TL's Sunday Sports Notes - August 20

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – Yes, the dateline is Boston – not Liberty Park, NJ and not Olympia Fields (the site of this weekend’s semifinal tournament), nor Atlanta (the site of next week’s TOUR Championship) nor the old fave of Norton, Massachusetts where the TPC Boston hosted the Deutsche Bank Championship/Dell Technologies/Northern Trust Championship, once hailed as a MUST stop for the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs and a gem of a sporting event held every Labor Day weekend of yesteryear.

There was nothing better in the summer sports world than Labor Day Weekend datelines of FENWAY – CHESTNUT HILL – NORTON and FLUSHING MEADOW when a relatively easy step in time management – combined with some swift driving – could parlay an MLB game hosted by the Red Sox with a college Football game hosted by Boston College with a round of professional golf at TPC Boston then a drive to the Billie Jean King/United States Tennis Center for the annual U.S. Open – the raucous finale to tennis’ Grand Slams.

One year, an “all of the above” was coupled with a flight to Philadelphia and a Saturday at the AND1 Summer JAM, held at Temple U’s Liacouras Center to mix some tape and hoops as AND1 re-launched its brand only to be bought-up by yet another distressed brand gold-digger.

The finish that year and others was the Labor Day Monday conclusion to the PGA Tour FedEx Cup Playoff event, a tournament then hosted by the Tiger Woods Foundation.

In 2003, the DBC replaced the Air Canada Championship when the authorities of the PGA Tour collaborated with the sponsors at FedEx to conjure-up a way to tie each PGA Tour season into a nice, neat bow. The players loved the risk v. reward aspects of the TPC Boston and the crowds poured through the gates, giving the Tour a signature event to rival tennis’ grand slam event in Flushing and frequently compete for eyeballs with the opening weekend of college football and the NFL.

Those suits at the PGA Tour and FedEx learned their lessons, though, and eventually streamlined the regular season and playoff schedule to conclude BEFORE the start of college footy and the NFL alike. When the music stopped, no one was playing “Shipping Up to Boston,” and the DBC/Dell Technologies/Northern Trust was no more.

Some of the great PGA Tour golfers who won at the DBC:

2003 Adam Scott

2004 Vijay Singh

2005 Olin Browne

2006 Tiger woods

2007 Phil Mickelson

2008 Vijay Singh

2009 Steve Stricker

2010 Charlie Hoffman

2011 Webb Simpson

2012 Rory McIlroy

2013 Henrik Stenson

2014 Chris Kirk

2015 Rickie Fowler

2016 Rory McIlroy

HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Last week, the column touched on the issues facing NCAA athletic administrators around the country.

Sports lawyer Darren Heitner took a look at the happenings surfacing this past week.

“It appears that Georgia high school athletes will soon be able to enter into NIL deals,” wrote Heitner.

“Robin Hines, executive director of the Georgia High School Association, said that he will have a proposal ready for the Association’s Executive Committee meeting this Fall. The expectation is that the Executive Committee will approve the proposal if one reads through the lines on Hines’ overall commentary.

Looking back, Heitner recalled: “Julian “JuJu” Lewis” is a perfect example. As Pete Thamel highlighted for ESPN in a February 17, 2023 article titled, “The prep QB phenom and a million-dollar NIL question,” Lewis, a 15-year-old at the time the article was written, is already being compared to Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields. You would think that Lewis can start cashing in on his fame right now, but Georgia’s high school athletic association doesn’t allow for it . . . yet.

“While more than half of the states in the country have legalized name, image and likeness (NIL) deals in some form for high school athletes, the state of Georgia sits at a compelling crossroads. It is home to one of the richest recruiting bases in the country, the back-to-back national champions of college football and a generational prospect in Lewis, who could command well over a million dollars on the open market over the next three seasons,” wrote Thamel.

“As of now, a total of 31 states (as well as Washington D.C.) already allow or are soon to allow high school athletes to enter into NIL deals. Not on that list are states like the aforementioned Georgia, along with Florida, and Alabama, as well as Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, North Carolina, and Mississippi, which tend to produce a lot of talent for the next level. One would think that these states are closely monitoring what happens in Georgia and if as expected the state does decide to start allowing for NIL transactions to take place, they will likely follow suit.

Info From A Joint Survey By Sportico And The Harris Poll

Makes it seem like America at large is warming up to college athletes being compensated and perhaps to a greater degree. From the article:

67% of U.S. adults believe college athletes should be able to receive direct compensation from their schools.
64% support athletes’ rights to obtain employee status.
59% believe athletes should be able to collectively bargain as a labor union.
More Americans today (74%) support athletes’ right of publicity than they did in November 2020 (62%).

The Collective Association Grows To 17 Strong

The trade association that advocates for athletes, shares best practices, and acts as a unified voice to shape the development of the NIL market has added 10 collectives to the fold.

As a reminder, the initial seven founding members were: