StrangeSox

But all of that can still happen today, and points-shaving schemes aren't detected because a player suddenly has a bunch of money but through other methods. It's not like the people fixing games want these things to ever be detected, so they're going to seek out players that can keep their mouths shut and keep the cash hidden away anyway. All that your scenario does it kinda-sorta change it a little bit but with ultimately the same outcome.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 10:30 AM) Y'all just don't get it. It's not the 2.5 inches of snow. The roads are complete ice. Making fun of Atlanta residents because their cars won't drive on ice is idiotic. Just get studded tires! That part of the country gets hits with ice worse than we usually get, and trying to drive on ice is horrible.

Cars abandoned in Atlanta: Compared to cars abandoned in Chicago:

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 10:05 AM) Then strike a deal with those neighboring states that you'll pay part of the cost for X amount of vehicles with the understanding that on the off chance that Atlanta gets snow, you're driving down there to take care of it. The answer shouldn't be they have no answer and people have to sit in their cars for 18 hours. Who are they going to "strike a deal" with, though? Alabama? What if Huntsville has its own snow to deal with? Plus, Alabama isn't exactly going to be stocking up on plows themselves. Tennessee? Same thing. Chicago has hundreds of plows because we deal with this s*** multiple times every year. Atlanta and the neighboring states don't, and it'd be a huge resource sink to keep a fleet of snow plows ready and maintained with trained drivers. We don't build buildings in Illinois to California or Japan-level earthquake codes or Florida wind-loading codes because the extra resources aren't worth the rare chance.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) Not nearly as often as southern states do. maybe not as many as Oklahoma, but more than most "deep south" states, including Georgia. Only seven states get more tornadoes annually than Illinois--we are at the tail-end of "Tornado Alley". Plus, an F1 is a weak-ass tornado. http://www.erh.noaa.gov/cae/svrwx/tornadobystate.htm but moving on... point well taken. Living in Illinois, I'm not exactly used to driving on mountain roads in inclement weather with snow chains. That would probably scare the s*** out of me, but a local driver would be fine. Hell, people in Chicago seem to forget how to drive if there's an inch of snow.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:59 AM) Nah, that would be suicide for them. They make more money charging every cable customer in the country $5 bucks. That's why the a la carte theory is never going to happen. Everyone involved - the cable companies, networks, studies, etc. - all make more money in the current system. Yep. ESPN's one of if not the most popular cable channels on a weekly basis (lord knows why outside of live events), but it's still only a plurality. There's a lot more subscribers who don't watch ESPN than do.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:56 AM) So would Chicago handle a tropical storm well? Or an F1 tornado well? Because Atlanta calls that "summer." Chicago never gets tornadoes?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:53 AM) The obvious counter-point no one has mentioned about letting Manziel sell his autographs is the guy who pays $50k above market value for Manziel to throw a pick-6 late in a game allowing the opposing team to cover the spread. You know 100% well that would happen in almost every game. 1) Point-shaving already happens, so... 2) Why doesn't this same argument apply to the NFL? 3) What you suggest is already very much illegal.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:46 AM) The revenue generated pays for all the OTHER sports that don't make money. Like women's basketball, wrestling and so on. Why do you hate women's basketball? It also pays for multi-million dollar coaches' and AD salaries, SEC/Big10 etc. TV network salaries, shiny new sports facilities, etc. And again, it's not like the only option in play here is "salaries from the schools." That's not even what these NW players are organizing for. And if you let Manziel sell his autographs, it wouldn't affect funding for any other sports at all.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:43 AM) How do they not have a back up system ready though from a neighboring state? Pretty awful governance to basically throw up your hands and say "whelp! let's wait until it melts!" What neighboring state is going to have a fleet of snowplows that they're going to drive hundreds of miles that wouldn't be dealing with their own snow issues?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:40 AM) Not at all a socialist, and as much as I'd love to see Notre Dame have that kind of competitive advantage, it would ruin college athletics. There has to be some kind of system that ensures that there are at least a few dozen schools that have legitimate chances to win championships. You generally find the same teams in the Top 10 recruiting class rankings year after year. Alabama has had the #1 recruiting class every year since 2008 except for 2010, when they were #5. This also pretends that boosters and schools aren't breaking rules left and right already, sort of like MLB turning a blind eye to PEDs in the late 90's.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:28 AM) I would get fired if I tried to profit off of my "fame" that I garnered through my place of work, as I suspect most people would. No financial regulations enforcement officer (I think that's what you do?) is "famous" from their work, so the comparison doesn't really work. People who have public jobs (actors, radio personalities, TV personalities, sports stars, etc.) very much do not get fired for signing endorsement deals. I don't see any justification for why Manziel should be barred from selling his autograph.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:28 AM) If you "open up the market", Texas and Notre Dame have the deepest pockets and are going to have the best teams nearly every year. This assumes two things, that these sorts of backroom payments don't already happen on a massive scale and that we don't already have a system where the best teams generally stay at the top. The best programs attract the best recruits which make them the best programs. But how well does that work out for the Yankees every year? How much parity is there in the uncapped MLB versus the NFL (Patriots in AFC champ game 8 out of last 13 years) or NBA (lol East)? I don't see why a desire for competitiveness should override the student-athlete's concerns, anyway. If the only way your league can function is by systematically underpaying your biggest source of labor by a huge amount, then your league is dysfunctional.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 09:21 AM) I am curious how many people in the world are profiting off of their celebrity. NCAA athletes? Zero. NCAA coaches, AD's, conference radio/TV networks, sports apparel companies, etc.? A lot more than zero. Why do you favor the artificial restriction of these athletes to earn what the market will pay them? It's not like the only options are status quo or salaries from the school, either. Why shouldn't Manziel be able to sell his autograph?

Yeah I read that yesterday, that is ridiculous.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jan 28, 2014 -> 06:32 PM) Mowing is so relaxing. Yeah, you can just throw on some headphones and zone out for a while.

whoops! yes, Humber

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 08:50 AM) The other side is that they are getting alot of compensation for playing a sport. Most will not go on to make a living at the sport. They may not have been accepted to the school without the the scholarship. Being allowed a free education as well as cost of living money is more than 90% of the athletes will get later on. This education sets them up for life if they take advantage of it. Well, it's not exactly a great employment market for college graduates these past six years now. I don't see how that's the "other side," though. The stance that it's about protecting amateurism or the sanctity of the game is as hollow as Bud Selig talking about PEDs. College sports are full of corruption, both NCAA violations and legal problems. It's a multi-billion dollar industry that makes multi-millionaires out of coaches and AD's (and conference TV station executives/personalities etc.) and hasn't been about amateurism in a long, long time. The Olympics haven't been ruined by allowing professionals to participate. I don't think the NCAA needs some sort of mandatory "pay athletes a salary" rule, but they need to stop locking them out of the overwhelming majority of the profits that the athletes are generating.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 08:38 AM) Yeah, football I'm not concerned about because I'd be able to see all of the Bears games and all of the Sunday games. It's the Sox games that are giving me pause. However, I look back at last summer and realize that I was often too busy to actually sit down and watch the games. That's what I've thought about, too. I guess I had a lot more free time living in our condo versus owning a house. More often than not, I'll catch Sox games on weekends on the radio in the garage/yard (not so much this year!). Got to see Gavin FloydHumber's perfect game at least since that was Fox Saturday baseball. If I really want to catch a sox/blackhawks/bulls game on TV, I find a way. I'd probably get MLB.tv if MLB wasn't so dumb about their blackout rules.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 12:12 AM) The rest of the players in NCAA basketball and football should take advantage of Northwestern's due diligence. The NW players did all the work. Now all this needs is publicity and just a tad bit of organization at each school to jump aboard. Northwestern should do a nationwide advertisement saying they'd like a recent ftball or basketball graduate of each school to contact somebody in charge of this. NW has done the work; I'd hate to see this go to waste. All they've done so far is file the paperwork. They've still got a very long fight ahead to get the union recognized, which they may not be able to under current law. If and when they're successful, I'm sure we'll see more players joining in. Might even see more support/solidarity patches like some NW players wore last year. Also NW University doesn't support this, this is the players acting on their own.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 28, 2014 -> 10:55 PM) BS. Welcome to adulthood. Everyone gets paid in proportion to what they generate... Just no one likes their own portion. Even if we accept the claim that everyone gets paid in proportion to what they generate at face value (lol no), in "adulthood" the entire employment market isn't controlled by one cartel that completely forbids you from any form of outside compensation while turning around and profiting off of the very same celebrity. And you can unionize. These players can't shop their services around, they can't negotiate compensation packages, they can't sign endorsement deals on the side or often even take a regular part-time job without jumping through a bunch of hoops.

Let's just keep in mind that whatever arguments about how good someone is aside, the Grammys have no rhyme or reason behind them and plenty of terrible people have won while some music legends never have.it's not even like the Oscars where you can at least figure out why they picked what they did usually.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jan 29, 2014 -> 08:02 AM) I've been considering getting rid of cable and trying an HDTV antenna. I'm just tired of paying so much for a package of which I only watch a handful of channels. With Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon I would be able to watch just about all of the shows I normally watch. Even with subscriptions to all of those, I'd be saving a lot of money each month. One of the only things that's kepeing me from pulling the trigger is not being able to get Comcast Sports Net. Right there I'd be missing out on probably close to half the Sox games. And what sucks is that to get CSN I have to get a certain package with UVerse. Has anyone here cut the cord? And if so, what has been your experience? We have been doing just that for three years now. As you said, the biggest problem is live sports. If you can find workarounds or live without them on tv all the time (though you always get bears games), you probably won't miss it for a second.

ugh Imagine Dragons are horrible

QUOTE (Wanne @ Jan 28, 2014 -> 09:24 PM) I've been anxiously waiting for Boehner to do his best Belushi.... I've had enough. I can't watch this bulls*** anymore. Good God.... Don't know why anyone bothers watching in the first place. They're just platform speeches.I'll catch the highlights on the daily show.