Here in the Twin Cities the two major sports teams, the football Vikings and baseball Twins are looking to build new stadiums, together totalling around a billion dollars. Reports vary, but it seems they’re willing to pitch in about 10-20% of the cost, and want the public to provide the rest.

The average salary of a baseballist is $2,555,476, with even the poorest team paying an average of $786,200. The average footballist earns a lowly $1,169,470, with an absolute minimum for a rookie player of $225,000.

Anybody who spends any amount of time playing in one of these leagues either becomes a millionaire, or wastes his money. All the owners are millionaires (with the exception of the Green Bay Packers). Most of the coaches, and a good number of the coaching staff, are millionaires or have wasted their money. Yet apparently neither team can survive without public subsidy.

Interesting.

LOTR III

I understand this is tedious for anyone who is reading, but I had to share… We went to see the final installment of The Lord of the Rings this weekend, and it was just beautiful. We’d revised by watching the extended second episode on DVD during the week, so settled back in to the film immediately. As some reviewers noted, after an initial great opening there was a slow 45 minutes that was good, and necessary, but not quite up to the standard of the rest of the films. But from that point on it was great, and the Battle of Pellinore Fields was breathtaking. Yes it sacrificed detail from the book, and at times there would be a plot jump that I hope will be filled in for the DVD. But these are minor quibbles. I just wonder if it will earn any Oscars, not because it isn’t worthy, but because it seems to transcend them. That sounds corny I know, but there are many great films out there that have deserved Oscars, whereas this seems more like an ‘experience’ than a film. Enough hippy talk…

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