Sports

Update on my school year

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Okay, I’ve clearly completely failed at managing my projects vis-a-vis actual schoolwork, because I’m tired all day and I’m falling horribly behind on it, despite the fact that I was trying to make one of my projects into schoolwork.

Obviously the FF50 challenge is a major timesuck, but there’s one or two other projects as well, which are actually starting to crowd out one another, and I’m not sure how to weed them out. I can’t abandon leagues much faster than I’m already doing; if I’m in contention for a playoff spot, let alone the championship, for me to then abandon my team would cause utter chaos. Already down to 42 leagues before I even started, I was thinking of dropping to 32 next year, and now I’m thinking even lower, because I have never put in all the roster moves I would have liked to before deadline.

Thoughts on the new baseball contracts coming Wednesday.

The powers that be want to add a seventh post-BCS bowl?

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Why? Okay, I get that they want to add an auto bid for the best team not from a New Year’s Day bowl conference, but couldn’t they just tell the selection committee to select at least one such team for the other bowls? Are they that greedy that they’d rather add another bowl, even if that means extending the new postseason to December 30 and ruining its elegance, rather than allow the big conferences to lose a single spot?

Combine that with reports that this is as much about giving the Big 12 and Pac-12 a backup tie-in (like what the SEC and Big 10 want for the Orange Bowl) as anything else, and it seems like the non-New Year’s Day bowls are sinking fast; in years they’re not hosting a semifinal, they’re basically holding pens for whatever leftovers are still around after the semifinals and New Year’s Day bowls make their picks, to give the bowl a reason to exist as part of the rotation. Hell, in years when none of the New Year’s Day bowls are semifinals, you might as well book a non-BCS v. Big 12/Pac-12 matchup for whatever New Year’s Eve bowl isn’t a semifinal without adding a seventh game, and take the pressure off the selection committee’s shoulders entirely.

Reassessing the new sports radio wars

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CBS may not just be the favorite to take the spot behind ESPN Radio in the Darwinian world that has developed in national sports radio. It has a chance to run down ESPN for .

In an absolutely shocking move, Jim Rome, the dean of national sports radio hosts, will be jumping ship to the new CBS Sports Radio network when it launches this January. Rome does have his existing relationship with CBS Sports and the CBS Sports Network, but I am amazed that he would leave his home of many, many years to join a brand new sports radio network when he never left Premiere for ESPN Radio in all the time he was hosting Jim Rome is Burning, always maintained his show’s independence from Premiere’s Fox Sports Radio network, and repeatedly stated his commitment to the terrestrial radio stations that made him, to the point that if you don’t get a station that carries his show, your only recourse is to stream one that does, or sign up for his “Jungle Insider” package. I didn’t even think his contract with Premiere was up for renewal yet. I would also note that CBS Sports Network would love to air a TV simulcast of the show, but Jim Rome seems to have been adamantly against the idea of any such thing for some time now.

Why would Rome do this? I suspect the main reason is the changing shape of sports talk radio. Rome has boasted on his show that he has more stations than ever carrying it, but that hides some attrition among the stations that matter most. If you’re a major market sports station – by which I mean any market with big-time professional or college teams – your bread and butter is going to be local shows talking about local teams that people care about, which you control all the advertising for instead of splitting with a syndicator. By far the most distributed shows of the existing sports radio networks are the ones occupying the period from the start of primetime, when most of the games start, until the start of morning drive, despite these often being the ones with the least promotion and the smallest names, because the rest of the time is usually occupied with local shows (NBC seems to have realized this); despite what I said about CBS’ bank of existing big-market sports radio stations, don’t expect them to carry much CBS Sports Radio programming.

Many big-market stations, including some of Rome’s oldest and most loyal affiliates, have been cutting back on their coverage of Rome’s show or dropped it entirely for local shows. WKNR in Cleveland shunted the first hour off to a sister station with a signal barely leaving Cleveland proper; KILT in Houston dropped the whole show entirely, both of them among Rome’s earliest affiliates with fundamental roles in the growth of the show. Rome may have decided that, in order to maintain his audience and relevance, he needed to find a platform that would give him the biggest exposure in the national sports radio landscape of today, one reliant on streaming and TV simulcasts to find today’s audiences.

Besides elevating CBS Sports Radio, this could prove absolutely devastating to Fox Sports Radio, already essentially a simulcast of flagship station KLAC’s lineup, despite not officially having Rome in its lineup (or the bank of play-by-play rights Fox has recently won for it) – especially if Dan Patrick, whose contract with DirecTV is reportedly up soon, decides to join NBC Sports Radio, in which case it could plunge to very nearly the level of Yahoo as co-favorites to ultimately fold. If DirecTV manages to keep Patrick and keep him on FSR, they should be able to hold off NBC Sports Radio for the time being, but ultimately the fate of FSR depends largely on how much presence Premiere wants to maintain in the sports talk radio market going forward.

The biggest threat to any part of ESPN’s hegemony may end up having very little to do with television.

2012 College Football Rankings – Week 4

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This will be my penultimate year of the college football rankings. There are a couple reasons for this, not just the new playoff – namely, conference realignment is making college football unrecognizable to me (the Princeton-Yale Title is going to be unified with the 2010 TCU title this week, shockingly early in the season, and the move of West Virginia to the Big 12 is almost solely responsible for it) – but the fact that we’re getting a playoff, one where a selection committee is making the decisions and so there’s less emphasis on “rankings” to try to influence people, is the main one. The monstrosity that has been the BCS has attempted to make its decisions with a combination of polls and computer rankings, though they’ve increasingly neutered the latter; as such, there’s a lot of emphasis on where teams stand, and my rankings were an attempt to contribute to that debate. Now, there are fewer people to be swayed and they’re less likely to be swayed; as such, if I were to continue the feature, its most appropriate form would probably be a “bubble watch”.

The week 3 rankings showed that the national consensus isn’t far off, with Alabama and LSU top three. The Tigers took a bigger tumble in the C Ratings this week after not only letting a mediocre-at-best Auburn team keep it closer than they should have, but having Washington not play and the other two teams they played lose. Just as in the polls, Oregon takes advantage of its squash of Arizona to take LSU’s spot. But in both weeks, there’s an interloper. Say what you will about their impact on conference realignment and the economics of college sports, but the Texas Longhorns will be good whenever they want to be. Their squashes of their first three opponents, especially an admittedly-weak SEC team, should serve notice to the rest of the country that they could be headed to Miami when all is said and done.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking one-tenth the difference between the team’s B Rating and the average of his opponents’ B Ratings and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

1 Alabama SEC ’06 Boise St.
4-0 LW: A Rat: .935 B Rating: 26.029 C Rating: 22.864 AP: 1 Coaches: 1
Alabama has picked up right where they left off last season.
2 Texas B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .845 B Rating: 24.513 C Rating: 21.711 AP: 12 Coaches: 10
If Texas can do to Oklahoma State what they’ve done to their other opponents so far, the whole country will realize how good this Longhorn squad really is.
3 Oregon P12 BCS Title
4-0 LW: #15 A Rat: .823 B Rating: 23.253 C Rating: 20.569 AP: 2 Coaches: 2
One big win over a good Arizona team, and suddenly Oregon looks a lot like the team USC was supposed to be – or the team from two years ago.
4 Texas Tech B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .901 B Rating: 20.427 C Rating: 17.982 — —
When you never score less than 44, your rating is going to be good no matter what – and they actually account for Texas State’s only loss this season. But another unbeaten is next.
5 Florida State ACC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .900 B Rating: 18.657 C Rating: 16.813 AP: 4 Coaches: 4
With the Big East finally losing AQ status, the ACC becomes the new laughingstock conference – but their flagship team is back with a vengeance and out to prove they deserve their seat at the table.
6 Stanford P12 ’09 Boise St.
3-0 LW: A Rat: .704 B Rating: 13.660 C Rating: 12.258 AP: 8 Coaches: 9
No Andrew Luck? No problem. Stanford’s out to prove they’re going to be a power in the Pac-12 for a long time to come.
7 Kansas State B12 BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .773 B Rating: 14.056 C Rating: 12.201 AP: 7 Coaches: 8
Did Kansas State just pull off a huge upset? Not according to the C Ratings, where Oklahoma wasn’t even on the top 25.
8 Notre Dame BCS Title
4-0 LW: #18 A Rat: .792 B Rating: 11.999 C Rating: 10.224 AP: 10 Coaches: 11
The Golden Domers certainly look to be back. Navy’s squash of VMI for their first win of the season plays as much of a role in this ranking as anything.
9 LSU SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .816 B Rating: 11.951 C Rating: 9.829 AP: 3 Coaches: 3
Sorry LSU, but national championship contenders don’t let a mediocre Auburn team get that close to victory.
10 Florida SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .761 B Rating: 10.990 C Rating: 9.365 AP: 11 Coaches: 12
Florida remains unbeaten despite three SEC games already, two on the road. But LSU awaits in two weeks.
11 Georgia SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .823 B Rating: 11.074 C Rating: 8.994 AP: 5 Coaches: 5
Despite demolishing Vanderbilt, Georgia runs into the same problem as LSU: the other three teams they played all lost by sizable margins. But the Bulldogs may be making some real noise this year.
12 South Carolina SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .823 B Rating: 9.616 C Rating: 7.523 AP: 6 Coaches: 6
If South Carolina were in any other conference, they’d be a favorite for the conference title. Instead, they’re third best in their own division.
13 Ohio State B10 Probation
4-0 LW: #12 A Rat: .749 B Rating: 9.485 C Rating: 7.309 AP: 14 BlogPoll: 14
Remember the effect USC’s bowl-ineligibility had on the Pac-12 South race last year? Ohio State may have that effect on the entire conference. Its next-best team isn’t on the Top 25.
14 Arizona State P12 BCS Title
3-1 LW: A Rat: .585 B Rating: 7.441 C Rating: 5.830 — —
Why is Arizona State our first one-loss team? They’ve never scored less than 37 or allowed more than 14 in a win, and their one loss was by only four.
15 West Virginia B12 Prncton/Yale
3-0 LW: #23 A Rat: .757 B Rating: 6.847 C Rating: 5.772 AP: 9 Coaches: 7
West Virginia has won every game by at least ten – but none of them have been quite like the team whose 2010 TCU title is getting unified this Saturday.
16 Iowa State B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .774 B Rating: 6.153 C Rating: 5.405 — —
There’s reason for skepticism about the Cyclones – taking a week off right after facing a I-AA team, the 9-6 win over Iowa – but they beat down that I-AA opponent and account for Tulsa’s only loss.
17 Louisiana Tech WAC BCS Bowl
3-0 LW: #53 A Rat: .667 B Rating: 7.162 C Rating: 4.399 — —
Huh? A team from the dying WAC is ranked this high? Take a look at their impressive win over an Illinois team whose other loss came to a team ranked even higher.
18 Cincinnati BST BCS Title
2-0 LW: #27 A Rat: .850 B Rating: 4.475 C Rating: 4.168 — —
It’s easy to be 2-0 when you’ve only played two teams, one of them a I-AA school – but they’ve been by impressive margins and Pitt just put up an impressive win of its own.
19 Clemson ACC BCS Title
3-1 LW: #14 A Rat: .500 B Rating: 4.402 C Rating: 4.104 AP: 17 Coaches: 16
Florida State is seen as a national title contender, and it was high-scoring enough that a 12-point loss doesn’t affect score ratio too much. But it could keep the Tigers out of the conference title game.
20 Ohio MAC BCS Bowl
4-0 LW: #20 A Rat: .729 B Rating: 5.460 C Rating: 3.850 BlogPoll: 25 —
It’s easy to be skeptical of the Bobcats, especially with a win by only three over Marshall, but it’s hard to argue with their results.
21 TCU B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .907 B Rating: 5.045 C Rating: 3.275 AP: 15 Coaches: 14
TCU has come into its new conference guns blazing with three squashes – and they might not even be in the top half of the conference. Look out, SEC.
22 Rutgers BST BCS Title
4-0 LW: #22 A Rat: .774 B Rating: 5.006 C Rating: 2.856 AP: 23 Coaches: 25
The Scarlet Knights will not play an FBS team currently with a winning record until Kent State the last week of October. Keep that in mind as they climb the polls the next few weeks. In other news, the Big East is mediocre.
23 Oregon State P12 BCS Title
2-0 LW: #43 A Rat: .640 B Rating: 2.983 C Rating: 2.712 AP: 18 Coaches: 21
The Beavers have played two games, both within a score. Still, both were against above-average teams, which bodes well for their chances against reeling Arizona.
24 Baylor B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: #54 A Rat: .703 B Rating: 3.943 C Rating: 2.087 AP: 25 Coaches: 24
Surviving against a good Louisiana-Monroe team shows their bona fides, but it doesn’t bode well for a road trip to Morgantown.
25 Mississippi State SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .900 B Rating: 18.657 C Rating: 16.813 AP: 21 Coaches: 19
Impressive win, albeit over an FBS newcomer. The schedule, and a 6-point escape over Troy in their only road game, are concerns, though, and they’ll fall off next week for idle hands.


42 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #27 USC (was #21), Oklahoma State (was ), #33 Georgia Tech (was #19), #35 Arizona (was ), #48 UCLA (was #25)

Unbeaten teams not on Top 25: #30 Louisville, #40 Northwestern, #45 Minnesota, #49 Texas-San Antonio (all in positive B Points, Minnesota and Texas-San Antonio not in positive C)

Rest of Watch List (all 3-1 unless otherwise noted): #26 Texas A&M (2-1), #27 USC, Michigan State, Oklahoma State (2-1), Nevada, Pittsburgh (2-2), #33 Georgia Tech (2-2), #34 San Jose State, #35 Arizona, #36 Tennessee*

Other Positive B Ratings: #37 North Carolina* (2-2), #38 Boise State (2-1), #39 BYU (2-2), #41 Fresno State* (2-2), #42 Nebraska (3-1), #43 Toledo (3-1), #44 Central Florida (2-1), #46 Oklahoma (2-1), #47 Utah State* (3-1), #48 UCLA (3-1), #55 Northern Illinois (3-1), #57 Middle Tennessee State (2-1) (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #51 Western Kentucky, #52 Kentucky, #56 Louisiana-Monroe, #58 Maryland, #83 Utah

Bottom 10: #115 SMU, #116 Houston, #117 Akron, #118 Eastern Michigan, #119 Army, #120 Southern Miss, #121 Hawaii, #122 Colorado, #123 Tulane, #124 Massachusetts

Best game of week: Texas Tech @ Iowa State, 4pm PT, FCS

Why not even the Debacle in Seattle will bring the real refs back

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By now you’ve heard all about the controversial play at the end of Monday night’s Packers-Seahawks game, the nadir of the NFL’s ongoing Replacementgate. With the entire country blowing up around it, surely this is the incident that forces the NFL’s hand and gets them to finally bring the lockout of the real refs to a conclusion.  Surely with the replacement refs backfiring so horribly, Roger Goodell has egg on his face and is desperately trying to end this before the replacement refs do any more damage, right?

Meanwhile, as many people are watching the games as ever.

The replacement refs backfired? On the contrary, everything is going exactly according to plan. Roger Goodell knows that the refs have zero impact on whether or not you watch. People don’t watch the NFL because the “integrity of the game” is so strong; hell, people watch pro wrestling knowing that it’s all staged. The NFL is first and foremost entertainment, the ultimate reality show; people watch for all the football action they’ve come to love, for the drama the sport brings, because their sense of self-worth is bound up in the fortunes of their favorite team, because of their fantasy players. Those things would have been affected by the arrival of replacement players, but with replacement officials the action is all the same, only the outcome is different. And ultimately, we don’t really care that much how the outcome is derived. It’s just one more thing for us to talk about around the watercooler.

And ultimately, that’s what the replacement refs debacle comes down to, and why Roger Goodell couldn’t be happier. It’s one more thing for the massive ecosystem of shows debating the NFL to discuss ad nauseam, one more way for the NFL to be at everyone’s lips at watercoolers around the country, a way that doesn’t involve the word “concussions” (a far bigger threat to the long-term viability of the NFL). That’s why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth for the real officials to come back simply leads Goodell to lean back in his chair, twiddle his fingers, and mutter “Excellent” like Mr. Burns.

Perhaps what happened in Seattle will cause some owners to start revolting and wondering whether the issues the NFL is holding its ground on in the lockout negotiations are really that big a priority that they justify what the league has turned into. But if it isn’t enough of them, the lockout will end when the real officials start feeling the very real pain of not collecting their checks, and not a moment sooner.

The Super Bowl XLVI lineal title was on the line in Monday night’s game. The Packers could very easily say they have a claim to it.

Hey, when you do a comic like this on a day that a webcomic blogger who’s also a sports fan needs to continue The Streak, this is what results.

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(From xkcd. Click for full-sized sports calendar.)

I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to call bullcrap on this.

People are talking about basketball deep into April, yet switch to baseball all the way until the Finals roll around? Also, I’m afraid American football is likely to be nearly as if not more prominent than baseball in October.

And what about those countries that aren’t as into soccer? Where’s baseball in Japan, hockey in Canada, or Aussie football in Australia? And is this specific to team sports? Where’s auto racing, golf, or tennis?

Judging by the bonus text, I suspect that what Randall really needs is a cheat sheet for the names of teams in each sport, but I can see how that’d be an unwieldy reference with 30+ teams in each American sport, to say nothing of college sports… and even in soccer most leagues have 20 teams in them…

Acknowledging the Big 12’s new rights agreement

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The Big 12 has announced a 13-year rights agreement with ESPN and Fox that will earn the conference about $20 million per year per school, about on par with other BCS conferences.

This agreement was so delayed that it held up the final release of the TV assignments for early-season football games and ultimately was finalized after the first week of football games. As such, it’s been rumored for so long that it’s mostly a formality, aside from the fact that Fox will have no role in broadcasting basketball, and as such I don’t have much to say about it (you can read a bit more about it here), so let’s just go to the scorecard.

Sport-Specific Networks
9.5 11.5 5 4.5 0 1.5

My picks for every NFL game this season

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That’s right: I may not be doing the NFL schedule this season, but I am picking all 256 games, plus all 11 playoff games, before the season even starts. Winning teams are listed in bold. Lineal title holders are in italics.

Week 1:
Cowboys @ Giants
Colts @ Bears
Eagles @ Browns
Rams @ Lions
Dolphins @ Texans
Falcons @ Chiefs
Jaguars @ Vikings
Redskins @ Saints
Bills @ Jets
Patriots @ Titans
Seahawks @ Cardinals
49ers @ Packers
Panthers @ Bucs
Steelers @ Broncos
Bengals @ Ravens
Chargers @ Raiders

Read more

Hopefully the last word on the baseball contract until it’s announced

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How might Fox use baseball to set up a Fox Sports network when ESPN has locked up all three of its previous packages? Apparently, by taking a page from Turner’s playbook.

As it turns out, it’s being reported that the situation in the room is pretty much as I suggested previously: Turner wants to get out from the utter disaster that is the Sunday afternoon package and wants to take over Fox’s Saturday package. What I hadn’t anticipated was that Fox would be more than willing to do so. Apparently, the offer they made Major League Baseball would have moved most of Fox’s regular season package to a Fox Sports network in addition to the Division Series, with the broadcast network keeping its share of LCS games. (Although both packages would still include the dreaded Sunday afternoon package.)

In other words, it’s basically the same as the CBS/Turner offer, but with the added benefit of being a single entity… and more importantly, leaving some regular season games on broadcast. Apparently MLB is rather leery of giving the World Series to CBS without a commitment to at least some regular season games. As a result, Fox should now be considered the favorite to win the contract again with CBS/Turner lagging behind – bad news for those who want to be rid of Tim McCarver, great news for those who want a competitor to ESPN.

NBC is considered to be lagging behind considerably, but this development makes me think that maybe they don’t necessarily have to be. NBC could put together a similar package as Fox, with most regular season games on NBC Sports Network with the World Series and some regular season games on the broadcast network – which also helps solve potential conflicts with hockey, horse racing, and golf. Apparently conflicts between the World Series and Sunday Night Football are an obstacle, but I can’t imagine it’s really that much of a problem. I imagine the NFL would be perfectly willing to go back to not competing against the World Series if NBC asked them to.

MLB also apparently wants to unify the postseason under a single rights holder, meaning ESPN might not end up with more than it already has after all. It’s possible MLB informed ESPN that if it wanted more than a single wild-card game and any tiebreakers, it would have to take the whole shebang, including the World Series and some regular-season games on ABC. Considering how crowded ESPN’s schedule can be, especially in fall with college football, ESPN may have balked and decided to stick with what they could get. In that light, I’m a little surprised MLB even gave ESPN that much, which makes me think ESPN may still get a few Division Series games.

Setting the stage for the next week

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My laptop is on its way to HP. Under the circumstances, it looks like I’m probably going to be working off Mom’s computer for all of next week, and maybe into the week after that.

The FF50 challenge looks to be in good shape. I may have to either move Tuesday’s drafts later, or move at least the noon one to 9 AM PT, due to various commitments, but other than that everything should proceed swimmingly, aside from Mom’s attempts to get me to do other, more productive things.

Naturally, after my promises to keep webcomic posts to a minimum while my laptop is getting fixed, next week may prove to be a rather webcomic-heavy week. QC and Homestuck definitely, Gunnerkrigg Court maybe. The HS post will be rather general in nature; I’m going to hold off on posting on Act 6 Intermission 3 probably until it’s over, intentionally this time, partly because of the three daisy-chained exploration non-flashes that either start or consist the intermission that are probably intended to form one long non-flash, partly because of how buggy it is still; even in the preferred Chrome browser on Mom’s computer, sometimes the sound will spontaneously shut off for no reason, so I’m going to wait until my computer comes back to go through the other non-flashes.

Between webcomics and other things, I have plenty of ideas to fill out the next week of posts already.