HALV: $1.5 Billion (Yes, with a B)

As I was catching up on my Houston Stupid Bowl reading late last night and (too) early this morning my eyes wandered over to (Pulitzer Prize giftee) Lisa Falkenberg's obviously obligatory, cliche-filled "welcome to Houston column".

"Howdy y'all" and all of that.

All-in-all it's a fairly benign piece of fluff that reminds people that they are welcome in Houston, provided they behave and believe as a large slice of the ruling and courtesan classes want them to.

But then, buried within, I stumbled across this little nugget:

The bigwigs wouldn't tell us how much they spent to spruce up - it's a private NFL document! - but some officials have estimated around $1.5 billion.

That's $1.5 Billion with a capital B y'all. Money presumably spent mainly by "Houston First!" and the Super Bowl committee, with a majority of that funding coming from tax revenues. Of course, it's going to be said that this is what hotel and motel taxes are for and that the "public won't even notice it's missing" but for a city that's standing on the edge of a huge, gaping pension hole whose value determination is a little fuzzy, we might look back on that $1.5 Billion with longing eyes some day.

At this point I should mention that a real reporter (or group of them) would latch onto that document like a dog going after a T-bone steak and demand some accountability from the elected officials in City Hall, but I know they won't.  Because the heady issues in this column were an outdated ideal of holding open doors, and chastising people for the old-stereotype "Houston, we have a problem" (complete with reminding everyone that this is not what was really said).

Now, to be fair, despite my distaste for her writing, it's not entirely fair to place the lion's share of the blame on Ms. Falkenberg for this.  The editorial diktat that came down from above at the Chronicle was clearly "see no evil, hear no evil, speak (or write) no evil" about the big to do. It's very clear when  Chronicle sports dinosaur John McClain is running around on local radio shows chastising San Diego for "missing out on the Super Bowl in the future" by refusing to pony up taxpayer dollars to keep the Chargers in town that the increasingly popular idea of not providing public money to build Billion dollar play-pens for Billionaires is not something that's spread very far into the so-called watchdog press.

If newspapers want to understand, in part, why people are abandoning them in droves, they need to understand that their ideas are at least behind the time as is the technology they use to provide the news. Also, they all have people, similar to John McClain, whose careers have been so entangled in the leagues they cover that they've fully swallowed the leagues talking points and are incapable of regurgitating anything else.

The "Super Bowl is an economic shot-in-the-arm" fallacy is hard to kill. Part of the reason for that is because the NFL keeps the true expense of running the damn thing in a corporate secrets lock-box. They claim this despite having no competition that could use it to gain a competitive advantage over them.

In a time when the world is slowly coming to the realization that the Olympics are a financial disaster, it's amazing that newspapers and local TV news don't realize that the same economics apply to the NFL's cash cow.

Sunday saw the 3rd Super Bowl in Houston's history.  By all accounts the city put on a brilliant show, almost as brilliant as the game itself (which, as noted here, I didn't watch.)

Here's hoping we never have to do it again.

Tales of a sub-par media outlet: Create a sham "Top 10" power index, gin up controversy.

First things first:  Lists like this are insipid wastes of resources and are, especially in this case, the (biased) take of a single writer.  Second, the Houston Chronicle Top 10 "Houston Sports Power Rankings" are the dumbest thing to be written in the newspaper for a while.  And that's saying a lot when talking about a newspaper whose specialty is writing insipid things.

And that's not even the meat of the problem.  Neither is the faked outrage by Chron.columnists over the matter, or the fawning over a pocket dynamo who might go down as being the greatest female gymnast of all time. (If you haven't seen Biles perform, you should. She is truly great.)

The problem comes in the word "power". Because the Houston Chronicle doesn't seem to understand what it is or who really wields it.

'Power', in the sports sense, is not held by any individual athlete. In most sports, excepting the NBA, it resides primarily with the owners. But increasingly in big, metropolitan (progressive-governed) cities power lies, partially, in the hands of the politicians.

You want to know who has the most power and influence in Houston sports?

1. Bob McNair. - As the owner of the Houston Texans he controls not only the highest valued sports franchise in the area but the future of the Astrodome complex as well, primarily due to his right of first refusal for any hare-brained scheme Ed Emmett tries to pursue to keep his name from going down in history followed by "the man who tore down the Dome".   How powerful is McNair? Try this on for size.  He's raking in record profits despite being in control of a team with a lifetime winning percentage of .427 and he's managed to develop a rabid fan base despite possibly owning the 3rd worst overall franchise in the league.  I don't care how you slice it, that's power.

Numbers two and three are Jim Crane and Les Alexander respectively. Then would come Ed Emmett (due to his de facto control of the Harris County Sports Authority) and J. Kent Friedman (Chairman of the Board for the Authority). After that I would have to include Cal McNair (Bob's son and the Vice chairman of the Texans) and then Daryl Morey (GM of the Rockets). At number eight I would slot in Astros GM Jeff Lunhow and then Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner at nine. Finally, at Number 10, I'd  slot in Texans head coach Bill O'Brien. I put O'Brien at 10 because he clearly has the keys to the Texans' car right now which puts GM Mike Smith and Texans President Jamey Roots in support modes.

But that's power.  What Chronicle tennis-beat writer Dale Robertson was trying to do here is was part generate controversy, part generate page-clicks (which, to be fair, since I'm writing about this he has succeeded, at least with me) and three poke some sticks in eyes of people he doesn't like.

What he was also attempting (poorly) to do is craft a "Top-10" most 'newsworthy' list and he even failed at that.  What his list should have looked like, removing his bias, is something along the lines of this....

1. JJ Watt. - You cannot deny the stranglehold that Mr. Watt has on local media.
2. Brock Osweiler. - Yes, he hasn't done much yet, but he is the starting QB of the most prominent team in town.
3. James Harden. - He has the money, but many (including me) don't believe that James "Sixth man of the year" Harden has the skills and drive necessary to be a viable team leader.
4. Tom Herman. - You cannot deny that Mr. Herman has changed the game for Houston football. He has a (slim) chance of guiding the Cougars to the College Football Playoff this year which would be amazing. Next year he'll be on to bigger pastures of course but for now.....
5. Jose Altuve. - He was never 'supposed' to be the Astros' best player but he is. Now we all get to enjoy him.
6. Simone Biles. - If she stays healthy, and competes like she can, then she could go down as the greatest female gymnast of all time. And I'm including all of the big names you are thinking of.
7.Tilman Fertitta. - IF he succeeds in elevating Houston to Power 5 Conference status it would be huge for the Cougars. Dale Robertson is rooting against this of course (he still holds a grudge against Houston fans for turning on him when he was the Chronicle's beat writer for the Cougars several years prior.)
8. Carlos Correa. - Is starting to show signs of being the "next great thing" that he was hyped to be when drafted.
9. DeAndre Hopkins. - No, he won't be the 2nd coming of Andre Johnson, but he is the best Texan on the roster not named JJ Watt.
10. Bill O'Brien - He has a tough gig, trying to make a chicken salad out of the chicken-shit roster that's been crafted by GM Mike Smith. If he can succeed he might move up this list.

Honorable mentions go to: A.J Hinch (Astros manager), Mark D'Antoni (Rockets Coach), George Springer (the 3rd Astro in the new "trio") and UH President Dr. Renu Khator. (Her omission from even the honorable mentions of Robertson's list should be a fireable offense)

Of course, that list doesn't gin up any controversy so it's not something you'd see in a listicle, accompanied by a slide-show, on Chron.com these days so I go back to an old Houston Cougar saying from the Run n' Shoot days.......


"Don't be a Dale".