Well, it’s that time of year where I can sit back, crack a beer, look at the local sports scene, look at the sports scene n general, and make snarky comments like Dennis Miller in the 1990’s- that’s when he was still funny. Now he’s boring horseshit, and has no idea why. Fuck him.
I’d like to start with the baseball lockout. Specifically the Cohen Tax. Folks, we are watching chess. Steve Cohen bought the Mets, and apparently is flush with cash, as every employee at SNY will fall over themselves to tell you. Teams responded to him and his vast resources by not letting him poach their talent. Check. So Cohen found the best of the unemployed talent in the game with experience to come in and manage a pre-lockout wide open wallet. Check. So the owners add a new tax in the new collective bargaining agreement specifically aimed at top spending teams where the lowest spending teams will get welfare AND no directive to spend the money in case Cohen or Los Angeles goes payroll crazy. Check. So Cohen announces that the tax doesn’t mean shit to him. Check.
Baseball took their swing for a rare few million in added taxes. Check. Cohen responded by making $750 million 5 days later. Check. Other owners went out and made moves that are more significant than the Mets adding the end of career Scherzer and the already hurt Marte. See what the Braves did? The Mariners? Phillies? Cubs? Many better players than the Mets acquired. How do I know? Because the Braves won the World Series, and the Oakland A’s – the team you got three players from – didn’t.
In short, since the Cohen tax became a thing? Cohen looks like it kneecapped him.
Plus, the Mets are counting on an AWFUL lot of bounceback years from players, including an outfield that averaged 120 games played per player. They need Nimmo, Cahna, McNeil, Scherzer (dead arm in playoffs, at the most important time?), DeGrom (July? SHUT IT DOWN!), Smith, Cano (juice free), Davis, McGann, Carasco, Walker, Peterson, and Lindor to bounce back. Did I miss anyone? You know, suddenly that roster looks really fucking horrible.
Also, a big fuck you to baseball owners. To punish a guy for trying to win? And using that tax to prop up teams that lose on purpose? While charging the fans premiums for everything? As a sport you’re upset with Steve Cohen but aren’t saying boo about what the Cincinnati Reds are doing? What the Oakland A’s are doing? FUCK YOU, WELFARE QUEEN THIEVES.
Now that I got that out of the way, lets take a look at whatever I feel like.
The New York Mets: the lockout has focused the team on acquiring an aging, expiring contract one time all star starting pitcher, a reliever at a discount coming off of two bad years, another reliever to a minor league contract, and a bunch of guys destined for Triple A. I guess that Cohen tax did work! On a positive note, The Phillies took Familia and Hand into their bullpen, so thanks for taking inconsistent relievers, divisional rivals.
The New York Mets: Hey Billy Eppler- the Oakland A’s just unloaded their all star first baseman. The A’s are the Wal Mart of baseball. You never want to go there, but when you do, you come home with something. The Oakland A’s need a starting first baseman. The Mets rotation needs a left handed starter. Dominic Smith for Sean Manaea? Then move Cookie Carasco or Taijuan Walker for bullpen help? Also, still a fan of the idea of trading Robinson Cano with the Seattle money and an additional ten million just to get him elsewhere. Any return is found money. Roughly $10 million worth. And after that press conference? Good riddance to a guy who will hit 260 without drugs, or roughly $100,000 per point of batting average.
The New York Yankees: How did you shank getting Freddie Friedman? Or Carlos Correa? George is vomiting in his grave and spinning through it.
The New York Rangers: Still amazed at the speed of the transition that losing a $10 million contract and having two top picks back to back in drafts can do. With the right coach.
The New York Islanders: Good job with a strong March. Unfortunately it follows a bad November, December, January, and February. Not the best way to run through a season. This is a great time to trade middling assets for premiums- See Josh Bailey, Cal Clutterbuck, Zdeno Chara, Seymon Varlamov, and Scott Mayfield. Also, consider a reup on Parise at minimum wage. It’s still higher than major league baseball, and Minnesota still owes him cash. If the season ended, they would be drafting 10th. It may be a good time to improve those odds via selloff and tank and go for the first overall like the Rangers and Oilers get every losing season. Not that a fix is in for some teams.
Also, This whole Ilya Sorokin thing? He’s not special. I’m going to present some goalie stats without attaching names to them, and you pick out Sorokin. 2.51/920, 2.13/.930, 2.28/.923, 2.45/.919. These are the Islanders 4 starting goaltenders under Trotz. Which is Greiss? Lehner? Sorokin? Varlamov?
The New York Knicks: Tank already. You are not going to improve by stockpiling second round picks. Get a top pick and fucking find a decent player. Also, Julius Randle has to go. And it’s OK to trade Kemba Walker in the offseason. He had his homecoming. Now he gets a homegoing. Look across a borough for some ideas. Somehow the Nets acquired Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, and Ben Simmons. You acquire Evan Fournier and Taj Gibson, while sending out Kirstaps Prozingis and Tim Hardaway for a draft pick. How is competence so far off for a team run by…incompetents? You’d think you’d screw up into an accidental win. This is sports karma for the owner being a jerkoff.
The Brooklyn Nets: The height of your existence happened in Nassau Coliseum. That was in the 1970’s. Harden and Durant did not win in Oklahoma. Harden and Durant did not win in Brooklyn. Simmons hasn’t won shit. Irving only won when he had LeBron and all the refs and league helping his bring Cleveland an asterisk title. Long story short- you’re not going to win with this. Use your salary cap manipulation this offseason to retool.
New Jersey Giants: If anyone buys season tickets, it’s only for the tax write off. You stink. Aim for moving talent for draft picks, and get the first overall for next year. Your management sucks as well. Liars pay a price in the long run.
New Jersey Jets: The last time you were entertaining? You played at Shea Stadium. The last time you were winners? Your coach got a tattoo of his quarterback. Ownership needs to be forced to sell a flagship franchise, because they run it worse than a sprinter with no legs. Oh, one last thing: the Jets had a good start to free agency. They have a lot of draft capital. If they don’t win 8 to 10 games this year? Expect a fired GM.
California Angels: You blame Billy Eppler for how shitty your organization is? Well, he’s gone, but not before bringing in your arguably best player. My question- did he sign Albert Puols to that awful deal? Is he presently ruining Mike Trout’s career? Way to ruin two to three Hall of Famers careers simultaneously. Try to win a World Series maybe?
Los Angeles Lakers: Amazing how bad you are when having to play a full season and the refs can’t just hand LeBron everything. It must suck to know that the only time LeBron truly won a title it was in Miami. And Dwayne Wade won it for him. The only top ten all time NBA list that LeBron belongs to is heel.
Tom Brady: Of course you’re not retired. Of course. Your career will end when you stop drinking the blood of orphans or some shit. Although if your defense held up for 60 more seconds? Or could have guessed as to where the ball was going like all of America watching the game did? It’s probably be another Super Bowl ring. So, why not go for it and walk out on the highest note?
The city of Portland, Oregon: You are due for another sports team. I recommend relocating the Pittsburgh Pirates to an area with West Coast money, and not a dead industrial base.
Marijuana: I do not indulge in smoking anything, which is a personal choice. But if it’s legal in some places, then we should stop prescribing athletes opiates that are heroin derivatives, and just let guys flare up a spliff. There are places in America where alcohol is illegal- which is also draconian- but if it’s not illegal everywhere, why break balls? On some level, this is no different than breaking the color barrier, and its a way to normalize something more holistic than stomach lining eating, liver damaging painkillers.
Performance Enhancing Drugs: Tommy John surgery is performance enhancing surgery. Cortisone is a performance enhancing drug. No one seems to have issues with that. Personally, I think the Baseball Hall of Fame should have a cheater section where we honor Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, all the dudes that did cocaine in the 70’s and 80’s, and a section dedicate to players that use enemas to inject drugs. Oh, and betting. That’s totally bad for Joe Jackson and Pete Rose, but clearly not for Major League Baseball.
If you made it this far? The Islanders goaltender stat puzzle answers are exactly as they were listed. Looks like letting Lehner walk and signing Varlamov was a bad idea. Also, Igor Shesterkin has better career numbers than Sorokin, and has played for non playoff teams until now.
Well folks, that’s all for now. Feel free to add your hot takes in the comments below, and remember this- in the end, the athletes work for us. If they’re not entertaining you, stop giving them your money.
It’s been about two months since I last had a thought. Wait, what? NO! It’s just been two months since I had time to write down a few thoughts about the local sports scene, and I guess anything in the sports scene that I’m thinking about.
Let’s start with the obvious: the New York Mets.
Last time I wrote about the Mets, I said that the organization was doing something wrong if they couldn’t acquire a team president. Steve Cohen changed my mind.
Steve Cohen is a very rich man, as every radio show host will repeatedly let you know. The other owners know this, and have been fucking with him in the only way that they can. “I don’t have your money, so you can’t have my stuff.” Agents fucked with him. Players fucked with him. Because he was playing nice and trying to fit in. He finally decided enough was enough.
Just like my home.
So what did Cohen do? Basically he said “The stuff I have? The players want.” And then he overpaid Starling Marte by roughly $20 million dollars. Then he offered a guy coming off of an injury tens of millions of dollars. And then the gut punch. The highest annually paid player was the New York Yankees Garret Cole. Was. The Mets offer to Max Scherzer – a future Hall of Fame pitcher who, while old, competed for a Cy Young last season- wasn’t just $5 more than the Cole deal. It wasn’t 1% more.
IT WAS 20% MORE THAN WHAT COLE GETS. TWENTY PERCENT.
Folks, that is called a fuck you. And a game changer.
EVERY agent will come to the Mets with their free agents as a final offer. A deal with Samsung will transform Citi Field into an entertainment destination. The manager is not only not a brand new inexperienced manager, but a widely respected, player friendly one in Buck Showalter. And the general manager he hired was both experienced and mentored by a baseball legend in Gene Michael- Billy Eppler. You know, the guy that brought Shohei Ohtani to the majors? The guy that hired former Yankee Showalter?
I get the sense that Eppler isn’t done contacting former Yankees. Brian Cashman will be a free agent executive in December of 2022. He’s presently making $25 million. I get the sense that Cohen can make a better offer.
And I want to give a pat on the back to Eppler for this overlooked gem- sure, losing Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto hurts if you’re rooting for a player instead of the team. But by losing both Confotro- who seems to be good every other year, and Syndergaard- who has pitched a handful of innings over the last two years and will maybe throw 125 innings next year if he doesn’t get injured? The Mets gained two second round picks in this upcoming MLB draft. And with the Kumar Rocker fiasco? The Mets gained a compensatory first round pick. So 5 of the top 80 and 6 of the top 100 picks will belong to the Mets. Anyone want to know how to restock a farm system? Let inconsistent and injured players bring you high level picks and save you wanted money.
Gone are the days where the Mets are auditioning rookie major league managers. By the way, former Mets manager Rojas is now an outfielders coach for the Yankees. Outfielders coach.
I’ll add this- in October I offered to be the Mets GM. At this point, I will accept an assistant GM position.
The New York Yankees: Your Dad wouldn’t put up with this Mets shit!
Major League Baseball: Give the players what they want. When it comes to Labor vs Management situations, there are two truisms: Management will always fuck labor because management itself is inherently backstabbing as people, and labor asks for fairness which usually falls against backstabbers.
The Chicago Cubs saw their team value increase 400% in the last decade because PLAYERS won them a World Series. Shouldn’t the owners reward the players with that new found $3 billion dollars? That the players made them? Yes, yes they should. The Wilpons sold the Mets for almost 7 times what they paid for it in a mere 20 years.
Also, paying players more doesn’t mean fans pay more. In the last 5 years, the average salary of baseball players has decreased. Have ticket prices?
The New York Rangers: Again, a good coach with a solid system can create a winning culture when surrounded with talented athletes.
The New York Islanders: A coach that works hard to emphasize defense at the point to stifle the offense has faith in Josh Bailey, who magically neither plays offense or defense. Something I learned in research this week- the more time you play Josh Bailey in a game, the statistically more likely you are to miss the playoffs.
The NHL: Maybe it’s time to go back to the 2019-2020 COVID playoff schedule, where everyone makes the playoffs? You screwed up early outbreaks, which benefits present COVID teams. My position is that if you can’t field a team, you should forfeit. But reality says that teams will roll out AHL caliber players and charge you NHL prices. Since you’ll fuck the fans at every turn, collapse the season and give each team a playoff birth. There’s not going to be an NHL player Olympics anyway, so let it fly.
The NFL: Have you seen the state of football in New York? Pretty good, right? Sure, a playoff bubble, but very likely a 10 win team.
But those guys in New Jersey are absolutely terrible. You need to have two pro leagues. One for the good teams, and one for teams trying to get there. Like European soccer.
The NBA: you have the most complicated salary cap in sports. You have a $113 million salary cap. One team follows that. ONE. Five teams are 50% above the cap. Sure it’s a soft cap. But if you have 29 teams ignoring the cap? You need to rewrite the collective bargaining agreement into reality.
The New York Knicks: Last year was fun because you were hard nosed and tough. Then you added soft players in free agency, drafted strong players that you refuse to play, and wonder why you’re losing. You lost your way.
The Brooklyn Nets: You’re not winning a title. Too old, too much Kyrie. Thank you for signing those guys so that the Knicks didn’t look even more dysfunctional.
Your game is flat.
Alright folks. I’m switching from writing to reading: next up, The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. Hopefully Buck will hand it out to the players.
As we sit in the rarified time of year where all four major North American sports are rolling, now is as good a time as any to do some quick hits on the New York sports scene, as well as anything else I can fit into a paragraph of a take.
New York Mets: A second year in a row of failing to find a president tells me something: you’re doing it wrong. Yes, a team president can change a culture. But the St. Louis Cardinals have had back to back losing seasons once since 1960, and I’m almost positive that they’ve had more than one team president in that time. Maybe culture starts at the top?
Also, I am available for the GM position. And unlike other GM’s I won’t trade any of the top 5 prospects unless I think they stink.
New York Yankees: Need a shortstop? Wait until a week into free agency, and see what the Mets would take for Francisco Lindor. I get the feeling that you could move a bad contract or two and get a bargain price based on the savings. Maybe move Gerrit Cole’s deal, because without super glue in the glove that deal seems like it’s about to blow up.
New York Rangers: See what happens when you get a good coach? Amazing. Hopefully the Mets take note.
New York Islanders: While you’ve been the most successful team in New York for the last two seasons, realize that’s always a tenuous position. On that theme, Zdeno Chara needs a rest. Time to make that guy a 7th defenseman and give Robin Salo or Samuel Bolduc a chance.
New York Knicks: You need an all star. Watching Julius Randle shoot in the clutch is like watching…Kirstaps Porzingis shoot in the clutch. You need the guy that ends opponent’s rallies. You need the guy that looks forward to getting the ball with 8 seconds left on the clock and the team down by one. You have 4000 draft picks over the next few years. Seems easy to look to move picks and pieces starting with Kevin Knox and Mitchell Robrokenson.
How many times do we need to watch a Knicks 10 point lead evaporate in the last 3 minutes of a game before you address this?
Brooklyn Nets: Trade Kyrie Irving. I get he is wholly overpaid and few teams can afford him. But he is a me first player. Always has been, always will be. No one wins with him unless they have 3 other all stars, and then they don’t even win. A swap with the Sixers for Ben Simmons would help with the salary differential, and Simmons doesn’t need to shoot with James Harden and Kevin Durant willing to throw even more shots up. Plus, Philly hates winning, so Irving will fit in nicely.
New York Giants: You are hard to watch. You need an identity. You wasted a 2nd overall pick on a running back when you had so many more issues. That’s like a homeless guy buying a Ferrari. You can’t even sleep in that, which makes it a total waste.
New York Jets: You are hard to watch. You need an identity. And a new owner. You have a head coach who was a defensive guru, and your defense is absolutely horseshit. You have the second best quarterback in the draft playing like he was chosen in round 5. You’re a dysfunctional franchise.
Jet and Giants: If you merged these two teams into one? They would win 4 games all season. Think about that. Also, call yourself New Jersey, for fucks sake. You’ve been there for 40 years.
All Major Sports: Stop firing people today over things that happened years or decades ago. It’s a stupid practice to use modern standards to not only evaluate the past, but to punish it. Or in many cases, punish it a second time. It’s even dumber to have the people who originally made those initial decisions making new ones that are even worse. Unless you can dig up Hitler’s bones – who actually did bad stuff- and make him apologize? Shut the fuck up, be glad the world is a little better now than it used to be which isn’t much, and then learn what forgiveness is so that we continue progress instead of falling into retroactive justice for none of your concern that makes society even worse than it used to be. Let he or she who is without sin case the first stone, but everyone else? SHUT THE FUCK UP. We’re not chasing Nazi’s hiding from Holocaust crimes. Most of these sins are from emails and tweets that hurt your feelies. Remember that sticks and stones rhyme? Time to grow up.
Besides, why should behavior occurring outside of work affect your job? If your lawn looks bad you should lose your job? If your wife is ugly you should lose your job? How about losing your job when you’re bad at your job, and dealing with personal matters personally?
Sports Teams Across the Nation: It costs $2 to make a t-shirt. Here’s an idea: start selling them to fans at $5. Not all of them- you can have some kind of fancy t-shirt, maybe with frills or flip flop paint or something. But a basic, made in China t-shirt? You give that shit away to fans at games in rocket launchers. Offer fans some free advertising for your awful franchise at low prices as a thank you for putting up with our milking you for every dollar you have while we have a 300 winning percentage offering. You know, actual decency? Instead of firing a guy that said “Ching Chong” 20 years ago? Speaking of, Shaq is still on the air, so get cracking, social justice warriors!
Oh my god how horrible. How can Shaq go on living?
It’s impossible to be a New York Mets fan and not have heard the good news. The Wilpon family-who have been majority owners of the New York Mets since 2002 and part time owners for years before that- sold the team to billionaire investor and probably criminal Steve Cohen for a sum reported to be $2.4 billion dollars. Can you imagine buying a car and spending three years cleaning it, while the other fifteen years you spend your time shitting in that same car?
To think, back in 2002 the Wilpons said “For $400 million we can buy this team, do a horrible job managing it, have three decent seasons over 18 years, and we can sextuple our money when we sell it. During a global pandemic. While all the while we draw income from the team for ourselves, and also get ourselves a new arena paid for by the public AND get ourselves a TV channel so unpopular that no other regional area sports team wants to play on it, largely because they know we won’t pay them.”
We’ve all read about the winding down of the Wilpon Mets era. Well, the winding down of the majority of ownership. They’re still 5% owners of the team, meaning they still have an over $120 million share of the organization, and will partake in 5% of profits, assumedly. Nice pay out for failing.
But this isn’t meant to rehash stuff you’ve read about the sale or the team or anything else. Until Major League Baseball approved the sale of the Mets- and yes, the owners will approve the sale of the Mets because it makes all of their franchises more valuable because major sports teams only gain and never lose value – this is all conjecture. But I expect one thing to happen after the sale of the NY Mets: the sale of SNY.
SNY is the cable channel you can find the Mets on. And that’s about it. It’s one of the shittiest channels on TV, hands down. What brings me to that conclusion? Let me share with you what would happen if I watched SNY from the time I’m writing this through the next roughly 24 hours. Would you find the following programming captivating?
Amateur boxing from 9 to 11 pm
The same 30 minute long sports show from 11 pm until 2 am. One debut with 5 identical repeats.
Paid infomercial- 2:00 am to 2:30 am
Air fryer infomercial- 2:30 am to 3:00 am
Infomercial on medicine- 3:00 to 3:30 am
Different Infomercials 3:30 to 4:00 am, 4:30 to 5 am, 5 to 5:30am, 5:30 to 6 am
Condensed Mets game (they lost by 10) 6 am to 7 am
7 am to 9 am- the same 30 minute highlight show from the night before run four times in a row. Disgusting.
Four 30 minute infomercials 9 am through 11 am
Condensed Mets game (they lost by 10, but at this point it feels like 30) until noon
ANOTHER HOUR of the 30 minute sports highlight show. So far that’s 12 shows of that shit in 16 hours.
1 pm- 3pm Mets Yearbook, for the 1962, 1963, 2015 and 2018 seasons. Three of those years were washouts.
3 pm to 6 pm- A Mets game.
6 to 6:30- Game recap
6:30- 7:30 Documentary on the 2015 trade deadline. They’ve easily shown this shit 400 times
7:30 -8:00pm. Documentary on baseball in the Dominican Republic.
8:00 to 11pm- a replay of the entire game where Wilmer Flores hits a game winning homerun after he was traded and rescinded, but before he was released a few years later.
This is some shit. Who the fuck would buy this? 6 hours of informercials? 25% of the days programming are fucking infomercials. 6 hours of the same 30 minute sports show. Another 25% of the day repeating itself.
3 hours of historical shows. I’m fine with that, actually. 2 hours of replaying a beating they took at the hands of a better opponent. 3 hours of a new game, and 30 minutes of new discussion on the probable loss. 3 hours of a 5 year old game that was a turning point that the team almost didn’t have. And a 30 minute documentary that I’m sure has been repeated 200 times itself.
17% of the day has new material. 25% of the day are infomercials. How is it that Cohen would have to pay for this? You’d think that the Wilpons would have to pay him for taking a pile of shit off of their hands.
And yes, of course the Wilpons are in debt on the TV channel. Allegedly those infomercials and the lack of original content bring in $150 million a year of revenues. I’d bet the largest part is from being packaged as part of a basic cable package, a thing the Mets were 20 years behind the 8 ball in doing. You’d think if you own the team and bring in $150m in revenue you’d be ok? Nah. AMNY reports that the Mets are $850 million in debt in SNY. Meaning gthat the Wilpons are bleeding money out of the TV channel.
Understand that the Mets are partial owners of SNY. So the Wilpons are dragging other people down with them. This matters. SNY is valued at a billion dollars, but has $850m in debt. Mathematically, SNY is worth $150m. Which is more than what Cohen should be paying for a money loser that’s going to perpetually bleed as less and less people watch sports via a cable package and turn to the internet instead.
The Mets are unique at how late into the game they arrived for getting their own channel, and how late into the game they are at content, and how amazingly unprofitable they are at TV, but most of all, they’re just fucking stupid at running a business. Why?
Compare the 26 hour SNY TV schedule with any other viewing option you have. Are you tuning into the same 30 minute talk show 5 or 10 times a day? To the point, lets look at how other local teams handle this same scenario.
More of the same, over and over…
The Yankees share their channel in the offseason with the Brooklyn Nets. There are multiple MSG channels for the Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, and Devils. NO LOCAL CHANNEL HAS JUST ONE PRO TEAM. You would think the Mets would say “Jets Islanders Mets fans should have a home…let’s go get the hockey team with our colors for the winter and have a connection with the team we used to share a stadium with, so we’re not running so many shitty infomercials!” But that would mean the Mets would have to top the $25-30 million that the Islanders get for showing up on MSG Plus 5. And when you lose money at every turn because you suck? Well, you’re probably just going to lose more because you suck.
All he did was put a bad team on his back and got into the Hall of Fame…
Cohen doesn’t seem to mind spending money. Allegedly he spent as much on a single piece of art as the Wilpons did on the entire Mike Piazza contract. Let that sink in as to what this would mean for the Mets. So while I make it a habit of telling others how to behave professionally in order to look, you know, professional? And I get how Mets fans are so Stokholmed Syndromed to accept losing that everything I write has the impact of a genocide? Yeah, it’s time to expect more. Actually, that time was back in 1988. Like SNY becoming a channel, you’re late to the game for Mets fans who enjoy losing, but it doesn’t mean that you’re losers.
In the end, Cohen will be in negotiations for SNY. That’s great, I guess. I know my cable bill will go up for it. But Cohen needs a separate negotiation first. He needs another pro team, and I have just the one for him: The New York Islanders.
The Islanders have a nice deal from MSG because the Islanders Rangers rivalry was so hot in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s that at that point the 25 year old channel of MSG (told you the Mets were late to the game) gave the Islanders a very rich TV deal. The Rangers owners expected the Islanders to continue being competitive, and that never happened, so the Islanders were using that TV money to prop up a team that was so underpaid that the NHL instituted a salary floor to try to guarantee a product for the fans despite the owners being terrible. Looking at you, Charles Wang. Tim Thomas was an awesome Islander…cap hit.
You do know that at one point under Wang the Islanders had a national TV deal for $13 million and a local TV deal of $25 million on a team payroll that was $43 million and claimed a $20 million loss. If you’re bad at math I’ll help. $38 million of TV money, $43 million of payroll. This NOT considering advertising, the Canadian TV deal, parking lot revenue, T shirt sales, hot dog sales, beer sales, and OH YEAH ticket sales. But if all those streams never existed? $38m is NOT $20m less than $43m. Oh, and then with the NHL adding $5m to the Islanders budget for being a small market team? $43m is the same as $43m. And the Islanders had phantom cap hits not being paid. If you’re concerned with a Cohen organization being fined for insider trading, understand that the Islanders were 20 years ahead of the curve. And the owners got approved, even with one headed to jail.
Oh, does that Wang era and those statutes of limitations! How far we’ve come. There’s even rumors that if the Cohen- SNY negotiations somehow fall apart, the New York Islanders are looking to buy the channel. How far they’ve come.
But with Cohen? He can say to the Islanders- “We make $150 million a year. You can be $50 million of that revenue. It’s nearly double the MSG deal. You stop being on MSG 5 or C-SPAN. You get a home so that no channel surfer has to guess what channel the game is on every night. We get winter ratings without having 5579987 reruns of the David Wright story- which I am certain has been shown more times than we have viewers. And we can sell advertising at higher rates while having live sports, so it won’t actually cost us $50 million. Plus, we look like a legitimate sports channel.”
A second team a must. Lets face it, the Knicks and Rangers ARE MSG network. The Yankees have made the low rent Nets their 5 boroughs partner. The Jets and Giants are major channel properties and unbiddable as a headliner. So what’s left? The orphaned franchise with the same color scheme playing 10 miles away from the newest mess that needs cleaning up.
And the Islanders absolutely need their own TV identity and home. It’s a no brainer.
Cable TV is a changing climate. Thanks to the Netflix model, channels will continue to go ala carte. SNY with one sport can not be a subscription service. SNY needs the Islanders- and probably more than amateur boxing- because the 45 actual classic Mets games will not fill another winter.
And a channel maybe losing money? That may actually help Cohen. For instance, say Cohen’s capital gains and taxable income is $300 million a year. But the Mets lose $300 million in that same year. Well, Cohen is effectively paying no taxes. The Mets can be a cost sink and Cohen will actually make more money from it. Also, sports teams themselves do not lose value, so even if Cohen somehow lost every dollar he has, he’s still a multi-billionaire.
Fat Devin Townsend
This idea only works if Cohen gets SNY for pennies on the dollar. I’d think assuming the Wilpon debt may be enough to get the deal done. That type of thing never happens you say? Hmm. Didn’t the Islanders buy their practice rink for15% of the cost of actually building it? Yes, yes they did. Sometimes when people are desperate, you take advantage of it. The Wilpons are clearly desperate. They quibbled over keeping a $120 million stake of the Mets, which tells me $120 million means a lot to them. And it may be more than enough cash Cohen may need to buy a TV channel.
Want to make sports more exciting? Welcome to Playoff Drafts!
COVID brought all sorts of new ideas to sports. It may be the ultimate legacy to a botched public response to a global pandemic- new sports rules. Like? A baseball double header lasting 14 innings. If it goes extra innings? The inning starts with a guy on 2nd base. Everyone gets a DH, like the games are played in Oprah’s studio.
As a sport, baseball was way ahead of its rivals. They made fundamental short term changes to the game in order to have something that looked like a season. Football? Showed its true mentality. “SMASH! RUN!” was the Commissioners reaction grunt to how football would deal with fans and corona.
Two sports thought of a bubble. One thought of one without prostitutes, which may speak to the long run difference of being raised with one parent versus two.
Wow…
But there was one change I would have liked to have seen be introduced in every sport. And not just this year, but going forward forever. That idea? Playoff drafts.
What’s a playoff draft? I’m not sure it even exists, so I get to totally create this new and brilliant idea. In theory, a playoff draft is a way to make playoff sports more interesting and exciting. How does it work? It goes like this:
Team A beats Team B in the playoffs. Fuck you, Team B, you pieces of shit! After A dispatches B, depending on the sport, Team A can harvest players off of Team B’s roster. How many players? Easy.
A smart team would select other players to cover for weaknesses. Is your running back average? Steal the better one! Did a star player get hurt? Take the equivalent?
Think back to when the Jets beat anyone in the playoffs. In 2010 Tom Brady would have been a Jet. That’s a big wow factor, no?
The player additions are also a per round total. If your baseball team wins the play in and the wild card? You have 4 new guys on your team.
Forever? No. You get the player back on your team after the postseason.
Do you have to take other players? No, its up to your GM and coach.
You may say “Since we won, why would we take a player from the other team?” The better question is- Why wouldn’t you? What, you think by sharing how you’re coached a guy or two will have the keys to your weaknesses? They just lost to you, so if they couldn’t figure it out then, one player wont break a code in an extra week or two. The only thing he may figure out is that his regular coach sucks.
No, this is about rewarding winning. About adding excitement for the fan. About offering the best product that you possibly can. Plus now you get multi city appeal. Derek Jeter on the 2004 Red Sox? New York will be watching that World Series.
For the players, it’s like a free agency window. You get to check out other teams operations first hand. Players should love that because it will push wages up when they jump ship for teams that they liked.
What if there is an upset? Holy cow is that a game changer! Say The LA Lakers lose in the semi finals. Suddenly you have LeBron James or Anthony Davis coming off of your bench in the next round. That’s sudden interest in an underdog team. And the more LeBron, the more ESPN exists.
What about the guys that they replace? Those guys get put into suspended animation on your roster. New guy gets injured? Fuck off. You’re down one. You have to give the suspended animation list a positive sounding name so it doesn’t sound like a punishment. Call it the “Recent Reserves” list.
The 2020 New York Islanders and their awful power play beat the Capitals. Top 5 bust Michael Dal Colle goes on the Reserves list, add Alexander Ovechkin to your lineup. Power play issues solved, maybe the Islanders beat Tampa Bay and add Braden Point to their team at forward, and Victor Hedman on defense. But Tampa won….bet Josh Bailey wouldn’t be in their top ten players to poach list.
Reunited with Trotz? Power play solved.
Players you take in a playoff draft? They get playoff money shares, a title ring, but their name isn’t added to your team history or on the Stanley Cup. Their stats however are added to their personal history. Say Pete Alonso is taken by the Braves and hits 4 playoff home runs? That’s all Alonso stats, not the Braves.
The Celtics beat the Sixers? Suddenly backing up at point for the Celtics? Ben Simmons! Makes the game more interesting, and the team stronger. This year in the NBA Kawai Leonard would have been picked up by Denver. How would that change their approach in the next round?
Plus, the selection process itself would be super exciting. All sports leagues make a big deal about amateur drafts. Imagine the headlines of a professional draft? It would be interesting to see who would get picked. Sorry, choking ass Clayton Kershaw!
Whomp whomp!
And if you chose a player who was a bum? The second guessing would make a whole new world of sport talk what if’s. “Imagine how it would have turned out if the Yankees took Ichiro, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito in 2001? They win 6 World Series in a row!”
Think about the revenue opportunities available for sports teams. Sport leagues keep making money off of TV ratings. Why would they want to water down a product?
Could players throw games? Absolutely. That makes the selection more exciting- it’s the chance you take as a franchise. Plus, couldn’t a player throw a game in the playoffs anyway, or was John Starks that god awful bad versus Houston?
Reggie Miller was right
This idea is most definitely outside the box, and will insult sports purists. However, if would create dream teams in each sport, and that’s what fans want to see, right? So come on big leagues, time to grow a pair and start the playoff draft!
While the rest of the NBA world mourns the “Battle for LA” never materialized, Clippers fans are again wondering why success consistently avoids them.
Despite being everyone’s favorite to reach at least the Western Conference Finals after the offseason signings of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, the Clippers let their fans down again.
While everyone knows about the woeful Game 6 loss against Houston in 2015, here are some other painful memories Clippers fans experienced in franchise history.
Game Five, 2014 Western Conference Semifinals at Oklahoma City
Leading 104-97 with 49 seconds remaining, the Clippers looked to take a 3-2 series lead. Multiple turnovers by Chris Paul results in Kevin Durant (five) and Russell Westbrook (three) scoring the final eight points of Oklahoma City’s 105-104 win. The Thunder eliminated Los Angeles in Game 6 to win the series 4-2.
Danny Manning tears ACL
After leading the University of Kansas to a National Championship in 1988, the Clippers selected Danny Manning with the number one overall pick in the 1988 NBA Draft.
Despite winning just nine of the 26 games he participated, Manning posted ten 20-point games while averaging 6.7 rebounds, and 3.1 assists in his promising start. However, Manning tore his anterior cruciate ligament against Milwaukee on January 4, ending his season.
Manning returned to the Clippers the following season, but never featured the same athletic ability. The Clippers traded him to Atlanta for Dominique Wilkins in February 1994, despite posting career-highs in PPG (23.7), RPG (7.0), and APG (4.2).
Ron Harper tears ACL
One of the rare instances in which the Clippers achieved something worthwhile featured their November 16, 1989 trade for Ron Harper. The Clippers traded their number two pick in the 1989 NBA draft (Danny Ferry) and Reggie Williams to Cleveland for Ron Harper and three draft picks (1990 & 1992 first-round picks and a second-round pick in 1991).
Harper averaged 23 PPG while leading Los Angeles to a 14-14 record in his first 28 games. The former Miami of Ohio standout continued his ascendency to join the elite shooting guards in the NBA. However, like Manning, Harper’s career with Los Angeles drastically changed on January 18, 1990, when Harper tore his ACL and done for the season. The Clippers lost 31 of their final 43 games.
Pair of Game 5 losses – Larry Brown’s departure
Despite crushing ACL injuries to Danny Manning and Ron Harper, the Clippers fortunes briefly changed after hiring Larry Brown on February 7, 1992. Brown led the Clippers to 23 wins in their final 35 games, helping LA reach the postseason for the first time since 1975-76.
While Brown changed the atmosphere, the Clippers still disappointed. Forcing Utah to a Game 5 in the first round of the 1992 playoffs, the Clippers led 52-40 at halftime. However, the Jazz rallied to win 98-89.
In their first-round matchup against Houston in 1993, the Clippers couldn’t hold a late lead in Game 5, falling 84-80. Brown’s resignation on May 21 ended the Clippers brief uprisal.
