BBTV

Depends on where Phoenix ends up.

I still think that the defending champions in baseball and football should just have oversized belt buckles that have the championship ring design. Kind of like these:

That bottom one with the big Cup is awesome. The Cup looks great with the diamonds in it.

Now that NFL has standardized the Super Bowl logo, it wouldn't shock me if they wanted to take over the ring production from the teams and start issuing standardized rings, so from now on, every champion will receive the same one. It's not likely, but again, it wouldn't shock me.

Seriously. I was watching highlights from a Flyers vs Nordiques playoff series from the '80s last night, and the first thing I noticed was how small the goalies looked. These guys are a joke, and I can't believe that many of them would have numbers anywhere near what they have if they didn't have the equivilant of a matress underneath their XXXXXXXXXXL jerseys.

Well from what I've heard the Bucks aren't exactly the talk of the town. They have trouble generating interest from the fanbase, essentially. Though this may very well be the fault of a poor on-court product, it doesn't scream "lock" for the NHL. EDIT- Also, they seem to be having financial problems, if I remember correctly. I wouldn't say that the Bucks being the "talk of the town" has much to do wtih a potential NHL team's success (or lackthereof.) Take the Sixers for example. NOBODY cares about the Sixers. They can't give away tickets. But the Flyers have a rabid fan base and sell out (or come damn close) the building every night. The "every day" fans are different for the most part (except for the 10k or so seats that are bought by the corporates.) When the sixers were in the finals, of course everyone had their car flags, and was a Sixers fan. Now, nobody knows they exist. They're overshadowed by at least three of the college programs here, maybe four.

I actually don't know anything about the city or the market, I just hate when people say "city X deserves a team" (or variations of that.) What is the Bucks situation? I know it's been mentioned recently that Milwaukee is the smallest market in MLB, but I also know that market size is a little less important in hockey than in the more mainstream sports.

Based on market size, arena, potential ownership candidates, corportate community, fan interest, or, just because?

They don't use either a raised or lowered C for the "Mc"s? I've seen some teams actually randomly do it both ways. Some just use a space, like MC NABB

Being close to Bal and WAS, and having been to both cities / regions quite a bit, I feel that they are two separate markets. If Baltimore vanished from the Earth, the Washington market would be largely unaffected, and vice versa. If Los Angeles vanished from the face of the Earth, I have a hard time believing that Anaheim wouldn't be incredibly affected.

Hmm... that's not a dumb idea, however I'm not sure that it would benefit the Rays that much, and it would certainly kill the Nationals in the long run (they might get a short term revenue boost though.) Unless the Nationals, who would have to be considered one of the larger-market teams find a way to exploit that somehow, and get in a financial league with the other big guys. Of course, Baltimore is in a similar position, and they can't, so maybe it's not possible. That's the other thing - leagues like splitting up teams that share large markets, so more teams can benefit by playing against those teams. If both NYs were in the same division, then the other teams in that division would have a disproportionate amount of games against those clubs, and probably earn more revenue because of it. Keeping them in different leagues allows more teams to have dates against NY. I'm not sure if BAL-WSH is considered one large market in the context of sports, but if so, there would be little chance that MLB would want them in the same league.

Any expansion / realignment proposal for any sport in any league in any universe in any place in the space-time continuum that doesn't include Winnipeg simply cannot be taken seriously.

Because every single goddam time someone brings up a realignment, the same 50 idiots show up and post their ideas, and the thread turns in to nothing but postings of realigned leagues with expansion teams that don't make any sense. In my opinion (which counts for next to nothing, if not nothing), realignment threads aren't the worst thing in the world, except that everyone will feel the need to start their own thread, and the board would be littered with them. You'd need a whole forum just for that. The worst is when there's a perfectly good thread going on, then one jackass posts his idea for how the league would be aligned if the Jags move to LA, then, like roaches, every other idiot comes out of the woodwork to join the party and derail the thread. Agree but the people who feel the need to post a picture sentence do as much to derail a thread as the op posting the realignment suggestion. It's along the lines of IBTL and such; pure post padding. By the time any of those pictures or IBTLs get posted, it's already too late. Sure, but how many instances of derailment could have been avoided if people had simply ignored the realignment post instead of quoting it and drawing more attention to it? IMHO, zero. Once the first idiot chimes in, the others are drawn in somehow. It's like bed bugs or roaches - if you see one, you know there are a hundred others lurking. All it takes is for one realignment post with some stupid suggestion, and then there are others who can't help but think that they can do better, and next thing you know, one stupid post becomes two which becomes four which becomes eight...

Because every single goddam time someone brings up a realignment, the same 50 idiots show up and post their ideas, and the thread turns in to nothing but postings of realigned leagues with expansion teams that don't make any sense. In my opinion (which counts for next to nothing, if not nothing), realignment threads aren't the worst thing in the world, except that everyone will feel the need to start their own thread, and the board would be littered with them. You'd need a whole forum just for that. The worst is when there's a perfectly good thread going on, then one jackass posts his idea for how the league would be aligned if the Jags move to LA, then, like roaches, every other idiot comes out of the woodwork to join the party and derail the thread. Agree but the people who feel the need to post a picture sentence do as much to derail a thread as the op posting the realignment suggestion. It's along the lines of IBTL and such; pure post padding. By the time any of those pictures or IBTLs get posted, it's already too late.

Because every single goddam time someone brings up a realignment, the same 50 idiots show up and post their ideas, and the thread turns in to nothing but postings of realigned leagues with expansion teams that don't make any sense. In my opinion (which counts for next to nothing, if not nothing), realignment threads aren't the worst thing in the world, except that everyone will feel the need to start their own thread, and the board would be littered with them. You'd need a whole forum just for that. The worst is when there's a perfectly good thread going on, then one jackass posts his idea for how the league would be aligned if the Jags move to LA, then, like roaches, every other idiot comes out of the woodwork to join the party and derail the thread. By the time any of those pictures or IBTLs get posted, it's already too late. Agree but the people who feel the need to post a picture sentence do as much to derail a thread as the op posting the realignment suggestion. It's along the lines of IBTL and such; pure post padding.

Because every single goddam time someone brings up a realignment, the same 50 idiots show up and post their ideas, and the thread turns in to nothing but postings of realigned leagues with expansion teams that don't make any sense. In my opinion (which counts for next to nothing, if not nothing), realignment threads aren't the worst thing in the world, except that everyone will feel the need to start their own thread, and the board would be littered with them. You'd need a whole forum just for that. The worst is when there's a perfectly good thread going on, then one jackass posts his idea for how the league would be aligned if the Jags move to LA, then, like roaches, every other idiot comes out of the woodwork to join the party and derail the thread.

Good luck getting fans in Major League cities to pay Major League ticket prices for a team that for all intents and purposes is considered Minor League. -Dan The only way this works is if say the playoffs consist of 6 "A League" teams and 2 "B League" teams. Which would be stupid for a lot of reasons.

Everyone wants to think that their team has at least an outside shot of winning a championship when the season starts. There's always a few surprise teams, and even fans in Pittsburgh have to have some hope (at least on opening day) that this can be their year. Having an A and B league effectively eliminates half of the league before the season even starts, making it unlikely that people are going to turn out, even in the beginning. Why would I want to go to games for what is effectively a minor league team?

ur stupit. One of Utah's nicknames is "beehive state" (the other one being "Double Z State"), so the Hornetzz would go to Utah, and Charlotte should be the Force, or Flight, or Wind, or Air, or ...

It's good, but I think the NHL needs to expand more in order to get the alignment just right. I'm thinking Birmingham, Tallahassee, San Antonio, and possibly Des Monies. Also, move the Panthers to Winnipeg and rename them the Jets, then move them to Seattle, but keep the name and colors.

Well, technically, some teams had the Champion block, and some the Wilson (or whatever the Rams and Seahawks had (though the Seahawks had a really fat version of it.)). I like the custom numbers - when they make sense. The Vikings, Cardinals, and Bengals (among others) just don't seem to make sense other than the fact that they wanted something custom.

I think that as long as football and basketball are comprised of the same members, it doesn't really cheapen it that much, since the average (read - me) fan doesn't know anything about any other sport anyway. The Big East does seem like kind of a cheap, patchwork organization sometimes since they roll out different teams in every sport*. *yes, I know this is because of the 1-aa football teams that can't participate in that sport, but still.

I should rephrase my question. Does the big 10 require that if you field a team in a sport that they sponsor, that team has to be in the big 10? So if Wisconsin decided to field a baseball team, could they join the Big East for some reason? So could Texas maintain their relationship with the big 12 or whatever leagues their lower-budget sports are in? (assuming of course that the big 12 would want anything to do with them, which they'd be foolish not to.)

Does the big 10 require teams to be members in all sports? Could they have a 12-team football league, and then 10 or 11 team other leagues?