Dear Reader:

Aggression and violence among men are depicted as exciting, rewarding and expected behavior according to Boys to Men: Sports Media, Messages about Masculinity, a new study published by Children Now, an Oakland, California-based child advocacy group. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Southern California, examined ESPN's "SportsCenter," as well as NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, extreme sports and professional wrestling programs, and the commercials broadcast during those shows. Researchers found that commentators used "martial metaphors and the language of war and weaponry nearly five times an hour." Broadcasters demonstrated a fondness for replaying "incidents of athletes taking big hits and engaging in reckless acts of speed and violent crashes."

White males overwhelmingly were the voices of authority in television sports. Seventy-seven percent of the announcers and commentators in the sample were white men. Women received almost no coverage on "SportsCenter," getting only 3 percent of air time. As for commercials, women often appeared in stereotypical and background roles. And, people of color were underrepresented. More than half (52.2 percent) of all commercials featured only white people. When people of other racial groups appeared, it was almost always in the company of whites. Fewer than 5 percent of the commercials featured only people of color.

You can read the report on the Web site of the Amateur Athletic Foundation, which helped fund the study. You also can go to www.AAFla.org and click on "publications."

If you are going to float a conspiracy theory, why not make it a really ridiculous one? The Swiss government and press continue to beat themselves up over Sion, Switzerland's failure to land the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. In an analysis of the failed bid, the Swiss paper Le Temps quotes Jean-Luc Chappelet, a member of the Sion bid committee and a faculty member at the University of Lausanne's Institute of Advanced Studies in Public Administration, who offers several explanations. Chappelet contends, among other things, that International Olympic Committee member Alex Gilady, of Israel, was instrumental in lobbying for the eventual winner, Turin, Italy. Why? Gilady also works for NBC Sports, and, according to Chappelet, NBC wanted the Games in Turin because "NBC has more Italian viewers than Swiss." This overlooks one rather important point. NBC owns only the American broadcast rights. The network will not broadcast in either Switzerland or Italy.

The NCAA recently approved a record budget for the 1999-2000 fiscal year (NCAA News, 8/30/99) of $303 million. The amount is $20.3 million (7.2 percent) more than last year's budget. Over the last five years, the NCAA annual budget has grown by $116.5 million or nearly 62 percent. The largest source of revenue for the organization is $242 million in television revenue. As for expenditures, half ($151 million) goes to support athletic programs of Division I member schools. And with all that cash at stake, $3.2 million will be spent dealing with NCAA rules enforcement and appeals. The NCAA will allocate another $1 million to initial eligibility programs and services. Of course, all that enforcement requires lots of legal help, so the NCAA has earmarked $3.5 million for legal services.

Besides a hefty new budget, the NCAA has a new home in Indianapolis, Indiana. The organization moved into its spanking new 140,000 square-foot digs on July 27. Taking a lesson from professional sports owners, the NCAA managed to wrangle a pot of public and private money to subsidize its new venture. The state of Indiana, the Lilly Foundation and private Indianapolis interests contributed $54 million towards the project. Better yet is the rent. For the next 30 years, the NCAA will lease its home from the state of Indiana for a whopping sum of $1 per year.

For some perspective, compare the NCAA to other nonprofit organizations. At $303 million, the NCAA budget is a bit less than those of the J. Paul Getty Trust and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, whose expenses in 1998 were $354 million and $374 million. The NCAA will spend a lot more than the Rockefeller Foundation whose '98 spending was $159 million, but much less than the Ford Foundation whose '98 expenditures were $572 million.

Hot ticket . . . What were the chances of Joe Public getting one of the 43,150 tickets to the NCAA Men's Final Four through the NCAA lottery? Well, let's say slim. The NCAA allotted 10,250 tickets to the general public for next year's Big Dance. There were 174,000 lottery entries from roughly 45,000 applicants. Each lucky applicant may buy up to two tickets. According to NCAA figures, 5,700, or 12.7 percent, succeeded in getting tickets. And if you didn't manage to get one for the 2000 Women's Final Four in Philadelphia, you are out of luck there, too. The 6,500 seats allotted to the public are sold out.

Of course, your chances might be better if you belong to a group associated with the NCAA. Understandably, the four participating schools get to split the largest bloc of 13,808 tickets (32 percent). But, Butler University, the host institution, and the local organizing committee get 5,178 tickets. And various Division I conferences, schools and committee members get another 9,061 tickets.

The best bet for a ticket is to be one of the approximately 5,000 members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Of course, you need to be a college or high school basketball coach first. The organization gets 3,452 tickets to the 2,000 Final Four. The NABC is an NCAA affiliate organization, and it once owned the tournament when it was known as the National Collegiate Basketball Championship. Each year the coaches hold their annual convention at the same time as the Final Four. Tickets are allotted to its members on the basis of seniority, with all Division I basketball coaches having ticket privileges as well. According to Kevin Henderson of the NABC, about 2,500 members of the NABC (~50 percent) will have the right to purchase tickets for next year's event.

The NCAA reports that the trend toward natural grass football fields in Division I-A continues. This year 69.3 percent of I-A teams will have the real stuff on their home fields. This represents a significant change from the early 1980s, when more than half the teams in the division played on artificial surfaces.

Only five of the top 25 teams in last year's AP and USA Today/ESPN Coaches polls played their home games on artificial turf. They were Wisconsin, Tulane, Kansas State, Nebraska and Syracuse. In bowl competition against grass-based teams, Wisconsin and Tulane won their games, while the other three teams lost.

A taxing situation . . . The riches generated by big-time college football certainly don't ensure the preservation of its history. The College Football Hall of Fame, located in South Bend, Indiana, seems to be losing money by the bushel.  A recent story by Terrence Bland in the South Bend Tribune, reported that the city plans to spend $600,000 next year, and is considering levying a tax, to pay off the bond used to construct the hall. The original plan called for construction costs to be repaid from sponsorships and private contributions, both of which have lagged. The hall also operates in the red. The hall's proposed operating budget for the year 2000 is $1.6 million. According to CFHOF Executive Director Bernie Kish, the museum relies on revenue from admissions, a gift shop and restaurant, sponsors and private donations. But all that does not seem to be enough. Estimates vary, but some claim the museum is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Who actually operates the hall is a somewhat complicated matter. The hall's Web site says that the museum is part of the National Football Foundation. In fact, though, staff salaries and administrative costs are paid by the city of South Bend. The NFF, in essence, owns the intellectual property to the hall and some of the memorabilia, and has granted the city the right to operate the museum. The NFF, however, does contribute financially. Next year they will be asked to kick in $350,000, although they are not contractually obligated to do so. And while that might still leave the hall in the red, the NFF does a lot more than the NCAA. The hall's Hoosier neighbors to the south might govern college football, but they do not contribute a dime, nor do any of the bowl committees that pull in the big bucks.

Wondering about how to select the appropriate turnout rug for your thoroughbred? The fall 1999 Miller Harness Company Catalog can help. Miller, the "Horse Clothing Authority" advises us to consider the following when making that critical warm-up blanket selection: "[Y]ou must first consider the type of turnout your horse has access to. The amount of time your horse spends outside combined with the size of the group he is turned out with and his herd behavior pattern can have the most effect on the type of turnout you will need."

Lots of fast old folks . . . The 13th edition of the WAVA World Veterans Athletic Championships took place this summer from July 29 – August 8 in Gateshead, England. An impressive total of 5,949 aging athletes from 74 countries took part, including 4,150 from outside of England. Granted, the qualifying standards are a bit easier, but compare the WAVA number to the roughly 2,000 athletes that took to the track at the 1999 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Seville, Spain. The World Veterans championships also included a number of older Olympians, including American javelin-thrower Tom Petranoff and Canadian high jumper Debbie Brill.

The November 1999 issue of Black Belt, one of SportsLetter's favorite whipping boys, features a cover story titled "Taekwondo Secrets of the Olympic Gold Medalists." Small problem. Taekwondo will not become a "medal" sport until the 2000 Games in Sydney. Heretofore, it has been an exhibition sport in two Games, 1988 and 1992. Winners of the exhibition tournaments did receive medals, but officially the IOC does not classify these as Olympic medals, and the athletes are not considered Olympians. If the gold medalists story does not tickle your fancy, you can always read "Y2K for Martial Artists."

Santa Monica, California historically has been a Mecca of bodybuilding and would seem like a logical location for the 1999 Ms. Olympia contest. However, the event scheduled for October 1999 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium has been relocated to New Jersey and tacked onto another bodybuilding show.  Promoter Jarka Kastmerova, who successfully staged the 1998 Ms. Olympia competition in Prague, pulled out of the Santa Monica venue after reportedly selling just 43 tickets.

Bill Dobbins, a journalist who covers the bodybuilding scene, claims in a lengthy article published on his Web site (www.billdobbins.com) that the International Federation of Body-Builders could have saved the Santa Monica event, but chose not to do so. Dobbins argues that the IFBB let the Santa Monica event die as part of a larger strategy of "withdrawing support" from women's professional bodybuilding. Dobbins believes that IFBB officials such as Ben Weider have concluded that the increasing muscularity of female competitors, especially in the pro division, will turn-off members of the IOC and kill any chance that the sport will achieve Olympic status.

While some IOC members may indeed be put off by female muscularity, the IFBB's more serious problem, by far, is the widespread belief that such muscularity is achieved with the aid of banned drugs. The drug issue, the question of whether bodybuilding is really a sport and the IOC's general concern with the size of the existing Olympic program make the IFBB's Olympic bid an uphill struggle.

Sometimes one just will not do. Meet the mascot of the 16^th Men's World Handball Championships held this past June in Cairo, Egypt and Ava, the mascot of the 1999 World Fencing Championships to be held November 1-8 in Seoul, Korea.

 

  

SportsLetter is published bimonthly. Reproduction is encouraged
with credit to the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles.
Copyright, 1998 Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. All rights reserved.