Two brief items this morning… The NFL administered the coup de grace on NFL Europe/Europa last week. I guess they figured that they couldn’t just change the name and pretend that there was anything new they might bring to the consumer in Europe to make the league turn a profit. The NFL has so dominated the US sports scene that it always seemed to believe that it could walk into a part of the world where there was disposable income and dominate there too. Maybe it can, but not with the business model they used in regard to WLAF/World League/NFL Europe/NFL Europa.
Here is what that business model looks like from the outside. The NFL partitioned off areas of Europe – at times as far flung as Scotland, Barcelona and Frankfurt – and put what amounts to minor league football there. The quality of football played by NFL Europe is not demonstrably superior to what the USFL once put on the field. Absent the silly hype, it is not all that much better than the XFL product either. And the NFL seemed to believe that was all it needed to do in order to win the hearts and minds of European sports fans was wait a while. Well, [American] football fever has spread in Europe about as fast as trickle-down economic well-being has worked in Latin America.
So NFL Europe is no more. Greg Cote summed up what all of this means in the Miami Herald last weekend:
“The NFL has sacked its NFL Europa league after 16 money-losing seasons. The league will play a one-game European season in 2007: Dolphins-Giants on October 28.”
The second item this morning comes from a reader who wondered why I hadn’t joined the pack of writers heaping scorn on the World Wrestling Entertainment folks over the murder-suicide perpetrated by Chris Benoit. The reason is that I really didn’t have much to say about it other than what I had said – - it is a tragic situation because three people are dead. I do not follow professional wrestling; I used to but I moved on to other things shortly after the Bruno Sammartino Era ended. When I first read about this tragedy, I thought Chris Benoit rhymed with Detroit; in a later piece, the author informed me that the name was pronounced “Ben-WAH”; that is the level of expertise I brought to the matter. So, I didn’t think I should pontificate about this stuff.
Then I read a piece by Greg Wyshynski in Sports Fan Magazine.
He said that far too many writers have jumped on this story and focused on the “steroids angle” when they have shown no previous interest or knowledge of professional wrestling. And he’s right. Here’s the line that caught my attention:
“It’s like everyone who aspired to grow up to be Frank Deford decided to become Phil Mushnick for a day.”
That got me to thinking. Why is it that sportswriters in general – and Phil Mushnick more specifically – are spring loaded to say nasty things about World Wrestling Entertainment and Vince McMahon? I have no interest in holding that organization or that man up to any kind of honorific stature, but I don’t think either the organization or the man is so demonstrably odious that they should each be assumed to be guilty of the most heinous aspect one could imagine in any circumstance in which they are involved.
Do professional wrestlers use steroids? Every time I see a photo of one of their champions, it sure looks as if they do. Do professional wrestlers tend to die young? Well, there seem to be about two or three stories a year about such happenings so I’d presume that was a gruesome trend. But what makes professional wrestlers different here?
Do baseball players use steroids? Yes they do. Do NFL players use steroids and HGH? Every time I see some of those players without their pads on, it sure looks as if they do. Do professional football players die young? Some do [see Alzedo, Lyle]. Do professional football players live out their adult lives after football with their bodies in less than fully functional conditions? The Congress of the United States seems to believe so.
But when these same writers comment on baseball or football and the players who make the games work, they do not assume they are ne’er-do-wells. When they write about baseball owners, they talk about their greed and their “blind eye” to the steroid era until now but don’t make them out to be pond slime. When they talk about the NFL owners, they speak in reverential tones. So, what did Vince McMahon and the professional wrestlers do to the average sportswriter in America to deserve the treatment they get? I really don’t know the answer to this, but there is truly a double standard here.
And I really don’t think the basis for this lies in the fact that pro wrestling is “fake”. That can’t be a revelation to anyone over the age of 12 with an IQ higher than your typical rutabaga. I don’t think it is that Vince McMahon is a bombastic person who pushes the envelope of taste in his antics once in a while. Please recall that there was only minor “clucking” when Ted Turner and Jane Fonda participated in the ever so politically incorrect tomahawk chop during Atlanta Braves playoff games.
And today’s two items tie together in a strange way. With the folding of NFL Europe, we have reporting and comment that the NFL made a business decision to terminate a money losing proposition but that the league will be examining other globalization strategies. When the XFL folded, it was almost reported with glee in many quarters. And the motive force behind the XFL was Vince McMahon.
Like I said, what did he do to get on the [bleep]list for the sportswriters of America? It must have been a sordid tale…
Finally, another commentary from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
“At South Brunswick High in North Carolina, a 40-year old track coach, Brenton Wuchae, married one of his 16 year old athletes. Dear Brent: The over/under on her dumping your old [expletive] is about a year. Meantime, you are the subject of national ridicule or scorn. Also wild-guessing that your future in teaching and youth coaching might be iffy. Otherwise – - congratulations.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…