There are some inconvenient truths to things we discover along this adulting path.
My latest: VapoRub doesn’t clear up congestion. I looked it up. The Mayo Clinic flat out debunks the belief that coating your chest and throat with VapoRub will alleviate nasal congestion, and a range of other experts agree.
It “does not directly act as a decongestant, but provides a cooling sensation that makes you feel that you are breathing better,” says The Health Aisle.
But it was a go-to salve for Mother Ireland back when it was OK for your mom to paste that goo on your chest. And it did seem to help. But not the way I hoped when I bought a jar Sunday evening, besieged by the crud. Hadn’t tried it in decades but if ever there was reason to change starting quarterbacks/over the counter treatments, this was the time.
About 24 hours later, I’m still missing that “cooling sensation” that tricks me into thinking this gunk is going away and my coughing is about to run its course. Evidently VapoRub is more effective for the vast majority – wonder if RFK Junior approves? – but not in my case.
Sports can have the same soothing effect.
Who doesn’t feel better when your team wins? We’re enthralled watching, whether in the stands or on TV or on your phone or iPad. Not much else comes to mind for quite a while after the final score is posted – unless you’ve made some bad wagers – and it’s nice not to wonder if you might need a payment plan to buy eggs, or if we’re going to attack Greenland.
But just like the reality that VapoRub is just tricking us – not totally terrible – some truth about watching our teams is unsettling.
We are creatures of habit. I sat in my easy chair, dabbing VapoRub on my upper torso in vain, scanning sports channels Monday night. I pay a monthly subscription fee for the ESPN+ platform, which if I dive in gives me a bottomless buffet of games and programs.
The television sports galaxy is shifting. ESPN just called ballgame on its contract to carry Major League Baseball, backing out of the last three years, looking to negotiate a more favorable deal. Since 1990, ESPN had long been the backbone of MLB coverage but recently, the “World Wide Leader” has withdrawn to carrying 30 regular-season games, the Wild Card Series, the Home Run Derby and 10 spring training games.
Here are numbers to take your breath away: ESPN will pay an average of $1.4 billion when its new 11-year NBA contract begins next season. The Mouse (owned by Disney) forks over an average of $2.4 billion annual for its NFL rights running through 2032.
Who pays for that? Advertisers, and us. Only for the Super Bowl do networks sell spots for $8 million. Advertisers will still bear a big part of the load, but we need to brace for the approaching age of pay-per-view sports – all kinds of sports, but particularly major college and pro games.
Have you “cut the cord” yet from cable TV and gone to streaming all of what you watch? You will in a few years. Won’t have a choice if you’re going to watch the Saints, Cowboys, Texans (hardly anyone mentions the Texans, and they’re just as close to us as our longstanding favorites), the Mavs, Stars, Rockets, Pelicans, Astros, Rangers and the Tigers, Longhorns, Aggies, Razorbacks, Crimson Tide, and the other big names in college sports.
That revenue will be split between the carriers and the teams involved. LSU, Texas, Bama and the rest will have to generate the salary pool for their athletes, who will still be students but will make more money than nearly every one of their professors and some of their coaches.
Court rulings will soon decide if college athletes are truly employees and if so, will require benefits to be provided. Funding that inevitability? Your credit card, and mine, one way or another.
As that quantum shift takes place, major colleges are establishing scholarship scales that work their way down from full support of the major revenue-producing teams (football, perhaps basketball, and maybe a handful of others at the super powers) to a trickle of funding – if any at all – for too many of what are generally called “Olympic sports.”
President Trump may be able to band-aid the situation – but that’s not fair to the athletes who have only recently gotten compensated with anything legal more than cost of attendance and that foundational principal, a full scholarship.
All that can get your head spinning. But breathe easy, something will work out eventually – and if it doesn’t, there’s always VapoRub.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com