Category: Sports

Mostly stuff about football…

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The Bobcats’ Road to Nowhere

You know that things are bad for a sports franchise when the local media runs stories about how the owner is not selling the team. From WCNC’s web site:

Bob Johnson said Monday he remains committed to the Charlotte Bobcats, who have struggled to win and attract fans since he paid $300 million for the expansion franchise four years ago.

Johnson laid off nearly 40 employees in the past month to save money, and three top executives have left the organization. But in an interview with The Associated Press, Johnson said he has no intention of unloading the team, and will spend what it takes to get the Bobcats to the playoffs for the first time.

So… the Bobcats recently laid off 40 people, are $4.3 million over the salary cap, hired Larry Brown as their new head coach… and no one in Charlotte cares. Johnson even sold a stake in the team to North Carolina icon Michael Jordan in 2006 and gave him complete control of all personnel decisions (something that Jordan was less than stellar at with the Wizards) and still no one comes to the games.

The Bobcats have run up a stellar .332 record in their brief history, and all the while Bob Johnson has been drowning in red ink, first by charging outrageous prices for Bobcats tickets, then trying (and failing) to start a regional sports network, then pissing off local businesses. Oh, and let’s not forget the now-defunct Charlotte Sting, a WNBA franchise Johnson started that no one in Charlotte even remembers. And now Wachovia, the Bobcats’ biggest financial supporter, is having problems of its own. The team continues losing, and it continues to be one of the worst draws in the NBA (24th out of 30 teams last year).

How much longer can Johnson afford to throw money at a team that no one wants?

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FCC Sides with NFL Net

The FCC has taken the side of the NFL Network in the network’s ongoing feud with Comcast.

In a nutshell, it goes like this: the NFL wants Comcast to include the NFL Network on its basic cable package. Normally, “contracts of carriage” between cable networks and cable providers state that each household pays a certain rate (say $1/month) for a channel, multiplied by the total number of households each provider has. So if, for example, Time Warner Cable wants E!, and E! costs $1.25 per household month, and TWC has 100 million households, then TWC must give E! $125 million a month to carry the channel on their cable systems.

Comcast thinks that the NFL wants far too much money for the NFL Network, so they want to put it on an optional “sports tier”, in which case Comcast would only pay the NFL for each household that subscribes to the tier. The NFL is opposed to this, as it effectively limits the number of people that will get NFL Network. The only problem for Comcast is this: the cable provider also owns Versus and the Golf Channel, both of which are sports channels that the company happily provides on their basic package.

Look, there’s more than enough blame to go around in this situation. The NFL is being greedy and demanding too much money for their product. But they also have a point in that the network will never get off the ground until it appears on basic cable tiers. And Comcast is being disingenuous when they whine that NFL Net costs too much money… all the while pimping two basic cable sports channels that they happen to own.

According to Ars Technica, the FCC on Friday sided with the NFL Network on at least two issues surrounding this bitter dispute. For starters, the Communications Act of 1996 “forbids a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) from discriminating against content providers ‘on the basis of affiliation or nonaffiliation’ with the MVPD”. This means that Comcast can’t offer programming by Comcast-owned stations while at the same time discrimination against channels owned by others. The FCC also found “evidence suggesting that Comcast demanded a financial interest NFL Network programming in exchange for carriage, another violation of the agency’s rules”.

According to FCC rules, the issues will now go before an Administrative Law judge, who will send recommendations for action to the full FCC within 60 days.

Maybe… someday… NFL Network will show up on Time Warner Cable!

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An Interesting Statistic

If you’re a football fan, you probably know that people have been debating for years about the “best way” to have an overtime period in tied games.

The NFL uses a “sudden death” system. There is a coin toss, and the team that wins the toss almost always opts to receive the kick from the team that loses the toss. 15 minutes are put on the clock, teams are issued two timeouts, and the team that loses the coin toss kicks off to the team that won the toss. The game continues as if “fifth quarters” were a normal part of the game, except that the first team to score points in any fashion wins.

For years, people argued that this system wasn’t fair. The team that won the toss, they argued, could simply drive the ball down the field and kick a field goal to win.

For this reason, the NCAA adopted a different system for college football. In this case, there is a coin toss, and the team that wins the toss can opt to go first or second. The ball is then placed on the 20 yard line and the game clock abandoned. The team on offense can try for a first down, throw to the end zone for a touchdown, or can simply come right out and attempt a field goal. Once the offense has either scored or turned the ball over (either on downs or via turnover), the other team gets the ball at the same 20 yard line, and has to either match the first team’s score (in which case another “overtime period”  is played), or exceed the first team’s score (in which case the second team wins). If the game should exceed three overtime periods, teams must attempt a two-point conversion after scoring a touchdown.

Continue reading “An Interesting Statistic”

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Tony Kornheiser Must Die!

Have you ever played that “game” where you sit around with a bunch of friends and talk about who you’d kill if you could get away with it? OK, so it’s more “drunken rambling” than an actual game… but still, I think every group of friends has, one boozy night in a bar, sat around and talked about people they’d shoot in the head if they knew they could get away with it. And last night, my friends, I found the person I’d kill: Tony Kornheiser.

Tony KornholeTony Kornheiser (detractors predictably call him Tony Kornhole) is a sportswriter and ESPN talk show host. Worse yet, he’s been a member of the Monday Night Football crew since 2006. And he’s one of the most annoying people on the face of the earth.

I was watching the Steelers squeak by the Ravens on MNF last night. Mike Tirico was doing his usual great job calling the game. Jaws occasionally hit us up with his incredible football wisdom. And Tony was there with his lame non sequitors and random “observations”.

Who the hell is this guy, really? And how does he have a job on Monday Night Football? I mean, I never ever thought I’d ever utter the phrase “Bring back Dan Dierdorf!”, but here we are. Tony has made me that way. Tony Kornhole is so fucking annoying that I don’t want him fired from MNF… I don’t want his vocal cords removed and his hands chopped off so he can longer communicate with the outside world… no, I want him dead, so he a) cannot create little Kornholes that might one day follow in his father’s annoying footsteps; and b) Kornhole would not be able to communicate using a complex system of foot taps or eye blinks.

Now, you might be saying to yourself, “gee, that’s kind of harsh. I mean, with all the strife in the world, why not kill someone more meaningful, like Richard Gere or our current president?”. Well, you’d have a point. In the greater scheme of things, Tony Kornhole is pretty insignificant. And he really doesn’t ever say anything controversial, like “I don’t think Michael Vick did anything wrong”. It’s not like he’s the Rush Limbaugh of the sports world or anything. He’s just… annoying. I don’t know how much ESPN is paying Kornhole, but if all they wanted was someone to say inane things like “The Bears treat offense as if it’s bubonic plague”, they coulda hired me for far less money!

Amusingly, for someone that’s gone through life as a critic, Kornhole just can’t seem to take any criticism himself. When Stephen Rodrick wrote an article for Slate asking why Tony was allowed to argue aimlessly on television, and also asking why Kornhole’s Washington Post column “was being used to plug side projects rather than gather news from cited sources”, Kornhole called on Slate, and The Washington Post, to fire him. When Paul Farhi wrote in The Washington Post that Kornheiser had “emphasized the obvious, played third fiddle, and was reminiscent of Dennis Miller ‘in a bad way'”, Kornheiser called Farhi a “two-bit weasel slug”. Nice! So you can sit there an criticise others, but not take it yourself, Tony? What a jackass!

Enough rambling for today… I just… hate Tony Kornheiser in a way that I’ve never hated a broadcaster before. Well, any human being, really. Tony must die!

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Goodbye Yankee Stadium!

Like any red-blooded American, I hate the New York Yankees. I’m not even much of a baseball fan, but the loathing I feel for the Yankees transcends the sport and fills every fiber of my being. That said, I’m profoundly sad today, as this day – Sunday, September 21st, 2008 – marks the end of an era. After 85 years, Yankee Stadium is closing its doors, soon to be demolished to make way for “New” Yankee Stadium.

Miles of ink and acres of trees have been consumed by sportswriters talking about “tradition” in sports, and baseball in particular. Much of what they write about is sentimental pablum, the sports equivalent of “kitten rescued from tree” stories you see at the end of your local newscast. Let’s face it: no one will really miss Three Rivers or Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

But losing Yankee Stadium is different. It’s the House that Ruth Built. It’s the Cathedral of Baseball. 15% of all postseason games and 21% of all World Series games in MLB history have taken place in Yankee Stadium. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Don Mattingly, Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Sparky Lyle, Graig Nettles and Ron Guidry played there. Casey Stengel, Billy Martin and Lou Piniella managed Yankee teams there. Lou Gehrig gave his famous farewell speech there. George W. Bush threw out the first pitch after 9/11 there. The New York Giants played the first overtime game in NFL history there – a game frequently called “The Greatest Game Ever Played“. The “DEE-fense! DEE-fense!” chant was invented there. Knute Rockne, Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry coached football games there. Chuck Bednarik of the Philadelphia Eagles hit Frank Gifford so hard in Yankee Stadium that Gifford had to be carted off the field; the photograph of that moment (below) is one of the most iconic in the history of the NFL. The “win one for the Gipper” aphorism originated there. Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali fought there. The first Papal Mass in the Western Hemisphere was celebrated there. Pink Floyd and John Philip Sousa both played concerts there. Nelson Mandela and John F. Kennedy gave speeches there. Even Thomas Edison was involved in Yankee Stadium, designing the very concrete that makes up The Big Ballpark in the Bronx.

Yankee Stadium is a fucking icon… and, as of today, it will be consigned to the ashheap of history. Poor Yankee Stadium has fallen victim to its lack of $2500 seats, sushi bars and cushy corporate luxury boxes. Instead of “dirty water dogs“, those rich enough to afford a game will be able to dine at the Hard Rock Cafe inside the stadium… after parking in their VIP parking decks, of course.

And once “New” Yankee Stadium is completed across the street, old Yankee Stadium will be demolished – after the Yankees pick apart every saleable artifact of the stadium, like a Sunday Dinner Chicken. As one long time Yankee fan said of the future demolition:

“I don’t think I could watch it. Once this stadium is taken down, it’s gone forever. You can’t say Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle played here anymore. Those walls have living blood in them. When that ball hits, it would be the same as me or you getting hit with a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. Those walls are alive. They are going to scream.”

It’s depressing, and it’s senseless. It makes me profoundly sad to see Yankee Stadium go. Not in the tragic and personal “the 15 year-old dog I had since middle school just died” sense. As I said, I loathe the Yankees. But still, seeing this icon of American sports go… the most famous sports arena in the entire world… go away just for the sake of progress… it actually makes me tear up, as if they decided to tear down St. Paul’s Cathedral or the Colosseum just because “they’re old”.

Goodbye, Yankee Stadium. Although I never visited you in person, I saw you hundreds of times on TV in my baseball-obsessed youth. I had always planned to go to a Yankees game there… but I never got around it it. And now, I suppose I never will.

But that’s “progress” for you.

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Druckenmiller Withdraws

Billionaire businessman Stanley Druckenmiller “withdrew his offer to buy a majority stake of the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday, saying the Rooney family needs more time to consider its options about the future ownership of the team”. According to Yahoo!, Druckenmiller “issued a statement Thursday night saying he ‘removed himself from the process’ and that it is clear that the Rooney family, which owns the Steelers, needs more time to consider its options”. Read more here.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette is reporting that “Art Jr. and three of his brothers, Tim, Pat and John, have a conference call scheduled late [Thursday] afternoon to discuss the two offers for their shares in the franchise, which combined total 64 percent. They have one offer from their brother Dan and his son Art II and another from billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller”.

So… if Druckenmiller has withdrawn his offer, does that mean that the Rooney brothers are going to sell out to Dan and Art II? Let’s hope so – although The PG is also reporting that the brothers might accept neither offer and seek other, higher bids at a later time… however, Art Jr. reportedly said that “I don’t see [a sale] immediately. I, Art Rooney Jr., don’t see that right now. We only have two people involved in this. We didn’t want to make a circus about it.”

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Tonight’s the night!

The Pittsburgh Steelers travel to Cleveland to take on the Browns at 8:15pm Eastern Time tonight.

Just for the record, “Pittsburgh leads the all-time series 57-55 (including postseason) after sweeping the Browns for the fourth consecutive year in 2007… the Steelers are 48-24 against the Browns since 1970… the Steelers are looking for their 10th straight victory over the Browns…the Steelers are 8-1 against the Browns at Cleveland Browns Stadium, which opened in 1999… the Steelers defeated the Browns, 43-0, in the first game at Cleveland’s new stadium on Sept. 12, 1999… the 112 games played between the Steelers and the Browns are the most between any two AFC teams… the Steelers have won 15 of their last 16 games against the Browns, and 22 of the last 25 contests… the Steelers have not been swept by the Browns since 1988 but have swept Cleveland five of the past six years.”

Bwahahahahahaha!! SUCK IT, BROWNIES!

(Thanks to steelers.com for the statistics)