Carano, Cris Cyborg Justino and Miesha Tate also came up through Strikeforce before making the same jump.When you look at the business opportunity, which has been demonstrated in MMA, you c

When the NCAA last year meted out its sanctions against the SMU Mustangs, sanctions that included a postseason ban and suspension of head coach Larry Brown, I posed a simple question: What did the school expect when it hired Brown?Nine months later as Brown announces his sudden resignation, reportedly over a contract dispute, its time to ask the same question.What did SMU expect?Reality TV cultivates longer-lasting relationships than hiring Brown. Since 1965, he has cashed paychecks from 15 different employers. Forget a rocking chair or watch for years of service. For Brown, staying put long enough to become fully vested in a 401(k) plan is considered an accomplishment. He spent six seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, which in Brown parlance counts as longevity.The country is littered with his resignation papers, from Los Angeles, where he resigned ahead of the NCAA posse at UCLA, to New Jersey, where he bolted after the Nets stumbled; in Americas heartland, where he departed Kansas amid more NCAA trouble; and in the South, where he decided not to join the Carolina Cougars when they relocated to St. Louis; from the West, where he left the Denver Nuggets after two years, to the Southwest, where he left the Spurs midway through the season.You could call that nomadic.Narcissistic would be more accurate.On April 7, 1969, Brown landed his first head-coaching job, using his connections with his college coach, Dean Smith, to get the top gig at Davidson. In a newspaper clipping from The Dispatch, the 28-year-old Brown said, I will be coaching at a school I have always respected and I hope we can carry on the same high traditions.On July 3, 1969 -- a whopping 91 days later -- he left Davidson to carry on those high traditions without him, resigning his position. He hadnt so much as coached a practice, let alone a game (his tenure was so short, in fact, it doesnt even make his Wikipedia bio page). He later claimed the school didnt live up to its promises.That, of course, is a common refrain. The school, the NBA franchise, some organization always fails to live up to promises made to Brown.This time it is SMU on the wrong side of the tracks. Brown reportedly wanted a five-year contract extension. School administrators, perhaps considering the 75-year-old had just led the university down the trenches of an NCAA investigation and into a postseason ban and other sanctions, thought a two- or three-year deal might make more sense (which is rather generous if you consider the totality of things). Brown disagreed and so, just two days into the vicious recruiting cycle, he packed up his whistle and left.Just like always, skipping out of town without care or responsibility. UCLA sanctions? Kansas violations so egregious an NCAA official once joked the Jayhawks were on the bubble for the death penalty? Misunderstandings and misinformation twisted for the NCAAs benefit.The man who preaches his love for his kids spent most of last season bemoaning the fact that the NCAA wrongly penalized Nic Moore and Markus Kennedy with a postseason ban when they werent guilty of any wrongdoing.Which is true.Its also true that Larry Brown was guilty of NCAA wrongdoing and thereby he did his players wrong. He broke promises to them, promises to be honorable, to obey NCAA rules and to, as crazy as it sounds, prohibit secretaries from doing an athletes coursework. Had he kept those promises the NCAA would not have visited campus and Moore and Kennedy would have enjoyed the fruits of their regular-season labor in March.Except that would never occur to Brown, the perennially put-upon victim. For all the college and NBA teams who have let him down, he never once recognized the people he has let down as well.Because if there are two truisms in his illustrious career, it is these:The man is a brilliant basketball mind, one of the best coaches to walk across a court.And above everything and everyone, Larry Brown is loyal to Larry Brown first, second and always. The first truism means someone will hire him somewhere. The second means his next employer, too, will eventually be stood up, discarded or disappointed.The only sign of progress in this entire ordeal is that SMU at least had the good sense to name Tim Jankovich as its coach-in-waiting. The school, at least, realized that with Brown there is no such thing as a long-term commitment, and that Jankovich wasnt going to be Mike Hopkins, the Prince Charles of college hoops forever waiting for Syracuse King Jim Boeheim to resign.No, the school hired Jankovich a mere nine days after it announced Brown would be the head coach because administrators knew theyd need a backup plan.With Larry Brown, what else would you expect?Adidas NMD R1 Japan Black . But now that hes in the NHL, the Calgary Flames centre showed big improvement in that department by scoring the winner in the eighth round of a 5-4 shootout victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday. Adidas NMD Black Sale . -- Matt Ryan needed one of the best games of his career to lead the Falcons and their depleted offence out of their three-game losing streak last week. http://www.cheapnmdonline.com/ . "It doesnt get any better than that," Giambi said. "Im speechless." The Indians are roaring toward October. Giambi belted a two-run, pinch-hit homer with two outs in the ninth inning to give Cleveland a shocking 5-4 win over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, keeping the Indians up with the lead pack in the AL wild-card race. Adidas NMD Black And White . Its the second straight game Bell has scored in extra time for Kelowna, which beat the Brandon Wheat Kings 6-5 on Friday, and he now has four game-winning goals on the season. Adidas NMD Womens Pink . Sulaiman, 44, was chosen unanimously Tuesday in a vote by the leadership, the World Boxing Council said. Sulaiman becomes the sixth president of the organization.Womens boxing has long lived in the shadows of the sport.Its a cycle that begins and ends with television networks, a cycle that stems from a perception that the quality of female talent is thin. Yet, without the ability to sell womens fights on televised cards, the signing and developing of female fighters is rendered an unprofitable business for promoters. The opportunity for women to make a living fighting thus becomes virtually impossible ... and the cycle continues.Im a little embarrassed we havent gotten to it sooner, said Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports, about the networks plans to put womens fights back on its air. We aim to rectify that very quickly -- and not on a one-off basis but on a meaningful regular basis as well.While Showtime still hasnt promoted a fight since 2001, it plans to do so, and womens boxing will be televised Saturday, when Claressa Shields makes her professional debut on Saturday in a four-round super middleweight bout against Franchon Crews. It will air on ESPN3 on the freeview undercard of Sergey Kovalev and Andre Wards pay-per-view fight on HBO.Coupled with the previous strides made in 2016, it appears that a new era of womens boxing is dawning.Claressa Shields has dubbed this era as the reintroduction to womens boxing. The era took a giant step forward on Aug. 21 when Shields became the first American fighter, male or female, to defend an Olympic gold medal. That same day, Heather Hardy and Shelly Vincent became the first women to be featured on a Premier Boxing Champions?nationally televised undercard.Now, that era is primed to move ahead even further.Well aware of her role in what could be the surge needed to finally carry womens boxing from out of the shadows, Shields is preparing to make her professional debut on Saturday.Shields chose to begin her professional career rather than stay an amateur (and have the guarantee of eligibility to return to the Olympics in 2020) in part because of the potential the timing presented. At 21 years old, amid what already feels like a revolution in womens boxing, Shields is primed to take up the baton and carry the sport over the line it has come so close to crossing so many times.I dont want to let this flame burn out that we have right now, Shields said. You have to seize the moment and take advantage of it.Im not doing it for the money. Im doing it for womens boxing.Shields has marinated on this concept of being the change for some time. It was a primary reason behind her decision and a seed that was planted before she won her second gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, when she had a conversation with Hardy about the two fighters mutual hope for the future of their sport and the respect it deserves.The way Hardy understood it, Shields turning pro would send a message: This is what women do. Women fight. Women box.We werent just thinking about each other making millions of dollars; we were thinking about the other women coming up behind us, Shields said.This is a new era, and thats no disrespect to Christy Martin or Lucia Rijker or Laila [Ali]. But the women of this generation are just different. And me? Im one-of-a-kind. You only get one of me every century.New York-born and bred, Hardy used to dream about becoming a Yankee. As a child she would even envision herself running out of the bullpen at Yankee Stadium. She watched every game. She knew every stat. But little girls didnt play baseball.I remember feeling like I was sorry I liked it, she said. I was sorry I was a girl.Later in life, Hardy adopted a new dream: becoming a professional boxer. But as she transitioned out of the amateurs, she was confronted with a harsh reality: Women dont make much money fighting.A bunch of the girls who are pro [told me], Just know this isnt a life for you; this is a hobby because youll never make any money off of it, Hardy said.And 20 years later, I have that same feeling. Im sorry Im a girl.Hardy was the first woman to be signed to a long-term promotional contract with Lou DiBellas company, DiBella Entertainment. DiBella, one of New Yorks premier boxing promoters, has been one of the main actors at the forefront of the current revolution. In addition to Hardy, DiBella has signed deals with other prominent women fighters, including WBO featherweight champion Amanda Serrano and Hardys last opponent, Vincent.While DiBella said he doesnt make money off their fights, the fact that he puts on shows in New York and throughout New England means Hardy and the other female fighters in his stable who are from the area sell enough tickets to cover a good portion of the costs of their bouts. DiBella, who admits he was once hardened to the idea of women in the ring when he was an HBO executive, has said that promoting his female fighters has become a cause for him.I admire their dedication. I admire their spirit to want to bring about change, DiBella said. Id say a number of these women right now are not only out there as fighters; theyre out there as trailblazers, as advocates. Theyre trying to change the status quo, to be agents of change, so that other women coming fforward in the sport in the future have an easier road and an opportunity to make a living the same way men do.dddddddddddd.The difference between the money that male and female fighters can make fighting doesnt necessarily stem from a gap in fight purses -- in fact, according to DiBella, male and female fighters on the same card will generally make similar money for the same level of fight. The difference, then, is the fact that televised fights come with much bigger purses, and without opportunities to fight on televised cards, women simply dont have the option for bigger paydays. As DiBella put it, its a wage ceiling.While male fighters are going after that $100,000 payday -- the $50,000, $150,000 or $1 million payday -- those paydays dont exist for women because television has been closed to them, DiBella said.Female fighters with untelevised bouts thus become more reliant on whatever percentage of ticket sales they get, which can often mean more aggressive promotion of their own fights, spreading the word and hanging up posters to try to sell tickets.Hardy, a single mother, has considered taking MMA fights to help pay the bills, a proposition that recently became even more real when DiBella had to cancel the cards he had scheduled in New York through the end of the year because of a new provision that requires promoters in the state to secure $1 million of insurance per fighter in the event one suffers a traumatic brain injury. Unfortunately for Hardy, one of those events DiBella had to cancel was a show at Barclays Center on Dec. 16 that Hardy was supposed to fight on.As much as Id like to discourage her as a promoter from [moving to MMA], Im not going to because she has to do what she has to do to maximize her revenue streams, to take advantage of her popularity and to try to make a living for her and her daughter, DiBella said. I cant fault her for needing a supplemental income.Its worth noting that while DiBella has signed some of the best female talent in the United States, his stable is missing the biggest star in Shields, who told ESPN in September before announcing her pro debut that the only company she wanted to sign with was Oscar De La Hoyas Golden Boy Promotions. However, Shields agent said she has yet to make any decisions regarding a promoter as of this week.DiBellas investment could turn out to be a gamble that pays off if the status quo changes.The current pool of female talent is ripe for a chance at the big time, with fighters on the rise from coast to coast. Even across the pond, where womens boxing is already more prominently televised, 13-year Irish amateur and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Katie Taylor has too decided to turn professional.The skill level and talent base is all there, Espinoza said. Its just a matter of providing the opportunity.Espinoza wants Showtime to provide that opportunity. The five-year executive said that putting female fights back on the networks airwaves has been on its to-do list for some time, and that he hopes to get one on a card in the first quarter of 2017.Espinoza and DiBella have elevated conversations even further, with pretty extensive discussions about the prospect of an all-female card sometime next year. DiBella said that that type of card would ideally feature a Hardy-Vincent rematch, possibly even for a world title, if Hardy ends up fighting for one in March, as DiBella suggested she might.An all-womens card is certainly an ambitious goal, considering it likely would require the cooperation of various promoters, but Espinoza doesnt consider it insurmountable.If we can be the unifying force to bring this aboard, wed be happy to, he saidThe concept of elevating womens presence in combat sports by making opportunities possible isnt new for Showtime. Ronda Rousey fought her final three Strikeforce fights before signing with Dana White and the UFC in 2012, and those bouts aired on Showtime. Other female mixed martial arts stars such as Gina Carano, Cris Cyborg Justino and Miesha Tate also came up through Strikeforce before making the same jump.When you look at the business opportunity, which has been demonstrated in MMA, you cant really argue that the market isnt ready or the audience isnt ready, Espinoza said.The momentum that peaked in August, with Shields Olympic win and Hardy and Vincents televised bout, is palpable and has continued to pick up steam. For women in the sport, its a fight for their livelihood and for equality in the ring, present and future.If my daughter wanted to box, I would never be like, Yeah, you should work for that, Vincent said. Before I wouldve said, No, youre never going to get anywhere. Theyre never going to accept you. Youre never going to make any money.But now I would say there is hope, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.That light is primed to grow brighter again on Saturday, when Shields steps into the ring at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.Just tell everybody this is the reintroduction to womens boxing, Shields said. Thank me later. ' ' '