Blame Jordan. For all the excitement he brought to the sport, MJ made the game about the superstar and not the team rivalry.

And what Bart said...

-spence

Go back further and blame Cassius Clay. The downfall of pro sports started with him screaming at Sonny Liston when he knocked him down. Then Cosell turned him into a circus act and the rest is history.

They had the player and his rep from the Player Assoc. on yesterday, and these idiots had the audacity to blame the WHOLE thing on society, and the war in Iraq.
Instead of taking his lumps and acknowledging his resposibility, this piece of crap is mugging for the camera and try to pitch his CD.
This just goes to show that in professional sprorts, if you bring in the fans, you can literally get away with murder. Then when you are caught red-handed, you sheepishly blame society and move on. I hope the fan that was attacked takes the player, team and the NBA to the cleaners.
On a positive note, we're starting to see move teams take responibility for their actions. How about the college football team that turned down a bowl bid because of the fight on the field?
Just my $0.02 worth.

Tim- South Carolina turned down the Bowl bid because Holtz is retiring now and his replacement, Steve Spurrier, wants no part of a mediocre team in a bowl game. You can bet if they were 11-1 Holtz would have stayed on until January. There was no honor in the decision not to accept the invitation...just the smart move for the school and the two coaches.

That makes more sense. Unfortunately, the news report I had heard was probably given the "politically correct" report. I thought it sounded a little far fetched for a school to turn down a bowl bid.