Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t a fan of the NCAA’s move to lessen restrictions on college athletes getting paid, and he faced major blowback for it this week.
“If they’re really good, they get rich. If they’re not really good, they get a free education, so I’m having a hard time grasping what’s wrong with the current system,” he said Thursday in response to the NCAA announcement that college players can earn money from their names, likenesses and images.
McConnell’s statement went over poorly on Twitter, where sports reporters and athletes jumped into the ring.
Cedar Rapids Gazette spots columnist Mike Hlas summed it up: “This guy,” he said.
Others had lengthier responses that got at the same theme.
“Would Mitch give up his name/image/likeness rights to the U.S. Gov. & allow them to monetize them anyway they choose? And...
“If they’re really good, they get rich. If they’re not really good, they get a free education, so I’m having a hard time grasping what’s wrong with the current system,” he said Thursday in response to the NCAA announcement that college players can earn money from their names, likenesses and images.
McConnell’s statement went over poorly on Twitter, where sports reporters and athletes jumped into the ring.
Cedar Rapids Gazette spots columnist Mike Hlas summed it up: “This guy,” he said.
Others had lengthier responses that got at the same theme.
“Would Mitch give up his name/image/likeness rights to the U.S. Gov. & allow them to monetize them anyway they choose? And...
- 7/9/2021
- by Lindsey Ellefson
- The Wrap
Vice TV has announced investigative doc “Vice Versa: College $ports, Inc.,” exposing the allegedly exploitative relationship between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and student athletes.
The 90-minute “Vice Versa,” for which Vice is launching a trailer (above), is directed by Patrick Dimon and hosted by former Olympian and NCAA athlete Jeremy Bloom and will premiere on Vice TV in the U.S. on June 9.
“American college athletics is a $14 billion dollar annual business, but NCAA athletes do not receive a salary or benefits, are not cut into the profit system, and are precluded from entering the free market or signing any endorsement deals,” reads the potentially explosive doc’s synopsis. “Now, host Jeremy Bloom is on a deeply personal mission to expose the system that wronged him and seek justice for his peers.”
Bloom ended his college football career in the early 2000s over an endorsement discord. He...
The 90-minute “Vice Versa,” for which Vice is launching a trailer (above), is directed by Patrick Dimon and hosted by former Olympian and NCAA athlete Jeremy Bloom and will premiere on Vice TV in the U.S. on June 9.
“American college athletics is a $14 billion dollar annual business, but NCAA athletes do not receive a salary or benefits, are not cut into the profit system, and are precluded from entering the free market or signing any endorsement deals,” reads the potentially explosive doc’s synopsis. “Now, host Jeremy Bloom is on a deeply personal mission to expose the system that wronged him and seek justice for his peers.”
Bloom ended his college football career in the early 2000s over an endorsement discord. He...
- 5/20/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
In another universe, this summer’s sports-centric programming looks quite a bit different than it does in our current (and very strange) reality, from major league sports like baseball and basketball not existing in a literal bubble to the only-every-four-years spectacle of the Olympics unspooling in Japan. In fact, the latest edition of the Summer Olympics would have kicked off this very week, with the world’s best athletes gathering in and around Tokyo for two weeks of competition. Brett Rapkin’s “The Weight of Gold,” which assembles a sterling array of Olympic athletes to talk candidly about their struggles with mental health, starts with a necessary nod to what would have been another entry in classic Olympic mania.
It even suggests an important question: perhaps they’re better without it? It’s an idea worth pondering, especially as Rapkin’s documentary steadily builds over the course of just one hour to show,...
It even suggests an important question: perhaps they’re better without it? It’s an idea worth pondering, especially as Rapkin’s documentary steadily builds over the course of just one hour to show,...
- 7/29/2020
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV.
Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. As many across the country continue to practice self-isolation due to coronavirus, why not while away a few hours on some of the shows below?
This week, Beyoncé launches her visual album on Disney Plus, and “The Umbrella Academy” returns.
“The Weight of Gold,” HBO, Wednesday, 9 p.m.
Despite the Olympics being postponed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, HBO is going ahead with airing its documentary feature “The Weight of Gold,” which explores the mental health challenges that Olympic athletes often face. The doc features interviews with Michael Phelps, Jeremy Bloom, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Bode Miller, Shaun White, and posthumously, Jeret Peterson and Steven Holcomb.
Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. As many across the country continue to practice self-isolation due to coronavirus, why not while away a few hours on some of the shows below?
This week, Beyoncé launches her visual album on Disney Plus, and “The Umbrella Academy” returns.
“The Weight of Gold,” HBO, Wednesday, 9 p.m.
Despite the Olympics being postponed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, HBO is going ahead with airing its documentary feature “The Weight of Gold,” which explores the mental health challenges that Olympic athletes often face. The doc features interviews with Michael Phelps, Jeremy Bloom, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Bode Miller, Shaun White, and posthumously, Jeret Peterson and Steven Holcomb.
- 7/27/2020
- by Will Thorne
- Variety Film + TV
HBO Sports has a new doc called The Weight of Gold, and it covers a topic you don’t often see brought-up in regards to sports: mental health. Specifically, it focuses on the mental health challenges that Olympic athletes face, and includes interviews with Michael Phelps, Jeremy Bloom, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Bode Miller, Shaun White, and more. Watch The […]
The post ‘The Weight of Gold’ Trailer: An HBO Documentary About Mental Health Challenges Facing Olympic Athletes appeared first on /Film.
The post ‘The Weight of Gold’ Trailer: An HBO Documentary About Mental Health Challenges Facing Olympic Athletes appeared first on /Film.
- 7/26/2020
- by Chris Evangelista
- Slash Film
Michael Phelps, Shaun White, Sasha Cohen and many other Olympians examine their relationship with “post-Olympic depression” in a new documentary, The Weight of Gold, which released its first trailer on Monday.
The HBO Sports film will debut on HBO and on streaming via HBO Max on Wednesday, July 29th at 9:00 p.m. Et, around when the Summer Olympics were scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan, this year — prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the trailer, athletes open up about how “40 seconds will dictate our human lives,” before the...
The HBO Sports film will debut on HBO and on streaming via HBO Max on Wednesday, July 29th at 9:00 p.m. Et, around when the Summer Olympics were scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan, this year — prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the trailer, athletes open up about how “40 seconds will dictate our human lives,” before the...
- 7/20/2020
- by Claire Shaffer
- Rollingstone.com
"It's gold... And then what?" HBO has released a trailer for The Weight of Gold, a film by award-winning sports history filmmaker Brett Rapkin. The revealing and powerful documentary explores the mental health challenges that Olympic athletes often face in deeply personal detail. The film debuts later this month at the same time as the 2020 Summer Games with 11,000 world class athletes in attendance were slated to be competing in Tokyo, Japan. It features accounts from Olympic athletes who share their own struggles with mental health issues, including Michael Phelps, Jeremy Bloom, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Bode Miller, Shaun White, and many others. HBO has been releasing an impressive slate of compelling, honest, eye-opening doc films these last few years about so many different topics. This one looks like an excellent double feature with the doc In Search of Greatness, also about the passion of athletes and the never-ending push to be the best.
- 7/20/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time, but what’s left to accomplish after you’ve proved you’re the best in the world? In the new documentary “The Weight of Gold,” Phelps takes a long look at life after the Olympics and how he was not alone in experiencing depression after winning it all.
“The Weight of Gold” is an HBO Sports documentary executive produced by Phelps and features interviews with Olympians who discuss going their entire lives without normal childhoods, without outside skills or interests beyond their sport, without any plans after the Olympics and whose entire lives have been defined by a rapid, 40-second race.
“We’re just so lost. A good 80 percent, maybe more, develop a post-Olympic depression,” Phelps says in the documentary trailer. “I thought of myself as just a swimmer, and not a human being, and that’s where I thought,...
“The Weight of Gold” is an HBO Sports documentary executive produced by Phelps and features interviews with Olympians who discuss going their entire lives without normal childhoods, without outside skills or interests beyond their sport, without any plans after the Olympics and whose entire lives have been defined by a rapid, 40-second race.
“We’re just so lost. A good 80 percent, maybe more, develop a post-Olympic depression,” Phelps says in the documentary trailer. “I thought of myself as just a swimmer, and not a human being, and that’s where I thought,...
- 7/20/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
HBO has acquired and set a premiere date for The Weight of Gold, a feature documentary on the mental health challenges that Olympic athletes often face. All-time medal champ Michael Phelps is among the subjects, along with Shaun White, Bode Miller and others.
The film also features Jeremy Bloom, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Apolo Anton Ohno, Sasha Cohen, David Boudia, Katie Uhlaender and the late Jeret Peterson And Steven Holcomb.
Directed by Brett Rapkin and produced by Podium Pictures in association with Octagon, The Weight of Gold will premiere at 9 p.m. Wednesday, July 29 — when the 2020 Tokyo Games were to have been going on before the event was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The docu spotlights Olympic athletes, a group that has long quietly battled its own mental health crisis and now is grappling with the unprecedented postponement of the 2020 Olympics and all its implications. The film seeks to inspire the discussion of mental health,...
The film also features Jeremy Bloom, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Apolo Anton Ohno, Sasha Cohen, David Boudia, Katie Uhlaender and the late Jeret Peterson And Steven Holcomb.
Directed by Brett Rapkin and produced by Podium Pictures in association with Octagon, The Weight of Gold will premiere at 9 p.m. Wednesday, July 29 — when the 2020 Tokyo Games were to have been going on before the event was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The docu spotlights Olympic athletes, a group that has long quietly battled its own mental health crisis and now is grappling with the unprecedented postponement of the 2020 Olympics and all its implications. The film seeks to inspire the discussion of mental health,...
- 6/29/2020
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
Tonya Harding didn’t win Olympic gold, but Margot Robbie could win Oscar gold for playing the infamous figure skater. If she does take Best Actress next month, the “I, Tonya” star would be the first performer to earn an Oscar for portraying a real Olympic athlete.
Robbie is only the third person and the first woman to be nominated for playing an Olympian, all of which has occurred this century. Will Smith was up for Best Actor for playing Muhammad Ali, who won Olympic gold in the light heavyweight boxing division in 1960, in 2001’s “Ali” and Mark Ruffalo received his second of three Best Supporting Actor nominations for playing 1984 wrestling gold medalist Dave Schultz, who was murdered by millionaire John du Pont (Steve Carell), in 2014’s “Foxcatcher.” Smith lost to Denzel Washington (“Training Day”) and Ruffalo came up short against J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”).
However, unlike “I, Tonya,” which is...
Robbie is only the third person and the first woman to be nominated for playing an Olympian, all of which has occurred this century. Will Smith was up for Best Actor for playing Muhammad Ali, who won Olympic gold in the light heavyweight boxing division in 1960, in 2001’s “Ali” and Mark Ruffalo received his second of three Best Supporting Actor nominations for playing 1984 wrestling gold medalist Dave Schultz, who was murdered by millionaire John du Pont (Steve Carell), in 2014’s “Foxcatcher.” Smith lost to Denzel Washington (“Training Day”) and Ruffalo came up short against J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”).
However, unlike “I, Tonya,” which is...
- 2/9/2018
- by Joyce Eng
- Gold Derby
Sports star turned tech millionaire Jeremy Bloom grills an entrepreneur trying to pitch a three-wheeled scooter called the iTank on tonight’s latest episode of Adventure Capitalists on CNBC. Bloom, a former world champion skier who was also drafted into the NFL, became a tech entrepreneur after leaving sports behind and has made millions through his marketing software company Integrate, where he acts as CEO. On Adventure Capitalists he is joined by fellow sports stars turned investors Shawn Johnson East, an Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast, and former NFL linebacker Dhani Jones as they are pitched outdoor adventure products. They also test...read more...
- 10/17/2017
- by Julian Cheatle
- Monsters and Critics
Socialite Paris Hilton is hunting for the perfect guy after reportedly dumping boyfriend Stavros Niarchos at a recent party at Los Angeles' Roosevelt Hotel. The Simple Life star, who told Newsweek magazine last year she plans to start a family in 2007, has narrowed her chase for her next boy toy down to two - winter Olympian-turned-American football hopeful Jeremy Bloom and her ex, model Jason Shaw. Friends now confide that the hotel heiress, 25, has been chatting with her first fiance, Jason Shaw, while making a subtle play for Bloom at Hollywood parties. At last week's EA/Paramount Pictures launch of Godfather: The Game at Los Angeles hotspot Privilege, Hilton spent the evening asking organizers when hunky Bloom was arriving. A party planner says, "Paris kept asking about him, claiming that a friend had a crush on him. But all her girl friends said it was really Paris who had a crush on him. Jeremy was not able to attend at the last minute due to other responsibilities. After missing out on Jeremy, Paris was overheard asking her friends, 'Are there any hot guys here? I need a hot guy.'" She might not have got her man, but Paris still left the party in style - showing off her brand new $450,000 Mercedes Benz McLaren to pal and fellow party-goer Snoop Dogg.
- 3/24/2006
- WENN
Conan Smith has joined the Agency Group Ltd., becoming the firm's first agent focusing on comedy and television projects. Smith, who was with WMA, will be responsible for packaging comedians and personalities in network and cable TV. He brings with him such clients as Colin Quinn (Comedy Central's Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn), Tom Papa (NBC's Come to Papa) and Olympic skier/MTV host Jeremy Bloom. Smith spent 14 years at WMA, where his clients also included Ray Romano, Robert Klein and Susie Essman. His hiring is part of the Agency Group's expansion into other areas of entertainment, including television and film. The firm previously focused on the music business, with clients including Evanescence, the White Stripes and Nickelback. Smith is based in the Agency Group's New York offices.
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