I made some updates to the Pool Manager file that put back in some of the functionality that had been lost when the field expanded to 68 teams. Specifically, I added columns to the leaderboard to show Max Points, and who each participant had in the Final Four, Championship Game, and as the National Champion. As teams lose in the tourney, those team names will automatically be crossed out and the max points will update accordingly.

If you’d like to use the latest version, you can download it from the brackets page, or just click here to download.

Once you download this version (9-0-0), you’ll need to re-import your participants’ brackets and again update the MasterBracket tab. There has been limited testing on this version, so please let me know if you come across any errors.

I hope you continue to get good use out of the brackets, and thanks for all the feedback and suggestions for improvements.

Note: if you are using the old version (v7), your brackets won’t import. This only works for the new version. I’m planning on retiring v7 once I get all the functionality migrated to the new version.

Image courtesy of david.dames under a Creative Commons license

Image courtesy of david.dames under a Creative Commons license

There have been some complaints and shock that American Olympians are taxed on the medals they win and the bonuses they make for winning.* Senator Rubio (R-FL) has positioned it as the burdensome tax code punishing people for success, and he’s introduced a bill to further complicate amend the tax code for the athletes.

Olympians should pay taxes on their earnings. Or they shouldn’t. But taxing athletes’ earnings is fair under the law. Complaints about Olympians being taxed should be directed at the US tax code and/or the Federal government’s decision to not fund Olympic sport.

*Follow @SportsTaxMan for a good rundown of the amounts and related taxes

Are these taxes an injustice?

No. Successful Olympians are earning more because they do their job better than others, and they are paying more in taxes for it.

However, these taxes are consistent with the American tax code and general views on income-based progressive taxation. These athletes are earning money practicing a trade in which they are adept.  An exterminator who is great at getting rid of ants pays taxes on his earnings, as does the chemist who’s a wizard with polymers. The only difference with athletes is there are a lot fewer Franklins than there are Franks.

But they’re representing America!

Why is that relevant? Government employees, including Sen. Rubio, work to make America function. But they have to pay taxes. Servicemembers in the military pay taxes too (though there is some reprieve for those in a combat zone). In those cases, the individuals are paid with tax money. When a CEO has a great year, he/she receives a bonus; just like the bonuses received by the successful athletes. If the CEO’s bonus should be taxed, shouldn’t athletes be held to the same standard?

Funding for US athletes

US Olympians, unlike almost every other country in the world, are not funded tax dollars. They are privately funded through broadcast rights, sponsorships, donations, etc. Making a tax exemption for Olympians is akin to the Federal government funding its athletes. The government would be passing on a revenue source to which it is rightfully entitled (under an income tax-driven tax system).

If you believe that the USA should fund its athletes, that’s fine. Though I’m sure that policy would also raise ire, particularly among those upset with the economy or government spending.

Gold medal for Red Herring Tossing

While one may find the idea that our athletes pay taxes objectionable, it is appropriate given US tax code. If these taxes are truly problematic, then the fault lies with the income tax as a whole (blame Donald Duck), not with this one quirk. If you don’t think we should have income tax, fine. There is plenty of material to support that as a smart view (economists often prefer a consumption tax).

It’s one thing to use Olympians as an illustration of the folly of an income tax, but taxing their earnings is perfectly consistent with how other Americans are treated.

NBC’s decision to tape-delay the broadcast of the Olympics has been met with considerable derision. In the world of the Internet and social media, it’s hard to not know the results of events before they’re broadcast during primetime. Fans have asked, “Why they can’t treat the Olympics the way ESPN treats any international event?” There are multiple reasons for this, and they all relate to money.

A primer on rights fees.

Broadcasters pay sport properties for the right to broadcast the events, and there is competition among broadcasters for the opportunity to do so. For the Olympics, NBC competes against bidders like ESPN/ABC (Disney) and Fox (NewsCorp). Each entity has its own attractive offerings for the IOC (e.g., tie-ins with Disney theme parks). NBC paid about $1.18 billion for the rights to broadcast the 2012 London Games.

Revenue streams.

Broadcasters are willing to pay that much because they feel they can make up that money through their own revenue generating channels. But this is where it gets interesting.

• NBC is free-to-air, and thus makes its revenue primarily through advertising on its programs.
• ESPN is a cable channel, and thus makes revenue through advertising and through payments from cable providers like Time Warner, Comcast, etc. ESPN charges a carriage fee of about $4.69 per subscriber per month, over four times higher than any other basic cable channel. That is a lot of extra revenue to supplement advertising dollars. That added revenue option gives ESPN a big advantage in terms of the amount that it can bid for sport programming.

Viewers.

There are more viewers at primetime than during the day. People are home from work, kids are in bed, and they have a little time to relax with TV. Advertisers will pay more to reach more viewers, and thus will pay more to NBC for programming on at night. Despite results known ahead of time, early results from London show great ratings (up 17% from Beijing).

Even with more eyeballs, NBC still expects to lose money. Don’t worry, they plan to make it up in the long run through promoting their own shows (OMG, did you know The Voice is on NBC!?! If not, you will. Ugg.), building the NBC Sports brand, etc.

People want to watch the Olympics, and the time when they’re able to watch TV is in the evenings – why not give viewers what they want? Advertisers are happy, viewers are happy-ish. (And for all their whining, viewers can watch events live online if they really want to see the events as they unfold)

The future.

Things are changing a bit now that NBC is owned by Comcast (a provider). Events are shown on the NBC Sports Network (née Versus), CNBC, etc., each of which have their own carriage fees, albeit paltry in comparison to ESPN. Given this, and the increase in access to results, we could see more live programming in the future.

For Rio 2016, where there isn’t a large time discrepancy with the USA, I wouldn’t be surprised if the best events aired live during the day and then were tape delayed at night. That is, the events are shown twice. The day-cast will appeal to a certain audience segment, but the primetime broadcast will capture more viewers and can incorporate the schmaltz production and personal interest stories that people love (see Will Leitch’s argument of Olympics as reality television).

Even if we don’t remember bombing victims (NBC), we should at least remember that our viewing of sports is mediated. (image from gawker.com)

NBC edited the London 2012 Opening Ceremonies and has caught flak for doing so because the cuts included a tribute to victims of the 7/7/2005 terrorist attacks. NBC’s response: “our programming is tailored for the U.S. audience.” Aside from the questionable public relations tact, NBC is doing nothing unusual. Deadspin summed up the situation like this:

Everywhere else in the world—including places like China and Saudi Arabia—the Olympics are considered a major international news story, worthy of coverage as such and, thus, live and as uninterrupted as possible. Comparisons include the Royal Wedding (which NBC *did* show live in its entirety) or a natural disaster like a tsunami. Our editor emeritus Will Leitch says the Olympics aren’t sports, but reality TV; he’s right, only insofar as an American perspective goes, though. We’re conditioned to think we should be fed our salad pre-tossed because that’s how we’ve always received it; NBC has taken this liberty we’ve given them and used it to craft narratives that do not actually exist and to eliminate the ones they’d rather we not see.

In their classic, cynical viewpoint, Deadspin and Leitch are right. What we see from the Olympics is filtered in a way that NBC’s producers feel will be most enjoyable to the most American viewers. What’s surprising about this is that it’s surprising — all sport consumed via media is filtered.

Sport is mediated through broadcast production (see Jarvie, 2006). The entirety of an event cannot be captured through the media and thus broadcasters select particular visual sights/angles, sounds, individual competitors, commentary, etc. Consumers tend to forget that they aren’t watching “the real thing” and are instead being provided with a perspective. Below are a few examples, some obvious, some more nuanced:

• NBC focuses its Olympic coverage on American athletes and the sports about which Americans care and our athletes are expected to do well. Primetime coverage (which is delayed) is more likely to show an American swimmer’s silver medal than the gold medal match in handball.
  

  This is finest handball in the world… but we don’t care.

• Viewers on TV hear sounds of the sport that those in the stadium don’t hear (for now), some of which have been pre-recorded.
• The camera in football focuses on the quarterback. WRs are running routes and lineman are opening up holes, but the center of attention is the QB. Many believe the view of what’s actually going on is better from behind (why video games show this perspective), but television viewers prefer the view down the line of scrimmage.
• Only a small fraction of a baseball diamond is viewable at any one time. (Jeter didn’t “come out of nowhere;” he just wasn’t in frame)
• SiriusXM radio broadcasts NFL games on two channels – one with the home team’s commentators, one with the away team’s. The audio from those broadcasts will be filtered to offer the perspective most relevant to that team’s fans.

It’s not wrong for the broadcasters to filter like this. In fact, it makes watching the sports a lot more enjoyable for us at home. We want our sport viewing to be filtered, and the media does it for us. Sometimes they make mistakes, like cutting away from a soccer player just as she cheap shots her opponent; or not capturing an AFL player making a run to catch a mark; or focusing on the lead car in a NASCAR instead of the more interesting jockeying for position five cars back; or cutting out a tribute to terrorism victims that will be perceived a insensitive by just about everyone.  But in general, broadcasters do a good job showing us what we want to see.

We just need to remember that we are not getting a true representation of the sport on the field. And that’s okay.

As part of the changes in the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, saving for retirement will be as mandatory as wind sprints (see Bloomberg). Money for players will be siphoned to annuity investments that will pay players a fixed amount starting at some point after each player’s career. This is probably a good thing for a population where an estimated 60% of players are broke within 5 years of retirement (though Libertarians might argue that this is not America), but let’s look on the dark side and see how this will be exploited.

Assuming the investment is low risk, the annuity represents an almost guaranteed stream of payments at some point in the future. Because it is low risk, the return on the investment won’t be great, and players won’t get it until several years into the future. But what if the heroes of the hardwood are under pressure to get the money now??

Those who don’t want to wait until their golden years to cash in on their fame can get the money sooner by issuing bonds that are secured by the stream of future payments. A financial institution will pay the athlete a lump sum now (something less than the expected present value of the series of annuity payments) in return for access to the annuity’s cash flows when occur.

Image from askmen.com

This asset-backed security is similar to Bowie Bonds, debt issued by David Bowie and backed by the future royalties of his songs. In both cases, individuals use their future earnings as a way to access capital sooner rather than later. This is somewhat fashionable in the music business, but not too common in sports. Frank Thomas tried something similar, based on his playing contract, but the payments weren’t “guaranteed enough” for the market.

This isn’t some sort of magic dance around the rules – it’s a legitimate means of acquiring money now instead of having to wait. This is great for individuals who can invest the money now and earn a return that exceeds the PV of the annuity payments. Unfortunately, athletes have a long history of making bad investments, and eschewing the annuity payments could have these young Americans living, not dancing, in the street.

The highest level of college football is finally getting a playoff. This is something for which I have advocated, including co-developing the Enhanced Bowl Season to incorporate a 12-team playoff within the existing constraints of the power structure. The conference commissioners did better by ceding a little power/control for the long-term good of the sport (and ultimately themselves). I still have issues with a 4-team system, but many of the flaws I noted can be reduced breaking with the status quo.

I’ve disagreed with some actions of Jim “the bulldog” Delany and Mike Slive over the years, but there is no denying the deftness with which they’ve navigated many competing interests. They’re smart men and have done an excellent job representing their conferences’ interests. By moving to a playoff, they continue to do so – Delany estimates that this will bring 3-4 times the current revenue, an estimate that may be conservative. Further, this will make the regular season even better by keeping more teams in the hunt for a national championship longer into the season. More importantly, it may help stem the tide of cupcake scheduling for fear of getting a loss.

It looks like there will be a selection committee to choose the four tournament teams. There are many problems with that, but a positive will be removing the influence of the polls. They will still exist, but they will go back to being interesting fodder for debate. The selection committee will surely be influenced by them, but will process them through mental filters.

To be clear, this change is the result of pressure from the outside:

• Pollspeak.com shed light on the inherent flaws of human voting and advocating for transparency. The world is better when those with power provide transparency (c.f., Arab Spring, US government, Google).
• Playoff PAC consolidated the opposition and put forth a focused counter case.
• The media played a huge role with blogs (How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the BCS) and books (Death to the BCS)
• Larry Scott brought cultural change and the willingness to take on sacred cows.
• Federal & state governments got involved
• And don’t discount the bowls who sewed the seeds of their destruction through avarice and corruption.

The new playoff won’t be perfect. It may not even be good. Fans, pundits, and critics will still rightfully howl. Biases will still permeate the selection committee and power interests will still work to be maintained. But it will be better. This is progress toward fairness on the field. Decades of lowering my expectations make me happy about that. But watch this space sometime after 2014 for more complaints.

UCLA is getting some negative press for awarding a scholarship to Justin Combs. Justin is the son of very wealthy rapper Sean Combs (née P. Diddy, née Puff Daddy).

By most accounts, Combs is worthy of the scholarship. His Scout and Rivals ratings, while modest, aren’t abnormal among UCLA recruits. Plus he brings intangibles, such as attention to a program desperate for relevance in the shadow of USC.

The scholarship offer is a nice, validating gesture on the part of the Bruins. But the selfish (and best) thing for Combs to do is not take the money.

The NCAA limits scholarship athletes on a roster. If Combs wants UCLA to do better, he should give up his scholarship so it can be assigned to someone else (perhaps he could have a hand-shake agreement that it won’t be another cornerback). The better the team does, the better it is for Combs, and that one extra scholarship might make the difference. We’ve seen this before with NFL players, who also face an artificial labor restriction in the form of a salary cap.

There’s no denying the intelligence and savvy of Combs’ father. Don’t be surprised if Justin doesn’t take that scholarship after all.

Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

The 2012 NCAA Brackets and Pool Manager files are now available on the brackets page.  This year pool managers have the option to include scoring for the “First Four” matchups.

Image courtesy of david.dames under a Creative Commons license