Sports

Editor’s note: This article is part of The Changemakers series, focusing on the behind-the-scenes executives and people fueling the future growth of their sports.

PHILADELPHIA — From the eastern boundary of Merion Golf Club, water flows southeast along the property, cutting inward across the 12th hole, framing the famed 11th green, where Bobby Jones clinched the 1930 Grand Slam. Veins of tributaries shoot from the stream, slicing through the course. One sidles up to the fifth fairway, what some consider the best par 4 in the world. Everything about Merion is immaculate. Generations of wealth in this city have assured so. Shaping, reshaping. Renovating, restoring. Installing a multi-million dollar underground turf conditioning system.

The water moves on from Merion, meandering alongside estates with houses set far off the street. It flows out of Haverford toward Ardmore, along roadsides and lawns, into Penn Wynne, and cuts through Powder Mill Park in Wynnewood.

Then comes Township Line Road, the stretch of Route 1 that divides Philadelphia from its western suburbs. The water ripples underneath an overpass, entering the city, and flows past a shuttered driving range. A little further, it zigs and zags through the remains of a municipal golf course, past the site of an old clubhouse, one that burned down in 2016. Connected to the same creek as Merion, built by the same architect who designed Merion, once praised in the same breath as Merion, Cobbs Creek Golf Club is now a ghost. Overgrown and unrecognizable. Nature has reclaimed what history created and time neglected.

Two sides of the street, two versions of the same game, four miles apart.

Anywhere else, Cobbs, as it’s known, might’ve been left for dead years ago. The last time it was operational, dying trees, severe erosion and holes in various stages of disrepair made it not only unplayable, but borderline unsafe. Without a clubhouse, the course operated out of two double-wide trailers. It closed in October 2020.

But there had always been these rumors. Anyone familiar with municipal golf in a major city knows the kind. Chatter of some magnificent renovation, the kind that might bring Cobbs back to its original glory and give the public a place as nice as the private clubs. The buzz began what seems like forever ago, back in the early aughts. Word that a nonprofit group was working to save Cobbs. We talked about it while sitting around the old plastic tables in what was the clubhouse. And in the parking lot, where the old-timers sat around in folding chairs with cards in their hands and coolers in their trunks. And around the first tee box, where foursomes stacked up, being told which holes had temporary greens due to flooding, before being sent out five minutes apart for a five-hour round.

Everyone wondered the same thing. What if?

For all its issues, Cobbs Creek carried an unmistakable mystique, even in the end. You didn’t need to squint to see the quality of the design. The land is shaped by features money can’t buy — elevation, natural water flow, vistas, a rail system rolling past. The original 18 holes opened in 1916, immediately establishing Cobbs among the country’s premier public golf courses. A century later, that old layout is referred to only as “the bones.” They’re down there, somewhere.

When the course closed, the non-profit Cobbs Creek Foundation, comprised of local corporate executives and golf architecture enthusiasts, took over the facility in a private/public partnership. At first, the scope was confined to restoring the course and providing an educational program for young people in the surrounding neighborhood. Price tag: Roughly $20 million. Proposed opening date: June 2023.

Two years later, in 2022, that plan was no longer tenable. Work to lower the creek’s floodplain came with endless other hurdles. Between necessary approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, along with countless other state and federal organizations, the project grew exponentially. The Cobbs Creek Foundation signed a 70-year lease for $1 to take over the property and mapped a new plan. This one required rebuilding over 3 miles of creek and tributaries, creating dozens of acres of wetlands, fully renovating Cobbs’ original 18 holes, creating a new nine-hole course, a driving range and a short course, and building a youth education center. Price tag: Roughly $65 million. Proposed opening date: Sometime in 2024.

As it goes in Philadelphia, skepticism built and controversy grew. The clearing of several hundred trees drew outrage from environmental organizations and neighborhood groups. Improper campaign contributions from the foundation to a local councilman drew blowback. Multiple stages of project planning were stunted by denied permits, delaying steps until approved.

There was every reason to see Cobbs’ return as a pipe dream.

Except now, along Lansdowne Avenue, stands the framework of what will be a 30,000-square-foot building. It will be the country’s second TGR Learning Lab, an education center operated by Tiger Woods’ TGR Foundation, where over 4,500 local youth will receive year-round Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education and college readiness programs. In front of the building, bulldozers are kicking up dirt, building a nine-hole, par-3 short course. Both are expected to open spring 2025. Nearby, land is being prepped for a two-story driving range that will include a restaurant, pro shop, area for community events and a museum. That’s also where a junior putting green will be installed, courtesy of a $250,000 grant from Jordan Spieth’s family foundation.

Seeing this in person is mind-bending to anyone who came up playing Cobbs. Knowing what’s coming next is even more so. The course renovation and wetland installation is scheduled to begin next summer. An additional new 9-hole course will follow.

New price tag: $150 million, of which $100 million has been raised. Final completion date: 2027.

In the end, if this works, Cobbs Creek will operate as a financially self-sustaining nonprofit that funnels educational opportunities into the community, offers local residents affordable play, and will perhaps bring a PGA Tour event to the city. It all makes one wonder, if a game so long-tied to barriers can be co-opted by those who want it to be something different, and if land that’s tied to one story can suddenly tell another — if that kind of change is possible, then what isn’t? And where else can public golf be reimagined?

In the early 1990s, as Cobbs slipped into an escalated decline, about to be passed around by various management companies for the next three decades, Merion weighed a heavy decision. The club was set to host the 1994 Women’s U.S. Open but was rattled by a new USGA policy stating all clubs chosen to host national championships must feature inclusive membership policies. Merion hired a consulting firm to survey its all-White membership, asking if the club should consider integration. The membership couldn’t commit to having minority members by tournament time and Merion withdrew as host of the national championship.

Shocking, yes. Surprising, no. Aronimink Golf Club, another elite private club in the Philadelphia suburbs, withdrew from hosting the 1993 PGA Championship because of an all-White, all-male membership. Pine Valley, the top-ranked golf course in the U.S., about 20 miles outside Philly, did not open its door to women until 2021.

Policies aside, these courses, along with plenty other elite clubs dotting the tri-state area, are products of a merry band of early-20th-century golf course architects known as “The Philadelphia School.” They worked with and occasionally for each other. A.W. Tillinghast, George Crump, George Thomas and Hugh Wilson, along with Boston transplant William Flynn, all helped shape much of the Golden Era of course design in the United States.

But today almost all their courses come with high hedges. Places you can’t see into. Places the membership doesn’t necessarily want to see out of.

Cobbs is the exception. In 1914, when the Golf Association of Philadelphia pegged Wilson to lay out the city’s much-needed public course, the 35-year-old was fresh off designing 36 holes at Merion, including the acclaimed east course. His work was a product of both natural genius and thorough study. Wilson, a product of Philadelphia high society and a Princeton education, began his design career traveling across Great Britain to research the game’s greatest layouts — St. Andrews, Prestwick, Muirfield, North Berwick, Hoylake. On and on. According to family lore, he was originally ticketed to return to the U.S. in the spring of 1912 aboard the Titanic but missed departure.

Wilson’s design of Cobbs Creek was both classic and imaginative. He tabbed Flynn, who later created the likes of Shinnecock Hills, Cherry Hills and Lancaster Country Club, to personally build every green and every bunker. From Day 1, the course was heralded as a triumph of public golf. It was open to juniors, first-timers, working-class players, women and minorities.

When some wonder why Cobbs is worth saving, the answer is not only its design, but its place in the history of a sport so steeped in exclusion.

In 1940, Charlie Sifford, then a 17-year-old caddie in Charlotte and 21 years away from being the first Black man to gain membership to join the PGA Tour, jumped town after an encounter with a drunken White store owner who levied threats and racial slurs at him. In his 1992 biography, “Just Let Me Play,” Sifford recounted smashing a Coke bottle across the man’s face and knowing he’d never get a fair trial in Jim Crow South. He instead hopped a train to Philadelphia, where he heard the jobs were available and the golf was good.

Sifford moved in with an uncle in North Philadelphia, not far from what’s now Temple University, and landed a job as a shipping clerk at the Nabisco plant. One weekend, with a fresh paycheck, Sifford spent a long night playing poker, emerging early on a Sunday morning to find a rising sun. Outside, he saw a man catching a street car with a golf bag slung on his shoulder. From “Just Let Me Play”:

“Say, where you going with them clubs,” I called out to him.
“I’m going to Cobbs Creek,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s all the way out to the end of the Market Street trolley.”

Sifford joined the man and made his way to Cobbs. He later wrote: “The course was intended for everyone to use, and I was both surprised and delighted to see both black and whites playing side by side there. I’d never seen anything like that in North Carolina.”

At the time, Cobbs was already well-established as a haven for Black golfers. Howard Wheeler and others called the course home well before Sifford. The United Golf Association (UGA), founded in the mid-1920s to provide minority golfers with an opportunity to compete on an organized tour, hosted its national championship at Cobbs in 1936, 1947 and 1956. Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis played at Cobbs. So did trailblazers Lee Elder and Ted Rhodes. In 1961, the Philadelphia NAACP hosted a tournament at Cobbs Creek to raise funds for the Freedom Riders jailed in Mississippi that summer.

The relationship between Tiger Woods, left, and Charlie Sifford drove Woods to be a part of what is happening at Cobbs Creek.

Cobbs meant so much to so many, and served so many different needs to so many different backgrounds, but, like any municipal course, was vulnerable. Heavy play exceeded reasonable usage. Conditions slipped. For years, it was also used as a cross-country course. Those hills punished generations of runners.

Around 1952, in the throes of the Cold War, the U.S. Army scouted multiple sites around Philadelphia to install anti-aircraft batteries. The location chosen? The 13th green of Cobbs Creek. Massive silos were dug and the course was rerouted around the installations. Six years later, the Army filled in the silos and left a vacant expanse behind. Cobbs’ routing was never returned to Wilson’s original design.

In time, a driving range and batting cage facility was built atop the old anti-aircraft installation. The City Line Sports Center, controlled by the same various management companies as Philly’s public golf courses, would end up, in time, just as run-down as Cobbs.

By the turn of the century, Cobbs was little more than a portrait of neglect. Floodwaters washed away greens in the spring. The sun baked out fairways and tee boxes in the summer. The Karakung Course, a second 18 built on the property in 1927 by Abner “Ab” Smith, was somehow worse. A string of superintendents did with it what they could, but no effort could overcome a staggering deficit of resources. The property deteriorated. Vandalism went ignored. Occasional abandoned cars were dumped here and there.

In time, what once was faded from view.

A few weeks ago, on a Monday morning in Philadelphia, Enrique Hervada and Don Dissinger sat in a far booth inside the Llanerch Diner on Township Line Road. The two are current proxies for reams and reams of people who’ve taken on the Sisyphean group effort to complete Cobbs Creek’s reclamation.

Hervada, COO of the Cobbs Creek Foundation, is one of seven full-time staff members. He’s among those trying to raise the final $50 million of what’s ballooned to a price tag three times that number. At least $30 million will be spent fortifying the creek and creating wetlands to prevent flooding both on the course and in the surrounding neighborhoods.

“It might kill us by the time we’re done,” Hervada said over breakfast. “It’s just — it’s a massive project cost-wise and permitting-wise.”

Hearing this, Dissinger put his fork down. “You have no idea,” he said. The 70-year-old quasi-retired architect and engineer was overseeing the construction of two high-rises in Miami when the foundation called him in December 2022. Having helped in the restoration of Merion Golf Club in 2014, Dissinger was an ad hoc member of the Cobbs restoration committee. But the foundation needed more.

A former partner at the design firm EwingCole, Dissinger built Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. His career has been one of municipal red tape, zoning laws, and state and federal licenses. But with a property covering 350 acres, and touching three counties (Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware), he’s never seen anything quite like the project at Cobbs Creek.

“The number of permits I have on this exceeds the number of permits I had between those stadiums — combined,” Dissinger said.

(Courtesy Cobbs Creek Foundation)

This all began years ago, around 2007, with a few hobbyists digging into archives, retracing Cobbs’ history and comparing notes online. These early archivists, notably Dr. Joseph Bausch, a chemistry professor at Villanova University, and Mike Cirba, an Information Management Executive, planted the seeds of what became the Friends of Cobbs Creek. Two idealistic outsiders (Bausch from Indiana, Cirba from Northeast Pennsylvania), they became, as Cirba puts it, “obsessed with what it was and what it could be.” The two began compiling information into a book. Today it is up to 400 pages long, in its 12th volume, and is the source material for everything written about Cobbs Creek, including much of this article.

In those early days, Bausch and Cirba thought it was obvious what needed to happen. Then they met Philadelphians.

“And there was always a sense that this can’t happen here. It was a pervasive negativity,” Cirba says. “I think we came into it with a certain level of naiveté, but that was probably a good thing.”

Bausch and Cirba held the earliest meetings with City of Philadelphia officials about saving and renovating the course. They were told, great idea, but where’s the money?

A board was formed. Interest grew from powerful, connected local businesspeople, including Cobbs Creek Foundation founding CEO Chris Lange and president Jeff Shanahan, along with Chris Maguire and the Maguire Foundation. The group grew larger and ideas got bigger.

Cobbs and the TGR Foundation came together. Since 2006, Woods’ charitable arm has operated a year-round learning lab in Anaheim, Calif., offering over 30 classes and workshops for 5th-12th grade students. According to TGR, 98 percent of its scholars graduated from high school and enrolled in college, 91 percent of whom were first-generation college students. Woods, himself, was familiar with Cobbs Creek even before the partnership. Charlie Sifford, he has said, was like a grandfather to him. Woods named his only son after Sifford.

Somehow, now, the thought of restoring 18 holes feels almost peripheral. The foundation hopes to serve 4,500 local students a year. The property is now referred to in two parts — as a course and as a campus.

Sitting in his office at Villanova all these years later, Bausch can only shake his head. “I always thought that this was going to be an incredible project,” he says, “but it has far exceeded anything I could ever imagine.”

There is, though, the matter of that golf course.

Appropriately, two locals are handling what comes next. Hanse Design — the renowned golf architecture firm of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner — is based in Malvern, about 15 miles from Cobbs.

Wagner grew up nearby, playing Cobbs as a high school golfer at Cardinal O’Hara. Hanse is a transplant, but knows the territory. Before his firm handled high-profile restorations like Merion, Aronimink, Oakmont and Winged Foots, Hanse developed a soft spot for the West Philly course. A little-known architect at the time, he rebuilt Cobbs’ third and fourth greens in the early 2000s after extensive flood damage. He did it for free.

That pro bono work will now continue in 2025 through 2026. Hanse and Wagner will not only rebuild Cobbs Creek Golf Club to Hugh Wilson’s original design, but will also lay out the new nine-hole course on the old Karakung land.

The scale of the project is immense.

On my recent visit, I stood near the old 12th tee box, scanning an area that once included the 11th green, the 13th green and crowded and long views of tree-lined fairways. If I didn’t personally know what had been there, I wouldn’t believe it. Anyone imagining a “restoration” is misguided. The original Cobbs Creek is gone, reclaimed by the land.

What remains of the view from the 12th tee box at Cobbs Creek. (Brendan Quinn / The Athletic)

“You can’t put it back,” Wagner said. “It’s impossible to put it back to what it once was because so much has changed in the environment. Mother Nature came in and moved things around.”

But you can return the intention and objective of what the golf course was meant to be. At last, that’s happening. Something bigger than anyone in Philly ever imagined. Something just as nice as all those private courses, except open for all.

Today, this ground is in Philadelphia. But if a successful model is created at Cobbs Creek, combining golf and STEM education under a non-profit, self-supporting model, other cities might have to sit up and take notice. Chicago. Detroit. St. Louis. Los Angeles. Houston. Maybe they’ll see the municipal course that time has forgotten and see something different. Maybe times can change.

The Changemakers series is part of a partnership with Acura.

The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Courtesy Cobbs Creek Foundation, Brendan Quinn / The Athletic)

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When The Athletic revealed last month that Mikel Arteta hired professional pickpockets to pinch valuables from his Arsenal players at a team dinner last season, there were plenty of people wishing they had been in the room to witness the reaction.

Kevin Balvers, the club’s head of methodology for three years before moving to current Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven this summer, could do one better than that.

“I was in the control room of the camera system,” Balvers laughs.

“It was before the Liverpool game (Arsenal’s 3-1 home win in February) and the message to the players was that you always have to be prepared for them to trick you into something without knowing, as their mentality is to win.

“Afterwards, we had a meeting with the players and Mikel said, ‘Is someone missing a phone?’, then pulled it out of a big bag. Then it was, ‘Is someone missing a hotel key?’.

“The coaches all knew as we had hired them but even one of the staff had something stolen. We showed them the cameras, with the message that this is exactly what Liverpool are going to do. It helped align the players with the way the coach was thinking.”

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This is what Balvers describes as an ‘activation’, a pre-match brain game with a deeper psychological message behind it. It is the kind of outside-of-the-box thinking from Arteta that he quickly became used to after joining his staff in 2021.

They would only happen on occasions when it was decided the squad needed something extra to focus their minds, but they were more common before early kick-offs, with Arteta’s own version of Pictionary being a favourite.

“When we played against a team who counter-attacked and there were open spaces, he would say to the players, ‘The highway is open’, which was a picture of an F1 car without any other cars around them,” says Balvers. “If we were playing against a team with closer organisation, it was an F1 car but really crowded. The players would then remember more quickly the things we were talking about.

“This is Mikel. When he speaks with people from a different world, he is trying to think of how he can translate it into football — even with a pilot.

“We had a presentation where he was speaking about them not having control of the plane every single minute because some things were automated and they just had to adjust. We had a presentation with a plane going up when you face a high press and another going down when you have to control the game. It was to say that you may need to change tactics in-game.”

His path to Arsenal was paved by Arteta’s assistant Albert Stuivenberg. They first met when Balvers had been trying to expand his knowledge base at Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem and had reached out to dozens of coaches from the Netherlands to understand their way of playing.

They spoke for two hours as Balvers helped Stuivenberg articulate his game model and philosophy, which led to him being recommended to Arteta in 2020.

“I was out of contract sitting at home (after leaving Vitesse) so I offered to help Albert with anything for free,” says Balvers. “He asked me to help with the analysis of the opposition but I was working with Carlos Cuesta and Miguel Molina on it, who had not joined yet either.

“They saw my work there but Arsenal were struggling with Covid, so those two could join then, but Arteta could only get more staff members later.”

Balvers was at Swedish club Malmo in 2021 when he received a call from Arsenal sporting director Edu Gaspar asking him if he would like to interview for the job as head of methodology. A video call with Arteta and Stuivenberg was followed by an anxious wait as there were two other candidates. Arteta stressed the one with the best “connection” would be chosen.

Balvers during his time at Vitesse (Photo: Paul Meima/Pro Shots/Isosport)

But after an eclectic decade with the Cyprus FA, the Netherlands’ youth teams, Caribbean nation Curacao, Vitesse, Barcelona’s La Masia academy and Malmo’s first team, Balvers secured the role in north London.

He was tasked with creating a uniform footballing idea that ran through the men’s team, the women’s side, and all the way to the youngest academy age group. He did not, however, envisage just how wide-ranging his role would become.

“It wasn’t only his (Arteta) ideas on the pitch, it was the re-culturing of the training ground and the club in every way,” says Balvers.

“If he said the painting in the toilet in the stadium has to be changed, it was because he had a vision. It is a stupid example, but I helped him a lot with these sorts of things.

“At the training ground, all the walls were white but Mikel wanted them to create a culture. I designed with him some words and pictures to go up on the walls.

Plenty of thought goes into the messaging at Arsenal, whether at the Emirates Stadium or the training ground (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

“One of them was ‘BASICS’ — B for Boxes, A for Attack, S for Shape, I for Intensity, C for Compete and S for Set pieces. It made it clear what we expected from them, and because he speaks that language every day, the players then speak it.

“He had many specific words he used but one was ‘collaboretition’ — collaboration and competition every day.”

Balvers quickly became a football analyst, a graphics designer, a motivational filmmaker and an interior designer all in one, such was Arteta’s desire to bring his colourful analogies to life.

“It was all the graphics and the motivational videos,” says Balvers. “There was a promo video the club made for the Liverpool home game last season, but he wanted a bit more energy to create a connection with the team and the fans. He had a different idea, so he came to me with it and the video you saw was the new one.

“When we went to away grounds, I made the banners with the crests of Arsenal and others with words from our game model that were placed around the changing room.

“When he was presenting to the board about his plan for the club financially, we did some really good stuff. We lost the first four games after I joined and I was thinking, ‘I could be out already’, but the strength of Mikel was that he could translate his vision and ideas about the whole organisation, not just the team. I think that’s why the board and owners believed in him.”

No stone was left unturned when it came to ensuring Arteta’s ideas became ingrained in the players’ minds. They sought the advice of educational experts to help understand the science behind how people best learn.

“We had people from different clubs and different sports coming over to speak to the coaches, which is how we picked up things,” Balvers says. “For presentations, we had an American come and share techniques which teachers use at university to bring across the message, how to get information into them and how to get information out of them.

“In tactical meetings, I learned from studies that if you put a dark blue background the players will learn the information more than white, black or red as the contrast is better. When speaking about defending, we made sure the text and areas highlighted were red and when attacking it was blue. This helps their brains know instantly what phase of play we’re talking about.”

Even more thought went into the presentations used to pitch the club to prospective new players.

“We spoke about how we saw them fitting in on the pitch, outside the pitch and had some pictures of them photoshopped in the kit already,” Balvers explains.

“For (Jurrien) Timber, we had some pictures of his family with the message that we are a big family and take care of everything. As I’m Dutch too, I put in some music from artists he was listening to, rather than English music. Win the dog was in the one for Kai (Havertz), as we knew he loved dogs and we explained we wanted a family feeling.

“That summer, we used an animation of a train. Mikel was saying, ‘We have our direction and we know where we want to go. If you want to keep going then jump in’. A lot of them said it was amazing as they felt like the club really wanted them in the team.

“Everything that was in Mikel’s mind, I was visualising and trying to make interesting but easy for the players to understand. It was really fun for me as I could be creative when he came to me with an idea and I had to think about how we could present it in the best way. It was the perfect job for me.”

Having spent three seasons at Arsenal, it was a wrench for Balvers to leave. But with a wife and two children, aged three and five, the lure of going home to his family in the Netherlands proved too strong.

There were difficult times due to the distance but the environment at Arsenal helped him get through those moments.

“Mikel is great at speaking about tactics but he’s interested in your family and if you have a problem at home, you could call him in the middle of the night,” he says.

“We had a few breaks before Christmas but in 2022 we only had one before the World Cup, so it was really difficult. I spoke with Mikel and Edu and told them I was struggling, that I could not do this another year. It was special that they just asked me what my idea was and let me work one week a month from the Netherlands.

“That’s the biggest example of why I love the people in the club so much, as it’s not a club just based on results, it’s a really warm place.”

Balvers was given a signed and framed shirt to remember his time at the club by, but his kids now have two red-and-white jerseys they wear playing in the garden after Daddy joined PSV, who have the same colours.

He left his own form of a leaving gift to the Arsenal squad after the final-day victory against Everton, his way of urging them to go on and complete the job of becoming Premier League champions for the first time in over 20 years.

“At the end of every season I always made a video showing the highlights of the whole season, but not just on the pitch. The team building, the barbecues, everything. They were really emotional videos,” he says. “This summer I tried to make the message that, yes, we tried to win and were disappointed, but we have to look back to the road and the story we have built together. We have been amazing, but we have to accept that Manchester City are amazing too.

“I’m not in doubt that, if Arsenal can make steps like they did last year, they can be the main team in the Premier League. Every club has its era.”

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Nick Saban, Lincoln Riley and Deion Sanders all wanted Alex Orji. But Orji wanted something else.

Orji, a quarterback whose athletic traits have captivated coaches at every step of his career, will make his first start Saturday when No. 18 Michigan faces No. 11 USC. The coach on the other sideline, Riley, personally offered Orji a scholarship when he was at Oklahoma, Orji’s father said. Saban also wanted Orji at Alabama, but there was a catch.

Willy Orji, Alex’s father, remembers a conversation with Saban that happened during a recruiting visit to Tuscaloosa. Saban told Alex he could have a scholarship offer from Alabama but only if he was open to switching positions. Alex looked at Saban, looked at his father, and explained that he’d worked too hard at becoming a quarterback to give up on the dream.

“There were a lot of people that talked to him,” said Red Behrens, Orji’s coach at Sachse High School in Texas. “I’m talking about big schools, all the head coaches. The thing that Alex wanted to hear from them was, ‘We’re going to give you a strong chance to be a quarterback.’”

Before college football fans were introduced to Coach Prime, Sanders tried to get Orji on his team, too. Sanders had a youth football program called Truth Sports in the Dallas metroplex, and Orji grew up playing on teams with Sanders’ sons, Shilo and Shedeur. Before he became the head coach at Jackson State, Sanders was on the staff at Trinity Christian Academy near Dallas, the school his sons attended.

Deion wanted Orji to play for Trinity Christian, Willy said, but there was one problem. Shedeur was the quarterback, and nobody was beating him out. To get on the field at Trinity, Orji would have had to play a different position. Instead, he decided to play at Sachse, where his quarterback highlights became the stuff of legend.

There was a time when Deion Sanders recruited Alex Orji to play for his high school team in the Dallas area. (Photo courtesy of Willy Orji)

Mention one play in particular to Behrens, and he’ll describe it as if it happened yesterday. Orji got flushed out of the pocket and scrambled toward the end zone. All he had to do was lower his shoulder and plow through a defensive back, but he decided to take a different route, leaping up and over the defender with inches to spare.

“Athletically, he’s one in a million,” Behrens said.

With so many coaches salivating over Orji’s potential, it was only a matter of time before one of them figured out how to get him on the field. And yet, Orji’s debut as Michigan’s starter comes with more than a little trepidation. Three weeks ago, Michigan evaluated its quarterback competition and decided to go with Davis Warren. It was only after Warren threw six interceptions in three games that the Wolverines changed course and named Orji the starter.

The question with Orji is the same as it’s always been: Is he polished enough as a passer to play quarterback at the highest level?

“He’s got great arm strength,” coach Sherrone Moore said. “The accuracy has improved tremendously. It’s going to take great prep mentally, physically and spiritually this week to get him where we need to be, and I think he’ll do that.”

Orji was one of those high school athletes who could do a little bit of everything. He was a sprinter, a high jumper, a basketball player, a safety, a wide receiver, a linebacker and a punter. Early on, he didn’t see himself as a quarterback.

Orji has two older brothers, Alston and Anfernee, who played linebacker at Vanderbilt. Anfernee signed with the New Orleans Saints as an undrafted free agent in 2023, spent last year on the practice squad and has appeared in both of the Saints games this season.

Orji is built like a linebacker at 6 feet 3 and 235 pounds, and it was natural to assume he’d follow his brothers’ footsteps on defense. When he was in middle school, he started training with Kevin Mathis, who played with Deion in Dallas and has coached with him throughout his career. Mathis, now the cornerbacks coach at Colorado, was the one who pitched Orji on playing quarterback.

“He kept trying to get him to do it,” Willy said. “Alex was comfortable with what he’d always done, being able to outrun kids, being able to push kids around.”

Orji started playing quarterback in middle school, but it wasn’t until his junior season at Sachse that his future at the position came into focus. He transferred to Sachse during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Behrens didn’t have many opportunities to evaluate him before the season started. Behrens put him at quarterback and quickly discovered he had a weapon.

“People that tried to grab him or arm tackle him, he broke through those and spun out of them and just kept rolling,” Behrens said. “Most high school kids didn’t like stepping in front of him.”

As a senior at Sachse, Orji rushed for more than 1,000 yards and threw for more than 2,000 while completing 51 percent of his passes. He was being recruited by a bunch of big-time schools, but most of them wanted him as an athlete, not a quarterback. One exception was Virginia Tech, which ran an offense similar to the one Orji played in at Sachse.

Orji committed to the Hokies as a three-star recruit in the Class of 2022. A few weeks before signing day, Virginia Tech fired Justin Fuente and he decided to reevaluate his options. He visited Michigan and met with coach Jim Harbaugh, who said it would be up to Orji to decide if and when he wanted to try another position. If Orji wanted to play quarterback, Michigan was committed to giving him the opportunity.

“As long as I’m here, we’re going to develop you and get you to where you need to be,” Willy remembers Harbaugh saying.

Michigan had a package of plays for Orji last season and used him in big moments, including the Rose Bowl and the Ohio State game. When Harbaugh left for the NFL and J.J. McCarthy declared for the draft, Michigan’s starting quarterback job was there for the taking. Orji didn’t win the job in the spring, but most signs pointed to him as the player who would take the first snap of Michigan’s season.

“Even if we’re on top of college football, I want to keep taking us higher,” Orji said in the spring. “Whoever goes out on Saturdays, whatever 11 take the field, I want to make sure I’m doing whatever I can to be selfless in my pursuit of excellence.”

By most accounts, Orji had a strong start to preseason camp. Midway through, he hit a rough patch and committed too many turnovers. Warren played better down the stretch and won the starting job.

Naturally, Willy wanted to know what happened. Did Orji let his foot off the gas? Was he overconfident? Did he not work hard enough? Orji chided his dad, reminding him that there were more important things than being the starter. Orji vowed to be a good teammate, support Warren however he could and keep working for his opportunity.

“When you’re a dad and your child is trying to teach you something, you listen,” Willy said.

Michigan’s first drive of the season ended with Orji throwing a 3-yard touchdown pass to Donovan Edwards. The Wolverines used him for a snap or two at a time as a change of pace, but Warren was the primary quarterback. Despite throwing two interceptions against Texas, Warren remained the starter against Arkansas State and took every snap of the first half. Late in the third quarter, after Warren’s third interception of the game, Michigan made the switch to Orji.

Moore was noncommittal after the game, but he arrived at his Monday news conference with an announcement: Orji was taking over as Michigan’s starting quarterback. The public announcement came as a surprise to some, including two Michigan players who met with reporters after Moore spoke. Moore made it clear that the job belonged to Orji and that he had the team’s full backing.

“We have a plan in place for Alex, and we’re ready to put it on display,” Moore said.

Disappointment would have been a natural reaction when Orji didn’t win the job in camp, despite being viewed as the front-runner for most of the offseason. If Orji was stung by the decision, his father didn’t see it. Moore said he saw no change in Orji’s confidence or demeanor after informing the quarterbacks that Warren would open the season as the starter.

“His attitude never wavered,” Moore said. “Obviously he was disappointed. He’s a competitor. He’s a kid who wants to be the starting guy. If I was a quarterback competing for the job, I’d want to do it, too. But the way he led, the way he acted, the way he presented himself, was no different than it is now.”

No one is sure how Orji’s first start is going to go. He has thrown seven passes in his career, and it’s still not clear how his athleticism will translate in the role of a full-time quarterback. The only way to answer that question is to put the ball in his hands and see what he can do.

For Michigan, the time to find out is now.

“There were a lot of schools, but they always seemed to go back to, ‘We’ll find somewhere for you to play,’” Behrens said. “He wanted to hear, ‘We’re going to give you a true shot at quarterback.’ Michigan gave him that opportunity.”

(Top photo: Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)

A team doesn’t lose 117 games and counting because of just one thing. In the case of the 2024 Chicago White Sox a meddling owner, dubious leadership, injuries and an inability to properly value and integrate analytics only begin to tell the story.

The White Sox would need to win seven of their last nine games to avoid tying the 1962 Mets’ 120 losses for the worst record in modern baseball history. They are the first team since 1900 to have three separate losing streaks of 12 or more games. Opponents have outscored them by more than 300 runs. Few expected the South Siders, who lost 101 games last year, to contend. But no one predicted this level of incompetence.

And yet for all the factors that led to this season’s disaster, when players and traveling staff try to encapsulate how things reached such a sorry state, again and again they bring up one thing: the plane.

The White Sox charter an Airbus320, a plane first manufactured in the 1980s. It features only eight first-class seats; the rest is coach. A majority of MLB teams charter bigger 757s, with ample first-class seating for the players and the coaching staff. Even well-known frugal franchises such as the Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins charter nicer planes. But not the White Sox.

When a player new to Chicago first stepped onboard this season, he said loudly: “C’mon, man, no show plane?” A chorus of players burst into laughter. Last year, a tweet comparing the planes used by MLB teams caused a stir when it was shared among White Sox players while they were onboard.

A team plane doesn’t make errors or poor baseball decisions. But the White Sox’s decision to use a smaller, older plane reflects how they operate. The difference between the White Sox and other clubs is so stark, players who leave Chicago for other teams celebrate their freedom by texting each other “This is the big leagues.”

“They don’t do the little or the big things right,” said a recently departed veteran.

The Athletic spoke to nearly 40 current and former White Sox employees and others in baseball about the larger issues plaguing the dysfunctional franchise, which is run according to the whims of owner Jerry Reinsdorf. The 88-year-old Reinsdorf led a group of investors who bought the team for $19 million in 1981. (He also owns the Chicago Bulls.) They won the World Series in 2005, but have made only three playoff appearances since, losing all three series.

Many of those who spoke to The Athletic, some of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly about Reinsdorf and the state of the franchise, said that the owner’s views on the game have calcified. That while at times Reinsdorf has carried a big major-league payroll, he has refused to invest in the cutting-edge amenities and infrastructure needed to succeed.

Some of Chicago’s wounds were self-inflicted and immediate, such as hiring Tony La Russa to manage. Others festered for years, such as the team’s reluctance to adapt to analytics, and a leadership structure that led to division. All can be traced back to Reinsdorf, who last season ignored pleas by others in the organization to interview outside general manager candidates and promoted internally instead. Reinsdorf even let popular broadcaster Jason Benetti leave because he didn’t like his style.

“You got a baseball fan owner who thinks he knows everything, and maybe he did in 1992,” said a former employee, “but the amount of info has skyrocketed in the last 30 years and he’s put his middle finger up at that.”

“As long as Jerry’s philosophy is the overarching one,” another former employee added, “they won’t ever succeed.”

Owner Jerry Reinsdorf, smoking a cigar before a game last season, is involved in almost every aspect of the White Sox organization. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

In a recent season, while addressing new employees, Reinsdorf was asked which matters more: the Bulls or White Sox winning? Rather than answer diplomatically, Reinsdorf, without hesitation, said the White Sox.

A baseball-obsessed Brooklyn native, he fills his office with autographs and sports memorabilia and loves chatting with scouts, talking about the game and its history. Reinsdorf will proudly tell you he went to Jackie Robinson’s first game in a Dodgers uniform, and he values his friendships with Hall of Famers such as La Russa, Dennis Eckersley and George Brett.

But Reinsdorf’s affection for baseball is also an affection for how the game used to be played. Sources describe him as stubborn and generally unwilling to adapt to an era where his preferred style of play — “get ’em over and get ’em in”— is no longer the sole recipe for success.

“I’m not sure if any owner loves baseball as much as Jerry,” said another former employee. “That’s why he can’t get out of his own way.”

Though he rarely appears on television during broadcasts, Reinsdorf frequently watches games from his suite at Guaranteed Rate Field, which has a door connecting to the baseball operations department.

His influence on the team is everywhere. It’s not unusual for Reinsdorf to text broadcasters in-game about what they’re saying, to attend offseason and spring training meetings (he lives in Arizona) or to solicit advice from his cabinet of handpicked advisors. Last offseason, Reinsdorf let Benetti out of his contract to go to another AL Central team, the Detroit Tigers. Reinsdorf didn’t like Benetti’s personality; he featured analytics, made jokes and wasn’t always effusive toward a losing White Sox team. (Benetti declined to comment, though he made references to feeling disrespected on a podcast with The Athletic.)

“He’s hands-on in every part of the organization,” said former White Sox player and team vice president Kenny Williams of Reinsdorf.

Williams played for the team from 1986-88, then rejoined the franchise in 1992 as a scout. He rose to GM in 2000 and oversaw the construction of the 2005 team, becoming the first Black general manager to win a World Series — the team’s first since 1917 — and cementing his place in Chicago sports lore.

Williams refers to Reinsdorf as a second father and bristles at suggestions that the owner – who Forbes estimates is worth $2.1 billion – only cares about profits.

“He just wanted to break even,” Williams said of Reinsdorf, who reportedly is willing to help finance a new proposed ballpark in the more desirable South Loop location. “I always thought over the years it was a little unfair when people would say, ‘All he cares about is making money.’ I’m sitting in the office and he’s saying, ‘I’m going to give you what I got.’”

The White Sox are run like a family business. Many employees have personal relationships with Reinsdorf, and the team’s job security is arguably the best in baseball. But Reinsdorf can be loyal to a fault.

“They have people there with no business being in Major League Baseball,” said an executive with another team.

The 2005 World Series win was the franchise’s crowning achievement under Reinsdorf, but it also gave the organization a false sense of confidence that kept it from evolving. Reinsdorf and a certain faction of the organization felt no pressure to adapt. The personnel was so insular that multiple former employees described it as a time warp.

One of the Sox’s most glaring failures has been the team’s limited embrace of analytics. Reinsdorf, sources say, would make comments in meetings such as: “You guys know I’m not an analytics person. I’m not big into this.” He questioned at least one White Sox player about whether it was possible to have too much information.

The team didn’t shun the movement entirely. The White Sox were one of the first teams to invest in a spring training pitching lab, purchased iPitch machines for approximately $15,000 each to help train hitters and hired the analytically savvy Ethan Katz as pitching coach in 2020. 

“Did we have a large analytics department when I was there? No, we didn’t,” said Williams. “We didn’t have those kind of resources to allocate towards that. But did we (make investments)? Absolutely, and with total support of ownership on that. As long as we proved, or at least made the case, that it could be beneficial for the on-field product.”

But the White Sox’s investment only went so far. To reduce overhead, the team outsourced some number crunching to Zelus Analytics, a private outside firm.

“(They) are good if you have nothing,” one rival executive said. “But the whole point of analytics is to have your own customized models for your players to gain an edge. You don’t get that from an external firm.”

Nor do teams advance when their decision makers are split on data’s value. General manager Chris Getz, like his predecessor, Rick Hahn, advocates for the White Sox to make greater use of analytics. But, like Hahn, Getz never worked for an organization at the forefront of the movement, such as the Houston Astros, Tampa Bay Rays or Los Angeles Dodgers.

Even when they tried to use analytics, the White Sox weren’t sure how. For years, they used two sets of adjusted Trackman data: One, like most teams, they received from a third party, and another was developed by their own analytics people. Sometimes the two sets of data would be dramatically different, making it difficult to evaluate players and write reports. In 2019, a debate about using spin rate versus adjusted spin rate caused internal strife.

“It was comical,” said a former baseball operations employee of different departments using different sets of data. “No one knew what was what.”

In 2024, the White Sox are still untangling the lines of data communication. Several former members of this year’s team pointed to defensive positioning as an area of concern. The White Sox rank near or at the bottom of publicly available defensive metrics, in part, former players say, because their fielders often are in the wrong spots.

“That’s a huge area I felt could be better,” said outfielder Tommy Pham, who signed with the White Sox as a free agent in April and was traded in July. “They know it.”

Former pitchers describe Chicago’s game planning as almost rudimentary. Rather than provide individual plans for each hitter, the White Sox offer generalities such as, “Your sinker will play down in the zone” — an insufficient answer against, say, a lineup full of left-handed hitters who handle sinkers in that area. Minor league pitchers with high walk totals were told things like “work on your command,” with no other specifics, in the offseason.

Hitters expressed similar concerns. “They had information,” one former position player said. “But you didn’t get an explanation or a plan.”

Reinsdorf told The Athletic via email: “Analytics are a very important part of the game, a useful tool that compliments but will never completely replace human judgment.”

White Sox fans express their feelings about a season that is in the running for one of the worst in baseball history. (Matt Marton / Imagn Images)

Before the 2013 season, Reinsdorf promoted Williams to executive vice president, with Hahn — Williams’ longtime right-hand man — becoming general manager. Hahn was seen as a rising star, a Harvard Law School and Northwestern business school graduate who was part of a new wave in front offices. He planned to modernize the organization, in part by better incorporating analytics.

The White Sox finished no better than 17 games out of first place in the first three seasons under Hahn, and announced a shift in philosophy midway through 2016. The club was “mired in mediocrity,” Hahn said, and in need of a rebuild.

But Hahn and Williams had different views on how organizations should be run, and over time, that dynamic impacted the operation of the team, sources say.

“I was known as and called ‘a baseball guy,’” Williams said. “It was like it was an insult, that I could go in and see a guy work out for a day and tell you he was going to be an All-Star.”

Hahn, facing opposition from the old guard, struggled to bring changes to the team’s usage of analytics and technology. He often pushed back against the perception he wasn’t calling the shots, but effectively had to please multiple power brokers, including Williams, Reinsdorf and, later, La Russa.

Hahn declined to comment for this story. Williams said of their dynamic: “We had a great relationship. During the good times, it was better. During the bad times, there was only one other person it seemed like we could laugh with, and that was each other.”

Williams became less of a day-to-day presence as the team rebuilt, sources say, a point Williams disputes. But in a meeting before the 2020 season, as the White Sox were starting to rebound, Williams announced it was time for the team to turn the corner and that he’d be taking a more active role.

“It was like the (Michael Jordan) unretirement. It caught people off guard,” said one person involved in the meeting.

“Rick Hahn was much better suited to take them forward. Kenny was a platinum employee,” said another former baseball operations employee. “He would show up and block certain trades and want to take the No. 1 pick in the draft. … There was a lot of resentment from people inside about that (dynamic).”

The divide manifested further in the polarizing lieutenants each man chose. Williams had his son, Ken Williams Jr., who eventually ascended to assistant farm director. Hahn trusted Jeremy Haber, another Harvard grad. The younger Williams butted heads with many in player development and, despite his inexperience, was quick to offer dissenting views. Haber could be bullish as he advocated for his boss’ point of view and was seen as an aggressive climber. (Both men are no longer in the organization. Williams Jr. declined to comment; Haber did not respond to interview requests.)

Still, for all their issues, the White Sox’s rebuild progressed. The team developed homegrown players such as Tim Anderson and Garrett Crochet, traded for Lucas Giolito, Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jiménez, Dylan Cease and Dane Dunning and agreed to long-term extensions, with Reinsdorf’s approval, for Jiménez, Moncada and Luis Robert Jr.

The White Sox made the playoffs in a shortened 2020 season. Hahn’s peers voted him Sporting News Executive of the Year.

And then Reinsdorf made a hire that helped unravel it all.

La Russa hadn’t managed in a decade when Reinsdorf made the decision to bring him back to the White Sox. (Jamie Sabau / Getty Images)

A.J. Hinch’s suspension from baseball for his role in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal ended the minute the 2020 season came to a close. Almost immediately, he was courted by Al Avila, then the Detroit Tigers GM, and Hahn.

On paper, the White Sox job was the better of the two. Coming off its playoff appearance in 2020, Chicago was considered much closer to the World Series than a Tigers team with back-to-back last-place finishes.

Hahn told reporters at the time the White Sox were looking for someone who has “experience with a championship organization in recent years,” which was taken as a thinly veiled reference to Hinch, who guided the Astros to two World Series appearances, including their 2017 win.

Hinch and his wife packed for interviews in both cities. Detroit came first, but Hinch was being advised by friends on places to live in Chicago, sources said. But before Hinch even made it to Chicago, Reinsdorf pulled a stunner: He hired 76-year-old La Russa, who hadn’t managed in a decade.

Thirty five years earlier, Reinsdorf had allowed then-White Sox GM Ken Harrelson to fire La Russa from his first major-league managing job, a decision he later called “the dumbest thing I ever did.”

The email the White Sox sent out to fans announcing La Russa’s hire included an image of Hinch’s signature. The blunder was later chalked up to a graphics glitch, but it was seen inside and outside the organization as further proof that Reinsdorf had passed over Hahn’s choice for his own.

La Russa’s hiring was widely criticized, particularly after it was revealed that he had been charged with driving under the influence — his second such incident — that February. The White Sox lost to the Astros in the first round of the playoffs in 2021, their first season under La Russa. And things fell apart in his second season. Injuries to several players in whom the White Sox had invested heavily were a significant factor, but La Russa made bizarre in-game decisions, acted as a one-man show rather than the head of a collaborative staff, and failed to get the most out of his players. His health also suffered. He dealt with cancer, required a procedure to repair the circuitry of his pacemaker and did not manage the team after Aug 28.

Asked about La Russa’s nearly two seasons as manager, Williams said, “I don’t yet have a way to talk about that period of time because it takes me to a bad place, and it will take me from the person I aspire to be.”

The White Sox hired Pedro Grifol to replace La Russa. Nearly 10 months later, Reinsdorf dismissed Williams and Hahn, making a rare pivot away from employees with long-standing ties to the organization, executives who had led the team to back-to-back postseason appearances for the first time in franchise history before some of their moves backfired.

Grifol was an outside hire; he came from the Royals. People within the organization advocated for Reinsdorf to go outside for his new GM as well. He ignored those appeals and instead promoted Getz, a former White Sox player, just nine days after Hahn and Williams were dismissed, without interviewing a single external candidate. The decision required the Sox to work with MLB on a backfill plan to satisfy the Selig Rule, which is aimed at diversifying front office candidates. Reinsdorf said at the time that he selected Getz because he knew the White Sox organization intimately and “we want to get better as fast as we possibly can.”

Under Getz, who spent two years with Kansas City before he rejoined Chicago as farm director in 2017, the White Sox player development system wasn’t exactly thriving. There were off-field issues as well. Former Double-A manager Omar Vizquel did not return in 2020 after a former batboy who has autism accused him of sexual harassment (the batboy in 2022 dropped claims against the White Sox and reached a confidential settlement with Vizquel). And Triple-A manager Wes Helms was placed on an indefinite leave of absence in May 2022, with no reason given for his exit.

Why not at least interview people from other organizations, even just to learn how other teams operate?

“Jerry just thinks he has the answers,” said a former staffer.

The White Sox are now on their fourth manager in five seasons (or their fifth counting Miguel Cairo, who managed while La Russa dealt with his health issues). Grifol – bilingual like La Russa, but 25 years younger – seemingly had a better chance to connect with the team’s young players. But former reliever Keynan Middleton said last season that problems under La Russa continued under Grifol, with players skipping meetings and refusing to participate in drills. Grifol this season frustrated his players on several fronts, calling them “f—ing flat” after a loss to the Baltimore Orioles on May 26, instituting mandatory pregame workouts before night games after the All-Star break and at times employing questionable strategy.

Grifol, speaking publicly for the first time since his dismissal, said the required workouts and his strategic decisions were efforts to help the team improve. Regarding the extra work, he said, “This was (on) all of us, myself included — I’m the manager. Our work ethic has to be spot on during that type of storm.”

Some players and staff sympathized with Grifol, given the team’s poor talent level and lack of quality analytics.

“What manager could have made things better?” Pham asked.

Getz replaced Grifol on Aug. 8 with interim manager Grady Sizemore, and said the White Sox would conduct a search outside the organization for a permanent replacement. He vows to get the new hire better analytical support.

“When I was hired and given the position of farm director, my goal was, let me show everyone the positive impact analytics and technology can have (in the minors),” Getz said. “We had a lot of wins along the way … My intention from the beginning was to modernize. We are going to modernize.”

The White Sox promoted Chris Getz to general manager without interviewing a single external candidate, against the advice of some in the organization. (Matt Dirksen / Getty Images)

Reinsdorf promoted Getz with talk of him orchestrating a rapid turnaround. But some of the new GM’s early moves puzzled rival executives.

Getz’s trade of reliever Aaron Bummer to the Atlanta Braves last November brought back five players, but the group included some to whom the Braves were unlikely to offer contracts. In the ensuing roster congestion, the White Sox waived two players who are now useful major leaguers elsewhere: Boston Red Sox infielder Romy González and Miami Marlins reliever Declan Cronin. Getz also traded Jake Cousins for cash and released Tim Hill — effectively getting nothing for two relievers now contributing for the New York Yankees.

It’s too soon to know whether Getz’s four-player return from the San Diego Padres for ace Dylan Cease was adequate, and whether he made the correct call holding pitcher Garrett Crochet at the trade deadline despite receiving attractive offers. The GM’s big move at the deadline, a three-team deal in which he parted with three in-demand players in right-hander Erick Fedde, reliever Michael Kopech and Pham, netted an unproven hitter, Miguel Vargas, and two prospects who, according to MLB.com, are not part of the White Sox’s current top 10.

Making matters worse: Because of MLB’s new anti-tanking measures, Chicago could set a new record for baseball losses and still pick 10th in next year’s draft.

“No one can project a timeline to winning,” Reinsdorf told The Athletic, “but there are many examples of organizations, some very recently like Kansas City and Baltimore, that have rebounded very quickly.”

The Royals, who averaged 100 losses over five full seasons, and Orioles, who averaged 105 over four, did not rebound that quickly. But as the White Sox talk about moving forward, they are in some ways becoming less insular.

This season the franchise added a dedicated coach at each minor-league affiliate to help with analytics. Getz, sources said, tried to push that through several years ago and met with resistance. Getz also brought in notable outsiders in Brian Bannister, Josh Barfield and Jin Wong to the front office, and a committee evaluating all facets of the organization recently presented its findings and a plan for the future to Reinsdorf.

“My experience so far is if it can be presented in a way that is educated and you use the people you have around you, it’s well-received,” Getz said. “Jerry now has a better understanding of the value of analytics. He’s very open-minded and supportive of investing further.”

La Russa remains active within the organization. His title is special advisor to the executive vice president. He travels with the team. It’s not uncommon for him to lend his thoughts to the manager or hitting coach, or to find him in the cage, offering advice and picking up baseballs. He was present when the committee evaluating the organization presented to Reinsdorf.

“I’m not a decision maker,” La Russa said of his involvement. “Chris Getz is our leader with quality support all over. I’m asked to contribute my experiences about how a team plays together.”

Reinsdorf has told people La Russa is the smartest baseball person he knows. He told The Athletic that La Russa’s role involves using his “expertise, experience and excellence” as a strategic resource for the team’s manager. He added: “We would be foolish to not take advantage of his Hall of Fame accomplishments in this game.”

Reinsdorf still watches games. But this year, a year Reinsdorf didn’t want to waste, has turned into a 162-game nightmare. Some of his focus has shifted to his quest for a new ballpark, which would increase the value of the franchise. The White Sox tried to generate excitement for the project this week by leading a boat tour for investors to the site along the Chicago River.

Reinsdorf has said he would advise his family to keep the Bulls and sell the White Sox upon his death.

“Friends of mine have (asked), ‘Why don’t you sell? Why don’t you get out?’” Reinsdorf said last year. “My answer always has been, ‘‘I like what I’m doing, as bad as it is, and what else would I do? I’m a boring guy. … And I want to make it better before I go.”

For now, as his franchise craters, Reinsdorf continues to conduct business in his preferred style, operating out of his suite, surrounded by old friends and memorabilia.

“The rumor was always we will never figure it out until ownership changes,” one former player said. “That the real thing holding it back isn’t the people and player development; it’s the owner.”

(Top image: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: David Banks / Getty Images; Nuccio DiNuzzo / Getty Images;  Griffin Quinn / MLB Photos via Getty Images)

When Tom Brady officially moved from quarterback to announcer, he brought some of his real, honest opinions with him — like, for example, how the sport of football’s process for developing quarterbacks is broken.

And while the player is never totally free of blame, it was hard not to think about that point after seeing the Panthers’ decision — a fair one, based on merit — to bench second-year QB Bryce Young after a brutal 0-2 start. Young’s not the only quarterback struggling, but he’s probably the highest-paid.

In Brady’s day, quarterbacks had to fight from the ground up after high school. There was no transfer portal, no NIL and most kids started their journeys as fourth-stringers (or seventh-stringers, as in Brady’s case). They were forced to grind through the type of competitive cauldron that makes or breaks people.

Today’s college football is not that, and it hasn’t been for a long time.

GO DEEPER

Is Bryce Young’s benching the beginning of the end for last year’s No. 1 pick?

Not only can players leave whenever they’re frustrated and play immediately, they’re paid handsomely to do so. Plus, nothing disrupts a player’s development more than a coaching change, which now happen faster than ever. The pre-NIL version of the College Football Playoff also saw a massive amount of the country’s top prep talent flock to a handful of programs — Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Clemson, LSU and a few others. Those teams hoarded so much monster depth that, for some of them, practices were harder than most games. Powerhouse programs were built on what was best for said program, not necessarily what was best for the development of each player.

Young’s career at Alabama is the perfect example of that last point. He never ventured into the transfer portal or played for a head coach other than Nick Saban. But after redshirting behind Mac Jones on Alabama’s 2020 national-title squad — one of the most talented in modern college football history — Young in his first year as a starter had an NFL-ready 220-pound RB (Brian Robinson Jr.), three draft picks at WR (including Jameson Williams), more draft picks on his starting and backup OL and a defense that had everything.

By a wide margin, his team was more talented than the opposition in at least 13 of his 15 games during that 2021 season.

🐘 21/23
🐘 270 Pass Yds
🐘 5 TD

Bryce Young is the first player in @AlabamaFTBL history to throw 5 TD passes in a single half. pic.twitter.com/pZ1qMyOGtd

— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) November 13, 2021

Moreover, when Young signed with Alabama out of high school, he did so basically knowing he’d be the starter as a sophomore. That sort of outlook is a reality in today’s game, and it’s exactly what Brady is talking about.

In the old days, Young — the No. 1 prospect in his class — likely would have landed on a team with multiple NFL quarterbacks already on the roster. He’d have had to work harder to earn and keep his spot, and that process would’ve buffered out the type of Day One hiccups that have now crushed a 23-year-old player’s confidence in the NFL and forced him to the bench.

Justin Fields’ situation at Ohio State was basically a shot-for-shot remake of this. He picked a school with high-level talent — and zero competition for the starting job. The rest is history.

Young made a ton of plays in the pocket, on the move and off-platform during his two-year run as Alabama’s starter. He won the Heisman Trophy in 2021. He was a phenomenal playmaker, a tough leader and a winner. When he’s playing with confidence, his athletic instincts are off the charts.

Because it was trying to win games, Alabama (correctly) let Bryce be Bryce. He got away with careless throws that his receivers caught. He got away with missing open routes because someone else was wide open at another spot on the field. And, most importantly, he got away with poor footwork because he was talented enough to do it.

Here are a couple examples of Young being able make a big play for Alabama without proper footwork, because he’s playing with an extremely talented team and not yet facing NFL defenses:

This isn’t to say Young wasn’t coached at Alabama — of course he was. But when you constantly get away with stuff like this in games, as a young player, you remember it. And that’s not always good.

To be clear, NFL scouts didn’t botch the evaluation of Young. Obviously, for any franchise (like Carolina) that had Young graded higher than C.J. Stroud, that’s proven to be an error. Beyond that, though, we’re comparing him in the 2023 draft class to Anthony Richardson (the No. 4 pick) and Will Levis (No. 33), two other extremely talented passers who — like Young — are struggling with little things right now.

Among that group, Young belonged toward the top. And, unfortunately for Young, he was drafted by a desperate franchise with questionable ownership and no direction. Again, similar on a lot of fronts to how Fields’ early NFL story played out.

GO DEEPER

Panthers’ rush to start Bryce Young is QB malpractice seen all too often in NFL

The trade Carolina made to acquire Young already stands as one of the worst in league history, and not just because Young’s future is uncertain. When the Panthers drafted Young, they did so while rostering a young and unproven offensive line, arguably the worst combination of WR and TE talent in the NFL, an overpaid/unproven running back and an owner with zero patience. Young’s actually one of the rare college players who had coaching consistency, so when Carolina owner David Tepper fired Frank Reich 11 games into Young’s rookie year, the roof caved in.

Had the Panthers selected Stroud instead and Tepper pulled the same move, you’d be seeing Stroud struggle, too. You cannot rip a rookie quarterback’s rug out from under him while he’s still finding his chair. From a 10,000-foot view, Carolina’s “Bryce Young problem” is mostly on its owner. Young needed more help, more stability and something resembling a sane environment to fix his issues, because Young’s footwork problems have been there his whole career.

Namely, his feet need to be calmer and in rhythm with the routes his targets are running. If they aren’t, any timing-based concepts — most of what you’re running in the NFL — are ruined. Young did not run a particularly “pro-style” offense at Alabama. And now as a pro he’s often been late (or too early) on basic reads, either because he’s off with his feet, waiting too long on his first receiver or a combination of both. All of this takes time on task to repair.

we’ll take that

📺 | @nfloncbs pic.twitter.com/BwFTg1jKoS

— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) September 15, 2024

Since Young spent much of his college career in a shotgun system that asked him to read more run-pass options than fundamental pass concepts, he was allowed to make plays without ever having to pay attention to his feet. The depth of his drops out of the gun and from under center are erratic, there’s no feel for it and, frankly, no one seemed ready to hammer down on those details with him until he got to the league.

Young got 31 dropbacks during the 2023 preseason and was pressured or sacked on about half of them. His footwork and the blocking by Carolina’s offensive line shared blame there. In his first three games as an NFL player, defenses pressured him on 38 of his combined 81 dropbacks (with six sacks). That’s what can happen when you surround a rookie QB with the worst roster in the league.

There was a lot of bad last season, to be sure, but, at least early, Young also sprinkled in moments of progress. The Panthers never helped him enough, though, and Young’s own moments of going off-script and trying to do too much often just made things worse.

By the end of 2023 regular season, Young ranked No. 2 behind Sam Howell in pressures — and looked completely without confidence. Young then entered his second season with his third head coach, his third quarterbacks coach and his second offensive coordinator. It began, literally on the first play, about how you’d expect.

Young’s play on the field has been dreadful, to a point where first-year coach Dave Canales likely would’ve been in danger of losing the locker room had he stuck with him.

Through two weeks, Young’s the least-accurate starter in the NFL, with an off-target rate of a whopping 19.6 percent; in 2022 at Alabama, Young was the fifth-most accurate Power 5 starter. Young’s EPA/pressured dropback is currently dead last among NFL starters (-.40); at Bama in ‘22, his EPA/pressure dropback number (.13) was better than any other prospect in his draft class.

He’s been hit way too many times, his comfort in the pocket is gone and his confidence is completely shot. But he also won’t turn 24 until June.

Whether or not Young’s time in Carolina is over remains to be seen. Failure’s almost never final in football, especially at Young’s age. Perhaps Canales and his offensive coaching battery of OC Brad Idzik, pass game coordinator Nate Carroll and QB coach Will Harringer can retool and repair Young’s issues in quiet while Andy Dalton holds the fort down. Or maybe Tepper will demand the franchise move on.

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It would not be wise, however, to simply throw in the towel forever on Young as a prospect, be it in Carolina or — eventually, perhaps — elsewhere. This is not a Trey Lance or Zach Wilson situation. Those were COVID-impacted scouting failures. The situation surrounding Young in Carolina was closer to what Fields had in Chicago, only worse.

Stroud has been a better player, obviously, and it’s not fair to compare “what-ifs,” but look at the situation he entered in Houston. The weapons, the offensive plan, the functioning defense — Stroud had all of that and has thrived. Young’s had none of it and has failed.

Brady was a pretty good quarterback. Maybe you’ve heard about it. People should listen to his message closely right now, because it’s important and highlights a problematic situation. He is right about the way the current state of the college game — often coupled in the draft process with overzealous NFL owners who don’t know what they’re doing — is killing quarterback development.

We’re all seeing with Young what can happen as a result.

(Photo: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)

You always want a viewership story to sell if you are a professional sports league and the WNBA has a great metrics story to sell in 2024. Last week ESPN announced that its WNBA regular season was its most-watched ever for games across ESPN Networks airwaves (including ABC). Games averaged 1.2 million viewers, a massive jump over last year’s games (440,000 viewers). These are unheard of percentage increases in sports television.

Something even more impressive? The WNBA had 22 regular-season games that averaged more than 1 million viewers — the first time since 2008 that a WNBA game topped one million viewers. If you want to add in the WNBA All-Star Game and the WNBA Draft, it makes 24 programming events during the 2024 calendar year that topped 1 million viewers (Caitlin Clark was part of all but three of these windows, per Sports Media Watch).

On that note: The WNBA All-Star Game averaged 3.44 million viewers on ABC, crushing the previous audience record set in 2003. The WNBA Draft, featuring Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, averaged a record 2.446 million viewers, which is a 307 percent increase in viewership over last year.

What else? There were seven games on ION this season that topped more than 1 million viewers including last Friday’s game between Indiana and Las Vegas, which averaged 1.2 million viewers. Finally, Sports Media Watch reported that the Sept. 11 game between the Fever and Aces drew the largest WNBA audience ever on NBA TV at 678,000 viewers. The previous high was also set in 2024 with a Fever-Wings game on Labor Day weekend that drew 652,000.

Just an insane viewership number for this league. The new deal also means better programming windows for the WNBA on ABC. pic.twitter.com/l44E9mGzqm

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) September 11, 2024

The Athletic often asks ace women’s basketball writers Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman to debate a WNBA issue but we’re going to change it up a touch here by adding a third voice (me) as we embark on the most anticipated postseason in the league’s history, at least based on viewership interest. The postseason starts Sunday with four nationally televised games.

Richard Deitsch: So Ben and Sabreena, some kind of season, eh? I wanted your input on some media-centric storylines as it relates to the WNBA season. Let’s start with Caitlin Clark because she has been a transcendent viewership draw. That doesn’t take away from the brilliance and interest in other players, but Clark has been the game-changer, and the data overwhelmingly shows that. If I am an ESPN/ABC programming executive, I am treating the Fever like the Dallas Cowboys. I am putting them in my highest profile window and hoping at a minimum I get three games out of them against the Sun. I’d do a live pregame and postgame show onsite prior to Game 1. I’d also load up all my social media firepower on that opening round series. That’s not to disregard any other series, but you want to take advantage of what might be a short stay from Indiana. How would you promote the Fever if you are ESPN?

Sabreena Merchant: It doesn’t seem as though the Fever need any additional promotion, considering how they have drawn regardless of network, time slot and lead-in, but giving them all the bells and whistles seems to be the right play. I expect ESPN to send the No. 1 crew of Ryan Ruocco and Rebecca Lobo to wherever Indiana starts the postseason, even if that means neglecting the two-time defending champions in Las Vegas, though it helps that the Fever have a reasonable shot of a first-round upset. Speaking of the Cowboys, however, Game 1 of the WNBA postseason is going up against the NFL, which presents an obstacle that Clark hasn’t yet had to face in her pro career. Will the draw of Clark competing in her first playoff game eat into football, or are we due for a ratings letdown?

Ben Pickman: If you’re ESPN/ABC, you’re certainly hoping to avoid that letdown. But even if Indiana’s postseason opener doesn’t match, say, the first Sky-Fever game of the season, it wouldn’t be shocking, based on precedent, for Indiana’s opener to average seven-figure viewership.

Game 1 of last year’s WNBA Finals aired on a Sunday and was the most-viewed Game 1 ever on an ESPN network. Still, it averaged only just over 700,000 viewers. Game 3, which also tipped on a Sunday, averaged 889,000 viewers on ESPN. Fever games have blown those numbers away all season long, so even going up against an NFL slate, they seem likely to pick off viewers.

The league hasn’t announced its full playoff schedule, but Game 2 of the Fever series likely will be Tuesday or Wednesday (a non-NFL night), meaning another record could be set. To your original question, Richard, I think what you mapped out —  a live pregame and postgame show onsite — and lots of social media content seems like reasonable choices.

Deitsch: Indeed, Clark likely has found the one entity that can slow her down as a television draw — the NFL. Another topic: One thing I’ve liked this year has been the increase in national pregame coverage. ESPN’s WNBA Countdown is a prime example of that. The show averaged 503,000 viewers during the regular season, a massive increase over last year. I think the WNBA should really push ESPN to have a daily studio show presence somewhere within the ESPN family of networks during the 2025 WNBA season. If I made you media czar of the league for 2025, what would you try to implement for the major media partners?

17,000 🤯

First in women’s sports history, and we couldn’t have done it without you. We can’t wait to tip off the season and create an incredible home court advantage at Chase Center. Let’s keep making history together! pic.twitter.com/YXgUMZfF2Q

— Golden State Valkyries (@wnbagoldenstate) September 13, 2024

Merchant: I couldn’t agree more about an ESPN studio show because there is absolutely an appetite for WNBA conversations that aren’t being had by media personalities who wade into women’s basketball once a month. NBA TV has tried one before, and there have been WNBA segments on NBA Today, but the league needs a dedicated show on a channel that most people have access to. The other main thing I would try to address as media czar is some level of consistency in WNBA programming. The NFL exists on several different platforms, but fans know that Monday is ESPN, Thursday is Amazon, and Sunday night is NBC. The WNBA needs that type of rotation with its bigger partners. Amazon and ION already have their own nights, but it would benefit the league to have CBS Saturdays and ESPN Sundays, for example, so that people know where to turn.

Pickman: In addition to achieving more network consistency, fans often complain about the lack of staggered start times over the course of a day, so that’s something that should be top of mind. Airing more preseason games (even if it’s just streaming them on WNBA League Pass) should also be a priority. There is demand among viewers to see top rookies in action for the first time and avoid having to watch on streamed cellphone footage.

One other new wrinkle will be the addition of the 13th team, the Golden State Valkyries. I’m curious to see how adding just one more team alters things. No longer can the entire league play on one day. On the NBA side, the Golden State Warriors have been a ratings draw in recent years. The Valkyries share ownership and are obviously in the same market. They might lack the star power of other franchises in the WNBA in Year 1, but there is clear interest as last week they surpassed 17,000 season-ticket deposits, becoming the first professional women’s sports team to pass that mark. How much will major partners lean into broadcasting a new franchise?

Deitsch: You make a great point, Ben. I’m curious about the new WNBA franchises, including Golden State, Toronto and Portland. They could end up with a transcendent viewership draw (think Paige Bueckers or JuJu Watkins). Okay, let’s finish up with this. Give me the best viewership WNBA Finals for the sport, and because it’s obvious that the Fever being in the Finals would generate the highest viewership, give me one involving the Fever and give me one without the Fever.

Pickman: Fever-Liberty has to be the finals option that has the highest viewership potential, with Aces-Fever being the second option. If you’re looking for a realistic (meaning without a Phoenix Mercury Diana Taurasi swan song) matchup sans Fever, it’s Liberty–Lynx.

Merchant: The series I would expect to draw the most eyes would have to be in the semifinals unless the standings shake up in a major way, and that’s Aces-Liberty. I’m eager to see how that number compares to the 2023 matchup so we can learn how much of the viewership rise is the Clark effect. As for potential finals matchups, Fever-Aces has to be the biggest draw, right? Clark versus the two-time defending champions, the upstart versus the establishment with Dawn Staley forced to decide between rooting for Aliyah Boston or A’ja Wilson? If the Fever aren’t involved, the Aces still have to be it. The Aces going for a three-peat will be great theater.

(Photo: Ron Hoskins / NBAE via Getty Images)

Sean McDermott was chatting with caddie Ted Scott over the summer about strategy and sports psychology when Scott mentioned how his boss, PGA star Scottie Scheffler, has adopted the mindset of just trying to hit singles around the course. “Scottie Singles” has now won a pair of majors, including this year’s Masters, and has been ranked the No. 1 player in the world for more than two years.

The strategy resonated so much with the Buffalo Bills head coach that he relayed the story to his star quarterback, Josh Allen, who is an avid golfer. Allen immediately saw the connection.

Allen, like many quarterbacks around the league, has been forced to adapt to the NFL’s changing defensive schemes. It wasn’t long ago when Allen was Buffalo’s power hitter, ripping chunk plays from the pocket on the seams and go routes to the outside. Now he’s often looking across at two deep safeties positioned to eliminate the big play, leaving him content to be a slap hitter: Singles up the middle on short, quick passes until the Bills reach the red zone. 

“It’s understanding that when I do take risks, that they’re calculated, and the reward is well worth it,” Allen told The Athletic. “I haven’t thrown the ball too many times downfield.”

He’s not alone. 

It has only been two weeks, but 31 percent of Allen’s targets have been at or behind the line of scrimmage, according to TruMedia data, putting him well above a fast-rising league average. 

More than 24 percent of the league’s throws this year have been at or behind the line of scrimmage, while quarterbacks are averaging 7.4 air yards per attempt. That’s the highest percentage, and the lowest air yards, through the first two weeks since TruMedia began tracking such data in 2006. 

The trickle-down effect is deflated passing numbers across the league. The only quarterback to throw for at least 250 yards in each of the first two games this season? The Las Vegas Raiders’ Gardner Minshew.

Some of the game’s biggest names — and arms — have been corralled by stingy defenses willing to give up the underneath to protect the over the top. It has forced quarterbacks like Allen to stay patient.

“When we get into the red zone we’ll find more ways to get exotic and score because it is a little harder down there,” Allen said. “But we’re not going to do anything to put the ball in harm’s way up until that point.”

4th down? Make that a touchdown.

Josh Allen finds James Cook for 6️⃣#BUFvsMIA on Prime Video
Also streaming on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/gzIF5sAUaG

— NFL (@NFL) September 13, 2024

Allen’s percentage of throws at or behind the line has doubled from 2021 when he was at 15 percent through two games. That was the year he and the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes combined for one of the most explosive playoff games in history — 707 passing yards and 78 points. It’s the game that may have broken the league. 

Almost immediately, defenses returned to two high safety looks the following season. It has successfully slowed not just scoring, but ball movement as well. 

Mahomes connected with Rashee Rice on a 44-yard touchdown in Kansas City’s win over the Cincinnati Bengals last week, but otherwise felt like he missed on other opportunities down the middle of the field.  

“Teams are just going to make you drive the entire field … and try to not let you score in the red zone,” he said. “But there are opportunities out there and you have to execute at a higher level. There’s not as many as I’ve had previously.”

Mahomes has thrown 38 percent of his passes to targets at or behind the line of scrimmage. That’s the third-highest for any quarterback this year and it’s his highest percentage through the first two weeks of any season. If it holds, it would easily be the highest percentage of his career. Last year, 26 percent of Mahomes’ pass targets were at or behind the line of scrimmage.

Source: TruMedia

Playing two high safeties has been around for generations but waned in popularity over time. More recently, teams were trying to replicate Seattle’s “Legion of Boom” defense with good cornerbacks on the outside, a single post safety with range and an aggressive front seven. 

There are still those who play that way, but it exposes too many defenses to deep shots and big plays. In response, a number of teams have favored split safeties with a zone defense that leaves open the underneath but protects against chunk plays. It forces offenses to operate within a 5-to-10-yard box. 

It could also explain why safeties were so devalued in free agency last winter. Safeties lost more than $100 million in shed salary during the offseason, according to Over The Cap. Great ball skills from the safety position aren’t as valuable as they once were. 

“You have to be patient,” Bills veteran backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky said. “Every quarterback is like a gunslinger. You want to throw it deep. Everybody loves the long ball, but defenses are really keying on that. The one thing that can get a defender and a coordinator in trouble is the ball being thrown over your head. So let the ball underneath and make tackles.”

Source: TruMedia

The short, quick passing game is a natural evolution from college offenses that have been doing it for years. Many young NFL quarterbacks ran this style in college and have a comfort level with it.

It can also protect weaker offensive lines against edge rushers that have never been as fast and powerful across the league as they are today. 

There was a time not long ago when mobile quarterbacks favored run-pass option plays that allowed the quarterback to decide what to do based on scheme. But that comes with the risk of an illegal man downfield penalty. By throwing it quickly down the line of scrimmage, it gets the ball into the playmakers’ hands while allowing the line and other receivers to begin blocking right away. 

“As teams get smaller and faster on defense, there’s less opportunity downfield,” Allen said. “Meanwhile, these D-ends and D-tackles are getting more physical and freakish. The time to throw is probably down. That’s without knowing the statistics, but from watching games, the time from snap to pressure is probably the shortest it’s been.”

Source: TruMedia

Allen is correct — sort of. The pressure rate is actually lower than it was at this point last year, but the sack rate through two weeks is the highest since TruMedia began tracking the data in 2006. 

A simple explanation could be the shorter route concepts are allowing quarterbacks to get rid of the ball faster, but on plays that need more depth on their routes, edge rushers and blitzers are getting home more often.

“What we’re seeing now is off the jet motion, you’re seeing true route concepts now. That didn’t exist before,” said Browns safety Rodney McLeod, who is in his 13th season. “At first it was just, ‘That guy is going to the flat’ and he was used to affect communication, move the defender’s eyes. Now it’s, ‘OK, we’re going to make him involved in the route concept. That’s an additional layer. You see that with the (Kyle) Shanahan tree. Shanahan, (Sean) McVay, (Matt) LaFleur. It works when you have guys like Tyreek Hill, Deebo Samuel and those guys who are quick.”

Yet interestingly, Shanahan’s quarterback has the fewest percentage of throws at or behind the line of scrimmage this year. Brock Purdy has done it just 11 percent of the time, tied with the Indianapolis Colts’ Anthony Richardson. 

Source: TruMedia

They are the exception today, not the norm. 

“It’s just the way the league is trending,” Trubisky said. “As a quarterback and an offense, you’ve just got to game plan for that and take what the defense gives you. If that means short completions, then that’s what you’ve got to do.”

— The Athletic’s Nate Taylor and Dianna Russini contributed to this report

(Top image: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Megan Briggs / Getty Images; Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)

If there is one constant in the circle of life that is big business, it’s that cost increases will always be passed on to consumers. Doesn’t matter if it’s food, gas or tickets to sporting events. The paying customer will almost certainly be asked to make up the difference.

The latest example came Tuesday, when the University of Tennessee announced an average increase of 14.5 percent for football tickets in 2025, with 10 percent earmarked for athlete compensation. The news should not have come as a surprise to anyone. It was as inevitable as a sunrise.

Once the courts cleared the way for athletes to be paid for their name, image and likeness, followed by the NCAA reaching a tentative $2.78 billion settlement in the House antitrust case — the agreement provides reparations to former athletes, creates a new revenue-share model for schools, and increases the number of scholarships in various programs — the public was always going to receive the bill.

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Feldman: Why Tennessee picked an opportune time to raise ticket prices

That’s how it works in big business, which college athletics certainly is. Overpaid executives and administrators rarely absorb the pinch themselves, even if it’s their actions or inactions that create the problem. And, make no mistake, it was the NCAA’s arrogance and inertia a decade ago after losing the Ed O’Bannon class-action suit that set the stage for today.

It’s not only why Tennessee is being proactive. So is Georgia, the 2021 and 2022 national champions. The Bulldogs are increasing the price of reserved seats from $490 to $560 per ticket, while also raising the cost for nonconference games from $55 to $80. The minimum donation requirement per ticket to the Hartman Fund, which funds athletic scholarships and associated costs, also is rising.

Georgia may not call these a “talent fee,” as Tennessee does, but that’s precisely what they are. And they can do it because they know they have a rabid fan base that will pony up. It was no coincidence when Tennessee athletic director Danny White disclosed the Volunteers have a waiting list of 15,000 fans.

Don’t want to pay the price increases? Cool, next man (or woman) up.

That attitude is not limited to big-time college athletics. Iterations of it can be seen across the sporting landscape, like in the WNBA, where a dramatic rise in popularity and viewership — thanks in part to an outstanding rookie class led by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, whose teams rank Nos. 1 and 2 in road attendance — has resulted in dramatic increases in ticket prices for next season.

The Chicago Sky, for instance, will raise some seats by as much as 265 percent, while the New York Liberty are increasing some packages by 155 percent, although the team says it will cap the increase at 25 percent for longtime season ticket holders. In Phoenix and Atlanta, some of the more “affordable” seats are being reclassified as club seats, which come with a higher price tag.

None of this is surprising, of course. But the risk of angering or alienating longtime supporters of a league that has yet to turn a profit is real, experts contend. One of them is Impact Pricing CEO Mark Stiving, whose business trains companies on how to raise prices without losing customers.

“There’s two sides to the story,” he told me. “One is from the fan side and one is from the company business side. The business says, ‘We’ve struggled forever. We’ve never been able to get people in seats. It’s awesome. We suddenly have this popularity. We’ve got more demand, so we’re in a position to raise ticket prices dramatically.’ They can do that and they’re going to make a ton of money. The problem they’re going to have is, if conditions change again, and they go back to the way they were before the conditions are now, they will have pissed off all their fans. No one is going to pay $4,000 for a season ticket, and the people who used to pay $750 will no longer buy tickets, even if it comes back down to $750. The danger is that you’re trading lifetime value for short-term profit.”

This is the part where I normally project and talk about what should be when dealing with fans/customers who have supported you through the lean years. Stiving quickly corrected me.

“There’s no such thing as ‘should,’” he said. “If you believe in capitalism — and that’s what makes our economy go — then people charge what other people are willing to pay. … Companies are always trading off their image and their profit. They don’t want to be seen as, ‘I’m gouging my customers and I’m raising prices dramatically.’ But I have a feeling that these guys are in a position where they say, ‘Hey, for the first time I’m in a position to make some money, so let’s go make some money.’”

Tennessee fans need to stop whining about a 10% increase in ticket prices. If you want to win, This is the cost. Hotel rooms for big games are already $1500 / night downtown and $500 / night in west Knox. Success is expensive. If we want it. It’s gonna cost us.

— VFL with BVS needs Heulp (@volsnvikes) September 18, 2024

If a family of 4 goes to a Tennessee Football Game Tickets $160 for bad seats plus parking, food your pushing 800-1K on a Saturday. When will this nonsense stop? It’s becoming impossible for everyday people to do anything.

— Roger Wilkinson (@BASEBALLSCOUTZ) September 17, 2024

Multiple attempts to discuss this delicate dance with the WNBA were unsuccessful. The players association declined to comment.

While not apples to apples, comparisons can be drawn between the WNBA and college football. You don’t have to scroll deep in the comments section to find fans who claim Tennessee has priced them out of the in-game experience. They’re angry and vocal — understandably so. But here’s what Volunteers leadership knows: The university is among a relatively small group of power conference members whose roots are so deep in the community that their fans will reach for their wallets with one hand while holding their noses with the other. They will pay the gratuity up front. After all, it’s part of the circle of life in big business.

(Photo of coach Josh Heupel celebrating with fans after Tennessee defeated Alabama 52-49 at Neyland Stadium in 2022: Donald Page / Getty Images)