Serena Williams exits the stage in Grand Slam fashion.

Serena Williams exits the stage in Grand Slam fashion.

Sports at Large is a weekly exploration of the issues and people who play and watch sports. SaL goes behind the headlines and stats to find the how and why, and the ways in which sports intersect with and influence our daily lives. SaL features interviews and commentaries from professionals and fans a like to tell a more complete story. One person described it as ----a thinking fan's guide to sports.----

Sports at Large

Sports at Large is a weekly exploration of the issues and people who play and watch sports. SaL goes behind the headlines and stats to find the how and why, and the ways in which sports intersect with and influence our daily lives. SaL features interviews and commentaries from professionals and fans a like to tell a more complete story. One person described it as ----a thinking fan's guide to sports.

Sports at Large is a weekly exploration of the issues and people who play and watch sports. SaL goes behind the headlines and stats to find the how and why, and the ways in which sports intersect with and influence our daily lives. SaL features interviews and commentaries from professionals and fans a like to tell a more complete story. One person described it as ----a thinking fan's guide to sports.

Serena's departure fitting for a legend

Apparently, the observation that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result did not originate with Albert Einstein.

Regardless of who said it, it hasn’t taken NCAA president Charlie Baker long to recognize that that trope is true relative to the organization he heads.

Baker, who took over the governing body of college athletics in March, has come to understand that continuing to try to run collegiate sports in the 21st century the way it was run when it was created early in the 20th century is, well, insane.

Perhaps that’s why Baker has proposed a fundamental change in the NCAA’s governing structure that could remake college sports forever and for good.

Baker is effectively suggesting that athletes be paid by the schools. If you listen carefully, you can likely hear some of the NCAA founders spinning in their graves, but just because an idea is radically different than what you’re used to doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t happen.

Indeed, compensating athletes for their labors is an idea that’s way past its time.

Now, there are certainly those who will suggest that a college athlete should receive nothing more than a scholarship, room, board, books and fees. To those folks I say balderdash, or at least that’s all I can say on these here FCC-regulated airwaves.

Go to any college sporting event and look around. The student who takes your ticket is paid for the effort. Members of the band can head to a local club or arena and get compensation for their evening’s work, even if they’re already receiving a music scholarship.

Goodness knows, the coaches and other athletic department personnel are handsomely rewarded for their labors, and particularly at the high end of college sports.

So, why shouldn’t the very people who make all of it possible, the backbones of the multi-billion dollar industry that college sports have become, get their share?

To a degree, that has started to happen, as athletes have the Supreme Court-granted right to market their names, images and likenesses. But those funds don’t come from the schools, which is where Baker’s proposal comes in.

The former governor of Massachusetts has floated an idea whereby schools in Division I, the most visible and wealthiest, would begin offering half their athletes at least $30,000 a year from a combination of NIL funding and an educational trust fund.

The plan would cover male and female athletes and would extend not only to high revenue sports like football and men’s basketball, but also to what are called Olympic sports.

Baker is proposing that the schools create in-house revenue-sharing mechanisms that would lessen the impact of collectives that have formed where boosters and alums pay athletes. Baker’s idea, if adopted without alterations, could drive a bigger wedge between wealthy schools like Maryland, where I went and not-so-wealthy schools, like, say, Morgan State, where, in the spirit of full disclosure, is where I teach.

But at the end of the day, Charlie Baker deserves a big thank you from anyone who sees the insanity college sports has become and wants to do something different.

And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and Twitter at Sports at Large.

Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

Apparently, the observation that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result did not originate with Albert Einstein.
Regardless of who said it, it hasn’t taken NCAA president Charlie Baker long to recognize that that trope is true relative to the organization he heads.
Baker, who took over the governing body of college athletics in March, has come to understand that continuing to try to run collegiate sports in the 21st century the way it was run when it was created early in the 20th century is, well, insane.
Perhaps that’s why Baker has proposed a fundamental change in the NCAA’s governing structure that could remake college sports forever and for good.
Baker is effectively suggesting that athletes be paid by the schools. If you listen carefully, you can likely hear some of the NCAA founders spinning in their graves, but just because an idea is radically different than what you’re used to doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t happen.
Indeed, compensating athletes for their labors is an idea that’s way past its time.
Now, there are certainly those who will suggest that a college athlete should receive nothing more than a scholarship, room, board, books and fees. To those folks I say balderdash, or at least that’s all I can say on these here FCC-regulated airwaves.
Go to any college sporting event and look around. The student who takes your ticket is paid for the effort. Members of the band can head to a local club or arena and get compensation for their evening’s work, even if they’re already receiving a music scholarship.
Goodness knows, the coaches and other athletic department personnel are handsomely rewarded for their labors, and particularly at the high end of college sports.
So, why shouldn’t the very people who make all of it possible, the backbones of the multi-billion dollar industry that college sports have become, get their share?
To a degree, that has started to happen, as athletes have the Supreme Court-granted right to market their names, images and likenesses. But those funds don’t come from the schools, which is where Baker’s proposal comes in.
The former governor of Massachusetts has floated an idea whereby schools in Division I, the most visible and wealthiest, would begin offering half their athletes at least $30,000 a year from a combination of NIL funding and an educational trust fund.
The plan would cover male and female athletes and would extend not only to high revenue sports like football and men’s basketball, but also to what are called Olympic sports.
Baker is proposing that the schools create in-house revenue-sharing mechanisms that would lessen the impact of collectives that have formed where boosters and alums pay athletes. Baker’s idea, if adopted without alterations, could drive a bigger wedge between wealthy schools like Maryland, where I went and not-so-wealthy schools, like, say, Morgan State, where, in the spirit of full disclosure, is where I teach.
But at the end of the day, Charlie Baker deserves a big thank you from anyone who sees the insanity college sports has become and wants to do something different.
And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and Twitter at Sports at Large.
Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

NCAA's Baker looks to avoid insanity with bold plan

If you left a pair of three-year olds in the middle of a room with a bowl full of finger paints and told them to have at it, they could hardly make more of a mess than Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles CEO John Angelos have with negotiations for a new Camden Yards lease.

The stage was set Friday for an announcement that the two sides had hammered out an actual flesh-and-blood agreement that would bind the Birds to Baltimore for the next 30 years. By day’s end, Moore had to put the deal on hold as State Senate President Bill Ferguson threw a monkey wrench into the proceedings with questions, if not flat out objections, about key parts of the lease.

And so, with now less than three weeks before the end of the Orioles’ original contract with the state for use of arguably the best ballpark in America, we seem to be back at square one with no firm commitment from the team to stay.

Surely you remember the October night the team clinched an American League East title for the first time in nine years when Angelos and Moore partied from a sky suite like it was 1979, when the club was regularly winning titles.

The video board flashed a message to the sellout crowd that the team, Moore and the Maryland Stadium Authority had quote agreed to a deal that will keep the Orioles in Baltimore and at Camden Yards for at least the next 30 years unquote.

Come to find out that what we were all sold that night was verbal apple sauce. What the parties actually agreed to was a memorandum of understanding, a kind of oral agreement to agree, which sounded nice, but not at all binding.

In a statement Friday, Ferguson, whose district includes Oriole Park, said he had issues with the notion that the long term occupancy of the stadium would be contingent on granting the Orioles a 99-year ground lease to develop the land around the park.

That mind-numbing concession comes in addition to the idea that the Orioles will get the use of $600 million in state bonds to refurbish Camden Yards once Angelos signs any lease. Ferguson is also said to have been troubled by a supposed provision that would have allowed the club to abandon the lease in 10 years, not 30.

Any lease would have to be approved by the stadium authority and the state Board of Public Works, where one seat is held by Moore, and the other two by state Comptroller Brooke Lierman and state Treasurer Derrick Davis, who is selected by the legislature.

It is stunning, but not surprising that Angelos, who has pledged to keep the Orioles here as long as Fort McHenry overlooks the city, would think he could extract such unbelievable concessions.

Likewise, it’s amazing that Moore would not have run this by Ferguson or House Speaker Adrienne Jones or other key legislators to see if this turkey would fly.

The governor and Angelos have a couple of weeks to clean up the mess they’ve made. Orioles fans and the people of Maryland deserve no less.

And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and Twitter at Sports at Large.

Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

If you left a pair of three-year olds in the middle of a room with a bowl full of finger paints and told them to have at it, they could hardly make more of a mess than Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles CEO John Angelos have with negotiations for a new Camden Yards lease.
The stage was set Friday for an announcement that the two sides had hammered out an actual flesh-and-blood agreement that would bind the Birds to Baltimore for the next 30 years. By day’s end, Moore had to put the deal on hold as State Senate President Bill Ferguson threw a monkey wrench into the proceedings with questions, if not flat out objections, about key parts of the lease.
And so, with now less than three weeks before the end of the Orioles’ original contract with the state for use of arguably the best ballpark in America, we seem to be back at square one with no firm commitment from the team to stay.
Surely you remember the October night the team clinched an American League East title for the first time in nine years when Angelos and Moore partied from a sky suite like it was 1979, when the club was regularly winning titles.
The video board flashed a message to the sellout crowd that the team, Moore and the Maryland Stadium Authority had quote agreed to a deal that will keep the Orioles in Baltimore and at Camden Yards for at least the next 30 years unquote.
Come to find out that what we were all sold that night was verbal apple sauce. What the parties actually agreed to was a memorandum of understanding, a kind of oral agreement to agree, which sounded nice, but not at all binding.
In a statement Friday, Ferguson, whose district includes Oriole Park, said he had issues with the notion that the long term occupancy of the stadium would be contingent on granting the Orioles a 99-year ground lease to develop the land around the park.
That mind-numbing concession comes in addition to the idea that the Orioles will get the use of $600 million in state bonds to refurbish Camden Yards once Angelos signs any lease. Ferguson is also said to have been troubled by a supposed provision that would have allowed the club to abandon the lease in 10 years, not 30.
Any lease would have to be approved by the stadium authority and the state Board of Public Works, where one seat is held by Moore, and the other two by state Comptroller Brooke Lierman and state Treasurer Derrick Davis, who is selected by the legislature.
It is stunning, but not surprising that Angelos, who has pledged to keep the Orioles here as long as Fort McHenry overlooks the city, would think he could extract such unbelievable concessions.
Likewise, it’s amazing that Moore would not have run this by Ferguson or House Speaker Adrienne Jones or other key legislators to see if this turkey would fly.
The governor and Angelos have a couple of weeks to clean up the mess they’ve made. Orioles fans and the people of Maryland deserve no less.
And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and Twitter at Sports at Large.
Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

Moore, Angelos make mess of Orioles' lease

The industry of journalism in this country is under attack as never before. That’s not news.

What is news is when the onslaught comes from within, as in self-inflicted wounds. And while the division of journalism that extends to sports may not always be held in the highest of regards within the division, it is an essential and perhaps most visible part.

So, when that necessary and noticeable wing of the Fourth Estate catches friendly fire, it’s cause for concern.

Twice, in recent weeks, sports journalism has taken hits, hits that were entirely avoidable and entirely of the making of those involved.

In the first case, the wound should be superficial, but the shrapnel may hurt everyone, but the people directly responsible. During an airing of a podcast, Charissa Thompson, a former NFL sideline reporter, said she would make up reports, particularly if she couldn’t reach a coach at halftime.

Thompson made this admission to Erin Andrews, another sideline reporter, who copped to the idea that she had done the same thing, though in her case, Andrews said she made things up to protect a coach.

Both Thompson, who now hosts NFL game programming on Amazon and Fox, and Andrews issued lukewarm clarifications for their admissions. Neither has been publicly reprimanded by their employers.

Their conduct drew swift and, in some cases, furious condemnation from their colleagues who recognize the damage the admission of phony reporting can do to the institution of journalism, even if you don’t equate asking a coach or player about their thoughts with Woodward and Bernstein during Watergate.

Those sideline colleagues, almost exclusively women, further understand the harm that Andrews and Thompson have done to the cause of female sports reporters who already enter the fray at a credibility disadvantage from many simply because of their gender.

That Thompson and Andrews appear poised to emerge unscathed is a cynical gambit from Fox and Amazon that viewers don’t care what comes from their television sets. Meanwhile, the website Futurism reported that Sports Illustrated posted online pieces from fictitious writers whose headshots were generated by artificial intelligence. Officials at Arena, which owns SI, denied the allegations, but acknowledged that the magazine had carried material from a third-party provider that allowed writers to use pen names or pseudonyms. That material has been pulled, officials said, and an investigation is being conducted. Even if you take these officials at their word, the notion that Sports Illustrated, once home to some of the greatest names in sports journalism, giants like Jack McCallum, Leigh Montville, Gary Smith and Baltimore’s own Frank DeFord, farmed out its space to what amounts to an advertising firm, is anathema.

To be clear, organizations who fly reputable journalistic banners are already testing the limits of AI usage, up to and including posting stories generated by bots, rather than flesh and blood people, in the name of saving money.

But the folks who run places like Fox, Amazon and Arena had better start considering what happens when the public can’t trust what it hears or reads, even if it’s just about silly games.

And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and Twitter at Sports at Large.

Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

The industry of journalism in this country is under attack as never before. That’s not news.
What is news is when the onslaught comes from within, as in self-inflicted wounds. And while the division of journalism that extends to sports may not always be held in the highest of regards within the division, it is an essential and perhaps most visible part.
So, when that necessary and noticeable wing of the Fourth Estate catches friendly fire, it’s cause for concern.
Twice, in recent weeks, sports journalism has taken hits, hits that were entirely avoidable and entirely of the making of those involved.
In the first case, the wound should be superficial, but the shrapnel may hurt everyone, but the people directly responsible. During an airing of a podcast, Charissa Thompson, a former NFL sideline reporter, said she would make up reports, particularly if she couldn’t reach a coach at halftime.
Thompson made this admission to Erin Andrews, another sideline reporter, who copped to the idea that she had done the same thing, though in her case, Andrews said she made things up to protect a coach.
Both Thompson, who now hosts NFL game programming on Amazon and Fox, and Andrews issued lukewarm clarifications for their admissions. Neither has been publicly reprimanded by their employers.
Their conduct drew swift and, in some cases, furious condemnation from their colleagues who recognize the damage the admission of phony reporting can do to the institution of journalism, even if you don’t equate asking a coach or player about their thoughts with Woodward and Bernstein during Watergate.
Those sideline colleagues, almost exclusively women, further understand the harm that Andrews and Thompson have done to the cause of female sports reporters who already enter the fray at a credibility disadvantage from many simply because of their gender.
That Thompson and Andrews appear poised to emerge unscathed is a cynical gambit from Fox and Amazon that viewers don’t care what comes from their television sets. Meanwhile, the website Futurism reported that Sports Illustrated posted online pieces from fictitious writers whose headshots were generated by artificial intelligence. Officials at Arena, which owns SI, denied the allegations, but acknowledged that the magazine had carried material from a third-party provider that allowed writers to use pen names or pseudonyms. That material has been pulled, officials said, and an investigation is being conducted. Even if you take these officials at their word, the notion that Sports Illustrated, once home to some of the greatest names in sports journalism, giants like Jack McCallum, Leigh Montville, Gary Smith and Baltimore’s own Frank DeFord, farmed out its space to what amounts to an advertising firm, is anathema.
To be clear, organizations who fly reputable journalistic banners are already testing the limits of AI usage, up to and including posting stories generated by bots, rather than flesh and blood people, in the name of saving money.
But the folks who run places like Fox, Amazon and Arena had better start considering what happens when the public can’t trust what it hears or reads, even if it’s just about silly games.
And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and Twitter at Sports at Large.
Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

Serena's departure fitting for a legend

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