Sports Illustrated

Fixing the NFL (Part 2)

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It’s Super Bowl Sunday (or, if my writing/editing/posting history is any indication, sometime around Draft Day), which means football is on the brain.  As opposed to the other 365 days – it’s a leap year, remember – where football is on the brain.  Still, it strikes me as being as good a time as anyway to take another look at how we can fix the NFL.

My devoted readers – I’m talking to you, Dad – may remember that I already did a “Fix the NFL” post a few years back, and if you don’t, you can read it here.  Despite the fact that the NFL has stupidly listened to exactly none of my ideas (ok, they fixed the extra point, but they did it in a less than satisfactory way), we’re not going to rehash many of those issues here.  Instead we’re going to look closer at the business and societal issues with the game more than what happens on the field.

Without further ado:

Fire Roger Goodell.

Fire Roger Goodell out of a cannon.

Fire Roger Goodell out of a cannon into a brick wall.

Fire Roger Goodell out of a cannon into a brick wall on the surface of the sun.

Have I mentioned firing Roger Goodell?

Look, I think Goodell has his fans.  He has at least 32 of them, because if he didn’t the owners would’ve fired him already.  Unfortunately, a drunk monkey could’ve run the NFL during Goodell’s era and there would’ve been no difference.

People will tell you that Goodell’s grown the NFL’s business by leaps and bounds during his time as commissioner.  But that growth is due to, in my eyes, four things: gambling, fantasy football, the public financing of stadiums, and the DVR.  I’ll elaborate.

Fantasy football and gambling are no-brainers.  The NFL wouldn’t exist without it.  Or if it did it would be the NBA and Major League Baseball would still be America’s pastime.  Doubt me all you want, but I’m right.  The NFL could probably exist without fantasy football, and it did so with explosive growth up through the 1980’s, despite two seasons with work stoppages.  The reason is that football is so easy to gamble on that millions of people watch the games with absolutely no interest in who actually wins the games.  And football has been gambled on since the sport began, well before Roger Goodell was able to get his grimy claws on the game.

As for public financing, if you include the forthcoming Minnesota, Atlanta, and L.A. stadiums, 9 teams will have moved into new stadiums during Goodell’s reign.  Add the renovations in Buffalo and Kansas City and the fact that the Raiders and Chargers will eventually move, and you’re up to 13 teams that will have moved into new or renovated stadiums during Goodell’s reign.  All of these stadiums have been at least partially financed with public funds, with the billionaire owners claiming that the government – and the public that pays for government – needs to pony up because a new stadium offers so much benefit to the municipalities.  (I won’t go much into the scam, but if you want more information, go look at Field of Schemes.)

The thing is, since Jacksonville and Carolina entered the League in 1995, only the Bears, Packers, Chiefs, Chargers, Raiders, Rams, Bills, Dolphins, Falcons, and Saints remain in the same facilities; we’ve discussed the Chiefs, Chargers, Raiders, Rams, Bills, and Falcons, and only the Packers haven’t taken public funds for renovations (although the Packers breed a special breed of stupidity, as they financed their stadium by suckering their idiot fans into buying stock certificates that have no actual benefit of team ownership).

My point is that teams were suckering their fan bases into paying for their stadiums well before Goodell came into power.  Hell, they’ve been doing it in every other sport, with practically every team threatening to move if they didn’t get a new stadium financed with public funds.  This isn’t new, and it surely isn’t Goodell’s doing.

Finally, we come to the DVR.  Back in 2000 TiVo introduced the first DVR, and as their use has become more and more common in American households, the networks are looking for DVR-proof programming.  And nothing is more DVR-proof than sports.  Sure, there are a decent number of people who start the game an hour late, skip the commercials, and finish when everyone else does.  But for the most part people who are watching sports are doing it live, meaning they are consuming the commercials that are so important to the networks.  As a result, TV rights fees for sports have shot through the roof.  From 2006-13, TV rights fees were $3 billion/year.  From 2014-21, they were over $5 billion.  That’s not Roger Goodell’s doing, it’s because the networks are desperate.

And for all this business that Goodell had nothing to do with, what has he given us?  Embarrassment.  League disciplinary processes that leave us sympathetic to pieces of shit like Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Greg Hardy.  Suspensions so heavy-handed in the Bountygate investigation that his predecessor was brought in to overturn his findings.  Discipline that was probably light in the infamous SpyGate scandal, although we’ll never know because immediately after the penalties were handed down he destroyed all the evidence to protect his buddy Robert Kraft.  And a ridiculous make-up suspension – a suspension he’s still suing to uphold despite the fact that numerous arbitrators and courts have ruled that the suspension was ridiculous – of Tom Brady over some deflated footballs (to make up for the aforementioned light SpyGate penalties) that were so important to the outcome of the game that the Patriots outscored the Colts 28-0 after the offending footballs were removed from play.

And that doesn’t even mention the concussion catastrophe, which I’ll get to later.

Fire Roger Goodell.  Hire a drunk monkey.  It’s not that hard to be a commissioner in American sports.  Hell, Gary Bettman’s been doing it for over 20 years.

Fix the Concussion Crisis

Look, I get it.  Football is a dangerous game.  We watch as much for the bone-jarring collisions as we do for the amazing catches from Antonio Brown and the amazing runs from Todd Gurley.  But it’s recently become amazingly clear that playing football at all levels kills people.  It’s simply by the grace of God that no one has died on an NFL field as a result of a violent collision.  It is coming and it will likely destroy the League.  But the NFL can get in front of it and prevent that with a couple of easy fixes.

First, have independent concussion doctors on site at every game.  Let’s make it 3 doctors at each game who will have the power to stop the game if they see a guy struggling and will review him away from team personnel to determine if he is capable of returning to the game.  Players go into concussion protocol now, but players still believe that the doctors are more concerned with the team that employs them than they are with the players’ well being.  So we’re removing the concept of team concussion doctors and replacing them with League concussion doctors.  And just so we make sure that the League can’t step in and say that Cam Newton is cleared for the Super Bowl (when we know it would be an utter disaster for the League if Derek Anderson had to start), the doctors will be hired independent of the League.  Let it be the state’s medical boards that handle it.  If the NFL doesn’t like it, threaten to pull their favorable antitrust status.

Second, lifetime medical insurance for anyone who’s ever played for, been drafted by, or signed with an NFL team.  This will prevent the League from even trying to make the argument that the problem wasn’t caused by their football history.  Make it retroactive for any living player and have an independent board review the status of any of the decedents of deceased players.  It’ll save the League on lawyers fees and it’ll gain them immeasurable public relations points.  It’ll be expensive, but the NFL’s a cash cow.  And when a player inevitably dies on the field, the NFL will be able to say, “Hey, we know it’s dangerous, but we’re taking care of it.”

How are we going to pay for it?

Expand the Season

But wait, DSC, how can you complain about the inherent dangers of the NFL and then tell us we need to expand the season?  Simple.  We’re not adding games, we’re adding weeks.

I didn’t see Concussion, mainly because the Sony email hack scandal showed that the studio pulled some punches out of fear for being sued by the League, but also because I both watched the League of Denial documentary and read the book, so I didn’t feel like paying to watch a movie that thinks Luke Wilson is a convincing Roger Goodell.  But the trailer had one interesting line, and that’s that the League owns a day of the week.  And it’s true: from September until early February, every Sunday is NFL Sunday.  So what better way to add income then by giving them more of those Sundays?

As it stands now, we get 4 crappy preseason games and 16 regular season games over 21 weeks, with each team getting one regular season bye week.  The owners have started to realize that fans don’t want to pay full price for a preseason ticket, so they drop the price of the preseason games and spread the difference over the regular season games.  And we pay it, because we’re stupid sheep.

Now imagine 2 preseason games and 16 regular season games over the same 21 weeks, but with 19 weeks in the regular season.  What’s the difference?  I’m glad you asked.  And if you didn’t ask, you should have.

As it stands now, if you’re one of the 99% of America that has cable (that’s an estimate, but it’s not far off), you get to see 5 games a week – Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, and 2 on Sunday afternoon (and if you choose to skip around you can see 3 of the games on Sunday afternoon).  That’s 85 games a season, or 33% of the 256 games on the schedule, and that doesn’t include the nationally televised Thanksgiving games or the occasional late-season Saturday games.

Now, expand that 2 weeks without adding any games, and you’ll see 105 games, and you’re up to 41% of the season, all without dropping another penny.  And you do it in a way that helps player safety, and everyone loves that.

You may recall that in my prior diatribe about fixing the League I suggested that the final week of the regular season should be the final Sunday of December, with the playoffs starting the first week of January.  With this in mind, Week 1 would take place the week of August 23 and Week 19 would take place the week of December 27.  Is August 23 early?   Yes.  However, this would mean that the preseason games would start on August 9 (no sooner than normal), with the “real” games starting sooner.  And who would hate that?

(Well, Major League Baseball, but we’re not talking about them right now.)

So how will it work?  Each team plays a 16-game season with 3 bye weeks.  The players get added time to rest and recover and we likely see more players playing more games.  There will be no bye weeks from Weeks 1-4 and 17-19.  Two divisions each (one from each conference) have a bye week every fourth week from weeks 5-16, with the same divisions on the same bye weeks to eliminate any competitive advantage with teams getting longer gaps between bye weeks.

What’s the benefit?  You just gave the networks two additional weeks of DVR-free unstoppable NFL programming, which always finishes at the top of the ratings.  That’s roughly 12% more games for the people to see, and, more importantly, 12% more TV revenue.  At $5 billion a year as it currently stands, you’ve just added $600 million additional revenue without requiring the players to play another game.

If this isn’t the most brilliant and simplest fix to the game, I don’t know what is.

Lifetime Bans for Violent Criminals

Greg Hardy is a pile of shit who threw his girlfriend onto a futon full of assault weapons while she begged him to kill her, paid her off so that she wouldn’t press charges, and then promised to come out guns blazing when his suspension was up (and let’s not even discuss his comments about his opponents wives and girlfriends).

Adrian Peterson whipped the shit out of his 4-year-old son, scraping his legs and testicles, and while he was off on a league-mandated sabbatical (he was only retroactively suspended), he got caught smoking weed and threw himself an elaborate Egyptian-themed birthday party where he refused to allow anyone to discuss the charges against him.  He has shown zero remorse and seeks no redemption, despite the fact that publications such as Sports Illustrated really want to give it to him.

The NFL Players Association, because these pieces of shit are dues-paying members, are required to stick up for them, so when Goodell tries to do something good like banish these monsters in a manner that fits their crimes, he does it based on guidelines that aren’t in place and require the NFLPA to stick up for them.

So I say ban them for life.

Electrocuted a dog?  Gone.  Killed a guy while you were driving drunk?  See ya.  Knock your wife out and then dragged her out of an elevator?  Banned.  Threw your girlfriend onto a pile of assault weapons?  Outta here.  Beat the shit out of your kid?  Get out.

Playing football is a privilege.  In exchange for your considerable talents you are paid a ridiculous sum of money and expected to not be a total garbage human being.  If you fail to do so, that privilege is taken away.  And for anyone who says we’re taking away his right to earn a living, save it.  We’re not doing that.  He can go work as a janitor, or a clerk at a 7-11, or, perhaps, he could use his college education, say he made a mistake in job interviews and it’s cost him dearly, and hope he can make something of his life.

But if you’re guilty of committing a violent crime, you’re done.

And just so we don’t let the teams off the hook, they’ll be required to pay the remaining guaranteed amount of his contract to a charity of the victim’s choosing.  We won’t be total dicks though…we won’t make them take a salary cap hit.

“Fix” the Playoffs

Let’s face it, the NFL playoffs are about as good as it gets, second only to the NCAA tournament in terms of excitement and watchability.  But it can get moderately better with a few tweaks.

First, add a wild card team.  The NFL ditched one of their wild card teams when they expanded to four divisions in 2002; this corrects that issue.  It also makes securing the top seed a more important endeavor as it gives that team the only first-round bye.  And perhaps most importantly for the League, it gives them two additional playoff games, which means additional revenue.  An opening-weekend tripleheader on both Saturday and Sunday would be to everyone’s liking, I’m certain.

Second, seed the teams by record.  I’m fine with division champions being guaranteed a playoff berth (for the most part…I’ll get to that in a second), but that’s it.  In the 2015 playoffs, all four home teams lost in the Wild Card round.  If we seeded based on record, two of those teams would’ve played on the road.  The NBA is going this route, and while I hate to tell anyone to follow the NBA’s lead, in this case they’ve got it right.

Third, and definitely more controversially, a division title doesn’t guarantee you a playoff berth.  If you’re under .500 and there’s a team that has a better record than you and would otherwise be left out of the playoffs, you’re out and they’re in.  If you’re at or above .500 and a team has 2 more wins than you and would otherwise be left out, they’re in and you’re out.  Don’t like it?  Tough.  I hate rewarding teams for geography.

(If you read my first “Fix the NFL” post, you’ll notice I proposed a massive overhaul of the playoffs and the divisions.  I like that better, but this is more realistic.)

Kill the Coin Toss

There’s no such thing as home field advantage in football (same thing in basketball, but again, not my concern here).  In baseball you get the last at-bat at home, in hockey you get the second line change.  So the home team gets to determine whether to kick off or receive.  Same thing for overtime.  This eliminates any potential embarrassments such as the one we saw in the Green Bay-Arizona playoff game this year.

(And for you degenerate gamblers out there, because the Super Bowl is a neutral site, we can keep the coin toss for that game and that game only.)

Fix Overtime

I don’t have a simple fix for this one.  All I know is that the NFL’s overtime is stupid.  They changed it a few years back because the ball was taken out of Brett Favre’s hands after the Vikings lost the coin toss in the NFC Championship game (never mind the fact that Favre threw an asininely stupid interception that prevented the Vikings from kicking the game-winning field goal in regulation).  So now both teams are guaranteed a possession in overtime unless the team who wins the coin toss scores a touchdown on the first possession.  That’s just needlessly complicated.

The simplest answer is to just eliminate the sudden death nature of football’s overtime and play the full 15 minutes.  And because I’m lazy, let’s just do that.

Fix Replay

We’re instituting a couple of simple changes.  First, you have as many challenges as you have timeouts.  If that means you get 14 challenges and because the refs keep screwing up and you keep correctly pointing out that the refs keep screwing up, so be it.  Get the call right.

Second, everything is reviewable.  Some penalties are just obvious and aren’t really the judgment call that the referee’s union would like you to believe.  Illegally batting a ball out of bounds?  Reviewable.  Picking up the flag on an obvious pass interference?  Reviewable.  Thumb barely grazed the quarterback’s helmet, leading to a nonsensical facemask call?  Reviewable.

(Is it obvious I’m a Lions fan?)

Are you going to review a missed hold on 2nd-and-8 in the 2nd quarter?  No.  But you are going to review a play that would’ve given you the ball back late in the game or ended the game on the final play.

Third, institute a “Common Sense Committee”, or CSC.  The NFL refuses to fix the catch rule, which makes sense because it’s not like whether a catch is a catch should be the simplest question to answer in the NFL.  So because we’re not going to fix the rule, we’re going to institute a committee that asks for a common sense ruling when such a ruling is required.  So who’s on the CSC?  Simple.  Four drunk fans from every team (and yes, it’s football, they must be drunk).  When there’s a call that goes to replay (whether that’s by a coach’s challenge or on a turnover or touchdown), the CSC – excluding the representatives of the two teams involved – is called to review the play.  If the CSC disagrees with the outcome of the replay, the CSC’s decision wins out.  Utilizing the CSC, there’d be no such thing as the “Calvin Johnson Rule”.

Fix Officiating

The League will tell you that officiating is fine, that the percentage of incorrect calls was no different this year than it was in previous years.  This may be correct, but this year the mistakes were in particularly high-profile situations.  The NFL is a $12 billion enterprise that uses part-time officials.  I’m not the only one who finds this ridiculous.  The officials are crucial, and one needs only look back to the Fail Mary – a call so bad that it quite literally ended a strike by the officials’ union – to see how important they are.  So make them full-time paid employees and I guarantee it gets better.

(Although we may lose the greatness that is Ed Hochuli, because he’s a well-paid attorney in his “spare” time.)

We’re also allowing the League to correct the outcomes of games.  In two circumstances this season – a missed false start that would’ve led to a 10-second runoff and the end of the game prior to a game-winning field goal; and an incorrect face mask on the final play of the game that led to an untimed completed Hail Mary – bad calls resulted in outcomes different than what should have actually happened.  In these cases, the NFL is to be allowed to step in and change the outcome of the game.  It’s an extreme example and would not happen often, but it is a possibility.

Draft Pick Compensation for Incorrect Calls

This idea is so absurd that I’m completely separating it from the notion of fixing the officiating.  Will it ever happen?  No.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to talk about it.

Take the Week 4 game between the Seahawks and Lions.  With 1:45 left in the game, Calvin Johnson caught a pass, gained the first down at the Seattle 1, then fumbled the ball into the end zone, where Kam Chancellor illegally batted it out of bounds.  The referees incorrectly ruled it a touchback – the illegal bat should’ve given the ball back to the Lions at the spot of the fumble – and the Seahawks were able to run out the clock and win the game.  Because we don’t KNOW that this game would’ve turned out differently – and thus the NFL wouldn’t change the outcome of the game retroactively – we send the game to a committee for draft pick compensation.  After the season, teams would send egregious calls such as this to the committee for review to determine how much the bad call impacted the outcome of the game and how much that game impacted the remainder of the season.  If the committee determines that the game would have ended differently, they determine the round of draft pick compensation.  The actual winning team loses their draft pick in exchange for the next “natural” (i.e., not impacted by trades) draft pick of the actual losing team.

(In this situation, the Lions would’ve had the Packers Hail Mary game overturned on account of the incorrect face mask call, making the Lions 8-8 and the Packers 9-7.  The draft pick compensation committee would’ve then determined that with the ball on the Seahawks 1 with first down and under 2 minutes to play, the Lions likely would’ve won that game, which would’ve made them 9-7 and in a tie with – and more importantly holding the tiebreakers over – the Seahawks and Packers, which would’ve given them a playoff berth.  Loss of a playoff berth or a playoff game is an automatic first round draft pick, with the Seahawks receiving the Lions’ next draft pick, in this case their second rounder.)

(On a completely unrelated note, I’m now horribly depressed.)

Give the Lions and Browns 2 Additional Wins to Start the Season

Look, they need it.  Either they’ll screw it up themselves or the refs will do it for them.

These 2 wins will not be used for playoff seeding.

Depressing stat: Since the Browns returned to the NFL in the 1999 seasons, the Browns and Lions have made the playoffs a combined total of 4 times (out of 34 total team seasons).  If you spotted them each 2 wins to start the season, that number goes up to a total of 7 trips to the playoffs.

But seriously, fire Roger Goodell.

On Karma and Mike Ilitch

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(Before I begin, it’s important to point out that I worked for the Ilitch family for five years.  None of what I write below has anything to do with my employment with the organization.  I left of my own free will.  This observation is based solely on my sports fandom and interest in the city as a whole.)

Sports Illustrated recently ran a story about spring training in 1995.  Included in that story was a tale about Sparky Anderson taking a stand and essentially ending his managerial career.  In his autobiography he called it his proudest moment.  In taking that stand he began to expose a little-known fact about one of the most beloved individuals in Detroit sports.

Mike Ilitch is kind of a dick.

Let’s start with a little history lesson.

In 1994, MLB owners decided that the finances of the game didn’t work for them.  Less than four years after being assessed damages of $280 million for colluding against free agents, the owners unilaterally decided that they would implement a salary cap.  The players balked – naturally, because salary caps are stupid – so the owners responded by refusing to pay a required $7.8 million to the players’ pension and benefit plan.  The players responded by going on strike, eventually leading to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.

Early in 1995 the owners abandoned their salary cap plans; announced they would use replacement players (more on that shortly); abolished salary arbitration; centralized player negotiations with the commissioner’s office – which is bothersome on a number of levels that we won’t get into here; and ended an agreement not to collude on salaries.  The players filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.  Future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotmayor issued an injunction against the owners, the old agreement was put back in place, and the players returned to work.  An agreement was eventually reached in November 1996 and baseball hasn’t seen a work stoppage since.

Now back to those replacement players…

The owners announced in January that they would use replacement players for the 1995 season.  Apparently they were dumb enough to think fans were just as willing to pay to watch Kevin Millar, Pete Rose Jr. and a 48-year-old Pedro Borbon play as they were to watch Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. and Greg Maddux.  There were a few interesting side notes to the replacement player ordeal.  The Baltimore Orioles decided they wouldn’t use replacement players.  Depending on whom you ask, this was because Peter Angelos made the bulk of his money representing Baltimore labor unions and their members.  Realistically, however, it was probably because the use of replacement players would end Cal Ripken Jr.’s run at Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak and cost the team a significant chunk of money in ticket sales and merchandising.

The Toronto Blue Jays announced they would play their home games at their spring training facility in Dunedin, Florida, because Canadian law prohibited companies from using replacement workers during a strike or lockout.  That they were willing to play their games at a minor league stadium probably says something about their expected attendance numbers with the replacement players.

And Sparky Anderson decided he wouldn’t manage the scabs.

Tigers’ owner Mike Ilitch was livid, placing Sparky on unpaid leave.  To be fair, this was a somewhat charitable move by the team considering Ilitch wanted to fire Sparky on the spot.  After the season Sparky left the team, never to manage in the Majors again, despite the fact that he was still interested in managing and was only 61 years old.

In 2000 Sparky was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  When deciding what hat to wear on his plaque, he chose the Cincinnati Reds, a team he had managed half as long as he had managed the Tigers and also a team that had fired him (say whatever you want about the Tigers, they never officially fired him).  People in Detroit were not happy.  The Tigers held a “Sparky Anderson Day” in 2000, though they didn’t retire his number (no one ever wore #11 after Sparky).

In 2009, the Tigers held a 25th anniversary of their last World Series championship.  Sparky appeared frail; it would be his last appearance in Detroit.  If the Tigers were going to retire his number, it would’ve been the perfect time.  They didn’t.

Sparky died in November 2010.  The Tigers retired his number in 2011.  I find it to be no small coincidence that Sparky’s number wasn’t retired until after he passed away.

And for that I blame Mike Ilitch.

I don’t think Sparky should’ve had his number retired.  But if they were going to retire his number, there was absolutely no reason not to do it when he was still alive.

I’ll explain.

Years back, very early in my love affair with baseball, I heard a tale that the Tigers did not retire numbers for the majority of their history because Ty Cobb was their best player, and he didn’t wear a number that could be retired.  That lasted until 1980, when Al Kaline’s #6 was retired shortly after his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.  In 1983, Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg had their numbers retired, with Hal Newhouser following in 1997.  Up until that time, the only Tigers who had had their numbers retired were not only Hall of Famers, but they went into the Hall of Fame as Tigers.

Willie Horton’s number was retired in 2000.  Bluntly, it was an affirmative action retirement.  It was believed that a city with a population that was over 80% black and a history of race issues should have a black player with his number retired.  Horton was a bad choice – among black players in Tigers’ history Lou Whitaker would’ve been the better choice – but he was a good enough player, he was a key member of the 1968 world champions, he was from Detroit and he supposedly walked through the Detroit riots in 1967 in his uniform trying to quell the violence.

(Incidentally, Ilitch once “unretired” the number of Larry Aurie with the Red Wings.  Save for a short time when Aurie’s cousin wore his #6 with the Wings in the 1950’s, no one has worn the number again, but Aurie is not honored with a banner in the rafters as the other Red Wings’ retired numbers are.)

Still, I’ve always lived with the notion that in order to have your number retired by the Tigers you had to go into the Hall of Fame as a Tiger.  This is likely another myth I was told by some random stranger when I was a child at Tigers games, because I can’t dig anything up to support that either.  But if you ignore Willie Horton’s number (and you should), the myth stood.  And because of that myth, and because Sparky Anderson went into the Hall of Fame as a Red, his number shouldn’t have been retired.

But retire it they did.  And they did it horribly.  And they did it because Mike Ilitch is a dick.

Sparky Anderson refused to manage replacement players when the owners were so devious in their negotiations that an unfair labor practice complaint was upheld, and Ilitch hated him for it.  I imagine deep within the recesses of the Ilitch organization, there was a decree that Anderson’s number would be retired only after he was dead.

Larry Aurie?  The Ilitches have never addressed it.  His family has repeatedly requested an answer, and the Ilitches have given them nothing.  The best explanation came from Wings’ vice president Jimmy Devellano, who said in a 1997 article that Aurie’s number wasn’t in the rafters because he wasn’t in the Hockey Hall of Fame.  If it’s really that simple, there’s no reason it should’ve taken 15 years – from the time Ilitch bought the team until Devellano gave his answer – for the family to get an explanation.  And there’s no reason it couldn’t come from someone in the family.

The Ilitch family is looked at as one of Detroit’s saviors.  To an extent they are.  They moved their corporate headquarters from the Detroit suburbs to a restored Fox Theatre in 1989.  They built a new ballpark for the Tigers downtown and encouraged the Lions to do the same.  They’re currently building a new arena for the Wings and headquarters for Little Caesars in their Foxtown district.  They have contributed a great deal of money to the Detroit economy.

They’ve also taken a great deal from it.

That ballpark was partially financed – to the tune of $115 million – by public funds, including Indian casino revenue.  Interestingly, Marian Ilitch – Mike’s wife – owns Motor City Casino in Detroit, a casino that is very much not Indian.  The new arena and downtown headquarters?  $285 million of the $650 million cost of that project will come from public financing.  That financing was requested from and approved by a lame duck state legislature at the same time Detroit was in the middle of the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

They received 39 vacant parcels of land from the city for $1.  They paid $50 million buying out private owners in the area.

They refused to sign a community benefits agreement that would ensure a certain percentage of permanent, non-construction jobs at the arena went to Detroiters.

The Ilitches are reportedly worth $4.8 billion.

I understand this is business as usual in the sports world.  It doesn’t make it right.

The Ilitches have been working on a new arena for the Red Wings for some time now.  One of the worst kept secrets in the city was exactly where that arena would be built.  Hell, in 2000 the Ilitches opened Hockeytown Café in the Foxtown district, across the street from Comerica Park.  Hockeytown is a mile away from Joe Louis Arena.  It will be 2 blocks from the new arena.

Behind Fox Theatre and a block away from Hockeytown Café lie blocks of unpaved parking lots and abandoned unsightly buildings.

Sorry, that needs to be restated.

Behind Fox Theatre and a block away from Hockeytown Café lie blocks of Ilitch-owned unpaved parking lots and abandoned unsightly buildings.  When the new arena was announced, it was asked of the family why nothing had been done to develop those areas.  Chris Ilitch, Mike’s son and the current president and CEO of the family organization, gave a very simple answer: they couldn’t develop the area because doing so would have driven up the value of the surrounding areas that they were trying to acquire for the arena.

If it doesn’t benefit them, they’re not doing it.

There’s a building – or what’s left of a building – 2 blocks west of Comerica Park on Adams Street in Detroit.  All that’s left is the building’s façade that is supported by scaffolding that hangs over the sidewalk, a sidewalk that is travelled by hundreds of thousands of baseball fans when the Tigers are in town.  The remainder of the building was torn down because the organization would’ve lost a $2 million credit had they not pulled it down when they did.  As for the façade?  Well that’s still there because it’s still eligible for tax incentives for historical buildings.  It looks like shit and there hasn’t been work done on that building in years, but they’re keeping it just in case.

They’ll tear down their crumbling buildings, but they’re not going to pay for it.

I’ll say it again.  The Ilitches are reportedly worth $4.8 billion.

Now I’ll bet some of you are asking, “What does Sparky Anderson not getting his number retired until after he died have to do with the business dealings of the Ilitch family?”  To me, the answer is somewhat simple.

Karma.

I don’t know if karma exists.  You like to think it does, that bad people are going to get what’s coming to them.  But the more you watch the news and see that executives who play a huge rule in destroying their companies, not to mention the lives of the people who work for those companies, getting golden parachutes to leave, you start to wonder.  Personally, the greatest example of karma I’ve seen lately was when the Cowboys were screwed out of what was probably a legit catch that would’ve gone a long way toward winning their playoff game a week after they’d taken advantage of a horrendous call that helped them beat the Lions in the Wild Card game.  That’s about as simple as it gets.  Other people?  You never know.

But I look at Mike Ilitch and his family, and I wonder.

It is well known in Detroit that Mike Ilitch wants to win a title with the Tigers before he dies.  Now, if he hadn’t spent the first 14 years of his ownership basically ignoring the team, save for financing a new park and signing a couple of big name free agents when no one else would, he might have had that title by now.  But nevertheless, he wants to win.  And he spends to win.  And that spending has brought him teams that were legitimate title contenders.  His 2006 Tigers team collapsed in the World Series with a ridiculous comedy of errors and lost to a team with 83 wins.  I still contend the 2007 team was title worthy, but they collapsed in the last month of the season.  The 2009 team was done in by some horrendous decisions and at least one terrible umpire’s call in the infamous “Game 163”.  They had a chance in 2011, but the Rangers were probably better and you never know how they would’ve fared in the World Series against St. Louis.  In 2012 they got shut down in the World Series and scored a total of 6 runs in 4 games.  The 2013 team might’ve had the best chance of them all, but dumb luck, great pitching by the Red Sox and some bad fielding cost them a chance at the World Series.

Since 2006, the Tigers probably should have won at least 1 World Series, and to suggest that they could’ve won as many as 4 is not ridiculous (a bit farfetched perhaps, but not ridiculous).  And yet they have none.

The Tigers are becoming the Buffalo Bills (although in 3 of their 4 Super Bowl losses, the Bills really had no chance at kickoff).

There have been some questionable moves by Detroit management in the past few years.  Jarrod Washburn and Aubrey Huff didn’t work out, but there was no reason to think they wouldn’t, and it’s not like the Tigers gave up much.  They probably shouldn’t have cut Gary Sheffield before the 2009 season considering they were still going to pay him.  The Doug Fister traeidfhjpaetupaousljcmvajouiekjamnvas

Sorry, brief Doug Fister Trade Induced Seizure (it’s a legitimate medical diagnosis here in Detroit).

But the Tigers are not the Lions.  There have been far more good moves than bad.  When they made a bad move (Prince Fielder), they corrected it with a good one (dumping him for Ian Kinsler).  There’s no one calling for a team legend’s head because he used valuable payroll space to sign Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon.

So one wonders why one of these teams hasn’t been holding the trophy at the end of the year.

And I think its karma.  Mike Ilitch wants a title, and karma won’t allow it.

Pillaging the city and the state for public financing when he could’ve finance development with his own money?  Strike one.

Leaving large swaths of land that could’ve been developed dilapidated and rotting because it would’ve driven up your price to acquire other land?  Strike two.

Waiting until after Sparky Anderson died to retire his number?  Strike three.

And I’m not even bringing up the glorious managerial tenures of Buddy Bell, Larry Parrish or Luis Pujols, or the disastrous reign of GM Randy Smith.

I can’t say I don’t wish death on anyone – I have irrational hatreds toward guys like Roger Goodell and an unhealthy number of politicians – but I certainly don’t wish it upon Mike Ilitch or his family.  For as much as I don’t like what they’ve done to acquire land and finance their development, there’s no denying that his investment in the city has been a huge help.  It’s hard to imagine where Detroit would be without him.

But I do wonder if the baseball gods are looking down and seeing what’s gone on with this team and this city and said, “Nope, not while he’s around.”

Sparky Anderson dies.  The Tigers retire his number the following year.

Mike Ilitch dies.  Do the Tigers win his elusive title the following year?

Only time will tell.  I hope it doesn’t take that long.

Note: This post has been corrected to properly reflect the Ilitches’ net worth.  Forbes recently reported that they are currently worth $4.8 billion, not $3.2 billion as originally indicated.