Can the NFL Survive as a Touch Football League?

With recent allegations coming out that players were given pain pills like candy before games on top of the recent Concussion Settlement of $765 Million, one has to wonder how much longer the NFL will continue to be able to function as they have in the past. The game of football played at the NFL level is a violent physical game played by young men who can reap incredible financial benefits and there is huge incentive for a player to continue playing through injury and pain as there is always someone ready to step in to take your position. There is also the culture of playing with pain that has most likely always existed, it's just that now players have come to the realization whether right or wrongly that they can indeed sue and reap financial benefits from one of the most profitable sport enterprises in the world worth billions of dollars. While it's hard to feel sorry for the owners of the NFL's teams, with the NFL trademark one of the most valuable and profitable business enterprises around, at the same time, one would have to be very naive to believe that most players are not fully cognizant of the damage that they could be doing to their bodies by playing a game as violent as an NFL football game. Makes me wonder, by 2020, will we be cheering our favorite NFL flag football team?

Preakness....There Goes the Neighborhood

The Preakness is set to be run again in Baltimore this afternoon. The wealthy and not so wealthy will descend upon Pimlico Race Course in Northwest Baltimore to watch the second of the Triple Crown races, with some hoping for immortality and riches, and others just looking for a good time being part of the spectacle. Having grown up about 10 miles from Pimlico Race Course, I am very familiar with the area and have seen how it has changed since my childhood. Sitting at the intersection of Northern Parkway and Pimlico Road, Northern Parkway serves as the dividing line between two vastly different worlds. On the north side of the Racetrack, you have the Mt. Washington area, an area littered with many Victorian homes, and consisting mainly of White middle to upper middle class professionals. On the other side of the racetrack there is a different world consisting mainly of working class and Black professionals littered among the crime and drug wars that have become a constant of the Northwest Baltimore community. For one day however, this neighborhood changes as the racing world descends upon this humble neighborhood bringing the famous and hordes of police to protect the visitors. For one day, it's probably one of the safest places to spend a day and evening. Just be sure to be gone when the racing crowd leaves.

Taking the Team Away

I've been watching and reading the talk concerning comments made by Clippers owner Donald Sterling in a telephone conversation he had with a lady friend/girlfriend/etc. While not touching on the legality of recording the telephone conversation, some of the actions and comments border on the ludicrous. While the NBA has fined the owner $2.5 million which he says that he is not going to pay, the action that seems most questionable to me is banning Sterling for life from the league in which he is an owner of one of its products....NBA team. While it's apparent that professional sport leagues conduct business by a different standard than most other American corporations, I question the legality of a organization being able to arbitrarily decide to take the business away from the person who owns it. While some action was required for the racist comments, for me, it calls into question what rights does a person have in America in 2014 when he/she can be removed from the business they own for comments that some find offensive. If this is the new standard, then is anyone running a business today just one comment away from having a business taken away from them?