FiddySicks

Except that everything about it screams "fake." The jersey mesh, bubbly numbers, shoddy sleeve logo and super-tight neck. It's lasted 6 years. You put a replica through a fourth as many wash cycles and it's destroyed. And people wonder why anyone would buy fakes...

Not that I care one way or another what you do with your money. I'll tell you that if you like details you will probably not be happy with the Freeman jersey. The ship patches on the arms of the fake ones look really bad. You can easily tell they're a fakes, which might not be a big deal what other people think, but it would bother me personally that they look so bad. The Buccaneers scrips on the center chest usually looks really bad too. You can get away with fakes with teams like the Packers and Colts and Raiders, teams like that. But with detailed patches and scripts like the Bucs, that is when you can really tell the poor quality. Frankly, it doesn't bother me all that much. For $20 you get what you pay for. I'd rather have a fully stitched jersey that doesn't look 100% correct that was cheap than have a screen printed jersey that begins to fall apart after two washes that was 5 to 6 times the price. ...and this infringes on your constitutional right to own a Packers jersey? When did I ever say that?

Ok, I have to admit it to someone. I broke down and bought two fakes today. An Aaron Rodgers green jersey with the Super Bowl patch and a Bucs red Josh Freeman jersey. I have a few fakes that I purchased from fan fests that looked so spot on it was hard to initially tell they were fake (Peyton and Eli Super Bowl jerseys), and I have one or two I've bought that look pretty iffy but I haven't been able to find that particular player anywhere else (Mike Alstott white, my absolute favorite player of all time). I expect the Aaron Rodgers jersey to be really close, and the Freeman jersey to be a bit spotty, but still not awful. I know the objections, and I agree with a lot of the points. But IMO the quality of fan jerseys have plummeted over the years and the price has done nothing but go up. When I saw the Gronkowski jersey that was posted in a thread earlier that was a terribly flimsy screen printed jersey that cost $100 or more it really outraged me. A bunch of you won't agree with my decision to support the fake market, and I don't blame you. But when there is a wider selection of jerseys available than the NFL shop offers, and when the quality is miles better than the screen printed shirts they offer for 1/5 of the price, it's hard to turn down. With all of the negatives of the counterfeit world, I hope it at least forces the NFL to offer a quality product for a more reasonable price. The market is so monopolized on jerseys it's almost insulting what they charge for such low quality crap. I know it's a rogue market with a TON of problems, but I hope it can at least force the NFL's hand in offering quality products. I'm not trying to convince anyone, and I know some of you will always be firmly against the idea, and your entitled to feel that way and rightfully should. But for as bad as these fake markets are, I like that they at least give people the choice and maybe in some inadvertent way, it can be a good thing. If the quality was better and the price was more reasonable, I would never turn to the fake jersey market.

This has been done a good dozen or so times on here, but I still always like these threads MLB Giants: Mom is from San Francisco, her father was a fan since the day they came to San Francisco and he was a bat boy for the Seals when he was a kid Cardinals: Dad is from St. Louis and grew up going to St. Louis Browns and Cardinals games A's: Worked for them in radio and worked for their AAA Club in Sacramento NHL San Jose Sharks: Thanks to Puckguy and ICS for this one Philadelphia Flyers: I'm not entirely sure why, but I've been a Flyers fan since I was a kid. Saw then get stomped by Detroit in 97 and the rest is history NBA Kings: I could care less about basketball, but the Kings are the closest pro team to me Warriors: Bay Area team, the bridge in their logo is cool NCAA Football Tennessee: Family is from Tennessee, got me into Vols sports before I could comprehend what sports were Nevada: Home town team Arizona State: My school NCAA Basketball: Nevada: Home town Tennessee: I like Women's college B Ball better than men's, but i could care less about either, really EPL/MLS: Chelsea: Only soccer game I've ever been to was LA Galaxy vs Chelsea in Beckham's first ever game with the Galaxy San Jose Earthquakes: Local team. Current incarnation bores me, but the pre Houston version with Landon Donovan was awesome NFL Buccaneers: Because I was a foolish child who made a poor decision and now I'm stuck with them. Oh well, still love the s**t outta this team Raiders: Local team who aren't the 49ers (who I don't hate, but am just totally indifferent to), my cousin played tight end for them for a few seasons

Add that to the fact that it's freaking San Diego State, who's known more for drunken idiots and drug raids than they are for success on the field or in the classroom, and you've got the most pathetic attempt at saving a conference you could imagine.

Ok so the ACC raised their exit fee to $20 Million, so what? Sure they voted on a higher exit fee in order to dissuade teams from leaving, but who were the ones voting? The schools themselves or some hastily assembled panel of supervisors or beneficiaries? It seems like they just pulled that number out of their asses, what's to stop a school from giving them the middle finger and NOT paying their old conferences a dime when they bail? If conferences can pull exit fee numbers out of thin air like that, why can't schools just refuse to pay them? I dunno, it just seems like something that would be hard to back up legally if they just randomly decided within the past few weeks to raise their exit fees.

One thing that has been mentioned here before that I heard on ESPN Radio tonight is that a good chunk of schools lose a ton of money on the non-revenue sports, and only make it up because of the money their football teams bring in. With the potential of a lot of teams moving to conferences that will only lengthen their travel distances, how is this going to affect these non-revenue sports? If sports like Mens Tennis are losing a ton of money right now as it is, how is this type of realignment going to make things better? Will the extra money they gain form moving to a better football conference really cover the extra losses in those other sports? The more I look at it, the more I think that realignment should be held strictly to football. I mean why not? Teams like Notre Dame and BYU basically do this anyway, why can't other schools do the same?

Don't overreact or anything...

No s**t, you guys too? I started my own school last weekend, Sawmill Pond College, and we also just signed a major deal to join the SEC before the 2013 season.

You might want to try your math again when you add up the three scores, but at least you finally see what the data shows. And where are you getting UNR is one of the fastest growing universities? Enrollment hasn't really spiked up since 2007. UNR's 4-year graduation rate is 15%. It's 6-year rate is 48%. Less than half the undergraduates finish school in six years. It's tough to grow when people are leaving. I meant physically growing. Apparently, according people in the area, there are cranes running every day, and they're apparently going to renovate their stadium. Look, I'm probably the biggest Nevada Wolfpack supporter on this board, went to the university (Didn't graduate form there due to many reasons, class offerings was one though), and live about 50 miles from Reno, but the idea that UNR could be accepted into the Pac 12/4/6 is really crazy. Sure, the city is growing, but that's mainly due to lower real estate prices than just across the boarder in California and the fact that work is insanely hard to find in this part of the state. Nevada's economy for the most part depends on two things, the fortunes of their meal ticket to the west, and gambling. California is in debt up to their eyeballs right now, and Nevada is paying because of it. EVERYTHING in the state is underfunded, including the school systems. Nevada has by far one of the worst educational systems in the entire country in terms of funding. Both UNR and UNLV have had major financial cutbacks in the past few years that have all but crippled their educational offerings. And when it comes to gambling, just look at the city of Vegas. You'd be hard pressed to find any other area of the country that was hit worse by the poor economy than Vegas. It's gotten so bad in Vegas that people are leaving at a faster rate than coming into town now. I for one would be giddy as a schoolgirl to see the Wolfpack find a way to join the PAC #, but there is simply no way that either of the Nevada Universities have the resources to do so any time soon.

If TAMU bails on the big 12 for the SEC, where does that leave some of the other schools? Texas I would assume would go independent, and with their resources including their own network, they could do that very easily. But where does that leave Oklahoma, and to a lesser extent, Texas Tech?

They were both invited to the WAC already. They both declined.

Honestly, I'm not a fan. I know they represent the 4 Super Bowls the Packers have won, but something about those four diamonds on the corners of the ring just throws it off.

I want to say that at least a handful of those schools have already turned the WAC down.

I feel like Sheri Lewis every time I read this thread

Aaaaaand this argument goes round and round..... Everybody with me now!

Montana would be a GREAT addition to the WAC, as would a school like North Dakota State to give them a natural travel partner.

Ok, so here's my biggest thing when it comes to fake jerseys. Take a look at each of these examples. Buster Posey Jersey Joe Thornton Jersey Josh Freeman Jersey Emmit Smith Florida Jersey (Probably not historically accurate) Sure, they're not perfect, but they're TWENTY FIVE BUCKS. Unless the pictures are completely deceptive, those are the nicest $25 dollar jerseys I've ever seen. If counterfeiters overseas can sell a jersey that is fully stitched with multiple layers of tackle twill on the logos and numbers for that cheap of a price and still make a profit, then why can't the real companies at least make their prices reasonable? There is no earthly reason why anyone should spend $300 dollars on a shirt that cost almost nothing to make. And sure, that website is based overseas and charges a $20 flat rate for shipping. But even so, two jerseys plus shipping is STILL cheaper than it would be to buy one :censored:ty replica at the mall. I get the argument of intellectual property theft, but when there is such a stranglehold on that property that prices are gouged as bad as they are, and there is an alternative out there that is nearly as good for a fraction of the price, can you really blame people for taking the cheaper alternative? IMO, this is a problem that the major sports leagues caused themselves by monopolizing the industry. I just hope that the solution to these types of problems come when the leagues decide to offer the highest quality products at reasonable prices, rather than continuously spend money to shut these operations down. If they were to do that, then there would be no reason why anyone would have (want) to look for an alternative.

But this isn't true at all. It's super easy to spot these fakes. The numbers and letters really are that bad. You can spot them a mile away, especially for teams that have anything more than standard block fonts. Sure maybe if my grandma were to buy me a jersey that'd be a problem, but the only time I buy fakes is when it's hard for me, someone who is obsessed with this stuff and roams these boards daily, to even tell the difference. I have an Alstott fake where the numbers are so damn close to the authentic I have that side by side it's hard to tell which one is real. The logos are a bit off and that's the dead giveaway, but it cost me like 10% of what the real one did. I also have two fakes that are the Manning brother's Super Bowl jerseys. Those were even harder to spot (only the cut, which is BARELY off is wrong), and are of awesome quality. The guy who sold it them me made them out to be the real deal. I don't think he was purposely trying to rip me off, the price was too low for that to be the case. I just think that unlike us, he was closer to the general public when it came to spotting jersey fakes. But still, if you had the choice to drop three bills on an authentic jersey and miss your team's game because it's blacked out, or 30 bucks on something close, and actually have money to go to one of the team's games, wouldn't you normally choose the second option? Hell, in that case, the NFL has ZERO room to bitch!

I have a pretty big jersey collection, and two or three of them are counterfeit. No matter if it's supporting the wrong cause, or it's criminal, or whatever you want to call it, spending $30 on a jersey that is so close to an authentic that most won't even notice (and those who do have to look pretty close) is a much smarter investment than spending nearly $80 on a cheap screen printed shirt that'll fall apart in the wash in less than a year. You can knock counterfeit jerseys all you want, I still find it to be less criminal than the prices they charge for the real ones.

Maybe an Eastern/Western: Eastern: Colorado Utah AZ State Arizona Wash St Wash Western: Oregon Oregon St Stanford Cal USC UCLA I'm pretty sure USC and UCLA are the furthest east of the old Pac 8 Schools. Or at least the easternmost "travel pair" It also seems kind of funny to put Washington in the east and UCLA and USC in the west, when Seattle is actually further west than Los Angeles.

So because Berkeley and Colorado embrace counterculture lifestyles they're just a bunch of liberal nut cases? You do realize that, despite their acceptance of other lifestyles, they're still two of the top schools in the country, right?

I would think that upon hearing the news that Boise is leaving for the MWC, that the University of Nevada, Reno was pretty darn happy to get them out. They're a very strong basketball school and have won the WAC several times, they've won the WAC in football fairly recently and if not for Boise St would have a few more WAC titles, and aren't really all that bad in baseball. At this point I'd put them at the top of that conference with Fresno State just a smidge behind (Although their recent baseball success could very easily put them in the top spot).

I don't care if the names have historic value, having a conference with 12 teams called the big ten and one with 10 teams called the big 12 is easily the most stupid thing that could possibly happen in college football, and college football is the KING of stupidity. Just change the names of the conferences or this is gonna make about as much sense as the BCS.

Let the madness begin...