Reporters Who Goad People to Defame? Recalling Muhammad Ali’s Experience before a Labor Arbitrator

Howard Cosell (ABC TV) contacted Muhammad Ali for an exclusive interview after the Ali-Wepner fight. In classic form, Cosell goaded and prodded Ali to fulminate. Ali obliged with a torrent of controversial criticism against the referee. For the interview, Ali was paid $5,000 and was a member of AFTRA, a union that represents TV and radio performers and employees.

The referee sued Ali for defamation. Ali’s attorney’s fees soared to $193,353. He demanded arbitration seeking payment of his fees from ABC. The arbitrator ruled for Ali, in these terms:

“In the instant case, I note Mr. Cosell has publicly stated that his relationships on air with Ali were consistently designed to ‘challenge him’ so that Ali would ‘bang back.’”

One lesson that is relevant today: If a news reporter goads a public figure to make defamatory comments during a paid interview, the reporter and broadcasting company share responsibility for the harmful message.

Definition of Ridiculous: 21 Scientists File Brief in Tom Brady’s Deflategate Arbitration

Should we have a national referendum on Tom Brady’s four game suspension for participating in a scheme to deflate the Patriots' game balls? Now comes word that 21 physicists and engineers have taken time from their professional pursuits to write a brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that questions the science behind an engineering firm’s analysis of the actual game balls.

The gist is reported in Law 360: “The professors said that NFL game balls frequently lose pressure because of the temperature difference between the locker room, where they’re filled, and the playing field, and that the league is aware of this phenomenon. They said Goodell’s data accounted for a natural pressure loss, and then assumed Brady was responsible for the balls losing pressure beyond that. But, he never defined how much air Brady is allegedly responsible for releasing, and an NFL report suggested it could have been as small as 0.14 pound per square inch gauge, which the professors said was too small to infer any tampering.

“To us as scientists, an increment of pressure loss as tiny as 0.14 psig is too small to constitute proof of tampering. It is well within any reasonable margin of error, based on our assessment of the league’s measurements,” the proposed brief said. “The very existence of any increment, moreover, was divined through assumption. The data necessary for any bona fide scientific analysis was never collected.”

I’m not a scientist but the facts show that EVERY game ball on the Indianapolis Colts' side of the field were within the NFL’s legal parameters, and EVERY game ball on the New England Patriots’ side of the field was below the NFL’s legal parameters. To my fellow professors, please apply your talents to more pressing problems where your expertise can be more useful—and keep out of labor disputes, please.

Is Stanford A Useful Comparison for Illinois? The Boneyard!

Having been duly questioned about my last post, I offer a different comparison. As reported by the Stanford Athletic Department (read here), “Stanford’s mascot and nickname have a history that dates back to the University’s founding in 1891. While the Cardinal has always been one of the school’s official colors, the nickname has gone through a series of changes, student votes, controversy and confusion.” Okay, that’s familiar.

“Stanford officially adopted the Indian nickname on Nov. 25, 1930 after a unanimous vote by the Executive Committee for the Associated Students. The Indian had long been considered the symbol of Stanford before the official vote, although its origins are only speculation.” Okay, that’s about the time the Chief became our school’s cherished symbol.

“The Indian symbol was eventually dropped in 1972 following meetings between Stanford native American students and President Richard Lyman. The 55 students, supported by the other 358 American Indians enrolled in California colleges, felt the mascot was an insult to their culture and heritage. As a result of these talks and the ensuing publicity, the Stanford Student Senate voted 18-4 to drop the Indian symbol, and Lyman agreed.” Okay, that sounds like the news story yesterday and today.

“In 1978, another group comprised of 225 varsity athletes from 18 teams, started a petition for the mascot to be the griffin – a mythological animal with the body and hind legs of a lion and head and wings of an eagle. The University moved two griffin statues from the Children’s Hospital to a grassy area between Encina Gym and Angel Field. The campaign for the Griffins failed.” Okay, that sounds like a cautionary tale for Illinois.

“The Mascot: There is no official mascot at Stanford University. The "Tree," which is a member of the Stanford Band, is representative of El Palo Alto, the Redwood tree which is the logo of the city of Palo Alto. Since Stanford University and Palo Alto are almost inextricably intertwined in interests and location, it is a natural outgrowth of this relationship. The tree still exists and stands by the railroad bridge beside San Francisquito Creek – it is the site where early explorers first camped when settling the area.” Okay, maybe we’ll be the BONEYARD.

Who Changes Their Team Name? Legendary Football Teams

As Illini Nation divides itself over a new mascot, it is worthwhile to consider iconic NFL teams. The Chicago Bears began in 1919 as the Decatur Staleys, so-named for the A. E. Staley food starch company of Decatur, Illinois. Also formed in 1919, the Green Bay Packers had their uniforms purchased by the Indian Packing Company with the understanding that the team be named for its sponsor. Interesting to note, they dropped their Indian identity long ago without losing their fan base. The Pittsburgh football franchise, originally named the Pirates, was later renamed the Steelers out of respect for the city’s leading industry. The Bears. The Packers. The Steelers. All began with different names and identities. If they survived and flourished, chances are that the University of Illinois will make a successful transition, too.

Appeals Court Examines Brady's Balls

The Second Circuit’s order to confirm Roger Goodell’s four game suspension of Tom Brady concludes that the players association agreed to an unusually broad arbitration clause, and the Commissioner, acting as a duly authorized arbitrator, committed no procedural errors.

Perhaps the most interesting part of yesterday’s decision for non-lawyers is the lengthy excerpt of how the Patriots under-inflated their game balls.

Here is a pertinent quote:

During the second quarter, Colts linebacker D'Qwell Jackson intercepted a pass thrown by Brady and took the ball to the sideline, suspecting it might be inflated below the allowed minimum pressure of 12.5 pounds per square inch. After confirming that the ball was underinflated, Colts personnel informed League officials, who decided to test all of the game balls at halftime. Eleven other Patriots balls and four Colts balls were tested using two air gauges, one of which had been used before the game to ensure that the balls were inflated within the permissible range of 12.5 to 13.5 psi. While each of the four Colts balls tested within the permissible range on at least one of the gauges, all eleven of the Patriots balls measured below 12.5 psi on both.

On January 23, the National Football League announced that it had retained Theodore V. Wells, Jr., Esq., and the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an independent investigation into whether there had been improper ball tampering before or during the game. That investigation culminated in a 139–page report released on May 6, which concluded that it was “more probable than not” that two Patriots equipment officials—Jim McNally and John Jastremski—had “participated in a deliberate effort to release air from Patriots game balls after the balls were examined by the referee.” Specifically, the Report found that McNally had removed the game balls from the Officials Locker Room shortly before the game, in violation of standard protocol, and taken them to a single-toilet bathroom, where he locked the door and used a needle to deflate the Patriots footballs before bringing them to the playing field.

In addition to videotape evidence and witness interviews, the investigation team examined text messages exchanged between McNally and Jastremski in the months leading up to the AFC Championship Game. In the messages, the two discussed Brady's stated preference for less-inflated footballs. McNally also referred to himself as “the deflator” and quipped that he was “not going to espn ... yet,” and Jastremski agreed to provide McNally with a “needle” in exchange for “cash,” “newkicks,” and memorabilia autographed by Brady. The Report also relied on a scientific study conducted by Exponent, an engineering and scientific consulting firm, which found that the underinflation could not “be explained completely by basic scientific principles, such as the Ideal Gas Law,” particularly since the average pressure of the Patriots balls was significantly lower than that of the Colts balls.. Exponent further concluded that a reasonably experienced individual could deflate thirteen footballs using a needle in well under the amount of time that McNally was in the bathroom.

The investigation also examined Brady's potential role in the deflation scheme. Although the evidence of his involvement was “less direct” than that of McNally's or Jastremski's, the Wells Report concluded that it was “more probable than not” that Brady had been “at least generally aware” of McNally and Jastremski's actions, and that it was “unlikely that an equipment assistant and a locker room attendant would deflate game balls without Brady's” “knowledge,” “approval,” “awareness,” and “consent.” Among other things, the Report cited a text message exchange between McNally and Jastremski in which McNally complained about Brady and threatened to overinflate the game balls, and Jastremski replied that he had “[t]alked to [Tom] last night” and “[Tom] actually brought you up and said you must have a lot of stress trying to get them done.” The investigators also observed that Brady was a “constant reference point” in McNally and Jastremski's discussions about the scheme, had publicly stated his preference for less-inflated footballs in the past, and had been “personally involved in [a] 2006 rule change that allowed visiting teams to prepare game balls in accordance with the preferences of their quarterbacks.” 

What College ADs Can Learn from Data Mining

A recent Wall Street Journal article features a Credit Suisse study that measures the usefulness of three common financial stats– sales growth, net income growth, and gross profitability— and compares these standard business metrics to three baseball metrics for hitting (batting average, the strikeout rate, and the somewhat more esoteric “on-base percentage plus slugging percentage”).

The finding is a bit shocking: the three common financial stats are far less helpful than some of those used in baseball.

What makes a statistic useful? Its persistence and predictive value. As summarized by WSJ, “a statistic is persistent if it is correlated with what happened in the past. It’s predictive if, as the word suggests, the stat is successful at predicting outcomes.”

Turning to college football, here are the biggest buyouts of college football coaches: Charlie Weis, Notre Dame ($18.9 million not to coach); Bo Pelini Nebraska ($7.9 million not to coach); Gene Chizek Auburn ($7.5 million not to coach); Will Muschamp Florida ($6.3 million not to coach); Charlie Weis Kansas ($5.625 million) (double dipper); and Jeff Tedford Cal ($5.5 million). The list of million-dollar buyouts goes on, but the point is that ADs probably make hiring decisions based on short-term, shallow, and non-empirical “hunches” about coaching hires. Common approaches, with mixed results: NFL to college; OC/DC at elite school; MAC champ to Big Ten.

But what if someone studied in-depth the data that has the most persistent and predictive value for successful college coaches, like Credit Suisse? You might measure entirely different things, such Nick Saban’s obsessive detail to focusing short-term on executing minute goals that stack up to big success. Quoting Saban: "Don't think about winning the SEC Championship. Don't think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That's the process: Let's think about what we can do today, the task at hand."

We Will Win: College Football and State Politics

After University of Georgia’s new football coach, Kirby Smart, was seen flying around in a helicopter and private jet to recruit star football players, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution used the FOIA law to investigate. The result? After some unflattering news stories, Georgia passed a FOIA law this month that allows Georgia’s athletic department to wait 90 days before responding to a records request from news agencies.

Before the law was enacted last week, AJC reported that the new coach and his staff produced 25 invoices totaling $558,741 in two months. Several invoices reflected charges of $20,000 or more for private jets, with a high of $45,306 on December 11^th.

Georgia football isn’t alone in trying to hide information from the public. ESPN has used Indiana’s open records law to compel the Notre Dame police department to hand over documents relating to the alleged arrests of football players. The network contends that Notre Dame’s police department is a public entity because it is authorized by the state to enforce all Indiana laws. In mid-March, a state appeals court ruled in favor of ESPN.

But that might be irrelevant because Notre Dame friends in the legislature passed a FOIA exception just for this case. This bill is currently on the governor’s desk. It would classify private university police departments as public agencies, but would also exempt certain records from being released to the public.

To put this in context, consider Prof. Ryan Brewer’s (Indiana University, finance department) rankings of D-I football programs by market valuations used for professional football teams. Notre Dame ranked 2^nd in the nation, valued at $811.5 million (behind Texas at $875 million). Georgia ranked 8^th at $581.8 million. Illinois was a distant 55^th ($94.5 million).

For years, it’s been true that college football is more a business than a game. College football at Georgia and Notre Dame show that these big businesses are also powerful interest groups. Georgia governor’s spokesperson admitted as much when she said, “This is an economic development bill, and the governor supported the inclusion of the language regarding athletics. It simply levels the playing field with other states that also have strong athletic programs like Georgia.”