DG_ThenNowForever

Then it sounds like the fakes must be pretty good to get past the leagues' own watchdogs. PDF plugins take a while to load, can crash, and yes, can carry viruses. They're also a pain on mobile browsers.

Point or order: I'm not justifying anything. I'm simply explaining (which again, doesn't mean "justifying") my opinion of why a black market for NFL jerseys exists. And yes, if the NFL wants to protect its IP, it should actually protect its IP. It's what major corporations do, and it seems like hiring eBay monitors would be well within the scope of the NFL's or Reebok's normal IP protection processes. But I don't know; I don't work in IP protection. Also, black markets do indeed exist for consumer electronics because people can't afford the originals. It's regrettable, but again, explainable for many economic reasons. EDIT: It's also standard practice to warn people they're clicking on a PDF. EDIT again: SOPA has nothing to do with this and is better left way off of this board.

Can't that argument be made for any kind of theft, not just IP theft. There are a lot of things that I would like to have that are out of my price range, that does not mean that its ok for me to purchase them on the black market. Also, replicas are much less that $300, additionally, I have purchased many (litearlly dozens) of licensed jersey that are in great shape on the cheap through ebay. It's hardly jerseys that are knocked off. Watches, collectibles of all stripes, handbags, shoes and so on. There's a black market for every conceivable luxury good out there, and jerseys happen to be the one in our particular wheelhouse. I think they're becoming more apparent because the reseller market (like eBay) is flooded with them, and that's where people go when they either 1.) think nfl.com prices are a rip-off, or 2.) forgo the main retailers altogether because their buddy told them about a great deal online. I've made a variety of arguments in this thread, but in all honesty, I'm mostly coming to live-and-let-live. If you want to pay full price for jerseys on nfl.com, go for it. If you'd rather buy whatever you find on eBay, that's your right too. At this point, I think it's incumbent on the NFL to react to the secondhand market; either by strongly policing eBay, or by adjusting its prices on its jerseys available online. I'll also say that I'm not sure why anyone would take umbrage with "it's an economic argument," when it so clearly is. What you do with that statement is up to you -- I'm just stating that there is a basic economic issue at play.

Taking two different things said by two different people and making them into one argument tends to yield awful logic. Kind of like the whole thread, no? There's nothing, really nothing, that can predict what a city is going to be like when it gets a franchise. Seattle sold out the Kingdome for soccer in the 70's, then had less than 5,000 people a game at Qwest Field before being the number 1 team in MLS in attendance. One of the largest cities in the world, Los Angeles, does not even have a franchise in it's country's most popular sport. You can cite minor-league attendance, neutral city tv ratings or histories of previous incarnations but none of it is predictive. But MLS soccer in Seattle was the perfect nexus of hipster tribal identification, consumerism, and faux-European styling that appeals perfectly to this region. What innate qualities does NHL hockey have to appeal to Houston? At the risk of impugning another of America's second-tier cities, but there's no football or baby-back ribs in hockey, so what's the point?

I wonder what the NFL is losing by continuing to push the terrible screened jerseys at $80. For the average user, if you go to NFL.com, your options are $80 for crap, or $300 for "authentic." You go to eBay, and you see tons of sewn, nicer jerseys (certainly compared to the screened) for $50-$75. If you're not aware of the illegalities, you'd be dumb to go for the screened version. Yes, there is such a thing as too good to be true, but I think (as I've said before in this thread) the NFL is in part creating this second-hand marker by the way its official items are priced. Note: I'm not making a moral or legal argument; only an economic one.

For now. Their fans will start whining again once the Big East loses "Automatic Qualifier" status the next time the BCS makes changes to their system. No kidding. While I think pick-ups plus Cincinnati, Louisville and USF make for an interesting football conference, it's definitely not the Miami, Virginia Tech, Pitt and Syracuse conference that actually made sense for AQ status 15 years ago. It most just looks like Conference USA redux, with the new worse-ever conference name. Good luck though!

I thought this was cool for how bad it was way back when: That's pretty terrible. There really isn't anything good about that uniform.

They say luxury, but then you have either the choice to pay $5,000 in monthly HOAs for the massage parlor and staffed bar or give it all up because it's only you and Greg on the third floor that live in the building, and Greg's kind of an .

This has such a weird science fiction feel to it. I feel like the whole thing is just a microcosm of the recession. Just a ziggurat of terrible ideas contained herein. Are there condos? There have to be condos. Hopefully $500,000 one-bedroom condos. Probably an empty Krispy Kreme too.

Two and a half teams are turning a profit. How does this league still exist? EDIT: That is to say that only a handful of teams are doing well. And, by my count, 13 are running deficits. Seriously, why aren't we seeing wholesale contraction?

Two and a half teams are turning a profit. How does this league still exist?

I wonder if this latest realignment will give the Big East the courage to tell Notre Dame to either join as a full member or go screw.

Because the Big East set themselves up to be THE dominant basketball conference and are tragically realizing just how much of a priority football is over basketball. They were in denial just too long and now they're paying for the bad timing. You're exactly right. So then, why can't we just have football-only conferences and let basketball and other sports shake out accordingly?

As a Syracuse fan, it's really sad to me to see what's happened to the Big East, but at least my team is on to greener pastures (in football, at least...). I just wonder if there was a moment pre-SU and Pitt defection that the Big East could have been more offensive. There was a lot out there picking up Kansas, K-State and others. I wonder why they waited to get poached when the writing was clearly on the wall that it was eat or get eaten?

I'm not sure I get the argument here. Are we supposed to say that it's okay that the Rays have crap attendance even though they have a winning team? Or that they shouldn't shouldn't be a candidate for relocation because, eh, Florida? Florida has sports fans -- lord knows they show up to football games. Why not baseball?

Has there ever been an MLB stadium that supported two teams simultaneously? I wonder if someplace like DC, Atlanta or LA could add the Rays in an extant park. There many obvious obstacles to any of those cities, and scheduling would be a nightmare, but I'm just wondering if there's precedence to that kind of arrangement.

I think it's a really great look, but as you say, you barely ever see it. Perhaps it's an out of sight, out of mind thing. I feel like "Carolina Panthers black jerseys" never shows up on the random NFL listmania threads.

Contractor bids are routinely coming in very low throughout the region on major projects. So long as the economy is depressed, it'll continue to be this way. It's why we should be far more interested in major infrastructure spending than whatever it is Congress is doing. At least people get it on the local level.

I kind of like hip logos, no matter what uniform they're on.

I think this is one of the top five looks in the NFL.

I know I've said this before (maybe not in this thread), but these are among my favorite sports uniforms of all time:

They did. Oklahoma then went and joined the ACC. Twice over.

The NBA is a far, far bigger priority for the Seattle/Bellevue area. I add Bellevue because any new arena is much more likely to be built in the suburbs any time soon. There's money and political/private leadership to get something done, whereas in Seattle we're sitting on our thumbs wondering where to build bike lanes (we have a pretty worthless mayor with a pretty limited constituency right now). An NHL team in the Seattle area would likely be a tagalong benefit to getting the Sonics back, but far from a driver of any arena effort.

The Stanford caliber schools will never consort with a jumped-up community college. They've said as much. To add, and I may be naive here, Boise doesn't have any other worthwhile athletics (like basketball, at the least). The Pac-12 is collectively competitive in every sport.

The Big East managed to live without Miami and Virginia Tech, so I assume that losing WVU wouldn't be that big of a deal. Plus, those Big XII schools have to go somewhere; what's to keep any of them from joining the Big East? People have been predicting the death of the Big East ever since the BCS started. It hasn't happened yet, and I don't think WVU moving to the SEC would do it.