When I woke up this morning, I read the Yahoo! Sports report that Jim Tressel knew eight months in advance of the revelation of awards sales and tattoo discounts that led to the suspension of five Ohio State players. Did I think the report was true? Probably.
That’s where I’m at as a sports fan. It’s not that I don’t believe in “innocent until proven guilty,” but it’s more so that I’ve gotten to the point of reaching a “Stone Cold” Steve Austin mentality on sports: “Don’t trust anybody.” It’s not just Tressel and the fact that I am an Ohio State Buckeyes football fan, but it’s that right now in sports, we’ve reached an odd crossroads where the business aspects of sports that some fans have pushed aside for a long time are actually trumping the entertainment factor of sports that allures fans to begin with. For me, it’s happening in my four favorite sports, and I wonder if other fans feel the same type of strange, disgusted emotion inside of them as I do.
Let’s start with college football. I’ll disregard the Cam Newton fiasco of last year both for length purposes and to personalize this to my own feelings as a Buckeye fan with Tattoo-Gate. Like any person who cares about sports and rules, the decision handed down by the NCAA was obnoxious – to allow the players at fault to participate in the Sugar Bowl sent a clear message to college football fans if it wasn’t already clear with the BCS: the NCAA’s top priority is money and ratings. Maybe we as fans want that, too. We want the best possible game presented to us and a National Championship game potentially without a Cam Newton or a Reggie Bush if investigations were done in a better manner would have led to less entertainment. But we, as fans, still respect rules even if the rules are ridiculous. However, when you take the ridiculous rules, but then don’t even properly enforce them, you’ve decided to toy with the sanctity of the game. It’s the same reason why an entire crowd will boo if there’s a missed penalty call – you’ve toyed with the rules and not enforced them, yet this is on a much bigger level.
As a Buckeye fan, the Tressel factor makes things worse. Tressel is a king in Columbus, and it’s understandable why: seven Big Ten championships, 9-1 record against Michigan, consistent BCS appearances. It’s been a wonderful decade for this football-obsessed city. Likewise, he’s carved a personality that has people seeing him as a man of class. It generates from his concise and respectful interviews and his service within the community. He knows how to speak and spin himself as the good guy of high morals even as a number of questionable situations and suspect recruits have come and gone through Ohio State’s program even recently.
So, when the tattoo story parlor broke, it was a time for Tressel to show that he was the man of class, and his choice showed that he wasn’t. He wanted to win, and maybe there are a lot of Ohio State fans that want that, too, but in this case, I did not. If they are to follow the rules (and let me once again stress that I’m not a fan of the NCAA rules) and that’s the structure of your values, it does not make sense how a guaranteed return next season for a suspension gets the message across. It doesn’t, and it ultimately damaged all of my feelings towards the Sugar Bowl before it even started. I watched the game because I’m a fan. I was entertained because I’m a fan. I was happy with the win because I’m a fan. But, I had lost respect for the game because I’m a fan.
With tonight's press conference, it opens the door for so many other issues: whether Tressel abides at all to “the law of integrity” that President E. Gordon Gee says he follows, how the NCAA will handle this situation or even if there would be a serious evaluation of the rules and processes that govern the NCAA. I am pessimistic about all the results, and why shouldn't any fan be? What's glaring is that this is all organizational. These situations have little to do with football and the reason why we watch the game to begin with.
The NFL at this point is covered by ESPN, but it may as well be covered on CNBC as the publicity of the league's labor talks have taken over the sport. Sure, the network is attempting to move away from that aspect with its NFL Draft coverage, but personally, I'm not that excited about finding out the players that the Browns select who may not even see the field in 2011. So, all of a sudden, it's a business free-for-all that's put right in front of the fan. It's a conflict that's made the owners seem greedier than ever before whereas the fan has sat back and accepted PSLs, frequent increases to ticket prices and concessions, and (in cases like the Browns) organizational incompetence. But, we accept it because we love the sport. And, if you ask the average fan, he or she does not necessarily care how the sides figure out the details of their deal, it just better get done and there better be football on Sundays come September.
Unless things change, in my mind, the NBA is destined for a lockout of worse proportions than the NFL. This year has dynamically shifted how fans, players, and owners interact with the sport and how strangely the players have trumped the business aspect to the sport that fans actually had a respect for. When LeBron James made his “Decision,” he began a series of events where players went from being decision makers to dictators. Bill Simmons nicely profiles that this wasn't new ground for superstar players to do. It's true, but the manner in which it was done was sloppy, without care, and arrogant – evidence of dictating over decision making. Others in the past use subtlety to get what they wanted. In this case, James, Wade, and Bosh decided where to go (fine), had a pep rally (huh?), started counting the large amount of championships they'll be winning (uh-oh), and acted invincible. It's no surprise that something as miniscule as their current 5-game losing streak could lead to such chaos in the media – they set themselves up for astronomical expectations and to be hated by fans and other teams alike. The crazy thing is they easily could still win the NBA title, and all the drama that came with this season for them won't even matter.
With that came Carmelo Anthony, which was basically a power play that led to a rookie general manager in Masai Ujiri not wanting to put his foot down in the player vs. organization battle. The strange thing is that I have to admit that, as a fan, it is nice to see Carmelo and Amar'e Stoudemire playing on the same team and in New York where there is perhaps no better basketball feel than in Madison Square Garden. It's not just that the league needs good basketball in New York – basketball fans should want that as well.
When the dominoes fall, why fans are annoyed at the NBA is because the purity of the game has been brushed aside. What I mean by purity is our established notion of how an organization is really developed, and that was reliant on its front office. Anytime that I talk about this subject, I reference the recent Celtics as a prime example of being what fans would respect. The Celtics were terrible going into the 2007 Draft when they sent the 5th pick along with Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak to Seattle for Ray Allen and Glen Davis. They then acquired Kevin Garnett in a steal of a trade. Combine that with their previous draft-day trade acquisition of Rajon Rondo and his emergence and the already established All-Star in Paul Pierce on the roster, and you created a championship team. Danny Ainge should be praised for putting that together – there were risks involved, and it paid off. Garnett, Allen, and Pierce didn't come together to agree to play. For as much as there was talk about the “Big Three,” there was questions about Allen's knees and if Garnett was running on empty at that point in his career.
The Celtics as compared to the Heat is the equivalent of what goes on in a Fantasy Football league, for example. Guys in the league would respect someone who took a flyer on Austin Collie in the late rounds and reaped the benefits of his performance in the early part of the season. But, they'll hate a commissioner who uses his total control over veto power to trade Marcedes Lewis for Adrian Peterson with a bottom-dweller friend in the league. If anybody's to be blamed for the Garnett deal, it's Kevin McHale. That's the difference. As fans, we're used to ridiculing the front office for moves because that's what they do – they are the decision makers of an organization, and that's the way we know it to be. You can't fault Ujiri if Danilo Gallinari doesn't pan out with the Nuggets. You blame Carmelo Anthony, which is odd because now players have the potential to be ridiculed for both their play and their organizational choices.
Oddly enough, baseball, which has been criticized for years for its business structure that has allowed free-agent success for big-market teams, is the sport I'm perhaps most excited about at this point and that's probably because the season has yet to begin and I'm just looking forward to something other than the three other sports above. But even with the Indians, if April and May don't look good, I can look forward to a fire sale of any player of sufficient ability on the roster as the trade deadline looms. We can also look forward to constant Albert Pujols to the Yankees conversations. Yet, despite this business structure, baseball has managed to produce 9 different champions in the past 10 World Series, which leaves some level of hope for many teams (probably not the Indians).
So, why keep being a fan? It's so obvious now—more than ever—that each league, its owners, and its players don't truly care about the fan in the end even though we are the catalysts for the success of their business. I'm smart enough to leave it – to be better than sports – to not be a sucker. But, it's just that being a fan feels like it's in a person's blood. Some of my earliest memories in life are watching Browns or Indians games with my family. It's a unity that brings people together and a source of pride. It's a way for three hours to get away from whatever is going on in life to take in a competitive, athletic battle of good vs. evil.
I can't imagine fans ever truly revolting against sports because of that reason. We'll always want it. And, as long as the business side knows that, they will always win. It's not about the owners and the players and who can win that battle if ultimately it's the people who lose out. It's a hollow feeling right now to be a fan like me.
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