Greetings readers - my apologies for the week-long hiatus, but I was stretching both my legs and liver during a brief daliance with the beautiful metropolis of Chicago. Truly a wold-class city, I cannot say enough about the place but to recommend it to everybody.
On another note, today marks the beginning of the NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament. Despite the addition of 4 new teams which extended the field to 68 and began play two days ago, the real tournament starts today. People nationwide have long-ago concocted fictional illnesses and contrived excuses for why they will miss work this Thursday, and as a result Friday as well. The opening weekend of the tournament, based solely on the quantity of matches and raw excitement, cannot be compared to another sporting spectacle worldwide.
I love the tournament, always have - always will, but as I get older and more bitter, I cannot help but notice that the NCAA makes BILLIONS of dollars off the tournament, all the while the players make zilch.
Sure, a value can be put on the free-education (see scholarship), but that quantitative assesment pales in comparison to what the NCAA and the conferences and schools make off the players, the representation of their likenesses through t.v. and video games, the tourney-time increase in merchandise sales and above all, the 11-year t.v. deal with CBS for 6 billion dollars. That very deal was expanded and made more beneficial to the NCAA and schools with the addition of TNT (Turner Broadcasting Group TBS) as a collaborative host.
The other night, while lying in a posh Chicago hotel suite in the Lincoln Park loop, I attempted to catch a few zzz's whilst distracted by ESPN's documentary of Michigan's Fab Five. During the early 1990's, college basketball was flipped-on its head by the University of Michigan's recruiting class of five outstanding freshman basketball players; Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson. They carried themselves with a swagger that irritated the establishment and they represented millions of American youth obsessed with hip hop music, baggy clothing and overcoming the repression of their voice and individualities. The documentary highlighted many things, amongst them the fact that C-Web and the boys would eat Kraft Dinner and scrounge for change for laundry, while the University experienced a spike of $14 million in merchandise sales between 1992 and 1993.
The media is quick to blacklist a college athlete for receiving improper benefits, or even in the case of some Ohio State football players, trading game-worn football gear for tattoos. However, visit any school site and you'll find jerseys for sale with a player's name and number on the back. The NCAA and schools across the U.S. are making unbeleievable profits off of its basketball and football players, all the while these many of these players live below the poverty line.
How can we criticize student athletes for trying to survive when the fat-cat suits that shit old money and run these schools make a pretty penny off their backs?
Enjoy the tournament - Go Syracuse!
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