A Georgia Bulldog's Four-Year Fight With The NCAA

Offensive Lineman Kolton Houston followed his dream of signing with the Georgia Bulldogs in 2010, but was shortly ruled inelligble by the NCAA for testing positive for the anabolic steriod Nandrolone. Despite providing evidence he has not been using and that he is a victim of malpractice, he is still inelligible and has had to fight lifetime bans from the NCAA to this day.
Watch ESPN's Outside The Lines Report: Testing The Limit.

You Could Be Paying For Retired NFL Players' Medical Costs

Sally Jenkins and Rick Maese of the Washington Post have been doing a series on NFL injuries called "Do No Harm." Their latest piece looks at the cost of medical care for former NFL players, and the facts are staggering:

According to statistics, one in four will need a joint replacement, are four times more likely than the average person to develop neurological symptoms like Alzheimer's or ALS, and are five times as likely to suffer arthritis. These symptoms may not develop for a decade, but the NFL's health insurance program only last for five years after retirement. The NFL's disability board often denies claims, at a rate as high as 60%. They also are fighting at least 3,000 workers' comp claims by former players filing from labor-friendly states. California is often used because workers can file out-of-state claims, but the NFL has lobbied for a bill that would forbid those claims, which has already passed the California Assembly. If that route is closed, there could be as many as 18,000 former NFL'ers that would have to use Medicare and Social Security.

That means taxpayers would be paying for the ailing bodies of players from a tax-exempt league that's considered a 501(c)(6) nonprofit trade organization. Read more at Washington Post.

Wigan Athletic Upsets Man City To Win FA Cup

Even though they're 3 points behind Newcastle and could be relegated from the Premiership, Wigan Athletic won their first major trophy by upsetting Manchester City 1-0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. Ben Watson scored the lone goal, a header in the 91st minute. Manchester City started the day amid rumors manager Roberto Mancini would be fired, despite winning the Premier League last season and the FA Cup the year before.
Read more at BBC Sport.

Breast Cancer Awareness Is Big Business In Sports

Major League Baseball has a recent tradition of allowing players to use pink bats on Mothers Day for breast cancer awareness. But Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports reports Louisville Slugger has paid to be the exclusive supplier of pink bats. That means players cannot use bats with any pink on them if they're made by a competitor like MaxBats. That includes players Nick Markakis and Trevor Plouffe, whose mothers are breast cancer survivors.
This comes off last year's October pinkfest in the NFL, when it was discovered only 5% of profits from breast cancer-themed merchandise actually went to charity.
Read more at Yahoo! Sports and HuffPo.

Trouser Cough Interrupts Snooker Champs

Ronnie O'Sullivan defeated Judd Trump in the Snooker World Championship semifinals Sunday in Sheffield, but he had to endure some poor bloke's beans on toast coming back on him in the crowd first. Footage courtesy BBC2.

The SEC Keeps Getting Richer

Last Thursday, ESPN and the Southeastern Conference announced the league would be getting it's own cable network, the third collegiate sports conference to do so after the Big Ten and Pac-12. What You Pay For Sports, a sports blog dedicated to financial matters in sports, broke down how much money this new channel means:

• Assuming the SEC Network charges in their region as much as the Big Ten or Pac-12, $0.80 a month per subscriber, multiplying it by the number of Pay TV customers in those 11 states (over 19 million), the SEC Network would rake in over $185m per year.
• Assuming they also charge the same rate of $0.15 outside of the Southeast, if they make as many systems as ESPNU (54 million), they could stand to make another $98m a year. Add that to the previous $185M, that's a total of $280m. (And if your system picks the channel up, you'll be paying for those fees whether or not you give a damn about the Volunteers.)
• Add to that the $205m the league gets from current partners CBS and ESPN (which has supposedly changed but ESPN won't say how much), each of the 14 SEC schools would be receiving $25M a year alone from television, second behind the Pac-12's $30m/year.

How much will the "student athletes" get out of this? The same base scholarship they've always received. None were present at Thursday's announcement, but all 14 football coaches were, with their salaries totaling over $42M.
Read more at What You Pay For Sports, and a list of SEC coaches' salaries at Saturdays Down South.

Still Not A Baseball Town?

After Josh Hamilton signed with the LA Angels this past off-season, he talked badly about his former fans, claiming Dallas wasn't "a true baseball town." Well, a month into this season, and the Rangers lead the American League in attendance, and are only fourth behind the Dodgers, Giants, and Cards. That's higher than the Yanks (6th), Phils (7th), BoSox (9th), Cubs (10th), and Rays (23rd). In other news, the Marlins are so bad, they can't even finish dead last; more people show up for them than the Indians and Mariners.
Attendance numbers from ESPN.com.