Do Athletes Not Own Themselves?

In Athens, there is a legendary tree that owns itself. The deed for the land belongs to the tree. It can never be moved. But there is another legend in Athens that apparently lost his deed on the way. Of course, I'm speaking of Todd Gurley. Georgia's now famous junior runningback who, until last Thursday, was a front runner for the Heisman trophy.

Todd Gurley

Gurley is just one in a string of famous college football players who have used their fame for personal gain. Eric Dickerson got in hot water because Texas A&M boosters his grandma bought him a car (a 79 Trans-AM, a nice car even today). Terrelle Pryor and his friends got Jim Tressell fired at Ohio State because they traded memorabilia for tattoos.

And now, Jameis Winston is being investigated for the exact same thing. Selling autographs.

The issue that a good friend of mine, Mike Foster, brought up is that the O'Bannon case was recently settled for a massive sum. The case was essentially that these schools abuse the likeness of famous athletes for monetary gain but there is no compensation for those individuals. It's the reason Texas A&M sells #2 jerseys with no name on them. There's plausible deniability there but really, we all know who that jersey represents. Johnny Football. He doesn't get a single cent for those sales.

I want to place pressure here on the NCAA and president Mark Emmert. Fix this issue immediately. We should give at least some leeway to these athletes to make money. It's the legalization argument that we see with many other things. Because there is a no tolerance policy, it turns criminal in nature and these athletes set themselves up with the wrong types. (I'm looking at you Miami)

Just make the athletes able to get money from the school. It won't break the system. It will allow for regulation instead of punishments.

The Good Behind Dan's Departure

Courtesy of Major League Baseball CC

I think that it might be universally understood that Dan Uggla was not a good fit for the Atlanta Braves. But I'm here to explain to you why it's extra special that we cut him off at the time we did. Dan Uggla is a problem for our cap space. But in baseball that's really not a thing that exists, cap space is set by the owners and more than likely the general manager. Frank Wren is a kind of guy who wants to increase the money that the Atlanta Braves can spend on roster spots. The Atlanta Braves moved up recently from 80 million, until they were at 90 million, and this year they're at a hundred million. This is because they're building a new stadium, in a nice neighborhood, next to their fan base. What is going to happen soon is that the attendance and ticket prices and merchandising will increase to a level previously unknown by the Braves. I'm personally excited about that because that means that we can buy more players. But in the meantime, we have to succeed and get to the playoffs.

The long and short of it is, that Dan Uggla was hogging up the last roster spot. The last roster spot for a manager is a space that is reserved for prospect players or trades or what have you. It is absolutely instrumental in a manager's ability to control a baseball team. Now we have two years left on Uggla's contract, which means that time would have been the amount on the roster and hogging up space. If you "designate for assignment" that player, that means you can lose even more money in that process. and you could still not get the roster spot back.

25 men. That's the limit. The Braves bullpen is having issues and the bats are not consistently hot. That means that we have to start experimenting on our roster and I think that is worth the $14 million over 2 years to the Braves organization. These kind of things are not up to the players or the fans. Bite the bullet, cut Dan, make the playoffs.

This article is a good read if you want further explanation. It's by Atlanta sports AJC writer Mark Bradley.


--by Levi Warner