MVP1992 wrote:Do universities offer degrees in the NBA CBA, trades, salary cap and cap intricacies?
Sounds like something an engineer and a bean counter concocted to create niche jobs.
I can't swear they do in the NBA, but people definitely specialize in the NFL.
The Jets had a (pretty dang good actually, he came very close to back-to-back Super Bowls & would have been considered a hero...) GM named Mike Tannenbaum. He planned on a career in front-office Sports Management all his life. It says he Majored in Accounting & Minored in Sports Management , and then specialized in Sports Law in Law School.
When Bill Parcells was the de-facto HC & GM of the Jets he brought Mike T on his team specifically because of his Salary Cap / CBA / rules & regs & particularly contracts etc. And from 1997 to 2012, the Jets didn't win any Super Bowls, but we almost *always* had either our pick of the FAs, the best/most-creative contracts , best salary-cap situation, no shortage of Signings & Trades & Draft Moves etc. So that type of thing definitely happens in sports. Same exact thing for the Eagles & Howie Roseman, who *is* considered a hero here. He was a very-smart young lawyer who mastered the NFL's rules/regs/salary cap and has parlayed it into a 25-year-career and is now a Super Bowl-winning, 2-time Exec of the Year GM. Of his hometown team, no less.
And you never know how having "those types", the super-smart, Extra **** of people on your team/organization/etc. helps. My HS Wrestling Coach was THE MAN, but we also had an Assistant Coach - he was RIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE, but when you're 15, someone who's 23 seems "Adult" etc. - He was a Masters Degree Chemistry guy, and he had the ability to analyze stuff ... he would take the Wrestling lineup, and just move people around according to Strengths & Weaknesses , match-to-match. We'd call it his "Stoichiometry" (which is some sort of entirely-unrelated Science Stuff that I couldn't remember if I tried) - he'd bump some people up in weight-classes, bump some down, match up the most favorable scenarios, and it made big differences. You can be having someone who knows how to do that with Contracts etc. has value. Anyone remember Donovan McNabb's Voidable Years saga? Or my Jets motherfreaking Darrelle Revis, who held out of Training Camp as a Rook, then 3 years later did it again because he wanted to be the highest-paid defender and Mike T was able to structure a contract that made both sides happy, then he did it AGAIN two years later, and the Jets had to just get rid of him. Versus, say, the motherfreaking Ivy League *WINNER* in Cleveland who not only trades for the moxt-radioactively-toxic (at the time) player in the game, giving up the Sun, Moon, & Stars in the process, but then signs him to the most patently-ridiculous-and-worst-contract-of-all-time. Because Moneyball, baby! Obviously Mr. Watson , ahem, gets on base?
