Sports State of the Union

Tonight, President Barack Obama will deliver the State of the Union address. Issues like the economy, health care, terrorism, foreign policy, and global trade continue to challenge us as Americans. While I could spout off my opinions on these topics as much as the day is long, The Daily Hat Trick is dedicated to bringing you everything you could want to know about sports.
As I often say, sports fascinate many of us because so many facets of our favorite games parallel real life. Here at the Hat Trick, I have worked tirelessly through my sources (the Internet and a vivid imagination) to bring you the State of the Union addresses by the chiefs of the four major professional team sports and the NCAA. These transcripts are top secret and 100% authentic. And by 100% authentic, I mean I thought of this all by myself!

National Hockey League
delivered by Commissioner Gary Bettman

Bettman: Good evening fellow owners. Our sport has more teams than ever. We played yet another outdoor classic. We have coverage on more cable networks than ever, like Versus, and the NHL Network and, um, who's this?...RDS...who is that?...and NBC hasn't dropped us yet! Oh who am I kidding? We're pretty irrelevant, guys. People in Canada still watch. Fortunately there are enough dudes without girlfriends to watch this stuff and buy enough beer to keep our sponsors happy. As long as we have Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin we can keep our 1.0 rating and pay the light bills. Good night!

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman: Just living the dream! 2

Major League Baseball
delivered by Commissioner Bud Selig

(sounds of tacit, polite applause)

Selig: Thank you fellow owners. America's Pastime is the best that it has ever been! We sold more tickets to more games than ever before, even though we gave a few million away for the nose bleed sections in the middle of the week. Our revenue sharing has ensured that every team will have an opportunity to survive.

What would Major League Baseball be like without a perennial whipping boy like the Pittsburgh Pirates to help get more important teams, like the Cardinals, out of a slump? And the Pirates ownership couldn't be happier, stuffing its pockets with the television money and paying a bunch of scrubs a tick over the MLB minimum. Why jam pack a gorgeous stadium like PNC Park? You'll have to renovate it in 10 years. With the creative maintenance strategies like those of the Pirates, our state of the art, newer facilities can last for generations!

Selig: "I hear ya, baseball fans, loud and clear! You want...WHAT? A salary 'crap'? Huh? WHAT? Expansion of instant WHAT? 'Breakfast'? HUH?" 3

Our television ratings continue to grow. Local affiliates continue to bid tens of millions of dollars annually for local broadcast rights, and will continue to until the generation of retirees, who are home all day and have little else to do, whither away and die off.  This World Series was one of the better ratings draws in its time slot, when there was no football on television. We came close to having a Phillies-Yankees World Series repeat, but fortunately, with the deep pockets of our larger market teams and their ability to completely squeeze smaller markets out of the marquee free agent market, the odds are stacked so heavily in their favor that I am confident in our innovative approach to maximize playoff ratings by pacifying the mega markets. Salary cap? "Schmalary" cap!

MLB does not want safety to detract from fan interaction. 4

Our game is technologically sound. Our ballparks are the newest and most state-of-the-art parks in all of the sporting world. Our radar guns can clock pitches to the first decimal place. Our maple bats may explode and deliver head trauma to ladies sitting behind the dugout, but that is part of the history and tradition of the game. No way do we want to clutter it with low angle trajectory safety nets!

MLB: Keeping constant contact with the customer. 5

We have arrived in the 21st century with instant replay. The one time in every month in which a home run is hit that is so close to being a foul ball or actually ricochets into the field of play from behind the outfield wall...we will be ready to correct any potential errors in that situation. Other situations are those that the fans want left up to the "human element", one of the proudest traditions in baseball. Think of how much publicity we have gotten since Jim Joyce bungled a routine out at first base, costing Armondo Gallaraga a perfect game. We were at the top of the sports headlines for days!

It is a great time to be a Major Leaguer!!!!

(sound of crickets chirping and two guys at the Milwaukee Brewers table applauding)

SAFE!!!! The "human element" is what fans love most about the game. 6

National Colligiate Athletic Association
delivered by Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA

College athletics are as popular, competitive, pure, and untainted as ever before. The men's basketball tournament is one of the best draws on television. The College World Series is increasing in popularity every year, after being an obscure niche event for decades. Women's sports continue to enjoy a steady growth in following, with stories like that of the University of Connecticut Women's Basketball team sparking greater interest on that side of the gender aisle.

Any questions?

Reporter: Um...gee, Mark. That was kind of..."short"? What about football?

Emmert: Football continues to be profitable.

Reporter: Yeah but don't you think you should go into some more depth on football, with all of the controversy....(interrupted)

Emmert: I invited a special guest to deliver the segment on football, former NFL coach, Jim Mora, Sr. (quickly walks away from the podium)

The elephant in the room.... 7

(murmuring among the reporters followed by silence)

Mora: Good evening. College football is at the height of its popularity. I don't care...who you play. The Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar Bowl...let alone the BCS Championship Game...all had stronger ticket sales and television ratings than ever before.

Reporter: Coach can you tell us about the possibility.... (interrupted by a second reporter)

Reporter #2: (under his breath in an "uh oh" cadence) Care-ful! You don't want his going on an "ant-ray" about the "ayoffs-play". We'll never get him back on topic!

Reporter: ...can you tell us about, um, future plans for the postseason.

Mora: The NCAA is looking into...(piece of paper unfolds)...the possibility of working with the BCS to add the Cotton Bowl to the series.

(sounds of groans)

Reporter: But, Coach, as you know, there is an increasing demand from fans, coaches and players for a....different...ah...an alternative way to conclude the season. Does the NCAA plan on looking into those options?

Mora: I'm afraid I don't follow you. Which options?

Reporter: You know..."options"? Like a tournament?

Mora: Like March Madness?

Emmert: (quickly interjects) Alright that is all the time we have for today. Thank you!

(Mora, Emmert walk backstage; 30 seconds later an echo is heard, becoming gradually clearer)

Mora: (in the distance) Are you kidding me?

Go ahead! Make my day! 1

National Football League
delivered by Commissioner Roger Goodell

Good afternoon, fellow owners. I would like to touch on a few issues affecting our league right now. Much like our country, the NFL is dealing with critical issues in our economy, health care, and international diplomacy.

The Economy

The economy of the NFL is stronger than ever. We continued to break previously held records for ticket sales and television viewership, with regular season games drawing stronger ratings than World Series games. Merchandise sales are at an all time high. Fans, television networks, sponsors, and advertisers are just begging for us to take their money to be affiliated with us.

(owner in the back of the room)

Owner: "I'm riiiiich, bitch!"

8

Goodell: We sure are! And that is why it is important that we iron out our differences with the Players Association in a quick, cooperative manner. It is imperative that we do what is best for the players, the fans, and the league. It is imperative that we ram an 18 game schedule down everyone's throats, whether they like it or not, so that we may continue to grow our economy.

Health Care

The health of our players is the health of our game and the health of our game is paramount. For this reason, it is imperative that we make our players play 18 regular season games. The NFL's fine doctors have been pioneers in sports medicine. Thirty years ago, a blown out knee would mean the end of a running back's career. Dozens of ruined careers later, the doctors and surgeons who have worked on our players can reconstruct knee ligaments that are stronger than the originals!

Player safety is paramount! Two more games will keep players healthier in the long run. 9

By making our players play 18 games, we will have more injuries and be able to involve more brilliant doctors in the innovative healing process. In order to help our players get healthier, we have to make sure that more players get hurt! And, of course, it will benefit the health of our television revenues, as networks will have to pay for two more weeks of regular season action and fans will buy more concessions during the regular season games that replace the preseason games which, of course, nobody really wants to watch.

Foreign Policy

The NFL had had tremendous success, playing exhibition and regular season games outside of our borders. We will have teams in Europe if it is the last thing I do...er, uh...we do! Fans in Toronto cannot wait for (Buffalo Bills Owner) Ralph Wilson to drop dead so that the team can race to Canada faster than the Bills most famous player, O.J. Simpson, should have. (Wilson interrupts, "I'm sitting here and I can HEAR you!") Fans in London cannot wait for our "jolly good show" to be over there year round! Players will just have to learn new languages and adjust to travel. The playbooks already read like Sanskrit, so they clearly have the inherent skills necessary to survive in Germany or Spain in the fall.

First America...THEN THE WORLD!!!

(Owners rise and roar in applause; player representatives and coaches stare at one another, silent and slack jawed.)

This Roger Goodell is a man after my own heart! 10

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