Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Sports wrap up

I thought it was cool in my last post to say I would clarify "some things" and then just have one. :) To further illustrate my incompetence, I then numbered the point "1)" and didn't have a number 2 or anything else. . . . .I'll stick to banging on the piano, thank you.


Sports wrap up.

1) College Football: The PAC 10 stinks. I think the Big 10 stinks too, but they have had some favorable matchups in the bowls that they've been able to win. You can't judge much on a non-title bowl game. . .it's kind of a gift to the players and program for the season. Some teams don't take it seriously.

And oh yeah. . .someone give me one reason why the Big East gets a BCS bid and not the WAC? Cincinnati did not represent themselves well. I remember a few years ago when a mediocre (at best) Nebraska team beat Pitt. in the non-conference. Pitt lost 3 or 4 games that year, and didn't really do anything of note. They were the "automatic" Big East bid for a BCS game. :) It was a travesty, and this year was no different. The Big East is a basketball conference. . .that's it.

2) The NBA. Well the Nuggets fell off a bit with injuries and inconsistent play. I think this is a good thing. I think we will peak at the right time in late March and go on another run this year.

This has been a funny year. . . everyone is anointing the Lakers as the champs already and I don't think they look that good. When Denver is at full strength we beat down the Lakers and the Blazers. Let them all pound away on each other in January, we'll see where the chips fall.

Boston, if healthy is still the favorite in the East. That's a big "if", though. . . . They are mentally dominant over Orlando. . . Orlando wants nothing to do with them. Cleveland isn't scared and will beat the Celtics if any of Boston's key guys are injured. We'll see how the East goes, that will be interesting.

3) The NFL.

Again, this is what they wanted. . . . parity. It's a toss-up every year, and there's no dominant teams or risky owners. Congratulations, NFL. I think their product is suffering. But, it's the best sport to watch on T.V. so they'll always have that.

And, let me say. . . . . they have one of the worst fan experiences in sports. I went to the Broncos game 2 weeks ago and it is hardly worth 50 dollars(much less 300). Cold weather, long, long T.V. timeouts. . . terrible parking. . . .no thank you. I'll watch it on T.V.

Go Colts.. . Peyton deserves another ring.

4) Soccer

Go Uruguay

4 comments:

Doc said...

5) Cricket... ?? SA or Eng??

BMer916 said...

what parity? the same good teams are still in the playoffs, and looking good; Colts, Chargers, Patriots, Eagles. these teams have been in the playoffs for most of the decade. and the same bad teams are bad. sorry dude, we can't always have a 49ers - Bills, Lakers - Celtics, Yankees - everyone else, championship.

The NFL has the best product period, they make the most money, they have the most viewers, and almost every single game is important for every team (NBA and MLB can't say that at all). Good players stay on the same team for most of their career like Peyton, Brady, Steven Jackson, Favre, Tomlinson, Hines Ward...(MLB and NBA can't say that). i'm not sure what you want from NFL.

As for the live experience, the reason it's expensive is that the game is important, there are only 8 home games a year, unlike NBA (41 games) or MLB (1,356 home games a year).

aaron said...

Doc,

I"ll take SA.

Brian,

yeah, I didn't explain the parity comment enough. You're right that the same teams rise to the top.

But, I"m talking about a game by game basis. With the salary cap and expansion, you no longer have the depth to make up for an off week, injuries, lame coach benching guys, etc. . . . In the 80's you could bench Jerry Rice because you had John Taylor, you could bench Andre Reed because you had Thurman Thomas. So, anyway. . .even though we have the Colts and the Pats every year, we also have 15 teams that are 8-8

Now, there's just alot of lame games because of the eroded talent pool (this is worse in the NBA, for sure) the salary cap, meaningless games, etc. . . .The product on the field is worse because of parity.

I don't agree on the "best product". I think the NFL has the best T.V. product, and thus, it is the #1 sport by a huge margin. I agree that the NFL is dominant, I just don't like that fact. . .I don't put the NFL first, I think the Super Bowl is lame, it's turned into all hype.

And, it is undoubtedly the worst live experience in the major 3 sports MLB, NBA, NFL. . . .The reason the NFL is dominant is because of T.V. and because football, play by play, can be more exciting that baseball or basketball at it's essence. I actually think the NFL is screwing up that last one with the huge t.v. timeouts, rule changes, and bad seating.

You make good points, I've just become less of a fan over the years.

Doc said...

> I"ll take SA.

Ha! You lose (well, I suppose technically you draw, but in the circumstances it was pretty devastating to SA that they didn't win).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/8445230.stm