A week after Nick Saban and Pat McAfee practically did an infomercial for the Protect College Sports Act during College GameDay, one of the bill's co-sponsors, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), was given the chance to make a full-throated defense of the bill and why it needed to be passed by the Senate and House, with Cruz previously saying that if passed, President Donald Trump would sign it into law on a future episode of ESPN's flagship college football show.
Even by the standards of College GameDay, which has been known to put its thumb on the scale when it wanted, this whole affair has been wildly inappropriate. It's one thing for Kirk Herbstreit to chastise football players for opting out of meaningless bowl games; it's another thing for the show to put its full weight behind a Congressional bill without providing ample time to those proponents and opponents, especially when those who oppose the bill do so on the grounds that it will negatively impact the earning ability of the athletes who make the sport work.
However, it helps you understand this all-out blitz when you realize where ESPN's parent company is putting its money.
Joedy McCreary at OpenSecrets recently laid out the fight surrounding the PCSA, spelling out which entities are pushing for it and which are pushing back.
Per McCreary, several major broadcasting and cable companies are putting their money where their mouth is. The National ****** ociation of Broadcasters (NAB) and NCTA – the Internet and Television ****** ociation lobbied for the legislation. Amazon, Paramount Skydance, and Disney (which owns ESPN) listed the college sports measure among the dozens of bills they worked on between April 1 and June 30.
#bill #sports
Even by the standards of College GameDay, which has been known to put its thumb on the scale when it wanted, this whole affair has been wildly inappropriate. It's one thing for Kirk Herbstreit to chastise football players for opting out of meaningless bowl games; it's another thing for the show to put its full weight behind a Congressional bill without providing ample time to those proponents and opponents, especially when those who oppose the bill do so on the grounds that it will negatively impact the earning ability of the athletes who make the sport work.
However, it helps you understand this all-out blitz when you realize where ESPN's parent company is putting its money.
Joedy McCreary at OpenSecrets recently laid out the fight surrounding the PCSA, spelling out which entities are pushing for it and which are pushing back.
Per McCreary, several major broadcasting and cable companies are putting their money where their mouth is. The National ****** ociation of Broadcasters (NAB) and NCTA – the Internet and Television ****** ociation lobbied for the legislation. Amazon, Paramount Skydance, and Disney (which owns ESPN) listed the college sports measure among the dozens of bills they worked on between April 1 and June 30.
#bill #sports
2 days ago
