Digby

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.

14 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

This outlines the local success of City Connect. People in Boston would understand this uniform selection, and if City Connect is supposed to do what its name says, this is how you do it. 

I think this was the original plan for this City Connect jersey. But they were deemed such a success that they eventually got worn for another series later in the year, and then random series throughout the year, and then the manager said that this season they would be Saturday home game specials, so I don't really know what to expect at this point. But in theory, yes, your point is correct, it just requires a level of restraint from the marketing suits that we don't see much.

34 minutes ago, SportsFan12 said:

I thought the Red Sox were doing red on Friday, CC on Saturdays and white on Sundays? They’ve worn the yellows the entire series. What a joke.

It is Marathon weekend, so there's a plausible reason to deviate from the plan at the moment. 

It's Mike Gorman's last regular season game doing play-by-play for the Celtics and there's all sorts of pomp around it. Hard to imagine the team going forward without him, he's been as much a piece of the Celtics as any player or coach over the course of my entire lifetime. One of the last of a dying breed, I've always liked hearing a classic Dorchester accent while watching a Boston team.

9 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

I heard on PHNX that Ryan Smith plans on rebranding the team once his purchase of the team is finalized.  

If you've ever wanted to know what early-era Stadium Series special jerseys would look like when worn in 100% of the games...

The infamous Norby is finally out at ESPN

58 minutes ago, McCall said:

Can't wait for those City Connect uniforms... 

 

DISconnect?

Best "Connection" will just be raiding the closet of the apartment they're squatting in. Major League RiverCats, baby.

2 hours ago, GDAWG said:

RIP Major League Sports in Oakland, California (1960-2024)

The Roots/Soul could really feast if they could get a solid stadium setup in Oakland proper, I think. Seems like the sort of community where lower-league soccer could thrive, especially with the MLS offering being a moribund franchise out where it is. 

55 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

A’s made it official, moving day is October 1 to Sacramento.

 

https://x.com/Athletics/status/1775898900282687717?s=20

The turning off of replies is very funny to me. I thought the PR playbook would suggest keeping them open to let the people have an outlet. Not like anyone who watches baseball is unaware of all that's going on with this situation.

The ESPN headline on this said the A's are playing here "before Vegas residency", which I thought was unusually clever for their newswriting desk, and also a good way of not just making a Vegas joke but also making it clear how much nothing they've planned will really feel like a home.

38 minutes ago, zubazpirate said:

Not to get too off topic here, but ATL doesn't "feel" like a big airport, let alone the world's busiest. It just feels like a bunch of small/midsized airports mashed together and connected by PlaneTrain. 

 

It has nowhere near the gravitas of a place like Hong Kong, Dubai, Heathrow, etc.

This is true, but also why ATL is the worst of all worlds. I've flown out of there and the TSA setup, at least at the time, was among the very worst I've dealt with, and the longest lines outside of the Boston JetBlue terminal in an early holiday-adjacent morning.

I actually prefer the numbers as they are on the right chest under the swoosh, but (pet niche interest alarm goes off) I think it would look better if the swoosh and number were moved up, so that the collective unit of the two is what gets vertically aligned with the crest. As it stands, it's the swoosh only that gets vertically aligned with the crest, which makes the number look more like an afterthought and lends a sense of imbalance to the layout.