Sports & Politics Intersect: Trump's NFL history gets spotlight as players, owners continue to spar

"We immediately made it far more aggressive and anti-Toronto than the president ever envisioned, mostly because we didn't have to worry about getting him crossways with the NFL." - Michael Caputo, political strategist and Trump associate 

There's this theory going around that Donald Trump's crusade against the NFL over players protesting police brutality and racial inequality during the national anthem has nothing to do with respect for the flag or the troops, but is rooted instead in his resentment over the fact that he has repeatedly failed to become an NFL owner. Shahid Khan, Jacksonville Jaguars owner, recently made this claim. And while it doesn't prove this hypothesis outright, GQ published a story this week that, if true, shows just how badly Trump wanted in on the league.

The story alleges that in the spring of 2014, Trump hired Michael Caputo to run an Astroturf campaign to prevent a group of investors led by rock legend Jon Bon Jovi from buying the Buffalo Bills. Because the group contained several investors from Toronto, the thought was that they wanted to relocate the team. Caputo enlisted Chuck Sonntag, a cancer survivor and double amputee, to run the "12th Man Thunder," the name of this effort.

"It was easier for Sonntag to lose his leg than his team," Caputo bragged to GQ of the optics he was creating.

After setting this plan in motion, Trump quickly distanced himself from it because he had also made a bid to buy the Bills, which freed Caputo and his cohorts from going hard against Bon Jovi. "12th Man Thunder" caused such a stir that Texas A&M went after them because they held the trademark on "12th Man." This was a misguided move. Word got out that the university was seemingly going after a double amputee cancer survivor who just wanted his home team to stay – Keith Olbermann even did a segment on it – that they quickly settled with the group by donating $25,000 to their effort. 

The plan worked. Though Trump didn't buy the Bills, neither did Bon Jovi. Kim and Terry Pegula, who also own the Sabres, ended up making the winning bid, paying $1.4 billion. Kim Pegula and her husband Terry have spoken against Trump's comments.

Meanwhile, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair made quite the stir heading into the weekend when reports surfaced he made unflattering remarks about NFL players during the owners meetings, part of which covered the players' protests against police brutality. McNair reportedly said, “We can’t have the inmates running the prison,” in reference to players protesting the national anthem.

Houston’s owner has since apologized for the remarks, but the damage has already been done. Richard Sherman and Bobby Wagner of the Seattle Seahawks responded on Twitter, but that’s nothing compared to what’s transpired on McNair’s own team.

Star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins was a no-show at Texans practice Friday, and while coach Bill O’Brien said Hopkins took a “personal day,” it’s now come out that Hopkins skipped practice due to McNair’s comments. It doesn’t end there. Pro Bowl offensive tackle Duane Brown, who already had his own issues with the team following a long holdout that just recently ended, told reporters the entire team almost walked out on practice in protest to the owner’s remarks.

While the Texans ultimately were persuaded to stay, things do not sound very harmonious between labor and management in Houston.

"I think it's up to the sports leagues to anticipate where this is going and maybe lead the way." - David Stern on the use of medicinal marijuana 

Former NBA commissioner David Stern joined former NBA player Al Harrington in a documentary published by UNINTERRUPTED about the use of medicinal marijuana and was completely in favor of the NBA removing it from its list of banned substances. 

“I think we have to change the Collective Bargaining Agreement and let you do what is legal in your state,” Stern began. “If marijuana is now in the process of being legalized, I think you should be allowed to do what’s legal in your state.”

The documentary goes deep into the life of Harrington and his company called Viola, which is named after his grandmother, who benefited from the use of medicinal marijuana. Harrington has $3.5 million invested in the company, which operates out of Colorado, Oregon, Michigan and, in the future, California. 

The use of medicinal marijuana has been a hot topic in recent years in all professional sports, and states starting to legalize it for recreational use reopening the debate. 

Current commissioner Adam Silver said that he’s interested in seeing more research on the safety on the use of medicinal marijuana, and the NBA released a statement about his comments. 

“While commissioner Silver has said that we are interested in better understanding the safety and efficacy of medical marijuana, our position remains unchanged regarding the use by current NBA players of marijuana for recreational purposes.”

Warriors coach Steve Kerr also weighed in on the topic, saying he thinks “it’ll happen eventually.” He then expanded on his answer from the perspective of someone who has tried it during his rehabilitation. 

"The world is starting to understand that opioids are way worse for you than anything. Right now, in professional sports, we're just quick to write a prescription for OxyContin or Percocet or something when your shoulder hurts or your knee hurts."

If the NBA is going to remove medicinal marijuana from its banned substance list, it’ll have to do it when the CBA is renegotiated as more states legal cannabis. 

"They say because we have the Giants and the Jets and the Devils that somehow we shouldn't be allowed to have gambling here because somehow it will threaten the integrity of the game. Well, you kidding? How isn't it threatening the integrity of the game in Las Vegas for the NHL and the NFL?" - Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey 

This week, the solicitor general's office filed a brief on behalf of the Trump administration to the Supreme Court against New Jersey's push to have legalized sports betting.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Christie vs. National Collegiate Athletic Association, a case filed by governor Chris Christie and the state of New Jersey that argues that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which bans legal gambling in all but four states, is unconstitutional because it forces states to keep any anti-gambling laws on the books.

"By ordering New Jersey to maintain prohibitions on sports gambling that its state legislature has considered and repealed before, Congress is coercing the State of New Jersey to govern according to Congress's instructions," Frank Pallone, a pro-gambling politician, explained in an amicus brief in support of Christie.

The NFL has long been opposed to legalized gambling, this despite the fact that the Raiders will soon be relocating to Nevada. Christie of course has called out the league out for hypocrisy, most notably on a recent episode of “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.” Not all professional sports league commissioners are completely opposed to legal betting. Don Garber, who heads Major League Soccer, recently said that it was going to happen anyway, so his league may as well get ahead of the issue. 

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in early December.

“To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of this stadium site’s death is greatly exaggerated." - Rick Kriseman, mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., on Tropicana Field 

On Tuesday, Hillsborough County officials announced that they had designated an area in the Ybor City neighborhood located in downtown Tampa as the site for a potential new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays 

“I’m thrilled about the possibilities that exist about this location,” Hillsborough County commissioner Ken Hagan told Sports Illustrated. “The site has unlimited potential not only for a state of the art ballpark, but it will also catalyze significant economic development.”

The announcement is an indication that the Rays might actually end up leaving St. Petersburg, which is about 25 miles away from Tampa. The Rays have called the city's Tropicana Field home since their inaugural 1998 season.

It's not a done deal, however. There's still the issue of who's going to be paying for the new stadium. Local politicians have already said that they will not use taxpayer money to fund the stadium, which means that any public money for it will likely come from tourists. And even that might be a dicey proposition given that Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran just filed a lawsuit against hotel taxes. Until the financing is resolved, St. Petersburg mayor Rick Kriseman isn't going to sweat it. 

“I don’t expect that the Rays are going to make any decision because they want to give Hillsborough the opportunity to present their full package,” said Kriseman.

“Amanda and I were saying, ‘We’ve lived together for a while, we have our pots and pans, we have our home.’ We just felt like it didn’t make any sense to get all these gifts that we really don’t need.” - Elena Delle Donne on creating a charity out of her wedding registry

Washington Mystics star Elena Delle Donne is getting married to Amanda Clifton on Nov. 3, and the wedding is going to be more than just a celebration of their love. 

Delle Donne and Clifton, who found each other through a mutual love of basketball, will use their wedding as an opportunity to give back. "The wedding isn't just about us and our day," said Delle Donne. "It can also impact others and make them happy."

They will repurpose all of their wedding flowers as donations to hospitals in need and use their registry as form of charity, which will benefit the special needs community and those suffering from Lyme disease. 

Delle Donne’s sister was blind and deaf at birth and has Lyme disease herself, so both causes are special to her. 

Delle Donne and Clifton also want their wedding to help normalize same-sex marriages. "I don't want people to have to have these huge coming outs anymore,” said Delle Donne on same sex weddings. “It should just be the norm.”

There aren’t many details about the wedding, but it will happen on Long Island and will be featured on The Knot.

Of Note: 

• Soccer star Megan Rapinoe believes that in its nominations for Female Player of the Year, FIFA doesn’t care about women’s soccer. The governing body recently nominated American midfielder Carli Lloyd, Dutch forward Lieke Martens and a little-known 18-year-old Venezuelan named Deyna Castellanos, who does not play for a professional team. Yet, if FIFA doesn’t care about the ladies’ game, certainly fans flocking to watch the Liga MX Femenil in Mexico do.

• Just because you’re rivals does not mean you don’t stand up for each other, as coaches across the women’s basketball are proving this week as the lack of an invitation to the White House is being seen as a slap in the face to not only the South Carolina women’s basketball team, but the sport itself. Head coaches Stephanie White (Vanderbilt) and Gary Blair (Texas A&M) spoke up for the Gamecocks, who are the first team (so far) to not have its customary visit since women’s basketball champions had began to be honored at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1983.

• Former Seattle Storm head coach Jenny Boucek became the third woman to be hired as a full-time assistant coach in NBA history. Boucek, who was dismissed as the Storm head coach in August, joined the Sacramento Kings’ coaching staff, making her the second active female coach in the men’s league along with San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon. Boucek once coached the Sacramento Monarchs for the majority of the franchise’s final three seasons in the WNBA before folding in 2009.

• At the University of Virginia, Carla Williams became the first African-American woman to be hired as an athletic director of a Power Five conference school. Williams succeeds Craig Littlepage, under whom the Cavaliers won 13 of their total 23 national championships in 16 years. She previously worked in athletic departments in Vanderbilt, Florida State, and Georgia, where she was a scholarship basketball player in the late 1980s.

• Not happy with the NFL’s efforts to address social justice reform, Los Angeles Chargers offensive tackle Russell Okung said he and other players who attended recent meetings with team owners may skip the next upcoming meeting. In addition to the belief that Colin Kaepernick continues to be disparaged, Okung said that the league has failed so far in offering “concrete plans to help” players convey their message of social justice reform and not frame the protests as against the anthem.

• At Yahoo! Finance’s All Markets Summit, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman touched upon separate, but somewhat connected controversies. He reiterated his stance on protests during the national anthem, stating that “there are other times to do that.” And with the ongoing drama surrounding negotiations for a new arena for the Calgary Flames, the commissioner defended the use of public dollars to build sports facilities, a subject the White House attempted to use against the NFL when it came to its handling of the protests.

• Unlike many team owners in pro sports, Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores is one of the few who has publicly expressed support of those very protests. Gores, a naturalized U.S. citizen whose family emigrated from Israel to Michigan, said that “I would never hold a player back from speaking his mind – ever. This country is based on freedom of speech. It just is.”

• On the other hand, it appears that those who have protested have been thwarted by local authorities in Georgia. At Kennesaw State University, five cheerleaders took a knee the ire of Georgia state representative Earl Ehrhart and Cobb County sheriff Neil Warren. during the national anthem prior to the start of a late September football game, drawing In subsequent games, the school had kept the cheerleading squad off the field for the anthem. Civil rights groups have demanded an investigation into the matter.

• And after moving back to downtown Detroit to play at Little Caesars Arena, the Pistons broke ground on a new $104 million practice facility and headquarters, with Michigan lawmakers approving $16 million in tax incentives. The public financing is earmarked for work to remove contaminated soil from the lot.

• It must be maddening to be a Columbus Crew fan right now. The founding MLS franchise is making a playoff push and wants its fans to provide its full support, all despite the threat of possibly relocating to Austin, TX in 2019 if a new downtown stadium isn’t built.

For the record books: This week in sports politics history

“Never before in the history of America’s biggest baseball spectacle has a pennant-winning club received such a disastrous drubbing in an opening game…”  - New York Times on Game 1 of the 1919 World Series

Ninety-eight years ago, the sports world was shaken by a scandal that would end with eight players receiving lifetime bans from MLB. While no one truly knows exactly how it happened and who was truly involved, the White Sox threw the 1919 World Series, which led to grand jury indictments for players and huge cash payouts for crooks and mob leaders. 

Weeks before the World Series began, first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil met with Joseph Sullivan about the potential of the White Sox throwing the World Series in exchange for a $100,000 payout. Gandil, who had initial reservations, ended up recruiting seven of his teammates, including Eddie Cicotte, Claude Williams and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. 

The White Sox, who went into the series as 3-to-1 favorites over the Cincinnati Reds, lost the first game 9-1 and lost Game 2 by a score of 4-2. After problems receiving payouts from the gangsters, the White Sox decided that they would try to win the World Series, which was nine games at the time. They ultimately lost in eight, and questions about the series were everywhere. 

After evidence surfaced that a regular season Cubs-Phillies game was rigged in late August the next season, a grand jury decided to investigate MLB, and eventually the 1919 World Series. There were confessions under oath, but all eight players were found not guilty because those confessions, along with other evidence, was lost.