Cue John Lovitz

Sam Donaldson: Vice-President Bush, there are millions of homeless in this country - children who go hungry, and lacking in other basic necessities. How would the Bush administration achieve your stated goal of making this a kinder, gentler nation?

George Bush: Well, that is a big problem, Sam, and unfortunately the format of these debates makes it hard to give you a complete answer. If I had more time, I could spell out the program in greater detail, but I'm afraid, in a short answer like this, all I can say is we're on track - we can do more - but we're getting the job done, so let's stay on course, a thousand points of light. Well, unfortunately, I guess my time is up.

Diane Sawyer: Mr. Vice-President, you still have a minute-twenty.

George Bush: What? That can't be right. I must have spoken for at least two minutes.

Diane Sawyer: No, just forty seconds, Mr. Vice-President.

George Bush: Really? Well, if I didn't use the time then, I must have just used the time now, talking about it.

Diane Sawyer: No, no, Mr. Vice-President, it's not being counted against you.

George Bush: Well, I just don't want it to count against Governor Dukakis' time.

Diane Sawyer: It won't. It will come out of the post-debate commentary.

George Bush: Do you think that's a good idea?

Diane Sawyer: You still have a minute-twenty, Mr. Vice-President.

George Bush: Well, more has to be done, sure. But the programs we have in place are doing the job, so let's keep on track and stay the course.

Diane Sawyer: You have fifty seconds left, Mr. Vice-President.

George Bush: Let me sum up. On track, stay the course. Thousand points of light.

Diane Sawyer: Governor Dukakis. Rebuttal?

Michael Dukakis: I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!

Who’s in the Mood for an Exercise in Generalization?

My operative theory on why the Big Ten underperforms despite outpacing every major conference other than the SEC in revenue generation is that the conference’s members do not spend their lucre on hiring brand name coaches. Rather, because of the Midwestern cultural bias towards blandness, they hire guys like Tim Brewster and Danny Hope instead of Bobby Petrino and Steve Spurrier because G-d forbid we pay for clothes and a car that make us look … flashy!

Michigan’s hire of Brady Hoke might have been the result of simple desperation. Dave Brandon assumed that he had Jim Harbaugh in the bag and when Harbaugh had second thoughts after NFL teams started chasing him, Brandon was left without a Plan B. However, the Hoke hire might also have been a classic example of what I’m talking about. With the money that Michigan potentially has to spend on a head coach, Brandon could have gone from candidate to candidate with the pitch “how would you like $4 million per year to coach a famous program in a famous stadium?” Instead, he picked the desperate girl whom he knew would go home with him the minute he raised the possibility. (Who knew that Dave Brandon and Cristiano Ronaldo have something in common?) To speculate for a moment, Brandon’s Midwestern sensibilities made him more likely to pick an unassuming guy without, you know, a big ego caused by numerous on-field successes.

With Hoke onboard and the rational members of the Michigan fan base thoroughly unimpressed, the PR machine has to go into full swing. What better way to sell the guy to your fan base than by portraying the new coach as a simple everyman? Short of finding a picture of Hoke driving into the parking lot of a Meijer in a Dodge Stratus, Michael Spath hits all of the notes with a frankly ludicrous piece. Spath’s thesis is that “almost everyone [in Michigan’s athletic department] is already impressed.” (Thank heavens that the athletic department won’t be acting to undermine the head coach by cooperating with the Detroit Free Press on a chilling expose that leads to the conclusion that Michigan was misclassifying ten minutes of stretching at the start of each practice! I guess that’s progress.) Spath’s evidence? I hope you’re sitting down for this: Hoke didn’t play Score-O at a Michigan hockey game. I shit you not, the following two paragraphs made it into a major online publication:

Three years earlier, Rich Rodriguez donned a Maize and Blue hockey jersey and took a stab at Score-O - the second-period intermission game in which three contestants attempt to slide a shot from the blue-line through a tiny opening into the net. The student section roared with delight. That was Rodriguez's way and that didn't make it wrong but his occupation of the spotlight did offend some folks.

Flash-forward (or rewind) to Friday night. Hoke stepped onto the ice from the north entrance wearing jeans and an untucked collared blue shirt. He looked uncomfortable as the patrons rose to their feet just as he appeared a bit out of sorts at a men's basketball game a few weeks ago. Hoke probably would have retreated quickly, disappearing out of sight, but the band broke into a rendition of The Victors and Hoke was soon pumping his fists in unison with the crowd.

If there are actually a non-trivial number of Michigan fans who were offended that Rich Rodriguez played Score-O between periods at a hockey game, then the program has bigger problems than I thought. Heaven forbid that the highest-paid employee at the University of Michigan, the man up front for the winningest program in college football history actually acknowledges that he is in the spotlight! Thank goodness that we’ve hired a guy who is going to do his work in front of 110,000 paying customers and millions watching on TV, but is uncomfortable with attention. This is bound to work out well!

Spath’s second piece of evidence is testimony from a current Michigan assistant coach that Hoke doesn’t engage in self-promotion. Leaving aside the obvious “what the hell do you think an assistant coach is going to say to a reporter about his boss?” factor, it seems fairly clear to me that Hoke doesn’t engage in self-promotion because he has nothing to promote! On a related note, I would like to brag that I am a committed husband because I haven’t slept with Salma Hayek. Thank goodness that Michigan doesn’t have a larger-than-life figure as its head coach. We all know that the program couldn’t prosper with a guy like that.

As with Dave Brandon’s "I stared into his eyes and saw his soul" defense of an indefensible hire, there are two possibilities here. One is that Spath is doing his best to make the best of a bad situation. Michigan has hired a coach with an underwhelming resume, so let’s find some way to build the guy up. How about the fact that he looks like a slob!?! The second is that Hoke’s underwhelming persona is actually a positive. If that’s the case, then Spath’s mindset is the Platonic ideal of why Big Ten football fails. It is generally (but not universally) true that successful head coaches have big egos. The level of adulation that fans and the media heap on coaches who win makes this a natural result. If having an ego is a red flag for Big Ten programs, then they’ll just keep hiring guys who get broiled 49-7 in Orlando. If the focus is on having rock-ribbed, square-jawed Midwesterners instead of guys who have actually won things, then the league can look forward to more 0-4 New Year’s Days. Southerners can be as provincial as anyone, but at least we demand that our ADs hire on the basis of credentials instead of stereotypes.

And as if on Cue...

Arthur Blank channels Hyman Roth:

The Atlanta Falcons moved a step closer toward a possible new home field Tuesday, after the Georgia World Congress Center Authority signaled it is ready to move into detailed talks on the matter.

The Authority agreed to enter into a “memorandum of understanding” with the Falcons on plans for a potential $700 million open-air stadium downtown.

Both parties emphasized the memorandum does not constitute a done deal, but rather allows them to begin negotiations over details of the project, including financing.

But the Falcons have made it clear that they want a new open-air stadium, rejecting alternatives such as expanding the Georgia Dome, adding a retractable roof to the facility or building a new dome with a retractable roof.

I suppose that we are supposed to feel good that the new stadium is going to be paid for by a hotel tax, so the expense of Blank's new palace will fall on out-of-towners, but why can't we keep the tax and spend it on something useful like, say, roads or college tuition? And has anyone gone to the Dome and said "gee, this facility is inadequate and outdated?" There is nothing wrong with the existing facility and the Falcons are perfectly capable of competing in the NFL with their existing revenue streams. This isn't about keeping the Falcons, improving the fan experience, or maintaining the team's ability to compete. It's simply about maximizing profit for a private entity.

Speaking of revenue streams, it's interesting to me that the socialist structure of the NFL ends up undercutting the rationale of its teams to demand public money. Because Major League Baseball payrolls are uncapped, a baseball team can argue that it needs a sweetheart stadium deal in order to spend on better players. In that instance, the local electorate can weigh the expense against the positive psychological impact of having a winning team. In the NFL, teams are going to have roughly the same player payroll regardless of how much they are making on their stadium. There's no reason for a city to enrich the local NFL team in order to produce wins. Instead, the NFL is ruthless enough to leave the second biggest market in the country without a team as a way to extort other cities, so they provide the stick rather than the carrot.

Oh, Orson

This is the sort of thing that only I care about:

IT'S A SPRAIN OH GIMME DA SPRAY. That three overpaid medics did not come out immediately and revive Aaron Murray's sprained ankle with magic spray is proof that Georgia is not a professional European football team. Anyone who watches their fair share knows that the magic spray is all you need to recover from a major soccer injury, often reviving an apparently dead man in a matter of seconds. When Italians have heart attacks, it's often applied directly to the chest and works in half the time. This is really all a roundabout way of saying that Aaron Murray's ankle is fine, and that if your national soccer team is not named Spain and has a coastline bordering the Mediterranean, you play an abominable, despicable form of the game and should be ejected from international competition forever based on style alone.*

*You too, Portugal.

Ahem...

Five Thoughts on Barca-Arsenal

1. It seems sacrilegious to criticize Pep Guardiola for anything, but he made a major mistake pulling David Villa off and that was a factor that turned the game.  At the time that Guardiola made the move, Messi and Villa had been making outstanding combinations to take advantage of Arsenal playing a high defensive line.  Villa had slipped Messi in for a breakaway that Messi dinked wide; Messi returned the favor and Villa scored Barca’s goal.  When Villa came off, Messi lost his partner in the middle of attack.  Additionally, the move pushed Andres Iniesta out wide, which further weakened Barca’s offensive presence in the middle of the pitch.  The move seemed timid, which is rare for Guardiola.  Michael Cox agrees:

Guardiola’s decision to bring on Seydou Keita for David Villa on 67 minutes looks like a mistake in hindsight. Barcelona pushed Iniesta forward into the front three but they had less attacking threat – they sat back too much and focused on keeping possession rather than looking for further chances.

Wenger made an attacking switch – Song off, Arshavin on, and Nasri into the middle of the pitch. Those two substitutions happened at the same time, so it wasn’t either manager responding to the other, but it worked nicely for Arsenal. Whilst taking off their holding midfielder was something of a risk, the fact that Barcelona no longer had a driving, attack-minded central midfielder meant it wasn’t an issue. Song’s absence meant Iniesta would have thrived in the centre of midfield – the two were in direct competition.

2. To me, the difference in this Arsenal team and the edition from last year is Jack Wilshere.  Over the last several years, Arsenal have had good attacking players (especially when Robin van Persie is healthy), but the midfielders behind them have been suspect.  Wilshere is a revelation, an English midfielder who can actually pass the ball.  There are a number of troglodytes in England who are going to owe Arsene Wenger an apology when Wilshere gives the Three Lions something they haven’t had in years.  Wilshere is the platform off of which Fabregas, Nasri, and Walcott can function.  The platform certainly isn’t Alex Song, who didn’t look like he belonged on the pitch.

3. My one obligatory whine about the ref: it was amusing to hear Martin Tyler intone that Arsenal fans thought that Barca was getting all the calls as a replay was playing that showed Barca having a perfectly legitimate second goal ruled out for offside.

4. Victor Valdes, you’ve come so far and then you leave your near post like that?  If there is one piece of knowledge upon which you should be able to rely, it’s the knowledge that Robin van Persie will shoot at every possible opportunity. 

5. The 2-1 result makes for an interesting second leg.  Barca have progressed with road draws in five Champions League knock-out ties under Guardiola and they were knocked out after a 3-1 loss at Inter last year.  Now, we have a middle ground.  I’d make Barca the favorite because every single home result they have had under Guardiola in Champions League knock-out ties would be sufficient to allow them to progress.  Also, it’s unlikely that Messi will finish as poorly as he did tonight (although the rest of his game was outstanding).  That said, at 0-1 and even 1-1, the tie was pretty much over.  At 2-1 Arsenal, Barca’s chances aren’t much above 50%.  The big question is whether Arsenal’s backline can handle the pressure that they’ll see for 90 minutes.  What worked for Inter last year was a great center back pairing and terrific defensive midfielders in front of them.  Arsenal doesn’t have that personnel, so they have to be thinking about 2-2 instead of 0-0.

Our Lady of the Lake and her Big, Angry Men

Stories about Notre Dame’s imminent return to glory under a new regime seem like Police Academy sequels, each new one more preposterous than the last.  Rather than dismissing the latest batch, Stewart Mandel argues that New and Improved Notre Dame, Brian Kelly Edition is not Mission to Moscow ridiculous, but rather that we have a legitkmate reason to believe that this time, it's not a joke.  Mandel’s argument is that Brian Kelly’s first recruiting class is especially heavy on defensive line talent, unlike the classes of Charlie Weis. 

Mandel is correct, although he overstates the case a little.  It’s true that Kelly landed Notre Dame’s first five-star defensive linemen since the Bob Davie years.  However, it’s not as if Weis didn’t pull in any talent at the position.  Of the 37 (!) ESPN 150 players that Weis recruited in four full classes, five were defensive linemen.  (For some reason, Notre Dame’s recruiting classes are not available on Rivals right now.)  If you assume a three-man front as the base defense, then Weis brought in blue chip defensive linemen in a proportion consistent with the number of defensive linemen in a starting lineup.  His downfall was on the defensive side of the ball, but it wasn’t a failure of recruiting.

Speaking of the three man front, I’m interested to see how it plays out on the college level.  Bobby Diaco runs a 3-4 defense, which traditionally sees the outside linebackers making the plays and the defensive ends occupying blockers.  At 225 pounds, Ishaq Williams seems destined four outside linebacker.  With weights in the 250s, Aaron Lynch and Stephon Tuitt could also be outside linebackers or they could bulk up into 3-4 ends.  They are already at the weight at which Justin Houston tore up the SEC this fall.  If they put on 25 pounds, where will they be on the field?  The Irish’s use of Lynch and Tuitt presents an interesting issue because college teams that run a 3-4 are coming into a recruiting advantage.  Three of the four teams in the NFL final four run 3-4 schemes.  The defense is getting very popular in the NFL, as smart 3-4 coaches have the upper hand right now with their ability to confuse quarterbacks and offensive lines.  Georgia’s switch to the 3-4 is likely to pay recruiting dividends because of what recruits are seeing on TV in January.  The same is true for Notre Dame.  The question is whether the best recruits pulled in by Georgia, Notre Dame, and other 3-4 schools are going to end up as defensive ends or outside linebackers. 

Mandel’s description of Brian Kelly’s recruiting success also raises two issues for Michigan fans, aside from the obvious “a team on the schedule is improving the talent on its roster.”  The first is that Brian Kelly is doing exactly what Rich Rodriguez should have done. Like Rodriguez, Kelly knows offense and is confident that his teams will be great on that side of the ball, regardless of the talent level. Kelly moved to ND to have access to better athletes on the defensive side so that his teams aren't lopsided. Rodriguez had to have thought the same thing when leaving his alma mater, where he had just gone 32-5, but for whatever reason, he was unable to take advantage of Michigan’s recruiting platform.  Kelly, on the other hand, is taking advantage of being at Notre Dame.

That said, the second issue is that Kelly's recruiting success is also an implicit repudiation of the story that the media in Michigan will tell about Rodriguez's failure in Ann Arbor. The local media will want to make Rodriguez's demise a repudiation of the Spread, but based on the quarterback that he recruited, Kelly seems to be moving towards a more run-based Spread as opposed to a passing spread (or at least a more balanced version). The local media are also on a kick about how Brady Hoke is going to recruit the Midwest heavily, but Kelly is getting players from the Deep South, which is exactly the right strategy for a school like ND or Michigan and it’s the same strategy that Rodriguez tried and failed to execute.  In short, the media in Michigan are in denial about the state’s current condition, so they responded vehemently to a coach who looked elsewhere for talent and they are excited by a coach who believes (or is at least mouthing the belief for public consumption) that a national contender can be created from recruiting the local high schools.

One final thought on Mandel’s piece.  I’ve had a good time ripping Mandel’s overreaction to Notre Dame’s recent struggles.  To his credit, in his most recent article, Mandel links to his own pieces that have been refuted by recent events.  With my new-found appreciation for Mandel using his brain when writing, I’m inclined to point out that one of the things that I like about him is his willingness to reference instances in which he has been wrong.  I like this trait in Mark Bradley, as well.  I’ll put up with a lot from a writer if he will acknowledge when he is wrong. 

We Have Now What we Have Always Needed, Real Partnership with the Government.

Deadspin is pretty much useless to me because it’s become the US Weekly of sports blogs, but I remain a fan of its slogan: “without access, favor, or discretion.” That saying is the “all the news that’s fit to print” of the blogosphere. Think about the slogan when you read two pieces: Peter King’s hagiography of Roger Goodell ($) and S.M. Oliva’s dissection of the NFL as an embodiment of crony capitalism at the Mises Economics Blog. (HT to Chris Brown for the latter link. And yes, I get the point that I’m left-of-center and quoting the von Mises Institute.)

I finally got around to reading the King piece this weekend and found myself wondering whether it would be any different if it were written by the NFL’s PR department itself. (The irony here is that Goodell got his start as a PR guy for Ken O’Brien when the Jets took O’Brien as one of the least heralded members of the famed 1983 quarterback class.) In Cliff Notes style, here’s what you can learn from King’s eight-page piece:

1. Goodell successfully handled a racially-loaded incident in a bar in college.

2. Goodell sent a security detail to Tank Johnson’s house instead of Johnson buying a gun.

3. The NFL is very popular, but the labor dispute will be complicated.

4. Goodell’s childhood was marked by protecting his siblings, realizing that he would have to outwork everyone else, and following his Dad’s political career, which ended with a principled stand against the Vietnam War. We end up with this rancid comparison:

Goodell lost the 1970 Senate election, receiving just 24% of the vote in a three-party race. "But what did he retain?" Roger says. "His principles. His integrity. His character. It had a big effect on all of us."

On the future NFL commissioner, especially. "Roger has so much of his father in him," Tagliabue says. "He listens to all sides and has the courage of his convictions. I used to see it a lot when he was dealing with state legislators and governors. He understood the pressure elected officials were under."

Yes, Peter, we all see the similarity between Charles Goodell taking a stand against Vietnam that provoked a backlash from his own party and Roger Goodell convincing politicians to fork over large chunks of the public treasury to enhance the bottom lines of the NFL and its wealthy owners. Real conviction on both sides.

5. Goodell took care of his mother when she had terminal cancer.

6. Goodell convinced Jerry Rice not to go to the USFL, returned pro football to Cleveland, and was correct to side with Jerry Jones on the potential of local sponsorship deals.

7. Goodell is a man of the people who talks to his ordinary customers.

8. Mike Vick wants to make Goodell proud after lying to him about his involvement in dog-fighting. (Seriously, this story about Goodell’s steely glare to Vick is ludicrous. Was Vick really going to admit to a serious federal offense and thus make the Commissioner of the NFL a material witness? Goodell’s question to Vick was a classic sideline reporter question with only one potential answer, but Greg Aiello King retells it with vim so fans can feel good that the NFL commissioner takes a hard line on scofflaws with cornrows.)

9. Goodell will bend on the NFL’s position that the season should be extended to 18 games – an unprincipled, meritless position in light of the emphasis on head injuries and thus, an obvious negotiating ploy - but he is a stalwart negotiator who will win in the end.

The inclusion of the 18-game schedule issue is the only nugget in a long cover story that could possibly be construed as negative for Goodell and King promptly defuses it by saying that Goodell and the owners will back off that demand. Hell, even the cover – a ground level shot looking up at Goodell, surveying all he has conquered as the serious man of industry – comes right out of your average political campaign. Sports Illustrated is the major national media entity that should be able to display critical thinking when it covers the labor dispute because ESPN and the other networks are beholden to the league as a result of their broadcast deals. Instead, SI devoted major space to allow the NFL to fire an early salvo in a PR war. (In SI’s defense, they did a very good job covering head injuries in a lengthy cover feature this season, so it’s not as if they have nothing to contribute.) King’s piece reeks of a writer who wants to maintain a good relationship with the entity that he covers. The desire for access pollutes the final product.

In contrast, the Oliva piece is a great takedown of the NFL and Goodell. In the same way that lots of voters are against “big government” while ignoring the fact that they are beneficiaries in a host of ways (their position isn’t “I don’t like spending;” it’s “I don’t like spending on other people”), lots of otherwise conservative people love a sport that makes a mockery of the free market. Inept owners like the Fords in Detroit and the Browns in Cincinnati continue to rake in profits from unassailable positions because the NFL protects bad management. (I would pay through the nose to see a meeting of NFL owners in which a promotion/relegation system is discussed.) These owners benefit from the heavy public subsidies that every franchise receives in one form or another. Oliva then lights into Goodell as being emblematic of the league’s authoritarian bent:

There is, in fact, a strong “intellectual property” mentality throughout the NFL. Literally this is reflected in the league’s fanatical prosecution of its trademarks and copyrights. But on another level, there’s a belief in “The Shield,” the image of a league that must be protected at all costs from any hint of negative press.

When Roger Goodell became commissioner, he took this idea to laughable excess. No longer content to enforce the league’s on-field rules, Goodell anointed himself a crusader against all perceived wrongs. He routinely suspends players for off-field incidents – even mere allegations — that have nothing to do with the actual game of professional football. His rationale is that any action by an NFL player that may reflect poorly on him also hurts the league somehow. (Of course, that doesn’t apply to Goodell’s employers, the franchise operators, who are free to be sleazy, racist, and dishonest businessmen, e.g. Daniel Snyder).

Then again, as a lifelong NFL bureaucrat, Goodell is simply extending the league’s on-field thinking to off-field situations. The NFL product is increasingly bureaucratic and not very “consumer friendly.” The league obsesses over trivial matters — fining players $5,000 for wearing the wrong socks, banning all truthful criticism of officiating mistakes, changing rules on the fly in the middle of the season — to the point where we’re no longer talking about private businessmen but quasi-governmental officials. Indeed, what private business outside of professional sports has a “Commissioner”?

Not that any of this is surprising. When the majority of league stadiums are government finances, that mentality seeps into the league’s operations. When you attempt to circumvent the laws of economics by continually subsidizing poor management, what you’re left with is a even poorer management.

The one problem with Oliva’s critique is that Goodell’s crackdown on players who are not charged with crimes (Ben Roethlisberger) or, in one case, are alleged to have committed a tawdry offense that isn’t even illegal (Brett Favre) is actually a free market response. The NFL has to be careful with resentment on the part of its fans towards its players. That resentment has elements of race and class (a combination of conservative and liberal themes!) and is stoked by the sports media, which often have little food on their table, but have a lot of forks and knives and have to cut something. (See the comment in King’s piece by a tailgater in Cincinnati.) By becoming the avenging angel for fans, Goodell is responding to taste of the market. Not all bad qualities of the NFL are the result of its suckling at the government teat. Then again, if the point is that the NFL is an emblem of authoritarian, state-aided capitalism, then Sheriff Goodell fits right in.

Rebranding in the NHL

I recommend the article in Tuesday's New York Times about the efforts of the Tampa Lightning to rebrand their product by simplifying the uniforms:

Redesigning the Lightning’s uniforms took six painstaking months.

“This is a big, long process involving researchers and writers and designers and strategists,” said Ed O’Hara, the chief creative officer of SME Branding, the New York firm hired to make the Lightning crest and uniforms evocative of hockey’s roots.

The path to rebranding the Lightning was littered with discarded sketches for jersey and crest designs, cashiered concepts for remaking the team’s image and weekly speakerphone conferences between New York and Florida to hash it all out.

It ultimately led to a simple blue-and-white uniform: a clean design redolent of the N.H.L.’s Original Six. Tampa Bay’s uniform is only the third in the league to use just two colors, after the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings.

Lord, please let this be a trend. With football uniforms headed towards the garish end of the continuum, it's refreshing to see a pro sports franchise realize that branding itself in a more traditional way makes sense. The fact that Tampa is in a non-traditional market makes the rebranding even more important. They've clearly come to the realization that they need to downplay the fact that they aren't one of the Original Six and the way to do that is to play in duds that look like they could have come from the 1930s. Of course, they have also been able to rebrand in the one way that would save hockey in Atlanta: new ownership.

Speaking of which, Tim Vickery made a great point on the World Football Phone-in a few weeks ago regarding coverage of futbol in Brazil and the point applies to the NHL. He was talking about the discussions in England regarding whether the new tenant of the London Olympic Stadium, either Spurs or West Ham, will tear out the track when one of the clubs moves in after the Olympics. In the process of making the point that having a running track kills the atmosphere for a match, he said that Brazilian TV companies can't get enough of the English Premier League in large part because the atmosphere is so good. The fans are screaming and singing the whole time and significantly, they are close to the action, so the cameras can pick up the facial reactions of the fans when goals go in.

Vickery's point has applicability to the NHL, specifically as an illustration of yet another way in which Gary Bettman has got things all wrong. He expanded hockey throughout the Sunbelt because of the size of the markets here. In the process of doing so, he reduced the value of the NHL as a TV property. Hockey already struggles on TV because it's hard to follow the puck. The sport needs to make up for this shortcoming in other ways. One such way is passion from the fans. Hockey fans tend to be screamers, especially in places where the game has deep roots. Leaving aside the fact that I live in Atlanta and want our city to have an NHL team, what is going to be more appealing to an average viewer: a playoff game in a beautiful, but somewhat sterile arena in Atlanta or Nashville or the same game played in front of crazy fans who live and breathe the game in Quebec City or Winnipeg? The NHL already has something of a spectacle problem by virtue of iconic franchises leaving their great old arenas for new, less interesting venues. (Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, and Boston all come to mind; Hockey Night in Canada just isn't the same without Maple Leaf Gardens. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are some kids on my lawn who require shooing.) The league adds to the problem by moving its product outside of its sweet spot.

Our Lady of the Lake and her Big, Angry Men

Stories about Notre Dame’s imminent return to glory under a new regime seem like Police Academy sequels, each new one more preposterous than the last. Rather than dismissing the latest batch, Stewart Mandel argues that New and Improved Notre Dame, Brian Kelly Edition is not Mission to Moscow ridiculous, but rather that we have a legitimate reason to believe that this time, it's not a joke. Mandel’s argument is that Brian Kelly’s first recruiting class is especially heavy on defensive line talent, unlike the classes of Charlie Weis.

Mandel is correct, although he overstates the case a little. It’s true that Kelly landed Notre Dame’s first five-star defensive linemen since the Bob Davie years. However, it’s not as if Weis didn’t pull in any talent at the position. Of the 37 (!) ESPN 150 players that Weis recruited in four full classes, five were defensive linemen. (For some reason, Notre Dame’s recruiting classes are not available on Rivals right now.) If you assume a three-man front as the base defense, then Weis brought in blue chip defensive linemen in a proportion consistent with the number of defensive linemen in a starting lineup. His downfall was on the defensive side of the ball, but it wasn’t a failure of recruiting.

Speaking of the three man front, I’m interested to see how it plays out on the college level. Bobby Diaco runs a 3-4 defense, which traditionally sees the outside linebackers making the plays and the defensive ends occupying blockers. At 225 pounds, Ishaq Williams seems destined four outside linebacker. With weights in the 250s, Aaron Lynch and Stephon Tuitt could also be outside linebackers or they could bulk up into 3-4 ends. They are already at the weight at which Justin Houston tore up the SEC this fall. If they put on 25 pounds, where will they be on the field? The Irish’s use of Lynch and Tuitt presents an interesting issue because college teams that run a 3-4 are coming into a recruiting advantage. Three of the four teams in the NFL final four run 3-4 schemes. The defense is getting very popular in the NFL, as smart 3-4 coaches have the upper hand right now with their ability to confuse quarterbacks and offensive lines. Georgia’s switch to the 3-4 is likely to pay recruiting dividends because of what recruits are seeing on TV in January. The same is true for Notre Dame. The question is whether the best recruits pulled in by Georgia, Notre Dame, and other 3-4 schools are going to end up as defensive ends or outside linebackers.

Mandel’s description of Brian Kelly’s recruiting success also raises two issues for Michigan fans, aside from the obvious “a team on the schedule is improving the talent on its roster.” The first is that Brian Kelly is doing exactly what Rich Rodriguez should have done. Like Rodriguez, Kelly knows offense and is confident that his teams will be great on that side of the ball, regardless of the talent level. Kelly moved to ND to have access to better athletes on the defensive side so that his teams aren't lopsided. Rodriguez had to have thought the same thing when leaving his alma mater, where he had just gone 32-5, but for whatever reason, he was unable to take advantage of Michigan’s recruiting platform. Kelly, on the other hand, is taking advantage of being at Notre Dame.

That said, the second issue is that Kelly's recruiting success is also an implicit repudiation of the story that the media in Michigan will tell about Rodriguez's failure in Ann Arbor. The local media will want to make Rodriguez's demise a repudiation of the Spread, but based on the quarterback that he recruited, Kelly seems to be moving towards a more run-based Spread as opposed to a passing spread (or at least a more balanced version). The local media are also on a kick about how Brady Hoke is going to recruit the Midwest heavily, but Kelly is getting players from the Deep South, which is exactly the right strategy for a school like ND or Michigan and it’s the same strategy that Rodriguez tried and failed to execute. In short, the media in Michigan are in denial about the state’s current condition, so they responded vehemently to a coach who looked elsewhere for talent and they are excited by a coach who believes (or is at least mouthing the belief for public consumption) that a national contender can be created from recruiting the local high schools.

One final thought on Mandel’s piece. I’ve had a good time ripping Mandel’s overreaction to Notre Dame’s recent struggles. To his credit, in his most recent article, Mandel links to his own pieces that have been refuted by recent events. With my new-found appreciation for Mandel using his brain when writing, I’m inclined to point out that one of the things that I like about him is his willingness to reference instances in which he has been wrong. I like this trait in Mark Bradley, as well. I’ll put up with a lot from a writer if he will acknowledge when he is wrong.

Used to Work on Mr. Wren’s farm

With the obligatory cautionary references to Brad Komminsk, Bruce Chen, and Jose Capellan, there is near-universal consensus that the Braves' farm system is loaded, especially with pitching talent. Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus gives five-star status (nice to see the infiltration of college football recruiting terminology here) to three prospects: Julio Teheran, Freddie Freeman, and Mike Minor. Three more prospects - Arodys Vizcaino, Craig Kimbrel, and Randall Delgado - get four stars.

Goldstein's bullish thoughts on the farm system are by no means unusual. ESPN's Keith Law rates Freeman as the top impact prospect in baseball and ranks the Braves' system as third overall. Law puts five Braves in his top 100: Teheran (6), Freeman (43), Vizcaino (47), Delgado (50), and Minor (61). Baseball America takes a similar view of the top prospects in the system, although its organization rankings are not yet out.

This seems like as good a time as any to make the point that Liberty Media has not been a disaster for the Braves. The common criticism in this town is that Liberty Media doesn't care whether the team wins or loses because the Braves are only one of a number of faceless assets to them. That's true as far as it goes, but one of the advantages of being run by a distant, dispassionate entity is that there is no interference with the people who actually know the industry. Thus, the professionals who draft and sign young talent are able to maintain a farm system that consistently produces quality players. We all get frustrated when Liberty Media doesn't spend that little extra sum to fill in an obvious hole, but the team is only in a position where a free agent leftfielder could make a difference because of the farm system.

Yes, Phil, it's Rude to Acknowledge Reality

If this account of the now-famous Phil Simms/Desmond Howard tete-a-tete is correct, then we have a perfect encapsulation of one of the problems with modern commentary. Simms allegedly told Howard that Howard's criticism of Matt Simms as one of the three worst quarterbacks in the SEC (a criticism that was not far off and possibly shared by Derek Dooley, who replaced Simms with Tyler Bray by the end of the season) was out of bounds because "you don’t say that about anyone else." In other words, if a player is not performing well, it's rude to point this fact out. And this, in a nutshell, is why sentient people would rather hear Cris Collinsworth call a game as opposed to listening to Phil Simms follow the custom of telling us that everyone is wonderful.

Signing Day Thoughts

To live outside the law, you must be honest

Of Rivals’ top 15 classes, #4 USC is on probation (pending appeal), #7 Auburn spent the month of November under a cloud because of a wealth of circumstantial evidence that they bought Cam Newton, and #16 North Carolina spent the month of September under a cloud because their defensive line coach was essentially a runner for a agent.  In the end, 18-year olds don’t seem to worry about the prospect of playing for a team on probation.  Maybe the lesson is that it’s worth the risk to cheat?  I’m not even sure why I ended the last sentence with a question mark. 

This is teh awesome

College football is valuable to the NFL because its popularity means that players come to the NFL with reputations.  We’re interested in Vince Young and Reggie Bush because they come to the League with a backstory.  College basketball is valuable to the NBA for the same reason.  MLB suffers in comparison because it has to start from scratch in terms of creating personalities.  With more and more attention paid to recruiting, college football now has a similar bounce to the NFL and NBA (although not as high) because fans know some of their players before they ever put on the uniform.  In fact, the bounce is a little stronger in two senses.  First, we follow the recruitment of our players and our initial feeling about them is affection because they picked us over a rival.  Second, we follow the big ones who got away, which means that we have some interest in other teams.  I’m still waiting to watch Demar Dorsey play for … someone.  

Fighting over the scraps

Recruiting in the state of Michigan should be interesting next year.  The in-state class is supposed to be fairly good, which I guess means that the state will push past South Carolina and be a bit more like Alabama in terms of the number of top-tier prospects.  On the one hand, Michigan has a new coach who is trying to improve relations with the high school coaches of the state.  Michigan fans are expecting the normal first-year recruiting bounce, especially with the Luddite local media now behind the coach because he’s a “Michigan Man” by virtue of having been a defensive line coach under Lloyd Carr for a few years.  On the other hand, Michigan State fans will be expecting a recruiting bounce from their once-a-decade very good season.  It would be nice for the Big Ten if one of its programs other than top dog Ohio State and newcomer Nebraska could put together a top 20 recruiting class, something the other ten teams in the league collectively failed to do in this recruiting class.  One wonders if the top brass in the Big Ten are noticing that their collection of underwhelming coaching staffs aren’t exactly doing much to convince players outside of the region to come play in their full stadia.

Stingless

This recruiting cycle came on the heels of Georgia Tech winning the ACC for the first time in almost two decades.  The crop of in-state players was especially good, as there were 22 four- or five-star players in the Peach State.  In the end, Paul Johnson signed one of the 22.  In response to the inevitable counter by Tech fans that recruiting rankings don’t matter, think about the players who led the Jackets to that ACC title.  Derrick Morgan, Morgan Burnett, Jonathan Dwyer, and Josh Nesbitt, all four-star recruits from Chan Gailey’s excellent 2007 class.  Right now, I’m thinking of Paul Johnson as being another version of Ralph Friedgen: a very smart offensive coach who was able to win with his predecessor’s players, but will struggle to do so with his own guys.  The one potential saving grace: Tech has very specific needs for its option offense and 3-4 defense, so if they found good players to fill those needs, then that might allow them to compensate when they play opponents with great players.

So who is Christian Laettner in this class?

I hate the Dream Team nickname because of overuse, but full marks to Mark Richt for pulling in a classic Georgia class, headlined by a bevy of excellent in-state players and augmented by the occasional blue chip from elsewhere in the Southeast.  Richt has been on the hot seat since the Dawgs started 1-4 on the heels of a disappointing 2009, but he circled the wagons beautifully.  If nothing else, Richt’s replacement will be in a great position.  In an ideal world, the Dawgs’ new 3-4 will get traction and Richt will have a second wind, a la Vince Dooley after two weak season out of three in the late 70s.  As one of Rich Rodriguez’s excuse-makers, I tried to rationalize Michigan’s weak classes over the last two years as a result of all of the negativity around the program from the various factions fighting with one another, but after seeing Richt put together a great class despite questions about his job security, maybe the conclusion is simply that Rodriguez wasn’t a very good recruiter (or at least wasn’t good at selling Michigan’s strengths).

More than a Game, Cairo Edition

As a history nerd, one of the factors that has drawn me into following world football is that it's a great way to learn about historical context. For instance, reading about how the modern game started in England requires one to understand the effects of the industrial revolution, as well as the role played by English schools in training their elite. Reading about how the modern game spread throughout the world requires one to understand how international trade took off in the late 19th and early 20th century. When I was picking a club to support, I was drawn to Barca, at least in part, by the founding myth (and I use the term myth in the Jospeh Campbell sense, not the "totally fictional story" sense) that the club was an outlet for opposition to Franco, with the murder of Josep Sunyol a central part of the story.

Not surprisingly, soccer is weaved into the current events taking place in Egypt:

Last Thursday, the Egyptian Soccer Federation announced that they would be suspending all league games throughout the country in an effort to keep the soccer clubs from congregating. Clearly this was a case of too little, too late. Even without games, the football fan associations have been front and center organizing everything from the neighborhood committees that have been providing security for residents, to direct confrontation with the state police. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent Egyptian blogger said, "The ultras -- have played a more significant role than any political group on the ground at this moment." Alaa then joked, "Maybe we should get the ultras to rule the country."

The involvement of the clubs has signaled more than just the intervention of sports fans. The soccer clubs' entry into the political struggle also means the entry of the poor, the disenfranchised, and the mass of young people in Egypt for whom soccer was their only outlet.

As soccer writer James Dorsey wrote this week, "The involvement of organized soccer fans in Egypt's anti-government protests constitutes every Arab government's worst nightmare. Soccer, alongside Islam, offers a rare platform in the Middle East, a region populated by authoritarian regimes that control all public spaces, for the venting of pent-up anger and frustration."

Soccer certainly isn't the only prism through which one can view the world, but it is one of the best.

Sir Alex in an Alley in London with Posterboards

Kudos to Nate for altering me to this.

Why Commentary is so Dumb

Here's a great column from an anonymous player across the pond making the point that players are not interested in what is said by pundits:

With top-level football being so complex, it is very difficult to deconstruct a live game within a couple of minutes of it being over, and because of this the "analysis" is usually reduced to goals and individual performance. But the fact that many pundits don't even try to scratch beneath the surface, despite knowing what it takes to win a match at this level, annoys me. It's the trivialisation of what we do by people that we used to call our own and, more importantly, deprives the viewer of some very interesting tit-bits that would, I feel, add to the entertainment.

This point is both intuitive and fascinating. On the one hand, it would stand to reason that former coaches and players would be able to provide insights that go above and beyond those of people like me who did not play games on a high level. On the other hand, as is drilled into our heads every time we listen to Lou Holtz and Mark May try to explain what we just saw, the level of commentary from former coaches and players is, to use the English term, dross.

So why is that? It can't be that former coaches and players are unable to understand what they see. As the anonymous player writing for The Guardian points out, modern footballers are subject to an incredibly complex set of instructions. The same would be true for American football players, who have to understand incredibly complicated offensive and defensive systems. (A related point that has been percolating in my head: with modern college and pro football schemes getting more ornate, an underrated, but critical skill for modern coaches is the ability to explain difficult concepts to players who sometimes might not be the sharpest tools in the shed.)

If we're not talking about an inability to explain what has actually happened on the field, then there have to be other factors at work. I can think of two. First, studio pundits have to talk in 30-60 second bursts and they have to say something that the viewer will remember. The same factor that drags down our political discourse also drags down the quality of commentary. In the same way that it's hard to explain the various options for addressing the U.S.'s long-term debt dilemma in 60 seconds, it's also hard to explain what Alabama was doing with their inside linebackers to negate Florida's zone read plays. The format lowers the quality.

The second factor is that inane commentary is a feature, not a bug. For whatever reason (mostly to ensure that the product can be understood by the dumbest person watching), commentary in cliches seems to be valued by editors and producers everywhere. I have little doubt that if Mark May gave a good, detailed explanation for why Ohio State is getting consistent pressure on the quarterback and why Penn State is failing to deal with their pressure schemes, he would have a producer in his ear telling him that what he just said is unlikely to produce the desired emotional reaction.

The inane reaction to Jay Cutler's injury against Green Bay is a perfect example. This was the dominant factor in the post-game coverage. Both of the local sports talk morning shows were prattling on about it for at least two days thereafter. Why? Because it drives an immediate emotional reaction. It's easy to make unprovable statements about a guy's character and it's certain that a whole bunch of people with IQs of 95 can understand and call in to vent about that p**** quarterback. It's not as easy to explain why Green Bay was able to move the ball at will on its first two possessions and then failed to score an offensive point for the rest of the game. Thus, we end up with coverage that the very players being discussed view as not worth a second thought.

Answering Mark Bradley

Mark Bradley is surprised that the Packers opened as a slight favorite over the Steelers:

The AFC champ has won nine of the past 13 Super Bowls. Pittsburgh was the No. 2 seed in the AFC, going 12-4. Pittsburgh has won two of the past five Super Bowls, and now, facing a wild-card qualifier that won two fewer games this season, Pittsburgh is …

A 2 1/2-point underdog.

Mark, you’re just looking at the wrong numbers.  Someone with serious skin in the game, i.e. the sharps who would kill the sports books if they based their lines on the wrong numbers, won’t look at who won the last 13 Super Bowls.  Maybe that issue was relevant in the 80s and 90s when the NFC won every year, but if the AFC had moved ahead of the NFC, that era has ended, as the NFC has won two of the last three.  The NFC was a whopping four games under .500 against the AFC this year, despite being dragged down by the NFC West. 

Sharps also won’t pay too much attention to the record of the two teams.  When we’re looking at a season of 16 games, there is the potential for a lot of noise in the records.  One or two bounces of the ball can cause one team to go 12-4 and another team to go 10-6.  Sure enough, the Packers went 4-6 in one-score games while the Steelers went 6-2.  Did that stat show that the Packers lacked a magical ability to win close games?  Probably not, since Green Bay has won a pair of one-score games en route to the Super Bowl.  In short, no one putting a $50,000 wager on a game is going to base his bet on the teams’ records.

So what it a sharp going to consider?  Yards per play.  Here is a reprint of a Chad Millman column making this point regarding the 2009 Michigan-Michigan State game:

Michigan State should have been the favorite when it opened. In fact, wise guys played some money on Michigan at first just to move the line a bit, so they could go back and play the other side for a better price. They knew most sharps would be on Michigan State. There were guys doing this with Cal and Oregon last week. Cal got bet up to 7.5 by wise guys looking for a better price because they were so sure of Oregon. Now, most college sharps build their math models around average yards per play. If you look at Michigan, it has gained 6.1 yards per play and allowed 5.5. Michigan State has gained 6.6 and allowed 5.1. Plus, I think MSU has played a tougher schedule, so that's why this game changed favorites.

Michigan came into the game at 4-0, having won a pair of nail-biters.  Michigan State was 1-3, having lost three tight games.  The yards per play numbers indicated that Michigan State was the better team.  Sure enough, the Spartans dominated the game and only won in overtime because Mark Dantonio did his best to make the game close.  Here is a podcast in which Millman explains in great detail why yards per play matters. 

So what does yards per play tell us about the Super Bowl?  Over the course of the season, it tells us that Pittsburgh was the best team in the AFC (+1.1 YPP) and that the Packers were one of the three best teams in the NFC (+.6).  However, YPP also shows that Green Bay has been dominant in the playoffs, as they were +1.0 against Chicago and +2.4 against the Falcons after a –.8 against the Eagles.  Pittsburgh was –.6 against the Jets after a +1.4 against the Ravens.  Green Bay has been great for the past two weeks, whereas the Steelers were a little lucky to survive against the Jets after being dominated in the second half.  So, yards per play reflects that the Steelers might be a slight favorite, but the Packers are the hotter team.

So what if we look at points-based models?  This is where we get the answer.  Sagarin would make the Packers a two-point favorite.  SRS would make the Packers a favorite of a half a point to a point.  When Green Bay has won, they have won comfortably.  The Steelers have won a number of close games.  We would expect these results from points-based rankings.

The overall point is that Bradley isn’t looking at the right numbers.  He is looking at the small sample – overall record – instead of the big sample – points and plays – that will give us a better sense of how good the two teams are.  I have to admit that I was a little surprised to read Bradley’s column.  He’s surely smart enough to realize that there are better ways to set a spread than “Pittsburgh was a higher seed and the AFC has been better over the past 13 years.”  His own sidebar reflects that he reads a lot of numbers-based sites (KenPom, Peachtree Hoops, Beyond the Boxscore, etc.), so he’s clearly aware of the blogosphere’s trend to being a reality-based community.  I’m inclined to reject the “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” conclusion, so are we left to believe that his editors don’t want him using meaningful numbers in his columns?   

What, you’re Going to Follow 82 Games of Foreplay?: the First in an Occasional Series

Admit it, you’re bored with the prospect of the sports scene on the horizon.  There is only one football game left, so your gridiron fix is wasting away.  You’re not interested in the Hawks after they fully and irreversibly committed to a flawed core in the summer and you’re nauseated by the idea of picking between cyanide (the Celtics) and throwing yourself in a wood chipper (the Heat).  You’re vaguely aware of the existence of the NHL, but you’re underwhelmed about the idea of following an 82-game regular season where the teams are playing for seeding that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when the playoffs start.  College basketball?  Everybody knows this is nowhere.  Try as you might, you can’t be excited about professional athletes taking a month of fake games to get into shape for the start of baseball season.  You need a sports fix and yer trouble is you know it too good.  You want to watch meaningful games played by athletes who are the best in the world at their sport?  Called by announcers who aren’t Joe Theismann or Matt Millen?  In front of intense, heaving crowds that rise and fall on every change in the action?

Look, you know where I’m going with this.  Let’s cut the pretense.  Here is the first of five storylines to follow from the world of European soccer over the last four months of the season:

The English Civil War

In the English Premier League, Manchester United is two points ahead of Arsenal with one game in hand and three points ahead of cross-town rivals Manchester City with two games in hand.  Chelsea, the defending champion, is seven points back and has played one more game than United, although the Blues do have two head-to-head meetings with the Red Devils still remaining and Chelsea has pulled itself out of its funk in recent matches.  The strange aspect of this year’s race in the EPL is that none of the major teams look that good, which is a change from a few years ago when the Big Four in England were dominating Europe. 

United is an odd team this year.  Most observers agree that, on paper, this is one of the weakest United teams in recent memory.  Wayne Rooney isn’t scoring goals, the midfield is merely functional, and the back line was a question until Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand both got healthy.  Although they aren’t exactly reminding the world of Arsenal's Invincibles, United are unbeaten and are in pole position to win another title.  Sir Alex Ferguson is getting goals by the bushel from the formerly wayward Dimitar Berbatov and the defense is close to airtight. 

Manchester City is a poorly constructed plaything of insanely wealthy benefactors.  City has an expensive collection of attackers and defensive midfielders with precious little linking the two on the pitch.  (Think of a football team with a great offensive line and terrific receivers, but no quarterback.)  The work of gluing the team together has fallen to Carlos Tevez, who put in a transfer request earlier this season and then withdrew it.  As could be expected for a collection of mercenaries (even by professional footballer standards) where the defense and offense don’t mesh, there has been blood.  City also have a manager who has brought some old school Italian conservatism to England, producing some truly soporific performances.  (Arsenal-City a couple weeks ago was positively unwatchable.  In their defense, their cross-town rivals have also produced some stinkers.  Spurs-United was dreadful; United-Arsenal was barely better.)  Naturally, with all of these problems, City are in contention for the title for the first time in ages and are in good position to make the Champions League for the first time ever.  How?  It’s the Jimmies and the Joes, Exhibit 53.  If you have billions in oil money to splash around, you’ll end up with good players.

Sitting behind the two is Arsenal, the most popular club in England and also a side that hasn’t won a trophy since the 2005 FA Cup.  In contrast to City, the Gunners are constructed primarily by buying players young and then developing them.  Whereas City are a hodge-podge of different concepts (their transfer policy is perfectly encapsulated by Hugo Drax’s line in Moonraker when he is looking for a new evil henchman: “oh, well if he’s available…”), Arsenal bear the stamp of Arsene Wenger in all respects.  Wenger controls everything about the club, from the way the youth teams play to the blend of grass at the Emirates.  The problem for the gifted, but stubborn Wenger is that his Arsenal are perpetually next year’s team, full of talented young players and therefore able to stay in the top four, but never able to win the league because Wenger won’t spend his millions on the one or two veterans that will push the team over the top.*  This year, weakness from United and Chelsea (although United’s weakness hasn’t shown up in the form of actually losing games) has opened the door.  Samir Nasri has parlayed his summer snub by the truly inept Raymond Domenech into becoming one of the best attacking midfielders around.  With a front four of Robin Van Persie, Theo Walcott, Cesc Fabregas, and Nasri, Arsenal look like a real contender.  Their issue is the defense.  An injury to Thomas Vermalen has left Wenger with a host of unpalatable options for central defenders.  Moreover, Arsenal fans live in a perpetual world of waiting for the other shoe to drop in the form of one of their green goalies dropping a ball at a crucial juncture. 

* – Contrast Arsenal and Barcelona.  Barca’s first XI has eight products of La Masia.  To fill in the gaps that the youth system has left – striker and the two fullback spots – Barca has spent on the best right back in the world (Dani Alves), a solid complement at left back (Eric Abidal), and one of the best strikers in the world and a guaranteed good fit with the Barca midfield (David Villa).  Arsenal, on the other hand, has needed a goalkeeper and better central defenders for ages, but Wenger hasn’t bought a keeper and his efforts at buying central defenders haven’t been as thorough as needed.  On the other hand, Wenger has avoided saddling his club with Barca's balance sheet-killing wage bill, so there is merit to his approach.

The American Equivalent – Think of the EPL like the NBA’s Eastern Conference:

United = the Celtics: a proud team full of clever veterans who have dominated the league in the last several years and won’t give up their title without a tussle.  (I had Ryan Giggs and Shaquille O’Neal t-shirts in 1995.  They’re both old.)

City = the Heat: a collection of talented players thrown together for the entertainment of the masses.  This analogy would work a little better if City had signed Messi for 200M Euros.  Also, City has too much depth, whereas the Heat don’t have enough. 

Arsenal = the Bulls: an exciting, young team that plays an attractive style, but one wonders how they’ll do when subjected to veteran dirty trick in crunch games down the stretch.

Chelsea = the Magic: a talented team that depends on one very large man in the middle (Didier Drogba = Dwight Howard) and that is trying to survive a midseason slump.  Problem with the analogy: Chelsea have the urbane Carlo Ancelotti managing their side and no one will ever use that adjective to describe Stan Van Gundy.

Sunderland = the Hawks: who?  Exactly.   

It’s the Losing, not the Lying

In a development that is entirely unsurprising, Atlanta Spirit is suing King & Spalding for malpractice, alleging that K&S made massive mistakes in drafting the agreement by which the entity would buy out Steve Belkin’s shares and then compounded the error in its representation of Atlanta Spirit in the litigation in Maryland against Belkin.  The suit is unsurprising because the source of the litigation was an ambiguously drafted provision in the sale agreement that allowed Belkin to try to control both of the appraisals for the value of his interest.  Atlanta Spirit ultimately prevailed on appeal in Maryland by convincing the Court of Appeals there that the appraisal provision was unenforceable.  The moment that happened, a malpractice claim was likely.  (Note: K&S will have plenty of defenses to the claim, one of which will be that, as the Maryland opinion notes, they had 30 hours to prepare a complex commercial document.  Another caveat: I’ve only followed this dispute through the media, so take my thoughts with a pound of salt.)

Atlanta Spirit’s Complaint makes for fascinating reading as a history of the legal wrangling regarding the ownership of the Hawks, Thrashers, and Philips Arena (albeit from the perspective of ownership).  One of the big issues that Atlanta Spirit faces is establishing damages.  OK, so K&S drafted a document with an imperfect provision regarding the determination of fair market value for the teams; what did that mean for you in terms of actual dollars and cents?  Atlanta Spirit’s claim is that they wanted to sell the Thrashers after the resolution of the 2004-05 lockout, at which point the competitive landscape would be better for a team like the Thrashers and the franchise’s value will be greater, but they were unable to do so because of the uncertainty as to who actually owned the teams: Belkin or the rest of Atlanta Spirit.  This is a somewhat embarrassing argument for the owners of a major pro franchise to make, but this is what happens when you air your grievances in the public litigation process.  Atlanta Spirit faced the same issue when it was litigating against Belkin in Maryland and had to put forward evidence regarding the vast sums that the teams were allegedly losing.  (Unrelated issue: this dispute illustrates the value of an arbitration clause in certain commercials contracts.  Atlanta Spirit would have been much better off if it could have fought with Belkin behind a wall of confidentiality.)

Naturally, Jeff Schultz has latched onto this argument to complain that we’ve been swindled by Atlanta Spirit.  Here’s his opening flourish:

They told you they cared. They lied.

They told you their biggest concern was putting out the best product for you, the fans. They lied.

They told you not to pay attention to any of those rumors of the Thrashers being for sale, although they eventually admitted begrudgingly that, yes, they were looking for “investors.” They lied.

The Atlanta Spirit is not looking for investors. They’re looking to sell the Thrashers. They’ve been looking to sell them for — ready for this? –six years.

Six . . . years.

Those are the caretakers of your franchise. Those are the ones who’ve pleaded with you since 2005 to support a mostly inferior product — and now they can’t figure out how they’ve burned so many bridges in this town why fans still feel too angry or worn down to show up for a pretty decent team. Reality never has been their strong suit.

This is hopelessly naive.  A decision to buy or sell a franchise is one of those topics about which we can fully expect owners to lie and with good reason.  If a team’s owners admit that they are looking to sell, then they immediately start to look desperate and their price goes down.  This is negotiation 101.  If I’m going to scalp tickets outside of a game, I want to create the impression that I’m not committed to getting into the stadium.  If I show up in team gear reeking of desperation, then a scalper is going to fleece me.  The apparent decision by Atlanta Spirit to lie about its intentions to sell the team is no different than a college coach denying that he’s considering leaving his program, a presidential candidate denying that he’s considering ending his campaign, or a president lying about surveillance flights over the Soviet Union.  If Schultz wants to be mad, then he ought to be mad at himself for assigning weight to the self-interested answers of Atlanta Spirit to questions that they could not answer honestly for perfectly legitimate reasons.

Schultz is absolutely correct in the conclusion of his column: “If Atlanta loses its second NHL franchise, it won’t be because the sport failed here. It will be because ownership and management failed.”  The reason why he’s correct has nothing to do with Atlanta Spirit claiming that it was trying to sell the team when it was, in fact, trying to do exactly that.  Rather, if hockey fails again in Atlanta, it will be because the team didn’t win nearly enough games to generate interest.  Atlanta fans will respond to a winner.  We turned out for the Hawks in the 80s, we turned out in droves for the Braves in the 90s, and now we’re selling out the Georgia Dome for every Falcons game.  Atlanta fans, unlike some fans elsewhere, will not pay for a bad product.  (This does not extend to our affection for our college football teams, whom we’ll pay to see even when they are 0-11.)  The Thrashers have made the playoffs once in eleven seasons and were promptly swept.  Let’s go out on a limb and say that that qualifies as a bad product.  Indeed, one of the first defenses that K&S will make regarding Atlanta Spirit’s damages is that its alleged malpractice didn’t cause a diminution in the value of the franchise; Don Waddell’s fumbling of the on-ice product is the proximate cause of the loss.  (K&S would also point to larger systemic factors, like the economic downturn and the NHL’s descent into irrelevance.  That said, they’ll try to resolve the case on legal grounds if at all possible.  They won’t want 12 jurors trying to make these complex analyses of market value.)  At this point, we would all be happy if Atlanta Spirit sold the team, but it’s not because they had the temerity to claim that they had no interest in doing so.    

The BCS and Brazilian Futebol

Spurred by Ronaldinho's return to Brazil after AC Milan realized that they had not bought the Ronnie who won the Ballon D'Or for Barcelona, Tim Vickery has a typically incisive post up about the odd structure of Brazilian futebol. In short, the Brazilian season is divided in two. In the first part, the clubs participate in state championships for each of Brazil's 27 states. In the second part, the major clubs then participate in a national competition. The state championships are a bit of a joke, as major clubs plays against teams with negligible fan bases. In essence, the first half of the year is a waste. Here's the money graf:

The signing of Ronaldinho has concentrated minds on this issue like never before. I have been railing against the State Championships for 16 years. For years I felt like a lonely voice, but the momentum has been building, and over the last few days I have noticed an unprecedented outpouring of criticism. People have been looking at Flamengo's fixture list and coming to an obvious conclusion - what is the point of buying a Rolls Royce and then driving it on dirt tracks?

Imagine if Georgia spent the first half of the college football season playing an eight-game schedule against teams from within the state. Imagine the Dawgs playing Valdosta State and Mercer. Better yet, imagine the Dawgs playing at Valdosta State and Mercer. The whole exercise would be a giant waste of time, right?

But honestly, is it that different than what goes on in September in college football these days? Georgia is something of an exception in that they have been playing two quality non-conference foes for the past several years. Next year is no exception with the Dawgs playing Boise State and Georgia Tech. However, most major powers play one credible opponent and then three tomato cans. Fully one-quarter of the average power's schedule is total filler. To take Vickery's killer line, what's the point of recruiting Rolls Royces and then driving them against San Jose State, Duke, and Georgia State? And the worst part is that the best programs are the ones who are most likely to play crap non-conference opponents because they can count on sheep like me to file through the turnstiles no matter the opponent. (So quiet down, ACC and Pac Ten fans. You play tougher schedules because you have to, not because you're brave.)

The solution for the FBS is the same as the solution for the CBF: mimic the English Premiership by reducing the size of the league. In Brazil's case, the solution is to do away with the state championships. In the case of college football, the solutions are to tighten the requirements of membership in the FBS (would anyone really miss the MAC and Sun Belt?) and go back to the old rule that wins over FCS teams do not count towards bowl eligibility. In both cases, there is political opposition. Read Vickery on the obstacle to rationalizing the Brazilian structure and tell me that you can't picture the NCAA posing similar roadblocks:

Change will not come overnight. The State Championships are vital to the power structure of Brazilian football - and since the power structure controls the 2014 Fifa World Cup, there is fear of rocking the boat at the moment.

One final and somewhat unrelated thought on Vickery's article: I get sad every time I am reminded that Ronaldinho exists. As good as the current iteration of Barca is, the side would be even better if Ronnie wouldn't have pissed away his prime. When Barca won the Champions League in 2006, Ronaldinho was 26 and acclaimed as the best player on the planet. Barca had won the title despite Xavi missing most of the season with a knee injury and Messi and Iniesta only starting to make their mark in the side. Ronaldinho should have been on the left side of the 4-3-3 as Messi and Iniesta matured and gelled with Xavi into an unstoppable force. Instead, Ronnie flopped at the 2006 World Cup (although he got a lot of unfair criticism that should have been directed at an unbalanced side) and spent the next two years in a funk that allowed Real Madrid to win two titles. Barca came roaring back after selling Ronaldinho (and his partner in sloth, Deco). In essence, there are two missing years from the resume of one of the all-time great teams in football history because of a great players' sudden fall from grace.

It’s All Bob Costas’s Fault

According to betting odds, we are headed for a Green Bay-Pittsburgh Super Bowl.  The NFL would have to be pleased by such a match-up, as it would pit two of the largest, most passionate fan bases in the league.  The optics of thousands of Cheeseheads and Terrible Towels descending on Dallas, filling local hotels and driving up the secondary market for tickets, would make for a great event.  Moreover, these two teams are consistent draws on television, so the NFL’s broadcast partners would be happy covering a Super Bowl with extra eyeballs. 

Now think about this: Pittsburgh and Green Bay are two of the smallest media markets in the NFL.  Pittsburgh is the 22nd largest MSA in the country, while Milwaukee is 39th.  It’s a testament to the NFL’s structure that two of its most popular teams come from smaller MSAs.  (One can make the same point regarding the Saints, who have been the “it” team over the past two years and hail from the 46th largest MSA.  The Saints’ crowing achievement was winning a Super Bowl over the team from the 34th largest MSA.)  This would never happen in baseball.

The immediate explanations for why teams from small markets are so successful are the salary cap and revenue sharing.  Teams from the larger markets cannot leverage their natural advantages into success on the field because: (1) they can’t spend much more on players than their smaller rivals can; and (2) they can’t sign lucrative local TV deals based on being in bigger MSAs, as the NFL has national, evenly distributed TV contracts.  Thus, when a team like the Jets makes it to the NFL’s final four, they are doing so on the basis of good player acquisitions and a smart head coach, as opposed to when one of the baseball teams from the nation’s largest MSA succeeds by virtue of the innovative “let’s identify the two best free agents and pay the most money for them.”

That said, there is another factor at play here that further distinguishes the NFL from MLB: the NFL does a much better job of mythologizing its past.  The Steelers were one of my first two rooting interests.  (In case you’re scoring at home, Virginia hoops with Ralph Sampson was the other.)  I became a Steelers fan at age five in 1980 because my Mom would take me to the Charlottesville public library and I would read about Super Bowls.  Because the Steelers had won twice as many Super Bowls as any other team at that time and they had cool helmets, a fan was born.  My rooting interest was cemented by watching NFL Films videos of the Super Bowls.  Super Bowl Sunday was nirvana for me because ESPN would run all of its half-hour Super Bowl programs in order, leaving me with the dilemma of when to watch and when to play outside.  (The good Super Bowls to skip: V, VIII, and XI.)  I suspect that I’m not especially unusual in this respect.  NFL Films does a terrific job of selling the story of past champions.  The Packers – the team that won the first two Super Bowls under Vince Lombardi – and the Steelers – the team that won four of six in the 70s – are the major beneficiaries of the gauzy treatment of the past.

Despite its reputation as a traditional, stuck-in-the-past sport, Major League Baseball doesn’t have any equivalent to NFL Films.  MLB doesn’t create fans of the Big Red Machine or the Earl Weaver Orioles with string music and John Facenda.  (If you want a modern example, compare the America’s Game series on NFL Network with the one-hour documentaries that MLB Network runs on specific baseball seasons.  The former are outstanding; the latter are forgettable.)  In the void left by MLB not producing features on its past that come close to the product of NFL Films, we end up with “blurry-eyed nostalgia about the Only Great Era In Baseball History, i.e. the time in which an especially narcissistic generation of New York writers were growing up.”  Take it away, Scott Lemieux:

But what really gives away the show, I think, is the complaint about too many teams. In large measure, this complaint is about New York sportswriters craving a return to to what Ken Burns called “the Capital of Baseball” era — the 2/3rds of the 50s in which baseball was completely dominated by New York teams and large parts of the nation were deprived of major league baseball. This New York domination was terrible for baseball, of course, creating stagnating or declining attendance during a boom economy, but this is something we’re never supposed to notice. And to draw a line under it, he devotes another long paragraph to the elevently-billionth assertion that the Brooklyn Dodgers mattered more than any team has ever mattered to anyone ever, although this has nothing to do with either Willie Mays or the book under review.

In the end, the NFL ends up as the most popular league in the country because of its ability to create Steelers fans in Charlottesville, Virginia, whereas MLB experiences declining popularity because all it can offer is fetishization of when New York City had three teams instead of two.  The NFL has a democratic structure in which teams from any market can win, whereas MLB has an oligarchy in which the only factor that prevents the rich teams from winning every year is the lottery nature of the playoffs.