Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Big Ten greed forces IU Basketball fans need to pay to watch Hoosier Hysteria

 

I don’t mind that Hoosier Hysteria is presented by Smithville, but it pisses me off it will be presented on BTN+ for $10!

Greed sucks, but it’s impossible to avoid.  Even in the chaste world of college sports, the bottom line is the only line.

Big 10 coaches and administrators “earn” hundreds of thousands of dollars – if not millions – because alums and fans covet watching students of their favorite schools compete for football and basketball glory.

I’ll buy tickets, sit through commercial breaks, and pay for the programming package that includes the Big Ten Network.  I do it happily because I want to watch Indiana Basketball and Football, and audit Purdue Basketball because I like the way Matt Painter has built his program.

Every now and again, I see on the guide that the Hoosiers are playing volleyball or women’s basketball, and I will watch a little bit.  Maybe BTN is airing an IU game from 1993, and I revel in the scoring ability of Calbert Cheaney.

I consider the money spent for BTN to be well-invested despite knowing the cash is used to make otherwise unemployable yet arrogant coaches obscenely wealthy .

Where I draw the line is at the $9.95 per month charge for BTN+, which is normally little more than a portal for events unworthy of being shared on the primary network or its three sub-channels.  It’s for parents of field hockey athletes and swimmers.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Parents will find the investment well worth it.

A couple of times each year, the Big Ten gets clever and greedy, and they stuff events people actually want to watch behind the pay wall.  One of those events is coming tomorrow afternoon.  Hoosier Hysteria will feature the unveiling of Indiana Basketball under Mike Woodson, and BTN+ will stream the event for those who subscribe.  In November, there will likely be a basketball game on BTN+ too.

You might be thinking that BTN will be so busy with football tomorrow, they have to bounce Hoosier Hysteria behind the paywall, “It’s not greed,” you say.  “It’s just that they have only four channels and sub-channels, and they can’t squish five shows into four slots.”  Not so fast.  Ohio State beating the hell out of Rutgers is the only football game with a 3:30p kick, and Hoosier Hysteria starts at 4p

Tomorrow, I will tell the Big Ten to stick my $9.95 up their spreadsheet.  When IU takes on Marshall, Jackson State, Northern Illinois, or one of the other non-conference cupcakes and the only way to watch is BTN+, I’ll pay my subscription, then cancel it immediately so it won’t auto-renew.  I’ll curse Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, and my wife will ask what I’m muttering about.

And somewhere inside a conference room at the Big Ten offices near O’Hare Airport in suburban Chicago, someone will get a performance bonus tied to BTN+ subscriptions.  Big Ten schools will applaud Warren for filling their coffers.

And fans will feel used.

Isn’t college sports – and its media – wonderful?

Pacers guard Caris LeVert has a stress fracture in his back – of course he does!

Caris LeVert would be a very popular Pacer if he could ever get healthy.

Pacers guard Caris LeVert has a stress fracture in his back.

The Pacers inability to stay healthy is sickening.  I just can’t take it anymore.  If I wanted to write about medical conditions, I would have gone to medical school or become a trainer.

Last year, Pacers starters lost 148 starts to injury, which equates to 41% of potential starts among Malcolm Brogdon, LeVert/Oladipo, Warren, Myles Turner, and Domas Sabonis.  For those of you who are math-challenged, that’s just over two starters per game in street clothes.

I’m normally not so self-involved to conflate an athlete’s hardship with my own misery, but for the love of all that is holy, how hard is it to field a basketball team that can actually show up and play?  Some of the Pacers health issues have had obvious uncontrollable external causes – like Paul George‘s grizzly lower leg fracture, but the majority are from various sprains and muscle pulls that have robbed the Pacers of productivity and wins.

Oladipo suffered an exceptionally rare quad tendon tear, and was then traded for LeVert, who was immediately diagnosed with a growth in his kidney.  He fought back from that, and now has a stress fracture?  I don’t even want to guess about the source of the next piece of bad news.

And will Warren’s foot ever heal?

LeVert was featured during yesterday’s Pacers Media session, and we heard nothing about his back.  ESPN has spoken to a source who claims LeVert may be able to return around the beginning of the regular season in three weeks.  Yeah, right.  I’ll believe it when I see it.

That’s not a comment about LeVert, but the optimism teams always use to keep fans engaged.  They tend to lean wildly optimistic, especially the crosstown Colts.  Indy fans experienced the insanity surrounding Andrew Luck’s litany of injuries and optimism from management that he would be right back.  They are still waiting.

LeVert seems to be a great guy in a place where his personality and ability to score should make him very popular – if he is ever at 100%.  In the meantime, we wait for both he and Warren to find their way back to the court.

And the beatdowns go on.

Coaches are always a three-game losing streak from the hot seat – the Colts have lost three straight!

These three leaders were never going to be happier together than on the day Frank Reich was hired.

The NFL season is three games old, and Indianapolis Colts fans don’t know what to do with their anger over the winless start.

Just like disgruntled customers at a restaurant, Colts fan want to talk to the manager.  The only question is whether that manager for the Colts is coach Frank Reich or general manager Chris Ballard.  One is paid to teach and scheme, and the other hires the employees that are not delivering a satisfactory result.

Coaches are judged by their losses and NFL GMs are vetted by the quality of their drafts.  Both can see their careers derailed by the failure to meet high expectations which are built through a lens distorted by recency bias.  Win some, and more wins are expected.  Get to the playoffs, and a Super Bowl needs to be next.

Reich led a Colts roster built by Ballard to the playoffs last year.  After coming within three points of upsetting the Bills on the road in the wild card round, this year fans assumed they would take a step in the right direction.  Owner Jim Irsay keeps mentioning the goal of this franchise is to win multiple championships, which has to make Reich and Ballard wince.  Fans bought in.

At 0-3, fans are now selling out, and Reich and Ballard are the people they are demanding pay the price.  Never mind that Reich led the Colts to the playoffs two out of the three full seasons and is now coaching a fourth starting quarterback in as many years.  Never mind that Ballard built the rosters that earned spots in the playoffs.  Anger demands a victim, and Reich and Ballard are as good as any.

When a play works, the players did it.  Fans say things like, “What a throw by Wentz!”  “Did you see Pittman grab that ball out of nowhere?”  “Buckner made the center and guard look silly!”  When a play fails, it’s always, “What the hell was Reich thinking?”  Forget that a block was missed or a run would have been idiotic against an eight-man front.  Reich should never have called what he did!

The only acceptable eventual answer for fans is a championship.  Once a coach gets a ring, he buys himself up to a year of grace before he fails to repeat which incurs the wrath of those for whom one championship is not enough.  That means everyone.

With a general manager, it’s similar.  Ballard drafted Jonathan Taylor, Darius Leonard, and Braden Smith in the second round.  Those guys aren’t just starters, but game-changing forces.  Fans give glancing credit to Ballard for those successes.  They say, “Who wouldn’t have taken those guys?  It was obvious they would succeed!”

Fans look at Ben Banogu, Quincy Wilson, and Parris Campbell, and say, “What kind of idiot is Ballard?  Those guys suck!”  Of course, Wilson’s sucking is past tense, and Banogu and Campbell may stop sucking soon, but it’s the misses that define a general manager.

In the backs of our minds, we understand that Reich didn’t suddenly get dumb and Ballard is hitting on picks more often than missing, but we still require someone to point at when the Colts fall short of expectations.  It happened to Chuck Pagano and Ryan Grigson too.  Hell, even Bill Polian was run out of town after the disastrous 2011 season as Peyton Manning recovered from a spate of neck surgeries.  Indy is not alone in demanding a head on a platter for falling short of perfection.  Bill Belichick was fired in Cleveland.  The Bulls allowed Phil Jackson to leave the Bulls after a second threepeat.  That had nothing to do with Bulls fans, but it was still ridiculous.

That’s the way professional sports work.  Win, it’s the players.  Lose, it’s the coaches and/or GM.  And when the losses get so thick a sacrifice is demanded, the coach and GM start to position themselves against each other because their survival instinct kicks in.  That’s stage three of systemic failure.  Colts aren’t there yet, and that’s a good thing.

Hopefully, the Colts work this out before an entry to stage three requires an intervention with Irsay – like the Pagano vs. Grigson standoff of 2016 that ended in that bizarre late night press conference with Smiling Chuck, Scowling Ryan, and oddly proud Jim.

The Colts must get a win this Sunday, or the downward spiral of fan anger and their demand for accountability will accelerate toward an abyss from which someone is not going to be able to climb.