NCAA – Page 89 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

All Options on Table for the Wilfs?

Posted on October 28, 2020October 28, 2020 by David Shama

NFL insiders might be speculating on whether the Minnesota Vikings ownership group is interested in selling the franchise. Zygi Wilf led a group that purchased the club in 2005 for a reported $600 million and earlier this year Forbes valued the franchise at $2.7 billion.

Even adjusted for inflation, the difference in those two figures represents a nifty gain. Other numbers the Wilf family and their partners are looking at today aren’t so rosy. With COVID-19 blocking ticket sales and other in-stadium revenues, this is a fiscal year unlike any other for NFL owners. Just lost ticket revenue at US Bank Stadium is likely north of $750 million for the Vikings this season, and there is no guarantee fans will be admitted for home games in 2021.

There is also disgruntlement from season ticket and single game purchasers. A 1-5 start to the season is a shock for a fan base more accustomed to double digit wins each year. Those fans have quickly found perceived villains in both the front office and on the field (players and coaches).

Ticket buyers may also be struggling with their own financial challenges, leaving them with less discretionary income for now and the foreseeable future. There are customers, too, that dislike the prominence of social justice and politics by NFL ownership, management and players. Regardless of who is right or wrong, the perspective of critics is that they want to watch football without other commentary.

NFL TV viewership is down this fall, consistent with a decline of other televised sports—led by surprising and disappointing numbers from NBA games and historically low World Series ratings. Going forward, if NFL TV viewership doesn’t improve, that will hamper financial negotiations by the league with the networks as both sides contemplate new contracts.

The Wilfs are diversified in their financial holdings but much of their wealth has been made in real estate, including New York and New Jersey. Commercial real estate has its issues with movie theatres and shopping malls closing and more companies allowing employees to work at home rather than occupying office buildings. Residents are moving out of New York City and other locales they consider undesirable. How the Wilfs are impacted is unknown but it’s fair to speculate they are crunching numbers to keep up with developments and anticipate the future.

There is a cost savings direction for their football team with the unloading of pricey stars Stefon Diggs and Yannick Ngakoue. Rumors this week, if true, indicate a possible “fire sale,” with team leaders and impact players Harrison Smith, Kyle Rudolph and Adam Thielen possibly being shopped in advance of the league trade deadline November 3.

The Wilfs love football and have been committed in spending money on salaries, facilities and philanthropy in Minnesota. Their long stated goal is to produce a Super Bowl team for the city and state. But the team’s 1-5 record this fall, and priority in collecting draft choices with the Diggs and Ngakoue trades, more than hints this team is rebuilding and further from a Super Bowl now than in several years.

In these times of health, economic and political challenges for the country, do the Wilfs want to go through an on-the-field rebuild? If they do, will ownership continue to be satisfied with longtime GM Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer, the head coach since 2014? The Wilfs are known for their loyalty to employees and they don’t make knee-jerk moves, but they are also successful business operators.

They know this is a turbulent period both literally and figuratively, including because the club’s passionate fan base is dissatisfied. But it’s also true NFL franchises can turn around pretty quick (see the Tampa Bay Bucs)—with on-field performances able to flip within a couple of seasons. And until 2020, no major American sport has been so consistently profitable for owners as the NFL.

What are the Wilfs thinking? In their view, is the Gjallarhorn half full, or half empty?

Worth Noting

It will be interesting to see what kind of money MLB free agents can negotiate during this offseason. Sportico interviewed MLB commissioner Rob Manfred who said in a story Monday his 30 teams amassed $8.3 billion in debt from financial lenders and lost $2.8 to $3 billion in operational expenses this year. Manfred is cautious about what baseball will look like in 2021.

The COVID-impacted and shortened 2020 season dictated no fans in attendance at stadiums. Franchises like the Twins lost hundreds of millions in missing ticket and other ballpark revenues.

With Wisconsin quarterback Jack Coan out long term with an injury, and backups Graham Mertz and Chase Wolf rumored to be sidelined with COVID for three weeks, the Gophers, despite their opening loss to Michigan, could soon be labeled as favorites to win the Big Ten’s West Division. Sleeper pick (favored here) is Nebraska.

Ticket King owner Mike Nowakowski told Sports Headliners yesterday his company has sold a couple dozen tickets for the September 4, 2021 Gopher football opener against Ohio State in Minneapolis. “We’re seeing some action on the game already,” he said.

Ticket King prices range from $125 to $300 for the game that will be Ohio State’s first appearance in Minneapolis since 2014. The Buckeyes could be defending NCAA champions when they come to town.

Nowakowski has sold about three dozen tickets for the April 8 Twins opener at Target Field against the Seattle Mariners. Ticket King pricing ranges from $70 to $800 (Champions Club).

Big Ten men’s hockey teams will each play four nonconference games against Arizona State. The Sun Devils AD is Ray Anderson, former agent to Vikings coach Denny Green and a friend of new Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren who was Chief Operating Officer of the Vikings.

Arizona State is ranked No. 15 in the USCHO.com national preseason poll, with Minnesota No. 14. Top ranked Big Ten schools are No. 9 Penn State and No. 10 Ohio State.

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What to Know for Gophers-Michigan

Posted on October 21, 2020October 22, 2020 by David Shama

It’s no exaggeration to write that Saturday the nation’s college football fans will have eyes focused on Minneapolis, and the Big Ten Conference’s premiere season opening matchup of Minnesota and Michigan.

The hoopla starts at 8 a.m. with ESPN’s GameDay reporting for three hours from inside TCF Bank Stadium. The weekly program is coveted everywhere by college football pitch artists, and their cities. The show arrives in Minneapolis this week for the second time ever. Know that high school players, including recruiting targets of the Gophers, will be watching and listening to what is said.

No inside word yet on who exuberant Lee Corso will pick to win the game, but social media geniuses will be typing at high speed about whoever gets the nod from the former Indiana head coach. While signaling his prediction, maybe he will slip on a Goldy head and hoist the Little Brown Jug in deference to the Golden Gophers. Then, again, perhaps he poses in a Desmond Howard mask and strikes a Heisman Trophy pose to predict a Michigan win—making Howard, Corso’s GameDay colleague, giggle about his old school and his Heisman hardware.

Hopefully, the game will be even more entertaining than Corso, GameDay’s undisputed showman. It should be with two top 25 teams playing in primetime (6:30 p.m. kickoff) on national TV via ABC. Somewhere near the top of storylines will be the two head coaches, P.J. Fleck of the Gophers, and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh.

Fleck’s record since November 10, 2018 is 14 wins, 3 losses. In that stretch his teams have won at Wisconsin, upset No. 4 ranked Penn State at home and taken down No. 12 Auburn in the Outback Bowl. After the bowl game, Minnesota was ranked No. 10 nationally, the program’s highest poll position since 1962.

But Fleck, starting his fourth season at Minnesota, will be the first to acknowledge success must be sustained year after year, and Project Consistency comes one step at a time. Another successful season, starting with a win over the Wolverines, will chase more of the anti-Fleck crowd toward the Gopher bandwagon. And a lot of admirers are already more worried about holding on to the 39-year-old Fleck as coach, than fretting over whether the program will be an annual winner.

Harbaugh has a losing record at Michigan against A.P. top-25 teams, 10-14, per Michigan.rivals.com. Although he is among the best paid coaches in the country at more than $7 million this season, he has yet to defeat hated rival Ohio State in five seasons coaching in Ann Arbor and he is 1-4 in bowl games.

With two seasons remaining on his contract, Harbaugh’s seat will be warm at chilly TCF Bank Stadium Saturday night. Power Five coaches almost never have just two years left on a contract, so it seems the higher-ups in Ann Arbor are sending a message.

Here are six more things to know about the game:

No. 1. Among the players, who is healthy and available to play? Testing positive for COVID-19 will likely sideline players for both teams. Who and how many may determine the game’s outcome. Subtract too many top playmakers and key defenders, and this game likely doesn’t fulfill its potential to be special.

No. 2. How high will the total points be in the game? College football scores this fall can resemble low scoring basketball games. Powerhouse programs like Alabama have even experienced poor defensive outings. In explaining the offensive fireworks, COVID is again a villain. The pandemic cancelled spring practices and since then has limited teams from having full contact. The over-under total for Michigan-Minnesota should be about 60 points.

No. 3. Will Minnesota’s defense be a liability? While the starting offense has nearly everyone returning from 2019, the defense is without several regulars including its best performers. Defensive coordinator Joe Rossi, though, has shown an unflappable demeanor and golden touch since being elevated to his position after the infamous November 3, 2018 loss at Illinois.

Rossi is kind of starting over now, but not without talent including a pair of the Big Ten’s better cornerbacks in Coney Durr and Benjamin St-Juste, plus exceptionally athletic defensive lineman Boye Mafe, and a “coach on the field” leader in linebacker in Mariano Sori-Marin.

No. 4. Does Rashod Bateman’s presence push the Gophers over the top? The NCAA has done few favors for the University of Minnesota Athletic Department over the years (see Clem Haskins scandal), but the governing organization granted the return of Bateman, the Gophers’ All-American wide receiver who initially had opted out of the 2020 season. He is an extraordinary playmaker, and opinion here is his presence could tip one or more games into the win column this fall. Will that start Saturday night?

No. 5. Is the 2020 game the start of a new age in the Minnesota-Michigan rivalry? Michigan leads the all-time series by a dominating 70-23-3 total. Long ago, though, this was a rivalry about Heisman Trophy winners, All-Americans, Big Ten titles and national supremacy. Since 1970 the ineptitude of Gopher football has mostly made folly of a rivalry that is symbolized by possession of the famed Little Brown Jug. Minnesota hasn’t defeated the Wolverines in Minneapolis since 1977, although the Gophers have won three times in Ann Arbor since then.

Sadly, the two programs don’t compete against one another every year because they are in different Big Ten divisions. Minnesota and Michigan last played in 2018 and aren’t scheduled again after Saturday evening until 2023. There is the possibility of the two schools meeting in the Big Ten championship game as champions of the West and East Divisions. That would wake up the echoes of a rivalry that once had Gophers fans and players circling the Michigan game before all others on the schedule calendar.

No. 6. Get ready to cringe every time GameDay and ABC talking heads bring up how cold it is here. How high can you count? Some stereotypes don’t go away—like cold weather in Minnesota even in October. However, Weather.com predicts the evening low Saturday in Ann Arbor will be 35 degrees. So take that, Minnesota weather bashers.

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ESPN GameDay Odds Heavy for Gophers

Posted on October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 by David Shama

Next Sunday ESPN could announce its prestigious college football GameDay show will originate in Minneapolis on Saturday, October 24 for the Minnesota-Michigan game at TCF Bank Stadium. Sources report the game is under consideration by ESPN.

The odds of Minnesota hosting the show went up when ESPN announced yesterday its crew will be in Tuscaloosa for the Alabama-Georgia game this Saturday. The Alabama game at Tennessee October 24 looks like less competition for the Gophers now that the Volunteers lost to Georgia last weekend—and ESPN will not feature Alabama two weeks in succession.

October 23-24 is the opening weekend for Big Ten football and the conference’s prestige and large TV following will weigh positively on the ESPN decision. The Nebraska-Ohio State game in Columbus October 24 is no longer a rival for the Gophers hosting ESPN because Fox announced its kickoff show will be at Ohio Stadium that day.

A long-shot under consideration for October 24 could be the Cincinnati-SMU game in Dallas. In the latest AP national poll the Bearcats are ranked No. 8 and the Mustangs No. 17. But Minnesota and Michigan are also ranked, with the Gophers at No. 24 and Wolverines at No. 19, and an important American Athletic Conference game doesn’t have the same glitter as a Big Ten offering. On the Big Ten’s opening weekend, this is the conference’s only matchup of top 25 teams.

That’s a compelling factor and so, too, is the historic rivalry between the two programs. Michigan and Minnesota have been playing for possession of the Little Brown Jug since 1909. Considered the most famous of college football rivalry trophies, the Little Brown Jug is a made-for-TV optic with a fascinating storyline. The Gophers haven’t taken possession of the Jug in Minneapolis since 1977, adding extra meaning to the October 24 game.

Right now it looks like the Minnesota-Michigan matchup could be the biggest of the day not only in the Big Ten but across the country. This morning came the announcement the game will land on national TV with ABC offering a prime time 6:30 p.m. kickoff. The game has major ratings appeal starting with the Minneapolis-St. Paul and Detroit TV markets that are among the largest in the country. Expect big ratings numbers in Minnesota and Michigan, and the game will pull solid ratings throughout the nation—particularly in the Midwest.

The three-hour GameDay show, that dates back to 1993, has both the time and interest to take multiple angles on stories. It seems likely that if show producers come here they will report on how the Gophers have confronted the social justice issue since the tragic death of George Floyd. Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck has been outspoken about the need to listen, understand and discuss things since Floyd’s death earlier this year.

GameDay came to Minneapolis for the first time ever in 2019 for the Minnesota-Wisconsin game. Fleck coveted the opportunity to host the show and by all accounts it was a successful partnership between ESPN and the University of Minnesota. Not only does hosting the show add to fan interest in the state, but it also is a valued recruiting tool for Minnesota’s national recruiting.

Worth Noting

In some scheduling alterations, the Big Ten announced today the Gophers will play three Friday games—October 30 at Maryland, and host Iowa and Purdue November 13 and 20 respectively. Those games had been scheduled for Saturdays.

Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer meets with the media via Zoom at 4:30 p.m. today. The last time the Vikings started a season 1-4 was in 2011 under Leslie Frazier and they went on to a 3-13 finish.

Minnesota native and former Olympic middle distance runner Carrie Tollefson is the latest guest on “Behind the Game,” with co-hosts Patrick Klinger and Bill Robertson. Growing up in small town Dawson, she became one of the state’s great success stories among female athletes. The show is available for viewing on YouTube and on Twin Cities cable TV channels.

If preps Kenny Pohto and Treyton Thompson keep their verbal commitments to join the 2021 Gophers freshman class it looks like they will be part of a roster with six players 6-foot-9 or taller a year from now. Pohto, from Sweden by way of Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas, and Thompson, a native of Alexandria, Minnesota could join present bigs Sam Freeman, Isaiah Ihnen, Martice Mitchell and Liam Robbins.

That kind of height and wing span presents multiple potential advantages for the coaching staff including use of zone defenses where Minnesota bigs would be difficult to shoot over and could clog passing lanes.

As for the coming 2020-2021 season, coach Richard Pitino’s team won’t find much love from media prognosticators who see Minnesota finishing far down in the Big Ten standings. Frustrating for Gophers fans, too, is that border rivals Iowa and Wisconsin are projected at the top of the league and receiving high national rankings.

Wisconsin, as usual carrying a roster with Minnesota natives, has an All-American favorite in forward Nate Reuvers from Lakeville North.

The Lakers have now won 17 world championships, including five in Minneapolis, and are tied with the Boston Celtics for most ever. The Minneapolis Lakers won championships in 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953 and 1955 before moving to Los Angeles for the 1960-61 season.

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