Romantic sacrifice.

CBS/Turner signs 14-year, $10.8 billion deal with the NCAA for exclusive rights to the men's basketball tournament after the NCAA opts out of the final three years of an 11-year, $6 billion dollar contract.

ESPN signs 12-year, $1.86 billion deal with the Atlantic Coast Conference for exclusive rights to broadcast conference football and men's basketball games.

CBS signs 15-year, $800 million deal with the Southeastern Conference for football and basketball rights.

ESPN also signs 15-year, $2.25 billion deal with the SEC for sport broadcast rights — ultimately more than 5,500 televised events, including football games not already on CBS.

ESPN signs 20-year, $300 million deal with the University of Texas for sport broadcast rights, including at least one football game per year.

ESPN signs $125 million-a-year deal with the Bowl Championship Series for exclusive rights to the four most prestigious post season NCAA Division I Football post-season games and the "BCS National Championship Game".

Big Ten schools earn $22 million-a-year from television contracts, football bowl games and NCAA licensing.

The University of Georgia generated $52.5 million in football profits from 1 July, 2009 to 30 June, 2010.

A.J. Green, former Georgia football player and projected first-round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, wore the number '8' on his jersey. Price of an "Authentic" Georgia football jersey, from the official NCAA merchandise store, adorned with the number '8': $150.00.  Green's name, hysterically, is not across the back of the jersey because the NCAA believes that itself and schools should not profit off the name of amateur athletes.  That even though they market them, that even though they sign billion-dollar contracts to showcase them on television where they are repeatedly called by name, they won't sell a jersey with an athlete's name on it in the name of keeping the sport 'pure'.  In the name of upholding 'amateurism'.

So, on 8 September, 2010, in the name of maintaining the purity of collegiate athletics, the NCAA suspended Georgia football player A.J. Green four games for selling a game-worn bowl jersey for $1000.

"This is a violation of law!"

The Wisconsin State Senate passed a stripped-down version of Governor Scott Walker's "budget-repair bill" earlier tonight. Having had all budget-related elements expunged from the bill in an earlier, makeshift committee with only one Democrat present — Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca — the nineteen Senate Republicans were able to vote on Walker's bill as a non-budgetary action in the Senate does not require a successful quorum — what the Senate Democrats had been blocking with their escape from state troopers to Illinois.

And it wasn't even legal. Wisconsin law requires a twenty-four hour notice before a public body — like the aforementioned makeshift committee — can meet and only two hours were given. This breach of conduct weighed not on the Republican's minds for a second nor did the incredulous protests of Barca. "This is a violation of law! It's not a rule!"

Fun at the polls.

Public-Policy-Polling

Side with Governor Walker or the public employee unions:
Walker: 47%
Unions: 51%

Side with Governor Walker or the Senate Democrats:
Walker: 47%
Democrats: 52%

Walker's approval rating:
Approve: 46%
Disapprove: 52%

On public employee rights:
Fewer: 41%
Same: 44%
More: 11%

On public-unions having a right to collective bargaining:
Should not: 37%
Should: 57%

Straight Rights Watch: Wisconsin

Dan Savage—author of the nationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column "Savage Love", founder of the "It Gets Better" project created in response to bullied LGBT youth committing suicide, architect of the Rick Santorum Google bomb "Spreading Santorum"(potentially NSFW) and all around good guy—reintroduces the "Straight Rights Watch" in his latest column.

Straight Rights Watch, you ask?

We used to have a regular feature at Savage Love called “Straight Rights Watch.” It lapsed when the Democrats took the House in 2006 and political attacks on the sexual freedoms of straight people decreased. But the GOP is back in charge of the House and state houses across the country, and attacks on the sexual freedoms of heterosexuals—attempts to ban abortion, restrict access to birth control, destroy Planned Parenthood (which doesn’t just serve straight people), even make it legal to kill abortion providers (!!!)—are back, and so, sadly, is Straight Rights Watch.

Scott Walker is a foul individual.

Walker gave a speech today, you might have heard about it.

Democracy does not just expect differences, it demands them. It’s the manner in which we discuss and resolve those differences that leads to bold solutions and innovative reforms. I ask that we continue to be mindful of our differences – as well our similarities – in the coming days, weeks and months. Above all, let us not lose sight of the fact that we were each elected to represent the people of this state by participating in our democratic process. 

I applaud the State Assembly and those in the State Senate who are here today for not losing sight of that.

When suggested the idea of placing agent provocateurs amid the protesters, Walker responded: "We thought about that. The problem with - my only gut reaction to that would be right now is that the lawmakers I've talked to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this.  My only fear is if there's a ruckus caused that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor has to settle to avoid all these problems."  Certainly bold and innovative, I'll grant him that.

On Wisconsin, part two.

Part one can be found here.

1904.  New York City.  A burgeoning metropolis beginning to stand upright and not just walk, but run.  To sprint.  Feeling lactic acid immigrating to its tissues.  On the twenty-second of April, a wealthy textile importer and his painter wife have their first child.  The boy is named Julius.

Julius grows up in circumstances approaching dreams: a house with three original paintings from Van Gogh sprinkled between pieces from Picasso and Vuillard, studying at the Ethical Culture Society School which remains to this day a bastion of progressive thought, a father with a keen interest in schools who serves also as a member of the Society of Ethical Culture, a mother openly encouraging Julius and his younger brother to be eager with their interests and to try new things and to be inquisitive.

Wormtongue is at it again.

The February wind bites the back of your neck like a feral beast scrounging on the carcass and bones of caught prey.  Upturning the collar of your jacket or the throwing on of your scarf only makes you all the more aware of the acute burning on your cheeks.  As sure as noon follows morning and midnight follows dusk, as sure as the motivated legion of protesters in Madison are to stay committed to a cause battling a totalitarian regime, as sure as the sun rising each day...

...so too is Cullen Werwie prone to talk out of his arse.

AP file photo of Cullen Werwie addressing Wisconsin citizens.

On Wisconsin, part one.

This week, Catalan at Heart presents 'On Wisconsin', a multi-part look at the budgetary imbroglio Wisconsin finds itself in.  By tracing the who, the how, the why and everything between, we will offer a seemingly tangential, always empirical and ultimately definitive look on the crisis.  With snark.

As far as Wisconsin political theatre goes, the drama from fourteen Senate Democrats refusing a call to quorum and escaping to Illinois to avoid a sure-to-lose vote on Governor Scott Walker's "budget repair bill" is without precedent.  While the resulting schism is not starved for analogues to earlier affairs -- race relations, the original turmoil over unions, Bush/Kerry, Laverne and Shirley ending -- the connectedness of today's society has artificially amplified the fervor to a new critical mass.

While feasible to have avoided or compartmentalized earlier affairs, one click of the mouse or opening of a vibrating phone or button press of a remote control assaults one with instant news and faster commentary.  With tweets and status alerts and wall postings now the stuff of nightmares, a relentless force hunting and chasing regardless of the speed undertaken to get away or the tactics performed to elude its clutches.

On... progress?

Here's the thing: The Godwalker's bill was always going to pass the state Assembly.  After a grueling 61-hours of debate that started Tuesday afternoon, the bill's passing just after 1 a.m. on Friday morning was an inescapable eventuality.  With an Assembly of 60 Republicans, 38 Democrats and a lone Independent, not even a U.S. Army Psy-Ops team could have swung the vote enough to prevent its passing.  While the vote was 51-17, four Republicans broke party ranks, siding with each Democrat who voted.  Siding with each Democrat who voted, it is noted, because 28 total lawmakers did not.

28 didn't vote?  On a state bill that dominated national airwaves and the blogosphere much of the week?  What happened?

On modesty.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (via jsonline):

It's either a matter of making reductions and making modest requests of our government employees or making massive layoffs at a time when we don't need anyone else laid off.

There is nothing 'modest' about eliminating collective bargaining rights beyond wages.  There is nothing 'modest' about eradicating forty years of procedure and worker's rights.  There's nothing 'modest' about telling a group of workers to either bend over or get pushed off a cliff.