I really enjoyed the game last night in Green Bay. It is impossible on TV to communicate the energy and decibel level of that crowd, particularly in the first half before Dallas opened up a large lead. But even with victory pretty much out of reach with 5 minutes to play, virtually no one left (our Arizona fans would already have been out of the parking lot by then).
The game featured a 72,000 person crowd in a town of 100,000. In a world where traditional groups are increasingly fragmented, the entire town is united in their dedication to the team. The Packers are ubiquitous in town, so much so I can't even think of any good major-city analogy. The best analogy I can come up with is that the game was more like a
high school football game in west Texas than a typical NFL game. Even the cheerleaders look like a high-school cheer squad with girls in jumpers and guys with megaphones, in a world where the other 30+ teams all have pinup girls with breast enhancement.
I am here in Green Bay checking off another item on my sports bucket list: seeing a game at Lambeau Field. And it should be a really good one.
We went out last night on the town to various bars, mostly on Washington street, after a ritual visit to "fuzzy's." (Packers fans can tell me later if we were on the right track with these choices). My friend (who lives in DC) and I were shocked to pay only $2 a beer at the first bar we were at. It turned out that this was virtual price gouging in the local market. We never paid more the rest of the evening than $1 for a mug of draft, on a Saturday night yet. Yet another good reason to stay off the coasts.
For the record, Green Bay is really a very nice, tidy little town. Kind of quiet, like many small towns -- they set all the traffic lights to flashing yellow last night about 8PM. The only difference between it and any other nice midwestern town is that every single business has "packers" in its name somehow and roughly 30% of the population at any one time is wearing something with "FAVRE" on the back. Who is this Favre guy? I thought he played in New York ;=)
What are the London Olympic organizers thinking right now? In the immortal words of Bill Paxton,"That's it man, game over man, game over."
I was amazed by the opening ceremonies last night. I am not sure how that will ever be topped, particularly since most democracies cannot reasonably pour several billion dollars into a single three or four hour show. I guess one could make some Triumph of the Will allusions, but it was really the most amazing meld of technology and showmanship I have ever seen.
My son and I went to see a game today in Yankee Stadium. both because he is a big Yankees fan and to see Yankee Stadium one last time before they tear it down. While the Yanks lost, with Mariano Rivera giving up a solo home run in the 9th, my son, who is a huge A-Rod fan, got to see A-Rod go yard to tie the game in the 8th. A couple of observations:
There is a whole different seat-ethic going on in Yankee Stadium. Every single time we got up to get food or go to the bathroom, we found someone in our seats. Seat numbers on tickets seem to be a recommendation rather than an absolute assignment
If you leave aside the history, there are a lot of very good design reasons for blowing up Yankee Stadium.
The Yanks showed a nice Rocky-themed film in the 8th, but puh-leeze -- there is not any team in the world that can less wrap itself in the mantle of scrappy underdog. If any team is Apollo Creed, its the Yankees.
Enter the Sandman is great entry music for a closer like Rivera.
I had show the top 15, of course, just to sneak myself in. In fact, there are still 6 people who can win. If you think of the three games yielding 8 possible game outcomes, Jeff Charleston wins on three of those outcomes, and Ron Gallagher, Kevin Clary, Craig, Tom Kirkendall and Keith Ehlers each will win if one specific combination comes up.
Not many people predicted to 12-13 matchups in the second round, but if they had, they would have runup some nice points given our upset-bonus in the scoring system. Here are the standings to date, which I reproduce only because, well, I am in them:
The good news is that both my brackets are in the top 12. The bad news is that I do a good job every year of picking early upsets and racking up early round points, and then I fall by the wayside in later rounds. We will see if I can hang in there. By the way, my loud-mouthed, smack-dealing son is in 76th place. The leader has 14 of his sweet-16 still intact, while my brackets have 11 and 9 respectively, which are pretty good leading indicators for future problems for yours truly.
One of the reason I like pickhoops.com is that they have some cool analysis tools. Here is my favorite, analyzing who has the best chances to win:
Note: This post sticky through 3/20. Look below for newest posts.
We had a blast with it last year, so back by popular demand is the annual Coyote Blog
NCAA Bracket Challenge. Yes, I know that many of you are bracketed
out, but for those of you who are self-employed and don't have an
office pool to join or who just can't get enough of turning in
brackets, this pool is offered as my public service.
Last year we had close to 100 entries, and we expect more this year.
Everyone is welcome, so send the link to friends as well. There is no
charge to join in and
I have chosen a service with the absolutely least intrusive log-in
(name, email, password only) and no spam. The only thing I ask is
that, since my kids are participating, try to keep the team names and
board chat fairly clean.
To join, go to http://www.pickhoops.com/Coyote and sign up, then enter your bracket. This year, you may enter two different brackets if you wish.
Special March Madness scoring bonus: If you correctly pick the underdog in any round (ie,
the team with the higher number seed) to win, then you receive bonus
points for that correct pick equal to the difference in the two team's
seeds. So don't be afraid to go for the long-shots! The detailed rules are here.
Bracket entry appears to be open. Online bracket entry closes
Thursday, March 20th at 12:20pm EDT. Be sure to get your brackets in
early. Anyone can play -- the more the better.
We have 99 brackets so far, lets get it over 100. Remember, entry is free and fun. As an added incentive, I will send
the winner a copy of either of my books (yes, I know the inevitable
joke - 2nd place gets two copies). Enter here: http://www.pickhoops.com/Coyote. More about the rules and scoring here.
Remember, entry is free and fun. As an added incentive, I will send the winner a copy of either of my books (yes, I know the inevitable joke - 2nd place gets two copies). Enter here: http://www.pickhoops.com/Coyote . More about the rules and scoring here.
My son, an avid baseball player, loves the "field of dreams" concept, where little league fields are built to resemble famous major league stadiums. We have played on such fields in several towns of California. Recently, Gilbert, a suburb of Phoenix, ended up paying $40 million for such an 8-field complex, which seems excessive even with the cool concept. It certainly is a whole new world when city governments build
little league baseball fields at the cost of $5 million per field.
As a private company in public recreation, I can say that the deal cut by the city of Gilber with Big Leage Dreams to design, build, and operate the park really looks appalling. We build and operate recreation facilities under competitively bid concession contracts, but never have I seen such a sweetheart deal. First, in every case, I pay a bid percentage of revenues as rent to the public landlord for the concession. This deal seems to include no such rent to be paid by the operator Big League Dreams.
Second, our company is always responsible for making at least some of the capital investments. The public entity may have to lengthen the term or reduce the minimum rent to a level where a private company can get a return, but most of the capital nowadays is usually private. Further, if the public entity does put up capital, it is a fixed amount with the private company responsible for the overage (if the private company is building it -- the terms might be different if the public entity is doing the construction itself). In this case, the town of Gilbert let the private operator build the facility with little oversight and was committed to absorbing all of the 76% cost overrun. Now the private company, who has already defaulted on its one major commitment to the city (ie the capital cost) gets a $40 million facility rent free to run for profit. Stupid city.
Well, at least the city engaged an expert consultant to help them with the feasibility study, the project evaluation, and the writing of the bid spec. That consultant was ... Big League Dreams. The same company that by a wild coincidence also got the construction and operating contracts.
The Class of 2008's No. 11-rated inside linebacker Jonathan Meyers
spoke with ESPN's Billy Tucker about his recent commitment to Princeton
over Division I powers Florida and Michigan.
"When it came down to
it, Princeton just offered so much more besides football; it just fit
really well with me. Its academics are number one, the football program
is highly-respected [2006 Ivy League Champions] and I have a chance to
play lacrosse as well."
Additionally, Meyers received some helpful advice from Princeton graduate and current Washington Redskin Ross Tucker.
From a reader comes this story of Arizona looking to the public trough to get funds to lure another SuperBowl. I can say from experience now that Superbowl week is made up mostly of private corporate and celebrity parties that the unwashed locals like myself are either a) not allowed to attend at all or b) can attend only by ponying up $1000 or more. Not being resentful or a leftist, I couldn't really care less about the parties being near by. However, my opinion changes real fast if my tax dollars are required to pay for them:
Super Bowl organizers will try to nail down another big game for Arizona, possibly as early as 2012.
But for the state to stay competitive, taxpayers need to shoulder the
majority of game costs, organizers say. And the organizers plan to
lobby for legislation to accomplish that.
The weeklong celebration culminating with Sunday's Super Bowl XLII cost
the local Host Committee about $17 million. The private sector,
including such big contributors as the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation and
the Thunderbirds, bankrolled more than 80 percent, while state and
local agencies chipped in the balance.
But with a slumping economy making fundraising a challenge, the Arizona
Super Bowl Host Committee, the Arizona Cardinals organization and
Valley business leaders want see that ratio reversed, with public
dollars financing the bulk of the effort.
Don't you love the last sentence? An exactly equivalent way to state this is "people have other priorities for their own money and refuse to give it up voluntarily, particularly in difficult economic times, so we need the state to take it by force."
No one yet knows how much this year's Super Bowl will fatten state
coffers, though organizers project the game created more than $400
million in spending. An economic-impact study won't be out for at least
a couple of months.
Here is my challenge: Take the Phoenix-area GDP for this Jan-Feb, take out the growth trend line (which can be found in year-over-year comparisons of previous months) and then compare it to the GDP for Jan-Feb 2007. I bet you whatever you care to bet you cannot find an additional $400 million.
Yesterday, I had what will likely (given ticket prices) be a once in a lifetime experience for me -- I got to take my son to the Superbowl. Our ability to afford this event really was a result of our living in the same city as the Superbowl. The obvious reason for this is that we did not incur any significant travel costs and did not have to pay peak demand level hotel pricing. The less obvious, but ultimately more important, reason was because we could afford to watch the ticket prices on the secondary market up until the absolute last minute. If your were bringing a group from New York, waiting until Friday or Saturday to buy tickets might have been a bit uncomfortable, given other sunk costs.
As it turned out, Superbowl ticket prices this year on the secondary market (e.g. TickCo, Stubhub, et al) followed a parabola. They were below their peak early-on, particularly since sellers did not have the tickets in hand. You can buy tickets weeks before the Superbowl, but they will be listed as "for this general area." You could end up in the front row or the back -- it is a bit of a crap shoot. So they are cheaper because of this. The peak pricing came the week before the AFC and NFC championship games when many sellers had tickets in hand and could advertise specific seats. All along, I was looking for a ticket to just get in the door, so I was looking for the cheapest seats (likely upper deck end zone). At their peak, there was nothing gong for less than about $3800 (when you included the seller commission or transaction fees, typically 10-20% for this type of ticket). Beginning the Monday before the game, prices started falling -first 10%, then 20-30%, and finally as much as 50%. I jumped in towards the end of the week because a pretty good (or at least better than the worst) seat came up for a good price. I am told by a friend who showed up on game day at the ticket company office that he got in for less than $1500.
Anyway, here is the stadium - yes it is kind of odd looking. This was taken about halfway through our walk from the car to the stadium. We just barely parked in the same county. We showed up about 6 hours before game time and were in the last half of arrivals:
The stadium is a taxpayer-funded boondoggle that is a good hour away (on the complete opposite side of a very large city) from old Scottsdale where most of the parties and social activities and player hotels were.
The security included a ban on any bag over 12x12x12 inches, a pat down, and a metal detector. And the NFL did a MUCH better job than the TSA. MUCH. It is hard to see, but the tent on the left is about 1/4 of the length of the full security screening area. They had at least 25 lanes open in parallel. Despite thousands of people, we had no wait at all (the lines below are all moving briskly and continuously).
And look! We must be in the front row! Well, of the upper deck, but these turned out to be great seats and, having watched prices for weeks, a very good price-value point (in context). My son braves the wrath of all the surrounding Giants fans by wearing his Cowboys jersey.
I thought the fast set up and takedown of the stages was pretty amazing, and something you miss on TV. Here is Tom Petty's stage going out (or in, I can't remember). The funniest part was the crew of NFL guys who followed along with rags and buckets to dust off the grass after the equipment passed to make sure it looked good for TV.
We had a decent view of Tom Petty's back, which once I saw his scraggly beard was probably a good thing. The crew of screaming fans at the stage was pretty funny. They ran these folks out for Alicia Keyes, then kicked them out of the stadium, then ran them back in for Tom Petty, and then back out again. I saw one show on TV last night, and the audience looked young, but to my eye the great mass of the crowd was middle aged women, which I thought was kind of funny.
And here is the last play and confetti burst:
It was a great, perhaps historic game, and we loved the whole experience. Now back to work to pay those bills.
So, here are the [sports-related] events on my must-see list I have tackled:
Baseball all-star game, Superbowl, game at Fenway, game at Yankee stadium, 16th hole at the Phoenix Open, center court at Wimbledon, BCS Championship game, Daytona 500, personally playing golf at St. Andrews, Big 10 home football game, Rose Bowl, Cowboys home game [update: and an original 90s-vintage American Gladiators filming live]
Yet to be tackled:
the Masters, Packers home game, game at Wrigley, NCAA final four, SEC home football game (maybe Tennessee or the cocktail party), maybe at World Series, maybe a World Cup
I am all for full legalization of gambling, but, at the risk of preaching at you, if you are betting one of the following Superbowl prop bets with any kind of cash, you might have a gambling problem. Here are several examples from Sports Book Review:
What song will Tom Petty open with? Petty is this year's halftime entertainment in
Glendale; FOX advertised this fact during previous NFL games using
"Runnin' Down a Dream" off the 1989 album Full Moon Fever. That's a
strong indicator the song will at least be part of what will be a short
set, although a medley like the one Prince performed last year is
certainly possible.
"Runnin' Down a Dream" is the favorite at +110, followed by the 1977 classic "American Girl" at +175.
Color of liquid winning head coach is doused in?
Football lore has it that Bill Parcells got the first Gatorade shower
in 1985, courtesy of Jim Burt and Harry Carson, when the Giants beat
the Washington Redskins
17-3 during a midseason game. The Gatorade was orange (+200), as it was
when Parcells took a bath after winning Super Bowl XXI. But Bill
Belichick was doused in a clear liquid (+300) after winning Super Bowl
XXXIX over the Eagles.
Halftime commercial to have highest rating
Budweiser is the big favorite at "“180, followed by godaddy.com at +275.
Last year's winner was a commercial by Hewlett-Packard; the Bud Light
ads didn't even crack the Top 3. So Anheuser-Busch has reportedly taken
out nine (!) Super Bowl ads this year; Bud should be the value pick
here by sheer volume alone.
Length of National Anthem American Idol winner Jordin Sparks will sing the
Star-Spangled Banner at Super Bowl XLII, presumably because FOX is the
television host for both programs. The over/under for this prop is
103.5 seconds. Sparks took about 102 seconds to complete the anthem at
Game 1 of the 2007 NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Here are a few others I found at this site, with all the prop bets you could ever wish for:
2008 Super Bowl XLII Props - First offensive lineman called for a holding penalty.
Chris Snee (NYG)
David Diehl (NYG)
Grey Ruegamer (NYG)
Kareem McKenzie (NYG)
Shaun O'Hara (NYG)
Dan Koppen (NE)
Logan Mankins (NE)
Matt Light (NE)
Nick Kaczur (NE)
Rich Seubert (NE)
Stephen Neal (NE)
Field (Any Other Player)
Who will the MVP of the Game thank first?
Teammates
God
Family
Coach
Doesn't thank anyone
We must be a secular society - God's fallen to third. I always wanted to see someone from the losing side get interviewed right after the winner thanked God for their win. Wouldn't you just love the losing player to say "Well, you heard it. God was against us. What chance did we have?"
The Seattle Supersonics have finally admitted what rational folks have known for a long time: Billion dollar municipal stadiums are just taxpayer subsidies for already-rich players and owners, and do nothing for local economic development. Here is what the Sonics ownership stated in court papers (part of a case where they are trying to break their lease in Seattle):
"The financial issue is simple, and the city's analysts agree,
there will be no net economic loss if the Sonics leave Seattle.
Entertainment dollars not spent on the Sonics will be spent on
Seattle's many other sports and entertainment options. Seattleites will
not reduce their entertainment budget simply because the Sonics leave,"
the Sonics said in the court brief.
...Rodney Fort, a
professor of sports management at the University of Michigan, who has
criticized the economic-impact claims made by pro-sports teams, called
the Sonics' latest argument "the best chuckle" he's had in a long time.
My son learned of one additional downside this year to subsidizing an expensive stadium for the hapless Cardinals. He is a huge Cowboys fan, and there was to be a really good matchup in regular season this year that would be televised nationally (I can't remember which game, maybe the Packers regular season game). We did not get to see the game, because the local network was obligated to show the Cardinals game instead. If you have no team, you always get the best game on TV.
The NFL playoffs are absolutely my favorites sporting event of the year. So of course I have to get on an airplane Sunday afternoon to get to a Monday morning meeting. To get in the spirit, here is one of my favorite NFL spoofs, Peyton Mannings United Way commercial on SNL:
Today I had to make my usual Sunday morning run to the hardware store to get ... something or other, I can't remember. Anyway, as I was leaving, I looked behind be, saw no one there, and started backing up. I have one of those backup warning thingies that been when you are about to hit something, and suddenly the things starts screaming at me, and I jam on the brakes. There, cutting behind my car, is Randy Johnson, Diamondbacks pitcher and 27-time Cy Young winner. I seem to have missed his knee by about 6 inches. Gulp.
By the way, if you think Johnson looks creepy on the mound, you should see him flashing a searing FU look. This event effectively adds to my long history as scourge-to-the-stars, wherein I have stepped on Raul Julia's foot, spilled a big Gulp size diet coke on Brook Shields, added a big ink stain to Farrah Fawcett's blouse, hit Martina Navratilova in the face with a revolving door, and, uh, others I might share if my mom did not read this blog.
I really don't like Barry Bonds. I found his home run chase last summer almost painful, and was happy it was over just to stop hearing about Barry Bonds.
That being said, I am pretty non-plussed by his recent indictment on perjury charges. I really am deeply concerned about going after high-profile people on perjury charges, particularly ones that are associated with cases where no underlying crime was even prosecuted (Martha Stewart and Bill Clinton also come to mind in this category).
The problem is that these cases get prosecuted incredibly selectively. The vast, vast majority of people in Bonds situation never get prosecuted, much less have four year investigations. As a result, it is pretty clear that those who do are selected on some basis having more to do with their profile (Martha Stewart), political animus (Bill Clinton) or just because the person is incredibly unsympathetic (e.g. Bonds). As evidence for this in Bond's case, where are the similar investigations into McGwire or Giambi?
Tom Kirkendall has a great roundup of posts for those who are more concerned that titillated by Bond's indictment. Or then there is TJIC's take, which is always, uh, not moderate:
What I find most amazing about cases like this, and the Martha
Stewart thing, is that there's some sort of unstated presupposition
that the state has a right to extract information from people.
Lying to government officials on fishing expeditions isn't just a right; it's a duty.
NBA commissioner David Stern is putting the screws to Seattle
in his attempts to get the community to provide taxpayer subsidies that
are lucrative enough to keep the team from departing the "Emerald City"
to even greener fields in Oklahoma.
Stern blasts city officials
and the overwhelming majority of voters in the city for passing a law
requiring (gasp!) that any funds used to help build an arena earn the
same rate of return as a treasury bill. "That measure simply means
there is no way city money would ever be used on an arena project,"
Stern said. Effectively, Stern has just confirmed what sports
economists have known all along: taxpayer spending on sports
infrastructure is unlikely to provide significant returns on the
investment.
We went through the exact same thing here in Phoenix, with various outsiders and city politicians chiding the voters to voting down taxpayer funded palaces for the Cardinals and Coyotes (eventually, they found a sucker in the local city of Glendale). In the past, I have written about sports team and corporate relocations as a prisoners dilemma game.
To see this clearer, lets take the example of Major League Baseball
(MLB). We all know that cities and states have been massively
subsidizing new baseball stadiums for billionaire team owners. Lets
for a minute say this never happened - that somehow, the mayors of the
50 largest cities got together in 1960 and made a no-stadium-subsidy
pledge. First, would MLB still exist? Sure! Teams like the Giants
have proven that baseball can work financially in a private park, and
baseball thrived for years with private parks. OK, would baseball be
in the same cities? Well, without subsidies, baseball would be in the
largest cities, like New York and LA and Chicago, which is exactly
where they are now. The odd city here or there might be different,
e.g. Tampa Bay might never have gotten a team, but that would in
retrospect have been a good thing.
The net effect in baseball is the same as it is in every other
industry: Relocation subsidies, when everyone is playing the game, do
nothing to substantially affect the location of jobs and businesses,
but rather just transfer taxpayer money to business owners and workers.
The Sports Economist writes about this move in the context of another economic game:
Indeed this is a classic example of the time inconsistency problem for
which Finn Kydland and Ed Prescott (my graduate school macro
professor!) won the Nobel Prize in 2004. Stern would like to threaten
Seattle with the permanent loss of their NBA team in order to secure
taxpayer concessions now. But should the team move, the NBA has every
reason to want to back off its previous threats and relocate a team
back into to the area due to the size, location, and income levels of
the city. Even having lost a team, Seattle will likely remain a better
candidate for a successful franchise than smaller and poorer cities
such as New Orleans or Memphis. Certainly Seattle should not fall for
Stern's bluster.
On the off-chance you have not seen this 20-lateral play by Trinity, here it is:
In American Football, the other ten players without the ball are taught to go downfield and throw a block. However, if everyone does this, then a play like this becomes impossible, because no one is behind the ball carrier to receive a lateral. I played rugby for years, and the training there is different. You want to get behind the ball carrier diagonally to be ready to receive the ball. This is what you see here -- watch for it. Players are backpedaling to get in position. I don't know if any of these players had rugby training -- I do know that a number of the Cal players in "the play" were also rugby players.
...for getting the dumbest sports injury of all time, tearing his ACL when his manager was restraining him from attacking the first base umpire. Video here, if you missed it. We Diamondback fans are becoming big supporters of your, Milton.
What I know: The Philadelphia Eagles' jerseys this weekend were a travesty. But that is OK, because I can't stand the Eagles, since their name is a tribute to Mussolini-style fascism.
