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NCAA Athletes Finally Being Paid

7/22/2021

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Recently, the NCAA is finally allowing college athletes to collect money off their name and likeness. This is one of the most significant rule changes since the beginning of the NCAA 115 years ago. Although the ruling has just been passed, this change has been in the talks for many years. Prior to the ruling, athletes have been banned from being paid to promote goods, and doing so would result in a termination of their scholarship and them getting banned from ever playing collegiate level sports. Although the NCAA had indicated that they had no intention of changing the ruling to allow athletes to get paid, pressure from powerful states such as California in 2019 changed the NCAA’s plans. Compared to making nothing before, some college superstars could be making millions now overnight. In my opinion, I think this is great that the NCAA is finally changing their rules as it brings in more exciting players into college sports. Recently, due to the inability to make money in college, many popular basketball stars such as Lamelo Ball opted to play overseas rather than attend college. Additionally, the NBA sought an opportunity to bring more popularity to their development league and offered promising high school players to join their league rather than go to college which proved to be enticing enough to make many top recruits accept the NBA’s offer. Most recently, with Bryce Young receiving endorsement offers of seven figures, it will be interesting to see how these young athletes are able to progress with all the newly added distractions that endorsements and money can bring. Recently, we have seen more and more athletes beginning to buy their own sports cards. It will be interesting to see if college players decide to join this trend due to the inflow of money that they used to never be able to receive before.

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Tainted NBA Playoffs?

7/16/2021

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With fans finally back in person to support their favorite teams in the most important part of the season, the playoffs, it has been a disappointment to see so many star players injured, causing them to miss vital games. Superstar Lebron James believes that all these injuries are due to the shortened offseason that athletes received to rest and recover, and it seems that other players agree with his statement. More than eight All-Stars have missed games in the playoffs, an unprecedented number. Albeit not All-Stars, key players also suffered season ending injuries shortly before the playoffs, making them unable to help their teams. During the playoffs, these All-Stars and key players are expected to play an even bigger role, due to sheer pressure put on them to score many points, allowing their respective team to advance in the playoffs. However, with these star players out, it not only diminishes the team’s play, but also leaves many doubts for what could have been. Fans are left to question the competitiveness of this year's playoffs, with many star players out. One might wonder, if Kyrie Irving never sprained his ankle, maybe the Brooklyn Nets would not have been eliminated from the playoffs. Now it seems as if the key to winning the championship may be to just have the team with the least amount of injured players. Although many claim that these playoffs are now tainted due to all the injuries, it is worth noting that injuries are a part of all sports. Injuries are unfortunate for fans and players, but ultimately, it is just a part of the game and can not be controlled. Although it is disappointing that all teams are not playing at full health this playoff season, the winners of the NBA championship should still be considered legitimate. For card prices, these injuries have been detrimental. Furthermore, we may not see a huge increase in card prices for the winner of the championship due to fans believing the championship win is not legitimate. We saw this last year when the Los Angeles Lakers won in the "bubble." Even though they won, we saw many people commenting about how the ring should have an asterisk next to it due to weird situation the NBA Finals took place in. Despite this, the question “What if?” will forever haunt the 2021 NBA playoffs.

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Wharton Moneyball Training Camp

7/15/2021

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This past week, I was fortunate enough to be able to learn about data analytics in sports through the Moneyball Training Camp taught by Professor Adi Wyner. Throughout the one week, it was packed with many great insights in the sports industry as well as information on how sports teams use data in order to come to conclusions about their own team or other teams. At the base of all data analytics is the use of the computer program R. R is commonly used for data analytics, and I was able to learn how to use R to create graphs as well as showcase how a certain player might perform in the future based on past results. Daily, I would receive a live lecture from professor Wyner as well as Erig Eager, the VP of Research and Development at Pro Football Focus. I learned many different topics ranging from standard deviation all the way to probability. Using the knowledge learned from them as well as R, I was put to the task of creating a project to answer a sports question. With my group, we decided to see whether Shohei Ohtani or Jacob deGrom should be the most valuable player. Ultimately, based on regression data, team success, and hitting/pitching stats, we came to the conclusion that although both players are amazing, deGrom should have a slight edge over Ohtani as the most bauble player. It was great to work in a group on this project because we all had varying ideas about who should be the most valuable, but when we finally got all the important data that we were looking for, we were able to come to an easy consensus. In my opinion, the most exciting part of the week was the guest speakers. The guest speakers came from extremely reputable sports organizations such as the Washington Nationals, Washington Wizards, and the Los Angeles Lakers. Listening to the Assistant GM of the Washington Nationals, Samuel Modry-Cohen, was extremely enjoyable because as an avid fan of baseball, I was able to hear about the insights that teams use that most people would never hear about. For example, there is a company that runs data analytics for baseball teams, but they only take one team per division in order to prevent taking direct competitors. Although the information I learned this week pretty much only relates to sports, I really enjoyed taking the class as it opened up my eyes to the hidden part of sports that many people do not bother to think about. Sports is not just about pure skill from the players, but the data and research team in the shadow of the players also plays a key impact in the results that these players have in their career. The knowledge I learned while taking this camp can also be used to when buying sports cards. Using data from previous years, in R, we are able to create graphs that can predict future stats of players. Obviously it is not 100% accurate and never will be, but it is a great way to get a feeling as to whether a certain player is worth investing in or not.

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Sticky Substances: Detrimental to Baseball

7/9/2021

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As an avid fan of baseball, I have noticed that this year especially, pitchers have looked as commanding as ever. Baseball has not even reached the halfway point in the season, yet the record for no-hitters in a full season is 7, and already there have been six no-hitters! Wondering why there were so many dominating pitchers on the scene these days, it may be in large part due to the discovery of new substances. These grip enhancing substances are applied by pitchers onto the baseball increasing the spin rate, making the baseballs even more difficult to hit. In a sport where a 33% hit rate is considered elite, now that pitchers have access to substances that give more of an advantage than before, I have to ask: is this fair? After decades, the unwritten rule of doctoring baseballs is finally gaining mainstream attention from not only Major League Baseball (MLB) officials, but the world. Although the use of substances to enhance grip for pitchers is not new to major league baseball, this is the first time that it is being addressed on such a high level. With the average spin rate on baseballs dropping to a season low after MLB announced punishments for pitchers caught doctoring baseballs, it seems evident that pitchers were enhancing their performances through the use of foreign substances. As for the card market, this is a bad look for any cards of pitchers. Even though many people do not collect pitchers in general, the fact that is is coming out that nearly all pitchers have been cheating the whole time causes some questions. How good are the pitchers we are investing in? Was it all just a fluke? Those are some questions that investors and buyers might take into question with all the recent drama about pitchers using sticky substances to enhance their performances. With MLB reporting to announce a major rule change in the upcoming days, it is a positive sign to put the game on a path to become a more fair and balanced sport.

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Card Trading News

NCAA Athletes Finally Being Paid

Tainted NBA Playoffs?

Wharton Moneyball Training Camp

Sticky Substances: Detrimental to Baseball

Andrew P.

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