Finally the NHL can laugh at a sport about TV Coverage.

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The biggest international soccer game in the last 20 for the US team is not going to be on any English speaking TV network. The US vs. Mexico on August 12th will be broadcast in the US only on Spanish TV. The NHL’s deal with the Vs. Network doesn’t look so bad.

Maybe the Vs network was too busy covering the US Turtle Assoc. races to bother with US soccer. At any rate, any hope that the US performance in the most recent tournament has sparked massive interest in the sport can be put to rest. The question is with millions of young adults having played soccer in their very early life, why has soccer never taken off as a major sport?

The explanation is simple—we Americans don’t watch what we won’t win. In most of the world, the best athletes that a nation has become soccer players. Here, the best athletes play in the NBA, NFL, and MLB. As a result, we don’t win many international competitions. Americans don’t enjoy tuning in to see the US team get pounded by faster, more athletic teams from South America and Europe.

The MLS has done its best to try to tap … Read more at FryingPanSports

Analysis: Congress is using the right approach against the BcS

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I don’t often have good things to say about Washington D.C. or the US Congress. But in this case, they are using the right approach in challenging the BcS—Follow the money.

Sen. Hatch of Utah undoubtedly has his constituents in mind when he pushed for hearings on the BcS. I have no problem with that. The current economic problems could have been avoided had not Congress tried to force social engineering into legislation on the US financial system. At least Hatch is not trying to buy votes by giving away money!

Most major football colleges are public institutions. They get tax payer dollars to help finance their activities including many athletic departments. It is the popularity of college football that generates money for the BCS. Because the “lessor” conferences are not included in the automatic cut of the pot of gold that BcS generates, they don’t share in the bounty unless one of their teams is in one of the games. Then they split a team share and not a league share.

There are some aspects of anti-trust law that could be applied to the BcS. That however must focus on distribution of money and not forcing college presidents to … Read more at FryingPanSports

The world vs. Lance Armstrong

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The old joke about the French was “Why did the French plant trees along the Champs-Elysses? So that the German soldiers could march in the shade.” Now the joke has another ending. “So that Lance Armstrong can ride in the shade to another Tour de France championship.

Armstrong may well be the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened to the Tour. He has always captured the interest and some coverage and advertising money from the US whenever he has been involved. I guarantee that I would not spend one second writing about the Tour were he not in it. When he retired after 7 wins in 2005, the US and much of the world forgot about the race. ESPN, and the Sporting News Radio would spend a couple of seconds on it only when a winner had been crowned.

But things are different now. Armstrong has crept within a couple of hundredths of a second of the lead. Given his previous performance through the mountains and the latter stages of the race, if he’s even, he’s leavin’.

His story is remarkable. 7 titles despite fighting cancer and the French organizers doing anything they could to prove he … Read more at FryingPanSports

Sports and Politics are a bad combination.

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I offer my readers my apology for missing some days in the last week. My mother in law passed away last week. Because my wife and I have known each other since 1963, I have had a long term relationship with her mom. She was as fine a lady and as good a person as has ever lived and she will be missed by all of us that loved her.

I mention this because she grew up in pre-war Germany. She was an athlete in Nazi Germany and was part of Hitler’s youth sports program. She told me about the combination of sports and political indoctrination that were equal parts of the program.

The 1932 Olympics were one of the most political games in that event’s history. She was a swimmer but was too young to be part of the Olympic team but saw her older friends pushed to the physical and mental brink and beyond to prove a political point. We all know how that story ended, but the point here is that the athletes paid the price to attempt to prove the validity of a mad man’s theory.

She also talked about the inept management of the program … Read more at FryingPanSports