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http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6210012

No one thought it was possible.  Months after the rumors of a potential lockout began the day has finally come.  On Friday March 11, 2011 the NFLPA and the owners failed to reach an agreement on the new CBA.  The first work stoppage for the league since 1987 was underway.  I still personally believe an agreement will be reached before the season starts, no games will be missed and yet the effects of this lockout will forever be felt.  Pay cuts across the league are already being handed down.  The Commissioner, Roger Goodell, took an extreme pay cut; his previous salary of $10 Million a year including bonuses has been reduced to $1.  This to me is more of a publicity stunt than anything of substance.  Goodell has enough money that this pay cut will not affect his way of life.  The bigger concern is the league and team officials that are being forced to take cuts.  These employees did nothing wrong and had no say in the success of the CBA talks and yet they as bystanders are being affected by the selfishness of both sides.  This is a travesty but they are supposed to be reimbursed if no games are missed.  I hope this is the case.

I am excited to see what comes of the antitrust lawsuit filed by 10 players against the owners in a Minnesota federal court.  My feelings have not changed on the issues.  I am a fan of the game and of the sport.  I wish it was easy enough for these men to just play the game but unfortunately there is a business side that will always get in the way.  People react to incentives and money; hopefully both sides will reach an agreement before the season gets underway.  Currently the effects of this lockout are so widespread we cannot even begin to fully comprehend their vast implications.

Another interesting story line to follow is what the players do with their time off.  It is troubling to think about the trouble young adults with lots of money, no steady income, and unlimited time can get up to.  I hope that the two sides settle their differences quickly.  Otherwise the consequences could be severe.

The show Roswell, although dated conveys some powerful messages regarding invisibility, individuality, and alienation.  It is incredible that a popular show ten years ago can appear so outdated.  It was less the technological advances of the past ten years, the lack of cell phones, the dated cars, the absence of computers and it was more the script.  The script was a much slower pace than I was accustomed to and the lines were corny.  This show reaffirmed the thought that millennial’s are constantly evolving.  It is incredible that life can change so drastically in one decade.  Still, if we put all of these differences aside we are able to dissect some important millennial themes.

Millennial’s are not a generation known for taking a back seat and listening to authority.  We are a generation that defies normality’s and strives for better.  This characteristic is evident through the actions of Max, Liz and their friends.  They are not willing to stand back and allow the sheriff to run his investigation; rather they are going to fight for what they believe in and protect their super natural secret.

It is incredible to me that fans of the show found comfort in each other after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is interesting to see how online forums can blend relationships and create interactions that delve far deeper than the original framework of the medium.  I think this is a dangerous relationship; the fact that people were speaking about the 9/11 attacks in a TV show forum is troubling.  Still, this was a catastrophic even and similarly to the spaceship crash in Roswell, 9/11 was an even that defined our generation.  This incident shows the blend between online friends in a forum and true links.  These people were going through a traumatic incident and found comfort in each other.  Their mutual admiration for Roswell created a bond that reached far beyond the screen.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6177574

Rick Reilly, A notorious satirist sports writer puts a very biased spin on a troubling issue.  Still, his article is entertaining and raises interesting points.  Reilly bashes the owners who enjoy luxuries lifestyles for wanting a bigger cut of the pie.  This viewpoint is un-American.  We are a country built on capitalism and progress.  We should not tell people that once they have enough money to live a good life they should stop working or do all of their work pro bono.  This mentality would hamper development.  I am not saying that we should not have some sort of equality and redistribution but I have no problem with the owners wanting to prosper.  There should be more transparency in their records, but if what they claim is true then they have a legitimate case for a greater piece of revenue sharing.

Reilly comments that many of the owners inherited their teams and thus should be thankful for what they have been given, this mindset is insane.  Inheritance is a byproduct of our society and not looked down upon in any other facet of the economy.  It is true that many of the owners enjoy an extravagant lifestyle but that is inevitable in a capitalistic society.

Still, Reilly raises many good points.  A lockout would, according to the NFLPA, cost each NFL city $160 million and 3,000 jobs. That’s 93,000 jobs nationwide. This is a true catastrophe that we should be working to avoid.  It is not the owners who should be blamed exclusively for this travesty; both sides need to work together to avoid this from happening.  It is a key point that is often over looked.  This is a dispute between the players and the owners but the effects reach far beyond the two sides.  Many people not only rely on the NFL for entertainment but for their jobs and income as well.  These are the true victims of the debacle, not the owners and not the players.  Reilly does a great job at spinning a story to make the owners look like the bad guys, but at the end of the day the two sides need to cooperate for the common good.

All of that anticipation, March 4, 2011, D-day, Armageddon, the day when America’s favorite sport was going to be destroyed and now we have to wait.  Yesterday as emotions ran high the owner’s and players association for the NFL agreed to extend the expiration of the CBA for 24 hours.  The main goal today is to get another extension of 7-10 days.  I wonder why it has taken these two sides this long to begin discussions.  The two sides refused to speak for the past few months even when they knew this day was quickly approaching.  Now America needs to continue to wait to see what is going to happen.  The one-day extension is a positive sign, it means that both sides understand the severity of the situation and both sides want to reach an agreement.  I believe that we will see the week extension granted today, but still nothing will be accomplished.  Both sides have so much to lose by not cooperating and yet they continue to be hardheaded.  As a fan of the game it is so frustrating to watch.  I still hold to my initial prediction that a resolution will be reached before next season.

The other problem with this fiasco is public perception.  The players, who I believe have been semi unreasonable throughout this procedure, proposed the 7-10 day extension.  The owners must accept the proposal in order to assure they don’t look like the bad guys.  In a business that makes its money by fan appeal both sides need to stay angelic in the public’s eyes.  Today is a big day for American football’s future.  Next week is going to be even bigger.  Let’s just hope that these two sides can settle their differences and play football, hopefully in time for me to get a summer internship.

Harry Potter is a staple of the Millennial generation. Not because of his magical powers and how they can be associated with technology, although this is a comparison that can be drawn, but rather because he engulfed our lives through a multitude of medias. J. K. Rowling originally wrote Harry Potter in the mid 1990’s and our generation immediately took to it. Movies were made at the turn of the century and video games, blogs, chat forums and every other imaginable type of media source quickly followed. Harry Potter is more than a fad; it is a forum that has engulfed every facet of our lives.
Harry Potter has branched out, it is not only a movie that our youth can watch, or a book that they can read, but the series has sparked the interest of many. As explained by Ernest L Bond and Nancy L. Michelson, Harry Potter contributed greatly to “fan fiction” as an online experience. Fan fiction has expanded so rapidly now that there are countless addendums written by fans across the globe that explain additional fictional accounts of Harry and his supporting characters lives. An article by Henry Jenkins describes one archive, Fictionalley, which contains over 30,000 stories. It is great that a book like this can capture kids minds, not only to read but also to expand, use their imagination and continue to write as they develop their ideas. The Internet has allowed these amateur writers to come into contact with each other and create literary works together. The Internet has offered a medium for these kids to write about what they enjoy discussing. It allows learning and writing to be fun and occur outside of the confines of the school atmosphere.
It is incredible that a story like that of Harry Potter can become so well known. It would be hard to find a household that doesn’t recognize the name Harry Potter or his famous scar. Why is it that this story of a boy who just didn’t quite fit in resonates so well with our generation? It is possible that we view Harry a bit like ourselves. He is expected to understand magic the same way that we are expected to be exceptional with technology, but there are aspects that he doesn’t initially grasp. Sirius explained that he could not send Harry’s owl Hedwig, but rather had to use another because Hedwig may be intercepted. This made me think of emails and texts and how no means of our communication are truly secure anymore. For this reason people are constantly trying to find new ways to communicate as demonstrated by Sirius speaking though the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common room.
Harry Potter fans are not wizards. They do not read the book because they are encountering the same problems in the wizarding world, and yet it is a story that has engulfed and become a staple of our generation. Millennials have found a way to connect to the story, and have found a way through the use of the books, the Internet, TV, and video games to take on the characters and make them their own. It is incredible how one story can utilize so many facets of media.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/thelife/music/news/story?id=6149286

As March 4th, the expiration of the current NFL CBA, approaches a lockout is looking more and more imminent. This article does a great job in simplifying a very complex situation and it puts it into the viewpoint of a fan. It is true, for the average fan the fiscal aspect of the NFL is irrelevant. We enjoy sitting on our couches on Sunday’s watching grown men battle it out on the gridiron. The off the field activities that make Sunday’s possible are irrelevant. For me, as a student hoping to start a career in the sports business world this is not so. Still, if we examine the misconceptions surrounding professional athletes we can see why these issues are so pertinent. It is hard to see a player earning millions of dollars a year and envision him struggling for money, but it is the case. It is true that the players do not see a large portion of the money guaranteed to them in the contracts, but that is not the problem. The problem is that many of these kids do not know how to manage money. They see big numbers and immediately feel the need to make big purchases. A college graduate who goes into finance making a similar salary does not usually go out and buy a new car even though they have much more job security than an injury prone athlete, unfortunately in the NFL and the world of sports extravagant purchases are commonplace. The league should do a better job at educating the players on how to handle money. The biggest problem that I see with the CBA dispute is that the players are getting smarter. Even though people in suits run the league, the players are the ones going out and putting their bodies on the line every week. They do not know how long their careers will last and thus they want to make sure that they are getting the most out of their time and that they will be taken care of afterwards. Transparency is the biggest problem. The owners keep their expenses hidden from the players. Information is the gateway to success and currently the owners are trying to keep their information private. I still believe that the two sides will come to an agreement before next season, but I am less and less optimistic that the agreement will be reached before the deadline on Friday. This is going to be an interesting week. It is evident that the NFL is not solely about playing football it is a business.

Millennial’s are a group that is said to have a unique relationship with their parents.  We are from a new generation, a younger, more inspired, more technologically savvy generation and yet we are believed not to be condescending or disrespectful, just unique.  Both Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars take the relationship between adult and millennial and exemplify it in a unique way.  Both shows encounter a daughter being raised by a single parent and both series show the relationships as strong and mutually beneficial.   In Gilmore Girls the parallels are so strong between mother and daughter that they share the same name.  They also both have a strong liking for coffee.  When Luke warns Rory to stop drinking coffee so that she doesn’t wind up like her mother, she comments “too late.”  Rory is not your typical teen; she loves the concept of private school because at a private school, “everyone’s there in boring clothes, just to learn.”  This may not be the attitude of a traditional, stereotypical teen, but it can bee seen as the attitude of a Millennial who is keen on advancing her knowledge and doing something with her life.

Veronica Mars is an example of a teen that is doing something with her life.  Veronica takes matters into her own hands and solves cases.  In this episode she recovers money that a girl in her school was conned out of.  Much the same way that Rory acts like her mother, Veronica is quickly following in the career path of her father as a private investigator.  There are many instances in Veronica Mars where technology, such as microphones or GPS trackers, aid in this investigating career path.  The most powerful image in the episode was the video tribute to Lilly.  It began depicting her in all of her parental sanctioned recorded life events, and then it cut to a private video the night of a school dance.  This video helped to show that our recorded selves and our true selves are not always in line.  This can be drawn parallel to our Internet, virtual identity and how it does not always match our real world identity.  Technology is a powerful tool, but it enables us to have split personalities.  This ability to represent oneself in more than one way is one of the best and most dangerous things about being a Millennial.

Madoff: Mets Owners \’knew nothing\’

There is a bond between sports and finance that runs far deeper than initially meets the eye.  This link has been magnified in the scandal regarding the Mets owners, the Wilpon’s, and Bernie Madoff.  The Wilpon’s had money invested with Bernie Madoff before his ponsi scheme got found out.  Currently, the victims from the Madoff debacle are trying to get back over a billion dollars from the Wilpon’s in money they are believed to have made from Madoff’s advice.  The owner’s of the Mets are already in serious debt, this massive blow if upheld by the courts could force a change in ownership for the historic franchise.  Presently, the Wilpon’s have tried to sell 25% of their team.  The shift in attitude shows us that even in sports, money still talks.  It is remarkable to think that families as powerful as the Wilpon’s are still struggling.  I personally find it hard to believe that the Wilpon’s were entirely innocent in this matter; still I do not believe they will have to pay reparations.  I feel that they should’ve been able to see that their earnings were too high, and they should’ve known to get out.  Conversely, as said in the article, the security and exchange commission didn’t initially recognize the problem how could a regular person have been expected to see it?  Still, the Wilpon’s have a history of investing in ponsi scheme’s and they should’ve known better than to put themselves in a questionable situation.  After constructing a new stadium for a mediocre team with a massive payroll it appears as if the Wilpon’s may have been relying on the Madoff money in order to stay afloat.  It will be interesting to see how this dilemma plays out.  I am interested to see if anyone buys a stake in the Mets and if they do, what their relationship with the team and front office will be.  This incident has shown us that baseball may be America’s national pastime, and it may be called a ball game, but the game and what happens on the field is only a minor player in the larger business that is baseball and sports.

Paul Lee, president of ABC Family Channel refers to online networking as “word of mouth on steroids.”  It is human desire to constantly better oneself and get ahead, common workout plans call for being bigger, faster, stronger.  Social networking is providing a means by which communal interactions can become bigger, faster, stronger.  The possibilities of technological advances are endless; no one knows what’s next.  Still, with all the upside comes fear and uncertainty.  As described by Kyle in ABC Family’s millennial audience targeted show, Kyle XY, he is scared of everything.  In a world that moves this quickly we can easily get left behind.  Kyle is a mathematical genius, his brain activity is far more advanced than anyone the doctors have ever seen, and yet he has such an appreciation for facial language, eyes in particular.  He understands the power of in person interactions.  These face-to-face exchanges are lost when we put the “word of mouth on steroids” and use online networking.  This is an important note to remember as we progress forward.  Facial expressions are the universal language and although the Internet can simplify our lives, we have to be careful not to allow it to replace them.

Kyle can be viewed at initially as a computer.  He is able to finish and hour long test in five minutes, he can out fight a cop, and he doesn’t need to sleep.  Still, although he is able to perform some tasks with incomprehensible ease he falls short in other categories.  His personal interactions are at times painful to watch.  He urinates after his first fight, he mimics, out of context, what others around him have said, and he raids his host family’s refrigerator during the night.  If we view Kyle as a symbol of evolving technology we can see that nothing is perfect.  While some aspects are improved upon, others are lost.  Someday Kyle may integrate into society the way we hope technology will, but in the end he will always be different and technology will never be able to completely substitute basic human interactions.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=6112756

Great that Cal reinstated rugby.  How could the premier program in the country not be a varsity sport?  Cal rugby makes so much money the school would be dumb to not make it varsity.  Title IX is a horrible rule that is not being applied in the manner in which it was written.  Administration needs to take title IX as a guideline not as an end-all.  Even at the collegiate, amateur level, money still drives sports.