ESPN: The Game Has Changed

ESPN (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What if we told you that people who are fed up with the rising cost of cable and satellite have ditched them in favor of streaming movies and TV shows on their computers and smartphones, creating a day of reckoning for sports channels?

No, this isn't the beginning of another ESPN "30 for 30" documentary.  The Disney-owned sports network just whacked at least 100 jobs last week, most of whom are writers, production people and on-air talent.  True, there have been layoffs before, but none of this magnitude.

The ESPN brand includes several TV channels, two regional networks, a Spanish-language channel, a radio network and a magazine.  They also own their own events to televise, including the X Games and some college football bowl games.

It's not just cutting the cord that's caused Disney's stock to go down every time ESPN loses subscribers.  The rights fees and long-term contracts to the NFL, NBA, MLB and the college conferences keep accelerating, resulting in various forms of cost-cutting that might not be obvious to viewers.  It's telling that some of the layoffs involve reporters and commentators who covered such sports as hockey, auto racing and golf--events ESPN does not televise.

Another reason some people have turned off ESPN is because of what they believe is the network's coverage of sports and society from a liberal perspective, whether it comes from its commentators and contributors or not.  One recent example came during the coverage of the NFL Draft, where after it was announced that Oklahoma football star Joe Mixon had been chosen by the Cincinnati Bengals, ESPN showed footage of him beating up on a woman.  That alleged incident drove Mixon's draft value way down.  For those who complain about the network's supposed progressive stance, there's always the chance they'll mention former football star Tim Tebow at least once a day.  He's currently playing minor league baseball for the Class A Columbia Fireflies in the New York Mets organization.

ESPN has also weathered the loss of on-air personalities that used to define them:  Chris Berman, Mike Tirico, Brent Musberger, Keith Olbermann, Colin Cowherd, Jason Whitlock, Brad Nessler, Skip Bayless and others.  In their places are so many sound-alike play-by-play announcers, "Sportscenter" broadcasts that rely less on scores and highlights and more on personalities, and debate shows that aren't much different than what you'd find on CNN.

ESPN is the most expensive of all the cable channels, yet it is also the hardest to give up.  This is also true of other sports channels, whose contracts with individual teams and cable providers (some of which last decades) restrict them from going the over-the-top route like HBO, leaving sports fans with no choice but to stick with cable.  Something has to change, or else it's game over for sports on TV.

Wild 2016-17: Swooning Out of the Playoffs

Minnesota Wild (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Minnesota Wild ended their NHL season in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs once again, in five games to the St. Louis Blues this time.

The Wild had their best regular season ever with 106 points, challenging the Chicago Blackhawks for the right to be best in the Western Conference and a favorite to win the Cup.  Under first-year coach Bruce Boudreau, many of the players had their career years.  Most importantly, they didn't fall victim to the usual mid-season slump that forced them to scratch and claw for a playoff spot.

Instead, the Wild's annual slump came in March, weeks before the regular season ended.  It was so bad that they ceded the conference and the Central Division to the Blackhawks, but managed to hang on to home ice advantage.  Which is why what happened next was almost predictable.

The Wild did not score much or win a home game against the Blues, who were the ones struggling to get into the playoffs this year.  It was a combination of Jake Allen's star turn in goal and the game plans of coach Mike Yeo, who knew the Wild all too well as Boudreau's predecessor in Minnesota.

(If it's any consolation to the Wild, the Blackhawks were swept out of the first round by the Nashville Predators.)

So what happens now?  General Manager Chuck Fletcher doesn't have many options.  He just hired Boudreau a year ago, whose teams in Anaheim and Washington also flamed out in the playoffs, so at least he now knows what kind of coach he's got.  Too many of his players are under long-term, big money contracts.  Though he did get Eric Staal on the free agent market and traded for Martin Hazal at the deadline, Fletcher had to give away most of his draft picks in the process.  And there's not a Conor McDavid or an Auston Matthews to be found at the Wild's minor league affiliates.  Or maybe it's time to blow everything up and start over?

Because if teams like the Minnesota Wild want to get within a sniff of Lord Stanley's cup, you have to have a lineup that's built for the playoffs.  Sure, winning a division title is nice, but there's more than one way to get where you're going.  The Wild aren't there yet.

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Our Stanley Cup finals pick:  Anaheim Ducks vs. Pittsburgh Penguins.

NBA: The Rest of the Story

English: LeBron James playing with the Cleveland Cavaliers Español: LeBron James con los Cavaliers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They say regular seasons in professional sports are too long.  The NFL spreads sixteen games per team over seventeen weeks.  Major League Baseball teams play 162 games over a five month period.  The NHL plays 81 games per team over six months.  All this to eliminate a few teams from the playoffs, which usually last a month or two longer.

The NBA has an 82-game regular season schedule over six months.  In response to this, some teams--which happen to be marquee names like the Cleveland Cavaliers, San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors--have taken to giving star players like LeBron James and Stephen Curry the night off so they could rest their weary bones.  It doesn't matter if the game is on national television, or if fans paid good money to see the best players in the league, only to see him on the bench in a suit and tie.

Usually when a player sits out a game, it's either because he's injured, in foul trouble, or has a disagreement with his coach.  You could limit the number of minutes your typical millionaire superstar athlete plays during a game, but that doesn't mean he's not going to turn an ankle or worse on the court.

It's not exactly a glamorous life on the road.  There are the plane flights, hotel accommodations, practices, meet-and-greets and all that other stuff before they get to the arena.  When the game is over, it's rinse-lather-repeat.  Now multiply that times forty.

The NBA has tried to remedy the player fatigue by scheduling fewer back-to-back games during the season, and mandating a week off during the All Star break.  But that hasn't worked.  It seems the more likely your team is going to make the playoffs, the more likely it is that the best players are going to sit as the season winds down, whether they need to or not.

Come playoff time, however, your team had better be up for it because it only takes four games to determine whether you move on or move out.  Unless, of course, it's the first or second round and your team has a commanding lead in the series.  So you rest your stars for the next series.

The NBA is in kind of a bind here.  They could reduce the schedule, force stars to play in national TV games, or restrict nights off to home games only.  But that would run afoul of the players association, certain franchise owners and the league's numerous business partners.

Don't be shocked if this trend of resting athletes hits other sports.  Concerns over injuries, concussions and other issues of players' safety have become paramount in recent years.  Or it should be, as long as the leagues make sensible decisions regarding when, where and how long their players should play.  That, and a good refund policy for fans who want their money back when they don't want to see no scrubs.

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The Minnesota Timberwolves ended their 2016-17 season with a 31-51 record.  That's slightly better than last year, but still not good enough to make the playoffs for the 13th consecutive time.  Now coach Tom Thibodeau will put on his front office hat, and decide what to do with yet another lottery pick in the NBA Draft to go along with his phenoms Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Wiggins.  But hey, the Wolves have a cool new logo and a refurbished Target Center to look forward to, if nothing else.

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Finally, here's our off-the-wall NBA Finals pick:  Cleveland vs. Golden State. 

Pot Shots '17: Volume 1

English: University of North Carolina Tarheels Interlocking NC logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tar Heels The Final One

North Carolina won the NCAA men's basketball title Monday night with a 71-65 victory over Gonzaga at Glendale, AZ.  This is the Tar Heels' sixth championship and third for coach Roy Williams, with the last one coming in 2009.  Gonzaga, who finally made it to the Final Four after being tournament regulars for decades, got to prove they could play with the big boys.  The game was no classic, what with ragged play and the officials making every call they could possibly make.  But it was still close before UNC put things away in the final seconds.  Now it's time to see whether Carolina's success holds up in the face of alleged academic fraud.

South Carolina Wins UConn's Title

South Carolina defeated Mississippi State 67-55 to win the NCAA women's basketball title at Dallas Sunday, giving coach Dawn Staley the championship she never had as a player.  But all anyone will remember from this Women's Final Four is how MSU ended the University of Connecticut's 111-game winning streak, when Morgan William's overtime buzzer-beater struck down the Huskies 66-64.  It was, by most accounts, the greatest women's basketball game ever played.  had this not happened, coach Geno Auriemma's team would have gone for a fifth straight national championship, and Staley would not have had the chance to cut down the net.

NHL Says No More Olympic Rings

After months of hemming and hawing, the National Hockey League has decided not to send its players to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in South Korea.  The owners and commissioner Gary Bettman, it seems, no longer want to suspend the league's schedule for a couple of weeks in February every four years,  just so its players could go halfway around the world to help promote the game.  They also don't care much for the chintzy manner in which the International Olympic Committee is treating them.  Instead, the NHL would rather promote its World Cup of Hockey, which got off to a rip-roaring start in Toronto last fall.  The players are not happy about this, and Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals has said he'd go anyway to play for his Russian countrymen.  NBC isn't happy either, because its telecasts of Olympic hockey draws better numbers than most NHL games outside of the Stanley Cup playoffs.  So thanks to this short-sighted decision, we are about to turn the clock back to 1994, which was the last time Olympic hockey teams consisted of college kids and alleged amateurs.  Any chance of a "Miracle On Ice" here?

The Boycott That Wasn't

The U.S. women's hockey team is currently playing in the world championships in Michigan.  But they almost didn't go due to a pay dispute with USA Hockey, the sport's governing body.  See, the players were being paid next to nothing outside of the Olympics, so they threatened a boycott.  This would have given the world championships more publicity than they normally would get, and for the wrong reasons.  Both sides did come to an agreement with the players getting most of what they asked for.  That's a big victory for women's hockey in America, but the struggle for acceptance goes on.  The University of North Dakota recently announced that it is dropping its women's hockey program.
 

Twins 2017: Reality Bites

English: Target Field (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's Opening Day at Target Field, when the Minnesota Twins are hosting the Kansas City Royals in their season opener.  The weather is acceptable by local standards for early April.  Dessa, the locally-famous hip hop artist, is performing the national anthem with the Minnesota Orchestra.  If you're not in the mood for overpriced beer and brats, there are much healthier options (relatively speaking) waiting for you in the concession areas, including chef Andrew Zimmern's ballpark eatery.

(You know who Zimmern is, right?  He hosts a show on the Travel Channel called "Bizarre Foods", where he goes around the world sampling the local cuisine.  And by "local cuisine", we're talking delicacies like pig testicles, for which after eating it and pronouncing it yummy he lives to tell the tale.  But we digress . . .)

Then the game begins.  The team you see on the field is mostly the same one that lost 103 games last season, the worst since the franchise came to Minnesota from Washington in 1961.  And chances are real good that they'll lose at least 90 games again this season.

The most significant moves the Twins made all winter were to hire Derek Falvey away from the American League champion Cleveland Indians to be its new chief baseball officer, who in turn hired Thad Levine to be his general manager.  The only other move they made was in acquiring catcher Jason Castro, who previously played for the Houston Astros.

• Brian Dozier, the team's best player, is still a Twin because Falvey was unable to unload him while he still had some trade value.
• Joe Mauer is nearing the end of his long-term contract, which the Twins and their fans have come to regard as an albatross.  He can't catch any more, so they stick him at first base, keeping them from slotting a young player who needs experience.  But Mauer can still hit the ball on occasion.
• There was a huge reaction to ByungHo Park being demoted to the minors after a successful spring training.  If we've learned anything from watching mutual fund commercials on TV, it's that past performance doesn't always mirror future results.
• Outside of starting pitchers Ervin Santana, Kyle Gibson, Phil Hughes and Hector Santiago, the rest of the Twins staff is a disaster waiting to happen.  Losing Trevor May and Glen Perkins to injury doesn't help.
• The Twins' designated future stars, Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, are still trying to prove they're worthy of the hype they've been given by just about everybody.  Is this finally the year?
• This is Paul Molitor's third season as Twins manager, and it might be his last.  Which is too bad because one wonders how much more successful he'd be with better players.

After several losing season, Twins fans are faced with a stark choice:  Keep watching this team and hope things will get better.  Or your time would be better spent binge watching reruns of "Bizarre Foods".  You could do worse.

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The Twins' flagship radio station is still at 96.3 FM, but the call letters have changed from KTWN to KQGO.  The Pohlad family, who own both the team and the station, did that to make it fit with its Go brand of media properties:  Go 95.3 (hip hop) and Go News (the former Bring Me The News).  A station built on adult alternative rock and baseball is still a hard sell, and the signal isn't all that great.  But the Pohlads don't care, because as long as the Twins are terrible, they're not going anywhere.
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Our projected division and wild card picks in Major League Baseball.  Ignore them at your peril.

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Central:  Cleveland Indians
East:       Boston Red Sox
West:      Houston Astros
Wild Card:  New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays

NATIONAL LEAGUE
Central:  Chicago Cubs
East:        New York Mets
West:       Los Angeles Dodgers
Wild Card:  Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals

UPDATE (4/3/17):  The Twins won on Opening Day 7-1 over the Royals.  Dessa did not perform the national anthem, claiming illness.

Raiders Take a Chance on Las Vegas

Oakland Raiders logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By 2020, the NFL Raiders will be trading in their hardscrabble existence in Oakland for the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas.  This isn't the first time they did that, having spent 12 seasons in the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles (1982-94) before moving back to the Bay Area in 1995.

Once the Raiders touch down in Vegas, they will have a new domed stadium waiting for them, paid for by local taxpayers and the Bank of America.  The only reason they're staying in Oakland for the next couple of years is that Raiders owner Mark Davis doesn't want his team to play outdoors in the desert heat at a small college stadium.

This is the third franchise shift for the NFL in the past year.  The Rams returned to LA after two decades in St. Louis, and the Chargers bolted out of San Diego to join them.  Which left the Raiders, who still have a significant fan base in southern California, looking east.

The NFL (and most professional sports) used to avoid Las Vegas because of its reputation as a gambling haven.  But now it seems hypocritical in an era where sports betting and fantasy football are big business.  The league's owners were almost unanimous in approving the Raiders' move.

Oakland now joins St. Louis and San Diego as cities abandoned by the NFL for bigger bucks elsewhere, and might never see them again.  The Coliseum, which had been the Raiders' off and on home base for over 50 years, is now a concrete dump that's badly in need of repair.  Even Major League Baseball's Athletics couldn't wait to get out of there.  And the NBA Golden State Warriors, who are currently playing at Oracle Arena next door, will be moving to San Francisco in a couple of years.

The Raiders began as an original member of the American Football League in 1960.  After struggling for a few years, the team began to dominate the league (and later the NFL after the merger) by living the "just win, baby" philosophy of managing general partner Al Davis.  They've played in five Super Bowls, winning twice in Oakland (1977 and 1980) and once in Los Angeles (1984).  They last appeared in 2003, losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

So many memorable players have donned the Silver and Black over the years.  Here's some of them:  Daryl Lamonica, Jim Otto, George Blanda, Ben Davidson, Jim Plunkett, Bo Jackson, coach John Madden, Ray Guy, Ken Stabler, Marcus Allen, Fred Biletnikoff and Howie Long.

In the 2016 season, the Raiders finished second in the AFC West division with a 12-4 record.  They lost to the Houston Texans in the wild card round of the NFL playoffs.

Playing in Oakland for the next two seasons (no word on what will happen in 2019) is going to be awkward for the Raiders and their fans, the most rabid in the NFL.  What if they win a Super Bowl, as Davis suggested they might?  Forget handing another Vince Lombardi Trophy to the New England Patriots.  Awarding one to a lame duck franchise could result in another embarrassing moment for commissioner Roger Goodell.

And Las Vegas?  There will be plenty of questions about the viability of an NFL franchise in a growing city with a transient population, and how the league will handle the gambling situation.  With every team getting the stadium deals they wanted and no more worlds to conquer (unless it's London), how long will it be before the NFL discovers all that glitters isn't really gold?

United They Kick

Soccerball with USA flag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Minnesota United FC (aka the Loons) are the latest pro sports franchise to come into the Twin Cities.  Their first season in Major League Soccer, after years in the minors, began Friday with a match at Portland against the Timbers.

The Loons are owned by Bill McGuire, who was once the CEO of United Health Care.  He bought the team from the North American Soccer League in 2012, just before they were about to fold it.  Manny Lagos, a longtime figure in Minnesota soccer, is the team's sporting director (read:  general manager).  Adrian Heath is the coach.

The team will play its home games for the next two seasons at the University of Minnesota's football stadium.  Then, probably in the 2019 season, the Loons will move into their new soccer-specific digs in St. Paul, having successfully wrangled money out of a skeptical state legislature that had already seen too many stadium deals.

As an expansion team, United's roster is stocked with the usual castoffs from other squads, young players and the holdovers from their previous incarnation in the NASL.  Heath, who previously led another MLS startup in Orlando, will be tasked with bringing his new team together and making them competitive against the more established competition.

MLS has 22 teams this season (Atlanta United is the other new franchise), and is looking for more.  Soccer's popularity in this country is rising as more Americans are taking the game seriously, thanks to TV coverage of the World Cup and the English Premiere League, as well as attention paid to the U.S. men's and women's national squads.  And they have national television deals with Fox, FS1 and ESPN.

As a league, MLS is kind of a wannabe on the international soccer stage.  Their biggest stars (who are invariably placed in New York and Los Angeles) tend to be veterans with one foot in retirement.  They don't seem to have an identity of their own, having chosen to co-opt the European leagues.  They have teams named Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City.  Their schedules read "Los Angeles Galaxy vs. New York Red Bulls", forcing fans to figure out which one is the home team.  Their season runs from March to December, which is longer than that of the NHL and NBA.  And their plan to expand to at least 28 teams is a reminder of how the original NASL folded back in the 1980s.  Too many teams with too little interest equal a league collapsing of its own weight.

Minnesota United, being a first-year team, is not expected to do much this season.  Most of the players are unknown to the average fan in and out of Minnesota, and will certainly have some adjusting to do.  But this has been a good market for pro soccer, with the Kicks and Strikers of the original NASL selling out the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington back in the 1970s and 80s.  Can the Loons be just as successful with a new generation of soccer fans?  We'll soon find out.