Tough and Tumble Pub is just the 2nd bar in the U.S. devoted to showcasing women’s sports activities.
SEATTLE — Sports provide folks alongside one another, but getting capable to view women’s sports activities in team settings, like bars and restaurants, is uncommon.
“I are not able to say the total of moments I’ve been to sports activities bars wherever I’m like ‘There’s a enormous like championship women’s sporting activities match, why do we have this random men’s football rerun?” claimed Casey Cairo, a athletics supporter.
Nevertheless, this battle with hoping to discover locations to observe women’s sports activities on Tv has now altered in Western Washington. Tough and Tumble Pub opened on Dec. 10th in Ballard. The proprietor reported it is the 1st women’s sporting activities pub in Washington and the 2nd all over the world.
“It’s emotional. you know” claimed Jen Barnes, the proprietor of Rough and Tumble. “I have welled up with tears and if I assume about it too tough, I am going to possibly start crying.”
The 1st two times after opening, the pub was absolutely complete, and even experienced people from area women’s pro teams, like the Seattle Storm.
The pub is adorned with women’s sports memorabilia and has 18 televisions. The objective of the pub is to prioritize women’s sports on their TVs, providing people today a position to occur collectively to take pleasure in and guidance women’s sports activities teams.
Barnes said they will air all sorts of women’s games, specially focusing on OL Reign, the Storm, and area women’s collegiate sports groups. Barnes explained that women’s athletics video games want to be a lot easier to entry. She mentioned this is crucial for equally the fans and the athletes.
“This is what we are entitled to, we should have equality,” reported Barnes.
Others at the pub viewing the men’s FIFA Entire world Cup on Saturday agreed that this room is essential.
“Seattle’s just owing for a spot like this,” said Stevie Jones, a sports activities supporter at the pub. “It’s so really hard to discover areas to observe women’s athletics.”
Enthusiasts said this form of pub will improve the visibility of women’s athletics groups and develop guidance.
“With the results that our women’s sporting activities groups have here in Seattle, it can be likely to be contagious,” claimed Jones.
“In a large amount of eating places and destinations wherever they showcase sports activities, generally it’s mainly like men’s soccer, men’s basketball, baseball, soccer. They don’t demonstrate a large amount of women’s sports. So, I assume that they’re underrepresented,” claimed Davis Glass Hastings, a youthful man from Seattle in attendance with his parents, brother, and grandmother.
Hastings also appreciates that Rough and Tumble is a position for households also.
“It’s form of a pub, but it is open to all ages, which I like. It truly is very inclusive,” reported Glass Hastings.
“To be capable to come to a put like this and be surrounded by other folks who take pleasure in the similar points and celebrate women’s athletics with each other is genuinely, actually cool,” explained Jones.
Inquire any one in the know and you may hear that Denver Broncos head mentor Nathaniel Hackett is very likely to be dismissed after his 1st season. Everyone with a brain and two eyes can see that Hackett is not good at his job, and regardless of his players’ coach name in the Broncos’ locker place, hsi final results on the subject have been historically terrible.
Enter Sean Payton — he of the New Orleans Saints, Super Bowl XLIV, and ‘Bounty-gate’ fame.
Payton retired (more like stepped down) from coaching the Saints at the conclusion of the 2021 time. He gave it a go for 1 year following Drew Brees’ retirement, and opted to get a crack. Considering that then, Payton has worked as a FOX Athletics NFL analyst.
Previously this 7 days, Payton threw his hat again into the NFL head-coaching ring with a declaration on Tom Brady’s Let’s Go podcast that he desires to return if he can uncover the correct circumstance. It probably served as a huge tentpole minute for the Broncos’ new possession group — the Walton/Penners, who have reportedly been “embarrassed” by how Hackett has steered the ship.
“I consider quicker than later on,” Payton mentioned. “I truly delight in the existing occupation I have. . . . But I assume relative to coaching, even though, I know that I want to coach yet again and it’s not truly been a magic formula. But I wanna discover the proper location. And as Tom alluded to, you know, it is even now about the people. Simply because when it is all carried out and it’s tranquil, I don’t feel it is the money or the group cheers or the trophies or any of that other things. I think it is about the journey with the folks that you definitely enjoy. . . . So we’ll kind of see what comes about. But quicker than later, although, in fairness to that query. I imagine that, you know, if not this year, with any luck , future year.”
Payton is hoping for a return to the NFL in this coming head-mentor using the services of cycle. And though he says “it can be not the dollars,” nothing at all rings the bell like the almighty greenback.
And the Walton/Penner team has lots of billions of those really bucks. Rob Walton is palms-down, and it is not even near, the richest operator in the NFL.
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If he wants Payton, Walton and his son Greg Penner can lay out a compensation bundle that the previous Saints head mentor could not refuse. The issue of no matter whether Payton would want to presume manage in excess of a dilapidated Broncos franchise fronted by a slumping Russell Wilson is open up to debate.
But contemplating the traditionally outlying mother nature of Wilson’s regression this 12 months, methinks Payton would perk up at the possibility to resurrect the nine-time Pro Bowler, particularly if it intended he’d be the NFL’s optimum-paid out mentor. Denver would have to compensate New Orleans, quite possibly to the tune of a first-spherical draft select, as the Saints still very own Payton’s rights.
Before the Broncos can maneuver toward Payton, while, there is the matter of what continues to be in this dismal season and the position of Hackett.
The regular season is over and the bowl schedule is set, so it’s time to look back at the teams and people that will stick with us from the 2022 college football season. If there’s one thing we learned this year — heck, if there’s one thing we learn every year — it’s that so little of what we expect to happen actually comes to fruition.
Take the College Football Playoff race. A new era emerged as Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma all missed the cut. Ohio State, which didn’t even win the Big Ten East for the second straight year, backed its way in as the No. 4 seed. Conversely, Michigan and Georgia clinched back-to-back spots, while TCU became just the second Big 12 school to earn a trip to the playoff.
Looking back at the preseason AP Top 25 feels like a time machine. Notre Dame and Texas A&M ranked No. 5 and 6, respectively. Baylor and Oklahoma were top-10 teams, and Miami, Wisconsin and Arkansas weren’t far behind. Now, as many as 16 teams from that preseason poll could find themselves out of the final poll after a tumultuous season. That just created even more opportunities for the rest of the sport to rise.
Here are the biggest winners and losers of the 2022 college football season.
Winners
TCU: When TCU moved on from Gary Patterson after more than 20 years, bringing Power Five retread Sonny Dykes from cross-town rival SMU didn’t garner much excitement. One year later, Dykes has to go down as one of the smartest hires in recent memory as he became the first external coaching hire to lead his program to the College Football Playoff in his first season — and he did it at TCU. The Frogs also became the first school from Texas to make the field — and second from the Big 12 — beating flagships Texas and Texas A&M to the final four. Quarterback Max Duggan went from backup quarterback to Heisman finalist in one season. It was a Cinderella season for the ages.
Tennessee: Expectations were high heading into Josh Heupel’s second season, but the Volunteers blasted through the ceiling. The offense hit the stratosphere behind quarterback Hendon Hooker, who finished as one of the most productive players in the nation. The headliner is obvious: The Vols knocked off Alabama for the first time during the Nick Saban era and pulled the goal posts to the ground. If not for a horrific November night at South Carolina, Tennessee would be in the College Football Playoff right now. Regardless, the vibes in Knoxville are impeccable.
The Pac-12: Though it missed the College Football Playoff for the sixth straight season, the state of West Coast football hasn’t looked this good in years. Six teams finished in the final regular-season CFP Rankings, the most of any conference. Lincoln Riley’s ascent at USC gets the most attention, but don’t sleep on Jonathan Smith at Oregon State, Jake Dickert at Washington State and even what Jedd Fisch is doing at Arizona. If resurgent Washington had not stumbled against Arizona State, the Pac-12 Championship Game would have been a playoff play-in between the Huskies and USC. USC and UCLA will leave the conference in 2024, creating a massive hole, but the rest of the league is still in solid shape with Utah leading the way. Oh, and we haven’t even mentioned Deion Sanders at Colorado.
Kansas: There’s almost no stat that can contextualize how deep a hole the Jayhawks were in during the 2010s. Kansas had not reached a bowl game since 2008 — which almost marked the last time it had even two conference victories. From 2010-2020, Kansas went a cool 21-108. Give Lance Leipold a billion dollars; he got Kansas to a bowl game in his second season! The Jayhawks put together one of the most dynamic offenses in the country behind star quarterback Jalon Daniels, starting 5-0 before Daniels missed some time with an injury.. With Leipold locked into a long-term contract, the future in Lawrence has never been brighter.
Duke: Don’t look now, but Blue Devils coach Mike Elko built a contender in Durham in no time flat. Duke won more games in Elko’s first season (8) than the last two seasons combined (5). Every single loss came by one score, including three losses by eight total points in ACC play. Quarterback Riley Leonard jumped off the page with nearly 2,800 yards and 20 touchdowns as a first-year starter. if Elko beats UCF in the Military Bowl, he will join David Cutcliffe as the only coach since World War II to win nine games in Durham. It’s incredibly difficult to win at the major academic schools. Duke hit a home run.
Troy: The Trojans didn’t make the flashiest hire by bringing in Kentucky linebackers coach Jon Sumrall — a former Neal Brown associate head coach — to lead the program. But after a three-year slog under Chip Lindsey, Troy was back to business with a massive 11-2 season and Sun Belt championship in Sumrall’s first year in charge. The Trojans will be a force to deal with in the Sun Belt for years to come. Don’t be surprised to see them enter the New Year’s Six conversation in 2023.
Losers
Texas A&M: The Aggies aren’t just the biggest loser of 2022; rather, they rank as one of the most disappointing teams in modern college football history. Texas A&M came into the season ranked No. 6 in the Preseason AP Top 25, but became the first squad since 2010 to go from the top six to missing a bowl game. The program had not missed a bowl game in any season since 2008, but picked the season after reeling in the No. 1 recruiting class of all time to hit the new low. There are a few bright spots. Quarterback Conner Weigman showed some intriguing tools in solid performances against then-No. 5 LSU. The disappointing season also means Fisher is likely to give up play calling duties for the first time in his career. Still, 2022 will be a black mark on a program that seemed to be on the upswing.
Miami: The dark horse ACC championship contender was anything but during a miserable 5-7 campaign, headlined by double-digit losses to Middle Tennessee, Duke and Pitt. Budding quarterback star Tyler Van Dyke regressed under ex-Broyles Award offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, and coach Mario Cristobal complained that struggles were the media’s fault for setting expectations too high. Whatever the reason was, Miami won just one of its nine Power Five games by more than one score. Cristobal will lean on a strong recruiting class in 2023, but will it be enough?
Preseason Big 12 contenders: Two Big 12 programs entered the year in the Preseason AP Top 10: No. 9 Oklahoma and No. 10 Baylor. Two Big 12 programs left the year ranked in the top 10 — and neither was Oklahoma nor Baylor. In fact, those teams picked No. 1 and No. 2 in the preseason Big 12 poll combined to finish 12-12, a shocking collapse after they combined for a 23-4 record in 2021. Oklahoma’s defense collapsed under first-year coach Brent Venables as the Sooners finished among the bottom 15 teams in the country in total defense. Baylor’s close game luck flipped as the Bears went 2-3 in one-score games. Some tough questions need to be asked in Norman and Waco.
Alabama: The Crimson Tide received 54 of the 63 first-place votes in the preseason AP Top 25 and seemed to be the overwhelming favorite to win the national championship with the best offensive (Bryce Young) and defensive (Will Anderson) players in the nation. However, the Tide were not their usual selves during a middling 10-2 campaign — a program floor by Alabama standards. Alabama was 1-6 against the spread against winning teams and needed hectic finishes just to beat Texas and Texas A&M. It also ranked 127th out of 131 teams in penalties per game. Instead of ending with three straight SEC title, championship weekend featured Nick Saban pandering for a playoff spot. With Young, who is the heart and soul of a flawed team, likely off to the NFL, there will be plenty of soul-searching to do in Tuscaloosa.
Ohio State WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba: Last season, Smith-Njigba put together perhaps the greatest season by a wide receiver in Ohio State history — and that’s saying something. He set single-season program records for receptions and yards, and capped it off with 347 yards receiving in a Rose Bowl victory over Utah to set another program record. With any luck, Smith-Njigba could have been the second wide receiver in three years to win the Heisman Trophy in 2022. Unfortunately, we never got to see it. Smith-Njigba suffered a hamstring injury during Week 1 and only played in three games. On Monday, he officially shut things down for the season and ended his collegiate career. Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka ensured Ohio State’s offense was still generational, but Smith-Njigba’s career will make us wonder what could have been.
The 2022 college football season has carried a theme of tying together the familiar with the new, binding history with an eye on the future as we move through a period of transition in the sport. The end of 2021 saw a wild coaching carousel reset the clock at several blue-blood programs, conference realignment got crazy again in the summer, and the College Football Playoff saw its expansion efforts stalled, resumed and eventually finished by the time we got to the end of the calendar.
And while the Nick Saban vs. Jimbo Fisher spat in May — plus Bryan Harsin’s late-spring hot seat fiasco at Auburn — provided interesting conversation to go with the big-picture shifts in the sport, many college football fans were happy to see the focus return to the actual games in the fall. That’s where college football showed up to command our attention with the reminders of the familiar and an introduction to the new.
Georgia returned to action as reigning champion and has done nothing to dispel its status as the top dog dawg in the sport, while Michigan has proven that not even two coordinator changes and a new quarterback will shake its newfound position as the Big Ten power. Ohio State was back in the familiar spot of being just one loss away from controlling its own destiny, though this year fell in line with 2014 and 2017 where a one-loss Buckeyes profile was still strong enough to make the playoff.
But there’s also the new in 2022 as this is the first College Football Playoff to not involve Alabama or Clemson, while TCU is making its first CFP appearance after getting left out with an 11-1 record in 2014. The 2022 season marks the first year the Big Ten has gotten two teams in the four-team playoff, though even that comes with some familiarity as the Buckeyes third appearance in four seasons with Ryan Day as coach.
You could be attracted to the new hires — like Sonny Dykes at TCU, Lincoln Riley at USC and Brian Kelly at LSU — all making conference championship games, or the outlook of the sport’s future as the transfer portal, NIL and playoff expansion continue to churn off the field. But there were also epic games with Alabama and Clemson falling, a wild ride to 6-6 for Oklahoma and a renaissance season for Tennessee. College football’s past and future were connected in 2022, and now it’s time to but a bow on it honoring some of the best of the best in the sport. Don’t miss our 2022 CBS Sports / 247Sports All-America team.
2022 CBS Sports college football awards
Coach of the Year: Sonny Dykes, TCU
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It’s tough to follow in the footsteps of a coach who has a statue outside the stadium, but Sonny Dykes found magic in a group that went 5-7 a year ago and helped lead one of the most successful seasons in TCU history. TCU recorded 12 regular-season wins for the first time since 2009-10 when Gary Patterson led the Horned Frogs to BCS bowl games and top-six finishes in the polls. Now in the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history — avenging some of the frustration from a snub in 2014 — TCU has its best chance to compete for a national championship, and Dykes’ leadership in those efforts has been worth rewarding here at the season’s end.
Consider how calm TCU was during the final, frantic moments of its 29-28 win in a rivalry game at Baylor. The Horned Frogs had no timeouts, ran the field goal team on in the final seconds with a running clock and executed perfectly to maintain an unbeaten regular-season record. Dykes said after the game there was no panic thanks to the team’s practice, but no amount of reps can prepare a team for that moment as much as the confidence that’s instilled by a coach and his staff on and off the field.
TCU overcame second-half deficits in five of its 12 wins this season — and nearly did it again in the Big 12 Championship Game before coming up just short in overtime against Kansas State. This is a resilient team that does not waver, and by many accounts, this comes from the top with Dykes’ influence on the locker room. Long regarded as a top offensive mind in the game, Dykes has seemingly mastered the intangibles with TCU this season and earned our nod as the Coach of the Year.
Player of the Year: Caleb Williams, QB, USC
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The arrival of Williams, in step with coach Lincoln Riley and a host of other transfers, helped USC improve its win total by seven games from 2021 to 2022, matching the most significant single-season turnaround in program history. Williams has 47 total touchdowns (37 passing, 10 rushing) and just four interceptions, breaking single-season school records for total touchdowns and total offensive yards. That’s in addition being the most productive USC quarterback in terms of rushing yards on record.
But it hasn’t just been Williams adding his name to the upper echelon of college football royalty through the USC record books — where he may also join the Trojans’ fraternity of Heisman Trophy winners — but also his standing among his peers in 2022. Williams is No. 1 nationally in passing touchdowns (37), No. 1 in points responsible per game (21.7), No. 3 in yards passing (4,075), No. 6 in passing efficiency (167.94) and No. 7 in yards per attempt (9.1). USC’s offense remained productive despite suffering multiple injuries at key skill positions. With their QB1 in the lineup, the Trojans finished the regular season ranked in the top five nationally in both scoring and total offense.
Williams was also at his best in some of the biggest games throughout USC’s 11-win campaign. He threw for 381 yards and five touchdowns at Utah, threw for 470 yards and totaled three touchdowns at UCLA, totaled four touchdowns the next week at Notre Dame, and threw for 363 yards and three touchdowns against Utah in a Pac-12 Championship Game that may have looked quite different if he didn’t pop his hamstring in the first quarter. In other words, Williams was great all year but also able to step his game up to another level when it mattered the most.
Freshman of the Year: Quinshon Judkins, RB, Ole Miss
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Lane Kiffin may have enjoyed holding the crown as the “Portal King” in the offseason, but his most important newcomer was a three-star running back recruited out of Alabama in the Class of 2022. Judkins was the star of one of the nation’s most productive rushing offenses, leading the SEC and ranking in the top 10 nationally both total touchdowns (17) and yards rushing per game (123.0).
The Ole Miss rushing attack as a group ranked No. 3 nationally in average yardage and broke the program’s single-season rushing record (3,139), a mark that stood in record books since 1957. Judkins individually has already set Ole Miss single-season records for yards rushing (1,476) and rushing touchdowns (16). He put together one of the best seasons by an SEC freshman running back in conference history, ranking among the likes of Herschel Walker and Nick Chubb in yardage.
Judkins’ breakout arrived unexpectedly not just because of his high school rating but a crowded running back room that included top transfers from TCU (Zach Evans) and SMU (Ulysses Bentley IV). But by the time Ole Miss got into the meat of its SEC schedule, it was Judkins that emerged as the alpha. He averaged 25.8 rushing attempts and 149.2 yards rushing across the final six games of the season. Plenty of other true freshman made splashy plays or put together standout games, but no one was as vital to their team’s success as Judkins in Oxford, Mississippi.
Say this much for Deion Sanders: He didn’t slink away under cover of darkness, quiet quit on the season or reach for another dog-eared page from the opportunist’s playbook.
Instead, the 55-year-old coach gathered up his Jackson State Tigers players one last time over the weekend and told them that, indeed, the breaking news was true – that the University of Colorado had hired him away. “It’s not about a bag,” he told the somber room. “I’ve been making money a long time and ain’t nowhere near broke. It is about an opportunity.”
As good ol’ fashion Mississippi scandals go, only the case swirling around Brett Favre tops this. Coach Prime, as he redubbed himself, is a singular phenomenon in sports, the great athlete who is also a great coach. He talks a good game too – rhyming like a preacher, turning podiums into pulpits, framing his coaching odyssey as a divine calling. “Usually, a coach is elevated or terminated,” he said of his new position in Colorado. If he sounds like a cleric, that’s because it’s one of many positions Sanders has occupied in his dizzyingly peripatetic career.
When Sanders arrived at Jackson in the fall of 2020, he didn’t just vow to turn around a program that had been a loser for much of the past decade. He said he’d flip the field for historically black colleges and universities to make “HBCUs” like Jackson State as attractive as predominantly white institutions like Colorado. And he was promising the moon at a time when the social justice movement had turned HBCUs into a cause for reparations.
And once again Sanders walked the talk, losing just five games out of 32, setting scoring records and selling out stadiums all the while. He lured away top recruits (starting with his quarterback son, Shedeur), prompted fellow NFL alums Eddie George and Hue Jackson to join him in the HBCU coaching ranks. He had ESPN covering the Tigers with intensity that’s typically reserved for the Dallas Cowboys or the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Sanders was right about the spotlight’s knack for finding him. It didn’t matter if he was peddling insurance in TV adverts with Bama’s Nick Saban, or getting stiff-armed out of a post game shug; little of what Sanders did at Jackson State went unnoticed. That he was also so generous about sharing his attention with the young Black men and women at Jackson State only further set him apart in a profession known for harboring white men with big egos and retrograde social values (ahem).
With the Colorado hire, Sanders becomes the 12th Black coach in college football’s top tier – and at a time when stalwarts like Florida Atlantic’s Willie Taggart and Stanford’s David Shaw are cycling out of their roles. It would be a shining moment for equity and fairness if it weren’t also such a dark day for HBCU football. Even though he ended his Jackson State tenure on a high note, winning a second straight conference championship last Saturday, the prevailing mood was downcast. “I think many Jackson State fans were holding out hope that the news wasn’t true, or he wouldn’t go through with it,” Tiffany Greene, who called Saturday’s game for ESPN, told me.
Sanders’ impact went far beyond Jackson State in his three years there, after all. He boosted the local economy and awareness of Jackson’s colleges and high schools. He shone a light on Jackson’s water crisis, which forced a shutdown of schools, colleges and businesses. Earlier this fall Sanders’ team survived on bottled water donations and lived in a hotel because of the water crisis; the cost, $15,000 a night, isn’t money Jackson State keeps lying around. “How can we go out there, dominate like that, and take a child back to something that is shut down and you have no water?” he said after the Tigers season opener. “You can’t even flush the darn toilet. You have to think about that stuff.”
Not only did Sanders appear to be invested in reviving HBCUs’ reputation for grooming pro talent like Walter Payton (Jackson State), Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State) and Shannon Sharpe (Savannah State), Coach Prime was fully engaged in the bigger, much trickier job of creating self-sustaining Black communities. That he had come so far in such a short period only heightened expectations. That there was still so much work to do didn’t matter because Sanders, reputation aside, kept cracking on. It didn’t seem long before the day would come when he cut the ribbon at a new stadium and punctuate the moment with news of a blockbuster HBCU television rights pact, or a similar tide that lifts all ships.
By staying at Jackson State, Sanders could have become even bigger than he ever was as a two-sport, twin Super Bowl-winning, double football hall of famer. Given that, as he says, he’s not hurting for money, he didn’t have to operate like some coach who paid his dues sleeping at the office while barely making minimum wage. Sanders could have been Jackson State’s version of Eddie G Robinson, the trailblazer who launched tiny Grambling State into a pigskin power – a coaching immortal. But now that Coach Prime is gone, well, much of that hope is too.
Nothing against Colorado. It’s a mint of a program, the Power Five equivalent of a double-digit miles Lamborghini. Before a decade-long swoon the Buffaloes ranked among college football’s elite, laying claim to the 1990 national championship and the 1994 Heisman trophy winner before an odious culture of alcohol and sex abuse toppled them. With Shedeur Sanders leading the parade of transfer students Coach Prime brings with him, there’s little reason to believe that the Buffaloes couldn’t dominate a listless Pac 12 conference and emerge as national title contenders soon.
The chance to compete at college football’s highest level wasn’t all that attracted Sanders. There was also the pay bump (to a reported $4.5m from $300,000, not that he needs the money – assuming Colorado can actually pay him) and the Buffaloes’ first-rate facilities. In his introductory news conference, Sanders praised Boulder as a “crime-free city.” For a Jackson State community currently grappling with a recent campus homicide case, the throwaway line must have stung.
Deion Sanders uses his mobile phone to illustrate how Rick George, right, Colorado athletic director, kept in touch while courting Sanders. Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP
Jackson State, though a notch below Colorado in the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision, was hardly a cakewalk for Coach Prime. He took the reins during Covid, has only recently recovered from having two toes amputated, and spent a chunk of this year working out of a hotel during the Jackson water crisis. His tenure kicked off with burglars ransacking his office. If those aren’t justifiable reasons to move on, consider the massive stage he just secured for his son – who is rounding into a top NFL draft prospect.
Sanders is clearly hurt by perceptions that he sold out his people by not just going west, but to city that’s 0.9{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} Black. “The thing that alarms me the most is just because I’m leaving Jackson, they think that I’m leaving African Americans,” Sanders thundered. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I’m Black. I can never leave who I am, what I am, how I am or how I go about being that.”
Still: Without Jackson State taking him in and washing the stains of his checkered high school coaching career (once a resume sticking point), Sanders never reaches this Rocky Mountain high. But worse than seeing him take his man of the cleats act to another campus – but not before returning to lead Jackson State in the Celebration Bowl – is the realization that he is who he’s always been: a hired gun. He might not borrow from the opportunist’s playbook, but the game he’s playing at is no different.
The rise of online streaming services is a “real and existential threat” to free sport on television, claims the peak body representing Australia’s commercial broadcasters, which argues new entrants to the entertainment market should face tougher restrictions when bidding for rights to show important sporting fixtures.
Free TV Australia has also called for more women’s sports to be shown on free-to-air broadcasts, including matches from the Matildas football team and all games in the women’s Fifa World Cup next year, in a review of the federal anti-siphoning list.
“The real and existential threat to the anti-siphoning scheme is the one posed by the non-inclusion of online content service providers,” Free TV said in a submission. “Closing this loophole is appropriately the focus of this review process.”
The government’s review of the anti-siphoning list, which gives free-to-air broadcasters first opportunity to acquire significant sporting events, is due to report early next year. The current list, which expires in April, includes events such as the summer and winter Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, the Melbourne Cup, AFL, NRL, the Australian F1 Grand Prix, Bathurst 1000 and significant cricket, tennis and netball competitions, meaning pay TV broadcaster Foxtel can only bid to show those events after free-to-air channels pass.
A major focus of the review has been on subscription streaming services such as Kayo, Stan, Amazon and Optus; anti-siphoning regulations do not restrict those services from bidding, despite their use of a paywall. The shadow communications minister, Sarah Henderson, earlier called this a “loophole”.
Free TV, which represents Channel Seven, Nine and Ten, said the Broadcast Services Act (BSA) anti-siphoning list should be updated to capture streaming services and ensure they could not outbid free-to-air channels.
“Today the public policy imperative goes beyond ensuring Australians are not forced to pay the high cost of subscription television,” it said in a submission. “Instead, the aim of the BSA anti-siphoning provisions should be to ensure Australians are not required to pay for a myriad of subscription video on demand and/or bundled telecommunications services, together with a high speed internet connection, in order to watch iconic sporting events.
“It is crucial that this review leads to a modernisation of the anti-siphoning scheme through the inclusion of online content service providers. As it stands today any of these providers could enter into an exclusive contract to transmit a sporting event, with no protections in place for Australian audiences.”
In its own submission, Foxtel – which also owns Kayo – claims the anti-siphoning list is no longer an appropriate regulatory mechanism, claiming it is anti-competitive as it doesn’t apply to streaming services.
Guardian Australia understands Foxtel’s submission argues for a “technology-neutral” approach. Foxtel said the anti-siphoning list is outdated as it only applies to television, a medium it said many Australians are using less now due to rising rates of streaming platforms.
Free TV’s submission also argued for a distinction between free online streaming services offered by broadcasters such as 9 Now or 10Play, classed as broadcaster video on demand (BVOD) and subscription services like Amazon, Stan and Kayo, called general online content services. The submission said BVOD should be treated the same as free-to-air broadcast TV, and allowed to show sports included on the anti-siphoning list, while general online content services should face restrictions.
FreeTV did not call for a major expansion of the competitions on the anti-siphoning list, but said it would support more women’s sports being put on the list, particularly the finals series of women’s competitions in AFL, rugby league, rugby union, netball, cricket and football.
“In addition, the inclusion of the Matildas’ World Cup qualifiers and all matches in the World Cup would be appropriate,” Free TV said.
