Why Peyton is an Elite Brand, not an Elite Player

Wherever you are from, chances are you have heard of Peyton Manning. In fact, you probably know him as the "greatest quarterback of all time."

Is Manning the most talented quarterback of all time? No. Lack of athleticism, inability to throw the deep ball, and the occasional inability to throw a tight spiral take him out of the discussion. 

Is he the most successful quarterback of all time? Not even close. Manning's career playoff record: 11-12. 5 quarterbacks have won more playoff games. 96 (!) have a higher career playoff winning percentage. 23 have won more Championships. No quarterback in history has suffered as many playoff losses.

Manning is the greatest ever at something, though. 

Marketing.

Calling Peyton Manning the greatest quarterback of all time is like declaring the Big Mac the best burger ever. It's nonsense.

Successful branding can work miracles for a business. A strong brand can allow a business to sell an inferior product more frequently--at an equal or sometimes even higher price--than a superior competitor. 

Good brands aren't easy to create. It takes a lot of work to market the brand effectively. Inherited connections (the family you are born into and the access to capital that family provides) and luck also are significant factors.  

The currency of the NFL is popularity, not simply money. The more popular a player is, the more people watch him on TV, and the more valuable NFL broadcasts become. 

Therefore if you have a player with an inferior skillset (meaning his talent, by itself, won't do the job) you make him popular by building his brand and marketing it well. No player has ever done this as well as Peyton Manning.

Manning is the son of one of the SEC's most beloved quarterbacks, Archie Manning. Archie used his connections as a former New Orleans Saint and broadcaster to convince the New Orleans coaching staff to let Peyton sit in, and sometimes even run plays, at Saints practices during his junior year of high school. 

It also helped that Manning was lucky enough to be drafted by Indianapolis, who play their home games indoors. Quarterbacks who play indoors generate 15% better statistics than those who play outdoors. 

All the factors are present here. Manning had inherent connections at birth, and used them wisely. He had good luck to play where he did, because he had no control over where he would be drafted.

Manning has also been marketed more intelligently than any player ever. No athlete is on more commercials than Peyton Manning. Few have ever hosted Saturday Night Live. Seldom are athletes as comfortable and humble in front of the camera as Manning. This has made him a media darling.

Businesses pay large sums of money to public relations firms for a reason. Effective public relations can improve public opinion of a brand without letting their actual product do the talking. PR creates demand that the product itself doesn't create on its own.

Manning is a public relations dynamo. He displays remarkable humility when interviewed, and his gifts to charities are well-known. No football player in history has been more adept at controlling their media narrative. But none of this tells the public anything about Manning's demeanor on the field.

These 3 factors combined to make Manning a very popular quarterback (especially in the South) very early in his career. And the NFL took steps to make sure they could profit as much as possible from this popularity.

Rulemakers often tweak the rules to help promote a successful brand. Politicians frequently give successful businesses incentives to develop and grow in their areas because they know they'll get something in return--in the form of jobs, tax revenue, or other political capital. The NFL did the same thing with Manning. 

The NFL did this in two ways. First, the NFL tweaked the rules to decrease the risk of injury to all quarterbacks in the league. Then, the NFL significantly changed the type of pass defense teams were allowed to play. 

Take a look at the timeline:

1998: Manning was drafted #1 overall by the Indianapolis Colts.

1998-99 season: The Colts go 3-13, and Manning leads the league in interceptions, in his rookie year.

1999-2000 season: Colts go 13-3, Manning makes the Pro Bowl, but loses his first playoff game. 

2001 offseason: NFL decides to more strictly enforce the roughing the passer penalty in order to keep quarterbacks from getting injured.

2002 offseason: NFL bars all helmet-to-helmet contact with the quarterback, even if a change of possession occurs. Helmet-to-helmet hits are still legal against any other player at this time.

2003-04 season: Manning wins his first MVP and wins his first playoff game in his 4th attempt. In the AFC Championship, Manning struggles against the New England Patriots' bump-and-run coverage. Manning puts up a 35.5 passer rating and throws 4 interceptions in a 24-14 loss to the Patriots.

2004 offseason: NFL bans bump-and-run coverage.

2004-05 season: Manning wins second consecutive MVP and throws for career-best 4500 yards. He also completes an NFL record (at the time) 49 touchdown passes. In his first 6 years, Manning had averaged 27.8 touchdowns per season. 2004-05 brought a 76% increase over his yearly average. But he still loses to the Patriots in the AFC Championship, 24-3.

2006 offseason: NFL bans all hits below the quarterback's knees.

2006-07 season: Manning wins his first, and only, Super Bowl.

There have been no further quarterback-related rule adjustments since Manning's Super Bowl victory.

When Manning entered the league, defenses were allowed to play "bump-and-run" coverage. A defender could make contact with a receiver to keep him from running his intended route so long as the ball wasn't in the air. This sort of coverage forced quarterbacks to be able to throw the ball deep. If you could throw it deep, you could force opposing defenses to play more conservatively, sitting further back to avoid getting beat for big plays.

One of Manning's most glaring weaknesses has always been his arm strength. He lacked the ability to make opposing defenses honor the deep pass, and struggled to complete passes and avoid interceptions against more physical, bump-and-run defenses early in his career.

In 2004, after one of Manning's worst games ever (against the league's best bump-and-run team in the AFC Championship), the NFL made this style of play illegal. Starting in the 2004-05 season, defenses could only make contact with opposing receivers within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. Any contact deeper down the field would result in a penalty and an automatic first down.

The result of this rule change was a complete change in the skills required to be a valuable quarterback. Deep passing had, for a long time, been the most valuable attribute a quarterback possessed. Eliminating bump-and-run meant receivers would be open earlier in plays, making accuracy on shorter throws much more vital than it had been before.

The NFL tweaked its rules to maximize offensive firepower at a time when Peyton Manning was the MVP and league's most popular offensive player. Ray Lewis, who had been recently charged for murder, was the league's biggest defensive star at that time. The NFL wanted to promote offense (and thus Manning) as much as possible. They wanted quarterbacks to be ambassadors of the sport to the public. And they wanted to run as far away from Lewis (and thus defense) as possible. 

Manning is not the only one to benefit from these rule changes. Drew Brees, Tom Brady and many other quarterbacks have seen their careers lengthen and their stats inflate in the last decade. 

Manning will retire with the greatest statistics of all time. He will retire as the most popular player ever. All while competing against other higher quality players.

Substitute "player" with "burger," and "statistics" with "sales." All of a sudden you are talking about the Big Mac.

Manning is very intelligent, he works extremely hard to improve himself, and he possesses many other excellent qualities. Peyton Manning is a consistent, Hall of Fame quarterback who has had a remarkable career. He's got a "special sauce" about him, that's for sure.

But when compared to Warner, Brady, Favre, or Rodgers--Peyton Manning is the inferior product.

World Cup Ramble: Spain and England Choke

This World Cup has been amazing. One of the most entertaining tournaments I can remember. Except when Greece is playing.

Spain Out

The biggest story so far is that after 1 week, Spain has been eliminated. The cup holders and winners of the past 2 European Championships got outscored 7-1 in their first two matches against Holland adn Chile.

The Spanish players looked old, tired, and complacent. Diego Costa looked unfit and clueless and the rest of the team looked like they had no idea how to play with him. Xabi Alonso and Sergi Busquets were awful as the shield in front of a defense that suddenly looks very average without Puyol. Sergio Ramos lost his concentration frequently, Jordi Alba was awful, and Iker Casillas faces competition from the Russian Igor Akinfeev (Fabio Capello's Robert Green 2.0) for worst goalkeeper in the tournament. Spain was dreadful.

Perhaps some of that had to do with tactics. Spain played two different teams who play with 3 center backs. Mexico, Chile, Holland, Costa Rica, and Argentina all deploy 3. Their record in the tournament so far? 7 wins, 1 draw, and 0 losses.

Think back to the FA Cup Final against Hull. Olivier Giroud struggled mightily in the first half as the lone striker against Hull's 3 central defenders. Arsenal brought Sanogo on to be a second striker and finally took control of the game.

The 4-2-3-1 Spain has made famous for 6 years might have finally been found out.

England Nearly Out as Well

What formation did England play?

Two 2-1 losses means England is hanging on to the tournament by a thread. If Costa Rica can get something against Italy tomorrow, the Three Lions will be eliminated.

I don't get how this is a surprise to anyone. After not even qualifying for Euro 2008, England was extremely average in a very favorable group in 2010, only beating Slovenia, and not much better in Euro 2012.

England's best player has been Leighton Baines. That says it all really.

The team was built around 5 Liverpool players, the most ever by any one club for England at a World Cup. This was understandable, as the 5 combined to lose 0 European matches all season.

Gerrard and Henderson, the "shield" protecting Liverpool's defense all season, were asked to do the same job for England. Which made sense because Liverpool conceded 50 goals in the league this year. The 8th best defensive record in the league. Top half!

Gerrard, the captain, has been England's worst player. He's useless. He can't run, tackle, win the ball in the air, or even pass the ball well anymore. He can always find Suarez in dangerous positions, though.

I can't help but think the team missed Theo Walcott. Danny Welbeck is not a winger. Walcott (or even Oxlade-Chamberlain) would have improved this team immensely. Someone who knew how to keep spacing and make intelligent runs off the ball.

Wayne Rooney has been poor yet again. He hasn't played well for 3 years. He's the most overrated player in the world. I don't expect him to play much for Louis Van Gaal.

Rooney can't play as a lone striker or as a winger, and when in his favored #10 role he struggles to finish or create chances for his teammates like he did when he was 20. England was better against Italy, with Sterling in the middle and Rooney on the left wing, than they were today--but even in the Italy match Italy exploited England's left hand side ruthlessly because Rooney was taken to school by Torino right back Marco Darmian earning just his second cap.

Daniel Sturridge scored a lot of goals this year, goals set up by Luis Suarez. England needed Rooney to play like Suarez, too. But Rooney plays like a Greek.

Waynios Hairplugopolous.

In my opinion, England's best formation would have been a 4-3-1-2 (which Liverpool used frequently this year with great success) adding a third cental midfielder (Wilshere or Barkley) to make up for Gerrard's lack of mobility, playing Sterling in the free role behind Welbeck and Sturridge, and benching Mr. Hairplugopolous.

Was Donald Sterling's Punishment Legal?

Yesterday NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that he was suspending Donald Sterling from the LA Clippers for life. He also encouraged the other 29 NBA owners to vote in favor of forcing Sterling to sell his team. In order for that to happen, Silver needs 3/4ths of the owners to vote Sterling out.

By now the recording of Sterling's disturbing racist comments are well known throughout the world. The 24-hour news cycle exposed Sterling's embarrassing plantation mentality toward minorities. Numerous sponsors pulled their sponsorship of Sterling's Clippers, and in last night's playoff game (a Clippers win, by the way) most of the corporate billboards in Staples Center were covered up. Fans and players threatened to boycott not just Clippers games, but NBA playoff games across the country.

Many people have raised free speech or right to privacy arguments to sympathize with Sterling. They have said the NBA has no right to ban Sterling from his games and force the sale of his team as punishment for statements he made in private. These arguments are extremely misguided.

The right to free speech protects an individual against the government, not an individual against a private business like the NBA. Therefore Sterling is in no danger of being imprisoned for his comments, but he is not immune to business repercussions. It's no different to employee who gets fired for posting harsh criticism of their boss online, or pictures of themselves on a vacation when they've called in sick to work. Yes the employee has a right to post anything, but the employer has a right to fire them for unprofessional behavior.

The recording may or may not have happened without Sterling's consent, and if Sterling had not consented to the recording, he may have had his rights to privacy violated under California law (California requires all parties to consent to any recording, as opposed to the majority of states that only require one party's consent).

In this circumstance, Sterling's case is against his mistress, V. Stiviano. Sterling could argue that the intense media coverage and consequential NBA punishment were caused by the possibly illegal recording, and therefore Sterling might be able to argue that this violation of his privacy rights made him suffer severe economic damages. But his only case is against the person who illegally recorded him--the mistress Stiviano--not against TMZ, Deadspin, or the NBA. Sterling had been financially supporting this woman since 2010, so it would seem impossible for him to recover the full extent of his economic damages from Stiviano, but that's his only option under a privacy lawsuit.

Even if Sterling wants to pursue this sort of lawsuit, he'll have to get in line. Sterling's estranged wife is already suing Stiviano for all she's worth. Mrs. Sterling filed a lawsuit in March claiming that since Stiviano met Sterling at the 2010 Super Bowl, Sterling has paid for a $1.8 million duplex, 2 Bentleys, 1 Ferrari, 1 Range Rover, and nearly $240,000 in "living expenses" to Stiviano in 4 years--all constituting community property given to Stiviano without Mrs. Sterling's knowledge. Mrs. Sterling's lawsuit could bankrupt Stiviano, meaning Donald would have nothing left to recover if he pursued a privacy lawsuit now.

If Sterling has a case against the NBA, it would have to be that the NBA failed to follow its own rules in handing down the fine, lifetime ban, and especially in encouraging the forced sale of the Clippers. Michael McCann from McCann Sports Law sets out Sterling's potential case in this brilliant article. There is a valid argument here. The provisions Silver is citing to force the sale of the Clippers seem to be intended to protect the NBA from a financial leach. There is no morals clause in the NBA Constitution. This section refers to the league's right to step in and save a franchise unable to pay its bills, and the Clippers are a financially healthy business at the moment.

However, evidence was building to the contrary. Corporate sponsorships were being dropped, and the Clippers' opponent in the playoffs, the Golden State Warriors, reportedly planned to walk off the court before tip-off if Sterling wasn't severely punished before the game. NBA Players' Association Vice President Roger Mason Jr. claimed other playoff teams in other cities planned to follow suit. The NBA was facing the prospect of losing its most valuable resource--the players--if something wasn't done.

That's the key here. Sterling's comments were so reprehensible that the players were willing to walk away from the playoffs to ensure something was done. A move like that would have cost the league billions of dollars. Timing was everything.

If this recording had been leaked in the offseason, or even at the beginning of the regular season (when the NBA comes in 3rd, behind pro and college football, in ratings) I do not believe Sterling's punishment would have been so harsh. I believe this for two reasons: 1) the players would not have had nearly as much leverage to get what they wanted; and 2) the threat of economic loss would not have been great enough to justify such a harsh punishment.

There are two things to consider about Commissioner Silver in this situation.

First, he is hired by the 30 NBA owners to protect their financial interests. A work stoppage during the playoffs risks a huge sum of money. The NBA playoffs take place after the NCAA tournament for a reason. Its when the competition is lowest, and consequently when the NBA's product is most profitable. While some owners such as Dallas's Mark Cuban may have been worried about the "slippery slope" of ousting an owner as punishment for private statements, the owners were more worried about the potential enormous loss of revenue for the league if it no longer had a product to put on the air. Viewers might switch to the NHL and never come back.

Yes Silver made a strong symbolic statement that racism will not be tolerated in the NBA. Yes his actions were largely applauded by the media for standing against racism. I don't dispute that Silver should be applauded for these reasons, but in the end, I'm not so sure this punishment was motivated by a sense of justice. Silver took decisive action to protect the financial interests of 29 of the 30 NBA owners. The symbolic victory was nothing other than a positive biproduct of an action intended to keep the NBA as profitable as possible.

Second, Silver is a brilliant lawyer. He earned a law degree from University of Chicago, one of the best schools in the country, in 1988. He clerked for the Southern District of New York and worked for a New York City law firm after graduating from Chicago. He has worked for the NBA since 1992, and has fought for the owners through 2 different work stoppages. Silver is a great negotiator, and he won the faith of the owners after the 2011 lockout in particular (its clear the owners got a great deal from the lockout, as the value of NBA franchises has doubled since the new CBA was signed).

Protecting the financial interests of the owners involves protecting against potentially costly lawsuits. Much has been made of Sterling's propensity for lawsuits and how much time he spends in the courtroom, but the NBA hires a lawyer to act as commissioner in order to foresee potential legal issues before they arise and adequately guard the league against them. I have no doubt Silver is confident he can make the case that the NBA followed its own rules when punishing Sterling.

Silver will be able to point to the lost sponsors as the first domino in what could have been a disastrous loss of revenue. He can likely depend on testimony from the NBA Players' Association that they intended to boycott the playoffs unless drastic measures were taken to punish Sterling. He undoubtedly logged every conversation and meeting that took place in the 72 hours between when the recording went public and the punishment was handed down. He will be able to point to all of this as evidence supporting his actions.

Had the recording gone public at a different time, when the potential economic loss wasn't as drastic, I don't think Silver would have a strong enough justification for this action. Therefore I'm happy the story broke when it did. Timing provided Silver a sound legal justification for the strongest punishment possible. And there is simply no room, in any profession, for an employer with such a bigoted mentality toward employees.

Stories like this can do a lot to improve and progress American culture; culture Sterling clings to as an excuse for his unacceptable attitude.

Hungry Huskies Win, NCAA Loses

Seconds after leading his school to its 4^th NCAA tournament victory in 15 years, Shabazz Napier grabbed the microphone and addressed 80,000 people in AT&T Stadium:

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’re looking at the hungry Huskies! This is what happens when you ban us! Last year, two years, we worked so hard for it. Two years—“

At that point CBS acted swiftly to hide what they deemed to be Napier's criticism of the NCAA from their televised broadcast. CBS company-man/anchorman Jim Nantz grabbed the microphone from Napier to tell him he had been named Tournament MVP, and CBS cut to a commercial break. 

CBS must have worried giving Napier a chance to air his school’s grievances might jeopardize the network’s 11 year-$10.8 billion broadcasting contract with the NCAA. 

This morning, numerous reports have labeled Napier’s 3 sentences “controversial,” but was it as controversial as the academic ban Napier referred to?

In 2012, the NCAA handed UConn a 1-year postseason ban for failing to meet academic standards. What was once a 1-or-2 scholarship penalty swiftly turned into a much more serious punishment.

The NCAA changed the rules (or rather, the punishment for breaking the rules) mid-game, and UConn’s paid the price for what amounted to a retroactive punishment for conduct that never had been judged so harshly. UConn players who had done everything right were punished harshly for the actions of a few players who came and left the program before they ever arrived.

Why is this the first time you've heard about the NCAA's retroactive punishment?

CBS is a major partner with Turner Broadcasting in the NCAA Tournament. Turner controls Sports Illustrated and CNNSI.com. As mentioned earlier, CBS/Turner’s exclusive broadcasting contract cost nearly $11 billion and will last until 2025.

ESPN also has a $500 million broadcasting contract for regular season and NIT basketball games that also lasts until 2025. 

Both the CBS and ESPN deals were signed in 2011. A year before the rule change.

The unfairness of UConn’s postseason ban was largely swept under the rug because the two major American sports “journalism” outlets had a major stake in protecting and promoting the best interests of the NCAA.

How exactly did the NCAA change the punishment on UConn?

The NCAA uses an Academic Performance Rate (APR) to evaluate whether a specific program complies with academic standards. The rate is fairly simple to explain. Each school must keep over 92.5% their scholarship players academically eligible over a 2-year period, and 90% over a 4-year period.

A player can leave a school early to play professionally, but must be in good academic standing at the time of dropping out in order to help the program’s APR and not hurt it.

First of all, the system in itself slants against basketball and for football. NCAA basketball players must be enrolled in both the fall and spring semesters in order to participate. NCAA football players only must be enrolled in the fall. Basketball players have to juggle academic and athletic commitments over two semesters, not just one.

In addition, football players can drop out before the spring semester in order to prepare for the NFL draft and their programs’ don’t feel nearly the same consequences as basketball players. Basketball players are forced to decide whether to complete a spring semester at a school they plan to leave or improve their skills in the gym to impress their future employer.

At the end of the day, isn't college supposed to be about developing students into professionals? 

The NBA draft is nothing more than a job offer to a college student. Should a school’s computer science department be penalized if its best students drop out to take jobs at Google? If an NBA team wants to give a college athlete a professional contract, why should the NCAA punish the program that helped that athlete develop into a professional?

Was the NCAA trying to act in its athletes’ best interests with this? Or were they maintaining the appearance of academia and rebuilding their case that basketball players are “student-athletes,” and not employees?

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. Back to the injustices of the APR as it applies to college basketball in general, and UConn in particular.

The lower numbers of scholarships allowed on a college basketball team mean one or two bad students are very hard to recover from. Football teams are allowed 85 scholarship players. Basketball teams are allowed 13.  

A football team can have 13  academically-ineligible athletes (equivalent to an entire basketball roster) and have the same rate as a basketball team with 2 guys out.

This makes it extremely difficult for basketball programs to recover from a couple players who decided not to take their academic commitments seriously.  APR is measured over 2 and 4 year increments, which is not enough time for a program with a bad academic year to recover.

For example, for the sake of easy math, let’s say men’s basketball had the same scholarship limit as women’s basketball—15. 

One year X team had 15 scholarship players. 11 finished the year in good academic standing. Another left school early to go to the NBA but took his May finals and left in good academic standing. 

2 are academically ineligible but still in school, trying to get their grades up. 1 more left school without taking his finals in pursuit of the NBA. The program gets credit for 12 of the 15 players and scores an academic progress rate of 80%.

That rate is multiplied by 1,000 to get the 3-digit score the NCAA uses to evaluate academic progress. So in the above example, X team would have an APR of 800.

Even if X team keeps all of its players in good academic standing the next year, the two year rate would still be 27/30 or 90%, bringing their score up to just 900.

NCAA guidelines set the minimum 2-year APR at 925 and 4-year minimum at 900. But before 2012, failure to comply with these guidelines simply meant programs would lose one or two scholarships until the APR rose to an acceptable rate.  The penalty changed drastically in 2012, but the NCAA still used academic numbers from 2009, 2010, and 2011 (when the punishment was far less severe) to get a 2012 APR score.

UConn had a bad academic season in 2009/10. The Huskies' APR was 826. In 2010/11, however, the Huskies excelled in both the classroom and on the court, winning the national championship and scoring an APR of 978.

Despite this significant improvement, UConn’s 2-year APR was just 902, 23 points below the NCAA’s minimum. The NCAA suspended UConn from 2012/13 postseason play as punishment.

Shabazz Napier's freshman year began in 2010. No player on the current UConn team played with the "bad apples" of 2009. And when he signed to play for UConn, the punishment for such a low APR was not nearly as severe. He and his teammates had every right to feel hard-done-by. 

Napier's team was unfairly punished. And he stuck with UConn through the bad times. A champion in his freshman year, perhaps no single player faced more adversity during his time in school. No player has ever faced a bigger temptation to leave a school behind and go pro. But Napier stuck through it all. And he brought his team back to the top on his way out the door.

Frankly, I wish Napier had been given more time to speak. I wanted to hear everything he had to say.

NCAA Championship Preview

UConn--a 7 seed--will play Kentucky--an 8 seed--tonight in Dallas for the NCAA Championship. While both teams' seeds suggest they have been massive underdogs in this year's tournament, both programs have won NCAA championships in the last 4 years. And the two teams couldn't be more different.

Kentucky won it all just 2 years ago. The core of that team is gone now. A team that was built around the most talented freshmen in the country jumped to the NBA (or in Kyle Wiltjer's case transferred to Gonzaga) and coach John Calipari replaced them with...more freshmen.

Kentucky's "Fab 5" hasn't been the media sideshow that Michigan's 5 freshmen starters were in the early 90s. Mainly because Kentucky was distinctly average in the regular season. Kentucky was swept by Arkansas, lost at LSU, lost at South Carolina, and lost to Florida by an average of 15 points in 2 regular season matchups.

Heading into the tournament, Kentucky's record in games decided by 5 points or less was 2-8. They looked like a team that wasn't mature enough to handle the pressure in the most crucial moments. A team that was prone to mental errors and mistakes due to their lack of experience.

Since then, Kentucky has won 4 consecutive games by 5 points or less to get to the Championship game. The first team ever to do that in the NCAA tournament. The script flipped completely. Almost overnight, Kentucky's kid's grew up. All of a sudden, Kentucky's freshmen are the kings of the clutch moments.

UConn won it all 3 years ago behind a series of heroic performances by senior UConn guard Kemba Walker. Shabazz Napier and Niels Giffey were freshmen, and both played heavy minutes for John Calhoun's championship team. Napier was the starting point guard. In the 3 years since, John Calhoun resigned due to health problems, the Big East fell apart, and the program faced a one-year post-season ban last season due to NCAA academic sanctions.

The UConn stars stuck around through this adversity, and it has reaped major rewards for the Huskies. UConn's best 4 players are upperclassmen. Napier and Giffey are seniors, and Napier is reminding a lot of people of Walker with his number of impressive performances in the tournament. Ryan Boatright and DeAndre Daniels are juniors.

New coach Kevin Ollie had a very long NBA career, and like Fred Hoiberg at Iowa State, this professional approach to college coaching seems to be working very well. Ollie's tactical decisions against Florida confused the Gators after the SEC champs and #1 overall seed failed to build on their early 16-4 lead in the semifinal.

The contrasts between UConn and Kentucky couldn't be more obvious. Only time will tell whether UConn's experience will win over Kentucky's talent.

US/Mexico Preview

The World Cup is just 10 weeks away, and the United States scheduled a traditional friendly with Mexico tonight to prepare. The friendly is outside of FIFA's calendar for mandated international breaks but both nations agreed to play it anyway. This additional game will help both US manager Jurgen Klinsmann and Mexican manager Miguel Herrera finalize their squads and evaluate their players, as the match could perhaps give both teams a leg up on World Cup competitors who won't be playing this week.

Klinsmann selected a 22-man roster to play in the match, choosing exclusively North American-based players (with one exception, a reserve player from Germany--more on him later) in order to be fair to the European-based players' club teams and not burden their squads with undue travel and fatigue in what amounts to an important, but unnecessary match.

The squad Klinsmann chose is below:

GK - Bill Hamid (DC United), Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)

DEFENSE - Tony Beltran (Real Salt Lake), Matt Besler (Sporting KC), Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy), Clarence Goodson (San Jose Earthquakes), Michael Parkhurst (Colombus Crew), DeAndre Yedlin (Seattle Sounders FC), DaMarcus Beasley (Puebla (MEX)), Michael Orozco (Puebla (MEX))

MIDFIELD - Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Michael Bradley (Toronto FC), Brad Davis (Houston Dynamo), Landon Donovan (LA Galaxy), Maurice Edu (Philadelphia Union), Luis Gil (Real Salt Lake), Graham Zusi (Sporting KC)

FORWARDS - Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders), Julian Green (Bayern Munich Reserves), Eddie Johnson (DC United), Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes)

On Monday, Mexican club Puebla declined to release Beasley and Orozco for the match, however. Klinsmann's squad was reduced to 20, and is now very short of defenders, with just 6 defenders now available.

Crucially, Puebla's decision leaves the US squad without any left backs.

Left back has been a tough spot for the US to fill since Frankie Hejduk's admirable performance in the 2002 World Cup. After first converting winger Eddie Lewis to play the role, the US has also tried Jonathan Bornstein and Edgar Castillo, never with much success. But in last year's World Cup qualifiers, former PSV and Manchester City winger Beasley embraced the role and was the US's most surprising player. Beasley should expect to feature at left fullback in the upcoming World Cup, but not tonight.

Castillo, the most likely back-up for Beasley, plays for Club Tijuana in Mexico. Tijuana won a CONCACAF Champions League semi-final against Cruz Azul last night, and Klinsmann chose not to select Castillo for the friendly out of respect for Tijuana's involvement in the competition. Puebla has no such match, and therefore Klinsmann rightfully assumed Beasley and Orozco would be allowed to play.

The Mexican team consists of 22 players, all coming from the Mexican League. Two of these players (defender Rogelio Alfredo Chavez and attacking midfielder Marco Fabian) were pulled from Cruz Azul's Champions League squad to play for their country. And yet Beasley and Orozco will be the players missing from tonight's match.

The lack of sportsmanship shown by Puebla here is disappointing. Klinsmann used stronger words in an interview with Univision.

"We got notice today from Puebla that they don't release DaMarcus Beasley and Orozco, which we'd planned on and we are very angry, very angry about this," Klinsmann said. "The Mexican clubs release all their players for this very prestigious friendly. For us, [with the] World Cup coming up, it's very important. And [Puebla] doesn't play in the CONCACAF Champions League, which we have a lot of respect for, but they don't release two players which are very important to us--it makes us upset."

The US will likely be forced play versatile defender Parkhurst in Beasley's role, or play one of the squad's two specialist right backs, Yedlin or Beltran, on the left. But seeing how the US manages this defensive handicap is only one reason to watch the match tonight (kicking of at 11 pm ET).

The other is to get a first look at German-American starlet Julian Green. Green has been very impressive in the Bayern reserves this season, and has been tipped to eventually make the jump to Bayern's first team by Bayern superstars Arjen Robben and Bastian Schweinsteiger in an interview with SI.com.

"He's got great potential, so I think you can be happy about the fact he chose to play for the US." Robben said. "He's a great talent. He already trained with [Bayern's first team] several times, and you can see he has potential. He's quick, he's got very good dribbling and can score goals."

"First, I think he has a good personality, that's for me always important," Schweinsteiger said. "And second he's very quick--without the ball and with the ball. He plays a little bit like me. I'm not as quick as him, but at the beginning of my career I was playing on the left side outside, like his position now, and would come in and shoot with the right foot. He's done that a lot. He's young, but he's fresh and dynamic. It's good for the US now, absolutely."

18-year-old Green's choice to play for the US ahead of his native Germany is a major coup by US soccer fans. Born in Germany to a German mother and an American GI father, Green's decision comes after the US missed out on many other talented European-based players who chose to play for European nations ahead of the US.

New Jersey-born Italy striker Giuseppe Rossi was perhaps the biggest name missed, but Stuttgart/Bosnia striker Vedad Ibisevic, who played high school and collegiate soccer in St Louis, Missouri, also would have provided serious competition to Jozy Altidore up front. Utah-born Serbian defender Neven Subotic of Dortmund could have been a much more important player than either Rossi or Ibisevic for a US team who has suffered with a suspect defense in recent years.

Times have changed. The US has already captured similar German-based players with American military backgrounds in Danny Williams, Timothy Chandler and Terrance Boyd since Klinsmann was hired. And after securing Icelandic-American striker Aron Johansson last year, Green is further evidence that Klinsmann, Sunil Gulati, and the US Soccer Federation has made securing these young talented players with dual citizenship a top priority; a strategy that should pay dividends over the next decade.

NCAA's Final 4 Clouded by Larger Legal Issue

The Final 4 is set. #1 overall seed Florida gets a chance at redemption against UConn, one of just two teams to beat the Gators this year. Wisconsin, the other team who has beaten Florida, will play Kentucky.

Florida is a team with a lot of experience., The Gators made three straight Elite 8s before finally cutting down the nets in Memphis Saturday. Congratulations to Billy Donovan, one of the best coaches in college basketball, for getting his team over the hump and into the sport's final weekend.

Wisconsin is making their first trip to the Final 4 under Bo Ryan. UConn is making their first trip under new coach Kevin Ollie. Both teams have star upperclassmen in Shabazz Napier and Frank Kaminsky who have grown into bonafide superstars this year. There's plenty to like about both teams as they square off to play SEC opponents in Texas next weekend.

But I find the timing of this year's NCAA tournament to be very ironic.

This year's NCAA tournament has served as a distraction from a much larger issue: the Northwestern football team's victory with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Regional Director on March 26, in which they successfully qualified themselves as employees of Northwestern University--employees with the ability to unionize and bargain collectively. This may very well be another nail in the NCAA amateurism coffin.

A few things to note about the decision.

First, Northwestern is a private university, and the decision therefore does not yet apply to the public universities who are, in large part, the worst offenders. The large public schools profit most off the free labor NCAA amateurism provides.

Second, Northwestern graduates close to 97% of their "student-athletes," one of the highest graduation rates in the country. This means athletes at private schools with lower graduation rates will have an easier case to make in showing they are employed athletes for their institutions and not just students.

Third, it should be noted that the NLRB decision will have to stand up to appeals at the national level. The Northwestern players have already indicated their intent to take the case that far, and a few of them are traveling to Washington to meet with Congress this week.

Finally, it also should be mentioned that at this point, the Northwestern players have not indicated they will be seeking any share of the football program's revenue, and instead have focused on obtaining health insurance from the university to cover football-related injuries. But eventual monetary compensation seems to be the logical end as the NCAA and their "student-athletes" start down this path toward reclassification.

This classification was a long time coming. In fact, it took some clever rhetorical changes in the 1950s and 60s to delay the "employee" classification for as long as it has.

In 1953, University of Denver football player Ernest Nemeth successfully argued that collegiate football players fit under the definition of "employee" under Colorado's workers compensation statute, meaning the university was required to provide worker's compensation for Nemeth's football injuries. This decision was upheld by the Colorado State Supreme Court, a decision which shocked the NCAA.

In response, the NCAA changed their language to re-emphasize academics. They invented the term: "student-athlete."

Walter Byers, who served as the NCAA Executive Director at the time, later wrote:

"[The] threat was the dreaded notion that NCAA athletes could be identified as employees by state industrial commissions and the courts. [To address that threat, we] crafted the term student-athlete and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations as a mandated substitute for such words as 'players' and 'athletes.' We told college publicists to speak of 'college teams,' not football or basketball 'clubs,' a word common to the pros."

After slapping on a brand new "student-athlete" label, the NCAA suffered another blow 10 years later.

In 1963, the California Supreme Court ruled that Cal Poly football player Gary Van Horn (who died in a 1960 plane crash when returning from a football game) was an employee of the University, meaning his widow and dependent children were eligible for death benefits under California worker's compensation law. In the decision, the California Supreme Court indicated that a clear connection could be drawn between Van Horn's expected participation in the Cal Poly football program and Van Horn's athletic scholarship. The decision established a precedent in which a college athlete could have a contract of employment with a university where the scholarship was the only form of compensation for services.

So when the "student-athlete" label did not resolve the issue on its own, the NCAA then decided to promote new verbage in their scholarship "contracts." The NCAA encouraged this specific language:

"This award is made in accordance with...the principles of amateurism, sound academic standards, and financial aid to student athletes...Your acceptance of the award means you agree with these principles and are bound by them."

This contract language meant athletes could only receive compensation (in the form of the scholarship) in exchange for renouncing all commercial or pecuniary rights that could arise in the course of the athlete's relationship with their university. Because there is no significant competitor to the NCAA for collegiate athletes in the US, college athletes had no choice but to accept the terms that the NCAA provided.

The new language had the sole purpose of allowing NCAA member institutions to avoid legal responsibilities as employers. And as NCAA commercial revenue has risen exponentially in the 50 years since Gary Van Horn, the NCAA has collected an immense amount of unjust profits as a result.

But the course of conduct between the universities and their athletes never changed.

Scholarship athletes were still expected to participate in athletics, or else risk losing their scholarship. The employee-employer relationship still existed, and the NCAA simply took advantage of a strong bargaining position to contract over the issue. This strategy paid major dividends to the NCAA for over 50 years.

The recent NLRB decision by Regional Director Peter Sung Ohr recognized this. His decision went into great detail on the revenue and benefits received by the school, revenue that is wholly dependent on the participation of Northwestern football players in the football program. Ohr also noted that the Northwestern coaching staff exerts an inordinate amount of control over their players lives, devoting nearly half of a 24-page opinion to Northwestern practice schedules, required workouts, final say on living arrangements, vehicle registration, control over player use of social media, dress code, restrictions on off-campus travel, and other elements of increased institutional control over football players. Ohr surmised that this amount of control was much more analogous to an employer-employee relationship than a typical school-student relationship. And he decided that Northwestern athletes should be allowed to unionize accordingly, as employees.

While the ruling won't change the landscape of college athletics any time soon, it can certainly be viewed as a strong victory for college athletes and a resounding loss by the NCAA. The athletes have won a significant battle here. As the case progresses through appeals at the federal level, only time will tell if they will win the war.