Cannon Firing Line
$ports, Ph.D.
By Ellis G. Cannon
PSR Publisher & ESPN Radio 1250 Talk Show Host

Think about this for a moment: What professional background was most valuable in sifting through the recent soap opera known as ACC expansion?

Educator? College administrator? Lawyer? Accountant? Banker? Public relations? Media relations? Sports business consultant?

And that's the short list.

Every once in a while - like daily - we're reminded that without a legal or other professional degree there's almost no way to make heads or tails out of the sports page anymore.

It was one thing when we made light of athletes' criminal developments with athletes courtesy of a rigged up police blotter. It's another when you have to go back in time and review details of injunctive relief requests by parties in a lawsuit filed by one of your former law school professors.

Seriously, how do folks without these backgrounds even get through a sports page?

That question is not rhetorical, nor is it intended as a slight. But if you think about it, breach of contract, marketing coups, sponsorship deals and so forth are as much a part of what used to pass for the sports coverage as the box scores.

And considering the beating baseball has taken around here in recent years, there have to be fewer and fewer people around here reading those either. Ditto with the NHL, particularly if Mario isn't in the news. So what's that leave?

Race tracks offering private funding to the Penguins? The Steelers coming up with their own TV network? The MLB All-Star game selling off just about every feature possible to generate revenues, including 'competition' and events that are not even part of the game?

What's next, the renaming of a professional football team established in 1920? NASCAR hooking up with a fancy smancy hi-tech company for sponsorship of its racing series?

Oh, that's going down too?

Yes, and, if you haven't noticed, it's not about to change anytime soon. Get used to it.

We shouldn't be surprised. I still can recall when my late father, a man brilliant in finances, once shattered my teenage world by saying 'the sports you love so much are going to go away as you know them. Nobody will be able to afford them.'

This brought a sharp retort from me, as if that should be shocking. Once again, however, he proved to be right, or at least close enough to make me realize something better be done or the doomsday he predicted would come true.

The backlash to the inevitable killing of the golden goose has been in the making for years. One of the first, and seemingly most offensive, foray into this area was the renaming of college football bowl games. That's when it started for most of us. It wasn't the Orange, Sugar or Cotton bowls anymore. It was not only against the grain, it was communism. The skeptics sounded off, insisting it was all a short-term fad destined to go away.

Just like my reaction to Dad, that view was wrong, dead wrong. No, it was only the beginning.

Now it's everywhere, including our sports pages, where we would once take comfort in getting away from all those real world problems and issues. Heck, when I was reading the sports page right when it came through the door - much to my father's chagrin - it was for the games, the players. They're still there, but they just don't have exclusive rights to the territory these days.

Funny, though, the view recently offered to me by a local fan seems more the exception today than the rule. As he said upon hearing the news about the Chicago Bears, 'just when you thought things couldn't get any lowerÉ'

Temptation forced us to offer something about the name of the Pirates' ballpark and the Igloo, but he quickly realized that and instead of a loud debate about the evil he perceived with buying titles and names and sponsorships, we just moved onto something else.

Which is what most of us are doing, whether we know it or not. There will, certainly, be more of this and the traditionalists amongst us will howl. But as we pointed out some time ago, look at a NASCAR race car. Look at European sports, check out NFL Europe. Look around at the globalization of sports and the creativity just waiting to explore more than the renaming of a stadium to that of an Internet company or financial institution.

We think we respect tradition, too, and will likely find one of these future endeavors reviling. But they'll continue, with or without us. That's business, and in times where creativity demands it, also necessary, not to mention valuable.

We can live with that, but there are limits. Just don't change the games or the rules, fellas. We'll learn to live with the new names, but don't take away the games. Don't take away the sports.

Don't do what Dad warned us about many, many years ago.

Ellis Cannon is also a regular contributor on the '#1 Cochran Sports Showdown', aired Sundays at 11:35 on KDKA-TV.