In particular, the way these coaches are shilling for football is way too similar to "open it up" for my tastes. Are we all supposed to ignore that Scott Frost's millions of dollars in compensation may have something to do with his views? Are we supposed to have sympathy for the ridiculously scaled house of financial cards that may fall?

It kind of grosses me out, and its highly unlikely i watch any pro or college sports in America until our situation isnt quite so epically fucked. European soccer is going to have to carry me through the year, which is fine. Those places got their shit in order months ago, and the 5 major Euro leagues *combined* had fewer issues than MLB has had in just a few weeks.

Its a real bummer, especially as related to college football. Perfect mirror to our fucked up society. A money making pyramid scheme, with the affluent top level pressing hard for the poorly compensated labor force to get back to making profits for them.

I have Youtube TV, so im automatically a "Nielsen house", and the thought of contributing to the metrics is gross enough that i probably wont watch a single minute of this year's NBA and Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in my life. This isnt a moral highground post, or anything like that. Days like this I couldnt ever begrudge how someone finds a little joy. Im more just angry that our society has sapped MY ability to draw joy from something thats meant so much to me for decades.

Is anyone else feeling like this?

I have this sentiment that sports is going to be permanently eliminated in the future, so I’m just soaking up as much as I can right now.

However, I know things are not normal in the world , and might never return to the normalcy that we once had, but watching sports right now is way more doable than watching the world spiral into darkness.

Metaphorically speaking, I’m simply smoking my last cigarette before the firing squad comes in.

They're professionals, and if they agree to do their job, and the league (again, so particularly the NBA) takes every measure they can to treat the situation with as much care as possible, I empathize fully with them. As somebody who works in restaurants, I'm terrified every day I work but I also love the nights when we have a great service, socially distance perfectly, every guest has a great time and the after hours camaraderie with the staff. I totally understand professional athletes wanting to perform for their fans.


But the college shit?


"Let’s spell this out again: During a pandemic, thousands of unpaid athletes, who predominantly are Black, are being asked to risk their health to make money for their coaches and administrators, who overwhelmingly are white. Say it again and again and again. It sounds just as bad every time."


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Also in regards to pro sports, as long as they aren’t opening the stadiums and allowing fans I’m okay with watching. If they opened their stadiums to fans I wouldn’t watch.

Now college sports, nope. I also wouldn’t be surprised if college football, especially the SEC opened their stadiums to a limited number of fans. I also wouldn’t be shocked if those limited number of fans were also all wealthy and white.

my issue with the NBA isnt with players that want to play. its with the idea that our country is so fucked up that we literally have to lock them in a bubble for them to do so.

but like i said, i begrudge nothing but our abject failure to take care of ourselves. if watching basketball brings people happiness, then i hope it has its intended effect. i just cant separate it from everything else, and im a world class compartmentalizer.

At the end of the day, this is stark evidence that money isn't just power, it's health, and that we've built a country where a recreational sport can be played and no one will get sick doing so, but teachers, hospitality workers and all the other low and low-middle income professions just have to grit their teeth and go to work hoping they don't die a week later because we can't imagine the equivalent of a bubble (like, say, a UBI or nationalized healthcare) that allows them/us/me to stay safe and keep a roof over their/our/my head at the same time. Like I'm at a point where so many of the podcasts I listen to have settled into at home routines and are comfortably talking about not going to the office until 2021 and using some PTO just to relieve a little stress and pretend it's still summer and I'm like...FUCK y'all, man! LOL.


That's what makes me uncomfortable about the NBA. But Bol Bol do kinda got handles though.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Bol Bol was eating up that lakers front court. Lol. It was lovely to watch.

Play exclusively conference schedules. Create bubbles. Do online learning for the student-athletes. Mandatory testing 3 times a week. Let players who don't want to play bow out without consequence. Any mid-major conference or any high-major program who can't afford to do this can also bow out without consequence. This would be fairly easy for college basketball, obviously harder for college football-- but still doable. There'd be some fucking righteous sports on TV, ratings would be huge, and it'd fuel the entire industry.

There's just one problem. In order to do this, the NCAA would have to openly admit that these kids are athletes first and students second.

The NCAA could reap MAD PROFIT right now from having college sports while people are stuck at home dying for an escape. They just would have to concede that point and the subsequent points that come with it-- the need for NIL, the need for student player unions, the need for, if necessary (and it would be during a bubble imo) stipends.

And they simply will not bend on that. They'd rather take continued seasons of financial loss than allow the students to earn their share when things return to normal.

Fucking sucks.

Like, knows the 8th graders the forum hounds have their eyes on already type nerd.

So while we were in quarantine, doing takeout and delivery, discussing all the business we've missed out on (Olympic Swim Trials, College World Series, Berkshire Shareholders, whatever else) and the earliest rumors of the NBA bubble was trickling out, he wouldn't shut up about how Omaha/Lincoln should be on the phone every day with athletic directors trying to work out a situation where Big Ten teams stay in Omaha hotels and bus down to Lincoln for games while doing remote learning, and the selected hotels are for school personnel only, and how you could make similar programs happen in similarly low rate areas like...wherever was low rate at that time and had robust national service hotel networks ready to go...

You never heard one rumor about anyone suggesting anything like that said by anyone of actual importance. It was just a whole lot of, "you think they'll play this year?"

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

>You never heard one rumor about anyone suggesting anything
>like that said by anyone of actual importance.

I've heard media report on countless "conversations" and "musings" and "explorations" on how to make bubbles work with college. But they all boil down to the same thing: they're pulling kids away from school and treating them like employees by doing that. And they simply can't find a way around that. (Despite the very obvious way around that that exists!)

ripped the veil right off a lot of hypocrisies

and there shouldn't be any two-tiered thing. uh huh, yeah, you can "opt out" but what happens to your eligibility, your roster spot, your scholarship? Seems hard to predict. Also how about the guys looking at the pros? In basketball I guess they have options, in football they don't. It's too competitive of an endeavor to act like you can opt out without penalty under any system.

err on the side of caution. level the field. no sports this year, every student athlete retains her/his year of eligibility and scholarship; it rolls forward.

Or at bare minimum open up the right to earn their own pay.

They shouldn't play for free, that's a given. But that's also a given in a non-COVID world.

that they erase the whole "student athlete" concept and start paying players is not "simple." that's a move that is an eventuality but it's also many, many years in the making. of course i agree that players should be compensated fairly but it's a very complex question as to how and resolving that issue on the fly just isn't going to happen. i strongly support paying players--allowing them to monetize their name/likeness is a half-measure, but a step in the right direction--but even i wouldn't do this if i were the ncaa. you're taking a major step under duress and it reeks of desperation. also you've got to follow the money, they aren't going to do something five or 10 years ahead of schedule just to save one or two seasons. lastly i think you are overstating the need for escape. three of the four major pro leagues are playing and the fourth is on the way. that's in addition to mls and european soccer leagues. it's a pretty normal marketplace for sports right now.

i got basketball and soccer back so i'm good overall. no sports was an even bigger drag than i expected.

but i really wish the NFL had at least tried to take some bubble effort to play. college just is too large in scope for it to be feasible to play. i'll miss that even more than the NFL.

I don’t think the Pac 12 will play and maybe Nebraska, Iowa and Ohio State play with the SEC or Big 12.

I can see the SEC and Big 12 giving it a go even if it just those two leagues.

bc i can watch it without feeling guilty for endorsing risk. as you alluded in the other post Josep Illicic was literally traumatized by the loss of life in Bergamo, and even THAT place looks like a CDC Clean Room compared to us.

the NFL i wont miss at all. i do miss basketball, but i really need it not to be shining such a bright light on our failures. i also never really thought about it until right now...but i may be a little PTSD'd myself. Michigan got hit so hard, so early, and the circumstances of play force me to think about the fact that hundreds of people are dying weekly where they are playing.

(Super Bowl excepted, and even then I’m not watching as raptly as I was) since Kaep got blackballed. And I haven’t missed it.

mostly because i was already smoking weed on the couch watching TV anyways.

Michigan games OTOH, have always been the crux of my Fall social life ever since I moved back from ATL. Im gonna miss that part, but mostly i just miss a feeling thats gonna be impossible to recapture for the time being, whether they play or not.

maybe a bit of a stretch there...but probably not. Jim fucking Jordan?! How is he not under a jail?

I feel bad for the kids....leadership has failed them in astronomical ways.

College looking to NFL. NFL looking to the govt. Govt is complete and utter SHIT.

because players are in gloves, pads, and helmets and theres not a lot of skin to skin touching (which there still is but anyway...).

and nobody challenged him. greenie pretty much agreed with him.

how do they not know the virus is spread through the air via exhalation from the mouth and nose? what do they think is the whole purpose of the 6 foot distance? aint nobody got a 6 foot reach lol.

jesus christ we gotta be one of the dumbest countries on earth.

the NBA, NHL, and UFC have been fantastic thus far. The level of competition has not suffered and the leagues have kept their athletes safe. Glad to have it available.

Baseball acted dumb, and it looks even shittier on TV than usual.

Like I said in my post a couple weeks ago, football is going to be a disaster. And their hubris is so consistent with who they are...BrookylynWhat had a great solution to how they could have bubbled and played. Weird thing is they basically had half a year to figure it out and they just charged ahead like "nah, we're good, The Shield will protect us"

hell, he might be one of the handful of coaches who will maintain better job security by NOT playing this season.

I don't think clay helton is all that sad about avoiding a 60 point beat down at the hands of alabama to open up the season.

Of all the offensive bullshit surrounding these issues, I don't find the genuine desire for players wanting to play and coaches wanting to coach to be all that offensive.

I think that's just human nature.

do you feel his desire to coach football is actually repulsive or wildly harmful and negligent?

>do you feel his desire to coach football is actually
>repulsive or wildly harmful and negligent?
>
>

and the guidelines and rules of the university, conference, etc.

he's under contract to show up and do his job.

especially in this country

but i dont feel that what coaches are attempting to do in a controlled environment with strict adherence to protocol as well as intense testing is the equivalent to throwing a pool party orgy in the ozarks

>but i dont feel that what coaches are attempting to do in a
>controlled environment with strict adherence to protocol as
>well as intense testing is the equivalent to throwing a pool
>party orgy in the ozarks

how "controlled" is this environment? are the players quarantined? Is the staff? the coaches?

There are reasons why every other non-red state conference has already cancelled fall sports.

I understand for Buckeye nation and its eternal thirst to be seen on SEC level athletically to actually lose a football season will be akin to losing a child but you guys will figure out how to make it through.

>I understand for Buckeye nation and its eternal thirst to be
>seen on SEC level athletically to actually lose a football
>season will be akin to losing a child but you guys will figure
>out how to make it through.

I've made my thoughts on these issues pretty well known throughout these threads dating way back to when this mess started. And it's the complete opposite of the horseshit you just angrily typed up. Literally right above this post is me responding with 'I DONT DISAGREE' in regards to player safety.

So either you can't read or you're just desperate to agitate and attack someone online as I guess that somehow makes your day a bit brighter.

And sports (from the pro's down to little league) are still being played in some non-red state sports. If you're going to try this hard to be a complete asshole, at least put in the same effort in getting your facts straight.

and now you’re trying to deflect with the typical personal attacks when people lack basic communication skills.

I said that it's a comparatively better environment than a 'pool party orgy'. Have fun debunking that.

This convo didn't even involve you, I didn't ask for your opinion...if you wanted to come in and have a real convo I'm cool with that but instead YOU interjected on some angry troll shit and made it personal. Take it elsewhere.

" what coaches are attempting to do in a controlled environment with strict adherence to protocol as well as intense testing"

like I said if you're not in a "bubble" all team sports are dangerous right now

I said that I found the language 'repulsive' to be a bit severe so I was giving an example of what I find to be repulsive.

now today there are some reports from players that Norvell at FSU has not been adhering to protocols. If true, feel free to use any label you want for that and IMO he should be terminated immediately.

for one, his wealth gives him a layer of protection that players dont have

for two, his players will be taking extra risk and are unfairly compensated even under normal situations

for three, shut the fuck up instead of being combative towards the Big 10

for four, youre in Nebraska. not every place is in the same situation

so, while i have no idea how sound their plan is, we're talking about 65 different plans. sorry it aint happening this year, but like...fix your fuckin priorities, coach.

Similar to how European countries handled everything.

I have no idea how the NBA has avoided an outbreak in this shit hole country.

...in the bubble. That was my main issue when they announced this thing, because they were letting outside people (like Disney World employees) come and go. But they've apparently managed to keep them away from the player and coaches and others. So, good for them.

Another big test is going to be the play-offs, when they start letting more outside people in.

the people who prepare their food and provide their services don't live in the bubble. their thots don't live inside the bubble. families will come in the middle of it all. lots of iffy shit.

as smuts pointed out, being in edmonton is a big edge for nhl. seriously limits above risks. i won't venture into any cultural differences in the two sports, that seems speculative, but i definitely trust a bubble in a place with maybe 100 deaths than i trust #FloridaMan Land

football culture in particular is absolutely disgusting and sports are a huge industry that like any other is thinking about their bottom line first.

i have to say that the nba and nhl have been only mildly repulsive in all this. the NCAA, NFL and MLB have been next level awful. no big surprise to me

I guess he could just hate America and be done with it and I would agree but the reality is no sports.. HS, college or pro, are needed at all during a pandemic.

None of that shit matters.

but I guess you gotta have some type of pep talk to enjoy sports during covid without feeling guilty.

college football is everything wrong with America put on a field; the pandemic just makes us look at it head on.

>college football is everything wrong with America put on a
>field; the pandemic just makes us look at it head on.

i genuinely think the NBA is a positive "thing". but the steps they have to take in order to play makes it hard to avoid thinking about the wider scenario.

so as far as the NBA and NHL go, its really not about *them*. its about the fact that they force me to think about the context.

that would've happened at any NFL game, btw. the NFL knows who their main demographic is; that's why Kaep was blackballed in the first place.

fuck this league.

so that it can be laid bare: racism is good for business, that's why they let racists cook

I've not had the same interest now than I did before all of this went to the toilet

first year not playing fantasy since 2002

I think I watched maybe 6 pro games in the last 3 years. Last year, for the first time in my life, I didn't watch *any* college games, either.

COVID has ripped the mask off...college football is slave labor. Pro football should be investigated by the national labor relations board/dept of labor. Cant support that shit man