A key issue: Would U.S. Soccer allow exhibition games between a magicJack exhibition team and WPS teams? WPS says definitely not. Borislow’s legal team says it wasn’t cut and dried, and in any case, the court transcripts show that the deal wasn’t even dependent on that.

Look at these court transcripts and decide for yourself. First up, the court hearing that was supposed to be a four-hour session on “irreparable harm” but instead became the announcement of the deal:

Then the telephone conversation between the parties and the judge:

I’d love to hear everyone’s comments.

The other news today: Abby Wambach appeared at a celebration in Kansas City, and ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel was there to get a word with her. The quote getting the most attention:

The truth is that the responsibility is all of ours. Nothing rises or fails with one person. We all need to step back, look at ourselves, and take responsibility for all of the things. Nobody is talking about the amazing things Dan did and how he treated his players. Everybody focuses all the attention on the negative. And that’s not how we’re going to get the WPS back and running. You can’t build something great on negativity. It has to be in a positive manner.

That’s not going to calm magicJack critics, who think players were so content with their salaries and creature comforts that they turned a blind eye to the issues raised by the league, the union, Ella Masar and others. And when you have WPS founders like Peter Wilt saying the whole thing needs to be scaled way back, you have to wonder how many other investors would be willing or able to step forward and match the “amazing things” Wambach’s describing.

But Wambach has also called for people to lose the egos and get past the issues that have come between them. Judge Sasser could very well order people to do that next week. We’ll see how that goes. And as one lawyer says in the transcripts, the devil is in the details.

As I’ve said before, the people (particularly the ringleader) of the promotion/relegation movement tend to personalize things. We’re not just idiots if we don’t see how American soccer would obviously be better if everyone saw the “open system” light. We’re on the take from Major League Soccer as part of a grand conspiracy to rid the world of the league system that began when England had too many soccer teams applying for its league.

We soccer journalists can say we like pro/rel but don’t find it feasible in this country at the moment, we can say it might happen someday when we reach critical mass, we can say our income wouldn’t change if MLS were to disappear tomorrow. We could probably even post our tax returns online, and they’d insist that someone from MLS is slipping us cash in a secluded room somewhere.

That’s all a good way of deflecting attention from the fact that we soccer journalists have plenty of evidence — some of it brilliantly compiled this week by Kenn Tomasch — and they have little but a voice in their heads saying, “If you build it, they will come.”

The current argument tack appears to be that they don’t need investors to build a league. They can just change things at the federation level, and then everyone will have to get on board with promotion/relegation.

Just a couple of problems with that thought:

1. Current investors could easily run screaming from such a change.

2. Again, there’s no evidence that we have people who would invest in soccer clubs that want to get promoted. In fact, the current leagues of choice are cheap amateur leagues — PDL, W-League, NPSL, WPSL.

If, over time, these teams find that they’re ready to make the leap up the pyramid, they can. But the vast majority of these clubs are in no position to be forced up the pyramid, and they dang well know it!

Let’s reiterate this:

- You can move up the ladder in American soccer if you have the capital and facilities to do so.

- Most clubs choose not to do so.

So how could anyone think there are tons of investors who would invest in soccer if they had a chance to climb the ladder through on-field performance? They can already do so, and they’re not.

3. U.S. Soccer knows this. So they’re not going to ruin the most stable league they’ve ever had by forcing teams to move up and down.

And no amount of personal attacks, no jabs at MLS’s TV ratings, no scoffing at WPS’s troubles will change those basic facts.

Women’s Professional Soccer averted another court date with magicJack owner Dan Borislow on Wednesday, reaching a deal that allows his team to play an exhibition schedule in 2012 and 2013. Borislow said he has put his temporary injunction suit on hold; the suit was intended to stop the termination of his franchise.

The details of the deal need to be finalized and the plan must be approved by U.S. Soccer.

The Deal was first reported by a mysterious Twitter person who has since deleted the tweets. But it was Borislow who was most enthusiastic about it, though our mysterious eyewitness told the world that “Fitz, O’Sullivan all seemed happy.” (That would be Atlanta Beat owner/WPS board chairman T. Fitz Johnson and WPS CEO Jennifer O’Sullivan, of course.)

News of The Deal even reached Deadspin, thanks to the fabulous (and since-departed) Emma Carmichael, with the classic headline “The Banned Boca Raton Women’s Professional Soccer Team Will Keep Playing In Zombie Form.”

And yet WPS, for its part, never publicly acknowledged such The Deal. The league didn’t acknowledge much of anything.

You may have heard this week that the news has turned a little sour.

In Monday’s conference call about WPS suspending its 2012 season, O’Sullivan addressed The Deal: “What the ownership and league have been struggling to do is put the focus back on the players and this game. We were willing to consider that as an option in order to accomplish that goal.”

This morning, we learned from Beat beat writer William Bretherton that WPS owners were downplaying The Deal. And Johnson thought info about The Deal “was put out when it shouldn’t have been.”

That, of course, is the unfortunate part about going to court. If you’re read all the legal docs that I’ve put out through this site and espnW, you’ll see a lot of things that both parties might not want the public perusing. And The Deal can’t be kept secret when it’s being discussed in a public court hearing. As I said to our mysterious Twitter witness, “FINALLY! The deal is public!!!”

The details, though, were not described in public. And William quotes Philly owner David Halstead as saying WPS and Borislow were on different wavelengths.

Want to know what Dan Borislow has to say about The Deal? Let’s check the motion his legal team filed Monday:

The first paragraph complains that WPS is blaming Borislow for the suspension of the season and, for reasons that aren’t clear to me, boasting that Borislow was likely to win his case. The second paragraph says there’s no point in having a Feb. 1 hearing on an injunction if the 2012 season doesn’t exist, suggesting that the parties meet by telephone instead. (That meeting has apparently taken place.)

Then it gets interesting (emphasis mine):

Further, as the parties reported to the Court at the January 16, 2012 hearing, the parties have already reached a complete settlement of this case on agreed terms, certain of which were read into the record. Notwithstanding the latest announcement by Defendant, it continues to be Plaintiffs’ position that this is a settled matter. The only open issue, that is, U.S. Soccer Federation approval, remains pending, and Defendant has a continuing duty to cooperate in good faith in such efforts. It now, however, appears that defendant is attempting to renege on the settlement.

And then the fourth paragraph says, “Hey, we still have a deal.”

So what have they agreed to do, and what might Judge Sasser — who has already ruled against WPS even on issues that seemed to be cut and dried such as jurisdiction of this case — compel WPS to do?

I’ve written a check to the State of Florida and filled out a request form to get audio recordings of the Jan. 16 hearing and the telephone hearing. It might take a few days, but I’ll let you know.

Then there’s this from “RealTalkIowa,” the latest nominee in our “Anonymous Genius” series:

Must be the fat chicks and little Asian kids are spending too much time at the library.

Maybe this is why the Duke atmosphere is thought to be fading. Dukies used to be mean! I mean — they threw Twinkies on the court when Dennis Scott was introduced! Coach K went scrambling over to apologize to Bobby Cremins.

But when it comes to sheer obnoxious hostility, Duke simply can’t compete with the Anonymous Geniuses of the Web. Those days are gone.

For the record — Duke is just getting harder and harder to get into, and out of an undergrad population of 6,000 or so, it’s no longer realistic to expect 20% of them to find the time to camp out.

Fabled Cameron Crazies succumbing to Cameron monotony at Duke – NCAA Division I Mens Basketball – CBSSports.com News, Scores, Stats, Schedule and RPI Rankings.

I think a lot of bigger schools would be well-advised to study Harper’s sensible example. What would they discover if they put their athletic departments under a similar microscope? Do their teams really add to the educational experience? Or have they drifted into isolated orbits, estranged from their schools’ true purpose?

I have a feeling that if other colleges and universities had the courage to act on what they found, America would have a lot more empty football fields.

So on one hand, we’re being told that sports — particularly women’s sports — cultivate a sense of belonging and empowerment that go hand in hand with learning and developing our full potential. And yet a football team at a junior college somehow ruins that school’s educational mission?

The mismatches are one problem. Here’s another: If either Canada or the USA should slip up in the final group-stage game, they’ll have to play each other for one berth in the Games.

To make matters worse — if Canada loses tonight against Costa Rica, the USA will be in the situation of getting a much better matchup with a loss than with a win. No one thinks the U.S. women would throw a game for any reason, but just putting them in that situation would be a horrible thing to contemplate.

And then you have a meaningless “final” between two teams that have played four games in a week. Can’t wait to see that one.

Those are the problems. Here’s a solution:

1. Have a Caribbean tournament and Central American tournament for unseeded teams, as we have now. Winners advance.

2. Semifinal round: Caribbean winner, Central American winner and the third- and fourth-seeded teams (most likely Mexico and Costa Rica). Single round-robin, top two advance.

3. Final round: Semifinals winners and top two seeds (most likely the USA and Canada). Single round-robin, top two go to the Games.

Certainly fairer than the European system of basing it solely on World Cup performance. It’ll be a strange Olympic tournament without Germany.

There are a few changes:

• RB: Heather Mitts for the injured Ali Krieger
• CB: Becky Sauerbrunn for Rachel Buehler
• LB: Kelley O’Hara for Amy LePeilbet
• CM: Lori Lindsey for Shannon Boxx
• RM: Megan Rapinoe for Heather O’Reilly
• LM: Amy Rodriguez for Tobin Heath

Education affects sports performance. Think of it as a gym for the mind. Sitting through classes hones concentration. Incorporating studies into life trains discipline and focus. And studying for finals prepares one for stress and pressure. Every player on Canada and the U.S. has either finished college or will soon. I can say the same for only half of the Mexican womens team. Even fewer on the Mexican mens team, but dont get me started on them. Boys are forced to quit school to enter fuerzas basicas, which is the pro system. It is a flaw on the Mexican mens side, but thats another article for another day.

via Monica Gonzalez: CONCACAF must close the disparity gap – espnW.

1. There’s a lot of money flowing into big-time college sports.

2. They should give some of that money away toward charitable causes.

3. But wait, many athletic departments are actually losing money. So …

“The first obligation is to restore fiscal sanity by using [the savings in salary] to plug that hole,” says Zimbalist, who also proposes reducing the number of football scholarships, having FBS schools cut spending on nonrevenue sports and instituting an NCAA football playoff.

The Zimbalist here is Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College professor who has done pretty much all there is to do in sports economics, from research on Ken Burns’s odes to baseball to a Title IX analysis with advocate Nancy Hogshead-Makar.

(I do have to mention that Zimbalist appears in Long-Range Goals, testifying on behalf of MLS players in their lawsuit against the league, much to the bemusement of Soccer America columnist Paul Gardner:

The players called sports economist Andrew Zimbalist to show how Division I competition could have driven up salaries. (Rhett) Harty’s 1996 salary, to give one example, would’ve been $115,275 instead of $41,356. Gardner was unimpressed: “For an entire session, this totally fictitious exercise dragged on, as the good Professor Zimbalist revealed charts and calculations to ‘prove’ what must have happened had a whole series of improbable conditions existed. They never did exist.”)

In the case of college sports, Zimbalist certainly understands the issue. It’s just curious to see him and SI‘s Alexander Wolff tossing aside nonrevenue sports as collateral damage.

But that’s not the first time we’ve seen such a suggestion from SI. Or elsewhere.

So if you believe in college soccer, swimming, track, volleyball, wrestling, lacrosse, tennis, golf, etc., you might want to start speaking up.

(The first “war on nonrevenue sports” post is here. I’ll start tagging them from now on. Not that I’m hoping for more.)

I have to start with a disclaimer, of course. If there’s a dispute between the UFC and ESPN, then I’m in the bad situation of being beholden to both sides. I’ve done some freelance work for ESPN, though none for Outside the Lines and very little (one story) relating to MMA. I also have reasons for keeping up good ties with the UFC.

So in writing about the dispute over the Outside the Lines story on UFC fighter pay, I’m either being incredibly stupid or simply trusting that all involved will be kind enough not to hold anything against me.

But frankly, no one should be horribly offended by anything I’m writing here. This is really more of a summary for those who didn’t get a chance to see the full broadcast Sunday morning or the rebuttal the UFC has released. And it gives some insight into the steps the UFC is taking as it continues to move into the mainstream.

The first thing you may notice if you’ve watched both pieces is that the UFC isn’t really refuting many of the points offered in the piece. That’s because the piece wasn’t particularly damning. SB Nation’s Luke Thomas called it “a tepid piece on fighter pay.”

But many UFC fans didn’t watch the ESPN piece. They’re only going to see what Dana White releases in response.

So many fans may think that the clips of Lorenzo Fertitta in the UFC rebuttal didn’t air in the ESPN piece. Most of them actually did. The consensus among most sources I’ve read is that Fertitta came across quite well.

One major exception, released earlier, is a clip of Fertitta turning the tables on his interviewer to point out how little some fighters on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights are paid. Judging by the Twitter reaction, people think Fertitta “pwned” ESPN with that bit. But the more knowledgeable MMA fans or media watchers know that ESPN isn’t the promoter of Friday Night Fights. It’s not ESPN’s job to determine how much the undercard fighters are paid.

Nor are the undercard fighters on those shows in any way comparable to UFC fighters. In MMA terms, Friday Night Fights is the rough equivalent of Shark Fights or a decent regional promotion. And the ratings reflect it. UFC draws more viewers for undercard fights than Friday Night Fights draws for its main events.

The rest of the UFC’s video consists of fighters Chuck Liddell (retired, now in UFC front office), Forrest Griffin (active) and Matt Serra (somewhat active) talking about the UFC’s generosity. Their testimony would be an effective counter to the ESPN piece … if ESPN’s Josh Gross hadn’t made exactly the same point on the program. Gross even brought up the UFC’s generosity toward fighter Dan Miller when his son needed surgery, which says a lot more about White and Fertitta’s kindness than the testimonies of established stars ever could.

The most effective rebuttal in the UFC video is a clip of Ken Shamrock telling Tito Ortiz that they made good money. That’s a subtle shot at Shamrock, who got a fair amount of screen time in the ESPN piece claiming the UFC has near-monopoly power in the MMA marketplace. OTL host Bob Ley noted on air that Shamrock also had recently lost to the UFC in court — a Nevada Supreme Court appeal over the interpretation of his contract and whether the UFC owed him another fight.

Let’s go back to the word “monopoly.” Aside from Shamrock’s comments and an awkward exchange between Ley and Ricco Rodriguez, a fighter who would have no claim to make it back to the UFC on merit at this stage, ESPN went into little detail about the monopoly issue. I don’t recall a mention of Bellator and certainly didn’t hear anything about its purchase by Viacom.** A few months ago, White said the Viacom purchase makes the UFC “the Mom and Pop” brand by comparison. Hyperbole, perhaps, but the legitimate question the UFC could raise is why fighters choose their entry-level contracts instead of a Bellator deal. Or a deal with Shark Fights or any number of well-intentioned regional promoters.

Outside the Lines did mention that ESPN UFC* bought Strikeforce. It didn’t mention the other once-viable competitors — EliteXC, Affliction or any number of Japanese promotions. Most of those imploded on their own. Can’t really blame the UFC if Affliction overpaid all its fighters or if EliteXC pinned its hopes on a former backyard brawler who was hyped as something huge but was never really a top-20 fighter.

But that’s not the point the UFC made. And it’s because the UFC knows it isn’t arguing in front of a judge or jury (at least, not here — in a case that reached the august pages of The Economist, the Federal Trade Commission is having a look-see). Fertitta and White know they’re arguing in front of fans, many of whom are enamored of the UFC’s pugnacious approach to things. So they’re arguing to their audience, many of whom flocked to applaud White on Twitter and on blogs.

In all likelihood, there’s no harm done. Fertitta says fighter pay has been going steadily upward in recent years, and that’s likely to continue. (A sadder story that might be worth some investigation: When will fighters outside the UFC earn decent money?) Entry-level fighters certainly shouldn’t be any worse off after ESPN’s scrutiny.

As for the rest of us, we can only hope that whatever battle the UFC may fight with ESPN doesn’t cause any collateral damage that makes it more difficult for us to enjoy watching and reading about this impressive sport.

* – In the initial post, I got my abbreviations confused and said ESPN bought Strikeforce. It did not. That would’ve been interesting.

** – The Gross/Barr podcast describes problems they had getting Bellator to participate. And Gross noted skepticism over Bellator in the MMA community, saying their contracts can be restrictive.