Walt Chamberlin, interviewed by Ann Liguori in 1992, animated by Patrick Smith for Blank on Blank, PBS Digital Studios.
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If you don’t have money on the game, maybe the 3-point shot has made basketball boring. Maybe the league should move the 3-point line back a few feet. A Vox video by Edward Vega.
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“Double Dribble,” a 1946 Disney Studios theatrical cartoon featuring Goofy, directed by Jack Hannah. Written by Bill Berg and Milt Banta, with music by Oliver Wallace. Principal animation by Bill Justice, John Sibley, Hugh Fraser, and Andy Engman.
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The college basketball finals are about to decide the new championship team. Each year the 32 Division I conferences are paid millions by the NCAA based on what teams get into the “March Madness” tournament and how far they advance. Last year’s payout was $216 million. The 2018 tournament television and marketing rights brought in $844.3 million, mostly from TV contracts with CBS and Turner Sports. The TV deal grows annually, and will pull in $8.8 billion in 2024.
The league makes millions. Colleges make millions. Coaches make millions. Players make nothing. For decades, universities have claimed that not paying their ballplayers preserved their “student-athlete” purity, something more difficult to rationalize when their hoopsters drop out, leave for the NBA after a year or graduate despite illiteracy.
More recently, the NCAA justified this situation by citing a clause of the 13th Amendment that allows unpaid prison labor. This jaw-dropping argument is compounded when you realize that the purpose of the 13th Amendment was the abolition of slavery in the United States, and Division 1 college athletes are overwhelmingly African American.
The chorus to reform the obvious economic inequity has been joined by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), whose office has issued a report on the unjust situation. Maybe colleges will end the scholar-athelete sham and get out of bigtime sports altogether, letting the pros run their own development leagues. The NBA has already started their G League as a new entry ramp to the pros.
If you’re horrified that the future of college basketball will be decided by lawyers, know this: lawyers patented basketballs and hoops back in the last century.
More:
“College basketball’s murky swamp of misbehavior,” George F. Will, Washington Post
Related:
“How Classifying Athletes as Employees Can Save Colleges Money,” Derek Helling, OZY
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North Carolina’s “Bathroom Bill” has cost it two rounds of 2017’s “March Madness” Division I men’s college basketball tournament games. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has relocated those games and six other championship events out of the state due to the North Carolina state law known as HB2, which requires people to use public bathrooms based on their sex as designated on their birth certificates. The law, which also nullifies local laws protecting the civil rights of LGBT citizens, had already lost Charlotte the NBA All Star Game and millions of tourist dollars. The NCAA decision is arguably a bigger blow to the Tarheel State, where college basketball has deep roots and a wide following, and Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are legendary contenders. This won’t help North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory’s reelection bid, either.
Here are the NCAA championships North Carolina is losing to bigotry:
More:
“NCAA Moves Championship Events From North Carolina, Citing Anti-Gay-Rights Law,” Marc Tracy and Alan Blinder, New York Times
“NCAA had enough of NC inaction on HB2,” Luke DeCock, Charlotte Observer
Related:
“North Carolina’s HB2 Is Not Just a ‘Bathroom Bill,'” NotionsCapital
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The 2017 NBA All-Star game will be moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to another location because of the Tarheel State’s bathroom legislation, the Association announced last Thursday. The “Bathroom Law,” aka HB2, requires people to use gender-separated bathrooms and changing rooms according to the sex on their birth certificates, which denies transgender people access to public facilities.The All Star Game isn’t just a single pro hoops contest; it’s a 3-day weekend series of events for basketball fans, supported by the NBA, league sponsors, and local businesses, and the cancellation will cost state businesses an estimated $100 million.
ARRGHHH!!! responded North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, or words to that effect. The NBA’s Charlotte Hornets issued a perfunctory statement accepting the situation and urging Carolinians to get it together or lose any chance at the 2019 All Star Game.
Other businesses and events have also cancelled plans for activities in North Carolina. Over 200 CEOs of major companies (including the state’s largest employers) have signed an open letter urging the law’s repeal. Scores of state, county, and city governments have forbidden government-related travel to North Carolina due to the law.The bathroom law is flushing billions of dollars in business activity and tax revenue down the toilet.
More:
“The NBA Has Moved The All-Star Game From North Carolina Because Of Anti-LGBT Law,” Kevin Draper, Deadspin
“NBA pulls 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte over HB2 law,” Sports Illustrated
“NBA will move 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte over HB2 law,” Tim Bontemps, Washington Post
Related:
“House Bill 2 could cost N.C. $5 billion a year, report says,” Katherine Peralta, Charlotte Observer
“Police officers have no idea how to enforce North Carolina’s new ‘bathroom law,” Mark Abadi, Business Insider
“North Carolina’s ‘bathroom’ law is about more than who’s in the next stall,” Paul Woolverton, Fayetteville Observer
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National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver wants betting on professional sports legalized in places other than Las Vegas, and wrote a New York Times op-ed about it. After all, why should the crooks get all that sports book money, $400 billion a year? Besides, nothing could go wrong, except maybe a bit of point shaving and a few dirty referee calls.
So will it happen? Don’t bet on it. It would take an act of Congress, a repeal of the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. And with this do-nothing Congress, odds are surely against it.
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Donald Sterling’s effort to obtain a stay of the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team was denied by California’s 2nd Court of Appeals. So Steve Ballmer now owns the Clippers, and Donny Sterling will just have to take his $2 billion dollars and go home.
Update:
“Steve Ballmer leaves Microsoft board to focus on L.A. Clippers,” Benjamin Snyder, Fortune
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“Ball Is in the N.B.A. Owners’ Court,” Harvey Araton, New York Times
“The Clippers, Like Many NBA Teams, Have a Majority-Minority Fan Base,” Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight
“Why Would The NAACP Honor Donald Sterling Anyway?” Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR
“Head of LA NAACP resigns after Donald Sterling scandal,” AP via CBS News
“The Non-Sports Fan’s Guide to Donald Sterling,” Jordan Sargent, Gawker
“Your Complete Quotable Guide To Decades Of Donald Sterling’s Racism,” Timothy Burke, Deadspin
“NAACP won’t award Donald Sterling,” Darren Rovell, ESPN.com
“Donald Sterling: Slumlord Billionaire,” Dave Zirin, The Nation
“The NBA’s Ownership Society,” Josh Levin, Slate
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