GDAWG

16 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

If your gate receipts are declining and your TV ratings are flat in year three, where is your money coming from, outside of hoping that Dwayne's charisma can coerce Fox Sports executives into fronting them the cash for a few seasons? At some point your business actually has to be in business, even in Silicon Valley's edgiest cases of dullards throwing venture capital at whatever is new.

 

Honestly, forget Birmingham and Arlington, maybe they should have headquartered spring football in St. Louis from the jump.

 

I am reminded of the final sketch of the terrible teenage garage band from Kids in the Hall:

"We were so close. We had sixty people at a gig."

"Yeah, sixty people!"

"That's a salad bar."

Arlington is the headquarters because the XFL got a good deal (and the UFL continued it) and also DFW International Airport has access to every major city in America, including the other 7 UFL cities.  

The AFL's Iowa Rampage hosted a pre-season game against the Omaha Stockmen:

2 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

So Birmingham got a safety off a bad punt snap and the refs had no clue why the Defenders & Stallions were lining up for a free kick.

Auditioning for the NFL by being clueless and incompetent

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

Cities need to make use of these stadiums year round now. If that means a dime or retractable roof, then by all means get it done. Moving a stadium to the suburbs isn't the same as losing the team to another city. It's also important to know that the options for these owners to move to are drying up. They need to realize they have to pay more for these stadiums then they had to prior. The Chiefs tried to threaten KC voters to get what they want and got rebuffed. The Browns would likely receive the same treatment as well. 

There has been significant pushback against publicly funded stadiums for sports teams in the last year or so and the only one that has been successful is the OKC Thunder's attempts to get a new arena, which was voted "yes" by I think an 80-20 margin.  

56 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

Alex Meruelo and Gary Bettman paired up for an Arizona Q & A this afternoon, and judging from the clips, Meruelo was a lot better off when he was invisible and silent. But this must be part of his earning the purchase price.

 

 

Bettman is probably thinking "why didn't you sell the team to Mat Ishbia?"  

3 hours ago, Dilbert said:

Now about a week before the season starts, the Louisiana VooDoo have moved from Lake Charles to Lafayette.

They said that the owner is a celebrity when the team was first announced.  If that was the case, why have the AFL been so secretive about it?  Why haven't they revealed the owners of Georgia, Wichita or SW Kansas either?

58 minutes ago, LMU said:

Nah, he just went to go live on a farm and play all day with Pucky the Whale, Thrash, and Badaboum.

I heard that Youppi was there for a bit until he was adopted by the Canadiens.  

RIP to the Coyotes Mascot Howler

So the latest rumor about Panther City FC is that the team is going to stay in the DFW area, but rebranded.  The rumored venue is the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas, which seats 6,275.

GREAT WIN!!!! | Page 2 | IL Indoor Forum

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

I’m not sure if there’s any way to incentivize the IST, but what baffles me is that I just learned that the play-in games aren’t considered post-season, so those stats truly go nowhere. If you score 101 points in the game, do you now hold the NBA record? They’re basically considered exhibitions from a statistical perspective.  

All IST games except the finals count as part of the regular season, at least according to the IST site.  

Is it really "NHL expansion" if in a few years the two newest teams are in Phoenix and Atlanta?  

Quote

Smith said “Utah” will be on the front of the jerseys next season. The team will take its time to determine its name, logos and colors.

“It will 100 percent be ‘Utah,’ and then it will be ‘Utah Something,’ obviously,” he said. “I don’t think given this timeline that we’re going to have time -- or nor should we rush with everything else that’s going on -- to go force what that is in the next three months.”

Smith said the NHL team has contracted with Doubleday & Cartwright, an independent creative studio that has worked on brand identity with pro sports teams and companies like Apple and Nike.

“They’ve done so many of these identities,” he said. “They’re the best on the planet. They’re there to go run that process. I’m not going to rush them. Like, it’s really important that we’re not saying, ‘Hey, this has to be ready by the fall, especially when it’s going to be ‘Utah Something.’

“So, we’ll start with ‘Utah’ on the jersey, and we’ll figure out the logo and everything else and what it is that we are. But that’s a one-way door. You get to do it once. And with this timeline, I think both the League feels better and we feel better to just run the process, and then we’ll drop it when we drop it.”

How long will that take?

“Look, I don’t think it’s a 24-month process,” he said. “It’s a placeholder, but it’s kind of not a placeholder, because we’re going to be ‘Utah’ either way, right? We have the first part of the name. We don’t have the last.”

‘Utah’s ready for a team,’ new owner says | NHL.com

44 minutes ago, kimball said:

 

Fascinating. Might as well put some long sleeves on these jerseys and call it a day for next season ...

 

23 minutes ago, neo_prankster said:

But seriously though.

 

Why did the NHL put up so much fierce resistance to keep the Coyotes in Arizona? Was it just because Maricopa County was a huge TV market (and still is)?

Yes.  

11 hours ago, BottomlessPitt said:

 

Giannis or Luka will be a Laker once LeBron calls it a career. 

The hope is that Luka ends up like Dirk Nowitzki and play his entire career with Dallas.  I think that he and Kyrie will play together for the entire duration of Kyrie's contract with the Mavericks (which I think is three years).  

As for the Warriors?  They have 2019 New England Patriots vibes right now.  

33 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

Is reunion still standing? 

 

Frisco or Allen maybe? 

No.  

Frisco and Allen would be the top two choices I would think.  

4 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

The basic problem with the American Airlines Center as the Dallas-Fort Worth PVF team's home court is that as long as that arena hosts both the NBA's Mavericks and the NHL's Stars, a third sports team whose season overlaps with at least half of the NBA and NHL seasons will have a lot of difficulty in getting attractive dates for matches.

For now, yes.  There's a reason that Mark Cuban sold a majority ownership of the Mavericks to the people who own the Sands Casino, with him retaining a minority share and control of basketball operations.  Cuban hopes that the sale will speed up the legalization of Casino Gambling in Texas so that he can build a new arena that is the centerpiece of a hotel and casino in the DFW Metroplex.  

But for the time being, I suspect that the Dallas PVF team will not use the American Airlines Center.  

7 hours ago, 4_tattoos said:

This team has been an unstoppable force. So why do I have a feeling they're going to pull a Falcons?

 

They are not going to pull a Falcons because there's not a team from Boston for them to take a lead and then choke it away from.  

The shocking news coming out of the players selected: this is the first ever Olympic team for Steph Curry.  So he was considered for the 2016 team but withdrew due to injuries.