Sykotyk

I know i'm in the minority but I still wish they'd kept the Skins part of the name and just went Pigskins. Kept the old uniforms and colors, still could be called the skins, goes with the hog motif they love, and just switch out the logo for something different. Pigskins also has a long time football reference that would fit.

Hell, Cleveland basically just swapped "In" for "Guar" and went on with things.  Washington decided that aside from barely keeping their colors they wanted a whole new direction and went along with it with all the furvor of MLS teams naming the last dozen or so teams between FC, City, and United... It's plain. it's boring. And it has nothing to do with anything about Washington except the very tenuous grasp of "Oh, but Commander-in-Chief"... But there's a team named the Chiefs AND you can't call back to another native-themed name even when you try to avoid it.

Browns one was just weird.

Bengals and Jaguars both look..... questionable.

Rams looks like a character from Zootopia

Greatest logo ever. RIP

On 5/2/2023 at 11:31 PM, Cujo said:

More fans attended tonight's Maple Leafs parking lot watch party than an MLB game

 

Pretty soon they're going to be taking attendance by name. 

12 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

I’m glad I didn’t pay much attention to the draft beyond Washington’s 1st round pick because I’m absolutely positive at least 10-15 guys were called “physical specimens” by the commentators.
 

That phrase gives me the biggest sports ick. The are we doing referring to dudes in their early 20s as “specimens”?

 

The funny thing is that ANYTHING can be specimen. Even this:

9 hours ago, Silent Wind of Doom said:

Well...  That trophy...  They really didn't know if they'd make it this far, huh?

 

Any difference between the North and South trophies?  I haven't seen the North yet.

Looks like the South has a black base and the North has a white base.

1 hour ago, ManillaToad said:

Every big four team that holds the record for most regular season wins failed to win the championship that year

 

1906 Cubs (116-36) lost the WS to the White Sox who had the worst BA in the league

2001 Mariners (116-46) lost ALCS

2007 Patriots (16-0) lol

2015-16 Warriors (73-9) blew 3-1 lead in the finals

2022-23 Bruins (65-12-5) blew a 3-1 lead in the first round

Their laurels were well rested on.

Houston was definitely a sheep in wolf's clothing. SA might have been better but that come-from-behind win by STL to open the season snakebit them.  Not championship level, but that was a gut punch.

Seattle was good from day one, offensively... but their defense was usually pretty suspect. LV was terrible and Orlando was terrible for the first half the year until their miracle win over DC which was more DC being relaxed and assuming a win before they stepped on the field. Arlington obviously improved at the end, but survived the rest of the year on their defense.

1 minute ago, Cujo said:

 

To be fair neither team was trying last week because they both knew they were in

 

Also, damn shame Houston flamed out this season. They were the best team in the league over the first half of the season. #FIREWADE

They rested on their laurels. After the good start, once they started losing, they just never regrouped but were far enough ahead to just coast into hosting their division playoff.

As troublesome as the XFL 1.0 crossover playoffs were (letting SF and LA playing in the first title by upset of the far better team Orlando), the division playoffs just feel hollow. It's four teams. Would the NFL like to let the top two in from each division and immediately play each other in the first round?

In a crossover this year, it would've been Arlington at DC and Seattle at Houston.  In a top 4 league-wide, it would've been DC v. St. Louis and Houston v. Seattle.

Either way, I figured at least one Houston spring football teams were going to win today.

33 minutes ago, Seadragon76 said:

 

Might not be a bad idea if whatever summer programming they have doesn't work out.

2023 is a lot different than years past. Right now the networks absolutely crave anything that draws live viewers as opposed to most stuff being streamed at the viewers' leisure. A July Friday night game might actually draw better on the worst TV night than any other programming they can throw on there.

1 hour ago, 4_tattoos said:

Question.  Are the breakers pants white or silver/light gray?

Definitely silver. You can see the white stripe on the sides stand out. But it is a very dull silver.

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

It's funny to think anyone's going to extract free money from casinos.

Gambling alone is not enough anymore to get people to go to Vegas. It's the experience that Vegas has become. And any excuse to get people to want to come to Vegas is financially worthwhile. That's why sports are becoming  a huge draw for interested parties. It gives people a reason to travel to watch the road team play at the Las Vegas team and in the time there spend money at hotels, casinos, shows, etc as well. And baseball helps since many that will travel will travel for their teams' entire series there. A 4 game series might see someone going there for 5 or 6 days in part or in whole. That's a lot of opportunities for the casinos to make money off them.

1 hour ago, Seadragon76 said:

Paramount is CBS.

 

My thought is that whatever games they don't show on CBS Sports Network would be on Paramount+ for those who want to see the other games. With 34 regular season games shown by CBS Sports Network, that means the other 48 games this season (82 in all) could be on Paramount+.

 

This doesn't include the playoff games and the Grey Cup, but I would think that the Grey Cup would be televised... maybe put it on CBS for even more exposure.

Grey Cup is scheduled for 11/19 at 6pm. There's no way that game is on CBS ... unless... they only have the 1pm NFL slate that weekend and they somehow decide 60 minutes would be less than the demos of those who might watch CFL's championship game over mid-season NFL games on Fox and the first hour of NBC.

I don't see it happening.

5 hours ago, walkerws said:

The Hall got brand new blank turf that will allow them to have more clean looking events like the USFL and the occasional soccer and Canton McKinley football. 

Was on it on Sunday. Was really nice. I'm just curious once USFL is done how much painting is going to be done during the fall season once the Hall of Fame game is over.  But it's better than having a field that doesn't look like McKinley's home field. Basically for decades.

The other thing was a long time ago the cost to attend a major league game and a minor league game in terms of tickets were nearly the same. Also most of the time the major league team never came close to selling out their non weekend non major important games. 

Comparison, Houston cheapest ticket this Friday is $45. Sugar Land most expensive non luxury seat ticket for their next Friday home game is $27. And tickets as cheap as $12.

So yeah. They're ALL just gonna go watch the MLB team and ignore the AAA team. 

Minneota is a town in Minneota. Their school teams are named the Minneota Vikings. They're blue and yellow.

Points for an original logo. But Minneota Vikings and Minnesota Vikings are about as close as you're going to get without directly copying the name.

The one thing I haven't investigated is the season ticket prices.

The Maulers are advertising $30 season tickets. Their normal price is $10 per game. $8 for group sales. However, is that $30 for just the Mauler games or for all Canton games? On 5/7, it's a true doubleheader on one ticket. But the rest of the year they're different tickets.

I would call but don't want to get roped into an overzealous sales rep contacting me. Either way $30 is a great deal but they've just missed the proper market. Canton could host a Cleveland named team probably. But not Pittsburgh. Because as many Steelers fan this part of the state has.... they're Steelers fans. Not Pittsburgh fans.

Funny the only Browns jacket I saw was at the night game between Michigan and Philadelphia. You're not going to get many Browns fans to cheer for a Pittsburgh named team wearing black and yellow.

I suggested on another site that they just go with an 8-team league structure instead of divisions. Still go with '3 teams played twice, 4 teams played once' but just seed them #1 through #8. Take the top 2, 4, 6, or 8. Whatever they want. But there's no reason to do a straight split.

Another option I concocted was this:

Instead of a 10 week season, play an 8 week season. Play with divisions or without. Doesn't matter.

With divisions, take the top 3 teams from each division. Without, just take the top 6 teams. For regular season schedule, (with divisions) play division teams twice (6 games) and play two of the 4 remaining teams once each, missing two of them. (without divisions) play two teams twice, and play four of the remaining 5 teams once. Only missing one team.

Take those 6 teams, put them in two groups. From Divisions, you can do N1/S2/N3 and S1/N2/S3 for example. For league-wide, go 1/3/6 and 2/4/5.

After 8 weeks, 2 teams are done. The remaining six are now playing a three week/two game tournament for the playoffs. Random draw which team is which slot. A hosts B. C hosts A. B hosts C. Each gets one home game. Each has one road game.

There's two outcomes. A group finishes 2-0, 1-1, and 0-2 or a group finishes 1-1, 1-1, and 1-1.

If A beats B and A beats C, A #1 and B-C play for the #2 spot.

If A beats B and C beats A, C is playing for #1, but B can win to make a three-way tie.

If B beats A and A beats C, B is playing for #1, but C can win to make a three-way tie.

If B beats A and C beats A, B-C plays for #1 and loser gets #2.

Each of the three games means something. No game is a 'it doesn't matter' game at the end of the season.

And to make it really fun, the three-way tie-breaker would be PF/PA among the 3 teams in the 3 game tournament. So, in that third game, HOW MUCH you win or lose by could make the difference between #1, #2, or being out.  For instance:

A 23-10 B

C 44-20 A

A -11

B -13

C +22

C wins, gets #1. B wins, it's a three-way tie. If they win by 3, they're #2, and C is #1. If they beat C by 18, they're #1 and C is #2. If B wins by 2, C is #1 and B/A are tied at #2. A wins on head-to-head.

In the improbable 'every team has the same PF/PA differential, go PF, and then go net touchdowns. And to avoid any coin toss rules, just go net yards in those games.

Take the top two, put them in the playoffs. #1 from one group hosts #2 from the other group. Semifinals. And then Finals.

In all, you play 2 less games for the entire season and have one extra week. You eliminate the two worst teams after 8 weeks. The last 9 games all mean something very important. And in a lot of cases, even if you're not playing you're almost required to watch to see what happens and what you need to do when your team does play.

I'm sure the lease contracts include exclusivity while their season is going on. 

But Houston has a lot of options. Hell, play it over at Katy at Legacy Stadium or in Cy-Fair. 

Rice, NRG, Houston Dynamo... All could host. 

54 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

You're at the game?

 

Q: Are they adding artificial crowd noise over the PA speakers? Or is that just for tv?

No added noise. The fans were vocal but they were individually noticeable.  Like you could see individual shouts. A lot of player families were there.

The crowd that was there was into it. But the game was so so bad. 

17 minutes ago, McCall said:

Wait, I thought Pittsburgh and New Jersey were the two Canton-based teams. Yet the Michigan-Philadelphia game, evidently the two Detroit-based teams, are also playing their game in Canton. What’s going on? I’m lost.

 

This whole league set-up is one confusing, convoluted mess.

USFL knew that Detroit wasn't able to host this week and wanted a doubleheader. It's technically a Philly home game. 

56 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

Attendance from Canton.  The league has no St. Louis or DC:

 

Hey that's me

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

That photo, without the helmet and logo for context, makes it look like the most college-ass uniform ever.

 

If he was wearing a University of Arizona helmet, I wouldn't think twice about it.  For better or for worse, that wordmark size will never be part of the NFL aesthetic.

 

 

Same issue with the Cleveland uniforms we pretend never existed. 

At least they didn't put anything down the legs. 

26 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

ESPN is regarded as the gold standard of sports television, but over the last several years they've been quietly cutting corners in production over all their properties. It's little things like using cheaper cameras or running skeleton crews so the colors or audio aren't balanced properly, or maybe the graphics don't look as great or get wonky sometimes. It's the sort of thing you wouldn't probably pay much mind to, or you'd just assume it's your cable feed or stream being a little off or whatever. But then you get something like the split NHL deal, and you realize that Turner is just putting out a better version of the same product week upon week, when so many people assumed it was the ESPN half of the deal that would make the league look better.

 

At this point, with their focus on acquiring properties and then presenting them on the cheap to the best of their ability, ESPN is a lot like the Fanatics of sports television.

Vast majority of ESPN's expenses are the rights fees they pay out. With cord cutting harming their carriage rates, they cut corners on everything. The fact a handful of big name on air talents still work for ESPN is amazing. But even then you'd think ESPN would be able to draw a ton of highly motivated and capable graduates every year just to get ESPN on their resume to find local work. It's not the gold standard it was before. It's not even bronze. The worst thing is that the bigger the property the less likely they'll put anything against it on their underling networks. Unless it's things like The Mannings or the All 22. They can't risk undercutting their own programming. So most cable companies are paying ESPN for several channels when they only show one major thing at a time. Then they're tied up with things like SEC Network or how they treated NHL when they went to OLN that makes their position as Sports News network to Sports Propaganda network. 

Remember Playmakers and how the NFL forced them to cancel a surprisingly success and honestly unique show. Because they couldn't risk their biggest rights fee having an issue with them. 

One, Las Vegas Ballpark is a top of the line, beautiful AAA level park. It's honestly to MLB standards in quality it's just small and lacks the numbers of things people want in an MLB stadium. Fewer seats, fewer boxes/clubs/etc. But quality wise it works.

Got to see a game there back in 2019.

It's not unreal. Arizona Coyotes are playing in a 4500 seat venue. Chargers played a year at whatever they called the StubHub Center that year.

The other thing is that the Aviators are the A's affiliate. They could 'swap'... Put the A's in Las Vegas Ballpark and send their AAA team to Oakland until they vacate the LV Ballpark for this new venue. You could even still call them the Oakland A's. Then bring them back or leave them depending how well they do. LV Ballpark could be a A or AA venue (quite large) but to avoid going up against the MLB team now in town.

But staying in Oakland will not work. Attendance cratered already with the chance they'd find a new home in Oakland. This isn't the regionalized Raiders fan base that tolerated it somewhat. Plus NFL has ridiculously high standards for their home venues now. They were not playing at Sam Boyd or anywhere else.