Drug testing in professional sports is necessary in order to keep all athletes on the same level. Taking enhancements or substances to improve your game is an insult to the sport and to fans. All the pressure that gets placed on athletes to compete at high levels and win championships forces them to take any measure to be the best, but even though sports become insanely competitive it is unfair to use any illegal substance. It's a tough battle to fight in, but ultimately, using drugs damages the image of potential role model athletes, worsens the game and threatens athlete's accomplishments. Using substances to help speed up recovery for injuries is also something that needs to be looked into further. Instead of finding new medicines to help injuries, research should be conducted on ways to prevent injury: new workouts, improved machinery for weight lifting and techniques of staying healthy after long seasons. This article introduces a potential deal in Major League Baseball that will force athletes to get blood tested in order to prohibit a player's usage of H.G.H. This is a great idea and one that athletes shouldn't dispute because it forces all athletes to be on the same page. Ruling out drug users will allow for true and natural athletes to exceed in their game and truly earn any achievements. Especially in the MLB, athletes have recently been discredited of their accomplishments after their drug usage has been revealed. Drug usage is prohibited in any other workplace in society, so why is it still debated in professional sports? Working hard to become the best instead of taking the easy way out with enhancements is not the message we want to send future athletes of the world. Players are forced into being role models because of their status and talent, so athletes need to be cautious when making decisions about their bodies that may influence other people. This new deal is an example of what other professional leagues should attempt in order to maintain drug free athletes.


www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/sports/baseball/baseball-is-to-begin-blood-testing-for-hgh.html?ref=baseball

Melissa A. KIN 577

Society places great pressure on football athletes nowadays. These players compete with extreme tenacity to win, play through injury, and sacrifice other aspects of their life just for the game. The amount of pressure athletes face to win every day is grueling on their physical and mental health. The value of winning a game is often more important than a player's education or well being. In football, concussions are overlooked and treated as part of the sport. If players sit themselves out because of injury they are scrutinized, perceived as weak, and not a team player. Athletes are able to reap the glory, but once their short football career is finished they are expected to thrive in society with no education and a dwindling physical health. Football players are conditioned to be tough and feel no pain so that they maximize the entertainment value for all football fans. That is all the NFL is now, a business. It is all about the money generated through athletes and their wins. No one cares about the well being of these players once they retire. The below article explains the football career of Kris Jenkins and his desire to help future linemen with preparing themselves off the field before starting their career. Potential athletes often times don't know the truth about what really exists in tough leagues like the NFL. In fact, most of society doesn't know the reality of what goes on, and unfortunately our youth is given the wrong impressions about the consequences of playing. It is up to society and the fans to decrease the pressure of winning and allow athletes to enjoy the game

www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/sports/football/kris-jenkinss-view-of-life-in-the-nfl-trenches.html?_=1&ref=sports

Melissa A. KIN 577

Distant Learning Penn State Scandal

The scandal of Penn State has been all over the news in the past few weeks. The social media has brought in a variety of perspectives but mainly focus on the coaches and reactions toward them. I think the media did a good job pin point the top people who were responsible for covering this up. However, it was a surprise that the social media didn’t blow thing up sooner when things started leaking in 2009, but wait until the grand jury was issued. This has proven how powerful Penn State football program was, and no one, even the media, has wanted to bring thing up or tarnish the program legend. With that in mind, I can almost understand Mike McQueary’s reluctance to report the crime he witnessed to the police. He was a very young assistant, and frankly he’s nobody to Joe Paterno, or Jerry Sandusky, or the athletic director, or the school president. Nevertheless, I believe a child’s safety should be placed above legend and school’s reputation.

Personally, I was disgusted by the Penn State student riots to defend Joe Paterno. They should seriously reconsider their priority between morality and reputation.

Ngan Bui

KIN338I sec 1

Is it worth it?

Through studies, it has been proven that former football players experience more late-life cognitive difficulties and worse physical and mental health than other former athletes and non-athletes. It is common for football players to experience numerous concussions throughout their careers. This is pretty disturbing because with concussions come a number of adverse health effects. When thinking long term, head trauma and concussions can lead to memory loss and other cognitive impairments, loss of certain bodily functions, frequent headaches and migraines, and some research has linked multiple concussions to clinical depression. On top of all of these effects, a former player’s quality of life can be affected as well. If an individual has trouble functioning mentally, can he have close, quality, and intimate relationships with other people, including his friends and family? What about a former football player that has trouble interacting with his children because of the beating that his body has taken playing a sport? What young, talented athlete is looking past the current year or even the next game? No player is going to give up a lucrative career because he may or may not be handicapped in the future, but all of these players must really ask themselves if it is worth it or not.

-Noah Nudell

The Stadium Problem

In May 2011, Ramsey County officials announced they had reached an agreement with the Minnesota Vikings to be the team’s local partner for a new stadium which signaled to Minnesotans that the new stadium, which they had long desired for, was finally on it way. Amid the cheers, the Vikings announced that they wanted taxpayers to pay more than half the cost of the new stadium to replace the 29-year-old Metrodome, which Vikings executives say is not profitable enough compared to other NFL facilities. The county's share would be $350 million, to be financed by a half-cent sales tax increase. (http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=13571724) The issue has been highly controversial and argued both for and against by republicans and democrats and has pitted urbanites vs. rural Minnesotans. So far, no one has been able to come to a clear consensus. The Vikings’ team website offers many links and studies which claim the positive impact the stadium will have (http://www.vikings.com/stadium/new-stadium.html) but ever since the 1980’s, economist have almost unanimously disagreed with almost all of these types of claims. Who is to be believed?

Are stadiums worth the investment? The answer is mixed. It certainly is to professional teams and leagues. They get a place to conduct their business and create their product (entertainment) and they rarely pay for it entirely. For the cities and their residents however, the benefits are seldom more than sentimental. The problem is, of course, who pays? If everyone who wanted to have a NFL team in Los Angeles simply pooled their money together and bought a stadium, there would be no issue but instead funds are usually raised by taxing an entire region. Furthermore, as seen in many cities, the very presence of stadiums is seen to harm the surrounding areas, not to mention the negative effect of the taxes. This seems to be both an example of injustice and inefficiency. How is it that the majority of benefits are localized around a small number of already very wealthy people? In order the fix this condondrum, I offer suggestions in three areas: facilities, leagues and government taxation policies.

A) Sports Facilities

It is my belief that the main reason facilities do not balance their costs and benefits is because they do not get enough use and do not have enough time to capture all their benefits. A stadium should be able to host a team for many years, but the constant relocation of teams and desire for new facilities has caused stadiums to be used for far less time then they ought to be. Americans have been so spoiled with the new stadiums lately, that they simply expect to get another when one gets a little shabby. The populace, however, rarely thinks about the implications of building another stadium and the costs involved. To combat this, stadiums should require longer leases from the teams they host. However, in order to make this possible, stadiums must also be very well built and able to stand the test of time. But quality craftsmanship and architecture would only add to the value of such a venue. This would be in the city’s and the facilities best interest. Having them both in the same corner would really help eliminate the imbalance between the league power and everyone else. As is the case in some cities, as real estate becomes ever more expensive, many stadium are becoming multi-sport facilities. This makes sense from a business point of view because stadiums do not make money by not operating in the off-season. At this point, they act as dead weight and add no value to the area. By having a multi-sport complex, doors can remain open longer and allow for a greater share of revenue without having to build another costly stadium down the road. Also, facilities can and often do host both collegiate and professional games simultaneously. When it comes to stadium location, because of real estate prices, it is probably better that stadiums be built on the outskirt of town rather than in their downtown areas. Rather than disrupt the internal economics in the heart of cities, building on the outskirts would be cheaper, safer, and allow for urban expansion to combat the suburbanization trend. The key is locating the site close to the city but not in a suburban area. Lastly and most importantly, stadiums should only be built if they have a community coalition behind them of guaranteed investment and partnerships from both profit and non-profit sectors.

B) Leagues

The problem with leagues is that they act as cartels and monopolies. Because business is unable to rise organically within them, and cities that want professional sports teams are unable to have them, the NFL, MLB and NHL need government intervention to see whether or not they are in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. It is ludicrous that if a city wants a team, they must undergo a brutal bidding war that will most likely harm them if they indeed do get the team in the end. A league should not be able to force higher taxes upon American citizens all in the name of keeping competitive balance. Furthermore, league expansion and franchise relocation had little to no effect of competitive balance. This is not to say that every major city needs a professional team in every sport, but at this point, I would conclude that there is a scarcity of teams and this scarcity is hurting citizens (both those who are fans of sports and not) by adding fuel to the bidding wars, which in turn result in higher taxes and less control for facilities over the teams they host.

C) Government Policies

Another solution that has been offered is tax reforms. On this point I would disagree. The problem with their suggestions is that they do not consider the effects of the tax codes other than in the sports industry. I have not studied their effects as a whole, but I think it is highly unadvisable to change a whole system of taxes for one sector; a sector which several other authors has defined as being comparatively small and outside of the normal business model. However, what government can control is where to place their taxes. In this, governments should avoid general taxes in which all people in a region are taxed for a benefit received by only a small percent. This is especially true in cases where only a 51% majority is needed to pass taxes. In fact, many of the ballot results in stadium measure reside around this 50% majority and in such cases we observe a vast tyranny of the majority in policy decisions. While this may be a novel idea, I propose a 2/3-majority vote for any tax increase that is .5% higher than the current level. And lastly, if stadiums are to be subsidized with public funds and taxes, the taxes should rest upon those who benefit from the stadiums. Therefore, taxes for stadiums ought to be placed on tickets, private seat licenses, concessions, luxury boxes, team merchandise, and, as seen in the recent ballot measures in Minnesota, on sporting goods in general. In conclusion, fairness in taxation requires an adherence to the benefits received principle. That is, consumers of a publicly provided service should be the ones who pay for it.

--Justin Luthey

KIN 577

Racism..a handshake enough to fix the problem?

Seep Blatter: “I would deny it. There is no racism," he said. "There is maybe one of the players towards another – he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one. But the one who is affected by that, he should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen, because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination."

The comments above came from Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, which is the governing body for soccer around the world. When these comments came out, they raised a lot of controversy. Whether or not racism still exists in the soccer world is up for dispute, although most people would argue that racism is 100% still a prominent issue in soccer everywhere. Again, this issue can be debated, but it is not what I want to discuss. For me, Mr. Blatter’s comment that a “handshake” at the end of a game will solve the problem of racism in the event that it occurs is completely idiotic and naïve.

Racism of any form does not go in one ear and out the other. The fact that Sepp Blatter, a powerful man in charge of the world’s most popular sport in which racism is still prevalent, is quite troubling. For players and victims of racism, his comments are insulting. Sepp Blatter is not a soccer player and is not subject to racism while competing on the soccer field. It seems easy for him to make these comments as a spectator, but if he was the victim of racist remarks, would a handshake be all that he needed as an apology? I don’t think so.

In the 2006 World Cup, Zinedine Zidane was the victim of racism and his perpetrator was a man named Marco Materrazi. After the comments, Zidane was not open for a handshake to make everything better. Instead, he gave Materazzi a solid head butt to the chest. This is the reality of racism. It is not acceptable and no handshake will ever suffice as an apology. The bottom line is that racism has no place in soccer, sports, and life. As the leader of such a powerful and important organization, Sepp Blatter needs to be more stern in solving the racism situation and not so naïve to think that racism is such a miniscule infraction that it can be resolved with a handshake.

-Noah Nudell

Conference Realignment

Super conferences have become the boon and fear of college football fans around the country. Many fans see this as the first step towards a playoff system and hope that having their team move, or having top tier teams move to their conference, will increase their teams ability to make money and compete for BCS Bowl Games.

What a lot of people are not taking into consideration is how these conference changes are going to affect the student athletes. The biggest example of a detrimental affect on the student athletes is travel time and time zone changes. Large travel times and changing time zones will play a large role in hindering student athletes ability to keep up in their studies. Missouri traveling to Florida, Alabama, South Carolina and other SEC states is literally traveling halfway across the country. It is rumored that Boise State was at one point considering a position in the Big East and would have been an even more drastic example. Not all moves have a negative effect on this (Nebraska to the Big 10 and TCU to the Big 12) but most that are being considered need to be rethought.

Athletic Departments need to take a step back and consider their student athletes and not just their bottom lines when the consider moving from conference to conference.