Tag: sports

The serious drop in attendance hasn’t happened yet, but the NFL does appear to be past its peak already:

According to David Broughton and Andrew Levin of Sports Business Daily, the NFL averaged 66,648 attendees at home games in 2019. That’s the lowest average since 2004.

The Cowboys averaged 90,929, leading the league for 11 straight seasons. Fifteen teams saw a decline in attendance, led by the Jaguars (8.7 percent drop), Raiders (7.6 percent) and Bengals (7.0 percent)….

Attendance peaked in 2016, with 69,487 per game. In 2004, 66,328 attended each game, on average.

What is more ominous about this is that it is happening towards the end of an economic boom at a stock market peak. It’s only a 4.5 percent decline, but as I noted in Corporate Cancer, the first downward stage is usually a 20 percent drop before it temporarily stabilizes at the lower plateau, with an eventual decline to 50 percent of peak.

Ex-Carolina Panthers head coach Ron Rivera was hired by the Washington Redskins. Rivera has already shown that he can transform himself, but can he transform the culture of losing imposed by Dan Snyder? It’s an intriguing post-season development.

Not even in the slightest:

2019-20 Super 25 Preseason Boys Basketball Rankings
USA Today

NO. 20 MINNEHAHA ACADEMY
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Preseason Rank: 20
2018-19 record: 23-2

My high school won a few state championships in my day. The ski team were state champions, the tennis team were state champions, and my soccer team got to state and was knocked out in the semifinal round.

The soccer team was ranked #1 in the state at one point, and I had the best 100m time for a few weeks, but our basketball team was reliably terrible. And even the good teams, like Mounds View and Minneapolis North, were never ranked in the national top 20.

Anyhow, good luck to them, even if they are no longer known as the Indians.

The Vikes are in the playoffs thanks to the Rams’ loss last night.. And whether they can run down Green Bay for the NFC North title or not, beating the Pack at home would be a nice prelude to a strong playoff run.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Discuss amongst yourselves. Also, this is very good news:

The NFL will continue to resist sound arguments for changing the postseason seeding process, which guarantees every division champion a home game. Per Adam Schefter of ESPN, the issue has emerged in past years, but the possibility of stripping a division winner of an automatic home game has “gotten zero steam,” and that “[i]t’s never been a consideration.”

As a source with knowledge of past dynamics during ownership meetings has explained it to PFT, the idea has been proposed “a number of times” and debated “a few times,” but it “never got much traction.”

“For some reason, the owners felt strongly that it was important to make division winning meaningful and one way was to give them a home game,” our source said.

The arguments for playoff reseeding are not “sound” at all. To the contrary, they are stupid, bordering on complete retardation. Either divisions and conferences matter or they do not. If the logic utilized by the spergs who are upset by the way in which a team with a better record has to go on the road to play a division winner is relevant, then they do not matter, there is no reason to play either the playoffs or the Super Bowl, and the NFL can simply go to a FIFA-style system where the team that finishes the season with a) the best record, b) the best head-to-head record, c) the most points scored is the NFL champion.

Don’t want to do that? Fine, then shut the hell up. The current system not only works, it works very well indeed.

That might actually be the rosy scenario. I think a lot of Carolina Panthers fans are beginning to fear that their new owner is going to be more Dan Snyder than Robert Kraft in light of the way he ended the Riverboat Ron era in Carolina:

The Panthers fired Ron Rivera on a Tuesday. Five days before their Week 14 game and four games before the end of the season.

The timing made little sense.

Rivera went 76-63-1 as the team’s head coach with four playoff appearances. The Panthers won the NFC title in 2015 after going 15-1 in the regular season but lost to the Broncos in Super Bowl 50.

Tepper said it was an “emotional conversation” with Rivera as he handed him the pink slip.

“Look, a very hard move,” Tepper said. “Ron Rivera, besides being a good coach, is one of the finest men I have ever met in my life. I have to say that upfront. Look, I came here two years ago. I wanted to show patience on the football side to see how it was going. On the business side, we made vast and sweeping changes and I didn’t want to make those vast and sweeping changes on the football side. I wanted to take time and patience to see what could go and how it could go. I just thought it was time given the way things have gone the last two seasons to put my stamp on this organization on the football side as we’ve done on the business side of the organization. I think as much respect as I have for Ron, I think a change was appropriate to build things the way I want things to be built.”

So, a Wall Street Judeochristian who never played football wants to put his stamp on the football side of the organization. At least Jerry Jones actually played the game at a high level.

Discuss amongst yourselves

Discuss amongst yourselves

Discuss amongst yourselves.