The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith On The Positive Noise Surrounding Sports Return

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

is the Matt Thomas show. At 2 o'clock, it is the final hour of the week on Sports Talk 7.90, at least for this show. And we visit every Friday with our good friend Brian T. Smith from the Houston Chronicle, who we've spent the last couple of weeks talking about when are things rolling to start moving. It feels more and more like we're going to get some great information in the next 10 days from the NBA or Major League Baseball. are they starting to play their cards right or do you still sense some skepticism somewhere with both these leagues?

Now, Matt, I've tried to remain positive in the Houston Chronicle, you know, realistically positive. It's going to be what it's going to be, right? You know, or I know all the great readers and sports fans can fix it ourselves. But for the first time, it does feel like, especially with the NBA,

that it's at least trending forward. And just a few weeks ago, There was a lot of uncertainty, and you had all the rumors and the sourced reports about players feeling uncomfortable, which is fully understandable. But I felt so long, you've said for weeks now that, you know, if they come up with a plan and the plan seems to be as safe and reasonable as possible, why in the world would the NBA not come back? And now we've had someone for Tito, we've had Chris Paul. you know, you've had enough different voices all hint toward the return. And I wrote about a month ago in The Chronicles that I've always felt like, for whatever reason, I don't know why. I think I just needed something to circle on my mental calendar that June 1st might be a breakthrough.

And June 1st is not that far away. We're almost at Memorial Day. June 1st is going to feel like hopefully a continued breakthrough for the country. country in terms of, you know, the economy opening up, Texas opening up, the rest of the country, and June 1st in our world for the NBA and maybe Major League Baseball. MLB is the one that continues to worry me. The NBA, barring a snafu, seems like they increasingly have found a path to make this work. And hopefully every Friday when you and I visit the exact same time, we're getting more and more information.

Is it proper? Is it okay for us to say this is more about money than it is a competition? Or do you think it's 50-50? It feels like for baseball. And granted, a lot of this is sourced and some of this are just absolutely idiotic and idiotic comments coming off of a Twitch video, which is in a lot of ways unfair to Blake Snell. I mean, what he has said the same thing, sitting down, speaking with reporters, probably not. he was obviously sort of, you know, speaking off the cuff. For baseball, it does feel more like money.

And that's the fault of the union. That's the fault of the players. I was very, I thought it was very refreshing to see Tom Glavin and Chipper Jones both come out this week. Not to attack current players, but just to say, hey, you guys, you look bad. You know, no matter how you try to sell it, if you say I will come back, but I have to receive my full pay. It has nothing about knocking down players. They deserve their full pay.

The problem is if you have 38 million filing for unemployment in a nine-week period and your average salary is $3,4 million regularly, nobody in America wants to hear that. Nobody needs to hear that. And it just looks absolutely clueless. So for Major League Baseball, Matt, it does feel like it has become ultimately about pay. NBA, not so much. And we have not heard that from Chris Paul, LeBron James, Kauai Leonard, Paul George,

you know, some of the biggest names, Russell Westbrook, some of the biggest names in the league. Maybe they say that privately, but publicly they've been smart enough not to attach the return to play to pay. Well, I think a lot of that it's because, Brian, I think the players trust Adam Silver more in basketball than the players do of Rob Manfred and the owners in baseball. I think that's very evident in this case.

That's a huge part of it, and I fully agree with that. I think that the other part of that, though, and I've thought this for two decades now, nothing's perfect, right? I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say, hey, the NBA PA. I mean, the NBA PA has serious issues they've had at times. Adam Silver, I thought, made a serious misstep on China, et cetera, et cetera. but Adam Silver has spent the last few years, Matt, very successfully post-David Stern, positioning himself as a commissioner who at least listens to the players.

I mean, not 100%, but for the most part, he'll listen to the players. He keeps them inside. You know, he knows that, hey, our league is run and driven and sold by its superstars, whereas Major League Baseball, I mean, Major League Baseball can't figure out, how to properly promote Mike Trout. And so whether it's the Astros, whether it's the Red Sox, whether it's punishment. Major League Baseball has the strongest union, but during times of crisis, 94, right now, the steroid era, it's really struggled to have any type of unity, and I think we're seeing that again.

And the reality also is the fact that the NBA knows, because their league is revenue sharing, that if they don't get all the television money of a completed season this go-around, it will affect future salary caps, say, in the next two to three years. And I think that was the point that Adam Silver made a couple weeks ago very, you know, well, and it was scary. I remember when he said it, neither you nor I know anyone wanted to hear it. They're saying, hey, we might, you know, I can't guarantee you, Silver said, we're going to have fans in the stands next year.

And if that doesn't happen, all of a sudden, you know, our CBA, the way that we're structured in the NBA, we are not built for this. And then all of a sudden, yeah, you start talking about superstar teams and, you know, franchises were two or three guys making $30, $40 million a year, how do you support that? I mean, how do you keep paying those guys that? You would start to see franchises, you know, teams broken up, maybe teams have to move. It's all very drastic, and that's why, I've said this all along, I fully believe if the NBA can find a way to return, it will. I believe baseball will come through in the end because they're not idiots and they don't want to be forever associated with 1994.

and I think in a lot of ways look worse. 1994, you didn't have the coronavirus. I think baseball will finally come out of it, but if they don't, I don't know how they ever live it down. Yeah, because it took five years in a miraculous home run chase for the sport to come back. You can't rely on one of those amazing stat runs in order to save a sport that basically said,

we don't want to play when you have, as you said, 30% of America out of work. as far as the NBA calendar is concerned, and all of us have been proponents of the December schedule, if you're Adam Sovere and he asks your opinion, could you even see it being pushed back at least next year, even further back if it gives you another opportunity to put more people in the stadium?

I don't think we've spent enough time talking about in all sports, whether it be college athletics, the NFL, maybe not so much then, but baseball and basketball, how devastating it's going to be if we go to another season, a fresh new season without fans in the arena. Yeah, that's one of the other dominoes. I mean, part of it is just because everything in the current is so uncertain, right? And so you can't even get to the next domino until you figure out the first one.

That being said, I wrote this week, you know, one of the things that we're not talking about enough, because it's going to have to be a very quick decision, and it's going to be so important. How do they finish their regular season? Why in the world, in my opinion? Why in the world would Golden State in New York Knicks, the Cleveland Cavaliers play another game this season if the whole idea is

to have as much safety as possible? You're exposing them the needless risk and their season is already over and then that dovetailed into yeah, you know, if this ultimately is a split, you know, it's partly about competition and finishing the season, it's partly about revenue.

It's a gazillion dollar league. I'd love for them to start in late December. I would love for the NBA season to start on Christmas Day. I've been saying that. A lot of people have been saying that for years. But yeah, maybe Matt, it makes more sense to start it, let's say, next February, when you can actually know you can get fans in the stands, because that's another part of this, is we want sports to come back, we need sports to come back, but when it comes back and there's no fan, I continue to wonder, what's it going to be like after the first week? Does it get old after part of it? I just think

the fan interaction in arenas during the playoffs, in the regular season and stadiums, is such an integral part to the competition and the games that we love that until that comes back, it obviously it's not going to be normal. Staying with the fans, to wrap up today, do you feel that there's so many different mixed, not necessarily messages,

but just mixed ideologies out there about college football? Earlier in the week, A&M's athletic director said that Fresno State and Colorado are going to come to play at Kyle Field. Then we don't hear it. Then we hear about, well, California may be altered. Pack 12 schools. SEC is like, we're going full all in.

Ohio State's athletic director says we probably could get 30,000 people at Ohio Stadium. If there's anything that is fragmented and in a bunch of puzzle pieces, it could be the 2020 college football season. Yeah, and that's because of the NCAA. You know, I mean, that's, you know, whether it's pay for play, whether it's conference realignment, look at what happened. at the start of the last decade with conference realignment.

That was driven by the conferences. That was driven by the schools. And that changed college football. That ended up changing the bowl format. That ultimately led to the CFP from the BCS. All those things. That was not driven by the NCAA. They're so weak, Matt, and they know that.

And so that's why they struggle with investigations. That's why when they do investigations, it often looks backwards. That's why they're finally having to start in some way. you know, finding ways to kind of pay players but not play players when it comes to naming rights. And right now, with everything, you know, it's not being dictated by the national government. It's being dictated by the state government. You can agree if you like that or not, but that's how it's happening. Texas, Greg Abbott, has infinitely more say right now in how we operate our daily lives than our

Houston leaders, international leaders. And so when that comes to affect colleges, when that affects who's coming. coming back. It's state-based. It really depends on Texas or Tennessee or Georgia or California, not the NCAA. But it feels like, man, of all times that the NCAA football, whether it's power five conferences, whether they want to separate from group of six, that's fine too, but there is no central voice or at least Adam Silver is speaking on behalf of the league. Rob Manfred doing the best he can to speak on behalf of the league. So too, Roger Goodell. I just feel like there's hundreds of voices out there in college football.

And to tell you the truth, I don't know if anybody in the SEC really particularly cares of any other conference plays. Hell, they could probably just say, hey, half the teams are playing for national championship come out of our league to begin with. I mean, I don't know that it's going to happen, but you could easily see how it continues to play out this way. And people have talked about this. I mean, at some point, do the Power 5, does the SEC? Do they just break off? I mean, it's kind of the point, Matt, where the Big 12 in its own way, and Big 12 needs help. It could use U of H jokingly.

But the SEC... Not jokingly. Be serious about these things. But the SEC can run itself right now. The FCC doesn't need the national government, you know, the NCAA. The SEC can basically run itself. That's how important and powerful and valuable college football is. And you're looking at an organization.

specifically Mark Emmert. It's just, it's an emperor without clothes. Nobody respects it. Nobody takes it seriously. And even when they had to cancel the NCAA NCAA termination, they did it in such a backward way. They ended up looking foolish doing that.

Well, leave it that. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the morning. Matt, Matt, let me get in a really quick word. Jerry Sloan. Oh, yeah, for sure. I'm writing about it on Sunday's paper. I know Rockets fans don't love the jazz, but best coach of her covered in my career. It was a lot. lifetime honor to do so, and I was only around him for, you know, a little more than half

a season. But Jerry Sloan will always be remembered as one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time, and he was an even better. And I mean, it's in all sincerity. He was an even better person. So a huge, huge loss today in the NBA and the real world with Jerry Sloan's passing. As I said earlier, having lived there for two years, I totally agree knowing about him more as a person than he ever did when you're living somewhere else. Thanks, PTS. Talk to you next week. Take care. Thank you. You got it. Brian T. Smith with us here on the show.