The state of basketball in 2020.

With the recent death of former NBA commissioner David Stern, the Cynic made the ad-hoc decision to produce a brief treatise on the state of basketball in 2020.

It should first be pointed out that commissioner Stern took over an NBA that had just started a rebound from a state of almost complete public apathy. He left it a healthy, wealthy and growing sports league, with a product that was much different than it was his first day on the job.

The state of basketball is representative of the state of sports in general in 2020. All sports, college and professional, have the same concerns. They can all be summed up in one word: money. Probably the correct concern for the professional ranks since, after all, they are businesses. Colleges, on the other hand, are not. Nevertheless, colleges have bartered their athletic souls to the highest bidders, and the bidders could care less about anything but money.

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They say Millennials are “cutting the cord.” I wonder why?

Rush Limbaugh is by far the best talk show host on radio. However, if you listen to the last half hour of his show, you will be listening to 25 minutes of commercials.

Most talk radio hosts have no problem pushing their sponsors’ products for several minutes during their programs, sometimes coming out of a five-minute ad to deliver another five-minute ad.

Speaking of ads…

Fox and Friends is impossible to watch. They won’t engage a guest for long because the need to go to commercial.

I could expect to hear the following on Fox and Friends:

“THIS IS A FOX NEWS ALERT!”

“Just coming across the wire…. NORAD has issued an alert to all news agencies. Three minutes ago, Russia launched a major portion of its ICBMs at major cities across the US. According to the alert, 45 American cities have been targeted and we’ll be sure to tell you the names of those cities — when we come back!”