Sport

I don't like The Ringer's layout. Also, I was reading something and they had a footnote and I clicked on it expecting a popup or a bubble to expand. It took me to the bottom of the page and then I had to scroll up and find where I was before. What do you guys think of the name "The Ringer"? I don't like it, but I can't articulate why. I think because it's such a try-hard and it's obvious. And their explanation for it was basically "names are hard to come up with, the ones we didn't pick were way worse, all the good ones are taken already" You know who has a good title? "Garbage Time with Katie Nolan"

All issues that can be solved with some winning seasons and playoff success. Like Pittsburgh, like Chicago, like Nashville, like St Louis etc etc. I don't know why every other market gets the benefit of the doubt when similar attendance struggles (if not much worse) have gone hand-in-hand with their losing. I don't want to say the market is a sleeping giant because Columbus will never be a giant, but it has potential to provide value to the league. I think we've shown that in the very brief periods when the team's been competitive.

You absolutely can fault them for that when A. it wasn't detrimental to the Red Wings as an operation and B. a new team joined the league east of them, which means the handshake agreement should've been off the table because the conditions when the agreement were made had changed. The "next chance" for the Red Wings was not when the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, it's when the Hurricanes move to Vegas. Who you can't fault is Columbus for where it's located on a map. When the Thrashers came in they didn't put them in the west and tell them "Deal with it. The Red Wings wanna be in the east and you haven't done anything yet to earn clout". Someone had to move East and it's a little bit ridiculous to argue Detroit should go just based on pedigree in a league where everyone is divided geographically, rivalries be damned. Problems with this: 1. Being new doesn't mean you don't get a fair shake. Not having done anything doesn't mean the league, predicated on parity, should make it intrinsically more difficult for one of its franchises to compete. 2. There's absolutely no precedent from any sports league for "you have to prove that you belong before we will make things more fair for you" or the established franchises get what they want because they're established and you're not. There is precedent for teams playing in comically out of place divisions (Vancouver in the Eastern Conference, Tampa in the west), but each one was eventually moved back to a more suitable situation and they didn't have to do it through any sort of earned clout. 3. I'm very thankful that we have an NHL team. They're my favorite team in sports and I love following them, but I am capable of being thankful I have a team and at the same time asking that said team gets to play in their geographically appropriate division in the interest of fair play.

Tweet that happens every year during the Super Bowl from dorks who think they're smarter than us because they don't like sports: "I hope the Broncos hit a homerun on this touchdown and get a hole in one! #WorldSeries" It's as hack as anything and nowhere near clever. You've mixed several different sports terms together. Hilarious! You don't see me coming down to your art house film festival and getting the titles wrong on purpose.

It wasn't about "paid dues". The Thrashers moving West meant an open spot in the East. Someone had to go East and Columbus was geographically the easternmost city in the west and made the most sense to move East. It's not our fault that Detroit threw a fit and said "We're the goddamn Red Wings. You have to bend overbackward for us." They're the one who upset the balance. Not Columbus.

I liked the Joe Buck article and that's mostly because I've never really gotten the Joe Buck hate. Once Tank became obsessed with incessantly posting about how much he hates him in the baseball playoffs threads I really took a liking to Buck.

They do get beat by vines and gifs and there is something very real about all of our attention spans being so much shorter these days. I know I can't watch TV without either having my phone or computer near me. If I don't I feel antsy. So all of that kind of goes in the face of my proposal, but I'd rather have the highlights to provide context to my vines and gifs. I'd also much rather my background noise be highlights than Stephen A going "The Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association were simply outhustled, outplayed, and outmanned by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball association in the fourth game of the two thousand sixteen Western Conference Finals and quite frankly I don't know if there's ever been a more disappointing and demeaning postseason performance from a National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player in my lifetime than the one displayed by Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors in game 4 of the Western Conference Finals." Maybe it's not that ESPN's wrong about their #embracedebate format or having more discussion than highlights, and I'm sure they've done extensive testing that I haven't seen, but I can say with 100% certainty they're wrong about their use of Skip Bayless and Stephen A Smith heading up their #embracedebate format. Those guys are terrible and have signaled the downfall of the worldwide leader for a long time now. If Espen had more NBA on TNT types it would be much better. I watch them and I'm not an NBA guy. ESPN really seems to be into a$$hole exjocks and hottake artist reporters instead. What's great about TNT's NBA show is they don't go out there and drop soundbytes just for the sake of soundbytes. They speak their minds and if something whacky comes out then it's genuine, but Espen is going on year 5 of Skip pretending to hate Lebron James and it's so hacky. Here's another suggestion for a show for the sinking ship. Live podcasts. Get a host, bring an athlete and/or entertainer on, guests who are also sports fans, and shoot the sh!t for an hour. Just conversation. Men in Blazers is the closest thing to this format. I'd watch that.

Good point. I tuned in knowing the scores for the most part, but I wanted to see how they were reached. I also stuck around and watched the repeat of the same show right after it because it was entertainment more than it was news. I had an encyclopedic knowledge of 1990's MLB, NBA, and yes NHL (because they actually covered hockey then) rosters and I don't anymore outside of a team's 1 or 2 star players. Sad!

In those days NFL Primetime was great because they gave so much time to each highlight. Now it's like 30 seconds at most and they don't even show you all of the games before they send it back to Ditka and Keyshawn. I think, it's been years since I watched an NFL show. I only watch the games now and my life is better for it. I keep hearing about how sportscenter and shows like it are in the toilet because people already know what happened in the games due to the internet and that's why they need to have more discussion/debate and more analysis and I don't agree at all. People have already seen all the games? I don't know if that's true. I don't go out of my way to find highlights from out of market games online. How do you fix sportscenter? I'd love to see someone try this - Do the exact opposite of what you're doing now. Lean into the overknowledged sports fan and hit em with the highlights again. Do more, longer highlights, use personalities to read them. The last sportscenter I watched they had the most bland, non-talented dork running the show and I thought "this is what passes for SportsCenter anchors these days?". Show a 2 minute highlight of the Braves playing the Reds, but goof on how bad they are. Fire Stephen A Smith yesterday. Knock it off with hot takes, don't #embracedebate. If a game happened that day and it's MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, NCAA, and yes MLS/EPL/important soccer then show the damn highlights. Make it the one stop shop for everything, a true sports center. Be the best highlight show anywhere, better than anyone on the internet is doing and people will go out of their way to watch it. People are already cutting the chord left and right and their subscriber numbers are plummeting, which could be wholly unrelated to how bad sportscenter's gotten, but if that's the case you might as well give that a try while you're sinking because your debate bull that everybody hates clearly isn't working and that's why Fox's gathering of the juggalos (Cowherd, Whitlock, Bayless) is so disappointing. No, don't do exactly what everyone hates about Espen. Do the opposite! Did sportscenter work in the 90's because we weren't informed yet or did it work in the 90's because they were best at showing sports highlights? I think it's more of the latter than the former.

This is so NHL. Those are still 8,000 pairs of eyeballs on your advertisers you numbskulls and those are your fans who clearly enjoy the watch parties. Why sh!& on that? Hey this fun thing that you're doing? Yeah, it's working too well. Shut it down and make everyone watch on their own TV. We need that tiny 8K blip for our numbers because we are a rinky dink league on a rinky dink sports network and we're worried about what 8,000 people will do to the ratings. We don't care that you enjoy it. This is sports. Sports are not meant to be fun.

I saw him first with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks

They are better than their current EDGE uniforms with black and khaki because obviously, but if the Penguins adopt the direct throwback for their full-time uniforms I don't think that is the answer either. They need something that is mostly black with small touches of yellow here and there. The throwbacks are just so yellow heavy and there's already a black and yellow heavy team in the Eastern conference. The Bruins should be the black-yellow-white team and the Penguins should be the black-white-yellow team.

I found it to be an incredibly frustrating/annoying listen for this reason and Simmons isn't a good enough host to keep him contained or to remind him where his train of thought was going. If you have a lot of "irons in the fire" it's important to circle back and conclude each one. The guest isn't going to do that on their own so the host has to be the one to do it. Simmons was doing the opposite - interrupting Kilborn mid story to talk about something entirely different.

The Sacca interview I thought was interesting because Sacca did most of the talking. Simmons should've read the vibe and just started firing questions when he could instead of trying to relate himself, or worse, sports, to what Sacca was talking about. I don't really have interest in the restaurateur episode because I know what he'll try to do. I like the conversations Simmons has with someone on his level like Michael Rappaport, who is a little annoying, but his enthusiasm overrides his annoyance. Or other sports personalities. But like Louis CK seemed too smart for Simmons to keep up with.

Does John Buccigross know he's selling these? http://sportssquatch.com/collections/hockey-jerseys/products/bucci-overtime-red-hockey-jersey-1

I definitely don't agree with Curt Schilling in any way and I think memes (his favorite thing and the thing that got him fired) are generally idiotic, but that game is essential to that story. You can't cut that out. Would've been better to just not air that particular 30 For 30 anymore if they have an issue with his participation in it. EDIT: Bill Simmons, another former Espen employee, is in that one, isn't he? Did they leave him in the doc?

Obviously personal attacks about appearance or threats are outside the lines and women in sports have to deal with this :censored: every time they send out any tweet regardless of the tweet's content. If the reporter tweets poorly they deserve all the ridicule a man would receive, but dummies don't know the difference between attacking the content and attacking the person's appearance and it happens more with women. Using Darren Rovell as an example - He is a tonedeaf idiot who has a poor grasp on when is and is not an appropriate time to tweet about sports business, but I don't think many people who react derisively to his tweets attack his personal appearance. They attack him for being a dumbass, which he is. Mary Kay Cabot is a reporter on the Cleveland Browns beat and I happen to think she's not very good at her job, but it's not because she's a woman. She'll send out a bad opinion and the responses are sexual and demeaning in a physical way and that's obviously not okay. There is a double standard and a meathead problem.

He was also a #1 overall so pretty high profile pick by the Bruins.

I was always aware Bayless was playing a character, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. It's almost worse. Like, if Trump is actually the nutjob he purports to be then he's just another loon and you can forgive someone for being mentally ill, but if it's an act like Paul Manafort says it is then he has deliberately chosen to be this much of an a$$hole in order to pander to the dumbest people in the country and I have even less respect for that. Same for Bayless and SAS. Anyone can go on TV or write a dumb tweet and shock jock an audience. Bayless didn't invent that and that deserves no recognition or respect. As journalists both he and SAS should be embarrassed and they can be embarrassed all the way to the bank, but they've lost all credibility and respect within their profession. If it were me that would eat at me.

Thank god. Not that I ever watched First Take because I graduated from High School and I don't huff radiator fluid for fun, but it'll be easier to ignore him on Fox, unless they try to jam him into their NFL coverage. He's such a jackass and a professional one at that. I'm glad he'll have less of a platform to spew nonsense. We'll look back at the decision to go all-in on #EmbraceDebate as the moment that initially crippled the giant. I hate when people choose salary over legacy: https://twitter.com/RealSkipBayless/status/575465882761043969

This may just be my browser, but starting today when I scroll to the bottom of any page there's a bunch of sponsored clickbaity bullcrap. Anyone else getting this?

I think contrasting color panels on baseball hats is a design feature best left in the past. And I don't think it looked particularly good then either.

Not saying I'm funny, but memes are shorthand crutches for unfunny people to participate in being funny, which is why almost zero memes work for me. The Crying Jordan one is especially tiresome because it's so easy for dummies to do and takes no thought. UNC loses NCG on a buzzer beater and 15,000 knuckleheads crudely paste Jordan's head on top of Jordan even though that wasn't even close to his actual reaction. His actual reaction was actually pretty awesome. There is no originality anymore. Everything is hack. It's so easy that until recently I (incorrectly) assumed there was some backstory that I didn't know about. I should've just known that "HA HE SAD JORDAN SAD HE HAZ JORDAN SAD HEAD NOW HA" was the entirety of the joke. Excuse me for expecting a little more out of an internet joke. I like my comedy to be nuanced and multilayered. I guess the ones where someone finds a creative way to implement Crying Jordan are okay, but at best I'm giving those a shrug rather than a groan. Also, why Michael Jordan? What about his sad face is any different than say the millions of pictures of Kim Kardashian crying? I'd rather she be the one to gain ignominious meme status. She's far more detestable and doesn't actually have any talent.

I don't think they made money in their first run because they weren't trying to make money, at least not early on. ESPN was footing the bill so they were free to be advertisingly spartan by design and they even mentioned that they wanted to start with a simple, uncluttered home page that felt more like a news paper than a website. Now with the HBO show, and a podcast network that's allowed to have personalities employed from other sports networks, and without a sugar daddy conglomerate as large as Disney I expect them to push more advertisements. Simmons definitely does more plugs in his podcast now than he did in the old BS Report. I have to think that if Grantland would've stuck around they would've started to go about searching out more revenue creating avenues.

^ I've never understood the need for the first initial when two players share a surname. Their numbers should be sufficient to differentiate the players.