OT-Mad at greed
October 27th, 2011 at 1:30 AM ^
in the first place.
October 27th, 2011 at 6:29 AM ^
No point in me going to ESPN other than fantasy football. I don't read their articles anymore, not after the Bruce Feldman incident. Plus, Pat Forde and Feldman are gone from ESPN, so there's no use bothering with them.
October 27th, 2011 at 6:31 AM ^
Wait...Forde is gone! Screw that, their college football coverage can only get better
October 27th, 2011 at 10:18 AM ^
October 27th, 2011 at 1:31 AM ^
lolwut.
October 27th, 2011 at 1:41 AM ^
October 27th, 2011 at 1:55 AM ^
It's clearly ALL about money, but when it comes to paying the actual athletes they all say...WHAT ABOUT AMATUERISM!?!
I think college athletes need to unionize. If anything, it will give them experience to deal with unions at the next level, because it's lockouts galore in professional sports these days. Revenue generating sports (football, mens hoops) should definitely organize some kind of union. Football/Basketball schools would be divided into 'Tiers'. At each Tier, all athletes have the same 'base pay' and then recieve a 'bonus' amount based on their specific schools revenue situation.
The NCAA makes waaaay too much money, I wonder if it all actually does go back to the schools?
October 27th, 2011 at 2:11 AM ^
No. Unionizing college sports would be terrible. The last thing I want to see is some 18 year old kid demanding that a university provide him with an Ipod and if he doesn't get it, he'll strike.
Unions were a great idea in the gilded age. Today they are as much of the problem as the side they fight against.
October 27th, 2011 at 5:21 AM ^
What is there to unionize? They are not employees. If they don't like the school and all the pressure they're under, they can go to another school.
NCAA makes too much money? They're a non-profit. How much is too much?
I'm as upset at the money involved in college sports as the next person but ... dude. Serious.
October 27th, 2011 at 11:25 AM ^
Well, technically if they begin to get paid anything other than tuition they could technically be considered employees. Think about it, they are saying that the schools are capitalizing on their likeness. If they demand money for that likeness, they are then being paid to promote the school's brand.......thus making them employees of the school. Unionizing wouldn't be that out of the spectrum.
October 27th, 2011 at 5:47 AM ^
"I think college athletes need to unionize. If anything, it will give them experience to deal with unions at the next level, because it's lockouts galore in professional sports these days." - snoopblue
First, they aren't employees of the school and therefore are not entitled to the same sorts of benefits as an employee, which I think would mean that, by law, the school would not be required to recognize them anyway even if they did form one, so there's little point. The only ones we officially recognize in contracts at DTE are the ones whose members we employ.
Second, I think the unions in sports are feeding into the problem of greed in sports nowadays, not making these valiant stands for the rights of their members. The NBA might be the most glaring example of that. They don't recognize that their search for a bigger paycheck is causing people who work in ancillary positions with teams and around venues to lose theirs. Not sure I want students to have the experiences that this invites.
October 27th, 2011 at 2:13 AM ^
Occupy ESPN
October 27th, 2011 at 2:22 AM ^
you mean?
October 27th, 2011 at 8:46 AM ^
What number please?
October 27th, 2011 at 10:12 AM ^
He's confused.
October 27th, 2011 at 8:50 AM ^
I'd rather occupy Erin Andrews instead.
October 27th, 2011 at 3:09 AM ^
On their lack of game related headlines.
It was Michigan's bye week.
October 27th, 2011 at 3:32 AM ^
Domers want bigger scoreboards? Hmm, wonder where they all of a sudden got that motivation...
October 27th, 2011 at 6:39 AM ^
October 27th, 2011 at 11:13 AM ^
October 27th, 2011 at 7:07 AM ^
October 27th, 2011 at 8:24 AM ^
But a job posting trying to help others isn't.
<br>
<br>RIIIIIGGGGHHHHTTTTT
October 27th, 2011 at 8:56 AM ^
It's a football board. His post is about football. Done.
October 27th, 2011 at 8:39 AM ^
If college football is a horrible life of slavery and destitution, then go get a fucking job bagging groceries at Meijer instead of taking your free ride to college. Most of us mere mortals have had to do something similar in our lives. I would pay to still be able to play football, not the other way around. This debate is over
October 27th, 2011 at 10:44 AM ^
Hear hear. To use a contemporary phrase, the 99% of college athletes are being ignored. Except in this case, it's the 99% getting a free ride on the backs of the 1%. The 1% are held up as paragons of exploitation because of "all the money that's made off their efforts" - and yet they are in the top one-one-hundredth of one percent when it comes to undergraduate college students being compensated for their efforts. I'm sick of hearing how exploited they are. When practically the entire campus would trade places with you in a heartbeat, you're not exploited.
October 27th, 2011 at 8:55 AM ^
You know what I love? Paragraph breaks. Use them for fuck's sake.
October 27th, 2011 at 9:31 AM ^
The very passion for college sports that the OP speaks of is the reason that the ESPN's of the world won't change. That is until fans decide to change. As long as traffic to their site continues and we watch the games on tv, they have no reason to change. If we don't like the way it is, we could change our behavior and at some point they would have to alter theirs to stay in business. Easier said than done....I don't want to turn off the tv and miss UM games. I value watching Michigan more than hating how money has taken center stage in college athletics. Until that changes for the majority, ESPN's business plan will remain the same.
October 27th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^
Let me tell you why I COMPLETELY disagree with everything that you wrote.
1. Do you enjoy watching the games on TV?
Like me, you live outside the state of Michigan (I think). You do realize that without $$ as a motivating factor for ESPN to show the games or for the B10 network to even exist, you would not be able to watch a single game unless you traveled to Ann Arbor? Before $$ was involved (let's say the 1950s and 1960s), there was at most 1 game on TV per year out of area. Even in the days of Desmond winning his Heisman - when I just started watching - in NY there was at most 2-3 Michigan games televised per year. The influence of $$ has created ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, B10 Network, ESPN 3 and so on, allowing us CFB fans to watch just about any game we want.
2. Like the new Big House renovations? Enjoy seeing that awesome scoreboard that is giving ND scoreboard-envy? How about our awesome practice facilities that recruits are commenting positively on? How about Greg Mattison's very high coordinator salary? What do you think paid for those thing? Yup, money - money raised in selling seats, jerseys, TV Rights, and the like. The country, and in particular the state of Michigan, is in a deep recession - if our football program were not profitable, do you think that the state would pony up for excesses like that.
3. Dude, it was a Wednesday night. What games were on that you want ESPN to write about? On Thursday, Friday, Saturday and even Sunday, you don't see as many of these $$-related stories.
4. ESPN
They are a part of the Disney company. A publicly-traded FOR PROFIT company. It is their job - the purpose for which they were created - to make money. If you don't like that, you are free not to frequent ESPN. THere are plenty of good CFB blogs out there that are less $$ focused (like this one).
October 27th, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^
i opened this thread for the sole purpose of down-voting. but instead i up-voted. i'm sick of watching all these schools just throw away history and geography for a couple extra bucks.
October 27th, 2011 at 10:59 AM ^
I upvoted anyway, but your OP begs one question:
Do they have paragraphs in Texas?
October 27th, 2011 at 12:49 PM ^
says "Yes!" and it's here.
October 27th, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^
Wait, wait, wait. Greed is GOOD! See my big phone?
October 27th, 2011 at 12:16 PM ^
This comes from the same people who brought us this quote regarding the Bruce Feldman/Mike Leach/CRAIG JAMES KILLED 5 HOOKERS WHILE AT SMU debacle:
. . . this recent online fracas is a result of cascading decisions that were made with good intentions but without the proper attention to core values and loyalties.ESPN is great cause it brings us sports, but terrible because of its talking heads.
October 27th, 2011 at 2:28 PM ^
Now I have an inkling of how Texas A&M fans must feel when they see those ads; but they must feel it 1000x stronger than I do.