really, really, super powerful. Not moments after the Super Bowl, fans were looking forward to pro days, owner's meetings, free agency, the combine and everything else leading up to Draft Day. I don't mean the day when players get picked one after another, I mean the new Kevin Costner movie, Draft Day. The film was made with an unusually high amount of NFL licensing involved. How else, after all, do you make the film seem as real as possible, mimicking authentic NFL draft day war room experiences without NFL licensing and stamp of approval. But the movie had something else I, as a creative process person, had never heard of before, and that's the NFL stamp of disapproval. A scene, in which Kevin Costner is hanged in effigy--one can suspect for his work in The Postman--added to the overall authenticity of the film. A stuffed GM being hanged by the fans of a losing franchise is about as real as it gets. But the NFL cut the scene. Not the production company, the studio, the editor, the director, the focus group, or even Costner. The NFL cut the scene. Wow. The NFL didn't believe the scene was in keeping with the general image and overall tone they want to project, which is understandable. But wow, though. Hollywood is massively powerful. You know what's more powerful than that? The NFL. No Hollywood, no film about the NFL. No NFL, no film, period. And guess who got what they wanted? What's the national pastime? Entertainment? Sports? Money? Passion? The NFL owns all of it.
1. Dominance, for lack of a better term, is good...except in women's sports. Normally, a dominant program in some sport or another leaves opposing teams with two very simple choices: keep getting your heads handed to you or do what you can to improve. Whether its the NFL, NBA, NASCAR or some other sport, the presence of a team like the Miami Heat or a competitor like Jimmy Johnson forces the others to work harder. This doesn't, for some reason, seem to apply as much in women's sports. Certainly lesser women's teams are working as diligently as possible to catch up to UConn in basketball, for example. It's not really working. The women's college basketball final featured two previously undefeated teams and the result wasn't even close. Had two unbeaten men's teams played in the finals and one team defeated the other by 21 points, pundits would have called it the biggest anticlimax in the history of sports. And it's not just UConn in basketball. Penn State has won five of the last seven championships in volleyball; North Carolina has won half of the championships in soccer in the past 10 years; and with only moderate additional diversity, Pac 12 schools have won softball titles in 11 of the past 15 years. Women's sports, in that light, still have some progress to make. When Mercer beats Duke in the women's basketball tournament, then we'll know we've made progress.
2. Baseball umpires can wreck anything. The 2014 MLB season started with the lure of more conclusive and correct calls and fewer arguments with the introduction of expanded instant replay. While all parties agreed there would be some necessary tweaks over time, few thought a major flaw would be illustrated just two games into the season. During a game between the Diamondbacks and Giants, San Francisco pitcher Matt Cain tagged a runner at the plate attempting to score. The umpire ruled the runner safe. Upon further review, Cain clearly applied a tag. It was the sort of clear-cut, plain-as-day review that the process dreams about. Except...there was no further review. The Giants had previously (and unsuccessfully) challenged a play at first base and lost their challenge. The umpire couldn't review it on his own. The Giants couldn't challenge, so the plain-as-day video was meaningless. And what is the purpose of instant replay, you ask? It's so the umpires can get the call on the field correct...except...
3. A Duke education is not worth much. Now, this is a ridiculous statement. Sure, I'm no fan of Duke basketball, but even I'm willing to concede that Duke can dispense a top-level education. Or can it? I read recently that Duke freshman Jabari Parker is "seriously contemplating returning to Duke next season..." If that's true then Duke must not be capable of imparting wisdom to its students after all. Parker is easily--and I mean easily--a top five draft pick in the upcoming draft. The purpose of college is to prepare you for the future. Mission accomplished. Only bad things can come from an extra year at Duke. Such as, you ask? A minor injury, which could raise draft questions. A major injury, which, at worst, would end his career and rob him completely of any NBA potential. A freak situation off the court--like what? Who knows? That's why it's a freak situation. Freak situation-plus NBA-equals some money. Freak situation-plus Duke-equals questionable future. Duke will also have a deeper team next season, which means either fewer chances to showcase his abilities and growth or a greater insistence to not have fewer touches, thus painting him as a selfish player who puts the team second. Any or all of these factors will cause his draft stock to fall. Very few things I can think of will cause it to rise appreciably. Either Duke cares about its players and will convince him its in his best interest to go to the NBA or Duke cares about itself and won't.
4. NASCAR is both smart and stupid. NASCAR, above all other major sports, does more to alter rules so races are more competitive and as entertaining for fans as possible. They've done a pretty good job, as well. New rules this season have motivated riskier decisions by crew chiefs and drivers, opening the door for a wider array of drivers to win races, keeping the folks dressed in M&M's shirts, Mountain Dew hats and carrying Lowe's coolers to leave the track happy. But I don't understand their race pattern. The season starts in Daytona. OK. Got it. Start with a bang at the biggest event of the year. Races in recent weeks have taken place in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia...though not in that logical of an order. Does NASCAR simply hate the car hauler drivers? West coast, east coast, back to west, then east, now to Texas. Why not just go LA, Vegas, Phoenix, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia? The hauler drivers can't be trusted in Vegas for 2-3 days? Who can, really? I get that there's a "third Saturday in October" element to race scheduling, but surely a few minor adjustments can be made.
5. The NFL is powerful. The NFL is powerful...really, really, super powerful. Not moments after the Super Bowl, fans were looking forward to pro days, owner's meetings, free agency, the combine and everything else leading up to Draft Day. I don't mean the day when players get picked one after another, I mean the new Kevin Costner movie, Draft Day. The film was made with an unusually high amount of NFL licensing involved. How else, after all, do you make the film seem as real as possible, mimicking authentic NFL draft day war room experiences without NFL licensing and stamp of approval. But the movie had something else I, as a creative process person, had never heard of before, and that's the NFL stamp of disapproval. A scene, in which Kevin Costner is hanged in effigy--one can suspect for his work in The Postman--added to the overall authenticity of the film. A stuffed GM being hanged by the fans of a losing franchise is about as real as it gets. But the NFL cut the scene. Not the production company, the studio, the editor, the director, the focus group, or even Costner. The NFL cut the scene. Wow. The NFL didn't believe the scene was in keeping with the general image and overall tone they want to project, which is understandable. But wow, though. Hollywood is massively powerful. You know what's more powerful than that? The NFL. No Hollywood, no film about the NFL. No NFL, no film, period. And guess who got what they wanted? What's the national pastime? Entertainment? Sports? Money? Passion? The NFL owns all of it.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Stamp of Approval
Remember in school when they'd tell you to check your work? I did that recently. Well, someone else did it for me, that is. When the national debate began a few months back about raising the federal minimum wage from its current level to as high as $15 an hour, I set out to consider the likelihood of this possibility utilizing something very dangerous and potentially lethal to me: math.
I'm a words guy. Math isn't my friend. However, having been employed in a lowly minimum wage job once when the minimum wage was raised...by a full and hearty 75 cents, by the by, I was curious to calculate the feasibility of basically doubling the current wage.
One company bearing the brunt of the wrath about the minimum wage was Wal Mart. As such, I used Wal mart as my base example, researching the general number of wage-earners employed by Wal Mart, estimating (out of thin air, no less) what the average wage said worker earned and set about calculating the impact an increase of this size would have on a company of this magnitude.
What I came up with is a total of about $5 billion in added annual costs to Wal Mart's budget. It sounds like a lot, but when I calculated the overall impact this cost would have on consumers (because, let's face it, the Wal Mart heirs aren't going to eat a loss, not matter how big or small), it turns out the added amount for payroll would have next to no impact on a Wal Mart shopper's average total at the check out.
Of course, while I was confident in my equation, I wasn't too confident in my mathematical logic. Turns out, through some miracle of calculation, I was pretty close to accurate. This week, for some reason, a few videos have popped up on YouTube addressing this very subject. One video in particular, done by actual mathematicians and statisticians, contemplated the impact a so-called living wage would have on food stamps.
A living wage, per the video, is the amount needed to prevent people from relying on food stamps to any degree, which they suggested was just shy of $14, or a little more than a buck less than in my equation. The total cost to Wal Mart, they calculated, would be about $4.8 billion, which is close to the figure in my model. The bottom line increase for shoppers came to about 1.4%, or roughly enough to jack a 68 cent box of mac n' cheese up to about 69 cents.
The savings to taxpayers is about $300 million annually...and that's just if Wal Mart's minimum and low wage earners were given a livable wage increase. Of course, Wal Mart earns a lot of revenue from food stamps, which is a minor problem for them if a huge source of food stamp revenue disappears as a result of a living wage. Of course, their employees will have far more disposable income and will be capable of purchasing things with cash that they cannot with food stamps. The economic impact for Wal Mart, in that light, might even be a net gain. Even if the result is pure loss, if $4.8 billion added a penny to the cost of mac n' cheese, I'm sure an extra $300 million isn't going to add much more to the overall total. Consumers, I'm sure, can managed two or three extra cents in their budget if it saves them $300 million or more in taxes each year.
The real question at the end of all of this is why there isn't more political traction behind this? After all, the wage helps lift thousands out of poverty, which is a key Democratic ideal, eliminates the demand for food stamps, easing pressure on the federal deficit and creates an avenue through which taxes can be cut for millions of Americans, which is music to Republicans. It's tailor-made for bi-partisan agreement, and yet here we are.
It's something to consider the next time a member of either party approaches you for your vote.
I'm a words guy. Math isn't my friend. However, having been employed in a lowly minimum wage job once when the minimum wage was raised...by a full and hearty 75 cents, by the by, I was curious to calculate the feasibility of basically doubling the current wage.
One company bearing the brunt of the wrath about the minimum wage was Wal Mart. As such, I used Wal mart as my base example, researching the general number of wage-earners employed by Wal Mart, estimating (out of thin air, no less) what the average wage said worker earned and set about calculating the impact an increase of this size would have on a company of this magnitude.
What I came up with is a total of about $5 billion in added annual costs to Wal Mart's budget. It sounds like a lot, but when I calculated the overall impact this cost would have on consumers (because, let's face it, the Wal Mart heirs aren't going to eat a loss, not matter how big or small), it turns out the added amount for payroll would have next to no impact on a Wal Mart shopper's average total at the check out.
Of course, while I was confident in my equation, I wasn't too confident in my mathematical logic. Turns out, through some miracle of calculation, I was pretty close to accurate. This week, for some reason, a few videos have popped up on YouTube addressing this very subject. One video in particular, done by actual mathematicians and statisticians, contemplated the impact a so-called living wage would have on food stamps.
A living wage, per the video, is the amount needed to prevent people from relying on food stamps to any degree, which they suggested was just shy of $14, or a little more than a buck less than in my equation. The total cost to Wal Mart, they calculated, would be about $4.8 billion, which is close to the figure in my model. The bottom line increase for shoppers came to about 1.4%, or roughly enough to jack a 68 cent box of mac n' cheese up to about 69 cents.
The savings to taxpayers is about $300 million annually...and that's just if Wal Mart's minimum and low wage earners were given a livable wage increase. Of course, Wal Mart earns a lot of revenue from food stamps, which is a minor problem for them if a huge source of food stamp revenue disappears as a result of a living wage. Of course, their employees will have far more disposable income and will be capable of purchasing things with cash that they cannot with food stamps. The economic impact for Wal Mart, in that light, might even be a net gain. Even if the result is pure loss, if $4.8 billion added a penny to the cost of mac n' cheese, I'm sure an extra $300 million isn't going to add much more to the overall total. Consumers, I'm sure, can managed two or three extra cents in their budget if it saves them $300 million or more in taxes each year.
The real question at the end of all of this is why there isn't more political traction behind this? After all, the wage helps lift thousands out of poverty, which is a key Democratic ideal, eliminates the demand for food stamps, easing pressure on the federal deficit and creates an avenue through which taxes can be cut for millions of Americans, which is music to Republicans. It's tailor-made for bi-partisan agreement, and yet here we are.
It's something to consider the next time a member of either party approaches you for your vote.
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