Digby

I am a lifelong New Englander and I have never heard Rhode Island associated with lightning bolts. I mean yeah, there are thunderstorms there, but there are thunderstorms most places. I love the crest, but I figured the "bolts" were just supposed to suggest a badass-looking grappling anchor. Making the bolts so prominent on the jersey makes it look like an unlicensed Philadelphia Union kit. (Also tragic that the sponsor is some low-cost airline that'll fold in 3 years, and not a classic RI brand -- give me a Narragansett jersey, or Del's Frozen Lemonade)

Garber: Leagues Cup! Silver: In-Season Tournament! Garber: Apertura/clasura! Silver: Replace the season with four mini-tournaments and a game of Horse!

I'm expecting just another white vs. yellow game given the precedent, no? Just not sure which team will wear which color.

I would argue that there hasn't really been anything extra compelling beyond Tyrese Haliburton having a real emergence/the Pacers becoming a sort-of "Cinderella". Otherwise I think we've had the same mixture of fun games, bad games, boring games. The Pelicans laying a wet fart in a win-or-go-home semifinal doesn't support the idea that this structure has magically elevated the stakes and the entertainment value. It was just a bog-standard disappointing Pelicans game from any year of their existence... just with a distractingly ugly court design and a sleepy crowd that may as well not have been there.

I would think that the Bucks' light blue City editions are dark enough to wear against white jerseys, but light enough to contrast with this stupid court, despite sharing a blue hue. But then, why wouldn't they wear those tonight? I'm giving up trying to read any sort of logic into all this.

Tournament or no tournament... turns out the arena atmosphere is pretty terrible at an early-season, neutral-site game that starts at 2pm local on a Thursday. I've heard rowdier crowds in the G League.

Might be a special case, given how radioactive the Timbers have become as an organization. But also, in this corporatized era of the game, kind of a nice throwback. It's like the EPL before the sketchy gambling sites took everything over, when the big teams would be sponsored by massive multinationals but then the lower-table clubs would still rock like, local fuel distribution firms and paint companies.

Sorry for the double post here but all of this is getting more confounding the more I think about it. Why is the court blue and red -- and candidly, hideous shades of both of those colors -- when the entire tournament branding has been hitting us over the head with black and metallic gold? And if you're going to push the City uniforms as effective primary uniforms for this tournament, why would you not ensure that that initiative works in harmony with your court initiative for same? Everything about this In-Season Tournament feels undercooked by half.

How is a black uniform against a blue-and-red court a contrast problem? And how is one team wearing white and one team wearing a too-pale, too-light shade of yellow NOT a contrast problem?

from the mothership, on the new Rhode Island FC team coming to next year's USL-C. IMO these feel like designs from 20 years ago, and not sure going with a navy home kit is a smart idea when your whole thing is that you're a half-hour away from the Revolution in Foxboro, but ok. Does anyone think lightning bolts when they think Rhode Island?

I've found all of it to be grating. The sycophant announcers pumping its tires, the obnoxious aesthetics, the bizarre confusing competition structure, the idea that watching a 1-seed's starters run up the score on a lottery team because they have to. I guess it is sort of compelling to watch a team chase a 30-point differential, but it's compelling in a junk-food way. Solving these purported problems -- poorly-run franchises that don't compete in May, and people who don't like basketball that much don't watch the early season -- feel like cynical ploys.

It is a bit like an FA Cup giant-killer run by a club who'll never be national champion. Or it's like a pro NIT to throw a bone to the league's middle class of permanent mediocrity. Can't decide which.

There have already been too many visual distractions about everything but the gameplay when you're just trying to watch a basketball game these days. Let's not give them any more ideas.

If you do go for the upper deck, get section 12 or higher. The lower-numbered sections out in right field just face out toward the bleacher seats instead of the actual action, and IMO are some of the worst seats in MLB. The third-base line does a better job of kicking the seats to view back toward the diamond itself like modern parks do (and also, obviously, don't go down as far, due to the Monster). I've always find the upper deck in left field to be my favorite seats actually, though you're kinda parallel to the Monster. But you get a nice view of Boston and the diamond up there, plus very chill and open concourses instead of some of the rat tunnels down below.

I'm sure the NBA *could* fill a stadium in certain markets for certain special games but a.) not sure anyone cares or ever will care about the December FA Cup to really go for it, the way a Final Four game would, and b.) basketball games in dome stadiums kind of suck? The T'Wolves at least would build temporary, arena-sized stands around two sides of their court when they played in the Metrodome, but that's a lot of money and space wasted. Then again, I have no idea why people pay three digits to watch a Winter Classic game with 15 yards of white blankets between the ice and the front row of seating. That at least has the made-for-TV element going for it; the Sofi Stadium roof thing is cool but it's not going to add much to my basketball-viewing experience. Can't imagine templated jerseys for the tournament being a good idea. It will make the whole enterprise look even more like Summer League. And this is an event we're supposed to care about *more* than the average regular season game.

It is funny to me that "learn to code!" is still being shouted (with schadenfreude, and with dubious faith) at a time when, as you surely know, the bottom has fallen out in tech, without any real sign of turning around. Everyone DID learn to code during the Covid recession and now the job market's oversupplied, even if you're senior. If anything, the makework of mid-level management in comms is a safer bet for an ex-journalist, because there always seems to be a need for more publicists, somehow. Never mind coding, way more important to learn organizing right now. And maybe the trades.

It's totally the casinos. The rumor already was that Cuban and the Adelsons were already planning to partner on facilities whenever Texas gets around to legalizing sports betting, this just starts their partnership early. If I'm a Western Conference team I'm thrilled that this happened with Cuban staying in charge. A continued future of gambling fratbros and former marketers leading basketball ops, twice-failed coaches leading the bench, misshapen rosters around a generational talent. (And also a bottom-5 brand in the league with so much potential just sitting right there, but that's our problem.)

I hate to agree with Dan Shaughnessy, but he recently noted with both Pop and Belichick how the grumpiness of older figureheads in the games seems less charming when they aren't winning anymore.

Whoa, how did this take from 2017 end up in this thread?

I tried to read the original but I can't even find it buried underneath the cruft of the "modern" Deadspin site, which made me nostalgic for the simple user experience patterns of 00s blogs and how that was a signifier vs. Big Media, but then eventually everyone fell into a middle-ground line (the single column for mobile but the layers of garbage and Outbrain ads cluttering it all anyway). No wonder it's all TikTok and podcasts now. Anyway, maybe Defector got their design and tech team, too.

Similar to the off-putting, uncanny vibe that was put off by that Mariners fauxback where they just recolored the current look in royal, yellow, and off-white. Time and a place...

I changed the channel over to this game and reflexively yelled out loud, I was so startled. And I live in this apartment by myself.

Boston just put their starters back in and instituted a Hack-a-Drummond strategy with 7 minutes left and a 30-point lead over Chicago because they needed a big point differential for Tournament reasons, I guess??? If someone blows out a knee ligament in one of these games, on one of these stupid painted courts, because they need to pad the score to "advance" ...

Kyrie Irving getting his paychecks signed by an Adelson. *chef's kiss*

Last year the MLS playoffs were disarmingly normal -- one game per round, winner advances, approx one per week without weeks off in the middle -- but only because they were forced to get the whole ordeal over with before the Winter World Cup. Apparently the origin of this "3 game series but only in the first round" thing was because Apple TV wanted more playoff games to show than there would have been had the rounds just been single games. Which is a bit of a funny shift from the general MLS history as, to @LaGrandeOrange 's point, it's usually been about ticket sales vs paltry media rights. Of course they will never tell us ratings with this purely streaming setup, but based on the chatter I've read and heard from my MLS circles, nobody was watching those extra games anyhow, they torpedoed themselves with meaningless play and momentum-destroying schedules. I actually do think more playoff games / letting lower seeds get a game or two is a noble ideal -- get people in stadiums for playoff atmospheres and hopefully they're hooked. But I continue to advocate for a return to the classic two-leg home-and-home rounds to do so. Play games 5-7 days apart and it's still over with in just over a month when the schedule is right.