And just like that, the old starts to make way for the new.
Category Archives: Sports
My Ridiculous and Unsubstantiated Prediction for How the Region Gets NBA and NHL Teams
(Part 1 of a Series)
So let me preface this. I have no inside information. I know nothing, have talked to no one I reference and have absolutely no reason to believe any of what I am going to write is going to happen. It’s purely a wild speculation that will be fun to look back on if 10% of it comes true.
The overarching point is this: Bellevue is going to get an NBA and NHL team, and it’s going to start playing around 2015. Here are some details of this ridiculous notion.
1) The rich people who want an NBA team back here have figured out how to change the conversation. They are working to change the question from, “Should we or shouldn’t we have a World Class arena” to “Should our World Class Arena be in Seattle or Bellevue.” It’s a fantastic tactic. Get two equally powerful groups to wage a battle against each other.
2) Once you convince Bellevue that Seattle wants an Arena, the politicians in Bellevue start making things happen. It’s a once in a century opportunity that people with power can’t pass up. Seattle is at best in a plateau, and possibly declining in economic importance. Bellevue has Microsoft, Expedia, a financial district, a huge shopping district, and the chance to recruit over any of the major tech companies with small offices in Seattle. Insert a world class arena and you could make an argument that we call the region Seattle-Tacoma-Eastside. It could even be considered like the Twin Cities. Bellevue will do its part to make the Arena happen for the promise of concerts, the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention, NCAA Sweet 16 games, the NCAA Women’s Final 4, NHL All-Star game and all the Justin Bieber you can take.
3) Now the mechanics. Let’s pick Anschutz Entertainment Group as the private sponsor who recognizes that a privately funded arena, backed by an Entertainment Group, can be hugely profitable. So Arena issue solved, provided they get tenants.
4) Tenant 1: The Tampa Bay Lightning move to Seattle. The Lightning were recently bought by a Harvard Biz School Investment Banker Jeffrey Vinik. Investment bankers keep score in dollar signs. And the CEO and minority owner of the Lighting is former Seahawks CEO Tod Liewicki. He knows this area. He’s bringing the team back here to share the spotlight with…
5) Tenant 2: Everyone knows this one. Steve Balmer leads the ownership group of the new NBA team. This happens once David Stern announces his retirement. Once the new guy steps in, he’ll need to make a bold move that gets his regime off on the right foot. And what would make him more popular with owners than to rip out a franchise that is losing money (ie the Hornets) and make the owners a bunch of money by selling it to a big city in a new arena with a Billionaire owner. Easy win.
6) A small thing to consider: The new light rail through Bellevue hits all the major MSFT headquarters, with a mysterious loop through a dead region of Bel-Red. Welcome to the future home of the new stadium.
That’s all I have towards this for now. More ideas to come later…
Gary Danielson’s BCS Idea
I have to say, I really like Gary Danielson’s BCS idea. I could try to explain it in words, but since Gary explained it this weekend, thanks to the magic of digital recording, you can watch it here. (Apologies that CBS forces you to watch a :15 Lenovo commercial, just gut it out.) I have a few other things to note at the end of the video, so scroll down at the end.
What I’d add to the idea and explanation:
– I’d make the Conference champions the HOSTS of the “Quarterfinal Games” and make Wildcards go on the road.
– In this scenario, the “Quarterfinal” games would be played this weekend. It would probably be something like Oregon, Wisconsin, Alabama and Stanford or Boise St. So for fun, your home games would be something like Alabama at Oregon and Stanford (or BSU) at Wisconsin. Are you watching anything this weekend better than those games?
– Now the two losers would still be in BCS Bowl Games, so it really doesn’t mess up anyone’s New Year’s plans. Oregon fans just wouldn’t know where they were flying until this Sunday. But they’d still have 3 weeks to plan their trip.
– The two semi-final games would be Bowl Games. So you’d have LSU vs Stanford/BSU/Wisconsin in the Sugar Bowl and Oklahoma State vs Oregon/Alabama in the Orange or Fiesta Bowl.
– The final game is played a week later.
This is a pretty genius scenario because it solves most of the issues with a playoff. 1) You only add 2 games TOTAL to the schedule and they are home games for 2 teams so there’s no problem filling the stadium. 2) You don’t mess up anyone’s Bowl trips, so college Presidents still get to take their big donors out to *ahem* dinner in Florida, Phoenix, LA and New Orleans. 3) There’s still the human element and we get to yell and scream about whether Boise St, Stanford, Kansas St. or Virginia Tech should have gotten that 6th seed. 4) You don’t extend the season any further. This years BCS Title game is Jan 9 for Christ’s sake. 5) It moves the New Year’s Day games back to *gasp* New Year’s Day. 6) It keeps the regular season super relevant, AND makes the Conference Championships important.
I think it’s a cool solution. Thoughts?
My $.02 on this year’s BCS
I don’t like teams from Oklahoma. I root against any team that Clay Bennett may possibly want to support. That’s what makes this so hard for me to say.
Oklahoma State deserves to play LSU for the BCS title.
That actually hurt me to say.
Now, do you remember the old days, when there was no overtime? In that situation, LSU and Alabama Version 1.0 would have ended 6-6. Both teams would have ended the season 12-0-1. It would be clear that we needed another 60 minutes to settle things.
However, we have overtime. We have Conference Championship games. And we have Conference champions.
Now, I would argue that the SEC Championship was a farce caused by the impractical practice of artificially manufacturing a divisional split of East vs West or North vs South. What we should have had in the SEC was SEC #1 play SEC #2. LSU vs Alabama for the SEC Championship. Winner goes to the BCS. That’s real drama. (For the record, we also saw this play out in the Pac-12. We should have seen Stanford at Oregon, not UCLA at Oregon. The divisional thing is just dumb.)
But we didn’t have that. The SEC created their rules, and their rules caused Alabama to be shut out of their own Conference Championship game. So Alabama should feel aggrieved, upset and annoyed, but they should be taking their case up with their Conference while they prep for the Sugar Bowl or whatever their best option for a non-BCS title would be.
Meanwhile…
- – Oklahoma St won their conference. Granted, the Big 12 without Nebraska isn’t the same, but it isn’t Conference USA or the Mountain West. They are a Conference Champion from a top 4 Conference.
- – Alabama has already lost to LSU. Stanford lost to Oregon who lost to LSU.
- – Boise State and Houston had to go 13-0 for any legitimate claim.
- – The other Top 4 Conference Champions have 2 losses (Oregon and Wisconsin).
So, in lieu of 2 undefeated teams, Oklahoma State is the only 1 loss Conference Champion from a Top 4 Conference.
Alabama fans – you had your chance. You actually had two chances if you count Overtime as a redemption. You blew them both. You should be out.
We should be seeing LSU vs Oklahoma State.
In the Battle of Sports Leagues, Here’s Why the NFL Wins
I don’t really have a good opening paragraph for this post. I think I have a good point, but I don’t quite have the narrative to kick it off.
Now if I was the NFL, I’d have the perfect opening. I’d have crafted the perfect phrase, and delivered a genius punchline.
The NFL started today. And honestly, besides making sure no one on my Fantasy team was having neck surgery, I really didn’t think too much about it as the game kicked off.
Now throughout the evening, as I pounded out some work, handled some wedding stuff, and ran through some old emails, I had a Yahoo page open to keep track of the score.
What started as a blowout, slowly got better. And by the end of the game, I headed upstairs to catch the thrilling last minutes.
And as soon as the game was over, I felt regret. My brain yelled at me “Hell the Saints were on! Why weren’t we watching that??!!?? They were playing Green Bay for criminy sake!!”
The other half of my brain, the calm and rational part (fine, the other 25%), then replied, “Seriously, Andy. We can’t bring the laptop to the living room? That was a good game.”
And so we had both the emotional and practical sides of my brain lamenting about my overall error in judgement. (I find it interesting that my brain never seems to find fault in itself in these matters. It’s much easier to simply cast fault at me.)
And this is why the NFL wins. This is why the NFL will always win.
Yes, the league was on strike because the owners and players needed to figure out a better way to split ALL THE FREAKING PROFITS they are making. And all the fans cared about was how it was going to affect their Fantasy Football draft.
Over in the NBA, you have a different story. You legitimately have owners losing money because they have to pay out the remaining 4 years and 40 million dollars on contracts to guys who get too fat to run up and down the floor and would rather collect their paychecks from a villa at The Palms.
The NFL is the only sport around with this kind of marketing.
1) I sign up for a Fantasy Football League out of habit and as an excuse to to stay in touch with my old friends.
2) On a random Thursday night, while working, I keep the score on in the background, to follow how my opponent’s players are doing.
3) As the score of the actual game gets close, I go upstairs to watch.
4) As the game ends, I think, “Damn, I should have watched that whole thing, and all the commercials.”
5) I go write a blog post about why the NFL is so smart.
Now, you could say, “They got lucky. It could have been 42-7 and you wouldn’t have cared.”
And I would reply – “But that doesn’t happen in the NFL. The NBA would have made sure it was LA vs New York in the opening game, and it might have been 120-80. But the NFL took the 52nd largest market vs the 71st biggest market and put them out there. Which they can do since the 71st market has the reigning Super Bowl champs and both teams have QB’s that you wish you had as brothers in law.”
A conspiracy theorist would say it’s rigged. And maybe it all is. But if it is, somehow the guys writing the NFL scripts cut their chops on Lost, Weeds and Entourage, while the NBA guys were banging out Alf, Brothers and Melrose Place (the new one, not the old one).
Now this may seem like a rant against the NBA, but it’s not. Major League Baseball has almost worked their way into the irrelevance once relished by the NHL. And each now is able to claim a rabid, but niche, fan base that can’t compete head to head. And while soccer is growing, it’s TV viewership still only appeals to people who “get” why 0-0 can be exciting.
So I’d say you have the NFL leading the way, with NCAA football doing everything it can to screw up the halo the NFL provides it. Then the NBA who is arrogant enough to deny it has a problem. Then the other 3 leagues begging for attention.
But at the end of the day, for the forseeable future, the NFL is going to dominate the mind of the rabid, casual and indifferent sports fan. From revenue channels, to marketing, to PR, to labor, to organizational structure, it’s an absolute study in how to build a successful business.
Can Ichiro Get to 200 Hits?
Ok, this graph took longer than I expected to pull together. So I hope everyone appreciates it.
The question is whether Ichiro has ANY chance at getting to 200 hits. By my count, as of Sunday 8/14, he has 133 hits thru 119 Mariner games, an average of about 1.12 hits per game. That pace gets him to about 181 hits total.
So, my math says he has 43 more games to get 57 hits, an average of 1.56 hits per game. For comparison, if you got 1.56 hits per game over a 162 game schedule, you’d end the season with 252 hits. Now, he’s been averaging 4.18 AB per game, so at that same rate, he’d need to hit .373. So, it is a doable feat for someone like Ichiro.
However, here’s the bad news. In 2011, the highest hits per game he’s averaged is about 1.4 per game. So, he basically needs to have a traditional “Ichiro-like” stretch for 43 games, in a season when he has never been “Ichiro-like.”
In the charts below, here’s what you get:
Chart 1:
– Green line is the day to day pace anyone would need to be on to get to 200 hits.
– Red line is his actual day to pace thru 2011 to date, and then the pace he needs to accelerate to.
– Blue line is his projected season hit total over 162 games, calculated by the number of hits he had at that point in the season.
Chart 2:
– Ichiro’s Average hits per game.
– What Ichiro needs to accelerate to on a hits per game basis in order to get to 200.
Let me know if you have any questions. Math is hard.
Mariners Make Us Remember What We Loved About the Sonics
Last Friday, a Major League Baseball team did an unprecedented thing. They celebrated another sports franchise. Even odder, in this case, it was a former franchise.
The Seattle Mariners didn’t make any new friends in David Stern’s office by providing the city it’s first chance to collect 16 legends from a team that no longer exists, and get them together for a tribute. And odd as it may seem, the Mariners may have been the most logical host for this type of party.
The Mariners were just entering Major League Baseball while the Sonics were having their first glory days in the late 1970’s. And then the two teams shared the job of electrifying the sports community in the mid 1990’s.
So for 30 brief minutes, a baseball stadium full of Green and Gold celebrated what we miss about the Sonics. We miss the people, the characters. We miss guys with nicknames like The Glove, The Reign Man, Slick, X-Man, Sleepy Sam, the Hawk, and Downtown. Guys who were recognizable by first name only – Nate, Lenny, Detlef, Dale, Bernie, Vincent and Desmond. We miss Michael Cage’s giant afro, Jack Sikma’s freakishly large frame, and George Karl’s Space Needle tie.
I appreciate what Jack Zurencik and Pete Carroll are doing by flipping over the entire rosters of the M’s and Hawks. But a team achieves cult status and hero worship when there’s a core group of players that you root for. You wanted Gary to get a ring. You knew that Hersey Hawkins could score 6 more points a night if he played somewhere else, but you loved he was bombing three’s for us. There was something about George and Nate that made you think you could ask them to dinner and they’d say yes.
The Schultz led Sonics never quite got that. And tellingly, no one from the last 5 years of the franchise were represented as a Sonics legend. It’s true, we didn’t adore the 2003-2008 versions of the Sonics that got rid of Gary. Ray Allen is the best 3 point shooter of all time, but he wasn’t Det. Nene, Robert Swift, Jermoe James, insert big stiff here….. none of them were Cage, Brickowski, Sikma, Lister or Perkins. When they left for OKC, we mourned the loss of the guys who didn’t actually play anymore.
I still don’t think we care all that much about bringing back a generic NBA Sonics club that looks like any other NBA club. But that doesn’t make us miss “Our Sonics” any less. Ask any sports fan in Seattle, and they can tell you where they watched Game 5 vs Denver, Game 7 vs Houston, Game 7 vs Phoenix and Game 7 vs Utah. You don’t even have to say the year. We all just know what games you’re referring to. There was a connection to those guys – not to the franchise, but to the guys – that made you happy when they won, hurt when you lost, and want to fight anyone from Phoenix.
So good for the Mariners for bringing back those guys. I hope their front office took note. It’s not about rally fires or a moose. Bring in players who are also great characters, let us connect with them over a long period, and we’ll come back to Safeco.
Willkommen Jurgen Klinsmann
At last count, there have been roughly 32,342 signings in the NFL in the last 3 days. However, in the soccer community, there was just one signing – and it was bigger than all of those combined.
Why the magnitude? While these NFL signings are all designed to make a team better this year, and maybe next year, the USA just put pen to paper on a plan to make their soccer program not just relevant, but highly competitive in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
2018, you ask? How does that work?
After years of trying, the U.S. finally convinced Jürgen Klinsman to come take over the entire US National Program. This is the guy the U.S. wanted in 2006 after he led the German team to the World Cup semifinals. But the U.S. Soccer Federation only wanted to let him run the Men’s National Team, while reportedly he wanted to overhaul the entire way we teach soccer in this country. His point was simple – I can’t be successful coaching the top level team if you give me a system that doesn’t produce elite players.
So, it took 5 years, but someone at US Soccer finally figured out something that we all have known for years. Our current system of developing the suburban rich kids who don’t play football and basketball, putting them in a system where you have to pay to play for elite coaching, and then grooming them into an army full of hustle and grind midfielders with no striking ability, makes it hard to beat teams with players like Messi and Ronaldo.
So Klinsman is here to teach us the German Way of soccer. This is better than trying to install the Barcelona Way, or the Brazilian Way. The U.S. youth soccer system is full of kids that look like German kids. So the German Way should be teachable.
It will be unfair to grade Klinsman on his performance in the 2014 World Cup. But keep on eye on how the US Under 20 team does in the next 4 years. Then let’s get excited and have high hopes for 2018.
Check out SoccerByIves for a detailed story.
Nobody asked me but, here are a few thoughts about the Sounders, Manchester United & the MLS
Nobody asked me but…
If you spent $150 on two tickets to see Manchester United play the Sounders, and were disappointed or surprised at a 7-0 score, you shouldn’t be. You SHOULD have been surprised and delighted that the Sounders first team held one of the most expensive and well coached teams in the world to a single goal in 45 minutes.
Manchester United has one of the world’s top 5 strikers, Wayne Rooney. They have possibly the greatest center back duo in all of soccer, Ferdinand and Vidic. Just about every player on their team is a starter on their country’s national team. They have one of the world’s greatest coaches. And amongst all their superstars, they have a bench full of players who happily share time supporting the studs. It’s a football factory, and really only rivaled by Barcelona. For Montero, Keller and company to play those guys 0-1 was a real surprise.
Now unfortunately, the 2nd half happened. I understand Sigi Schmid’s dilemma. In all reality, no Sounder is ever going to make the English Premier League. This is the only chance anyone on the roster has to play against guys like Rooney, Carrick, Ferdinand, Nani, etc… So as a coach, you gotta let your guys enjoy the moment, even if they are totally overmatched. And what you saw in the 2nd half was a situation where players who can’t start in the MLS got turned into mincemeat by a vastly superior group of athletes.
But there was much to appreciate about the game, even the 2nd half. For one thing, you should have been amazed by how fast all of the Man Utd players were. They weren’t just better soccer players. They would have won a track meet, basketball game and frisbee toss. Also, it was a blast to watch Rooney. It’s easy to ask, “How was he so open for those goals.” It was actually simple. He was guarded. Then he quietly snuck away about 40 yards from goal. He’d get the ball an dmake a pass. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, he’d have made a 30 yard run, gotten a pass, and put the ball in the back of the net. That’s not just one player doing his job. It’s a gifted athlete being on the same page with 10 other players and orchestrating a “play” without the benefit of a huddle.
So was the MLS embarrassed by this? I say no. People need to get it. The MLS does not and never will compete with the English, Italian, French, German or Spanish Leagues. It can, and should someday, compete with the Mexican, Swedish, Norwegian, and maybe even someday the Dutch league. It would be a perfectly reasonable goal that the MLS becomes the best league in North America, and the top feeder from this hemisphere for players to European Leagues. It would be great if the hardcore soccer enthusiasts followed the MLS to see which young studs from Columbia, Panama, etc… were going to end up in Europe. And it would be great for MLS fans if you knew that your best players were going to end up playing on top teams someday.
Part 2 on this topic to come in a follow up post.
Baseball’s Balancing Act – Fans vs VIP’s
Now, to understand where this article comes from, you’ll probably have to have known me for a few decades. So if you didn’t know me in 1988, you’ll need to imagine two high school kids going to a Mariners game, buying $3 GA tix, going up those big grey ramps at the Kingdome, and climbing the fence that separated the good ramp from the bad ramp. Fast forward a few years later, when a friend (who I won’t identify) created fake press passes. We were able to get into Mariners games for a few years before the jacka$$ screwed it up. (And that’s a different story.)
So what I’m saying is, I believe that a team should let its real fans support it, even if they can’t afford to. And the entire experience about attending a ball game should be about FAN EXPERIENCE. No more no less.
Now, baseball is kind of unique because it is something passed down from generation to generation. People like or dislike baseball when they are 3 years old because their parents like or dislike baseball. And their parents like or dislike baseball because of their parents and etc… In the grand scheme of things, the Seattle Mariners marketing department has really had little impact on whether I like baseball or not.
Which leads me to my issue.
I’ve shared season tickets since 1996. I really don’t care that much that the team has stunk for 10 or 11 of those 15 years. It’s just something I pay each year, like insurance, energy bills and gas. I own a little piece of real estate inside Safeco Field. I go to my little 2 seat condo every 6th game, pay too much for a beer, and just enjoy my 3 hours. And for 15 years or so, it’s been realtively peaceful.
So enter 2011. On one hand, I’m excited again. I’ve seen Pineda and Felix throw gems. I’ve watched the Yankees and Phillies. Dustin Ackley hit a home run. Life is exciting. What could I possible complain about?
Ushers. Yes ushers. Or more accurately, ushers crushing fans. Ushers becoming part of MY game experience. Ushers who seem endorsed by the Mariners to make the ballpark experience kind of stink.
We sit right next to the VIP section – scouts, wives, execs, etc…. And most of the time, NO ONE sits in these seats. I mean, no one. Mariner wives seemed to be on a collective cruise in April and May, because they sure weren’t at Safeco. And you didn’t see many scouts around charting Milton Bradley, Ryan Langerhans, or Michael Saunders.
Now the last 3 games I’ve attended, I’ve lost at least a half-inning each game as the same Mariners usher booted people who were minding their own business. Incident #1: A group of 10 boisterous fans who were spending a fair amount of money at the concession stand on beer. I give them full credit. They recognized that there were a bunch of kids sitting near them in their assigned seats in Sec 128. So as a group, they moved ONE section over to Sec 129, where there were 80-120 empty seats, so they could enjoy themselves without disturbing the kids. I think that’s heads-up fan behavior. And for this act of courtesy, they got booted. For being in the wrong seats. Because in the 7th inning, there was still the chance that one of the wives would be showing up.
Incident #2: Two fans are discussing the poor performance of Chone Figgins in 2011. I’m not sure this is really a debatable point. But there was one woman who took offense – Figgins’ fiance. Not his mom, not even his wife. His fiance didn’t appreciate that someone who was actually at the game, had noticed that the guy wasn’t exactly earning the money he was spending on her Gucci purse. So, the fans got booted. Apparently, you aren’t allowed to talk poorly about a player having a poor year if his fiance is in the same section as you.
Incident #3: 4 Phillies fans have tickets in Sec 129, row 30. Now, that row is super cramped, so they shoot forward 4 rows to Row 26, where only a couple of people are sitting. One of the Phillies fans starts a debate with a Mariners fan about how much better the Phillies have been since 2001 than the Mariners. Again, I’m not sure how this is debatable. The best response from the Mariners fan should have been, “But you live in Philadelphia. I’m actually glad the Phillies exist so you have a reason to get up every day.” Instead, they got booted. Apparently debate between fans isn’t allowed at Safeco either.
So my question… I love baseball. I like to go to a game and experience it the way fans in other cities do. But, do I need to just accept that the Mariners VIP’s have thin skin? Or is this uber-usher out of line for continually looking for people to boot?