So it was that the Pacific-12 Conference comes to pieces because no one was willing to pay enough money for a TV deal for its remaining football teams. And the rest of the top level college sports world – by which we mean the schools that make the money from football but don’t actually pay any of the athletes – is scrambling to adjust. The truth that it’s all about the Benjamins is laid bare again, student-athletes all across the nation who don’t play football (and even some who are) are left wondering if their futures will include constant coach flights between the coasts, and many of us are left wishing the whole enterprise would collapse under its own weight. But never mind that. Never mind the mission of universities is to educate. There is money to be made (by the college presidents and athletic directors and coaches)!
Anyway, there are games being played, playoff spots in the offing in MLB and roster spots in the offing in the NFL, teams advancing and teams leaving in tears but their heads held high in the WWC and soon in the FIBA Men’s World Cup, and even a major hockey trade (though no progress on the Dame or Beard trade fronts). Come, let us talk sports, in all its glory and its shame.
We might even praise the Orioles sufficiently enough that I am not suspended by John Angelos.