Cash Rules Everything Around Me - Sports succumbing to the bottom line, v. 4,146,900

AC Milan midfielder Kaka, a former World Player of the Year and Ballon d'Or (European Fotballer of the Year), is the target of the most recent example of money being thrown around in sports like it's Monopoly. Photo from goalvideoz.com

"Cash rules everything around me/C.R.E.A.M. get the money/Dolla dolla bill ya'll." Arguably the best-known song from the Wu-Tang Clan's breakout debut album, "C.R.E.A.M." is also applicable as a refrain when absolutely silly amounts of money are thrown around in the world of sports.

It's applicable often nowadays, considering the amount of money teams make, what the salary caps are in American sports, the budgets of big-money NASCAR and Formula 1 racing teams, and the amount of money bidded on players in European soccer. I don't know if it's wrong or right, but there's certainly a lot of money being thrown around.

Take our boy Kaka there as seen above. He's a star playmaking midfielder for Italian giants AC Milan, lifted the Champion's League trophy in 2007, and won a World Cup as a young substitute for Brazil in 2002. He's a silky-smooth passer and dribbler without the flair of a Cristiano Ronaldo or Robinho, but the capability to drive a team from the heart of midfield. He won both the FIFA World Player of the Year and the European Footballer of the Year, the Golden Ball (Ballon d'Or), after the 2006-07 Champion's League-winning season, and is clearly a player most any team in the world would love to have in its side.

Which still doesn't quite excuse nouveau-riche Manchester City's ~$155 million bid for him (link to BBC Sports). Of course it's not the player's fault, and one would hardly blame him if he decided to accept City's offer. However, this move would more than double the record transfer fee and certainly challenge the deal New York Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez has as the richest for a team-sports athlete in the world.


Current world transfer-record player, former France playmaker Zinedine Zidane, being introduced after Real Madrid paid Juventus 46 million pounds ($67 million) for his services

The names at the top of the record transfer list are not entirely shocking when one thinks about it. Real Madrid are the New York Yankees of international soccer; 9 European cups, nearly 30 Spanish Liga titles, and a grand history of expensive stars. Juventus are the "old lady" of Italian football, Inter are the rich little brother in Italy (well supported but falling short in title chases numerous times), Barcelona are the old enemy to Madrid in Spain and have a history of splashing cash, and Manchester United are quite possibly the best-known soccer team in the United States, thanks to star players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, and of course, at one time, David Beckham.

But two other names stand out. Manchester City, the squad looking to more than double the transfer record to sign Kaka, have already added a big-name Brazilian star in the form of Robinho, signing him from Real Madrid in August for 30 million pounds. Lazio, though - who were injected with cash in the late 1990s in order to push the Roman side into the Italian title chase - mirror Manchester City rather well, down to the traditional home colors of sky blue.


Former Lazio owner Sergio Cragnotti poses with one of the players his largesse brought to the Roman side, Czech winger Pavel Nedved.

Lazio were powered forward by the largesse of Italian food magnate Sergio Cragnotti, who spent early and often in a search for the Italian scudetto. While Lazio had always been one of Italy's "Big Six" (along with Juventus, Inter, AC Milan, AS Roma, and at times Fiorentina), Cragnotti wanted to rocket the team into the stratosphere.

The well ran dry and it left Lazio stumbling; they seem to have recovered and made the Champion's League in 2007-08, but have done so without spending huge.

Sound familiar? Manchester City were purchased in late August by a group that consists of the royal family of the city of Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates. Oil-rich and expanding into tourism and finance to diversify its economy, Abu Dhabi's royal family has a multi-billion dollar bankroll behind them thanks to oil production. Now, they're trying to play a virtual video game with the Premier League and see if, like on the PC games, attracting all the best players in the world with lots of money will lead to success.

Of course you can't help but think of the impact this has on sports in general. If it works, and Manchester City - traditionally well-supported in England but without a great history of winning titles - qualifies for the Champion's League and challenges for titles, then the "money cheat code" method of ownership could be proven correct.

Regardless of the opulence it's representative of the sports world at large. TV money has poured into a variety of sports since the late 1960s, and with it has come an era of previously-unheard of success. The NFL practically has a license to print money in the United States - and yet ticket prices are only ever going up. Major League Baseball had 10 teams with payrolls higher than $100 million in a year, and that includes the Yankees, who broke $200 million.


The New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez is currently the highest-paid team sport athlete in the world; will Kaka's salary match his?

What can be done about it, though? Short of salary caps staying at an equal level and nobody deciding to break the salary caps with tons of money, that is; in leagues without salary caps, like Major League Baseball and European soccer, there's nothing to it. If it works as a business decision and you can afford it, who's to stop you spending that much money? Welcome to the free economy.

It's a tough situation. Stop supporting sports because of the money being thrown around? Stop supporting the highest levels of athletics and focus on semi-pro, or more minor leagues? Or go along, wary, hoping that when the bubble bursts, your team will be in decent financial shape?

It's a tough decision. Especially as, during all great booms, it looks like the money will never dry up.

Not everything needs to be news

I'm so utterly tired of one of the best football players of all time right now.

Brett Favre has created a hurricane of interest in the past few months, and the eye is now settled directly on Wisconsin. I think ESPN is running a news update every time Favre sneezes or goes to the bathroom (I think John Clayton is on that beat for the World-Wide Leader). He has single-handedly stolen all of the attention away from every other team in the NFL, which is almost unfathomable.

I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of the hyper-analysis of every move in this chess game, I don't care about every single detail, and I hate that it can hijack sports news coverage so easily. I hate that there's an almost-constant "FAVRE" ticker on ESPN. I hate that I'm writing this column.

With all due respect to all the incredibly talented athletes out there, please, please, please take your contract squabbles out of the media's eye. I just don't care anymore, and I'm sure even the most hardened NFL junkies are starting to get soured. If the people around Favre hadn't started squawking to the press, if Favre himself had come out and said "I'm going to go negotiate with the team and we'll talk when I'm done," if the agents hadn't whipped everyone into a frenzy, I'd have much more sympathy of the plight of the ancient quarterback.

As it stands, this is a black mark on his legacy and a sad way to keep a fanbase chasing its tail.

It isn't just the NFL that is falling prey to this. European soccer is rife with players going to the press and trying to work their way out of deals and hogging the sports pages. Manny Ramirez just earned about two weeks worth of press coverage leading up to his deadline-day trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's ridiculous.

I'm all for the freedom of player movement and in now way would I ever advocate to a return of the pre-free agency days, but come on, have some respect for your teams. I'd have more sympathy for Favre if he had kept the talk in the board rooms and between himself, his agent and the Green Bay Packers. As it is, it just stinks of attention grabbing, with the dogs baying for blood up in Bristol, CT.

I can't wait for real, meaningful football news to get started.

Sports game mentality and a review of NCAA 09

I can’t help but get a feeling of déjà vu when I’m playing NCAA 09. No, not just because I’ve played the demo that was released on Xbox Live ahead of the game’s launch; it’s because there’s so much the same as last year’s version, and the year before that’s version, and on and on.


NCAA 09: different covers for each version. Xbox 360 gamers get former Arkansas running back and Heisman Trophy finalist Darren McFadden.

Sports gamers are really good at buying and playing the same game over and over. However, this becomes problematic when applied too liberally to the process of creating a sports video game. Tweak a few things, add some new features that can be slapped on the back box (or, gratingly, add back features that were taken away a year or two ago), update the rosters and uniforms and boom! Quicker than John Madden on a turducken, you’ve got yourself a yearly sports update.

Take, for instance, the home-field advantage system being advertised in NCAA 09. This was originally introduced in NCAA 06, and in the Xbox version of the game you could cause some serious havoc in multiplayer by jamming on the white button (I think it was L1 for the PS2). Controllers vibrate, stadiums shake, all well and good. After a two-year hiatus it’s back for 09 – and causes just as many problems. However, it’s being advertised as another new addition to the series for 09, when in reality it’s adding in a feature that was cut for the first two next-gen versions.

Further proof that more and more insidious people are working in PR, I suppose.

A sort of perfectionist streak regarding gameplay makes sense – sports are all about perfecting technique of a set game. Unlike going from the ice level to the forest level to the cave level in a platformer or RPG, the game stays the same in sports. It’s just the nature of the beast; therefore, an inherent part of sports gaming is the pursuit of perfection, of getting better, upping the difficulty, adapting, and growing.

But, unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily sell units on a yearly basis.

If the sports game market were to go the way some consumers and fans suggest – offer yearly roster updates for a small cost (as that’s really about 50% of the reason to buy a new yearly sports game) and patch in some extra features – companies like EA Sports would go bankrupt in a heartbeat. You’d buy a product once and it’d last the life-cycle of a system; that doesn’t pay the bills.


Who is #30 for Oregon? It can change from year to year, and that is a high priority to sports gamers.

However, the current system of roster updates, graphic spit-shine, a few new features and a new package for $60 is really a horrible thing for consumers. Yet, if you look at your Xbox Live friends list or on a thread on a forum where a bunch of your sports-fan friends are buying the latest and greatest, what are you gong to do? Stick to the older copy that nobody plays? Buy last year’s version for all of $15 from EB or GameStop as opposed to the new one for four times the price?

And this isn’t just limited to NCAA Football, either; since EA Sports bought the NFL license exclusively a few years ago, Madden NFL has fallen under harsh criticism, and despite competition, many sports games – including soccer, basketball, hockey, baseball, and golf – make minor updates to the existing game in their yearly iterations. Besides obligatory graphics updates and new rosters, there isn’t too much happening in many of these games – sometimes there’s a meaningful update, but it’s rare. Maybe two games last year – NHL 08 and FIFA 08 – made real strides to advance, improve upon and make revolutionary steps in their gameplay.

Why is it that sports gamers accept this? I have my theories on this. One, sports gamers are very often sports fans first, hardcore gamers second. I’ve got a whole other post’s worth of thoughts on why this separation exists, but that’s for another time. Two, because of this difference, the value systems of what is looked for in a new version of a game are completely different. Fans of all genres of games love “more of the same, but improved,” and that runs the gamut from Metal Gear to Halo to everything else. However, what falls under that “improved” tag for sports games is usually led by rosters.

Rosters are a huge matter to sports fans, because it affects so much of the game – balance, accuracy, etc. If your team in NCAA Football is missing it’s stud recruit, then you’re missing out on a player who’ll make an impact for four years. When I fire up my old copy of Winning Eleven 9 and see the default rosters for Arsenal, now four seasons out-of-date, I see very few players who are on the current team – and none of the ones who are still there are at an “accurate” place in their careers right now.

Without going into too much of a tangent, that’s why having roster updates mid-season is such a big deal for sports games – take Madden for instance. Last year, the Cleveland Browns and their starting quarterback, Derek Anderson, became one of the hottest teams in the league. Based on pre-season ratings, in Madden they sucked, especially Anderson, a journeyman backup quarterback who played college ball at Oregon State. Anderson got a huge bump in ratings, as did other Browns, and it reflected real life.

If NCAA had roster updates last year, the Ducks would have gone from average in the pre-season to an absolutely monstrous team – Dennis Dixon had one hand on the Heisman Trophy until he blew out his knee against Arizona State and was gone for good in the Arizona game. But, in the ‘basic’ roster, he’s rated only an 85 or 88 – far from the best player in the Pacific-10 Conference, let alone the country.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this whole issue, but from one point of view I see “horses for courses” – different types of gamers expect different things from their games – whereas, on the other hand, I see a line of sports-crazy sheep buying the product for minimal improvement and simply feeding the machine. But one thing’s for certain: until there’s a major change in the sports games business, companies like EA Sports and 2K Sports are going to keep riding the cash cow until the money runs out.

the more things change

It's rather appropriate to talk about things coming full circle when I've got a head full of simple astronomy (thanks, UO for making me take basic science classes to fulfill graduation requirements!) and about half of what's been talked about the last two days involves mass and how things go around in orbits.



This time last fall, I was living with the decision to follow my Portland Trail Blazers and the Association - especially through the scope of places like Deadspin and that ever-wonderful hall of justice, Free Darko. This time last year I was living off Oklahoma win hangovers while reading FD previews of The Lig, and figuring out how to pronounce LaMarcus Aldridge. I was still grasping for hold in something new.



Now? Now, I'm trying to get out of learning mode and into the role of a sensei. I know my team inside and out; nothing is new and fresh, it's sorta played out. The rush of finding out about FD and reading a back-log of Shoals is replaced with the dull throb of a drip of material. There's no novelty factor.

But I've dealt with that before - it's just a different manifestation of a need to grasp onto a storyline in order to pay attention. I lost track of the Mariners when their season went down in flames; there was no story. Last season for me, the story was finding out about everything; this year, it's seeing how the Blazers improve, if any superstars will move (MARION WATCH WEEK THREE: ALL CLEAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT), how the Nuggets will do with a full season together, THE CELTICS, how Gil does, etc. This is, as the Masters of the Klondike always say, a league of stars and stars have stories to tell.



Meanwhile, I'm still trying to avoid going out and buying needless, overpriced but infinitely cool basketball-style ware. Seriously - look at that jacket. I think one of my roommates has the original thing circa Goodwill. Meanwhile, just to fully finish off my FD love, I think I might have to go get a 'SWAG' t-shirt from the FD Outlet. Swag at a hundred and climbin', baby.

Meanwhile, the Ducks moved up five spots without even playing. WTF. Keep on keepin' on, guys. Don't stop to smell the Roses just yet.

joy and sadness

Joy



Saturday reminded me of all that was good about college football and, by extension, sports in general. A scorching late-summer day, tens of thousands of fans wearing their school's colors (including those brave souls who dare tread on OUR HALLOWED GROUND in enemy hues), beers and burgers at the tailgate, the student section always standing and leading the noise factor, and - best of all - the home team, your team, blowing out their opponent.

The Ducks made a big push to earn even more recognition with their 52-21 blowout of Fresno State last Saturday. The same Fresno State team that took Texas A&M to the wall in three overtimes the previous week folded over like a house of cards in a hurricane against the Ducks. Even more impressive was the defense - not necessarily for the stats, but for their swarming, attacking style to pressure the line of scrimmage, harass the Bulldogs' quarterback, and shut down the run game. This was an almost-perfect game, and hopefully the team won't sit back on their laurels and pat themselves on the back too hard.

Sadness



A true rallying and auto racing legend died Sunday. Scottish-born rally racer Colin McRae passed away in a helicopter accident near his home in Scotland.

McRae - and his young son - both passed away too young (McRae himself was just 39 and still racing on occasion - his long World Rally Championship career had afforded him such a luxury as choosing what he wanted to do with his time). He was a licensed helicopter pilot and behind the sticks for the crash.

This was not the first crash in McRae's life - in fact, his nickname while still competing in rally racing was "McCrash." While this had a negative connotation, it also was given with reverence - YouTube clips abound showing McRae rolling his rally racer, kicking it back into gear and continuing to drive its nuts off. A few clips even include when he continued on a stage with just three wheels through the stage, where he could get the car fixed at the end.

Rally racing in general is hardcore - you have to be very talented and very brave to hurtle a four-wheel-drive car down narrow forest roads, sideways - and McRae was legendary for taking that stance even further. While some fans derided him for breaking machinery, those same people (and plenty of others) are heralding him for the dedication he showed in his driving style to press that hard, that close to the edge of adhesion.

Part of my auto racing viewing diet during middle and high school was WRC coverage on Speedvision (now Speed Channel), when Finland's Tommi Makkinen and Colin McRae were two juggernauts fighting for rallying supremacy. Makkinen in the Mitsubishi usually had the upper hand, but McRae was spectacular - seemingly in the lead or out of the rally. All, or nothing.



Racers like that seem to be fewer and fewer. Ayrton Senna was a god in that sense - he seemed to have super-sensory ability at judging that line. McRae may not have had as much ability as Senna, but by hell did he have more talent than most. Though he was moving more and more into the periphery of rallying and auto racing, he didn't deserve to pass on so early in life. He will be truly missed by racing fans and his family and friends.

a weekend of highlights

stop! hammer time!

reason my weekend ruled #1: the Ducks showed up for some serious work last Saturday. I don't think I can say much more that the big sports outlets can say, but I'll add a few brief comments on the two most important areas of Oregon's game.

1. Dennis Dixon came back from playing baseball much of the summer ready to play some football. Maybe his zen-like dedication to a shitty batting average taught him that failure is acceptable? Maybe Chip Kelly's offense suits him better? Maybe he's off (or on) some medication? Maybe everything just clicked? Who knows. I'm watching for aligned stars or seventh signs. I don't care how it happened, but he looks like he's captured his form.

Now, if you can come back to me in November and I'm saying the same things, then we'll be in business. Week by week, he has to prove he can still do it - the problem last year was meltdowns mid-season.

2. The defensive line looked like it could stop somebody for once. "We eat today, coach!" tackle Jeremy Gibbs yelled during a pre-game taped part about defensive coordinator Aliotti, and boy, did they. We all knew the secondary was going to be good, and I felt the linebackers would mature well enough this year. The question is the line, and they looked, err, questionable during the Houston game.

Now, they look like they can put up a serviceable fight. And that's all we need to lock down a lot of teams. If they can keep teams to ~150 rushing yards total in a game, I'm happy.

Highlight #2: Dreamcast Day!

I don't know whether this counts as a highlight or a holiday (or both?), but yesterday was 9/9/07, which marks the eighth anniversary of the Sega Dreamcast's launch.

Why is this so important to me, you might ask? The Dreamcast was the turning point for me. This was where I matured as a gamer - before, I knew what a fighter was, now I was learning move sets for Soul Calibur and Street Fighter Alpha 3. I also started to take racing games a bit more seriously...though honestly, I look back at Sega Rally 2 and Sega GT and shake my head. Test Drive: Le Mans has held up well, though, and still warrants a good play-through, even though somehow I lost my main data save but still have an almost-complete Le Mans race...whatever.

I also matured in my knowledge of games, gaming culture, and the industry. It's no coincidence I started reading EGM in 1998; it's no coincidence that was around the point I stopped paying attention to what the EB geeks were saying at the mall. This was also the rise of the Internet; I remember IGN Dreamcast being a daily stop (back when IGN was still worth it) and lamenting EGM's lack of online presence. Oh, how little I knew about the future. Anyways. Messageboards and news sites on 56K were how I learned what gaming really was, in 2001 I signed up on a forum that I'm still a part of the community for, and I haven't turned back since.

I have the Dreamcast to thank for me being a true, hardcore gamer. Beyond the great games, beyond the innovation, it's left an indelible mark on my life - it made me hardcore. For that I will always remember Sega's little white console that could and it's rather nine-ful release date.

college football season's ruthless return

I think ESPN has finally jumped the shark and landed in the deep end: they are doing 25 straight hours of on-the-air live coverage to celebrate the start to college football season.

yeah, I barely believe it either. on the one hand, it's absurd; but on the other? AWESOME.

college football has returned; it only seems right for what is sometimes an absurd sport that ESPN would go to absurd lengths. Then again, what else inspires as much passion, spirit, pride and vitriol as college football? In the United States, absolutely nothing, on a regular, nationwide basis; sure, Yankees-Red Sox, Dodgers-Giants, Spurs-Anyone in the NBA, etc., etc....but college football rivalries and passion aren't limited to certain areas; it's nationwide.

as a full-bore West Coast homer, I can say with certainty that, yes, we care just as much as the South does about college football; maybe we just don't go to the same extremes as they do, but the passion exists. Nothing else quite gets the Northwest in the same sort of lather, short of a Seahawks Super Bowl run.

And now it has returned. I still have a day of putting finishing touches on The Emerald's "GameDay" football supplementals, and I have a wedding to take care of this weekend...but dammit, college football is back, and if our satellite TV isn't upgraded in time, I'm going to get pissed....and possibly unhook the satellite, re-hook some bunny ears, and hope I get reception.

by the way, I'd be a bad Oregon fan if I didn't post this:



Best. Clip. EVAR.