Good morning, all! It’s Friday!
New York Giants fans have their wish. John Harbaugh apparently is going to be the new head coach of this signature NFL franchise. As I explain in the video, the pressure is now on him to deliver.
Here are some other thoughts, as weather could impact this weekend’s NFL playoffs:
The two-time defending champion LA Dodgers are becoming an easy team to hate, after their latest splurge. Word broke late Thursday that the best team money can buy had landed free agent outfielder Kyle Tucker for four years at $240M. That’s $60M per year; more than Aaron Judge; more than Juan Soto make annually. Only Shohei Ohtani will earn more per year. Social media erupted over the signing, lambasting the Dodgers. Brian Mik, a college sports administrator, subscriber to this newsletter and ardent baseball fan told me: “I’m done. I’m not watching baseball anymore.” Who can blame him? Others feel the same way. The Dodgers are ruining a once glorious game thanks to a filthy rich billionaire, who will be the main cause of the game’s collapse, when the sport’s labor dispute reaches an ugly conclusion after the season. The Dodgers now have more than $2B of guaranteed salaries on their books, or nearly a billion dollars more than what the Tampa Bay Rays sold for last year. A sport operating under that type of business model is unsustainable. With regional sports networks that carry MLB games on the verge of collapse, soaring ticket prices and fans being turned off by the game’s imbalance, MLB is in big trouble. Stormy times are ahead for America’s former national pastime.
$30M of Tucker’s contract will be deferred, a usual tactic by the slimy Dodgers. Even with their bookkeeping gymnastics, the Dodgers payroll tax this year will be $413M or higher than the payroll of the other MLB clubs. Let that sink in.
Frigid temperatures in Chicago? Snow in New England? It could be a very interesting weekend on the playoff front. Buckle up!
All it took for the Chicago Bears to change Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mind was to look to neighboring Indiana and win a playoff game. The governor has been dead set against plowing taxpayers money toward helping the Bears in their effort to build a new stadium. With the Bears attempt to construct a stadium on their suburban Arlington Heights property now stalled, they have been flirting with northwest Indiana. Now Pritzker has found time to tour the franchise’s property and said maybe the state can help the team, when it comes to paying for infrastructure improvements around the proposed stadium, something the team has been seeking. Whereas the governor stated before, he did not want to throw taxpayer money at a private business, he is now saying maybe, just maybe, they can do right by the taxpayers and the Bears fans. Imagine what he might do, if the Bears beat the Rams this weekend?
We know the Washington Commanders are moving from Maryland back to D.C., building a new stadium on the RFK Stadium location, the place they once called home. Early renderings show, by design, a look that resembles the old RFK:
Shout out to Mark, one of our subscribers, for pointing to a story about DePaul men’s basketball coach Chris Holtmann’s post-game comments, following a loss to UConn on Jan. 10. “Stop lying to yourselfs,” Holtmann said. “UConn’s win isn’t something to be proud of - it’s a victory bought by money…NIL has changed college basketball too much, and UConn is benefiting from it.” Rather than fly off the handle, Huskies coach Dan Hurley waited a couple of days, before calmly responding: “The weak blame circumstances; the strong confront them and overcome everything.”
As I have written before, nothing is going to change. Big time money is pouring into college sports by the billions. I do not see things turning back to the days of college sports, as I remember them. Think I’m kidding? Sportico had a story on Thursday, claiming the big time college football programs (FBS), “are instructing the NCAA not to share their annual athletic financial information with the College Sports Commission, the embattled enforcement entity established in the wake of the House v. NCAA settlement to regulate money paid to players.”
By the time you read this, highly-sought after free agent Kyle Tucker could be either a New York Met or a Toronto Blue Jay. Word is the Mets are willing to give Tucker $50M per year for four seasons. The AL champion Blue Jays are prepared to give Tucker a 10-year deal, in case the New York Yankees are paying attention.
That is going to do it for today’s newsletter. Thank you for subscribing and have a great Friday!
DAN
