Tagged: nfl

Report: MLB Players warned over deer spray

Boys will indeed be boys and players will indeed look for a way to “get around the rules” it seems.

MLB players have been issued a warning over the use of deer-antler spray, a substance administered under the tongue that includes a banned chemical known for its muscle-building and fat-cutting effects, SI.com has reported.

This is the same substance used by many NFL players, including such “luminaries” as Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens.

Players had felt free to use the spray at nearly no risk until the warning was sent last week by the league, the report said.

In its warning, issued in reaction to reports from the drug-testing industry, MLB requested players not use the spray because it contained “potentially contaminated nutritional supplements” and had been added to the league’s cautionary list of products.

The warning was not issued because the spray includes the banned chemical, SI.com reported.

IGF-1, or insulin-like growth factor, can’t be detected in the urine tests used by baseball, and the players’ association has not come to an agreement with MLB on blood testing.

According to the report, scientists discovered IGF-1 in the velvet of immature deer antlers and players have been using it as an alternative to steroids.

The chemical is considered a performance-enhancer and its use is prohibited by baseball and the World Anti-Doping Agency, among other governing bodies. IGF-1 is said to mediate the level of human growth hormone in the body, SI.com reported.

MLB said in its warning that the spray can cause players to test positive for the banned steroid methyltestosterone, though it is not listed as an ingredient, the report said.

Among the benefits highlighted by manufacturers of the spray are “anabolic or growth stimulation,” “athletic performance” and “muscular strength and endurance.”

And it’s ok. You too can admit you thought of a certain mullet wearing Milwaukee Brewer when you read the byline.

I Hate To Burst Your Bubble, But…

Insult is no longer allowed to be added to injury.  Greed needs a boundary.  The dot.sports bubble is about to burst.

Billionaire NFL owners and millionaire players insult our common sense as they cut up a 10 billion dollar revenue pie paid for by foreclosed fans.

Squeezing literal blood from a stone, owners have extracted huge TV prepayments, sent layoff notices to staff and invented “personal seat licenses” (the infamous mortgage derivative of sports) this year.

Help me understand:  I pay for my seats, I pay shipping and handling and parking and overpriced concessions and logo’d merchandise and, in addition, I have to buy the right to be reamed for a price *larger* than my actual tickets?

Why?  To pad the vault before a pending lockout designed to prevent the players from cutting a bigger slice of the pie – despite overwhelming evidence of the premature deaths and shortened life expectancy of players.

Hello, injury… meet insult.  Football may be the most obvious right now, but baseball and other pro sports share the vastly inflated economic disparity vs. the fans.  Bread and circuses?

Not that the players are underpaid (well, the Pittsburgh Pirates, maybe) – rather, under taxed. Due to tax breaks for new construction, some players in new top condos in NY pay *one fifth* as much tax as a couple in Queens pays.  Hello, insult?

We forget that players work half a year, not full-time.  And many duck local taxes in the “home” towns of their ballparks through high-priced advisors.

And the owners are rigging the game.  Consider this:  DirectTV would have actually paid the owners *more* if there were a lockout than if games were played.

Apart from the TV deals and away gate ticket sales the league divides, owners collect from their stadium (gate) receipts for home games, naming rights, sponsorships, luxury suite revenue, concessions and local broadcast rights.

In addition, your own stadium brings in extra money for concerts, events, a pro shop, and $12 hot dogs. And the trend has clearly been for private stadium ownership.

When owners saw the market trend move from individual fans to corporate buyers a few years back, they raised prices, expanded luxury boxes, and brought in arugula (the aromatic salad green).  Let companies treat clients and vendors from their subscription, right?  And serve wine and brie, right?  Never mind that the crowd sounds different and TV shots are filled with empty seats, right?

Wrong.  As the economic bubble burst, companies can’t afford overpriced seats and those that still might are *embarassed* to be seen as spending frivolously.  The warning signs are visible during many baseball telecasts.  The dot.com bubble burst.  Then the housing bubble.  Then the mortgage derivative bubble.  Then the Madoff bubble (can you say Wilpon?). Then the jobs bubble.  Soon the public pension bubble.  And state budgets.  Is DoubleBubble next?

New Rule:  Team owners want a hefty percent of everything?  Ok, you guys get the pain too.

1)  Since each concussion costs 2 years lifespan, here’s the fair way: Team owners must experience exactly the same concussion in their luxury boxes that any player sustains on the field.  Use automated hydraulic helmets or retired players with ball-peen hammers to invoke the “neuron-for-a-neuron” clause of the new collective bargaining agreement.  Have owners and players share the same health plan (like maybe senators and citizens should?).

2)  Since PSL’s are basically a real estate transaction, shouldn’t owners pay a tax like we do?  Like a developer selling condo units.  Sales and capital gain per every PSL.  40,000 seats @$10k PSL per = $400 million revenue… what’s the fair local tax on that?  25% = $100 million.

In the last few years, most people have seen their pensions and long-term benefits disappear – most corporate workers large and small, as well as teachers, firemen, policemen in the public sector  – the promises were unrealistic and impossible to sustain.

Players may be “entertainers” and push for whatever contracts the market will bear. But the money eventually comes from or is passed on to the public – a broke public, mind you – and a market that can’t bear it anymore.

At what point is economic disparity so extreme that stadiums are empty or, even better, they will look like the streets of Cairo?

Can you say Twitter?