Remember when sports was our getaway - our safe haven for a couple of uninterrupted hours in front of a TV or in a grandstand seat enjoying the emotional ups-and-downs of athletic competition? Remember when our sports bar discussions were about Romo versus Dak and not about Jerry Jone's locked arms with his players, kneeling on a sideline?
It's not been a good week for sports as our happy place, whether one's been caught up in the ceaseless back-and-forth on taking a knee during the national anthem or now with the revelation that a handful of college basketball coaches and adidas have been colluding to bribe and direct high school players to favored schools.
Yes, politics is not new to sports, whether it be Muhammad Ali's draft evasion in 1967, the raised fists of John Carlos and Tommie Smith in the 1968 Olympics, Billie Jean King fighting for equal pay for female athletes or the many, many other examples I could cite.
And bribery? Well, sports and dollar bills go together like Black and Sox, with many examples since that baseball game fixing scandal in 1919.
This, though, feels different, bigger and more intrusive. The nation's most popular sports property is openly at odds with the President of the United States. And, when news broke of the newest scandal in college sports, the majority of sports journalists on my Twitter feed reacted with "this is just the tip of the iceberg" or other words to that effect.
Sports, as we know it, may never be the same. Will the NFL and college basketball survive? Probably...but the impact being felt will only exacerbate declining attendance and declining ratings that we are seeing across all of sports.
There aren't many brands in sports that are winning right now. And that makes me sad.
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