Ah, the adults in the room.

Money, money, money, money.

The adults running college sports —NCAA, university presidents, athletic directors, coaches, TV networks, and let’s not forget boosters— have been grabbing every dollar they can get their hands on. It has been happening for at least the past 20 years.

Money, money, money, money.

As Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu said, “There is no greater disaster than greed.”

Ready for the disaster?

The SEC and ESPN recently signed a TV deal worth 3 billion dollars. Billion. With a B.

Penn State is renovating Beaver Stadium for a cool 700 million dollars. They aren’t building a new stadium. That cost is just for renovations to the current stadium.

USC is upgrading the LA Coliseum to the tune of 270 million dollars, building a new  football performance center for a smooth 200 million dollars, and a paltry 16 million dollars for a new track and field facility. This from a school that claims to be at a 200 million dollar deficit, despite an endowment valued at 8.15 billion dollars.

Money, money, money, money.

The reason all that money is flowing is because of the athletes that take the playing fields. The players are who the fans have always come to see. In recent years the players finally started to get a small piece of the pie. The NIL/transfer portal era has been messy, but lord knows the players deserve a cut of that massive pile of cash.

Well, guess who isn’t happy with the current system?

 The adults in the room. They are right to hate the system. It is a disaster. They just aren’t willing to accept the blame they deserve for making the disaster.

Nick Saban has been outspoken since the start of the NIL era. Remember, however, Saban was perfectly content looking the other way while Alabama boosters were lining the pockets of his star players. NIL made it legal, and the teams that weren’t allowing boosters to line pockets were able to level the playing field. Exit Nick Saban. Well, almost.

Saban decided to have a chat with the President, Donald Trump. Saban complained. Trump listened. Now, Trump is set to issue an executive order that will limit NIL money for players. I’m sure it will be unconstitutional, but that piece of paper went out the window long ago. I am not sure how Trump carved out time to worry about sports. I hope it didn’t take time away from golf, denying allegations, or spray tan sessions. No president, regardless of who it is, should have time to interrupt running the country to worry about sports.

Restricting the earning potential of a group of athletes, predominantly black, so the rich dudes and dudettes, predominantly white, can keep counting their millions and billions is a really bad look. It is sort of the theme of Trump’s entire presidency. The rich get richer. It appears they have called the right person.

Of course Trump wouldn’t have even been involved if the idiots running college sports would have been prepared with a plan for this NIL era. Said idiots should have stopped counting their money long enough to develop a comprehensive plan for how to deal with all of this. Why they haven’t been able to come up with something in the interim speaks to their collective stupidity.

One thing would be to hold players to contracts. If the player still chooses to transfer then that NIL money goes back to the school. The problem is coaches don’t want the same rules for them. Coaches can up and leave whenever they choose, regardless of what they promised their players. If they get fired coaches take with them a huge chunk of money via a buyout.

Contracts would be a simple solution to curb the ridiculousness of the transfer portal. Again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. The gander wants nothing to do with a level playing field for all. Neither do the universities, who don’t want to share revenue. They got comfortable with making millions on the backs of the players —even selling their jerseys— without sharing.

Money, money, money, money.

Every adult in the room was essentially asking the same question. How can we get this system under control without it affecting me? It left them perplexed. It left them scratching their heads, those that weren’t buried in the sand.

Enter Trump.

How embarrassing for the men and women that were chosen to lead organizations, universities, athletic departments, and conferences couldn’t put aside their greed and come up with something common sense rules to make the best of a bad situation.

Look, I hate the current situation and have said so many times here and on my podcasts. I would love to go back to 1976 when great coaches like Joe Paterno were paid a nominal salary, fans could get a ticket and parking pass without taking out a second mortgage, and players valued the free ride to college they were getting. 90% of the players realized those degrees would come in handy because they weren’t going pro in their sport.

But then…

Money, money, money, money.

Grab, grab, grab, grab.

And here we are in the new Wild West.

While the adults bring in Trump in hopes they can screw the athletes and keep more of the money for themselves, I would ask you for the 23, 476 time to point the finger at the people that caused this situation. The adults.

But hey, those new stadiums and performance centers won’t build themselves. The power brokers have called in a person that knows something about not paying the workers.

I’m sure this won’t cause hard feelings or lead to more litigation. I can’t wait.

Two Cent Takes

Golf

~Remember what I told you after Scottie Scheffler won the PGA Championship? I said you were watching greatness. Believe me now?

 

Tiger’s 1st major win: 1997 Masters
Tiger’s 4th major win: 2000 Open
1,197 days apart

Scottie’s 1st major win: 2022 Masters
Scottie’s 4th major win: 2025 Open
1,197 days apart pic.twitter.com/VjjgHhsg4M

— claire rogers (@kclairerogers) July 20, 2025

As I told a friend —and I am a big Tiger fan— Scheffler won’t derail his career with random women, alcohol and pain killers, and car crashes. People didn’t like his answer this week when he said, essentially, golf wasn’t his life. That is because this is.

 

And on the course he is an absolute machine. The rest of the field isn’t close.

~Bryson DeChambeau had three great rounds and one clunker. The clunker cost him. I am easing my dislike for DeChambeau. Maybe he and I are both maturing.

WNBA

~The WNBA players wore this shirt during all star weekend.

 

It has been a while since I saw something so silly. Actually, that isn’t true because I watched the Pirates this weekend. But, seriously. Your league is bleeding money and this is your message. Nobody is watching. Caitlin Clark is a fantastic player, as are other players in the league. But Clark isn’t the Great White Hope they think she is. It just isn’t a product people are interested in. My motto is the only thing worse than watching the NBA is watching the WNBA.

NFL

~TJ Watt finally got his money, but it was only a three year deal. It is still too much money to give a guy that disappeared the second half of last season and has never won a playoff game. However, only three years makes it more palatable. Now, maybe he can make the defense fearsome instead of average.

MLB

~Listen to this clip of Phillies owner John Middleton talking about his team.

 

How nice must it be to have an owner that knows baseball and is that invested in his team.

~Meanwhile Bryce Harper is red hot, or was up until Sunday. That is huge for the Phillies going forward.

~This week’s “while you were sleeping” moment is the Milwaukee Brewers on the heels of a 10 game win streak now are tied for best record IN BASEBALL.

~On the other end of the spectrum, the Pirates were swept —and humiliated— by the lowly White Sox. Sell the team chants were heard Saturday and Sunday, and once again this was seen overhead.

 

And as I stated last week, the Pirates are now officially a losing franchise, sitting at 10,879-10,880.

The Weekly Shiny Penny

This throw was Clemente like, and it was fantastic and definitely shiny.

 

A Penny For My Final Thought…

My final thought got lost at sea. Luckily I am at the beach so I will see if I can retrieve it for next week.

 

Just my two cents…