Red Comet

5 hours ago, Dilbert said:

I honestly think Delaware State would be okay in the NEC. The NEC unlike America East hosts football. If the MEAC does implode like it looks like it might, I can see Howard and Morgan State join them, Basketball wise these three would have Mount St Marys in Emmitsburg MD not far away, plus Coppin State and Maryland Eastern Shore could join them. As for Norfolk State, South Carolina State and North Carolina Central I see them going to the Big South or even the Southern Conference

If the MEAC collapses, I could see SWAC change their name to something like the Heritage or Freedom Conference as it would be the only conference left dominated by HBCUs.

It's our culture and potato salad is great IMO. 

10 hours ago, the admiral said:

The Royals can move downtown, and I'd be sad to see Kauffman go (future home: Hallmark Park?), but there's no reason for the Chiefs to leave Arrowhead and its ocean of parking. It barely gets used, just let it sit there and give people from all over the Plains a place to toss beanbags and eat gloppy deli food, it's fine, it's whatever.

Hey, that's fine by me. Not everyone has to be the avatar of high culture. Gloppy deli food OTOH? Them's fightin' words. 

16 minutes ago, Walk-Off said:

 

As the home of Sunday night NFL games since 2006, NBC is also "an official partner" of the NFL, yet the NBC-owned Pro Football Talk website has gotten away with making the bare minimum of mentions of the Washington team's nickname for many years now.  These days, pretty much the only places in which one will find that nickname mentioned within PFT are in tags for articles and in comments by some readers of the site.

See, the difference is that Sunday Night Football is for good teams so the issue doesn't come up as much.

Monday Night Football, OTOH......

22 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

I agree. Their only downfall is their location in the middle of a giant parking lot when KC has such a vastly improved urban core. That wouldn't be enough to raze Kaufmann -- it's a gem of a stadium -- but it will always be battling that debate over urban density. 

Thing is, right now, there isn't mass transit that would allow a downtown stadium to be functional aside from a 2 mile streetcar and a bus system. There's limited parking for downtown as well so a downtown stadium would be a disaster. Kansas City has a lot of highways so a stadium with a large parking lot is what makes sense right now. Same with Orange County vis a vis the Angels Stadium.

Lease runs out in 2031 for both Kauffman and Arrowhead. They are talking about expanding the streetcar to Westport (a bar district that's 5 miles or so south from Union Station where the southern terminus is for the streetcar) plus they're still building capacity for parking. John Sherman has been pressing for a downtown stadium so maybe the infrastructure will be there by the time the lease is up. I don't think Arrowhead would be torn down, though. The Chiefs (and the people running the Truman Sports Complex) would probably turn the footprint that was Kauffman into a spot reserved for tailgaters only. Maybe they keep the fountains for those early games in the season. At that point, the question would be if 22 co-owners of the Royals and John Sherman are going to pay for this stadium themselves and if not, whether there is the political will among the people to approve of taxpayer funding for a stadium.

Arrowhead Stadium and Kauffman Stadium are still among the best stadiums in the league despite also being some of the oldest. Renovate, Don't Annihilate is the best path. 

10 minutes ago, Buc said:

 

I know some didn't care for him, but I really enjoyed Jon Gruden when he was in the booth. He didn't talk too loudly or fast, and of course had that same fire (albeit subdued because TV). And, until ESPN turned him into Sean Salisbury 2.0, I really liked Trent Dilfer as an analyst, as well. Neither would be mistaken for Madden or Summerall, but they weren't wooden like a Troy Aikman or *gasp* Joe Buck, either. 

I blame listening too much to focus groups. Or whatever the equivalent is for broadcasters. They try to find the solution that is the most palatable and yet are shocked when someone that is neither controversial or offensive or whatever is boring. You can't get a guy like Howard Cosell when you're worried that a few people (who may not even be your audience) are going to launch a boycott over who knows what. 

And that leaks over into everything else. TV is boring, movies are boring, radio is boring and sports are getting boring. The Internet is where creative energy is now so I'd sooner hire UrinatingTree to call a game than Recently Retired Star QB.

15 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

There's been a definite slide into blandness in the broadcast booth the last few years, especially since all the older guys have been retiring. I know that guys with the charisma of a John Madden or Harry Carey are hard to find, but there doesn't seem to be much of an effort to replace them, either.

Why find people with charisma when there are so many ex-stars needing work? I emphasize ex-stars as Rex Hudler did play in the big leagues but was mostly a utility player. Seems like guys like that make better coaches and broadcasters. 

30 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

That warms my heart.

Thing is, I had an old co-worker at a ticket broker I used to work for (long story) who said that when he worked at a liquor store, Rex Hudler would come in and get 5 shot bottles of Seagram's 7 before he'd go to the booth for Royals home games. I imagine that those were simply liquid appetizers. 

Rex is certainly one of those love him or hate him guys. But, he's certainly not forgettable which is a trait that so many broadcasters now unfortunately possess.

15 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

Man, I remember watching the Cubs on WGN when I was a kid. I was too young to know what drunk was then, but looking back I think there were games when he was blitzed before he even went to the booth.

 

Sports announcers nowadays should be allowed to drink. 

If you've ever seen Rex Hudler on TV, you'd wonder if they actually stopped.

Nah, what Purdue should do is go by PU and call their team the Trashmen. And have some Danny DeVito looking guy be the mascot.

2 hours ago, Dilbert said:

Because there is already an Indianapolis (University of Indianapolis). They are in division II. Now if they go the route that Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne did (Now Purdue Fort Wayne) and become say Indiana University Indianapolis it could be a little better.

Oh. Thank you for letting me know, I had no idea. 

Yeah, that does sound better. 

Personally, I'm wondering how long it's going to take for the WAC to collapse. It's gone on for way too long. 

21 minutes ago, Seadragon76 said:

 

Which is why most people usually call it Ooey-Pooey.

Why can't they just do what University of Missouri-Kansas City did and name their teams "Indianapolis" while still keeping the official university name? 

8 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I never thought of OnlyFans and Patreon being in competition with one another, but I guess they are. Patreon hosts both porn and other content, while OF is mostly porn at this juncture.

 

I still don't see how either sell ads. Unless this is cable all over again; you initially pay for the content so you don't get ads, except then you do.

It's not ads so much as it is competing for donors and media coverage whether its traditional media or online media. And even if things have loosened up wrt sexuality in past decade or so, media companies aren't usually big on giving coverage to "porn companies".

2 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

Say more about this?

 

OnlyFans is currently taking 10% off the top of porn purchases, which feels like really great money. And they've received mainstream exposure from Beyonce and some other social media/reality TV stars. I know that the goal of capitalism is forever growth, but OnlyFans feels like their instagram-but-porn-but-respectable(ish) market positioning is pretty good. Would selling ads offset any potential nerfing of the adult content? Feels like that would be the case to me, but I'm not in that business.

 

Thank you for joining my OnlyFans discussion.

Seems like the biggest driver of these competitors is catering to non-mainstream political views regardless of what they are. I should've worded it a lot better but I've never been one for tact. 

However, OnlyFans actually has a good shot because you can't dismiss it as a cesspool for NEETzis. Might make Patreon better too now that they actually have legit competition. 

I miss steroids in baseball. Yeah, yeah, records, morals and all that but baseball was a lot more exciting when the best sluggers were roided up.

48 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

While Spotify can buy up Last Podcast on the Left, the Ringer and Joe Rogan, that leaves a big gap for the smaller podcasts that rely on Patreon revenue. I read recently that OnlyFans is having a big COVID moment, both with porn and non-porn content. The direct support model is precarious -- and there's always money for porn -- but I'm wondering if any podcasts are seeing Patreon bumps during this time.

From what I heard, OnlyFans is trying to move away from porn to be more advertiser-friendly (read: boring). Pornhub doesn't seem to have problems with money or traffic so it doesn't make any sense to me. But, on the flip side, if anyone is going to make a Patreon competitor that doesn't cater to fascist/commie kooks who got the boot for ToS violations, they would have the best shot.

I don't miss the NFL blackout policy.

I don't miss the Edwards Jones Dome being an NFL stadium even if St. Louis did get :censored:ed over. That place was a dump even in the late 90s. 

I don't miss the New Orleans Hornets.

And I don't miss the Oakland Mausoleum being an NFL stadium. Like St. Louis, a total dump stadium in a total dump of a town. Although the Mausoleum was more of an upper decker than a dump

I miss the Tony Gonzalez slam dunking of goalposts. Hell scratch that, I miss Tony Gonzalez. 

Thanks Goodell.

1 hour ago, OnWis97 said:

 

 I don’t miss the pre-BCS national championship vote where bowl tie-ins hampered the best matchups.

 

I don't miss the idea that a national champion would be chosen by coaches and reporters. Say what you will about the BCS, but it was a step in the right direction, at least.

Bonus: I do not miss these Bills uniforms at all. Jesus Christ, I feel bad for whoever was a sports fan in Buffalo in the late 2000s.

5 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

People talking about fantasy football

I swear to God, the next time I get involved with fantasy football, I'm calling my team the Fighting Kefkas. Wait, different kind of fantasy....

I don't miss ties in hockey. 

I don't miss teal and purple being popular colors. Yes, as a 90s kid I know this is blasphemy, but y'all can bite me.

I don't miss the NHL lacking a salary cap. I'm glad I never grew up when the NFL lacked a salary cap. 

I don't miss the Arena Football League. 

I don't miss MLS teams playing in NFL stadiums. 

I don't miss Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football. 

I don't miss being a fan of a team that always dominated in the regular season but whiffed in the playoffs. Derrick Thomas deserved at least one Super Bowl ring. 

EDIT: It's not something I don't miss (because I barely remember it being a thing) but until I saw games from the 70s and 80s, I always thought it was weird that my Dad would ask me what the score was. When I finally did see said games, it became a lot more understandable. Thank God for scorebugs.

1 hour ago, Digby said:

I can't decide if COVID will pop the podcast bubble (target market won't be commuting much for many months) or is good for it (class of advertisers that aren't screwed the way newspaper advertisers are).

My guess is that while podcasts might decline in absolute number, local radio is probably going to get hit harder in percentage terms. Thus, even if podcasts decline, they are still more competitive economically than having to pay for a radio station and maintaining that radio station and the talent. 

Its like how even if blogs became less prevalent, it still didn't stop the decline of newspapers as the underlying economic fundamentals that caused such a shift were still there.

43 minutes ago, the admiral said:

I'm not so sure it's a downgrade. SportsCenter anchors are notoriously underpaid, overworked, and generally miserable, and doing play-by-play is the goal of most of those guys -- Olbermann always wanted cracks at it and rarely got them, Steve Levy got to do hockey, and Berman got like two or three baseball games a year and later the Week 1 Broncos-Raiders Late Game Of Doom. Charley Steiner went from SportsCenter to Dodgers radio, and that's certainly an upgrade.

Sounds like ESPN was the original "compensation by exposure" 

I miss NHL teams wearing white at home. Heck, I miss knowing what NBA uniform goes for what occasion. 

I miss National Hockey Night on ESPN.

I miss official NFL video games that aren't Madden.

I miss Keith Jackson.

I miss Nebraska being a football powerhouse. 

I miss the annual Kansas-Missouri Border Wa-I mean, "Showdown" at Arrowhead Stadium.