Oh, Herro Lim

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USA, a-okay

David Stern and Roger Goodell might be interested in the international intrigue of their sports, but the sports media here in the US is apparantly disinterested at best.

In case you haven't heard (and judging by the media coverage, you haven't) Yao and Yi's teams play each other tonight. The ratings for the game are expected to more than double last year's Super Bowl ratings. This is the biggest sports story in the most populated country, which is hosting the Olympics by the way. Yao vs. Yi: Bigger than the Olympics.

Yet the game will not be televised in the United States, unless you're lucky enough to live in the Milwaukee or Houston viewing area. Lucky for Bechtel and I, we are. The rest of you chumps: well apparantly you're not interested. ESPN doesn't even mention the story on their front page. Fox Sports doesn't even have the story on it's NBA front page. Enjoy your Nuggets/Wizards game, America.

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It all makes sense now

Ah, so this is what they were waiting for.

After the Brewers blew yet another lead (to the jerks from the Northside, nonetheless) Milwaukee had a plan to keep the shotguns out of Milwaukee sports fans' mouths.

That, and football season (at least the college version) officially begins tomorrow.

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ESPN May Not Be Huge Fans of Small Market Teams, After All

Friend of YCS Brian sent me a really interesting (although sadly unsurprising) email today about the ongoing saga of the Yi Jianlian contract negotiations, specifically in re: ESPN's coverage therewith.

Brace yourself, this post contains accusations that ESPN may be engaged in irresponsible journalism. I'll give you a moment to collect yourself, I assume you just did a spit take followed by an exaggerated "WHAAAA!?!?!?!?!!" Good to go? Good.

The basic gist of what's happened is that ESPN.com's Mark Stein has run with a quote from Guangdong Tigers chief Chen Haitao in which he indicated that Jianlian would "never" play for the Bucks. Stein's blog story (sorry, it's insider) details the Yi "ultimatum" the Bucks face from the reluctant Tigers to allow Jianlian to play for Milwaukee. The story was on the front page of ESPN's NBA page for most of the day and remains prominently placed on the NBA page as of this post.

Sounds fine, right? On the whole, yeah, there has been some controversy over the fact that the Bucks took Yi dispite the fact that his people didn't want him in Milwaukee.

Well, there's a problem. The story apparently isn't true. Both the AP and fantasy sports site Rotowire have picked up the story and have clearly indicated that team officials in China are angrily denying that such statements (which first appeared in Chinese newspapers) were ever made.

Now, this isn't really a major issue on its face, because Stein or an editor at ESPN.com could simply throw a phrase into the article relating the way the story's validity is under review. The problem is, though, that they don't. To small market fans that don't get all their sports news from the WWL, this seems problematic. I'll let Brian elaborate and close it out in his own words, complete with plenty of passionate vitriol on behalf of Bucks nation:

I just wanted to point out that ESPN ran on their front page the sensational article that Chen Haitao said that Yi Jianlian would never play for the Bucks. When the AP puts out a story saying that the club is denying the story and the club is "very willing to work with the Bucks", where do you see it? Certainly not on ESPN's front page, they still have links to the original article that the Guangdong Tigers are denying.

As a Bucks fan and Milwaukee native this seems like a huge smear campaign by ESPN against the Bucks and the city of Milwaukee. Sorry we aren't in a big market, but the draft is the draft and no matter how many articles they run and how much negativity they spread, Yi will be playing for the Bucks.

I know the ESPN brass are probably already crying over the fact that the Brewers may be playoff bound, but they are going to have to deal with David Stern making them broadcast Bucks games now too. Well ESPN needs to suck it up and someone needs to be on the forefront pointing out this irresponsible journalism.

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The Politics and Business of Yi Jianlian

When the Bucks drafted Yi Jianlian, you could almost hear him thinking to himself, "Where the fuck is Milwaukee?" And most of the rest of the world wonders the same thing. Most people outside of the Midwest, not to mention outside of the country, probably can't point out Milwaukee on a map, so it's understandable that the draft's third biggest story has turned into whispers of holdouts and trade demands.

Here in Milwaukee the general buzz (at least the one I've gathered) is that we better get a good deal for Yi. Even though Yi himself has said that he will play wherever he gets drafted, his posse (or handlers, or entourage, or whatever) doesn't like the idea of going to a small market city with such a low Chinese population. So most people seem to be assuming that a trade is in the works, and we (Milwaukee) are okay with that as long as we get a good return.

Well I'm here to cry foul. This could be a pivotal moment for the NBA as far as international players are concerned. If the Bucks and the NBA allow Yi to "force" a trade, it could be the end of the free market system that professional basketball currently enjoys. When I talk to people that are big sports fans, but lackluster about Major League Baseball, it's almost always because of what we'll call the New York Yankees factor. When big market teams like New York and L.A. are able to push their weight around to create an imbalanced playing field in free agency, sports leagues lose parity. And even though the biggest markets are satisfied with being in contention every year, it takes an entire country of interest for a professional sports league to thrive. Baseball is able to get away with it (though I think they could generate more fan interest with a salary cap, although I don't necessarily personally want to see a salaray cap...you know what, that's a long tangent that I'm not going to go into) but the NBA cannot live without the combined interests of markets like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Portland, Indiana, Utah, etc.

I applaud Milwaukee for calling Yi's bluff and drafting him despite being locked out of his workouts, but to complete the move they have to sign him and get him in a Bucks uniform next year. If the Bucks trade Yi it could open the floodgates, so to speak, and persuade other international talents to demand to play in cities where there is a high population of their nationality. This means that the whole market is cornered by cities like New York and L.A. (and to a lesser degree Chicago and D.C.) Teams could, like Milwaukee, draft international talent and try to get a good deal for their draft pick, but when a player is pressuring a team to trade, that team never gets a completely fair deal.

It is vital that the Bucks stay strong on this. If Yi's representatives threaten to move him back to China, let them. As much as it would pain me to see the Bucks go from having the next Dirk Nowitzki to having nothing, we already traded the first Dirk Nowitzki for nothing, soooo been there, done that.

Oh, and just to clear things up...

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