THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: The evils of money, for amateurs as well as pros

Yep, we’re going to squeeze in a notes and quotes column before the week gets away from us.

Fair warning, though, that your usual happy-go-lucky correspondent is feeling grumpy — so you’ll have to ride it out with me today.

I’m in the chin-down position, both personally and professionally.

First off, almost everyone in our household has been struck by COVID-19 in the past few weeks, with Addison (The World’s Second Greatest Cat) and I as the only missing targets.

It’s been pretty rough — though all are recovering, thankfully.

When you consider that I had a pretty serious surgery just a few months ago, and still take a hideous medicine that generally weakens your immune system, well …

How do you like MY chances of dodging this virus?

I feel fine at the moment — and hey, thanks for asking.

However, as the man said as he passed the 50th floor after falling off the roof of a 90-story building …

“So far, so good.”

Meanwhile, on life’s professional side …

The universe of sports that I’ve loved (and written about, almost forever) seems headed face-first into a dumpster.

Let’s touch on a couple of examples today — besides the hideous baseball lockout — and get all this garbage done at one crack.

That way, we can hop back to Zags and Wazzu basketball on Saturday.

Ready?

ITEM: No doubt that lots of fans wondered how NIL (name, image and likeness) money would affect college sports — and whether major universities might be wise enough to use common sense as a rule of thumb.

Hah!

Schools haven’t even been at this new game for a full year, and already we have chaos, greed, big-dollar bullying — in other words, all the evils that we worried about when states began enacting their NIL laws.

The idea, if you remember, was to give student-athletes a chance to make a little spending money for hoodies and spaghetti dinners — correcting a situation that left them as an unpaid labor force for schools that were pocketing billions in TV revenue.

Less than one season into this wild new world, though, vast amounts of cash are being thrown directly into recruiting battles, so …

Forget about that gas money for students’ cars.

Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher angrily denied that alums and friendly businesses had funded a pool of $30 million to load up the Aggies program.

Turns out all of Fisher’s competitors knew what was going on, though, and gleefully pulled down his pants (figurately speaking, thank goodness).

Other programs are now going public with their fundraising efforts, rushing to let recruits know they have access to open checkbooks.

The loudest and proudest so far has been Tennessee.

“The goal is $25 million annually. Or more. And we think that goal is absolutely attainable,” said Hunter Baddour, president of Spyre Sports, a Tennessee-centric college sports collective, in an interview with The Athletic.

“We’re prepared to invest a substantial amount of resources into the 2023 recruiting class.

“When you add all that together, it’s well into the seven-figure category.”

Sigh …

By the way, yes, Gonzaga athletes are benefitting from the NIL legislation — although at an entirely different level.

Drew Timme has done some really funny TV ads for a local casino, and Chet Holmgren signed a long-term deal with Topps (player cards and memorabilia) that is primarily aimed at a partnership to run during his future NBA career.

So, are Mark Few and his assistants carrying trunks of cash on recruiting trips?

Once again …

Hah!

ITEM: Hey, I work pretty hard at my job.

Don’t giggle.

I do, really.

And yet, a month or so ago, I could not have given you an accurate definition of the word “sportswashing.”

We’ll discuss how this activity is affecting us in a minute, but first, I’ll let Professor Google give you an official explanation of the term …

“Sportswashing is the practice of an individual, group, corporation, or nation-state using sport to improve their tarnished reputation — through hosting a sporting event, the purchase or sponsorship of sporting teams, or by participation in the sport itself.”

I needed to look it up because of a most blatant effort at “sportswashing” that’s come to our attention lately.

That would be the attempt by Saudi Arabia to capture the attention of the golf world by throwing trillions at a series of tournaments to compete directly with the PGA Tour.

Hey, why not?

When you think of golf, you think immediately of Saudi Arabia, right?

Right, then, how are the Saudis involved in challenging the PGA Tour — with former Aussie star Greg Norman as CEO and several big-name Americans (including Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau) reportedly willing to jump into the Middle East?

Here's a crash course, courtesy of Golf Digest …

“Technically, there are two entities trying to rival the tour: the Premier Golf League and a Saudi-backed golf tour. “The PGL was the first of the groups to coalesce in 2020, backed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. However, the PIF — the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, which, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, has $580 billion in assets — eventually backed another entity in the newly formed LIV Golf Investments. “LIV Golf aspired to have its own global professional tour, often referred to as the ‘Super Golf League.’

“The PIF is essentially the financial arm of the Saudi Arabia government, which has been accused of numerous human-rights violations.

“To improve its reputation, especially to the Western world, Saudi Arabia has heavily invested in various athletic organizations and events — in other words, ‘sportswashing.’

“This exercise, particularly when used by state-run groups, is considered a form of propaganda to distract the public from its abuses.

“The most famous example of ‘sportswashing’ was Nazi Germany hosting the 1936 Summer Olympics.”

Swell.

I hope any PGA Tour pro who gets in bed with the Saudis spends a lifetime missing 3-foot putts.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published weekly during the season.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”