- 07:18 AM
- 11/17/24
| Name: | Holden O. |
|---|---|
| Location: | Chicago |
| Member since: | February 11, 2002 |
| Last visit: | April 21, 2021 |
holden has posted 53 links and 2,523 comments to SportsFilter and 8 links and 268 comments to the Locker Room.
The Great Heist: How Fox Paid for and Changed Football Forever: A long, but excellent oral history from Bryan Curtis at The Ringer on how Fox went big for the NFL and ended up becoming the fourth major broadcast network in the process. Lots of fun nuggets in there, including the facts that (1) at the time John Madden signed with Fox for the 1994 NFL season, he was paid more annually than the highest paid NFL player, and (2) at the time it was introduced, people hated the "Fox Box" (the box containing the running clock and score at the top corner of the screen).
posted by holden to football at 02:08 PM on December 14, 2018 - 5 comments
Are You Ready for Some Football?: The World Cup draw was conducted earlier today. An Iberian showdown in Group B, while Groups D and F look, if not quite Groups of Death, at least Groups of Moderate Discomfort. The U.S. is in Group I.
posted by holden to soccer at 12:41 PM on December 01, 2017 - 6 comments
The Premier League Season Kicks Off Tomorrow: After a short post-WC break, the season in England's top flight begins tomorrow. The first manager to quit or get fired has already left the building, in the form of a man who seems almost unrecognizable minus the hat. Don't forget to join the SpoFi Fantasy Premier League mini-league (anyone know the SpoFi league code?). Post your season predictions inside.
posted by holden to soccer at 11:30 AM on August 15, 2014 - 9 comments
Euro 2012 Confidence Pool (Final Standings): Congrats to our winner, goddam, who narrowly pipped second-place finisher owlhouse (and apologies to those of you whose entries the software ate). Full standings inside.
posted by holden to fantasy at 11:43 AM on July 05, 2012 - 1 comment
Euro 2012 Confidence Pool (Standings Post-Group Round): Standings after the group round inside.
posted by holden to fantasy at 02:59 PM on June 22, 2012 - 1 comment
Re the EPL teams "leaving" - I always felt the super league idea was largely for the benefit of Real Madrid and Barcelona, who thoroughly dominate (from a revenue perspective) La Liga and seem utterly contemptuous of the smaller clubs and having to share anything with them (and those two clubs already have separate deals around TV and certain other benefits that treat them preferentially vis-a-vis the rank-and-file Spanish clubs). Correspondingly, seemed to me the English teams had a lot less to complain about - yes, they still have to share revenues from league sources such as media rights (albeit also not equally) but they have the richest TV deals in the world and can attract many of the best players.
Other than FOMO, there's always been less of (but not the absence of) a rationale/business case for the English teams to join a super league (well except for Arsenal and Spurs and anyone else of the 6 on the outside looking in for ECL spots on the regular, who would be getting guaranteed money for the competition where they may be looking at Europa League at best based on domestic form).
posted by holden at 06:30 PM on April 20, 2021
Half of what makes the Champions League fun for me is these periodic match-ups between powerhouses that only come about every 3-5 years (or longer). I would assume in this super league that these teams are playing on a yearly basis, which takes some of the excitement of the draw out of the competition. Not to mention the joy of seeing the little club that could knock off one of the global elites.
It's obviously all about money, but soccer has been all about money for a while, and this seems a natural progression. Will be interesting to see if the country-level FAs and UEFA can bring any leverage to bear here via expulsion from domestic leagues, eligibility of players for international tournaments, etc.
Freezing the teams at this snapshot in time also ignores the cyclical nature of success of some of these clubs. Some have the long histories of dominance (Real Madrid, Liverpool, United, Barcelona, Juventus) that you could pluck them out of about any era and they would have been one of the teams. But if you were to go 20 years back, Man City were relegated in 2000-01, PSG (yes, I realize they have not elected yet to join this league) were mid-table mediocrity in Ligue 1, etc. And on current form, Spurs and Arsenal hardly look like European elite. Again, appreciate that it is all about the money, but it's basically taking a snapshot of the richest clubs at this point in time, herding them into a room, and padlocking the door.
posted by holden at 10:52 AM on April 19, 2021
For Champions League, is the TV broadcast adding the audio or is that being piped into the stadium itself? Not sure if it's like this at all baseball stadiums, but I was outside Wrigley the other day and they've definitely got the organ and walk-up music and cheering being piped through the PA system in the park.
posted by holden at 02:45 PM on August 21, 2020
The apology with the homer was reminiscent of Chris Berman trying to get all serious talking about Ray Rice -- "Violence against women is a real scourge in this country and we should be taking this seriously. It's no time to minimize this grave ... AND THE PUNT IS BLOCKED!"
posted by holden at 11:01 AM on August 21, 2020
Ryan Dempster barehands one hit out of Wrigley (during BP) on his bike. He's kind of an everyman fixture around here in Lakeview/Wrigleyville. He's been the parent volunteer linesman at couple of my sons' soccer games and I see him at kids basketball games at the Y and at the grocery from time to time. Canadians, they're just like us.
posted by holden at 03:13 PM on August 17, 2020
My picks:
Nuggets in 6
Raptors in 5
Celtics in 6
Clippers in 6
Bucks in 4
Heat in 6
Rockets in 7
Lakers in 5
Top point scorer: Lillard
Top rebounder: Gobert
Top scoring team: Bucks
Team scoring 130: Bucks
posted by holden at 10:53 PM on August 16, 2020
When's the last time there were no undefeated baseball teams after 3 games played?
posted by holden at 11:18 AM on July 27, 2020
Adding the extraneous S is also a Chicago thing. "Going over to the Jewels to do my shopping..."
posted by holden at 09:00 PM on June 23, 2020
I saw a tweet that Luis got a red card once every 160 EPL games with Chelsea and once every 13 EPL games with Arsenal. And gave away a penalty once every 53 games for Chelsea but once every 6.5 games for Arsenal. So whatever he was with Chelsea is like 10-15x worse with Arsenal.
posted by holden at 06:40 PM on June 19, 2020
As a one who is notorious for abandoning well-intentioned projects, this likely ends here, but I bring you installment two of From the Archives.
It was February 2006, and the Winter Olympics were in full swing. And on SportsFilter, we were about to be treated to a level of creative crassness rarely seen on the front page.
While rcade would like to pretend this did not happen and quickly excised the offending post (thus limiting it to four comments), a Google cache of it remains (for now).
Some fun talk in the locker room on this as well.
posted by holden at 06:03 PM on May 29, 2020
Love that you remembered "paradigm shift," tahoe.
posted by holden at 05:55 PM on May 29, 2020
This probably goes in the bucket of navel-gazing, but I was thinking the other day "Was there some guy on SportsFilter who always used to go on about his proprietary training techniques that would surely revolutionize soccer or am I just imagining that?"
I present to you a very special edition of From the Archives (f/k/a Down the Rabbit Hole).
posted by holden at 02:56 PM on May 28, 2020
I would not be surprised to see MLB do a season behind closed doors, with the tri-state plan (FL, TX, and AZ hubs) most likely. Apparently MLB teams make only 20% of their revenues from gate receipts, and I would have to think that even with a shortened season, ad revenues from the eyeballs of a sports-starved nation (nations, including Canada " that's for you, grum and and DJE) that is otherwise shut in could generate returns that might bring the networks to honor much of their commitments.
posted by holden at 12:01 AM on April 28, 2020
How dare you sully the name of Mike Trout like that. Clearly Ben Affleck.
posted by holden at 11:50 PM on April 27, 2020
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle
Speaking of the Irish, I got my second Moderna dose today. I can now attend Celtics games with impunity! Wait...that's not me. THIS VACCINE TURNED ME INTO HOWARD! I AM NOW IN A CHURCH!!! NOW I AM UMPING A BASEBALL GAME!!!
On the upside, you now have the knowledge to fix a jammed torpedo port on a nuclear submarine.