The Little League World Series is rapidly approaching.
So is college football season.
As you know, there is a great debate going on in our nation on whether college athletes should be paid. A more nuanced version of this centers around whether they should be allowed to profit off their name, image, and likeness—i.e., should they be able to sign endorsement deals, and should EA Sports bring back NCAA Football.
The latter debate is fairly one-sided: obviously players should be able to profit off their name and likeness. Trevor Lawrence should be as free to do Head & Shoulders commercials as you or I or Troy Polamalu. Young adult men should be able to live vicariously through Trevor Lawrence via the medium of a video game.
Yet there are a few holdouts:
Or at least one.
Anyway, I’m privately hoping someone tells Doug Gottlieb about the Little League World Series, because I’m fully prepared for him to unleash the argument that this year’s Big Al’s value only comes from its association with the Middletown Little League brand.
It’s not a question of if someone (most likely Doug Gottlieb) will unleash this take. It’s a matter of how exactly they’ll do it. Here are a few possibilities:
“Should Little Leaguers be able to profit off their name and likeness? It’s a slippery slope.” -Doug Gottlieb, three weeks from now.
“Great to watch a game where the players just care about playing the game, and not about lobbying for endorsement deals.” -Doug Gottlieb, 8/18/2019.
“Mo’ne Davis wouldn’t have the star power she has without the Little League brand.” -Doug Gottlieb, when Mo’ne Davis gets interviewed about preparing for her softball career at Hampton.
Doug, if you’re reading this, don’t feel the need to credit me for planting this seed. But please do let me know before you say it so I can jump in the replies with the link to this blog post. I want to profit off of stupid takes about children just as much as I assume you do.
