#ESPN spinelessness bites it in the a** on #NFL #concussions

We all know that The Worldwide Leader is all about the sports dollars at bottom line.

That's why its chickenshit withdrawal from working with PBS' Frontline on an extended documentary about concussions was not surprising. Nor was its ombudsman's weaselly attempt to justify that move.

Well, now, news that the NFL has agreed to settle a lawsuit by retired players, for the handsome amount of $765 million, puts ESPN's cowardice in a whole new light. So too does past touting of all it's done to cover the issue.

So does the fact that ESPN's story and blog about the settlement fail to mention the WWL's withdrawal from the Frontline piece. It's arguable that the Frontline issue didn't need to be in the story, even if ESPN's doing fairly serious overwrite of the AP piece. But, for Seifert to leave it out of the blog? Nope. Not good.

That's even more the case when either Seifert himself, or whoever writes his heads, trumpets how this "saved the game."

Nooo ... with no admission of guilt, and for relatively low cost — likely due to most the plaintiffs not having the money to stand up to Daddy Warbucks, personified by the Commish, Roger Goodell, in a trial and appeals — it saved the NFL. Not "the game," if by that we mean football in general.

Now, for about a third of (estimated possible damages), the league has settled the case before its dirty laundry was aired in court, and without admitting any guilt.

But, that's the NFL, not "the game." Seifert admits as much in the last graf:

 The NFL can go forth with certainty and continued vigilance, but for now at least, with no fear about its future in American culture.

Bingo. I'm sure there's dirty laundry. But, barring another suit, we won't know. (See below for that.)

In fact, in the AP's story used as the base for ESPN's write-up, player lawyer David Frederick explicitly accused the NFL of covering up studies linking concussions and neurological problems.

But both story and blog hint that the NFL had "done all it could" on this issue.

More bollocks. Daddy Warbucks' continued push for an 18-game season, also not mentioned by the WWL, is proof beyond Frederick's claims that it had not. (I'm assuming this is the final nail in the coffin for Daddy Warbucks' push for that 18-game season.)

Let's also take note that the $765 million settlement is only 40 percent of the cost of the NFL's annual contract with ESPN.

Meanwhile, the No Fun League could be on the hook for some bucks over this:

The N.F.L., legal experts said, still must clarify how much of any settlement its insurance companies will cover. Several of them have argued in court that they do not have to indemnify the N.F.L. because of the policies they wrote. A lawyer representing Alterra America Insurance, which wrote one policy for one year for the N.F.L., told the judge that a settlement could cost $2.5 billion, a figure some legal experts considered conservative. The league and the plaintiffs had to consider their mounting legal bills. 

This ought to be fun.

And, maybe we will get a lawsuit that goes to discovery on this. A group of retired players may not have deep pockets vis-a-vis Daddy Warbucks. A major insurance company does.

===

That all said, what's actually in it for players?

Barring a rush of last-minute retirements, the players who sued, plus all other eligible retirees, will get $150K per person, roughly. Players can opt out, but it's doubtful they'll do better against Daddy Warbucks in a future suit.

That doesn't count the money going to the baseline medical fund.

As for the money going to research, assuming Frederick is right, a key question is going to be: who monitors that fund, including how its money is spent and how its findings are reported?

Other notes include the observation

Can you smell more Paulson conflicts of interest?

Outsourcing all the asset management work of the $700 bil or whatever bailout certainly qualifies in my book.

“With anyone short of the stature and honesty of a Paul Volcker running it, you need to worry a lot about conflicts of interest,” said Alan S. Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, referring to its former head. “Unfortunately, there just aren’t many people with the expertise you need but without any possible conflicts.”

And, I’d put Henry Paulson in that list of people with possible conflicts, even more so with the revelation he consulted heavily with Goldman Sachs staff during the run-up to the bailout.

Sports-newspapers conflict of interest: the bottom line

How can newspapers truly claim to cover sports impartially, when you have a media-sports team ownership conflict of interest lie this:

(Being a director of the Boston Red Sox) was not the first time (former Senate Majority Leader George) Mitchell would have a financial stake in a baseball team. At the same time he joined the Red Sox, Mitchell was a member of the board of directors of the Walt Disney Co., the parent company of the Anaheim Angels and eventual 2002 World Series champions. He has been on the Disney board since 1994, and was chairman at Disney from 2004-06.

But from the beginning, the Red Sox sale was a particularly sensitive issue for Selig. The commissioner was accused of engineering the $660 million Red Sox transaction to the Henry group, while various other competitors to buy the Red Sox, such as HBO and CableVision founder Charles Dolan, believed the Henry group's bid had not been the highest. Dolan reportedly believed he had outbid Henry by nearly $100 million, and a bid by Miles Prentice was said to be the highest, at $755 million. Selig denied any involvement in managing the sale of the team or that he favored Henry, who had owned the Florida Marlins, or Werner, who endured a turbulent experience as owner of the San Diego Padres during the early 1990s when baseball was embroiled in a rift between large- and small-market franchises. Selig, who was fond of Werner, watched the bitterly divided owners push Werner out of the game in 1993 and told him he would run a team again one day.

In the days following the sale, Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly announced an investigation of the transaction on the grounds that the Yawkey Trust, the charitable foundation that held the team following the 1992 death of Jean Yawkey, was entitled to the highest bid. Reilly threatened a lawsuit against the Red Sox and Major League Baseball, depending on his findings. The Boston Globe, which holds a 17-percent stake in the Red Sox through its ownership by the New York Times Company, referred to Henry's purchase as "a bag job." The Boston Herald called the sale, "the fix." Ultimately, Reilly did not take legal action after the Henry ownership group agreed to increase its charitable contribution to the Yawkey Trust.

So, you have Disney, with multiple media ownerships, above all, ESPN, controlling the Angels. You then have the Boston Globe, via the New York Times Company, with an interest in the Red Sox, which not only raises Red Sox conflicts of interest, but, given the Times is in New York, Yankees conflicts of interest as well.

But, it’s not just MLB. The Dallas Morning News at one time owned a share of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.

If major professional sports leagues, above all MLB, had any guts at all, they would ban media ownership of sports teams, period.