Digby

That's sad about Embiid's condition, but also, he was at Draymond levels of dirty play last night and absolutely got top-ten superstar treatment in not getting tossed.

I'm not one of those people who roots for your league if your team itself is knocked out -- we don't have the coefficient stuff in North America, rivals can go to hell, MLS is ridiculous anyway -- but I have to say I like the idea of "Columbus, Ohio: continental powerhouse". Obviously MLS will take credit as if they even want that team to exist. How long before Nancy makes the leap to a European side?

9 minutes ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Pardon my lack of knowledge, but what's wrong with Soldier Field? Doesn't it have historical significance? I know it's old as dirt, but so is Lambeau, Wrigley, Fenway, and half the stadiums in college. If it's just a matter of modernization, couldn't some renos be done and save say, $4 billion dollars?

It was modernized, but disastrously so. Not that that rationalizes everything that's happened since, but it does explain it. The three stadiums you've mentioned did modernization right. Somewhat shockingly competently in the Ricketts family's case.

5 hours ago, tBBP said:

Which underscores how good an idea it is to think beyond the box sometimes regarding hyper-localized identities. I mean shoot, Vegas just did it. There's nothing about Vegas that infers anything about knights (unless some sarcastic peazy somewhere wants to bring up the Excalibur), and that doesn't even address the irony of the Golden Knights playing in the Silver State. Yes, we all know how why the team has the Knights nickname, but the point is that sometimes fun branding is fun whether [hyper-]localized or not.

 

I think the hyperlocal stuff is largely the product of Nike putting its full weight into the City Edition-ification of all that it can (even if the roots of that probably trace, before that, to soccer). New teams get to start there, so lucky them.

That said, I'd also suggest that part of this is because we're going on a century in some cases of pro sports as an established cultural/economic force... and several decades of the merch-selling, in particular, being an enormous economic piece of the pie. So it's getting harder and harder to do something new. And that's not just the capitalist cynicism of attention being more valuable than quality. There's also the legal element, as evidenced by a Utah pro team nickname getting legally scuttled by a college team mascot on the other side of the country, which is insane. 

So there's a level of clever trendiness but there's also this piece of being forced to come up with something comically specific and difficult. I do some day-job work in the drinks industry, and the craft brewers have completely run out of reasonable names for beer. With that industry being so localized, I think it's insane that trademark disputes mean two individual beers (not even breweries) can't share a generic-ish name if their distribution areas are time zones apart. But, here we are, and now every new beer I see has a name like a Fiona Apple album title. Same gist.

I don't know that the Mardi Gras color scheme works in a hockey context, at least not this particular one. But the 90s scheme of purple with sky-blue trim seems like a versatile no-brainer regardless of which direction the name might go in.

Honestly I really dig the beehive/mountain combo design motifs that DetroitHockey has been using in coverage, and it's a sharp color scheme too. But I suppose a bees theme are too Blue Jackets (and opens the door to something corny like the Utah Buzz), the mountains and colors are too Avalanche, and the mountains are doubly beaten to the punch by Real Salt Lake's new jersey.

(Honestly didn't even realize Utah changed their flag until all of this -- new one is pretty good!) 

4 minutes ago, bowld said:

Maybe instead of Black Diamonds they could be the Utah Double Blacks?

 

Much like what I might say at the top one of Snowbird's peak bowls, I'm not sure we want to go down that one.

25 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

 

I definitely think there could be something there, taking from something like these. It would fit the old-time hockey feel.

 

 

I've always thought the (New York) Jets should have branded around something like this but with vintage travel posters instead.

Love the aesthetic of those posters, but I was even thinking something less travel poster (agree on the Jets though) and more outdoors-gear emblem.

Relatedly, Utah's ski resorts are particularly well-represented among resorts with strong mid-to-late-century modernist designs. Best aesthetic for that industry, IMO.

On 2024-04-20 at 10:44 PM, ruttep said:

The Bruins posted this graphic and all I can think of is how much better the centennial uniforms would be in this shade of gold

I was hoping that's what we'd get for next season and beyond. At that point I could at least live with the weird stripes and white numbers. 

I've always pushed for a retro ski vibe for one of the mountain-region MLS teams but it would work for hockey too. Maybe even better, as a winter sport. Especially at this current moment where REI-chic is still pretty on-trend. Maybe he got a focus group to tell him that the practice-jersey Jazz was simply too galaxy-brained to work.

On 2024-04-22 at 3:32 PM, DJT said:

Ryan Smith said on the Pat McAfee show they will do a bracket to choose the name. Pat and other people on the show booed. 

Qualtrics guy is gonna use his own stupid product to make this happen. Cool cool.

I don't think it's worth expending braincells on the possibilities, this particular Cleveland Browns situation reeks of "sure grandpa let's get you to bed" more than anything with much actual chance of happening.

2 hours ago, Glover said:

Also isn’t it a bit ironic so many people mock sunbelt teams for playing in cities filled with northern transplants, and belittle the fans for being arrogant. Wouldn’t this mean all those arrogant fans are actually transplants from the traditional hockey markets?  I don’t know - just asking questions. 

Lots of overlap with the northern transplants who moved so they could buy a McMansion and performatively proclaim how much they couldn't stand snow-shoveling a couple times per winter. They're not missed back home.

Revs were competing for Supporters Shield with a pretty similar roster at this time last year. This year they have 4 points from 8 games and lost in historic fashion in CCC. Is a Petrovic-level keeper even more valuable than we ever imagined? What is Caleb Porter doing on the training pitch that's making Bruce Arena, of all people, appear to be a tactical genius?

There's no way a competent branding process can't spin out an identity in a couple months, but the placeholder name schtick fulfills three needs of the design industry as it stands in 2024:

1. replacement of craft with as many stakeholder meetings as possible

2. cynical marketing scheme for the first year of Utah's existence -- drag out a whole extra year of drama and intrigue

3. supply chain issues are still real, but self-inflicted; the likes of Fanatics and Nike who've "optimized" so much that they backed themselves into a new version of total rigidity

Zion and Jimmy both sustaining significant injuries in the "play-in tournament" really rubs me the wrong way. The suits will cry, why can't we get our star players playing more often? Well, stop setting up traps that get them hurt in fake-important games to miss the games people actually care about.

22 hours ago, MDGP said:

 

They're also both clearly AI, which makes sense as they just look like every esports logo on behance but rendered sloppily when looked at for more than 3 seconds.

Yeah but of all the owners in the Big Four, who's among the most likely to galaxy-brain the first AI logo, with totally annoying press materials to announce all of it?

On 2024-04-05 at 9:30 AM, Brave-Bird 08 said:

The more MLSNP can look like its own league and serve other communities, the better. 

This seems blazingly obvious to me, and yet. Feels like we're in some neverending loop for farm-system thought of "It would be better for development to have our farm players train with the 1st team on-site... It would be better for business to build separate brands and serve a different market..." repeat ad nauseum. 

The Revs are having their team, creatively titled Revolution II (was that the French Revolution?), play a few matches up in Manchester, NH this season. Seems smarter to me than having Gillette look even emptier than usual. But they might be too late with the way various levels of USL teams are taking off around New England.

Jack Edwards just rather abruptly announced that he's retiring at the end of the Bruins season, too. Gotta say that one's come as much more of a relief. 

On 2024-04-15 at 1:39 PM, BBTV said:

Oh I HATE HATE HATE that I start reading an article on a blog, expecting it to be something insightful about the team, then I realize the beginning of the article is just setting up for the rest, which is all about gambling.  I don't care that people do it, but the way it's infiltrated nearly every medium is nauseating. 

It's not just that, it's all over the broadcasts too. Pregame and halftime shows are more useless than ever, and the studio bros seem to RELISH talking about gambling stuff even as they also awkwardly tiptoe around whatever rules are governing it. Weird uncanny effect that's no fun at all.

3 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

Didn't they do that last year, too?

I think they've done it as long as the CCs have been around, yeah, but then last year there were other seemingly random times when they'd wear them for a whole series. I still abhor them and I silently judge anyone I see wearing the merch.

Well, edibles are marketed and sold to professional classes for whom weed is no longer a taboo, not the people of the street. Plus old habits die hard. Smoking all sorts of things in public is a societal annoyance that's nothing new though. 

(Also, side effect of legalization is that corporate dispensary weed suuuucks. It's like if we ended Prohibition, but the only legalized alcohol was Bud Light, and half the bottles came out of the brewery flat.)

10 hours ago, who do you think said:

I'm not dismissing the Bucks just yet. I still remember the 2010 Celtics being similarly disappointing in the regular season before flipping the switch for the playoffs and nearly winning the title.

Yeah sure but who did those Celtics have in charge? 

...wait.

(However: One of the most egregious screw-ups is that the Bucks, whose home/road splits this year are hideous compared to their competitor teams, lost home-court for a prospective Knicks series in the 2nd round.)

9 hours ago, who do you think said:

 

I hate to say it but every Gorman game I caught this season sounded like he was mailing it in pretty hard, like he was abbreviating his usual calls. It reminded me of old ass Motley Crue and how old, fat Vince Neil doesn't have the lung capacity to sing the full lyrics anymore so he just Hulks it with only the essential words.

Oh definitely, he's lost a few steps in recent years. Even despite that I'd rather listen to him than most others; there's still plenty of the echoes of why he was maybe the consummate professional PBP guy in history. (And also it's the nostalgia factor. I still miss Tom Heinsohn, for all his flaws.)

The new guy is fine as far as Gen-Z'ers go and has good intentions, apart from trying too hard to go viral. I like that he's not afraid to give it right back to Brian Scalabrine when he's being obnoxious (which is most times). Just tough to get used to Generic Sportscaster Voice on the telecast. Still maddening that Sean Grande didn't get the gig. 

Bucks fell to the 3 seed on the final day of the season after being 2 seed basically the entire year. Doc Rivers finishes his half of the season with a losing record. One of the worst self-owns by an NBA franchise I can ever remember.