Alexander: Gavin Newsom wants answers, but UCLA will still join Big Ten

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The world according to Jim:

• I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the continuing fallout from the defection of USC and (particularly) UCLA to the Big Ten has drawn Gov. Gavin Newsom into the fray, especially since he is also chair of the University of California Board of Regents. But will it make a difference? Probably not.

Newsom has taken up Cal’s banner in this case, dismayed by the secrecy with which UCLA bolted the Pac-12 and, by extension, leaving Berkeley’s athletic program in the lurch. Never mind that (a) UCLA telegraphing its intentions might have blown the deal, which might have led to (b) cutting Olympic sports and leaving its own athletes in their own lurch in order to pare a $102 million athletic budget deficit.

The governor is demanding an explanation of UCLA’s reasoning. The sentence above is a good place to start. …

• There’s not a lot the governor or the regents can do beyond maybe urge (mandate?) a financial settlement to cushion what will likely be Cal’s own budget shortfall, as the result of either staying in a diminished conference or possibly being on the outside altogether if the Pac-12 collapses. …

• Reminder: Pac-12 Media Day is next Friday at L.A. Live. You can bet there will be a lot of passive-aggressiveness directed at the defectors by the holdovers. And if you get the Pac-12 Networks, Commissioner George Kliavkoff’s opening address (probably a little after 8 a.m.) is going to be very interesting. …

• There were suggestions this week that given Newsom’s signing of the Fair Pay To Play Act in September of 2019, opening the doors for NIL payments to athletes, his current complaint about UCLA’s defection was hypocritical. Uh, no. Newsom didn’t launch the big business era of college sports. He signed that bill in reaction to what already was a big business but didn’t (and still doesn’t) cut the workers in on any of the profits. If colleges were to start paying players themselves rather than depending on third parties, then maybe there would be a case. …

• As for the bidding wars in recruiting and the collectives that have made NIL such a Pandora’s Box? Maybe Mark Emmert and his staff at the NCAA should have proposed a system that addressed those concerns rather than fighting NIL at every step and lobbying for an antitrust exemption that they won’t get. …

• Baseball remains the only sport to have such a benefit, and now it might have further challenges both in Congress and in state legislatures. If that happens, we’ll remember Rob Manfred stepping in it yet again this week when he told a session with members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America: “I kind of reject the premise of the question, that minor league players are not paid a living wage.”

This, of course, came just four days after MLB agreed to a $185 million settlement in a class-action suit, first filed in 2014, on behalf of minor leaguers over minimum wage and overtime violations. …

• Remember, the paring of the minors to 120 teams in 2021 was sold in part by claiming that the minor league players who remained would be treated better. MLB did mandate improved housing conditions this year, but only after further stories last season described more deplorable treatment. …

• Oh, and that “living wage?” Even after pay scales were bumped slightly, rookie and short-season players make a minimum of $400 per week, Class A players $500, Double-A $600 and Triple-A $700, and they are only paid in-season. If you do the math, a Triple-A player not on a 40-man roster could be paid $14,000 per year, just above the federal poverty line for a single adult. Glamorous, no? …

• Yes, drafted prospects get bonuses, all capped by MLB. But undrafted free agents – the collateral damage in the slashing of the draft from its pre-pandemic 40 rounds to 20 – get $20,000 and a good luck handshake.

I guess it depends on your idea of a living wage. …

• Minor leaguers aren’t the only ones taking aim at the sport’s understructure. Former major league scout Rick Ingalls, profiled here a year ago and one of a batch of veteran scouts let go by clubs in recent years, indicated via email that a group of those former scouts will seek redress in court via a class action suit.

It’s “even more proof of how they kept salaries down,” he wrote. “They had all the control. We were left out in (the) cold.” It’s also evidence that if work in baseball and don’t have the power of the Players Association behind you, it can be ugly. …

• The Lakers seem to have achieved a classic news dump – i.e., leak a development while everyone’s attention is diverted – if the reports are true that LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook reached some sort of détente via phone while L.A. fans and media were occupied with the All-Star Game. (Then again, as SCNG Lakers beat writer Kyle Goon pointed out, credibility is an issue here. Again.) …

• Today’s sign of the apocalypse: Tuesday’s All-Star Game drew 7.634 million viewers on Fox, a record low. The good news: It’s still the most-watched All-Star Game in sports, which is quite the low bar. The bad news: The Home Run Derby the previous night drew 6.877 million viewers on ESPN and ESPN2. (Maybe that’s why they decided on a mini-Derby in case the game was tied after nine innings.) …

• Probably apropos of nothing, but the Home Run Derby competitors wore their regular team jerseys and not the garbage Nike foisted on the Tuesday participants. Think about it. …

• Lastly, can Dodgers fans be accused of tampering? A group in the left field pavilion drew a smile from Juan Soto during Tuesday night’s game by chanting, “Future Dodger … future Dodger …”

Remember in the weeks before the All-Star Game, when Soto vowed he was going to try to talk Dodgers shortstop Trea Turner into coming back to Washington as a free agent this coming winter? Things certainly changed quickly.

jalexander@scng.com

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