Sports & Politics Intersect: Raiders gamble with Rooney Rule ahead of Vegas

“Many have asked me whether I think OAK should be required to comply w/Rooney Rule or whether OAK should be given leeway b/c of Al’s legacy. If OAK opts to comply, it should do so honestly and in good faith. If OAK does not wish to do that, it should be forthright and choose to pay a fine. But I don’t believe that Al’s legacy should be used as justification for non compliance - Al hired Tom and Art and me - and Al would be the first to be saddened if it was.” - Amy Trask, ex-Raiders CEO on the Rooney Rule via Twitter 

On Tuesday, Jan. 9, the Oakland Raiders will hold a press conference in which they will announce Jon Gruden as the next head coach of the franchise. Gruden, who coached the team from 1998-2001, will replace Jack Del Rio, who coached the team to a disappointing 6-10 season in a year many believed that the team could compete for the Super Bowl. 

While Gruden seems like a fine hiring on paper, questions have swirled around the team about whether owner Mark Davis and general manager Reggie McKenzie adhered to the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for all head coaching and front office positions. 

The questions began before Del Rio was fired. On the Sunday morning before the Raiders' final regular season game, ESPN reported that the team was willing to offer Gruden not only the head coaching position but also a potential stake in ownership. The Raiders have been linked to Gruden for years and it appears as if the team had its mind made up before letting Del Rio go. 

John Wooten, the chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, believes that the team may have already complied with the Rooney Rule. “I know Reggie and I know Mark Davis well enough to know that they know the process,” Wooten told the Washington Post. “I would not be surprised if they already talked to two or three people who are out of the league and they didn’t have to report it to the league before they started to move forward in the process with Jon Gruden.”

Even if this is the case, many still believe that interviewing candidates who the team knows will not get the job is a mockery of the rule. The Undefeated’s Jason Reid believes the NFL should offer harsher penalties for teams who do not interview candidates of color within the spirit of the rule, or just get rid of it completely. At the beginning of the 2017 NFL season, only eight of the 32 head coaching positions were filled by minorities, which is tied for the highest total in the league’s history. 

Since the rule was implemented in 2003, only one team has been fined for not complying with the rule despite a number of instances in which teams have made hires while making a mockery of the rule. The Raiders have not been reviewed by the Fritz Pollard Alliance yet, but if the board continues with historical trends, the Raiders likely will be found to be in compliance with the rule, whether they were or not. 

- Philip Barnett 

"He actually played well. I was very surprised. He's definitely a lot better than I thought he was going to be. He's a good player." - Fred Funk, professional golfer

Donald Trump kicked off 2018 by doing something he spent a lot of time doing in 2017: he golfed.

According to reports, the President of the United States, whose criticism of his predecessor for doing the same thing has been well documented, hit the links at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida every day of his weeklong winter holiday vacation. And as has been the case in the past, Trump was joined by professional golfers – this time around by Fred and Taylor Funk. 

The White House unsurprisingly defended Trump's golfing.

"I think it's the press that has an issue with his time on his course,"  press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a press briefing. "The president's extremely proud of the accomplishments we had during 2017… we've had an extremely successful 2017, and some of that's due to the relationship building he was able to do there."

"Extremely successful" is being overly generous, though to their credit, Republicans did pass a major tax cut for the wealthy, a victory that Trump celebrated last month at his aforementioned golf resort.

"You all just got a lot richer," he reportedly told his friends, although news for Trump International golf clubs in Ireland and Scotland haven’t been as bright in recent weeks.

Of course, golf isn't the only sport Trump has made time for since the start in 2018. Earlier this week, the president retweeted a photo of a family mourning at a soldier's grave with a message attacking NFL players kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and social inequality. Not just that, Trump is also expected to attend the national college football championship game between Alabama and Georgia this coming Saturday, so be on the lookout next week for whatever inevitable controversy will come from that.

- Fidel Martinez

“I’ve seen tailgate parties skip the game they came to see just to watch more Red Zone. But the dirty little secret is these viewers aren’t counted in NFL ratings.” - Brian Mulligan on the decrease in NFL viewership

The NFL saw its television ratings drop by more than nine percent in the 2017 season, according to Nielsen. Despite the drop, the NFL is still king among spectator sports with 37 of the top 50 television broadcasts on the year, which is a 32 percent increase over the 2016 season.

While the NFL’s ratings are down, live television appears to be down across the board due to streaming services and cord cutters among the millennial demographic.

There have been a number of contributing factors that have led to the NFL’s ratings decreasing. NFL player protests, domestic abuse issues with NFL players and the concussion scare pushing parents away from youth football programs are among them. The increase in people whose NFL experience includes watching the NFL’s Red Zone Channel is also a contributing factor, as those viewers aren’t included in Nielsen's ratings. 

While television overall has seen declines nearly everywhere, news viewing has increased and is the only programming that regularly gets more viewership than live sports. 

- Philip Barnett 

“NASCAR denies the accuracy of the WCNC report. Brian France is not involved." - NASCAR press release

On Thursday, NBC Charlotte reported that Brian France, CEO of NASCAR, is among a group of investors who are trying to buy the Carolina Panthers from Jerry Richardson. 

The local news affiliate cites multiple anonymous sources for their claim, though the original report did not provide much in terms of specifics. On top of that, NASCAR issued a brief statement denying France's involvement, so at best, this development appears to be mere speculation. 

What is not speculation, however, is that Bank of America, which has a history with the team (the Panthers currently play at Bank of America Stadium), won't be overseeing the sale. The team has tapped investment bank Allen & Co. to do the negotiation. In the past, the firm handled the sales of the Buffalo Sabres and the Brooklyn Nets. 

As is usually the case with the sale of any professional sports team in America, there's already some concern among fans over what this means for them. For starters, there's always the threat that the new owner could threaten to move the team elsewhere, or at the very least threaten to do so in order to get themselves a new stadium. This hasn't been lost on the local media – on Thursday, the Charlotte Observer ran an op-ed bringing up this very possibility. 

But, again, this is all speculative, and this story will certainly unfold in the coming weeks and months as the league hopes the team will have new owners in place by the start of the 2018 season. 

- Fidel Martinez

“The Olympics should be above politics. ... It was a disaster in 1980 for many of the athletes that couldn't go [to the Summer Games in Moscow because of a U.S.-led boycott]. And I'd hate to see that just because Trump and Kim Jong-un are trying to see which button's bigger." - Sam Auxier on a potential Olympic boycott

There had been no communication between North and South Korea for nearly two years until North Korea reached out, apparently because of the Winter Olympics that will begin in Pyeongchang County, South Korea in February. South Korea had been calling North Korea twice every day since the north ended communication. 

On Tuesday, the two nations will have an open dialog about the North potentially competing in the Olympics, which could go a long way in beginning the process of mending the relationship between the two countries.

The meeting comes on the heels of President Donald Trump agreeing to delay the joint military exercises the US has with South Korea every year until after the Olympics come to an end so South Korea can “focus on ensuring the security of the games.” 

Should South Korea allow North Korea to enter the Olympics, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) believes that the US should boycott the Olympic games. 

"Allowing Kim Jong Un's North Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics would give legitimacy to the most illegitimate regime on the planet," said Graham. "I'm confident South Korea will reject this absurd overture and fully believe that if North Korea goes to the Winter Olympics, we do not."

However, US Figure Skating President Sam Auxier believes that there will be no US boycott even if North Korea is allowed to enter the games. 

“[...] I don't think our athletes would boycott. They've been working all their lives for this. Who knows what Trump will tweet out, but if he were to say to boycott it, unless there was a very clear reason why to do it, I don't think our athletes would boycott it. They want to compete," said Auxier. 

A 2018 Winter Games boycott by the U.S. would be the first since the country boycotted the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow. 

- Philip Barnett

Of Note:  

• A U.S. district court in Southern California ruled that a high school football player can not be forced to stand for the national anthem, and in fact should be allowed to kneel. Initially, the San Pasqual Valley Unified School District required that coaches and players must stand and remove their hats while prohibiting any kneeling, sitting or performing any other action of protest during the anthem.

• Balancing class time with college athletics has always been a struggle, but not just for big-time football and basketball players. The Charlotte Observer looked into the schedules for student-athletes throughout the ACC, which has called for far wider travel as the conference expanded in recent seasons.

• A 2016 Mississippi law prohibiting gay marriage in the state is at the heart of a cancelled college baseball series between Southern Miss and Stony Brook next month. As he had done with North Carolina’s controversial HB2, New York governor Andrew Cuomo banned all state-sponsored, non-essential travel to Mississippi in response to House Bill 1523. Stony Brook is part of the State University of New York, a public college.

• Margaret Court won’t attend the Australian Open in protest of her home country’s recent legalization of marriage for same-sex couples. The tennis legend sparked a massive backlash from both Australians and the tennis community for speaking out against gay marriage in recent years.

• More and more LGBTQ sports figures are making their sexual preference or gender identity public. Outsports tallied 180 different athletes, coaches and executives across the globe who came out in 2017, a record for the website since tracking such reveals.

• That said, coming out is still a massive personal struggle for many, as highlighted in a personal essay for Carve Surfing Magazine. Former longboard champion surfer Craig Butler talked about his lifelong battles with depression as well as how he was fraught with worry when he was trying to come to terms with his sexuality.

• The movement to legalize marijuana gained a lot of allies in and around the sports world in 2017, as listed by Weed News, a forum that observes policy, law and culture around the drug. Of course, it also found some hardliners digging their heels as well, such as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

• The World Series champion Houston Astros were formally invited to the White House to be honored by President Trump, and the team has accepted. The exact day has yet to be determined since the team won’t be near Washington D.C. until its 2018 season finale in Baltimore.

• The two Los Angeles-area NFL teams – the Chargers and playoff-bound Rams – are seeing the development of their shared stadium pick up the pace. Media members got their first looks at the progress of L.A. Stadium recently, which is set to host the Super Bowl in 2022 among other major events, including the 2028 Summer Olympics.

• With their lease agreement with the Barclays Center set to expire after the 2018-19 season, the NHL is slowly opening up to allowing the New York Islanders to go back to Nassau Coliseum until the just-approved Belmont Park arena project is completed. Nassau Coliseum was home to the Isles from 1972 until 2015, and was reopened last March after a 18-month renovation. (Oh, and it just happens to be owned by the same group that operates the Barclays Center.)

• A Virginia state representative introduced a new bill that would prohibit the use of taxpayer money for a new stadium for the Washington Redskins. The proposed bill from Michael J. Webert, a Republican rep in the Virginia House of Delegates, doesn’t explicitly mention any team, but another representative familiar with the bill says that it focuses on major league teams, not the multiple minor league or college operations throughout the state.

• Speaking of Washington, the daughter of the late team owner Jack Kent Cooke was arrested for assault and is also accused of anti-Semitism. On New Year’s Eve in New York, Jacqueline Kent Cooke allegedly hit an attorney in the head with a mirror-accented purse, causing a bloody gash. The socialite is also alleged to have hurled several anti-Semitic slurs at him, compelling prosecutors to probe the incident as a possible hate crime.

• In Germany, the son of tennis great Boris Becker is pressing charges against a lawmaker who insulted him with a racist slur. The charges stem from a since-deleted tweet from German nationalist lawmaker Jens Meier in response to an interview given by Noah Becker, who highlighted some racist abuse he’s endured in Berlin. Meier is part of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party that came into Parliament in the country’s recent elections.

• This year’s upcoming World Cup in Russia is controversial for a myriad of reasons, including playing some matches in Mordovia, which is home to the country’s prison camps. During the Soviet era, these prisons were part of the infamous Gulag, which housed political dissidents. For entertainment, prison guards in the Gulags also organized soccer and basketball tournaments.

• For their first appearance in the playoffs in a decade, the Jacksonville Jaguars have donated 1,000 tickets to refugees who have been displaced from around the globe and have settled into North Florida. Team owner Shad Khan specifically designated 500 tickets for Puerto Ricans who had left their native island in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. This is the first playoff game in EverBank Field since 1999.

- Jason Clinkscales

For the record books: This week in sports politics history

''I want to see the wonderful world around me. I see many people. I see many different things in life. Sportsmen are like children. They don't know anything about life. They know only to train and compete. They meet only other sportsmen.'' - Emil Zatopek

This year marks the 49th anniversary of Soviet Sport, a once influential daily sports newspaper, declaring Emil Zatopek a "public enemy" after expressing support for the democratic wing of the Communist Party at the start of the Prague Spring, which began on January 5, 1968.

Zatopek is considered to be one of the greatest Olympians in the modern era. He's best known for his performance at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, where he won gold in the 5,000 meters, the 10,000 meters and marathon events – a feat no one has accomplished since.  He was considered a Soviet hero until he decided to speak up against the Soviet invasion of Warsaw Pact satellite nation Czechoslovakia (now the sovereign nations of Czech Republic and Slovakia), his home country.

"Emil told him how upset everyone was by the invasion, and how harmful it was to the Communist movement," chess master Ludek Pachman said of Zatopek, his friend. "He also invoked the idea of the Olympic truce: the ancient tradition that nations wishing to participate in the Games had to abstain from warfare."

Zatopek was expelled from the Community Party for his opposition, and was forced into menial labor as punishment. Despite his banishment, Zatopek remained a hero at home. According to an obituary in the New York Times, his fellow citizens would help him push his broom as he cleaned the streets of Prague. He died in 2002 in Prague a national hero. 

- Fidel Martinez