A Grip on Sports: Any change related to football and its revenues will have repercussions for other collegiate sports
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Being on the tail end of the Boomer era, we understand the hatred of all things that generation brings. Heck, we hated a lot the born-right-after-the-war folks did too. Especially their egotistical thought they discovered everything.
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• Take Mr. Bob Dylan for example. When the voice of the generation sang the times were a changing, every Boomer of a certain age bobbed their head and claimed credit for perfecting change. Sorry to break it to you folks. Change has been the one constant human beings have dealt with since discovering a stick could be used as a tool.
The times are always a changing.
Almost 60 years ago, my dad gave me my first real job. Paid me $2.50 an hour to do it. I stood on a chair in my dad’s place of business, taking the Home magazine, an entertainment magazine and stuffing both into the Los Angeles Times’ Sunday comics. I did it on Tuesday afternoons after school. Had to have all 2,500 of them done before dinner. I was 7.
Child labors laws did not apply. It was a family business. When I would finish, I would walk into the bathroom and spend a lot more than 20 seconds trying to get the ink off my hands. Dad even had Lava soap on hand to help. Didn’t work.
That’s when I began my journey as an ink-stained wrench.
Since then, only a two-year stint – my junior and senior years in college – marred a 56-year streak of working in newspapers in some capacity. And in all that time, every newspaper I worked for, everyone one, delivered a printed product to folks’ doors seven days a week. Until today.
Up yours Mr. Dylan. This is a change I’m not happy to see. The S-R is no longer printing a Saturday paper. Oh, the content is still available – online. The links to sports-related stories are below. Other items, like the all-important comics, will appear in Sunday’s paper. But for those of you who, like me, are used to starting each day with a newspaper in your hands – and actually enjoy getting ink on your fingers – that’s over. On Saturdays at least.
Why? Why does any change happen? Money. As S-R editor Rob Curley explained when announcing the modification, advertising is what pays for all the news-gathering and story-telling. It’s been that way since Oog used a chisel to put a mark on the cave wall and Moog’s Hunters and Gatherers gave him a mammoth fur to include the company name.
Advertising is down in this time of COVID-19 and so are the newspaper’s revenues. Something has to give. It is Saturday’s print edition.
It’s a choice the powers that be in the Review Tower had to make. Up next: Choices needing to be made by the powers that be in your favorite university’s Ivory Tower.
Right now, college athletic departments around the nation, including the Inland Northwest, are trying to fill small holes in their athletic department budgets. (And, yes, I know “small” is a relative term, and we use it because of the next few paragraphs.)
Some trimming of salaries, the departments’ biggest expense, have already occurred. More cuts may follow. If the pandemic recedes in time, and fall sports can be played at something of a near-normal manner, then that’s all that’s needed. But …
That’s the fear right now. What happens if football is corralled by the virus? Most schools depend on the sport’s revenue to keep everything else going. Every little bit taken from football’s money stream, whether that be attendance, concessions, media payments, everything connected with the sport, impacts the rest of the athletic department.
No fans in the stands? TV money flows, but the rest of the stream dries up faster than Latah Creek in late August. A truncated schedule? A late-start? No season at all? Each of those alternatives will take a chunk out of your favorite athletic department’s ability to pay the bills. Everyone’s bills, not just football.
Taking 5 percent off the top of coaching salaries isn’t going to fill the gap. Neither will cutting a non-revenue sport or two, even if the NCAA relaxes the rules concerning the minimum number of sports offered to stay at the Division I level.
Big cuts will be needed. What that may be is anyone’s guess.
The Oregonian’s Ken Goe delved into the possibilities this morning, using Oregon and Oregon State to describe what could happen. But the fallout will apply to every school that uses football to balance the books.
It’s a scary scenario. And it won’t have an easy fix.
A few bleachers out in the sun, out by Highway 61, won’t get it done.
Not this time Mr. Dylan.
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WSU: The cause of Bryce Beekman’s death was released yesterday by the Whitman County Coroner’s Office. It’s as bad a feared. The Cougar safety died as a result of “acute intoxication” of two drugs. Theo Lawson has all the sad particulars in this story. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12, the draft is still dominant, including for those, like Washington quarterback Jacob Eason, who are still waiting to be picked. … Oregon’s Justin Herbert got his wait over quickly. … Colorado’s Laviska Shenault went to Jacksonville, where he becomes Gardner Minshew’s newest target. … Four Utah players were taken on the second day. … California defensive back Ashtyn Davis was drafted. … USC and UCLA each had a player picked. … In basketball news, UCLA’s Mick Cronin doesn’t see basketball affected by the virus again. … Hidden in the NCAA rule changes was a minor, but crucial, one having to do with basketball scheduling. … UCLA has decided to give spring sports seniors another year if they want it.
Gonzaga: According to a former NBA agent, Filip Petrusev will test the NBA waters once again. It would not be an unexpected move. … Around the WCC, BYU coach Mark Pope wants Cougar fans to meet Matt Haarms, the grad transfer who should bolster the school’s frontline next season.
EWU and Idaho: The final rounds of the NFL Draft start at 9 this morning, and there should be a few names from Big Sky Conference schools announced. Ryan Collingwood takes a look around the conference at who may be selected today and who may sign as a free agent. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, coaches are idle too. … Will a Montana State star be picked today? … Weber State picked an all-decade basketball team. … Two former Idaho State coaches have found work elsewhere.
Seahawks: The Hawks did what they do. The traded up to take a pass rusher in the second round, then traded down to get a draft pick back. They also picked up an offensive lineman. … Grit seems to be a measurable stat to the Hawks. … The rest of the NFC West made picks too.
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• If you miss golf or fishing, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee held out hope for you yesterday. In his Virtual Northwest Passages Forum discussion with Jim Camden, Inslee held out hope those two activities will be allowed again soon. Until later …