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And what is the interest of the Tataglia family?

On October 2, 2025

At 9:13 am

In General

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A couple of stories from the sports entertainment media complex in the last couple of days really crystallized something for me, which is the answer to the question of, when it comes to money in America in 2025, when is enough enough? And the answer is, quite literally, never.

First, we have the spectacle of the Big Ten conference (now with 18 teams) offering to give sloppy blowjobs to private equity gangsters in return for a quick infusion of much-needed cash. After all, expenses are going up! This is higher “education” in America, and expenses are always going up, because, um, that’s just what they do. It’s really mysterious, like gravity or the tides, but luckily there’s a lot of money in that white powder:

The Big Ten is in discussions about a private capital deal that would infuse at least $2 billion into the league and its schools, sources told ESPN on Wednesday. . . .
The setup being discussed, sources said, is that this will essentially be the formation of a new commercial entity within the Big Ten that would house all revenue generation such as media rights, sponsorships and league revenue streams.
The working title for the new entity is Big Ten Enterprises, sources told ESPN.
The private capital company would get money back through the new entity through annual distribution in proportion to its financial stake. The Big Ten will essentially have 20 equity shares, comprising the 18 schools, the league and this investor. . . .
One of the philosophies behind the proposed move, which is being shepherded by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, is that the league believes its ability to generate revenue holistically has been underserved, and it would be sharing a small percentage of greater profits with the outside investor.
It also helps the league potentially better scale and leverage its 18 members.
Another source familiar with the Big Ten’s discussions summed it up this way: “We’re underselling the strength of what we do the way we are structured. This is a way to organize ourselves better.”
As a micro example of that, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen was quoted in an Associated Press article last week on the looming discussion of teams wearing corporate logos on their jersey: “If you jump in now, and I’m going to get a little bit [of money] because of the jersey patches. I would really like to see if there’s an opportunity for our conference to put all those jersey patch rights together and, all of a sudden, they’re worth a whole lot more to the institutions when 18 are playing instead of just one.”

When the PE pimps presented a similar plan to the Big XII conference a few months ago, the pitch deck included things like rivalry games in Dubai, so we can look forward to Nebraska v. Iowa at a Middle East army base in the Ethanol Subsidy Classic, Brought to You By the Blackstone Group.

Not surprisingly, the conference’s highest-rent courtesans, Michigan and Ohio State, have some serious doubts about all this, since it’s their “brands” that ultimately leverage all these synergies synergistically, so we’ll see how far this goes.

For some historical context, the Michigan athletic department budget in 1976 was $4.5 million, which is $25.67 million in August 2025 dollars. This was the largest such budget in the nation at the time — it had doubled over the previous seven years — and this trend was considered unsustainable by many observers.

Michigan athletic budget in the current fiscal year is $266.3 million. So you can see why an immediate cash infusion from the good folks in the private equity “space” is so crucial.

Speaking of the Middle East in autumn, David Cross has thoughts:

I’ve been asked for my opinion on the Riyadh Comedy Festival and rather than answer the same question 23 times, I’ll just put this out here. Oh, and I should preface this with the fact that I was not offered the gig but it should go without saying that there’s not enough money for me to help these depraved, awful people put a “fun face” on their crimes against humanity.
Here goes:

What do you think I think? I am disgusted, and deeply disappointed in this whole gross thing. That people I admire, with unarguable talent, would condone this totalitarian fiefdom for…what, a fourth house? A boat? More sneakers?

We can never again take seriously anything these comedians complain about (unless it’s complaining that we don’t support enough torture and mass executions of journalists and LGBQT peace activists here in the states, or that we don’t terrorize enough Americans by flying planes into our buildings). I mean that’s it; you have a funny bit about how you don’t like Yankee Candles or airport lounges? Okay great, but you’re cool with murder and/or the public caning of women who were raped, and by having the audacity to be raped, were guilty of “engaging in adultery”? Got any bits on that?

These are some of my HEROES! Now look, some of you folks don’t stand for anything so you don’t have any credibility to lose, but my god, Dave and Louie and Bill, and Jim? Clearly you guys don’t give a shit about what the rest of us think, but how can any of us take any of you seriously ever again? All of your bitching about “cancel culture” and “freedom of speech” and all that shit? Done. You don’t get to talk about it ever again. By now we’ve all seen the contract you had to sign.
You’re performing for literally, the most oppressive regime on earth. They have SLAVES for fuck’s sake!!!

I don’t understand how being rich can make someone such a whore. Poor people desperate to improve their (or their families lives), sure. Still not acceptable but I can understand the desperation to put food on the table. But this? I mean, it’s not like this is some commercial for a wireless service or a betting app. This is truly the definition of “blood money”. You might as well do commercials for Lockheed Martin or Zyklon B.

Holy shit, I remember the backlash I got for appearing in Alvin and the Chipmunks! You would’ve thought that I had taken money from a bunch of people responsible for funding Al Qaeda!

Unless you open your sets with, “This is dedicated to all of the widows and widowers and kids orphaned by this bloodthirsty oppressive regime especially from the zany shenanigans on 9/11. Never Forget Motherfuckers! Alright, so it’s great to be here. I’m gonna be killing it tonight! But in the good way! Straight up. No MbS.” then your hypocrisy will never not be noted.
-David
P.S. for anyone who wants to actually spend their money on something worthwhile, the Human Rights Foundation does amazing work. Learn more and donate at https://hrf.org

Full list of performers:

One thing I’ve watched pretty much totally collapse over the past generation, and the past decade in particular, has been what could be called the I’ll do a lot of things but I won’t do that ethos. The notion that you shouldn’t sell certain things no matter what you’re offered because that would be wrong is becoming almost literally incomprehensible, in a frank plutocracy in which money is essentially God.

And Donald Trump’s presidency is, as in so many other ways, both a symptom and accelerant of this particular social disease.

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard.

JM Keynes, 1930