30 for 30

Average Reds

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I'll probably watch, but boy does that look to be a depressing show.

I've never understood how an agent can help an athlete land a contract that pays him more money than he can even grasp and then does nothing to help him manage his sudden wealth. Putting aside the ethical reasons for addressing the problem, it's also a huge advantage as they recruit clients. ("You're not going to end up in bankruptcy 3 years after your playing days are over.")
 

Shelterdog

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I'll probably watch, but boy does that look to be a depressing show.

I've never understood how an agent can help an athlete land a contract that pays him more money than he can even grasp and then does nothing to help him manage his sudden wealth. Putting aside the ethical reasons for addressing the problem, it's also a huge advantage as they recruit clients. ("You're not going to end up in bankruptcy 3 years after your playing days are over.")
Which is a better sales pitch to a 22 year old:

A.) "I'm going to put you together with an excellent fee- based financial advisor who, based on your unusual risk tolerance for a high earner of your age, will focus on 1.) maxing out 529 contributions to your kids, 2.) creating an 18-24 month cash "emergency fund", 3.) buying a modest home with little or no mortage and 4.) creating a diverse portfolio of low cost mutual funds, with a very healthy allocation to bonds"r

B.) "Hey grab your posse, we're going to the steak house and then the strip club and here's $3k in walking around money*

*(to be paid back from your first paycheck but you won't figure that out, will you)
 

Average Reds

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Which is a better sales pitch to a 22 year old:

A.) "I'm going to put you together with an excellent fee- based financial advisor who, based on your unusual risk tolerance for a high earner of your age, will focus on 1.) maxing out 529 contributions to your kids, 2.) creating an 18-24 month cash "emergency fund", 3.) buying a modest home with little or no mortage and 4.) creating a diverse portfolio of low cost mutual funds, with a very healthy allocation to bonds"r

B.) "Hey grab your posse, we're going to the steak house and then the strip club and here's $3k in walking around money*

*(to be paid back from your first paycheck but you won't figure that out, will you)
I understand the point you are making, but the contrast you present here is a little silly. Also - it's not a binary decision in any case.

Beyond that, pro athletes change agents all the time and the decision process for the kid coming out of school is a lot different than the decision process for the 27 or 28 year old in line for that first big contract.
 

TheRooster

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I understand the point you are making, but the contrast you present here is a little silly. Also - it's not a binary decision in any case.

Beyond that, pro athletes change agents all the time and the decision process for the kid coming out of school is a lot different than the decision process for the 27 or 28 year old in line for that first big contract.
Either Shelter and I are hopelessly cynical or you are naive. Put another way, how old is Plaxico? Ocho?
 

Shelterdog

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I understand the point you are making, but the contrast you present here is a little silly. Also - it's not a binary decision in any case.

Beyond that, pro athletes change agents all the time and the decision process for the kid coming out of school is a lot different than the decision process for the 27 or 28 year old in line for that first big contract.
To be somewhat less sarcastic, I think the caliber of client care agents give is going to vary immensely agent to agent and sport to sport. Like any other profession different agents have their niche. Tom Condon--who represents like half the starting quarterbacks in the league--probably has to differentiate himself more and provide access to financial planning travel agents, sports psychiatrists, flowers for the QB wife, whatever they want, in a way that some lower tier agent whose speciality is "undrafted guys from the big 12" don't need to, and possibly can't afford to, provide. There's an agent whose name escapes me who signs all the ivy league guys--I assume his clients have different expectations than someone who gets first round picks from USC.

So you're right, it's not binary, and there's some space on the market for agents who are going to help provide good financial planning and advice. They just won't get to sign Antonio Cromartie
 

LMontro

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"Broke" was good, not great. Not an awesome second first effort.
I didn't really like it. Hated the format and would've preferred they focused on a couple of former players and told their story in more detail, kind of like the Real Sports segment on this topic back a year or two ago. It felt like the USA Today version of broke pro athletes.
 

bosox188

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I was expecting them to go a little more in-depth to the stories of some of these guys. For an hour and a half it was just a nonstop montage of bouncing around a carousel of people talking for 10-20 seconds at a time.

I didn't feel like there was a whole lot in there that I didn't already know just from reading in passing about athletes going broke.
 

Van Everyman

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Oddly enough the best quote came from Bart Scott:

"Steve Biscotti told me 'You can live like a king for a year -- a prince for the rest of your life."
 

Spacemans Bong

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Did they spend a lot of time on Kosar? It seems like he would be fascinating to cover in depth. Here's a guy who graduated with a double major in Finance and Economics, was a successful QB for a long time (so he made money) and was a hometown hero giving him endless opportunities to leverage his celebrity. There couldn't be five guys from that era less likely to end up in bankruptcy.
 

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The model portfolio they quickly threw up on the screen at the end of the documentary undermined the whole thing. "Invest 20% in alternatives and put a big chunk into "private equity" (presumably various franchise-type businesses and not some new Bain Capital fund)!" is really horrendous investment advice for most people.
 

Ralphwiggum

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The model portfolio they quickly threw up on the screen at the end of the documentary undermined the whole thing. "Invest 20% in alternatives and put a big chunk into "private equity" (presumably various franchise-type businesses and not some new Bain Capital fund)!" is really horrendous investment advice for most people.
Not only that, but it didn't really address the biggest issue that plagues many of these guys, out-of-control spending habits. Sure, there are some guys who are broke because they did not make smart decisions with their investments. But the issue for many of these guys isn't knowing how to properly invest their money, it is knowing what percentage of their take-home pay they should be investing, rather than buying the mansion or the 2nd Bentley. Especially for guys who have short careers, even though they might be pulling down significant coin while they are playing, it is not really enough to retire on when you are in your mid to late 20s and your career ends. They did adress that issue, but the pie-chart was just so randomly out-of-place as it related to the rest of the story.

I agree with the general sentiment that Broke was not nearly as good as most of the 30 for 30's I have seen. At one point the director said something about it being incredibly difficult to get athletes to talk to them about the subject matter. Maybe that made it tough to focus on one or two stories, but as noted it would have been more interesting to go more in depth on a couple of compelling stories rather than all of the bouncing around.
 

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I thought the model portfolio had a very small segment of private equity and was focused on most securities, while the "usual expenditures" graph had the huge private equity number.

Anyway, I felt like it was interesting and not surprising. The first half-ish was pretty much regurgitating what everyone thinks of the stereotypical broke athlete (keeping up with the Joneses, buying ridiculous items, entourages, etc.). The second half was a lot better focusing on the agents/advisors, divorces, swindling, failed businesses, etc.

I agree on the format. It seems to me it could have been done the same way they did it, but by taking it at a slower pace and focusing on a few athletes in there. For instance, on the failed business front, put Schilling front and center and surround that with some other quick quips and some narration and examples from an outside source. Kosar's family was interesting and could have been the centerpoint of the family discussion, etc.
 

Shelterdog

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I thought the model portfolio had a very small segment of private equity and was focused on most securities, while the "usual expenditures" graph had the huge private equity number.
If memory serves "private equity" was like 50% of the usual expenditures and 5-10% of the recommended portfolio--I should have been more specific about what I meant by "big chunk" but I think that 10% in McDonald's franchises, etc. is probably way too much for most investors who are full time professionals in non-investment fields with assets in the high six or seven figures (and I'd include dentists, lawyers, doctors, etc. in this category along with the Dan Connolly, Nick Punto type athletes ).

10% in true private equity for Tom Brady? I won't quibble with that.
 

AlNipper49

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The model portfolio they quickly threw up on the screen at the end of the documentary undermined the whole thing. "Invest 20% in alternatives and put a big chunk into "private equity" (presumably various franchise-type businesses and not some new Bain Capital fund)!" is really horrendous investment advice for most people.
Most people are legally unable to follow that advice. You need to be an accredited investor to each all of the filling in two of the pie slices that they threw up.
 

doctormoist

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Insult to injury: Kosar's daughter apparently does porn.

http://network.yardbarker.com/nfl/article_external/lets_see_what_bernie_kosars_porn_daughter_lexxi_silver_is_up_to_these_days/10866560
 

moondog80

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Agree that this was pretty superficial and not up to the standard of last year's episodes. But no love for Leon Seacry's shirt, especially in conract to Andre Rison?
 

NortheasternPJ

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Not only that, but it didn't really address the biggest issue that plagues many of these guys, out-of-control spending habits. Sure, there are some guys who are broke because they did not make smart decisions with their investments. But the issue for many of these guys isn't knowing how to properly invest their money, it is knowing what percentage of their take-home pay they should be investing, rather than buying the mansion or the 2nd Bentley. Especially for guys who have short careers, even though they might be pulling down significant coin while they are playing, it is not really enough to retire on when you are in your mid to late 20s and your career ends. They did adress that issue, but the pie-chart was just so randomly out-of-place as it related to the rest of the story.


Like Vince Young spending $4,000 a week at the Cheesecake Factory and $6,000 bills at TGI Fridays (I don't even know how that's possible.)

http://larrybrownsports.com/football/vince-young-tgi-fridays-cheesecake-flight/154904
 

ookami7m

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Anyone have a reliable download for this - no cable and I can't find a good torrent.....
 

NickEsasky

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I just found out that my co-worker's brother Produced and Directed the 9.79* 30 for 30 airing this Tuesday about Ben Johnson in 1988.
 

Fishercat

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Slate's Hang Up And Listen Podcast had some expanded reviews on their podcast of the first three 30 for 30's

They were really down on Broke. They note the VH1 I Love The ____ style as a negative, the misrepresentation of Scott and Bush (they are both very fiscally responsible) as negatives and that it had some other misleading moments through the info dump. They also lament that the good storytellers weren't used properly

They loved 9.79* and the fact that it really dove into a historically significant but under-reported event.

There's No Place Like Home was panned as an "ethical catastrophe" and worse than Broke. The movie is apparently really bad too, and they go to town on the main figure. They are stunned that ESPN even allowed this to be produced and paid for, a "disgrace." It sounds horrendous all around and a story with a VERY limited scope of interest (basketball historians, Kansas sports fans)
 

Rocco Graziosa

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I don't think Carl Lewis could come across as more unlikable
No fucking shit. And I thought the documentary was as even handed as humanly possible. As a viewer I thought we were allowed to make our own conclusion.

My conclusion? Carl Lewis is lying hypocrite asshole.
 

moondog80

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No fucking shit. And I thought the documentary was as even handed as humanly possible. As a viewer I thought we were allowed to make our own conclusion.
I dunno. Lewis made it easy for them because he's such a diva, but I thought it was clearly slanted in Johnson's favor.
 

Rocco Graziosa

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I dunno. Lewis made it easy for them because he's such a diva, but I thought it was clearly slanted in Johnson's favor.
I thought they gave Lewis, and his camp, every opportunity to explain themselves. Same with Johnson. Just about everyone in the documentary other than Lewis admitted to PED use. Thats why he came across bad, and not because of fancy editing and such.
 

Dgilpin

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"No place like home " has to be the worst installment in this series by far. I can't believe they would make a show about this garbage. They don't even touch on the actual rules that much , it's all about this stupid guy begging ppl for money to buy these rules .
 

Spacemans Bong

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I rolled my eyes at the blurb.

A story of the most important document in sports history -- James Naismith's original rules of basketball -- and the quest to return it home
I'm guessing Simmons wrote that himself, since the original, hand-written rules of soccer (which is only eleventy billion times more popular than basketball) also exist and were recently bought at auction.
 

cromulence

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I rolled my eyes at the blurb.



I'm guessing Simmons wrote that himself, since the original, hand-written rules of soccer (which is only eleventy billion times more popular than basketball) also exist and were recently bought at auction.
I'm with you, but is soccer that much more popular than basketball? I know I've read that basketball is the fastest growing sport in the world in terms of popularity. I think eleventy billion times is (other than the obvious hyperbole) a bit much. I agree, though, that calling Naismith's rules the most important document in sports history is more than a bit presumptuous.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I'm about 15 minutes into this and so far I'm bored. This is one of the biggest or most interesting sports stories of the last 30+ years? It's just a Kansas fan trying to buy something, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to give a shit.

Edit: God, this is just terrible. When he goes to Naismith's grave, holy cow, that was bad. And he's a terrible salesman.
 

Shelterdog

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I'm about 15 minutes into this and so far I'm bored. This is one of the biggest or most interesting sports stories of the last 30+ years? It's just a Kansas fan trying to buy something, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to give a shit.

Edit: God, this is just terrible. When he goes to Naismith's grave, holy cow, that was bad. And he's a terrible salesman.
The journalistic ethics are, also, um, questionable.
 

Dgilpin

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I was really hoping it was going to goto the Duke fan, its probably the only time in my life I was rooting for Duke.
 

Dgilpin

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I also hate that the guy was wearing the same dirty tennis shoes during the whole thing; you would think he would put on a decent pair of shoes to go pitch millionaires.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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I rolled my eyes at the blurb.



I'm guessing Simmons wrote that himself, since the original, hand-written rules of soccer (which is only eleventy billion times more popular than basketball) also exist and were recently bought at auction.
Soccer needs rules written down?

"You kick the ball until it goes into the net. No one Only one guy can use his hands."
 

Spacemans Bong

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I'm with you, but is soccer that much more popular than basketball? I know I've read that basketball is the fastest growing sport in the world in terms of popularity. I think eleventy billion times is (other than the obvious hyperbole) a bit much. I agree, though, that calling Naismith's rules the most important document in sports history is more than a bit presumptuous.
There is maybe one country in the entire world where basketball is the most popular sport: the Philippines.

There are 206 countries in the world and really, seriously, thinking about where soccer is the most popular sport I struggled to come up with a number lower than 150.

Think about it, every country in Europe and South America that pretty much make up the basketball world outside the USA - Spain, Argentina, Brazil, the former Yugoslavian countries and so on, where NBA players come from and have leagues where US college guys go - are countries where soccer is by far the most popular sport.

I've never really thought of the original rules of soccer as the most important document in the history of sports, because I've never thought of anything as the most important document in the history of sports because why should I? But the whole conceit of this documentary is that this is a seminal document in human history that simply must reside in Kansas, even though Naismith was Canadian and invented the game in Springfield and even though other sports even more popular than hoops also have handwritten original rules. I think the Hall of Fame also has a very early copy of baseball rules, possibly from the Knickerbocker Club.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I've never really thought of the original rules of soccer as the most important document in the history of sports, because I've never thought of anything as the most important document in the history of sports because why should I?
This is the crux of why the show wasn't very interesting. The original rules of hoops? Who gives a shit.

BTW, was it SI writer Steve Wulf who pretty much said that basketball began in Springfield but tried to cover his tracks by saying the game's teenage years were spent in Kansas? That didn't help his theory.
 

Orel Miraculous

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I'm guessing Simmons wrote that himself, since the original, hand-written rules of soccer (which is only eleventy billion times more popular than basketball) also exist and were recently bought at auction.
I'm actually going to argue that Naismith's rules are more important, regardless of the fact that soccer is the most popular sport in the world. The difference as I see it, is that soccer developed organically. The Cambridge rules and Sheffield rules and other similar documents merely codified the rules of a sport that already existed. Even if no one had bothered to sit down at Cambridge in 1858 and write down the rules, soccer still probably would've developed in much the same way.

Basketball, on the other hand, didn't evolve naturally, it literally sprang from the mind of one man. Maybe we would've eventually come up with something similar, but we can't say for sure. For that reason, I think what Naismith did in writing the original rules of basketball is actually more important than what the Cambridge students did. Without the Cambridge Rules, we'd still have soccer, because it was already there. Without Naismith though, who knows?
 

Rocco Graziosa

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I love the 30 for 30 franchise, live for the sport of basketball, and even I couldn't make it through this documentary. Just beyond boring.
 

NortheasternPJ

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This is the crux of why the show wasn't very interesting. The original rules of hoops? Who gives a shit.

BTW, was it SI writer Steve Wulf who pretty much said that basketball began in Springfield but tried to cover his tracks by saying the game's teenage years were spent in Kansas? That didn't help his theory.
I'm half way through this right now and I was confused, so I came here. why should we really care? This is one step away from an Internet Petition. A sports writer campaigns to have the original rules of basketball at a place where it didn't even originate but where he thinks it really came to life? Does anyone really care but him?

What's next? The story of the Bonds home run ball? Ken Griffey Jr.'s Rookie Card at Upper Deck? Actually that'd be more interesting. The rise and fall of the baseball card industry rather than this 30 for 30.

There's hundreds of great stories that could be told outside of this snoozefest.
 

steveluck7

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Bump for "Benji". I caught the last 2/3 of it last night. I had never heard of this kid (that's part of the point of the story) before watching. It's sort of (unfortunately) a typical story. High School basketball star (# 1 recruit in the nation, phenom in this case) shot and killed the day before the first game of his senior year.
The lasting impact on basketball in Chicago was incredible. Nick Anderson was his friend who actually transferred to Simeon to play with Benji (Ben Wilson) for their senior year. Nick Anderson wore #25 throughout college and the pros in honor of WIlson. D-Rose wore that # at Simeon in his honor. Juwan Howard wore 25 at Michigan in his honor. Current Simeon Senior Jabarri Parker wears 22 but had special sneakers made with Wilson's name sewn in.
On top of all that, after his death, his mother sued the hospital where he died because they basically waited 4 hours to perform surgery. The hospital settled largely because of the testimony of Sonny Vaccaro who testified as to what Wilson's future earnings would have been.

Oh, and R. Kelly was his high school teammate and Common was a neighbor.
 

mabrowndog

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If I were in charge of ESPN, and some filmmaker proposed making an hour-long documentary on the origins of a non-alcoholic mixed beverage named after a golfer -- even one of the greatest golfers in history -- I'd have laughed in their face.

But holy crap if this isn't one of the most enjoyable 30-for-30 trailers I've seen. And that, ladies & gentlemen, is why I'm not in charge of ESPN.

The Arnold Palmer
 

Orel Miraculous

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If I were in charge of ESPN, and some filmmaker proposed making an hour-long documentary on the origins of a non-alcoholic mixed beverage named after a golfer -- even one of the greatest golfers in history -- I'd have laughed in their face.

But holy crap if this isn't one of the most enjoyable 30-for-30 trailers I've seen. And that, ladies & gentlemen, is why I'm not in charge of ESPN.

The Arnold Palmer
Not a trailer. That was the whole thing.
 

Dehere

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Good show but the one problem with Bo Knows was: not enough Bo.

His interview clips were all good. He's kind of a soft spoken guy and he comes across as thoughtful. I wanted more Bo and fewer pundits, although Klosterman had some good comments.

It's just more interesting to hear Bo talk about what it was like being Bo than to hear anyone talk about what it was like to watch Bo on TV.