The Wall Street Journal - 20.09.2019

A14| Friday, September 20, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

THE MIAMI DOLPHINS SEASON
began disastrously with a 49-point
loss to the Baltimore Ravens. The
next week, they marginally im-
proved. They lost to the New Eng-
land Patriots by only 43 points.
So what did the Dolphins do
next? They traded away one of
their best players. Their plan to
get better is to get even worse.
There’s just one minor red flag
with this approach. There’s no
proof that tanking works in the
NFL.
It’s never been more acceptable
for sports teams to be abjectly
horrible. They’re willing to sit
through the ignominy of losing
seasons and count every loss as a
win. In the NBA and MLB, fans
even buy the promise that all of
the misery will be worthwhile be-
cause it can produce enough top
draft picks and young talent to
build a sustainable championship
contender in the future.
This has been one of the most
radical ideas in professional sports.
Franchises worth billions of dollars
have concluded that the best way
to drastically improve their prod-
uct is to begin by doing the com-
plete opposite.
The Chicago Cubs won their
first World Series in more than a
century after deciding to be losers
in order to become winners. The
Houston Astros became the best
team in baseball precisely because
they historically bottomed out and
amassed an abundance of young
stars along the way. The Philadel-
phia 76ers have one of the best
cores in basketball after stockpil-

two or three.”

There’s reason to be encouraged

by the lucrative hauls Miami re-

ceived in its deals. There’s also

reason to be skeptical of the

theory behind it: there’s no prece-

dent for this leading to success in

the NFL.

Football teams have been ac-

cused of tanking before. They’ve

pinched pennies on the salary cap,

rebuilt and set an eye toward the

future. The Cleveland Browns may

be the best example: They stunk,

hoarded draft picks and now have

one of the most enviable young

cores in the league.

But that’s where the compari-

sons end and the questions begin.

The Browns were already bad be-

fore they embraced being bad. The

Dolphins were respectable in re-

cent years before deciding to bot-

tom out. They made the playoffs in

2016 and were 7-6 at one point last

year. They took a roster that had

been somewhat competitive and

completely blew it up.

It also took Cleveland years of

being the worst team in the league

to amass its talent. They whiffed

on top draft picks like Trent Rich-

ardson and Johnny Manziel numer-

ous times before finally putting to-

gether its impressive roster.

Miami, Grier says, plans to turn

this around “quickly” and spend

money as soon as possible.

Then there’s this: The Browns

are 1-1 to start this year and still

have their fair share of question

marks. So it isn’t even clear that

Greetings from the
Dept. of Reasonable.
Have you ever been
to the Dept. of Rea-
sonable? It’s a sensi-
ble, practical place.
Nothing too crazy happens here.
One glass of wine. Bed by 10 p.m.
Lots of comfy sweaters and cordu-
roys. You may hear some Coldplay.
I’m writing from the Dept. of
Reasonable to endorse what I see
as a reasonable idea: the Fair Pay
to Play Act, a bill that unanimously
passed through the California legis-
lature and awaits the signature of
Gov. Gavin Newsom.
You may have heard about this.
This concerns the whole “name and
likeness” debate that’s been kicking
around college sports for a while
now. The bill would empower Cali-
fornia college athletes to make
money off their name, image and
likeness—something currently pro-
hibited by the NCAA.
Want to enlist an agent to seek
money-making opportunities?
Want to get paid to sign auto-
graphs at an autograph show? Have
you been offered a commercial for
a local car dealer? Come on down
to the Cathedral of Convertibles!
The California bill would stop the
NCAA from penalizing an athlete
that does this, and isn’t limited to
financial powerhouses like football
and men’s basketball. Men’s and
women’s athletes in all sports
would be permitted to benefit.
The NCAA is freaking, naturally,
but this is not the End of College
Sports As We Know It. The bill—
due to go into effect in 2023—rep-
resents a sensible step toward fi-
nancial fairness, without the
myriad hurdles of schools paying
college athletes directly.
By now, we’re all familiar with
the multibillion-dollar marketplace
of college athlet-
ics, especially in
football and
men’s basketball,
and the awkward
construct of an
economy in which
every party (the
coach, the school,
the conference) is
taking home a
piece of the ac-
tion, except one:
the athlete actu-
ally playing the
game.
The bill is not
a radical maneu-
ver. It does not
mean schools
would start pay-
ing college ath-
letes. It would not
flood rosters with cash—the largest
outside-income opportunities
would likely go to the highest-pro-
file athletes, who are already used
as uncompensated marketing tools
for their sports.
The bill simply lifts a ban that
never really made much sense to
begin with, and has been endan-
gered ever since Ed O’Bannon’s
case against the NCAA over his
name and image being used in a
videogame. Why shouldn’t a college
athlete have the opportunity to
make money on his or her own
likeness? Anyone else on campus is
afforded this opportunity. A stu-
dent on a piano scholarship is not

prohibited from taking a paid gig

ata wedding.

The California bill was even

amended to alleviate concerns

about branding conflicts between

athletes and colleges—an athlete

would not be able to enter a deal

that jeopardizes a school’s existing

sponsorships, i.e., a player getting

paid to wear Brand Y sneakers on

the court of a school sponsored by

Brand X.

The historical roadblock, of

course, is the graying concept of

amateurism, which, depending

whom you talk to, is either the spe-

cial sauce of college sports, or a

convenient device that allows stu-

dents to be ex-

ploited and not

categorized as

employees. There

are plenty of peo-

ple inside and out-

side college sports

who still feel a

scholarship, even

a partial one, is

sufficient, and any

further step to-

ward “profession-

alization” would

be detrimental to

the product.

That was the

vibe of a recent viral interview on

ESPN with the former Heisman

Trophy winner Tim Tebow, who

now assists in the network’s col-

lege football coverage, and fears

steps to compensate athletes would

turn it “into the NFL.”

“I know we live in a selfish cul-

ture while it’s all about us, but

we’re just adding and piling on to

that where it changes what’s spe-

cial about college football,” Tebow

said. “That’s why people are more

passionate about college football

than they are the NFL.”

I’d never question Tebow’s fer-

vor for college sports—he was one

of the most electric college players

ever—but there’s something amus-

ing about someone employed by

ESPN, which pays many millions

for rights to college games, in-

veighing against the incursion of

money. Tebow is presumably being

paid to talk about college sports at

ESPN. He was at the University of

Florida when his coach, Urban

Meyer, signed a $24 million exten-

sion. Did that diminish the public’s

passion for college sports?

“Professionalization” may be a

fear-mongering word for college

sports nostalgists, but professional-

ization is already here. Everyone’s

familiar with the big numbers, like

the billions in media rights for col-

lege events like March Madness.

There are college teams with facili-

ties that rival—or exceed—the ones

used by their idols in the NFL and

NBA. Those absurd videos of col-

lege teams gratefully running

around lavish new locker rooms

send a conflicted message on ama-

teurism. The money’s everywhere.

As for the NCAA, there’s been

some saber-rattling about bans

from national title games, or other

fallout, should California go ahead

with the bill. There are certain to

be legal challenges, and there’s

concern that a bill such as this may

present a hurdle to interstate com-

merce. The NCAA itself has been

exploring changes to the name/im-

age/likeness rules—Condoleezza

Rice, who chaired a recent reform

commission on college basketball,

signaled her openness to the idea—

and they do not seem thrilled to be

beaten to the opportunity.

But the ball is rolling here. Other

states are exploring name/image/

likeness bills; California’s is the fur-

thest down the road. This week a

bill was introduced in New York

that would permit the use of name,

image and likeness while also re-

quiring colleges to give 15% of rev-

enue to athletes.

Are there unseen roadblocks?

Probably. Could it get messy? Ab-

solutely. Could outside sources of

income create a whole new tool in

recruitment, and alter the competi-

tive landscape, as Washington State

football coach Mike Leach cau-

tioned the other day in a news con-

ference. (Leach also suggested Cali-

fornia should probably prioritize

street cleaning.) Perhaps. I already

feel like I’m watching Alabama and

Clemson in the title game every

year, so maybe we’re already there.

This is not the End of It All. This

feels logical. Here at the Dept. of

Reasonable, we believe it’s too rea-

sonable not to try.

RHONA WISE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

ing draft picks and turning them

into Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.

But football operates on a com-

pletely different paradigm. The

NFL prides itself on the competi-

tiveness of its teams and parity in

the league. For 29 straight seasons

at least one-third of the playoff

teams weren’t in the playoffs the

season before. Most games in a

given week are expected to be

close. The parity fuels the belief

that any team can hope to contend

in any season.

This year looks different, and

this weekend shows why. The Dol-

phins and Jets are favored to lose

their games by more than 20

points—the first time in decades

that has been the case for two

teams in the same week.

The Jets are bad by accident.

The Dolphins are bad on purpose.

Miami was already expected to

be one of the worst teams in the

NFL this season, and that was be-

fore it began unloading some of

the only notable talent it had. The

week before the season started,

the Dolphins traded left tackle La-

remy Tunsil and wide receiver

Kenny Stills to the Texans in a deal

that netted two first-round picks.

This week, defensive back Minkah

Fitzpatrick—the team’s first-round

pick from last year—said he

wanted out, and the team obliged

by sending him to the Steelers for

yet another first-round pick.

“No one likes losing,” said Chris

Grier, the Dolphins’ general man-

ager. “We’ve talked about building

a team that’s going to win and

compete for championships for a

long time instead of being in this

one year, and then you fall back for

this was effective for a team that

didn’t have fanciful ideas of doing

it quickly.

The Dolphins deals have placed

them in a strangely challenging po-

sition. There’s no expectation that

they’ll win now. But they’re betting

they can replace the skilled players

they’ve given away with even bet-

ter ones. They have an arsenal of

future draft assets—five first-

round picks and three second-

round picks in the next two sea-

sons. Except to get those, they had

to give up players like Minkah Fitz-

patrick, who’s just 22 years old

and the exact type of player they

want to draft. (After that trade,

Miami cornerback Xavien How-

ard—one of the few valuable play-

ers remaining on the team—cap-

tured the despair when he tweeted

a GIF from the final scene of “The

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” when Will

Smith’s character looks around the

family’s completely empty house

after everything has been moved

out.)

And for all of those picks, just

one of those is far more important

than all the rest combined: the one

they spend on a quarterback. They

have been starting Ryan Fitzpat-

rick and now they may turn to

Josh Rosen, a first-round pick from

a year ago who Miami traded for

from the Arizona Cardinals, before

the season.

Which is why as the Dolphins

head to Dallas this weekend, where

they’re expected to be trounced by

the Cowboys, their most important

game is actually in Tuscaloosa:

that’s where Alabama quarterback

Tua Tagovailoa, the potential prize

of their tank, will be playing.

BYANDREWBEATON

The Dolphins Are Tanking. There’s No Proof It Will Work.

The Dolphins traded Minkah Fitzpatrick after a 43-0 loss to the Patriots.

FROM TOP: ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER /PASADENA STAR-NEWS/ZUMA PRESS; ISAAC BREKKEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pay College Athletes? Here’s a

Common Sense Way to Do It

A California bill allowing athletes to profit off their name, image and

likeness wouldn’t be the end of the games fans love

College athletes are prohibited by the NCAA from making money off their name. Former UCLA star

Ed O’Bannon, left, challenged the NCAA over his name and image being used in a videogame.

SPORTS

COLLEGE SPORTS|JASON GAY