pmoehrin

Don't think anyone thought it was over or thinks its anywhere near over. This will be going on for at least another year.

Is UMass still moving to the MAC for 2012? As far as I know, UMass is still going to the MAC for football only in 2012. Any move to the Big East could mean moving all of their programs from the Atlantic 10 to the Big East and I don't think they want to make that move. They are just for football, but I doubt they want to say there for long. They'll have to play there at least one year, but beyond that I think they are available so long as the Big East wants them. I'm hard pressed to see why they wouldn't. As it is now I think they could keep up with the Big East in any sport and they're budget will increase if they move to the Big East. They already looked into it once before and I think it was the Big East and not them that pulled the plug on that. The circumstances around why though I feel have changed. I don't see why not. The only thing I see preventing Umass from going to the Big East is whether or not the Big East wants them.

Big East could take a look at Umass. They came this close to joining the Big East back in the late 90's-early 2000's. Had their basketball program not had violations I think they would have. They've been a pretty good 1AA football school, basketball team has been fair to good the last few seasons, (they were in the NIT championship game back in '08) its a very large school, may not be a bad choice.

Its just disgusting anyway you cut it what's going on right now with college football. The enitre thing is being driven by greed. Just pure greed. Its not enough to be making $30 million a year. We gotta make $35 million a year and if it means we gotta screw over seven other schools to do it, then so be it. Meanwhile the NCAA is just sitting back twiddling their thumbs like they always do. No problem here, just business as usual. From them to look at this and feel there's not even a chance that schools are acting the least bit out of line means one of two things. One they are greedy, corrupt bastards who act in the best interest of collegiate sports in name only; are entirely self serving, and are nothing more then just yes men put there by the major schools to make sure the status quo is inacted so long as it benefits the big schools and is overturned when it does not. The other is that the NCAA is made up people underqualified to work as ditch diggers. People so dumb that the fact they can drive to work everyday is nothing short of a miracle that can only be explained as greatest amount of proof ever presented that god exists. One of those two must be true for the NCAA to feel that nothing out of the ordinary is going on, and that no potential for rules violations or downgrading the intregrity of the sport and of college athletics exists. Even not reading the story form The Atlantic Monthly, since 1984, SCOTUS made the NCAA a small part of the college football scene. They really cannot do much after that decision and the subsequent changes in NCAA bylaws since '84. Since then, they are not allowed to regulate the TV money teams receive. Then Notre Dame left the CFA for NBC and the SEC went directly to CBS and then Jefferson-Pilot for secondary (tier two) games. I get the whole thing with TV money, but I stand completely by what I said about the NCAA. You cannot tell me they couldn't do something if they wanted to. If they cannot speak up on issues like this, then what is even the point of having the NCAA oversee any aspect of Division 1 college football? If Al Capone were named the President of the NCAA, the system wouldn't be anymore corrupt. 1% of the NCAA's budget goes towards making sure schools abidbe by the rules and regulations set forth by the NCAA, and most of that goes towards making sure schools are in complience with Title IX. You figure out how badly they actually want to shine light on how corrupt the sport has gotten. To me its just greed at its purest form. How much money can we possibly get out of this, and to hell with the consequences both moral and social.

Its just disgusting anyway you cut it what's going on right now with college football. The enitre thing is being driven by greed. Just pure greed. Its not enough to be making $30 million a year. We gotta make $35 million a year and if it means we gotta screw over seven other schools to do it, then so be it. Meanwhile the NCAA is just sitting back twiddling their thumbs like they always do. No problem here, just business as usual. From them to look at this and feel there's not even a chance that schools are acting the least bit out of line means one of two things. One they are greedy, corrupt bastards who act in the best interest of collegiate sports in name only; are entirely self serving, and are nothing more then just yes men put there by the major schools to make sure the status quo is inacted so long as it benefits the big schools and is overturned when it does not. The other is that the NCAA is made up people underqualified to work as ditch diggers. People so dumb that the fact they can drive to work everyday is nothing short of a miracle that can only be explained as greatest amount of proof ever presented that god exists. One of those two must be true for the NCAA to feel that nothing out of the ordinary is going on, and that no potential for rules violations or downgrading the intregrity of the sport and of college athletics exists.

BTW still have the excel data sheet that gives you distances between teams for the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL NCAAF and a few minor leagues if anyone is interested.

Tiny nitpick: switch the AL with the NL. It feels weird that the Cubs and Cardinals and Giants are in the AL, and the Red Sox and Yankees are in the NL. The only reason I did it that way was I view the NL as the more established league where as the AL is the new league, even though the AL goes back to 1901. The original name of the American League was also the Western League. I really don't care to be honest though. On average I found that the AL acutually had a more eastern base then the NL did. My whole thing is just doing away with the whole AL/NL format. I could understand the reasoning for it back in 1910, but in today's game with how spread out the team's have become now, I don't see the point beyond doing it for the sake of tradition.

Seattle is pretty far removed from any other baseball city. I think they're stuck traveling longer than most regardless. There's only four teams within 1000 miles of Seattle. The Bay Area and LA teams. I tried everything with Seattle. Nothing helps without hurting somebody else more. Switch San Diego for Seattle the total milledge goes up to 1269525. As far as Toronto goes, Tampa Bay has found a way to compete. Toronto has a metro population of over 5,000,000 people. They have no right to be singing the small market blues if that's their excuse for not being able to compete.

Most efficient format distance wise I can come up with under current MLB scheduling. 72 games played in your own division, 144 in your own league, 18 outside. Total milledge for this would be 1266195 American League Midwest Division ---------------- Chicago Cubs Kansas City Royals Milwaukee Brewers Minnesota Twins St. Louis Cardinals Mountain Division ----------------- Arizona Diamondbacks Colorado Rockies Houston Astros Seattle Mariners Texas Rangers Pacific/California Division --------------------------- LA Angels of Anaheim Los Angeles Dodgers Oakland Athletics San Diego Padres San Francisco Giants National League Atlantic Division ----------------- Boston Red Sox New York Mets New York Yankees Philadelphia Phillies Toronto Blue Jays Great Lakes ----------- Chicago White Sox Cincinnati Reds Cleveland Tigers Detroit Tigers Pittsburgh Pirates Southeast --------- Atlanta Braves Baltimore Orioles Florida Marlins Tampa Bay Rays Washington Nationals Willing to do others if people give me scheduling formats to work with.

I didn't know that Nationwide completely built the thing, but I find that fact to be interesting. This may be the only arena project in the country where I could see actually being profitable and its built privately. Coincidence? And how the hell is OSU allowed to run the arena? That has got to be a conflict of interest for them. If its somehow legal its disgusting.

The Arena District is one of the few examples of where I didn't think it was a bad idea for a city to invest in a sports stadium. In conjuction with residential area, I think a sports stadium can be used to increase home values. That's about the only thing I've seen where a sports arena can have a noticeable positive economic impact on a city. Things like restaurants and entertainment venues do nothing. Yes it puts money into the surrounding area, but what you wind up seeing is simply the moving of money from one part of the city to another, and that's because people's entertainment budgets are generally fixed. It doesen't create any new revenue for the city. I still say though that it was an incredibly dumb move to build two seperate arenas, when there is really no logistical reason why they couldn't have shared. Either move the Blue Jackets to the OSU campus or move OSU basketball to the Nationwide Arena. They could easily run on a Marquette, Villanova, or St. John's schedulue where they play non-conference games on campus and in-conference games at the Nationwide Arena.

3 missed home games won't hurt revenue that much. They can schedule more divisional games if they really need to. I always thought 82 was the weirdest number to pick though. I'm always in favor of less games myself, but if I can take away non-conference games in the two conference format, and get a lower number I don't see any reason to switch over to three confernces. Any new divisonal rivalry you gain, you trade off by making the Rangers play the Panthers more. I think it just makes things more confusing with the playoff seeding. The only way I would be in favor of it is if the NHL expanded to Europe.

Your missing about 6 games, but ran the numbers anyway, and got a total milledge of 2102513. The lowest I could possibly get for a two conference allignment under the current schedulue was 2368044. If we take the average milledge for a single game which is about 1844 and multiply that by 90 which is the total amount of games left to be played, you would get a new total of 2268501. Thing is though if I keep the previous two conference format and just take six out of conference games away it brings the total milledge down to about 2100365. Its amazing how your schedule's orginzation can have an impact on what the most efficient allignment would be. I actually have an allignment for the MLB where the total is roughly half that of the NHL even though they play nearly double the games, and its because they play far more divisional games.

I'd have to take a look at the scheduling format to see if it would make it better or not. Thing is with a three conference league though, somebody is going to get screwed (probably the teams in the Atlantic division) by having to play the teams in that southeast division more often. The central and northeast would probably wind up getting paired up which would help out the central, but the northeast would lose those atlantic division foes, so teams like Boston and Toronto would lose out. I don't think it would make a huge difference, but again if somebody wants to give me a schedulue format for a allignment like that I can run the numbers and see what the total milledge would be like to see if the argument has any credence. As it stands now teams play about 30% in division games, 50% in conference games, and 20% out of conference games.

I'll believe you that's probably what happened, but instead of playing hardball city governments will bend over backwards to accommodate teams wants, even though what they actually give the city in terms of economic benefit is very small. I don't think any other industry could get away with doing what alot of these teams have done to city and state governments in order to get their way.

Ohio State. That is all. For real, though the Blue Jackets may be one beneficiary of OSU imploding itself. I still think the City can turn it around. There's hockey fans here and city officials understand the damage that would happen if the team left. They'll figure something out, I hope. What Columbus did was very similar to what Phoenix did as well in terms of stupidity. Give an arena deal to expansion team in an untested market and make them the only tenants. Why they didn't build an arena for Ohio State and the Blue Jackets, I'll never know, because like the Coyotes if the Blue Jackets bolt Nattionwide Arena is going to very quickly turn into a white elephant. Atlanta was smart enough to at least make sure that the Hawks and Thrashers played in the same building, so that now they don't have a 18,000 seat arena sitting empty.

Well according the Winnipeg team will be playing in the Eastern Conference for the upcoming season. This despite the fact that the closest team to them in the conference (Toronto) is just under 1000 miles away. Under that scenairo, I'd move Winnipeg into the Northeast, put Boston in the Atlantic, and move Pittsburgh to the Southeast. If they're in the same division as Florida and Tampa Bay, that is going to be a brutal road schedule for them.

I went on the equation I described earlier, and as of now this is the most efficient allignment I can come up with. Under that equation which again is (6*4*milledge between teams in division)+(4*10*milledge between remaining teams in conference)+(15*1.2*milledge between teams in opposite conference) The total milledge is 2368044 after adding up all the teams. Eastern Conference Atlantic -------- Boston Bruins New Jersey Devils New York Islanders New York Rangers Philadelphia Flyers Northeast --------- Buffalo Sabres Montreal Canadiens Ottawa Senators Pittsburgh Penguins Toronto Maple Leafs Southeast --------- Carolina Hurricanes Columbus Blue Jackets Florida Panthers Tampa Bay Lightning Washington Capitals Western Conference Central ------- Chicago Blackhawks Dallas Stars Detroit Red Wings Nashville Predators St. Louis Blues Northwest --------- Calgary Flames Edmonton Oilers Minnesota Wild Vancouver Canucks Winnipeg Pacific ------- Anaheim Ducks Colorado Avalanche Los Angeles Kings Phoenix Coyotes San Jose Sharks I'll plug in any reallignment that people want to see if the total number goes lower. Any change I made past swapping Columbus to the Southeast and Winnipeg to the Central (originally) lowered the total number.

What I did was go by the NHL schedulue formula to determine who would in fact have lower travel distance. You play teams in your own division 6 times, 4 times for every other team in your conference and 1.2 times against teams in the opposite conference. (6*4)+(10*4)+(15*1.2)=82 The distance between the two teams was multiplied by the number of times the teams would play each other during the regular season. An example being if Columbus was in the Eastern Conference they would play Buffalo 4 times. The distance between the two teams as the crow flies is about 293 miles. 4*293=1172 If Columbus was in the West it would be 1.2 times. 1.2*293=351.6 I assumed the Central division would be comprised of Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, St. Louis and either Columbus or Nashville. Southeast would consist of Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay and Washington. These are the results. Southeast Columbus-54110 Nashville-65098 Central Columbus-82039 Nashville-83630 If you want to only look at the divisional matchups for the Southeast conference Columbus would have a travel impact of 14980 miles, while Nashville would be 14569. Just about dead even. However, the only two teams that Nashville is closer to in the Eastern conference then Columbus is are Florida and Tampa Bay, so for every other game played outside the division Columbus would be closer, and this accounts for about half the amount of games an NHL team will play. Likewise in the Central Columbus has a total travel of 5815 miles, whereas Nashville has a total travel of 7254 miles. Again though with every other team in the Western conference its either almost a dead heat between the two, (less then a 20 mile difference between the two for how far away they are from Vancouver) or Nashville is closer. Examples of western cities where Nashville is closer to by over 100 miles include Anaheim, Colorado, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Jose. That's 6 of the remaining ten teams. In fact Nashville has to travel less on average then Columbus to get to their Western Conference games. The total distance for Columbus to go to Eastern Conference games when they are in the West is about 8674 miles. For Nashville it would be 12255 miles. Its only because of that difference as to why Columbus has a lower value then Nashville. Division allignment wise it makes more sense for Nashville to be in the southwest and for Columbus to be in the Central. I don't think that's up for debate. But if your looking at the bigger picture, it makes way more sense to put Columbus to be in the Eastern conference then for Nashville, as is the case with Nashville being in the Western conference and its because of those 40 in conference games you have to play outside of your division.

They ain't what I've got. I have Columbus at 2497 and Nashville at 2428, but that's as the crow flies, I don't know how you did yours, but there's no way you can have a lower total with Nashville then what I have. My question would be did you account for curvature of the earth? For Columbus: Washington 328 Carolina 371 Tampa Bay 832 Florida 967 Total-2498 (round off accounts for the difference) For Nashville Carolina 451 Washington 567 Tampa Bay 621 Florida 789 Total-2428

For those wondering looking at the map if perhpas Detroit may have a case for that title. Columbus is further east by just over two miles.

Atlanta moving to Winnipeg is going to increase distances between teams no matter what. The total sum for distances that Atlanta is compared to the other 29 NHL teams is 28404 miles. For Winnipeg its going to be 33220 miles. That's about another 166 miles added on per team. Biggest winners in order are going to be Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, San Jose, Minnesota, Colorado, Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Phoenix. Every other city will lose and the biggest ones will be Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Nashville and Washington. So you are looking at the Southeast taking a big blow distance wise here. If you just looking at the four teams left in the Southeast division and trying to find the epicenter of the division, Nasvhille would be about 78 miles closer then Columbus would, and those are the two closest teams. Columbus is also 98 miles closer to the epicenter of the other four teams in the new Central division then is Nashville and again those are the two closest teams. With that in mind I would say that's the move that would probably make the most sense, without getting too crazy with the alignments.

Added team colors to the cells. Cleaned up some of the conference mistakes with college football, and also added the AAA baseball, the AHL, and NBDL. BTW I truly hate any team with a blue green color combo. Pain in the ass to do teams like the Charlotte Knights and Connecticut Whale. The cells are all easy to read though which is more what I was going for then color accuracy although I tried to get as close as I could where possible.

Kind of a half bump/half if anyone has any specific requets for any league outside of Division 1 College Basketball which I am currently working on, I can do it as well. I'm currently in the process of adding team colors to the cells, and throwing in a few defunct teams into the mix such as the LA Rams, Montreal Expos, Seattle Sonics, and Winnipeg Jets. The colors of course can be changed back to default and defunct teams eliminated if you don't like them. I'm not however doing teams like the Houston Oilers or any other defunct team that has since been replaced, or teams like the Fort Wayne Pistons who simply have no chance of ever seeing an NBA team again. The colors are also going to be taken from Wikipedia, not from the SSUR.org site. The colors on Wikipedia tend to be brighter and therefore easier to read.

Kind of a half bump/half if anyone has any specific requets for any league outside of Division 1 College Basketball which I am currently working on, I can do it as well.