Football @ KSU

Kennesaw State’s new president, Dr. Papp has said that he would be all for helping to bring football to our school if someone would pony up the majority of the money to start it up.  I think that I may have found a better solution for our school and any other school that doesn’t want to pump money into a football program, but still wants to put a team on the field.  Go the route of Buffalo who went 1-10 last year.  They are making $600,00 a game for playing Auburn and Wisconsin this year.   They were earlier scheduled to play West Virginia and Rutgers, but I guess that the money just wasn’t right.  The way I look at it $1.2 million for just two games should be more than enough for a team to operate a losing program or even a competetive one.  Maybe this is something that a school the size of Kennesaw should take into consideration when discussing whether or not they should field a team.  And besides the lopsided score in favor of the powerhouse and the larger wallet of the cupcakes, it still provides the lacking programs with publicity.  Which brings up the age old question of which is worse, “Bad news, or no news at all.”

Bob Wickman

The Braves have finally taken care of their closer role.  Next season would have been the third in a row where the role would have been iffy at best.  Luckily they realized that spending money on players like Kold and allowing Reitsma to take over just wasn’t going to cut it and somehow convinced Wickman to stay around for one more season.  With Wickman and hopefully Danny Baez working the 8th and 9th for the Braves next season it might be a different season for a team that has blown over twenty saves this year.  Just winning half of those this year could keep them in the race if last off-season they would have just ponied up the money Wickman or other closers wanted.

ESPN College Gameday

On Saturday, ESPN College Gameday took place in California on the campus of USC.  I guess the matchup between the 90’s powerhouse Nebraska who was #19 in the AP polls going into the week and was really posing no threat to the #4 Trojans.  I guess ESPN felt it would be better to promote a second tier game on their parent network of ABC than promote the real game of the week in the country.  #3 vs. #6 sounds exciting regardless of who the teams are or what television station its carried on.  I can understand that ESPN has to look out for themselves firts but don’t downplay big games in the SEC and build up the PAC 10 just to later talk about how the SEC is hurt by their own competitiveness in their conference.

15 year deal

The New York Islanders signed their first overall pick, goalie Rick Diepetro to a 15 year $67.5 million dollar deal. This is the second longest contact ever in proffesional sports behind Magic Johnson’s 25 year deal with the Lakers.  I think this is absurd, because he is already 25 years old.  That means his contract won’t be up until he turns 40 years old.  How many players are in the league for fifteen years, much less ten?  I’m not big into hockey, but I’ll probably try to keep up with his career to see if the Islanders made a good deal or not.

We’ve all heard of teams giving away free tickets for shaving your head or donating toys and these promotions usually lead to a much larger crowd at the events.  But, the Cincinnati Reds are trying something a little more out there, but also a little more useful.  ON Saturday Sept. 30 the Reds are hosting a simulated terrorist attack at Great American Ball Park.  They are asking for volunteers to come to the stadium and take part in the evacuation and in return they will receive a voucher for two tickets to a Reds game in 2007.  I think this is a great way to assist your community and also to boost your attendance.  Maybe this is something that will catch on in the sports community and other sports organizations and venues will prepare for such emergencies.

University of Colorado football

An writer at the Rocky Mountain News got a hold of new CU head coach Dan Hawkins contract which has some very large incintives offered to the coach they include:

$100,000 for participation in the Big 12 championship game.

• $100,000 for winning it.

• $100,000 for winning a BCS bowl game.

• $250,000 if the Buffs are “determined to be the national champion or co-national champion according to the industry standard in effect at the time.”

http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/ncaa/article/0,2777,DRMN_23932_4901702,00.html

That doesn’t even include his up front salary for just being the ead coach.  Their are also incentives for Hawkins radio/TV deal and other very lucrative offers.  This is unreal for a school who best conference record since 2002 was 8-5, but they only went .500 in the Big 12.  The program also has been going through many problems also with recruiting and sexual harrasment. 

Yeah, Dan Hawkins Boise State teams had a record of 53-11 record in his four years there, but if I’m Hawkins this type of money would probably have been available at many other institutions and he could have avoided all the off the field problems present at Colorado.   His contract is a five-year deal, but I would be very suprised if he lasts that long.  Hopefully for Colorado he can get their program back on the track that they were in the late 90’s competing annualy for national championships.

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