Winning Isn't Everything

Hello, world!

This being my first entry on this blog, I suppose I should explain what I intend to blog about, and a bit about who I am. In the next several months, I intend to write about the business, ethical, and sociocultural issues surrounding the world of sports.
To me, describing sports as a “world” of it’s own is very meaningful. Athletes are revered cross-culturally, and they seem to be held to different standards than the rest of us – though not always in their best interest. In many cases, we see these athletes only in their respective domains, and forget that they are not immune to the stress and hassles that affect everyone. Similarly, we too often overlook the fact that professional sports leagues are businesses run by human beings, and are therefore subject to any corruption that plagues other large corporations. While I hope that this blog will not simply digress into my own personal rants about possible conspiracy theories, I do hope to address some controversial issues that are reported but not well known.

The world of sports business has fascinated me my whole life. It began when I was a kid, asking myself questions like “Why can’t this player be traded to that team?” or “How did this owner just sign this coach and those players?” I researched the intricacies of the Collective Bargaining Agreements, and I was hooked. After college I want to do something related to sports business and I hope that this blog will help me keep up with the side of sports that is not typically discussed on Sportscenter.

I feel that ethics in sports is a very intriguing topic because they are constantly being challenged and violated, often times without much media attention. These issues could not be more topical than they are now. It seems like every major sports league is experiencing some sort of controversy surrounding the integrity of their respective games. In Major League Baseball, Mark McGwire’s return to the game has been overshadowed by his admittance of the use of performance-enhancing drugs. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has used this event in support of his claims that the steroid age is over in professional baseball. Skeptics, however, have been calling for Selig's resignation for the performance-enhancing era to officially be over.

In the National Basketball Association, recent scandals involving referees gambling on games have been among the biggest topics surrounding the league, despite Commissioner David Stern’s attempts to sweep those issues under the rug. Almost a year ago, the FBI launched an investigation on NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who was found to be providing gambling tips to people with mob ties, and gambling on games himself. Donaghy then went on to expose a supposedly intricate scheme created by the NBA to control the outcomes of certain games. For anyone that watches the NBA, it has, by quite a large margin, the most influence from referees than any other professional sport. It is hard to hear about something that could potentially bring down the entire corporation, and yet the media, as well as the league under fire, almost completely ignores it. David Stern continues to claim that Donaghy was a “disgraced ref” and was trying to burn the league down on his way out. However, just because most of the smoke is coming from this “disgraced ref” doesn’t mean that the league hasn’t started the fire.

Once again, I do not wish for this blog to digress into a conspiracy theorist's sounding board, but I do wish to discuss topics that I feel do not get enough attention. Why does the media seem to avoid certain issues? Can we blame them? ESPN and Fox Sports base their entire business plan on the success and popularity of the major sports leagues. You can’t bite the hand that feeds you.