All posts in Payoffs

List of NFL Players Who Aren’t Making Enough Money

By | November 21, 2011 | Crazy People, Football, Payoffs | 2 Comments
matt-forte-1

According to Darren Rovell of CNBC.com, a league-wide evaluation has uncovered a list of players who, according to Darren, are “not making enough money.” And it’s an okay list, I suppose, listing names like Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski,  Matt Forte and others. Read more…

Dancing With the Football Star: Mirror Ball for Hines Ward

By | May 25, 2011 | Celebrity Athletes, Contest!, Football, injuries, NFL, Payoffs | 2 Comments

With all the hysteria in Pittsburgh today, you’d think Steelers receiver Hines Ward had just hoisted this trophy once again:

Nope. The trophy behind the hoopla is this one. And Ward won it for dancing.

That’s Ward and his dancing partner, Kym Johnson, on Tuesday night, as they won the coveted (ahem) Mirror Ball Trophy as the best dancers on this season’s Dancing With The Stars. And Pittsburgh is as excited about this win as it would have been for winning a Super Bowl ring for the other, uh, other thumb.

I’m normally not too crazy about all the extracurricular stuff that goes with living in Stiller* Country, but I have to give Hines credit. I watched nearly every episode — a problem I brought upon myself by agreeing to sort of cover the series as part of my real job — and the football player acquitted himself well. Ward’s personality — which I’ve heard described as something like shooting sunshine out his ass — was evident on the dance floor, and he was consistently rewarded for it by the judges, who were responsible for half of the total scores for each couple.

The other half? I imagine there was some serious ballot-box stuffing on the part of Stiller Nation.

But if I’m a Stillers fan — and I most definitely am not — I still might have a couple questions about the worth of Ward’s appearance on the show. He’ll apparently soon have surgery to repair one of his ring-laden thumbs, although the injury appears to be football-related and not a rogue paso doble sprain. And while Ward is generally one of the most sure-handed receivers in football, he had one big drop on the show — as in dropping Johnson on her head during a rehearsal session:

Ow.

But I suspect that as long as dropping dancers doesn’t translate into dropping football the next time Ward’s on the field, Pittsburgh is going to be OK with any little nagging troubles left over from the show. We love us some football, and we love us some reality TV — the winner of the first Survivor All-Star season is a Pittsburgher, after all — and putting the two together has made for a fun off-season.

Hm. American Idol is holding auditions in Pittsburgh on July 15. I wonder if Ben Roethlisberger knows how to sing?

*Preferred local pronunciation.

Photo sources: One. Two. Three: A screen cap I took myself.

Sports News Roundup: Same Stupidity, Different Week Edition

By | October 18, 2010 | Baseball, Basketball, Football, Golf, NFL, Payoffs, playoffs, Tennis | Comments Off

Another week, another round of “You’re an idiot, <insert name of professional athlete here>!” It shouldn’t surprise me anymore, and the ease of finding material is astounding, but jeez Louise, people. These gentlemen (ahem) get paid loads of money and are, in the eyes of some, heroes. But man, are they stupid sometimes..

Duking it out in the boneheaded-retireee category:

Warren Sapp? He was pulled over by a cop in a minivan, but yesterday he had moved on to other more pressing concerns.

Picture 3

Lenny Dykstra? He’s pretending to be a lawyer and demanding his creditors return the private jet they reposessed. He’d like them to give him $800,000 too. He’s also a cutie, right?

lenny-dykstra

John Elway? Ponzi scheme, anyone?

I guess Auto Nation wasn’t the bonanza he was looking for.

elway-auto-nation

Liar? Faker? Crybaby?

That would be Gilbert Arenas. Yawn.

Illegal betting?

Check. Tiger didn’t have enough trouble in his life, and no comment from Federer.

Ouch

Pinkies are apparently overrated — or at least they are if you’re Hokie left guard Greg Nosal and want to finish the damn game. I’m a mom. I’ve said, “Don’t interrupt me unless there’s blood.” But this? Ridonculous.

And he plays fantasy baseball too.

greg-nosal-vt

Big Hair

Elvis has not left the building, or had a haircut since March. Somebody tell him he’s not a hockey player and playoff beards do not belong on top of your head.

elvis-andrus

[Photo: In.com]
[Photo: Dailypress.com]
[Photo: US Presswire]

Former Agent Josh Luchs Admits To Paying College Athletes

By | October 14, 2010 | College Football, Football, NCAA, NFL, Payoffs, Unsportmanlike Conduct | 2 Comments

Former NFL agent Josh Luchs dropped a huge bomb on the sports world this week by doing a first person interview with Sports Illustrated about the inner workings of the business and how he used to pay college athletes.

paying-college-football-players

The story, which will appear in the October 18 issue of SI and can be read here, drops a lot of bombshells
because Luchs names names. And he not only names people, he names amounts and has documentation of conversations and wire transfers and bank records. He pulled out all the stops.

I have many reactions to this story. As someone who used to work in both college and professional sports, it’s not all that shocking. I mean, as much as we’d like to all think that not a single college athlete takes money and/or gifts from potential agents, we all know that isn’t the case. (Although, I may have cheered when I read that Dana Stubblefield and JJ Stokes, two players I knew well from my time with the 49ers, refused money.)

I get the argument for paying college athletes. I do. I get that a full scholarship doesn’t really cover everything and that while these kids are excelling on the field and getting national notoriety, their families are probably at home, struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table. And a year’s worth of free tuition doesn’t really help everyone involved.

But the fact of the matter is that it is wrong. It is against NCAA rules. So if you are an agent and you do it, or if you’re a player and you accept it, you need to realize that all this shit could come back to bite you in the ass one day. Just ask Reggie Bush.

Luchs didn’t have a ton of big name clients. He’s no Drew Rosenhaus, but he had his fair share. He also recruited a lot of big names and has no shame in telling who he tried to sign and how he went about doing it, including allegedly giving money to Ryan Leaf and taking him on trips to Vegas and Lake Havasu, AZ. (Although, really, your firm dodged a big ol’ bullet by not signing him.)

Luchs actually ended up getting suspended by the NFLPA for a year and leaving the business after a legal battle with his old boss, Gary Wichard, over a commission check from Keenan Howry.

Which leads me to the big question – Why? Why do it, Luchs? He claims he’s doing it to because his nine year old daughter got an iTouch and can use Google and she can easily now Google his name and see he was suspended. And he wants to do right by his daughter. He wants to come clean and live on the straight and narrow.

OK. I can see that, to a certain extent. But prior to this story, I’m pretty sure not many people knew of Josh Luchs. Now when she Googles his name, this story is going to come up. The story where he did a lot of things that were against the rules, things he knew were against the rules and yet continued to do them. And on top of it, he sold out every single person.

Everybody knows the sports agent business is shady. And like Luchs said, all these things don’t happen just because an agent approaches a player. It goes both ways. These college athletes are no dummies. But to me, what’s shadier than breaking the rules is coming out and naming all these names. There is no grace in trying to ruin other people’s careers. And that, Josh Luchs, is something you should be trying to teach your daughter.

[source] [photo]

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Kristabella is not a fan of sports agents.

I fine David Stern $78.52 for arbitrariness.

By | July 13, 2010 | Basketball, Celebrity Athletes, Crazy People, Payoffs, Talking Trash, Unsportmanlike Conduct, WTF? | 6 Comments

David Stern is the NCAA of professional sports fining. Say or do anything and you are likely in violation of some rule and subject to his sanction. But unlike the NCAA, David Stern’s whimsies are not published anywhere that I know of. He just kind of goes from day to day and levies fines when he needs a new pair of cuff links or some other rich guy accessory.

So it goes for my hero, Dan Gilbert. David Stern just dropped a 100K bomb on Danny boy for his Comic Sans diatribe criticizing LeBron James and his “THE DECISION.” Reading his comments, it’s not exactly clear what his violation was, other than going a little batshit insaney. Presumably this is well within his rights as a citizen, but under the thumb of ol’ Dave and the NBA, it is not so. You might say the slaver has become the slavee . . . ? But if you did, you wouldn’t be making much sense.

Cavaliers James Future Basketball

Best I can tell, Gilbert’s comments were a little too much? I’m not sure. See if you can figure it out:

I think that remarks by Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavaliers, catalyzed as they may have been by hurt with respect to the manner and the fact for himself, his team, and particularly for the people of Cleveland, though understandable, were ill-advised and imprudent. I have notified Cleveland that they will be fined $100,000 for those remarks under my power as Commissioner.

100G for being ill-advised and imprudent? Damn. I’d hate to be David Stern Jr. dropping that first, accidental f-bomb in front of mom and dad.

david-stern

Fine. Dan Gilbert gets fined. But does LeBron get fined for being a doucher? No, he does not. Despite the fact LeBron’s spectacle was “ill-conceived, badly produced and poorly executed.” He gets off with some soft-pedaled criticism that he’s likely never to hear about. Why nothing for LeBron? Stern loved every minute of it. He says that LeBron should have informed the Cavs of his decision before announcing, thereby allowing Cleveland to pursue free agents who signed before the announcement. But, don’t believe it for a minute. The greater the number of teams presumably involved in the BronStakes means the greater the ratings, means the greater the exposure for the NBA. And make no mistake the market share in northeast Ohio was huge. (Personally, I did not watch as I was involved in an intense over-30 co-ed indoor soccer game. We (Go Bolts!) got the 6-2 win; thanks for asking.)

To wit:

In Cleveland, “The Decision” drew a staggering 26 rating — meaning more than one in four homes had TVs tuned to ESPN to see James say he was leaving his hometown Cavaliers for the Miami Heat.

In Miami, the show had a 12.8 rating.

Why only less than half of the love in Miami as Cleveland? Miamiahams were all busy smuggling drugs into the country. Oh, I kid. Actually, they were all on the beach having sex with multiple supermodels and increasing their likelihood of contracting skin cancer and gonorrhea – simultaneously. It can’t be ALL fun and sex on the beach, you know. While here in Cleveland besides watch that train wreck all we would have had to do was shovel snow. Why not take a break to enjoy some hot cocoa and superstar back-stabbing? We were accused of overreacting after the announcement, but we only burn his jerseys to keep warm.

Fortunately for Cavs fans, this fine shouldn’t hurt the franchise too much. I mean, bottom line, we are fucked. 100 large here or there isn’t going to make much of a difference.

So David Stern, I fine you $78.52 for being so arbitrary and enigmatic. I am not greedy, but I am in need of a new Mo Williams jersey.

[photo: Tony Dejack]

[photo: Clark]

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