Strike One: Joe Parker needs to hit the recruiting trail. ASAP.
No, not to look for a new football coach. As of now, he still has one. That’s an issue for later. Starting now, Parker and his staff need to start to seek out and identify a few good men – and women – who will be crucial in helping Colorado State compete in what will soon be a vastly different collegiate sports landscape.
California’s new “Fair pay to play” act has been signed into law, and is scheduled to go into effect in 2023. But in reality this massive change is likely to take place much sooner than that. The law – which other states are now fast tracking – will allow student athletes to profit from the use of their likeness, name or image (LNI) and will open up a can of worms that will bring out every sleazy booster, agent or otherwise “influential” character available to help lure Johnny Five Star to good old State U.
In short, by offering “endorsement deals” to high schoolers, boosters will now be able to purchase high school recruits.
Putting aside how bad this idea is for the future of collegiate sports, it’s now up to schools to react. It seems obvious that the biggest schools with the biggest boosters stand to benefit the most. Billy Bob’s Used Cars in Dallas can probably afford to purchase a few five stars for the Longhorns and/or Aggies, right?
So how do the smaller schools like Colorado State compete? In the case of the Rams, the only option is to pay a visit to Pat Stryker (who has previously donated millions to the CSU Athletic Department) and guys Curt Richardson and Peter Lindgren at OtterBox, as well as any other well off supporters of CSU athletics that can be ID’d. The CSU admin will have to convince them their financial help needed now more than ever if the Rams have any hope of competing in the future.
All the non-power five schools are in the same predicament. They have to go out and find some big money supporters willing to $ign up a few four or five $tars to “endor$ement deal$” or find themselves watching as opposing programs who can ante up win bidding wars for the services of high schoolers.
Sadly, that’s where we are heading, fast.
And of course, Parker and other smaller school AD’s will be in a bit of an internal tug of war as well. Dollars that OtterBox gives to Johnny Five Star are dollars they won’t be giving directly to the school coffers any longer. And that’s gonna hurt.
But ya gotta “play ball” if you want to compete, am I right? Wink wink.
Strike Two: Jeff Bridich, Bud Black and Dick Monfort held and end of the season press conference last week, and by all accounts, the tone was touchy, if not actually defensive.
Those in attendance say that by and large, the brain trust of the Colorado Rockies spent the session expressing their faith in the Rockies roster as it currently is, and resisting the notion that the team needed to gut the roster and a “rebuild.”
The message: Don’t expect anything flashy to happen this off season.
That’s not what Rockies fans want to hear of course. After finishing 20 games under .500, changes are deemed necessary, obviously. It remains to be seen how much better this group of players, if healthy, can perform if left intact. Ten games maybe? A .500 team? That’s not going to make many fans happy.
Basically, nobody outside the building at 20th and Blake wants to see that.
Honestly, it makes perfect sense for the Rockies to not spend any more money on player salaries; to stay away from the free agent market this winter. They already tried that. Expensive signings like Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw and Ian Desmond have pretty much blown up in their face. It makes no sense to go that route again.
The Rockies can get better by CUTTING payroll.
For example, if they can find a trade partner for Davis – who had very good road numbers this season and could help a contending team’s bullpen – they could get back a couple young prospects in return. They might have to eat some portion of the salaries of Desmond and perhaps first baseman Daniel Murphy – who Bridich termed “just okay” but who qualifies as a bust by most accounts – but they if they could ship them out, the roster spots could go to younger, more productive players like Sam Hilliard and Josh Fuentes.
Then there’s the prospect that floats out there of trading franchise stalwart Charlie Blackmon who – like Murphy – is now better suited for an American League team as a designated hitter.
All or some of these moves would make the 2020 Rockies better AND save money on the payroll.
Hitting the free agent market again is not the best option for next season. But neither is standing pat.
Strike Three: If they play the NHL and NBA seasons, and nobody can watch, are they really happening?
Yes, the NHL season has started and the NBA will do the same in two weeks. And the locals – the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets – will be among the favorites to win their respective conference titles. The Avs are off to a nice 2-0 start, btw.
But most of us can’t watch on TV. At least right now.
I know with Bronco Fervor still griping the city (and please don’t make Super Bowl reservations just yet…it’s just one win) a lot fewer fans are paying attention to the “winter” sports at the moment. But most everyone is still aware that the team’s TV network, Altitude Sports, is not currently being carried on cable behemoth Comcast or Satellite providers Direct TV or Dish Network. So the great majority of us could not watch even if we could divert our attention that direction for a bit.
The dispute is over money of course – who pays whom and how much – and how the old model of regional sports networks will work moving forward. The providers don’t want to pay networks the way they used to, calling the former model “broken.” Altitude wanted pretty much the same deal they had before. Instead, they are left holding the puck, so to speak.
The way we consume sports on TV is changing, and it appears the folks at Kroenke Sports are going to have to change, too. Perhaps they create a “streaming” service that people can watch on line, the way several college conferences – and even ESPN – have done. ESPN shows a lot of events on “ESPN plus” now, which is 100% on line. Its’ the future.
There are almost two dozen smaller cable providers in the surrounding area that are still carrying Altitude. If you want to get Century Link’s “Prism” TV service for example, you’d get to watch the games. But Prism might not be around that much longer, I’m told. And you can’t count on sports bars carrying the opposing team’s telecasts because Altitude is still the right’s holder in the region and those opposing team broadcasts are blacked out here.
Until they start to stream the games online, you might just have to put down the remote, stop being fixated by the Broncos, and go to the game in person.