TheBigFiz21

This from a Heat-Magic game in 2011.

On 9/22/2022 at 5:17 AM, Old School Fool said:

 

I also want to add on with this that every NBA teams court now has small wordmarks in the corner of each baseline to make room for advertising beside it. We saw some teams go with this last season but now it seems to be every single NBA team.  This is a huge blow to the creative direction of team branding and just looks downright awful and soulless. Greed wins once again.

This was the worst thing to happen as a result of the post-pandemic losses. I hated the way teams ruined their courts with the squished in advertising space; we only got the courts as they should be designed when the game was nationally televised. And now it's here to stay, it looks like; anytime a path of ad revenue like this opens up, teams hardly ever shut the door on the profit that can be made.

I don't want to start a discussion on the issue that's leading to this end of sponsorship, but there's still a chance they'll renew if said owner returns, right?

On 9/12/2022 at 11:27 AM, TrueYankee26 said:

Early 90s babies rule

 

Back on topic NFL on CBS logo on the top right now has a blue background

 

I get that they had to do it so it's legible at all times, even when the sky is in the way, but I prefer the way they had it before. Blends in well with the scoreboard text colors; plus, it seems tacky to just throw a box  behind it and 3D-ify the logo, and on top of that, it doesn't animate like it did before.

The new USA kit frustrates me, especially since 2014 continues to be the best one I've seen so far and ever since then.

New (and simplified...like everyone else on the trend) logo for SNF:

Compared to the old logo:

18 hours ago, smarisca03 said:

I thought they have 4 exclusive games this year?

My mistake...I wrote that out of the original post. Alas, I stand my ground on NFLN giving production duties to another network.

On 8/27/2022 at 9:36 PM, smarisca03 said:

we have to wait until that first London game (NFL Network only) to see how they look

Could be another game where NFL Network just uses CBS graphics, if not another network. They did that last year with Jets-Falcons.

On 7/26/2022 at 11:07 AM, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Surprised not to see this here yet: https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-launches-exclusive-streaming-subscription-service-nfl

 

 

That's a pretty good deal, except it's limited to mobile devices and I'm sure they'll block casting and things like that.

 

It's also a shame that this, obviously and effectively, kills not only the then-free-to-stream method on the NFL app, but also the same for the Yahoo! Sports app. Now the network streaming options are a near-must if you don't opt for NFL+, otherwise you'll be like me listening to the radio when I'm not at home and not willing to pay that monthly $4.99

On 7/15/2022 at 8:51 AM, flyersfan said:

The social media reaction to the white helmet is overwhelmingly “icy”

PFF is the king of clickbait but yeesh: 

 

 

theres just too much monochrome white happening around the league (and college). I know it looks good, but there’s teams that have that be part of their look, and then copycats who want “icy” looks

I did predict in the weekly uniform thread that both teams would do this prior to the Bengals white helmet teaser, but now I would put that Week 5 SNF matchup on high alert for that to be the debut of the "White Bengal" look. Only thing concerning me is whether or not Cincy would prefer to start wearing them at home first instead of on the road and in primetime.

Merely speculation talk, but it'll be interesting to see what Fox does with their next graphics package for the NFL and subsequently college football. I'm almost certain the logos will change for both, likely recoloring this, for example...

...to a modern version of the red/white/blue color scheme from the 90s logo (see the Fox-boro post above). USFL, MLB, and college hoops have logos all on a white background, save the exceptions made for special events like the MLB postseason.

O's on another mix-match. They wore the alternate cap with the road jerseys in Seattle the last two nights. Holiday uniforms aside, I don't think I've seen them change it up like this before.

The Athletic with an article that the Orioles are looking to take down The Baltimore Sun's long-standing sign atop the scoreboard.

Side note: Here's a blog with an inside look that's not behind a paywall -> https://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/iconic-mlb-ballpark-fixture-oriole-park-sun-coming-down/598087

Quick thoughts: That's an underrated, yet legendary feature of the stadium...arguably just as much as some other stadiums' prominent features; to see the sign go down in favor of some newfound ad space would suck. It wouldn't be atrocious as giving away the name of the ballpark, but still a bummer.

On 5/29/2022 at 7:18 PM, NFLfan10 said:

Some of these combos don’t even exist. Bengals white/orange, Broncos white/navy, Falcons white/red hasn’t been confirmed to be real yet. 
 

The rest of the predictions are fairly reasonable, although I don’t think they’ve ever worn black in back-to-back weeks, as Weeks 16 and 17 has.

 

I think the Bills game will most likely be all-white vs. purple/white. The blue pants do not seem to be the preference at the moment for Buffalo. 2016 gave us that matchup with the blue pants at least.

The Broncos don't wear navy pants or they just don't wear them on the road?

My Ravens predictions:

Week 1 at NYJ: Purple/white vs White/green

Week 2 vs MIA: Aqua/white vs White/purple

Week 3 at NE: White/black vs Navy/navy

Week 4 vs BUF: White/blue vs Purple/white

Week 5 vs CIN: White/orange White/white vs Black/purple Black/black

Week 6 at NYG: White/black vs Blue/white

Week 7 vs CLE: White/orange vs Purple/purple

Week 8 at TB: White/purple vs Red/pewter

Week 9 at NO: White/white vs Black/black

Week 11 vs CAR: White/white vs Purple/black

Week 12 at JAX: White/purple vs Teal/black

Week 13 vs DEN: White/navy White/white vs CR purple/purple

Week 14 at PIT: White/black vs Black/yellow

Week 15 at CLE: White/purple vs Brown/white

Week 16 vs ATL: White/red White/black vs Black/white

Week 17 vs PIT: White/yellow vs Black/black Black/purple

Week 18 at CIN: White/white vs Black/orange

A few remarks on my decisions:

• Ravens/Jets in Week 1 of 2009 heavily influenced my thought of how Week 1 will look in MetLife this year. Granted, the Jets have revamped since that Monday Night when Dustin Keller got walloped, but since it is an early season game and a good handful of non-home-dome teams north of Florida like wearing WAH before October, I think this is exactly what happens.
• One thing about the Ravens since 2018-19 is that they will make use of all, if not 95% of their uniform combos. In 2020-21, they kept the CR in the shelf and last year's MNF game vs Indy was the first use of black/purple since in 3 years. I have no doubt that will continue this year.
• Some of these matchups aren't going to look the best, so I predicted some of the botched matchups to come...I went with the Week 3 matchup at the Pats (It's better the Ravens wear all-white in Foxboro, but they did that in 2020), Week 11 vs CAR (Not a fan of the purple/black, so just have it on against a potentially forgettable team), and Week 13 vs DEN(?) (Would prefer purple/white against any Broncos road set).
• Week 9 at New Orleans is so hard to predict. Black/gold is ideal, but if I recall, the Saints love going all-black or all-white in primetime. But my money is on all-black for them.
• I'd much rather the Ravens choose one of their purple combos against the Steelers in Week 17. I think they have a losing record vs PIT when wearing black because I've only seen them win such a game ONCE on Thanksgiving night in 2013.
• I honestly think Bills/Ravens will be a one of the best looking game for both teams, if not the best for both all season. Off of superstar QBs alone, you'd want this to be a night game, but a daytime matchup won't be too bad. I can see it looking as good as Chargers/Ravens last year if the skies are clear on that day.
• I settled on Color Rush vs DEN because I thought it's a good opportunity to wear it. Also, it may just be me, but does the team have a unwritten rule that they refuse to wear CR purple vs Pittsburgh?
• EDIT: Forgot that the Bengals don't have orange pants in their fairly-new uniform batch, so I shuffled up that SNF matchup as the white-out Bengals (except the helmet, of coarse) vs the blackout Ravens. Same thing with the prototyped Falcons red pants, but I'll go out on a limb and say Atlanta makes use of it this year. If not, oh well. Either way, I'll keep the Ravens uniform I have for that game. They've opened up to wearing black/white at home for day games in recent memory. And lastly, I put/off black/purple to Week 17 to keep the variety in tact. I think this game will become a late afternoon game, which can make it look better IMO. If it turns out to be a 1pm game though, I wouldn't be surprised if they choose NOT to wear it.

Wasn't happy with the change at first, as I liked what the Niners had going on using two stripes and the newer script; I had a gut feeling the old one would look somewhat goofy on the new jersey, but I'll give this a chance. I can understand how they are pretty much going all-in on a the classic uniforms and now the script. Wouldn't be surprised if they return to the more reddish logo from back in the day as their next step.

I wonder if the supply chain bug hit the O's in this weekend series. Black uniforms are typically reserved for Fridays only, but they've worn it all weekend. Angels wore white all weekend too, so it's not like they were forced into black to avoid a matchup of orange vs red, for instance.

Side note: I'm waiting for Fanatics to restock those jerseys. Definitely regret not buying an additional jersey from the team store on Black Friday last year 

The new scorebug for NBC is a toss-up for me. Not a fan of the fonts, but going compact is an interesting change away from how they've used a scorebar all through the SNF era to this point. I wonder if the possession indicator will be modified at preseason or the kickoff game, only because I don't know how confusing that half-circle highlight is or isn't. And, of coarse, there's my most hated feature of scorebugs since the rise of sports betting: showing the team's record.

Like some others, I'd hope for the changes to carry over to their RSNs and any other sports featured on NBC now that it's without NBCSN. Not counting on it though since their RSNs are more likely to die out soon and the next best thing you'd find on NBC for sports is Notre Dame football, then arguably the Premier League or NASCAR as far as popularity and/or viewership.

So now that I'm 24+ hours removed from my bitter frustration and hatred for the Pittsburgh Steelers putting an end to my Ravens season, time for me to share my yearly end-of-season reflection.

Let's be real. This team was very similar, if not, just as or more beaten and bruised up than last year's 49ers. When your team is so decimated, they are trotting out practice squad players to fill in at damn near every position, it is a catastrophe. Nonetheless, the team still has to play football like the other 31 teams, and well..everything just came crumbling down at the end, the close losses leaving me and many frustrated, some playcalling decisions here and there, not winning a single game after Lamar was hurt...

I don't know how to feel going forward. Maybe my viewpoint is unpopular, but I'm a little...shaky about how next season will go??? Granted, players that were hurt this year will come back barring any further setbacks, but...with as many players coming back to play, is it asking too much to see if they and the acquired personnel to come will contend just as well as 2020, if not better? I don't know. Then there's the concerns over how, if not, when the team moves past Greg Roman as an OC, a lack of decent pass rush, and more. My optimism isn't completely dead just because this season is over...just a little cautioned.

18 hours ago, infrared41 said:

 

Setting aside podcasts, etc. - The short answer is local radio is on the way out because radio doesn't like to spend money. As a result, you're not getting hosts capable of bringing in an audience which results in low ratings which results in less ad revenue which results in less money to get good hosts. When faced with the choice, radio management will almost always choose to pay someone 10 bucks an hour to board-op a national show over paying a local host real money to do a local show. Frankly, I'm kinda surprised local sports shows still exist and I say that as someone who worked in radio for a long time. FWIW, I haven't listened to a local sports talk show in years.

 

 

I've found myself trending that way since 2017 or so. I listen to more Dan Patrick during the week than I do anything locally. I come back to the stations here and nothing keeps my ear the way it did 10 years ago, for instance. I sincerely want to go back and listen the way that I did back then, but things have changed. There were two hosts that came in on weekends that I really enjoyed hearing....but they were let go. And they just let go of Orioles baseball for another station to pick it up, probably because they didn't want to lose more listeners while the team isn't in serious contention for postseason play. Then again, there was a short time where the station didn't have the Orioles when I was younger and I enjoyed the weekday evening host at the time. Either way, it's 2021 and it's getting harder to listen when there's guys on YouTube who I can interact with in a livestream during a Ravens game or a podcast that I can listen to on my time discussing all the topics I want to hear without having to wait as long as the flow of the program.

I'm guessing it's been discussed here in some capacity, but I wonder....what's the future of local sports radio looking like? WJZ-FM in Baltimore that comes to mind when I think about this; in the last several years, for the most part, since Entercom took over CBS Radio, I've seen them struggle with bringing in new voices to host, but more telling to me is the lack of weekend shows assuming no Orioles baseball, UMD hoops or football that day. Or maybe it's the fact that the executive producer has to go on air sometimes to poll what the viewers think of what they hear daily or turning to national sports radio and Westwood One games as filler time for late nights and weekends.

Now, I'm well aware that radio in general is struggling to co-exist with the rise of podcasts, livestreams, etc. combined with mobile devices and data plans making other media platforms more accessible everywhere. And of coarse, the domino effect of having older audience that's tuning in, at the very least, just for non-top-40 stations, I'd like to think.

I fear that station is gonna crumble to nothing more than just a CBS Sports Radio repeat 24/7 + whatever games they like to put on, whether local or national. I just feel curious as to if that's a country-side problem or is it gonna be a thing where only the big cities like NYC, Chicago, Philly, and LA can afford to have local sports radio down the line...

30th anniversary logo for Oriole Park at Camden Yards in an e-mail from the team just this morning.

On 1/1/2022 at 11:40 AM, GhostOfNormMacdonald said:

I would doubt it, for uniforms at least, because they probably want to use players as models for any new uniforms

Now that I think of it, it's probably a tougher sell at the moment since teams can't use the players to sell those new jerseys. You'd have a situation where, for instance, if the Guardians dropped their new uniforms today, you'd probably only be able to get the blank jerseys and customs off of Fanatics, MLB Shop, team stores at the stadiums, etc. since the players can't be used for profit during the lockout. I could be wrong, but that's my theory. Pretty sure player jerseys are the great majority of what sells, and maybe blanks are a close second.

3 minutes ago, RyanMcD29 said:

lololololol no they're bringing back the same NBA scorebug for like the 8th straight season

That's definitely the one lazy move in this "refresh" for Turner. But the background elements are very much new. Definitely an NBA-75 inspired package.

New graphics for MLB on TBS starting with tonight's Wild Card. Huge upgrade from the previous package and I love it. Some of the elements remind me of ESPN's current package for Monday Night Football.