Sports Television Still in Need of Color Adjustment

Sports are not exempt from racial profiling. While the racial profiling in sportsworld is not as extreme or humiliating as that which exists in America’s airports and on the roads, it is mindless and infuriating nonetheless.


My skin crawled while watching an NBC Sports promo for this Sunday’s Patriots-Steelers football game. As NBC showed film of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick (right), a voiceover announcer intoned, “the master mind.” Then we saw film of Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin (left) as the announcer said, “versus the master motivator.”


Both Belichick and Tomlin are Super Bowl-winning coaches. Belichick is white. Tomlin is black.


Why isn’t Tomlin credited with having a fine football mind? Why do media observers ascribe Tomlin’s success to an ability to give a fiery speech? Why are Tomlin and other black NFL playoff coaches past and present—men such as Tony Dungy, Herman Edwards and Dennis Green—reduced to mere “motivators”?


Racial profiling.


Before Tomlin became Pittsburgh’s head coach, he was the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinator. Every week, he spent many hours breaking down film footage to develop game plans that included coverage and blitzing schemes designed to thwart an opposing offense.


Heady stuff. And Tomlin did it very well. The Vikings had the NFL’s top-rated defense during his tenure. And his work as Steelers coach has been so exemplary that no one believes Pittsburgh misses Bill Cowher.


Yet NBC could not bring itself to promote Patriots vs. Steelers as a battle of coaching masterminds.


Experience shows that both Super Bowl-winning coaches have to be white for that to happen.


Remember when Eric Mangini led the Jets to the playoffs in his first year as an NFL coach?


“Man-genius,” he was called. Or just “genius”? That is, until the Jets fired him after the 2008 season.


Did Mangini get dumb? Or was he never a “genius” in the first place, but rather the beneficiary of media hyperbole given to a successful white coach by a predominantly white sports media?


Mangini used to be the NFL’s youngest head coach. Raheem Morris is the NFL’s youngest head coach now.


Morris’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 5-3. Have you heard anyone call Morris a “genius” for turning around the previously woebegone Bucs? And you won’t hear it, even if the Bucs make the playoffs.


Racial profiling.


And it’s hardly limited to football.


On October 22, the night the Texas Rangers vanquished the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, former big-league catcher turned TV commentator John Flaherty said this about Texas manager Ron Washington: “He’s not the best Xs and Os guy in the world, but he gets his players to play hard.”


Flaherty, who works for the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network, would have us believe all Washington does is motivate. The fact is Washington out-managed Yankees skipper Joe Girardi so severely that, if not for a late Yankees’ rally in Game 1, Texas could have swept the best-of-seven series.


The list of baseball managers whose success has been attributed to an ability to motivate rather than an ability to strategize and make smart in-game decisions includes Washington, Dusty Baker and two-time World Series winner Cito Gaston.


Not surprisingly, all three are black.


A generation ago, we heard and read that successful black athletes were “natural athletes” while successful white athletes were “smart” and “brainy” and “savvy.”


Some older commentators still engage in this kind of racial profiling. (Pay close attention to Bill Raftery’s work on ESPN’s and CBS’s college basketball telecasts, particularly when he talks about point guards.)


Fortunately, most people who get paid to comment on sports have become enlightened enough to drop the “natural athlete” references or the stereotype that light skin = smart and dark skin = physical.


Alas, we still have to smarten up the ones who routinely subject black coaches and managers to racial stereotypes.

Sports Team Owners Are Still Channeling P.T. Barnum

P.T. Barnum, the 19th century entertainment impresario, best known for creating the world-famous Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, said famously, "There’s a sucker born every minute."

Barnum, who died in 1891, could not have known how much he would have in common with professional sports franchise owners in the 21st century.

No way could Barnum have foreseen how the sham of "personal seat licenses" (PSLs), used for the building of pro sports teams at greatly reduced costs for team owners and exorbitant costs for sports fans, would be such a cash cow today.

Imagine people being asked to pay for the right to buy tickets to a newly constructed stadium, as if ticket-buying was not already an inalienable right of any citizen. And then imagine millions of fans falling for this scam – paying a team for a "license" to buy a seat and then paying again for the actual overpriced seat.

Unfortunately, common sense has not permeated the minds of enough fans to make them say, "We are going to stop paying for personal seat licenses and say to team owners. We’ll just buy tickets after you build the stadium or arena instead of giving the owners an interest-free loan worth millions of dollars."

If fans ever wake up, then the odious and usurious PSL sham would end post-haste.

Old P.T. must be laughing over in his pine box and wondering why, oh why, didn’t I think of PSLs?

Yes, there are suckers born every minute, and they walk around wearing the logo of their favorite team while believing they have a personal say in how the team conducts business.

After all, it’s "my" team, right? Yeah. Sure, it is.

That’s why the Baltimore Colts packed up their belongings in the dead of night and the football team moved to Indianapolis. And why the Browns left Cleveland high and dry and became the Baltimore Ravens. And why Al Davis moved his – not Oakland’s – Raiders to Los Angeles because he got a better deal only to move his – not L.A.’s – Raiders back to Oakland because he got a better deal. And why Davis may yet move his Raiders out of Oakland again in pursuit of a better deal.

Davis has used the PSL sham in two different cities, with perhaps a third to come.

But this is not just about Davis. His brethren in the owners’ sky boxes are doing the same thing.

The New York Jets are still peddling PSLs in the hope of filling seats at the new stadium in New Jersey that they’ll share with the New York Giants, the stadium still without a corporate name. In radio and TV ads, the Jets say ticket prices have been "reduced by 50 percent."

Usually, that last sentence would end with an exclamation point. But in this case, a 50 percent decrease is the difference between a high-priced seat and an obscenely priced seat – after the fan/sucker pays for the right to buy the overpriced seat.

The New York Yankees reduced ticket prices by 50 percent for their best seats at the new Yankee Stadium in 2009. The cost went from $2,500 per ticket per game to $1,250 per ticket per game. Still, those seats have gone largely unsold despite the Yankees’ winning the World Series in 2009 and being in first place this year.

It is tempting to assume that sports fans are finally waking up because of the vast rows of empty seats behind home plate at nearly every baseball game, or at courtside or rinkside of almost every televised pro basketball or hockey game. However, I’m convinced the empty seats have infinitely more to do with America’s ongoing economic recession than fans’ refusal to overpay the owner of their favorite team.

When the recession ends (and it should eventually), more new stadiums and arenas with even more luxury suites for the rich will be built. And even more middle-class fans will be asked to spend hard-earned money for the right to spend even more of their hard-earned money for tickets to watch the games in person.

That is, unless sports fans finally see the light and prove me and P.T. Barnum wrong.

I Want My N-F-L Network

I’m a big pro football fan, which means I’m a pawn.

I’m a pawn because I would love to have NFL Network in my home but can’t get it.

I would love to watch my San Francisco 49ers play (beat?) the Chicago Bears tonight on NFL Network without being surrounded by vile, loudmouthed drunks at a sports bar.

But I can’t do it.

Why not?

My local cable supplier, Cablevision of Westchester (New York), does not offer NFL Network.

Why not?

Cablevision and NFL Network have never been able to agree on an annual rights fee per subscriber, which is how cable networks make money.

Sports cable networks command more money per subscriber than general interest cable networks because sports networks deliver to advertisers the coveted 18-to-49 male demographic.

ESPN, for example, can get $2.80 per subscriber per year from Cablevision while CNN gets about 70 cents per subscriber per year.

Sports networks call the tune.

And sports fans get the shaft.

Since Cablevision refuses to pay what NFL Network wants per subscriber per year, pawns like me cannot get NFL Network.

Other football fans with different cable subscribers (e.g., Comcast) or satellite TV (e.g., Dish Network or DirecTV) can watch 49ers vs. Bears at home.

I can’t.

So why don’t I just get satellite TV?

I live in a Yonkers co-op that doesn’t allow satellite dishes.

“They’re ugly,” the co-op board says. “Dishes detract from the aesthetic beauty of the building.”

(Actually, there’s nothing aesthetically beautiful about my building, but that’s another issue.)

Fans are pawns because the major sports leagues know they can increase their revenues and exercise greater control over their message and image by creating their own networks.

That’s why we have NFL Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, MLB Network, Golf Channel and Tennis Channel.

And some of North America’s most popular teams have their own networks showing content or games you can’t see anywhere else.

The list includes YES (Yankees Entertainment and Sports), Dallas Cowboys TV and Toronto Maple Leafs TV.

The problem occurs whenever fans of these leagues or teams can’t watch a game because the league-owned or team-owned network is in a dispute with a cable network or satellite company.

And this happens far more often than it should.

When YES debuted in 2002, New York Yankees fans missed more than 100 games that year because of disputes between YES and various cable/satellite networks.

Hockey fans with DirecTV can't watch NHL games on Versus because DirecTV and Comcast (which owns Versus) are in a snit over money.

Pawns like me can’t watch Tennis Channel on Cablevision because the two sides can’t agree on subscriber-rights fee.

This isn’t just a rant. I have a solution:

Any sports league that doesn’t have clearance on every cable or satellite network should offer the games on its Web site for free.

For example, I should be able to watch 49ers vs. Bears tonight online at nfl.com or nflnetwork.com.

I’m not talking about game highlights. I’m talking about the entire game.

Other leagues, less greedy than the NFL, are already doing this.

During the 2009 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, fans who couldn’t watch a desired game on their local CBS station watched that game free online.

Also, fans who didn’t have Tennis Channel watched U.S. Open matches free at usopen.org.

If the NFL weren’t so greedy—and, unfortunately, the NFL has turned greed into an art form—NFL Network games would not be offered to only a select few living rooms.

And if sports fans were not already used to being treated like pawns, they would be demanding a change.

Sports Fans (Bleep)!

It is harder than ever to enjoy a sports event in America these days, even if you’re not there in person.

Take Game 1 of baseball’s National League Championship Series. It’s the bottom of the fifth inning. The Los Angeles Dodgers trail the Philadelphia Phillies 5-1, but the Dodgers have a rally brewing: Runners on 1st and 3rd, 1 out, and Andre Ethier, one of the team’s best hitters, at the plate.

The sellout crowd of 56,000 at Dodger Stadium begins to chant.

They’re not chanting, "We Want A Hit." I guess that would be too 1970s of them.

And they’re not chanting, "Let’s Go Dod-gers!"

Instead, the chant I hear with unmistakable clarity from my television set is, "Phil-lies Suck! Phil-lies Suck!"

Such creepiness, such classless behavior from antisocial sports fans has, unfortunately, become the norm rather than the exception.

I live in New York and often attend baseball games at Yankee Stadium, where I am more likely to hear "Boston Sucks!" (even if the Red Sox are not the visiting team) than a chant of encouragement for the Yankees.

Whenever an opposing team’s player hits a home run at Yankee Stadium, boorish fans begin yelling, "Throw it back!"

The supposed logic behind this is a home run ball hit by the "enemy" is not worth keeping. Chicago Cubs fans at Wrigley Field began this strange ritual many years ago.

Those Cubs fans are known as "Bleacher Bums." But those Bums are Boy Scouts compared to what I’ve seen at Yankee Stadium.

One fan I saw at Yankee Stadium caught an "enemy" home run ball and didn’t want to throw it back onto the field. He gave the ball to his son.

"It’s my son’s first game," the father said proudly.

"Ass-hole! Ass-hole!" the fans chanted.

"Throw the fuckin’ ball back!" one guy yelled. "Buy him a fuckin’ ball!"

"Ass-hole! Ass-hole!" the chant continued.

The boy, who looked to be about six, began to cry. The father said something to his son. Then they got up and left the section.

The obscene chant followed father and son all the way to the exit.

When you can’t give your son a baseball you caught during a game without being aurally assaulted by people seated around you, something is wrong.

When you need to cover your child’s ears, or your own, because 50,000 people are chanting, "Bull-shit! Bull-shit!" in response to a call, something is wrong.

At a sports event, you are more likely to hear negative chants than positive ones. You are more likely to see antisocial behavior than good behavior.

And the American media, of which I am a part, actually encourages this.

While watching a sports event on television, think about how often you see people with angry, contorted faces screaming into the camera — often, these are young men with faces painted and shirts off.

Television has provided a forum, and a stamp of approval, to these louts, while, unconscionably, encouraging fans in other cities to act the same way, because acting like a jerk is how you get on television.

Foul-mouthed, foul-smelling people whom you would never want seated next to you on a bus or train are the people we’ve become accustomed to seeing in close-ups on televised sports events.

At halftime of New York Jets football games, young female fans were encouraged by male louts to go topless in the concourse.

Many women compiled. Police finally put an end to this odious display last year.

Now it is time to put an end to oligarchy. Mobs should not rule at sports events.

Here are three solutions:

(1) TV sports directors must stop putting the most brain-addled, antisocial fans on camera during events. Bob Fishman of CBS Sports is one director who doesn’t. His peers should follow his example.

(2) Tickets should be confiscated from fans who behave obscenely at events. Such language should be printed on the backs of tickets, and a public address announcement should precede each event. Granted, what constitutes obscene behavior is subject to different interpretations. But here’s my rule of thumb: If you wouldn’t want someone to do it or say it in your home, then you shouldn’t do it or say it in at a public event, particularly one attended by children.

(3) There should be family-friendly sections at all sports events; an island of civility must exist amid what has often become a public cesspool.

Attending a sports event used to be a welcome diversion from the pressure and stress of everyday life.

No more. Now, it has become yet another example of how life in America has changed for the worse.

The NFL Should Give Limbaugh Bum's Rush

It is refreshing to see so many African-American pro football players stand up for something socially relevant.

Players such as Bart Scott of the Jets and Mathias Kiwanuka and Antonio Pierce of the Giants spoke out forcefully this week against the possibility of race-baiting broadcaster Rush Limbaugh owning a piece of the St. Louis Rams.

Scott, Kiwanuka and Pierce all described Limbaugh as the racial antagonist he is, as someone whose presence as a minority franchise owner would be deeply offensive in a league where 70 percent of the players—and more than 90 percent of the starting players—are African-Americans.

Pierce strongly suggested that a Rams team partly owned by Limbaugh could become the NFL equivalent of Three Mile Island to African-American players—free agents would not sign to play in St. Louis, and those currently on the team would be eager to leave.

In this instance, African-American NFL players did not wait for the head of their players’ association, attorney DeMaurice Smith (also an African-American), to speak out against the Limbaugh proposal.

The players made their objection emphatically and cogently clear.

A country that elected its first African-American president 11 months ago should not have as a part-owner of a franchise in the country’s most popular sports league a man who said he hopes that president fails.

Why would the NFL want to do business with a guttersnipe like Limbaugh, who once wrote on his own Web site that an NFL game reminded him of a fight between Crips and Bloods without weapons?

Limbaugh obviously sees nothing wrong with being a member of the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, Florida—a club that has never had an African-American member.

Even Sammy Davis Jr. and the white member who invited him were once escorted out of the Everglades Club, according to Florida’s New Times.

NFL teams make money. Truckloads of money.

That is the only reason Limbaugh would want to get a piece of the action. He certainly has never shown any regard for the kinds of people whose blood, sweat and talent on the field generates all that income for NFL franchise owners.

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay says he would not vote in favor of Limbaugh’s ownership group. (Seventy-five percent of NFL franchise owners, or 24 of 32, would have to vote in favor of Limbaugh.)

Limbaugh routinely uses his three-hour weekday radio show to perpetuate despicable lies such as the one about a white boy beaten by black kids on a school bus while other black kids yelled, “Right on!”

“Well, it could have happened,” was the lame reply from those who enjoy visiting Limbaugh’s toxic island of a radio show five days a week.

Obviously, Limbaugh makes those people warm, fuzzy and nostalgic for the racially oppressive America they once knew—the one where a wise Latina named Sonia Sotomayor could never have dreamed of sitting on the United States Supreme Court, and an African-American named Barack Obama could never have dreamed of having the power to appoint her.

So the Limbaugh crowd believes the lies he tells about school bus beatings, and cheerily sings along to “Barack, the Magic Negro” (set to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon”) for this is the America they remember.

Limbaugh does not like to see African-Americans ascend to high-profile positions, such as U.S. president or quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles.

This is why Limbaugh called Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb “overrated” several years ago and assailed other media members for engaging in “social engineering” by turning McNabb into a star.

Limbaugh served up this rubbish as an NFL commentator for ESPN, a position for which he was never qualified and from which he resigned.

Does the NFL really want to wallow in the gutter with Limbaugh again?

Even if it does, African-American players have made it known that they stand ready to give Limbaugh exactly what he deserves—the bum’s rush.