San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Sports tampering remains effective, irresistible
Tampering isn’t new, but it also isn’t what it used to be.
In 1977, when the doom-andgloom crowd predicted free agency would spell the ruination of Major League Baseball, brash Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner didn’t have access to a Twitter account.
He did, however, have a knack for announcing his intentions. And once he made up his mind to pursue an outfielder named Gary Matthews who still was under contract with San Francisco, Turner saw no reason to be secretive about it.
In fact, in an outburst of honesty that would earn him a one-year suspension from the commissioner’s office, a purportedly tipsy Turner flat-out told Giants owner Bob Lurie he would top whatever offer he made to Matthews.
“I ran into him at a cocktail party the night the World Series game was rained out,” Turner explained at the time, per the New York Times. “I had had about six vodka and tonics and I was feeling no pain. It was all in fun.”
Forty-five years later, many still find sports tampering both enjoyable and irresistible, and it remains an effective way to cause a stir.
When Dejounte Murray shared — and then deleted — an edited photo of Bulls guard, fellow Seattle-area native and upcoming free agent Zach LaVine wearing a Spurs jersey Thursday, it got people talking, whether it had any basis in reality or not.
When the best wide receiver in college football — reigning Biletnikoff Award winner Jordan Addison of Pittsburgh — was reported by the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, ESPN and others to be considering a multimillion-dollar name, image and likeness (NIL) deal to transfer, it fueled significantly more outrage.
If a program was reaching out to a player at another school with an offer to leave, some wondered, wouldn’t that be tampering? And shouldn’t it be illegal?
Well, maybe, but good luck proving it. Unlike in 1977, those doing the tampering these days
aren’t likely to announce it to their rivals over cocktails. And if a college football coach — say, for instance, USC’s Lincoln Riley — wanted to come after another team’s star, there are no shortage of ways to make overtures through intermediaries.
You know, the same way universities have been reaching out to under-contract coaching candidates for decades.
It’s true that the rise of NIL deals and the constant churn of the transfer portal have created a mess for college sports at the moment, but the NCAA did this to itself. It failed to act when courts and legislators made it clear that rules against player compensation and freedom of movement were going to be overturned, and now there’s chaos.
Eventually it will settle down, but the power structure is going to have to make some concessions. Binding contracts would work, but to get there, players probably will need to be recognized as employees. That’s been the most likely end game all along. And it won’t spell the ruination of college sports any more than free agency brought the downfall of baseball or the NFL.
Tampering, though, never will go away completely, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It happens in every sport (not to mention every business), and all leagues really try to do is make sure it’s not blatant.
When Magic Johnson was president of basketball operation for the Lakers, that franchise was fined multiple times by the NBA due to Johnson’s
habit of publicly praising — and sometimes recruiting — players on other teams. The most memorable incident came in 2017, when Johnson went on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and discussed a hypothetical scenario in which he met then-Pacers forward Paul George on vacation.
“I just can’t say, ‘Hey, I want you to come to the Lakers.’ ” Johnson told Kimmel. “Even though I’m gonna be wink-winking. You know what that means, right?”
Johnson laughed when he said it, and the Spurs’ Murray undoubtedly had a smile on his face when he pushed the send button on the Twitter photo of LaVine wearing silver and black. The Spurs could clear enough salary-cap room to offer LaVine a maximum contract this summer, and LaVine does have a well-documented affection for both Murray and coach Gregg Popovich.
After Team USA’s triumph at the Olympics in Japan last summer, Popovich didn’t receive his own gold medal, because
coaches don’t get them. So at the award ceremony, LaVine and Kevin Durant draped theirs around Popovich’s neck.
That doesn’t mean LaVine has any intention of coming to San Antonio, or that the Spurs have any interest in the moves (including parting ways with the likes of Lonnie Walker, Zach Collins and others) required to pursue him.
Murray, in all likelihood, was just having a laugh, and no harm was done.
As for Turner’s longago “all in fun” moment? Once Matthews officially hit the free-agent in 1977, Turner followed through on his vow, signing him to a five-year, $1.875 million contract. And when commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced Turner’s one-year ban for tampering, the Braves owner and TV mogul tried to look at the bright side.
“I’m thankful,” Turner said, “he didn’t order me shot.”