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Sports Stadiums

January 29, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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We are in the midst of the week of huge sports media for Super Bowl week. People are preparing for big feasts on their big screens with big TV coverage and big commercials. Everything big. Expensive commercials, huge security, insane media presence.

And I used to be a pretty big sports fan. I was always excited to have sports on the weekends, and enjoyed just settling into it. And I didn’t grow up with cable so it was just the free TV stuff.

I had DISH Network for a while in Maine until about a year ago. Partially so I could check out the regional sports networks. Not knowing that most of the games were blacked out and I just got to watch the Best Damn Sports Show period in dozens of markets. I loved and still love PTI. Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser have a special chemistry. It was something I DVRed and frequently watched while browsing the internet and it gave me a good idea what was going on in sports.

It’s funny though. When we gave up the DISH for Amazon Prime and saved ourselves around $1000/year (seriously). And the sports weren’t constantly available on the ESPN family of networks anymore. I didn’t have constant commercials, and I found my desire to know what’s happening in the sports pages just plummeted. I didn’t watch the NFC/AFC Championship games, didn’t watch the College Football playoffs and didn’t really know who was involved. And I think that is a good thing.

Sportsball as my friend Greg Daly calls it, takes a huge amount of attention. If you watch every Red Sox game in a season that is 500 hours of baseball, and that doesn’t even include the pre-game, post-game and sports talk radio. It’s the equivalent of 3 months full of full time work.

Sports makes a ton of money. Especially the NFL in the US, and soccer leagues overseas. Big TV contracts, and big shares on Sundays.

But, the billionaires that own these sports franchises seem to think they are giving a benevolent gift to cities and towns when they have a sports team. The franchises are often worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and often make tens of millions when in a big market. YES Network for the Yankees and NESN for the Red Sox are a huge reason they can afford big payrolls and tend to be among the best teams in baseball every year.

Part of the reason the NFL does well and has balance is there is basically one big pool of income for all of the TV and merchandising rights that are shared.

Yet, these billionaires who have the big shiny that is professional sports want huge, huge taxpayer subsidies. If you build they will come and there will be a huge economic boost to towns. In reality in places like Cincinnati or Phoenix it ends up where cities and counties not only give tens or hundreds of millions to build stadiums but tens of millions to run them every year. Glendale, Arizona spends $25 million a year on operating expenses for the Phoenix Coyotes, in a metropolitan area known for good golf in January. Hamilton County, Ohio which includes Cincinatti according to this Wall Street Journal article spent $540 million in 1996 to build new stadiums for the Reds (MLB) and Bengals (NFL). In 2010 the county spent “$34.6 million—a sum equal to 16.4% of the county budget.” Why? So billionaires could have the county pay for all the costs and operating expenses, while the owners made the money. The line used is about the huge “economic benefit” produced by stadiums. In truth, people go to see a ballgame instead of going to a movie, seeing a show, going camping, etc. There generally is no huge benefit. People drive into the stadiums, pay a fortune to park, see the game, get concessions.. and then go home in the car to their home in the suburbs. It’s madness.

I will give the New York Jets and Giants credit. They built their billion dollar plus stadium with private money. In this case, there is benefits to towns because people spending money on tickets for athletics and concerts and such to spend money in towns. And there isn’t the albatross of huge stadium debt.

I know in Portland, ME, the Portland Pirates, an AHL hockey club (think AAA in baseball), demanded that they get all the beer money in the recently renovated by the county taxpayers Cumberland County Civic Center (CCCC). I have gone to some Pirates games and it was good fun. The stadium wasn’t new but it worked okay. The Pirates weren’t selling out so you could sit close to the ice and watch good hockey. But, the CCCC deserves to make some money on their huge expenditure. Eventually they conceded because they didn’t want to lose the club. Such hardball tactics happen all the time.

For me, I am a Philadelphia sports fan. I have very fond memories of watching Michael Jack Schmidt, still my favorite baseball player, hit home runs at Veterans Stadiums. Critics said it was one of the worst stadiums in professional sports but it is full of good memories for me in the 6-8 times I went there as a kid. New and shiny isn’t necessarily better.

I thought Chicago Stadium which I got to see in it’s last year 1993-1994, unfortunately the year Michael Jordan tried out baseball. But, I remember being in standing room on the 2nd balcony for the last regular season game vs. the Knicks and I was very close to the court. The whole stadium was a city block. There was some obstructed view seats, but it was a great place to watch basketball and I am sure hockey. The new United Center I think is at least 4 times the size. I looked it up 240,000 square feet for Chicago Stadium vs. 960,000 for the United Center. The taxpayers spent millions to have seats that were 4 times farther away, so the rich could have luxury boxes.

Basically, sports leagues are for billionaires like Mark Cuban to have fun. They don’t need taxpayer money. It’s kind of like a lot of corporate welfare in the United States right now. Give millions and billions to the rich, and call them “job creators.” Use the term “trickle down economics” when the money just trickles up into bank accounts. Let’s spend less to give fancy houses to billionare sports franchise owners and more to build houses and help those in need.

edmund

Filed Under: Media, sports, Super Bowl

Mike Rice

April 3, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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Yesterday on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” there was a story about Mike Rice, the Rutgers men’s basketball coach throwing balls at players and using anti-gay slurs. With similar evidence there was a 3 game suspension and $50,000 fine during the season.

Now, he is fired. I think it’s the right decision. As a proud alumnus of Rutgers, I would love to see stability in the program and a coach to be proud of. Especially as the school enters the Big Ten in 2014-15.

A coach to be proud of first, a good program second. It’s time. It’s beyond time.

We can’t see things like this on the banks again.

Filed Under: Rutgers, sports, Television, The Blog, The Ecq Review

March Not So Mad

March 21, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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I have been a big college basketball for a long time. Since grade school. I have always looked forward to the NCAA tournament. Growing up I didn’t have cable, so watched some of the conference finals and always looked forward to the first weekend of the NCAA tournament especially. Was always annoyed when they would show Duke beating up some mid-major team and not switch to the close 8/9 or 7/10 game.

I stayed up hours. Still remember the Richmond Spiders upsetting Syracuse at like 1am when I was either in 1991 when I was still a junior in high school. I used to watch it as soon as school was over (and my activities which I think was track then) and watch it almost all weekend. It was a time I looked forward to you every year. I think I was even at the Princeton University student center to see Princeton beat UCLA in that memorable upset. Although Princeton likes sports, it’s nowhere near as rah, rah as a place like Duke. But, that was still a cool night.

September I put the DISH on pause. Planning to cancel it soon. Lanna is ready to, I am close. So I don’t have CBS or TBS or TNT or TruTV. Although I like the idea that fans can pick the game. In my opinion the times do start do close to each other.

I haven’t really watched this entire college basketball season. It’s something that is on all the time with ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, etc. and I just don’t have the options now. Sports is frankly a huge time drain, although I miss it sometimes like today and when Rutgers played Louisville in football to see who went to the BCS.

Today I checked the scores when I came home. Even turned on the March Madness online at CBS Sports, and then I watched it for literally like 2 minutes, muted the commercial and turned it off.

I am amazed how little I miss sports. It’s one of the reasons, the primary reason I got the DISH to begin with. I wanted to get all the regional sports networks. Of course, I didn’t know that almost all the sports would be blacked out, and I could watch the Best Damn Sports Show Period over 20 different regional sports networks and it would be kind of lame on all of them.

I even did a stand up bit with March Madness when I took a stand-up class. Quick pro tip: Don’t do any material that dates itself for standup. It’s pretty much useless.

So now March Madness is Tuesday, a day it snows eight inches on the last day of winter. Hopefully it warms up soon, I look forward to the times of green, I know it keeps teasing you in Maine.

And my Final Four picks: Louisville, Ohio State, Indiana, Florida. Indiana vs. Louisville in Championship. Indiana wins final 81-75.

I will admit I would probably be switching channels if I still had cable. But it’s nice to hear “Goodnight Sweetheart” by the Spaniels too. I really love listening to iTunes after work to relax. So good night sweetheart, goodnight.

Filed Under: sports, The Blog Tagged With: basketball, DISH, NCAA

Beer > Football

January 21, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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I have been a sports fan for a long time. At least since I was 9 years old and the Phillies went to the World Series in 1983 and lost to Rick Dempsey’s great series with the Baltimore Orioles.

It’s something guys talk about in school. I got into both pro and college sports, although central New Jersey where I grew up is like New England pro sports country.

I always looked forward to the NCAA tournament, loved college football Saturdays and NFL Sundays, loved hearing Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn (both in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Ashburn for his great hitting too) do Philadelphia Phillies games (and yes that made me spoiled.)

But, recently I simply don’t care about sports as much.

Last year I even had the NFL Redzone as an extra on DISH for a couple months. And that is ADD football to go to the redzone in every NFL game, sometimes going back and forth in multiple games at once.

But, late September this year I dropped the DISH. We have it on pause for $5, so we get preview channels and the DVR, but we really haven’t missed it.

I admit I miss watching PTI (Pardon the Interruption) on ESPN that was last real connection about what is going on in sports world, and I do like watching NCAA games and may have them as background now while I play Dominion: Online (yep still addicted). Honestly though I prefer listening to podcasts. It’s hard to listen to podcasts and web surf for me. Reading text and hearing text gets confusing to my brain. But it’s a good way to hear a good story.

So last night I was at a friend’s house to watch football and drink some beer. The AFC championship game Patriots vs. Ravens. I literally didn’t even know who was playing the NFL game, I thought it was the Niners but forgot the Falcons were there. I enjoyed watching the game, my friend is a loud fan, but frankly preferred drinking beer and hanging out.

I love beer. And I am going to keep talking about it on the blog, here is a collection of beer posts.

Right now having a delicious Bell’s Two Hearted Ale IPA, great balance and delicious beer. (90/A-) Last night I had some yummy dark czech lager that I should have checked into because I would get it again that was wonderfully drinkable. (88/B+) And had some Okacim (Poland) O.K. beer, that was just that. (78/C). I also had a monster beer the Founders Bolt Cutter 15th Anniversary Ale. It’s a monster at 15% alcohol by volume and frankly the alcohol showed and it was very, very heavy. Possible it will be better from aging, but like many costy beers I usually don’t see how it’s worth it. (85/B). And if you are curious I am on Untappd and like to check in.

So, I will drink beer all year, and as far as football goes I enjoy it but no longer need to go out of my way for it. But, beer truly is a gift of the gods and proof that God wants us to be happy. But, I guess Ben Franklin really said that about wine. For all spirited people it’s true, although too much spirit may soothe the soul in the evening, and brings horrors in the morning.

Cheers!

Edmund

Filed Under: beer, Dominion, Dominion: Online, games, Maine Beer Guy, sports, The Blog, The Ecq Review Tagged With: football

Watching Curling Videos

November 23, 2012 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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Yep curled for the first time on Sunday.

Loved it even though I needed a stick to throw the stone.

I wish I had better knees.

Here are some curling videos I have been watching today.

The first is from US Curling about how to play the game and a bit of the overview of the game.

The second is from Canadian curling and it’s a lot about balance and how to sweep. I loved curling on Sunday but I couldn’t get balance so want to try their balance techniques.

And then you have a top 10 of curling highlights from Canadian SportsCenter. Great stuff. If I could join a curling league in greater Portland, Maine I would.

Curl on. If you have a curling rink in your area try it. It’s a lot of fun. We are doing another CurlUp in Belfast, Maine on Sunday, December 16th from 10am-1pm. Give it a try. It’s fantastic and only $25.

Edmund

And one great shot that got this curling YouTube watching started.

Filed Under: sports, The Blog, twitter

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