crashcarson15

I did notice that the Field of Dreams jerseys aren't on the Majestic/standard template — this may have been covered at some point in the thread, but I wonder if Nike will finally move over to its own template next year? (Side note: these half button-up jerseys are interesting.)

Yeah, I mean on the Watson suspension, I think there are a million things to criticize the NFL on, but the best protection for the league is Watson not playing this year, if ever again — the NFL would get some good PR for looking tough on sexual assault, and Watson and Cleveland are both pretty disposable from a public interest standpoint. This is about as bad of a spot as the league could actually be in — there's plenty of other AFC teams that could make the playoff instead of the Browns and not make the story about things other than football.

On the plus side, it's better than the last set, which felt dated the minute it was released between the beveling, random "modern" piping and incorporation of both navy and black that felt more apt for 2007 or 2012 than 2017 (or 2022, now). Overly minimalist isn't my favorite approach to sports design so I don't love this (the sooner the 90s cultural zeitgeist gets back into sports branding, the better), but it's pretty coherently done and I actually kind of really like the white jersey? I love the Cavs leaning into inline lettering and the gold inline on wine lettering looks great — I wish it came with something more (and the black jersey is pretty brutal), but it's fine enough for me.

The big free agent choosing to go to Columbus is a Thing That’s Not Supposed to Happen, which is both really cool and means that a bunch of people from Real Hockey Towns are big mad on the internet. I’m excited and maybe I’ll pick up the phone the next time a Blue Jackets ticket rep calls!

I still don't see MLS happening in Indianapolis without a significant ownership change, and figure that if anyone with real money in the city had interest, they would've already joined or put in a bid. The moment for Indy probably came and went 5ish years ago, and I don't think the genocide denier current owner has anywhere near enough money to get it done. I don't see that changing even if this stadium-as-a-front project finally gets off the ground. (The current club would probably be wise to stop fighting with its supporters group over [preemptively redacted to avoid a MOD EDIT], but hey, they're free to do whatever lets them drift more and more into irrelevance in the market.)

I think it is far more likely than most people assume that the Big Ten (and SEC) will stand pat for the next several years than rapidly expand; I know it's easy for us to jump to some "world domination" concept, and maybe we get there eventually once we're a lot closer to the ACC's GoR expiring, but this is all about increasing the TV revenue share for each current Big Ten school, and if the Big Ten thought that Oregon and Washington would do that, they'd already be in the conference (not to mention, why would UCLA and USC want to share the west coast recruiting landscape?). At the end of the day, there aren't very many programs that truly move the needle left outside the Big Ten and SEC. There may be a point where Big Ten and SEC schools are willing to give up money just for the sole purpose of choking out the ACC and Big XII, but I don't think that's going to happen soon and don't think there's necessarily real value in it to either conference right now. EDIT: Also, Notre Dame could not care less about Stanford. That series is a convenient excuse to get to play in the Bay Area every other Thanksgiving for recruiting/donor/general happiness purposes, not an actual rivalry.

There has been a really clear directive to use navy-lettered, gold-outlined elements on all green items since UA took over, and I hate it. It's surprisingly difficult to find pictures of them online, but the jerseys ND wore in the '95 Fiesta Bowl are the best green jerseys they've worn — it's white numbers outlined in navy, with gold being used as the trim color to tie into the helmet and pants. It's a perfect way to include navy in a way that's balanced and complements the green and gold, rather than trying to outshine them: The reverse jerseys they wore a few years earlier in the Sugar Bowl — green numbers outlined in navy on a white jersey — are pretty damn good as well. It's something I'd like to see ND lean into more, as it's a great look for the women's basketball program: Speaking of women's basketball at ND, the old green jerseys under Adidas had the same number treatment I'd love to see on the green football jerseys and thought it looked fantastic:

There's a lot of ways you could describe Notre Dame's draw, but I wouldn't use "lucky" or "a nice gift" in a million years. Pretty much everyone expected ND to be of the 16 national seeds easily and had them in contention to be one of the last top-8 seeds (and be in line to host a Super) — having to travel in the first place was bad enough; going from a potential Super host to having to go through Tennessee is even worse. I would like to think ND will strengthen its non-conference schedule after two straight years ND's gotten the shaft by the committee, but it's wildly frustrating because northern schools generally don't get too many chances at this. ND would've probably beaten any top-8 other than Mississippi State last year with how well they were playing in the tournament, and I fear we may end up saying the same thing after this weekend.

We're talking about getting to LAX?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe those are also the only six men enshrined in the Hall of Fame wearing an Orioles hat. Seems like pretty straightforward criteria to me.

I'll reserve full judgment until they're released or we see higher-res photos, but honestly, I might ... really like these? I love oversized sleeve cuffs/stripes on baseball jerseys and think this could really work.

To say that Charlotte or Nashville, or even Las Vegas or Portland or San Antonio (etc.) aren't viable markets is to say that like, a third of the markets in the league aren't viable — all of Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and St. Louis sit in that 2- to 3-million metro population band, Milwaukee is even smaller and does quite fine, and the White Sox are more or less a small-market team at that. If we're going to say that Charlotte isn't viable, you might as well contract 10 teams while you're at it. Are there "home run" markets out there? Not really, but there haven't been any "home run" markets available for expansion or relocation since like, the 60s or early 70s. It's already happened, but the long-term transformation of Major League Baseball is into a fandom model that more closely represents what you see in Europe from an attendance standpoint, not what we're used to seeing in other U.S. sports. It's perfectly fine that some teams draw 20,000 a game and others draw 45,000 — the economics of baseball are designed to give the former team more or less a hope of being good if they're run well, but I also don't think it's a crisis if there are small teams in baseball. Nobody's going to build new ballparks anytime soon outside of relocation and expansion, but I do think the wave would be 25,000- or 30,000-seat, more intimate ballparks that allow for more sellouts and a better overall atmosphere. Part of the reason PNC Park rocks is that you don't have three levels of luxury suites and a club level between the lower and upper bowl. Lean in on the game-day experience, and if that means turning a few thousand fans away during the postseason when you do make it, well, that's an OK tradeoff for making the ballpark a cool place to hang out. Coors Field is far from intimate and we can debate whether "Denver's Coolest Bar for Midwestern Transplants" makes for a good baseball strategy, but the Rockies draw really well for a pretty mediocre team in a mid-sized at best market. I think it's perfectly fine if that becomes what like, half the league's game-day experience is.

While we're on the topic, at one point, the Cubs, Reds and Indians all shared the wishbone C — and the Reds were the last to adopt it. The Cubs had a wishbone C from 1930-1936 and 1940-1956, and Cleveland used it from 1933-1972; the Reds wore one from 1934-1960, then picked it back up in 1967 for good. Sports logo design used to be really different; it's kinda neat to have relics of that era across sports, IMO.

It's a really good rule change and is very much the ideal football overtime. I've already seen a lot of, "what does this solve / isn't it still unfair if both teams score touchdowns?" to which the answer is that the second team to possess the ball should always go for 2 if it scores a touchdown, setting up pretty close to a true 50/50 proposition, which should be the whole point. You could even make the case that deferring the toss is preferred (similar to college), which is a neat little strategy wrinkle. Having different rule sets beyond necessity in the regular season and postseason is silly, but this pretty much solves all the issues of the existing system.

My radical baseball take is that the easiest way to "fix" the game would be to expand to like, 48 or 60 teams. It will obviously never happen, but there were 24 major league teams in 1969 and there's only 30 today — the talent pool has grown far, far faster than the number of major league roster slots, which means the average player is so much better, which leads to the natural development state of the game. Starters get pulled after the second time through the order because each team has like, five guys in the bullpen who throw gas and can work an inning each at a time. You get the three true outcomes because everyone has filthy pitchers, and you get more shifts because the only way to beat the filthy pitcher is to hit it over everyone's head, and it builds on itself. If you dilute the average level of play with a bunch of guys who are in AAA now, each team is more flawed and the game probably drifts back to a more "natural" tactical state. It obviously won't happen, but I think what we've seen in the game over the last couple decades is just the natural evolution of tactics as the talent level gets higher and higher.

There are a lot of criticisms that can be lobbed at the Athletics and Guardians' owners, but I don't think "they obviously don't care to compete" is one of them — Cleveland is the fourth-winningest team in baseball since 2013 with a World Series appearance and Oakland is the fifth-winningest team since 2018. The financials of the game are a structured in a way that some of the best players in the sport make are going to make $700,000 this season, and the best players don't really make anything near their true market value until their sixth or seventh full season. That doesn't happen in other sports, and it creates this environment where half the league is more or less now trying to emulate the Rays. It is wildly frustrating that the Guardians aren't spending any money at a point where they have a perennial MVP candidate signed to the best contract in baseball and a Cy Young winner making $6 million, but I also completely understand the club's desire to just like, be solid enough every year that eventually, you get the right sequence of prospects and guys to click at the right time and make another run.

Man, this sucks.

Who turned the Nike time machine back to like, 2011? Those uniforms are brutal.

Minor correction here — Notre Dame-Navy was scheduled for 2020 in Ireland; Nebraska-Illinois was scheduled for 2021 in Ireland.

With how bad the quarterback play has been, it's almost a miracle that the Browns are 7-9 and won't lose to an objectively bad team all season. Their only good win is over Cincinnati, but hey. I've been pretty firmly on the side of running it back all year — it's very clear that Baker Mayfield has been physically hampered since Week 2 — but I think that's an increasingly difficult sell. He's exposed plenty of limitations that aren't injury-driven over the last few weeks, I don't know that much of anyone in that locker room really wants him there, and now it sounds like he's going to make the "personal decision" to wrap it up for the year after months of insisting that he's healthy enough to play and, in turn, hurting the team week-in, week-out. The Browns are in a tough spot, in that they already picked up the fifth year on his deal and have made a sizable financial commitment to him already for next season, but you have a Super Bowl-calibre defense and, when healthy, a Super Bowl-calibre offensive line and run game. They don't have a Super Bowl-calibre pass game, even when healthy, which means they should do something here.

I'm just gonna say, this is a really good kit. I could nitpick some stuff here and there, but I figured Charlotte would go with an all-black look and I'm really glad they didn't. It's a distinctive look on a classic style — kinda reminds me of the Diamondbacks' initial home sets in that blend of "modern colors on a traditional canvas" — and I hope they stick with it going forward.

The more I see the Guardians’ “C” logo around, the more I like it. Really shines in social media avatars and the like, IMO — there’s that hint of dynamicism that just wasn’t there with the block “C” logo. I’ll be curious what it actually looks like on red-brimmed 59FIFTYs once those roll out.

The Barstool Sportsbook is pretty dangerous, and it's the first thing that's made me actually feel uneasy about the legalization of sports betting in America. Anyway, I do think the one other thing with Barstool is that generally, it does a good enough job of putting on a front to make following Barstool or listening to Pardon My Take or Call Her Daddy a perfectly fine thing for most people my age who aren't Online. They aren't getting into the misogyny and racism, it's just funny content. Hell, just look at the "Barstool [College]" or "Barstool [High School]" accounts — Portnoy and friends have gotten the "Prez isn't gonna you" guys to create these huge school-associated social media presences tied to the Barstool brand for free, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone who does left-wing social activism on Instagram also re-post something from Barstool IU or Barstool ND or whatever, because to them, it's a school spirit account. To me, that's more important in the broadcasting discussion — the meatheads built the base, blow money on the app and their store, etc.; but the common acceptance of Barstool makes something like an MLB partnership acceptable.

The new Fiorentina kits are great, minus Kappa’s insistence on using their underarm panel as a design element on every :censored:ing kit they have this season.

Yeah, for my money, the '10-'17 Cavs set would've been excellent with the paneled shorts like in the original jerseys they were modeled after: It's an overused statement sometimes here, but I really do think the Cavs got it right the first time. The feathered script, the color balance, lack of anything but wine and gold on the jerseys themselves. IMO, they've never looked better, and the prior set left out the one thing that made the inspiration work best.