Roger Goodell’s salary of $34.6 million for 2014 has been universally noted as hilarious given his inability to serve competently as the face of the league, but Alex Reimer of Forbes Millionzine makes the argument that he is underpaid compared to his past and current contemporaries.
By his formula, this might be true. By the metric of SAR (Salary Against Replacement), a well-shaven gibbon would make $29.7 million. But by the universal laws of how many drinks will you wear with one sentence, Reimer should never try to make this argument in a tavern.
[RELATED: Goodell earned $34 million in 2014]
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Cyd Ziegler of Outsports.com did a fascinating story on Pac-12 football referee Steve Strimling, who, perhaps without knowing it, just advanced the discussion of gays in sports to the next step. Strimling was out of the game for 11 years before returning to officiating and also missed some opportunities for advancement on both sides of that gap. He knows exactly why that happened. From the story:
“The only thing that stopped me in officiating was really me, my temper and my anger. I was always flagging coaches and throwing people out. I got back into college because someone said, ‘Your talent is good enough, but you’re an a--hole. Get rid of that part and I’ll help you.’ So I changed my officiating, and it changed my home, it changed how I do stuff at work. Losing those years as an official wasn't because I was gay. It was because I was an a--hole.
We’re getting there, kids. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there. Of course, if being an a—hole was a career disqualifier, our unemployment statistics would skyrocket after the title “assistant night manager.” So there are tradeoffs everywhere
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Nike’s decision to fire Manny Pacquiao for his “homosexuals are worse than animals” hilarity is both admirable and safe, since Pacquiao isn’t moving much sporting equipment these days. And while one doesn’t normally find charitable impulses here (they tend to chafe), we’ll give the sneaker-beaters their due and say they couldn’t have known when Pacquiao was going to decide to present his picturesque vision of homophobia. They acted when the problem presented itself.
But in a parallel universe, what Nike would have done if Pacquiao had dropped his factional misanthropy during the height of his earning power would be worth an interesting chat.
Or not. Depends on whether you find the sale and distribution of sporting goods and social justice compatible topics.
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The Kalamazoo Growlers, a team in the independent Northwoods League, is doing this with its jerseys.
Our culture deserves extinction, No. 28,947.
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Manchester United fans are steamed about a lot these days, starting with their manager, The Crackpot Quail, but now they’re getting snippy about the £71 ($101.50) they’re being charged to attend the Europa League match with Danish side FC Midtjylland Thursday. They are noting that the price is more than triple the $31.40 Southampton were charged last August.
Now comes the fun rationalization from Claus Steinlein, a member of Midtjylland’s executive board, via Bold.dk:
“Generally speaking you could say that we could have sold more than 50,000 tickets for this game. So if you look at supply and demand perhaps the price should have been even higher. That’s the cost of watching a game like this. So I actually believe that we have been very fair and we certainly haven’t had any problems selling the tickets.
“Normally we have journalists criticize us for not making enough money and when we put the prices up the same journalists criticize us for making too much. We’ll have a sold-out stadium and an excellent setting. That’s what players, coaches, all of the club and all of our region is looking forward to. It’s going to be a day to celebrate so let’s rather focus our energy on that.”
Ahh, for the good old days when (a) Manchester United wasn’t in the Europa League, (b) would never think of playing FC Midtjylland and (c) throwing around money like pieces Stonehenge. Then again, if Sir Alex Ferguson was still United’s manager, he would have simply used his heat vision to level Midtjylland’s 11,000-seat grounds, the towns of Herning and Ikast from where the club resides, and all of Jutland – just just to make sure everyone got the message.
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And finally, Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk pointed out in that football-kicks-everyone’s-nethers-so-why-do-other-sports-even-exist kind of way that the NBA All-Star Game’s increased audience to 7.6 million still didn’t match the lousy audience for the NFL’s Pro Bowl (8 million), and that those audiences justify the continued existences of both games.
What he failed to do was close the circle by saying, “But of course the fact that you watch both these things makes you lesser in the eyes of your fellow citizens, so stop it.” He’ll have to answer to someone for that oversight.
In other words, our culture deserves extinction, No. 28,948. And yes, we are most definitely keeping count.
