Right City, Wrong Team

Having spent three years living in L.A., I know that the City of Angels is a great soccer market.  The area's beautiful soccer-specific Home Depot Center supports two MLS teams, the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA, and the city's parks are constantly filled will soccer leagues and pickup games (even in the middle of the afternoon of weekdays, when you'd think people would be working, but whatever . . .).  It's not surprising, then, that the CONCACAF brass elected to hold the Gold Cup Final in Pasadena's Rose Bowl;  after all, event organizers wanted a location and venue where they could sell 93,420 tickets. 

Unfortunately for fans of USA Soccer, however, the Los Angeles area wasn't the best selection.  Given the city's large, growing and soccer-obsessed Mexican population, the Rose Bowl was filled with as many, if not more, Mexico fans for Saturday night's matchup between the border rivals.  For the U.S., it was, in a way, the greater of two evils.  Early games against Canada in Detroit and against Panama in Tampa Bay failed to draw a good crowd, and tons of empty seats were clearly visable on TV.  While the final was completely sold out and impressively loud, it was the green, red and black-clad Mexicans who provided most of the passion, not the fans wearing red, white and blue.  Even the post-match ceremony was conducted in Spanish, which U.S. goalie Tim Howard called a "disgrace."

Time Howard didn't get much support from either his defense or from the home crowd.

Many soccer commentators have noted that the U.S. missed a big opportunity to put itself on the soccer map with a victory over a talented, deep and young Mexican side on Saturday, and that definitely seems true.  A Gold Cup championship not only would have guaranteed the U.S. a spot in the 2013 Confederations Cup (where the U.S. last made a big international statement in 2009), but also would have generated some additional soccer buzz well in advance of the 2014 World Cup.  Instead, the Gold Cup final showed that U.S. soccer isn't quite ready to compete with the world's soccer powers, either on the field or in the stands.

That's Not Funny

Those of you who know me understand that I love TV comedy.  I can't remember the last time I tuned in for a TV drama (I never even followed supposed "can't miss" shows like Lost or Mad Men), but every week I make sure to catch 30 Rock, Family Guy, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and a bunch of other sitcoms.  That's why I look forward to the NBA Draft every year; it's usually a perfect blend of sports and unintentional comedy that I can't stay away from.  This year, though?  Not only was the NBA Draft void of (many) exciting college names and filled with relatively unknown international prospects, but the draftees didn't come through with the hilarious antics that I have come to expect from them.

Ever since I was a kid, I understood that the NBA Draft was a night to celebrate either a) borderline criminals sporting gaudy suits and flashy jewlery or b) extremely awkward European guys.  This year?  Somehow the NBA Draft was filled with seemingly high character college players (Knight, Walker, Fredette, Butler), and the international guys seemed, on the whole, to be good ambassadors for their home countries.  Even the outfits were subdued, with almost everyone wearing traditional suits and ties.  Where were all the vests?  The bow ties?  The giant watches?

Conservatively dressed, high character guys selected in the top ten?  What kind of NBA Draft is this?

Perhaps most disappointingly, the reaction following another characteristically brutal Knicks first round selection was lacking.  I've been watching the NBA draft for at least fifteen years, and pretty much every year the script reads like this: the Knicks make an awful first round selection (Sweetney, Frye, Hill, Weis) that David Stern announces proudly, followed by the Knicks-fan-laden theater erupting in boos, profanity and confused looks.  As a Knicks fan, I always came away crushed by the pick but pleased with the strong fan reaction.  This year, though, the Knicks did their part (Iman Shumpert?  Really?), but shockingly the fans let me down.  Sure, there was some booing and collective dropping of jaws, but not nearly to the extent of drafts past.  I think the temporary move of the draft from Madison Square Garden to the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ might have had something to do with it, but I was still underwhelmed by what is traditionally my favorite part of the broadcast.

As usual, the announcing combination of Stuart Scott, Jay Bilas and Jeff van Gundy provided viewers with some (mostly unintentional) comedic moments and, as usual, Bill Simmons has done a great job of capturing the highlights in his running diary.  On the whole though, the NBA Draft became a lot less comical and whole lot more professional almost overnight.  Maybe it was the looming lockout prompting rookies-to-be to take the event more seriously?  Perhaps the temporary move from MSG in Manhattan to The Rock in Newark dulled an otherwise ultra-flashy event?  Maybe NBA players are becoming more mature (yeah, right)?  Whatever the reason, the 2011 NBA draft just didn't tickle my funny bone.

Still Standing, Fifteen Years Later

After watching the Braves take down Toronto on MLB Network last night, I flipped over to ESPN2 to catch the start of the special WNBA 15th Anniversary game from the Staples Center.  On the first day of summer back in 1996, the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks played the first ever WNBA game.  Today, the league has twelve relatively stable franchises and, despite its share of struggles, is a mainstay of the American summer sports landscape.

I'm not going to go on about how the quality of basketball in the WNBA is surprisingly good, or about how recreational players like myself should appreciate the game because it's more similar to what they can actually do on the court than NBA or NCAA men's basketball - we all know I've done that enough here already.  Instead, I'd like you all to take a moment to realize what an impressive milestone fifteen seasons is for an upstart sports league like the WNBA.  Fans of the NFL, MLB or NBA may find it easy to scoff at a league that's been in existance for "only" a decade and a half, but the disasterous track record of other, similar start-up leagues reveals how rare the accomplishment really is.

Compare the WNBA to other women's sports leagues.  The WUSA (soccer) made it just three seasons, and it's replacement, WPS, is struggling to get through its third. What about men's leagues, or more popular sports?  We all know how the XFL experiment faired, and I'd be surprised if the UFL makes it through a decade (despite bursts of tremendous popularity, even the USFL folded after five years).  Some people cite the WNBA's association with the NBA as the chief reason or the former's existance.  Well, what about NFL Europe, which folded in 2007 after just 11 seasons?

The WNBA 15th Anniversary broadcast was filled with clips of highlights from the league's first fifteen seasons, and featured some of sport's biggest stars (including Magic Johnson) sharing their favorite WNBA memories.  Regardless of what you think about the WNBA, women's basketball or women's sports in general, we should tip our proverbial caps to the WNBA.  While the WNBA is still a somewhat niche sport which may never be able to truly compete with MLB, golf or NASCAR for viewers, the league has established itself as a legitimate professional sports league, and that's certainly something worth celebrating.

If a Puck Drops in the Forest . . .

As you may have heard, the Boston Bruins won the NHL's Stanley Cup earlier this week.  Then again, you might have only heard about some rioting in Vancouver and not have had any idea of what is was all about - after all, the NHL isn't exactly easy for people to follow these days.  Despite what NHL pundits are calling an extremely extertaining playoff season and a championship series that matched two strong hockey markets against one another, it still seems like sports fans have all but stopped tracking the NHL.

It's upsetting, because ice hockey is a wonderful sport.  The problem is that the NHL has consistently been damaging the game over the past decade.  First there was the NHL lockout, which drove many fans away.  Once the game returned, the league had an unfortunate string of Western and Southern Stanley Cup champions (Anaheim, Tampa Bay, Carolina) which did little to bring in the core hockey fans in the northeast and Great Lakes regions.  This season, though, it's harder to pinpoint the NHL's excuse.

As a result of the league's horrendous national TV deal ("split" between NBC and Versus, with the majority of games on the latter channel), sports fans have to work hard to find playoff hockey.  With so much competing sports content airing on ESPN and the broadcast networks, the question comes down to how much do fans really love hockey, especially when their team isn't playing?  Although I love the game and love the Islanders, I found it surprisingly hard to get myself to watch Bruins-Canucks.  Every time I flipped the game on, I would drift back to baseball on ESPN, the NBA Finals on ABC, and, one time, "Say Yes to the Dress" on TLC (Is he joking . . .?).

Highlights were even hard to come by while watching SportsCenter.  At various points earlier in the series, the Stanley Cup Finals was buried below the NBA Finals, regular season MLB action, the French Open, NFL and NBA lockout updates and more.  After the series ended with a Boston victory, the riots in Vancouver got more air time than the game highlights.  If the NHL wants to compete for viewers with the NBA, let alone MLB and the NFL, it needs to focus their strategy on making hockey content more available to the typical lazy sports fan.  Whether it's a more agressive online media strategy or a renegotiated TV deal with the newly-united NBC and Comcast, the NHL must stop forcing its fans to work as hard to watch its games as the players do on the ice.

Equality for the American and National Leagues

Though there's lots of great MLB action going on right now (and, despite a ton of injuries, my Braves are playing quite well), it seems all of the baseball-related news is focused on the potential for realignment.  Recently, league officials revealed that the MLB is considering restructuring the league and divisional systems. Currently on the table: moving one team from the National League to the American League, removing the divisions and allowing the top four or five teams (regardless of geography) to head to the playoffs.

The argument against a system where both the American and National Leagues had fifteen teams was always about Interleague Play; with an odd number of teams in both leagues, Interleague would have to be scattered across the entire MLB season (to avoid two teams sitting idle for days at a time), and many fans and experts don't like the idea of teams ending the year with games against teams from the opposite league.  This argument against a move is predicated on Interleague play being something "special" that should be reserved for a few select weekends during the middle of the season (such as this coming weekend, when Interleague play resumes).

At this point, though, how is Interleague play special?  While Mets vs. Yankees and Cubs vs White Sox might be entertaining for those teams' fans, as a Braves fan Interleague means virtually nothing to me.  The Braves playing the Angels or Tigers adds nothing over a game against the Pirates or Padres.  While it is exciting to see the Braves play a divisional rival like the Mets or Phillies in late September, with an odd number of teams in the NL East Atlanta often closes the season against Colorado or Arizona anyway.  Why would ending against Minnesota or Oakland be any different?

MLB has two choices when it comes to Interleague play, in my opinion.  The first option is to scale it way back, restricting Interleague to one or two weekends a year to showcase geographic and historical rivalries.  The second option is to keep Interleague as robust as it is, but at the same time stop pretending that it's some magical part of the season.  Once fans get over treating Interleague as a novelty, we can embrace a logical fifteen-team-per-league system that spreads Interleague over the course of the season.  This latter plan is more fair for all of the teams involved, and makes a hell of a lot more sense than any other option currently on the table.

The Extra 2%: A Review

There are a lot of sports books out there, so a good one needs to have something that makes it truly unique.  Especially within the increasingly overcrowded field of what I call "sports business books" (i.e., Moneyball), there's definitely a common formula that often produces repetitive, uninspired work.  In contrast, Jonah Keri's The Extra 2% is a near-perfect read for anyone who, like myself, has ever dreamed of running either the business or baseball side of an MLB club.

While Keri's work isn't exactly a literary masterpiece (it's about 250 pages long but you can blow through it in a few hours, and it's filled with language that puts it closer to The Giving Tree than The Great Gatsby), it is an excellent combination of factual data, insider perspective and baseball lore.  The book starts with a brief history of the Tampa Bay MLB franchise (to set the tone), walks the reader through the club's transformation from American League laughing stock to American League Champions, and outlines the future challenges the team will face as it fights to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox going forward.  Throughout the book, it's clear that Keri has spent a lot of time alongside the Tampa Bay owners, management and players, transforming The Extra 2% from an outsider's research paper to an insider's expose.  

Keri's book is a must-read for anyone who ever dreamed of running a pro sports team.

One of the most complicated aspects of baseball is the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement, which contains hundreds of pages of rules that regulate the amateur draft, arbitration, free agency and compensatory draft picks.  Keri explains all of these structuring elements clearly and briefly in the context of the Tampa Bay Rays' rise to prominence, explaining how the team's Wall Street-trained brass combined their baseball knowledge and business acumen to take advantage of Major League Baseball's complex CBA and topple their large market competitors.  While Keri may be guilty of hand-picking specific examples that illustrate his points, the author successfully creates a bridge between the Rays front office's actions and savvy management theory.

On Monday I start my summer internship at Major League Baseball's Labor Relations department, hopefully taking another step closer to someday running a professional sports franchise.  While even before reading The Extra 2% I knew that the Tampa Bay Rays have emerged as the model team for business- and stat-minded aspiring executives like me, Keri's book neatly highlights the team's strengths, weaknesses and challenges in an easy-to-read, fun 250 pages.  Do yourself a favor and spend some time this summer reading this book. 

Saved By A Common Enemy

For my last post of the 2010-2011 academic year (I move back to New York for the summer later today), I figured I'd cover a little bit of the NBA Finals.  With the Heat up 2-1 and seemingly in the driver's seat on the way to an NBA Championship, the series could be over before I'm fully settled in Manhattan and back on a regular blogging schedule (you'll have to forgive me in advance if the posts are a bit sporadic this week, though I'll do my best to find plenty to write about, and time to write about it, over the next few days).  If the Heat do take the title, it seems like just about every NBA fan not living in South Florida will be angry about it.  As I realized last night, that could be a great thing for the NBA.

With the league heading into a potential lockout situation, I first thought that having Miami win the Larry O'Brien trophy would be a catastrophe for the prospects of a 2011-2012 season.  A Heat victory would highlight everything that's wrong with the NBA, I thought: salaries being too high, superstars running the league and only a few large market teams having a realistic chance to compete.  Fans of the smallest 20 to 25 teams would throw up their hands and give up on the NBA, having nothing to root for except the results of the NBA Draft Lottery (Congratulations, Cleveland!).

As LeBron, Wade and Co. have progressed through the NBA Playoffs, though, something strange - and, though I hate to admit it, fun - has happened.  Basketball fans from across the country have rallied for a common cause: rooting for whomever is playing against the Heat.  Last night I watched Game Three on TV in a common area here at Stanford.  While the gathering was organized by some legitimate Mavericks fans, the bulk of the attendees were completely neutral fans of other random NBA franchises.  Essentially everyone there was rooting for the Mavs, despite the fact that most of the Dallas supporters had probably never been to Texas, let alone to the American Airlines Center.  In short, "Heat Hating" might save the NBA.

Hate on, NBA fans.

Heading into the summer, perhaps having the "Big Three" win a championship in their first season together will actually push the NBA towards labor peace.  As fans, we have to hope that the NBA players and owners are listening to us, and that enough public support for a 2011-2012 season will push the two sides closer to an agreement.  With fans across the country (and likely the globe) rooting against Miami, we all have something to root for (or against) heading into next season, no matter how depressed our teams might make us.  LeBron, Wade and (I guess) Bosh are in the primes of their careers, too, so we may have this Miami Heat team to hate for much of the next decade.  While competitive basketball has fueled the rise of the NBA over the past several seasons, it might take a dominant Miami team to save it.

When is Enough Enough?

While I can't say I was totally shocked upon hearing the news that New York Knicks President and General Manager Donnie Walsh will not return to the team next season, I was most definitely concerned about what this might mean for my favorite NBA franchise.  With rumors regarding a possible Isiah Thomas return swirling around the basketball world, one has to wonder what's in store for the Knicks franchise.  After a promising Walsh era that featured a complete gutting of the roster and the acquisition of two bonafide superstars, would owner James Dolan really put his friendship with Thomas ahead of the team's well-being and hire the world's worst basketball executive to lead the Knicks again?  And, perhaps more interestingly, should he be allowed to do it?

James Dolan paid good money to purchase the Knicks, and the team is part of a publicly traded company.  If the Knicks tank next season and ensure a season of both basketball and financial losses, MSG's shareholders will be the ones footing the bill - not the fans.  From this perspective, a team's ownership (or appointees) should be able to do what it wants with its franchise, even if the results are painful to watch.  Professional sports owners have worked hard to earn the money required to purchase a franchise, and as a reward get to operate their teams as they see fit.  For most, this means trying to put together a winner and pleasing the fans.  For Dolan, this apparently means hiring incompetent friends and ruining an iconic NBA franchise.

At the same time, though, pro sports teams are not normal businesses.  If they were, then disgruntled consumers could easily stop consuming the firm's product and buy from a competitor; the result of Dolan's continuous boneheaded decisions would be an anemic Knicks fan base and a perennial loser.  The leagues, however, don't allow competitors to emerge within markets.  While there's little doubt in my mind that another owner, given access to the New York market, could regularly field a team more exciting and enjoyable to watch than the Knicks, the NBA would never allow it.  Instead, New York-based NBA fans are forced to live through Dolan's insufferable reign, or convert to Nets fandom (yeah, right).

Because professional sports are regulated to prevent competitors from popping up in markets such as New York, shouldn't those same leagues protect fans against destructive owners like James Dolan?  Once a league like the NBA makes the decision to regulate its franchises, doesn't it have an obligation to go all the way in the name of promoting good basketball, especially in a market as valuable as New York?  Sure, Dolan's shareholders pay the financial bills, but the fans pay the emotional ones by having to sit through season after season of poor on-court performance, nonsensical roster decisions and extremely unprofessional behavior.  If the rumors about Dolan and Thomas are true, it might be time for the NBA to say enough is enough.

More Like "Understock.com" Stadium

With the school year in Northern California about to come to a close, I spent my last Tuesday night of the spring at the newly-renamed Overstock.com Stadium in Oakland to watch the Athletics take on the New York Yankees.  The game itself went more or less as expected, with the Yankees jumping out to an early lead, the A's climbing back into it when New York starter Freddy Garcia began to unravel, and New York blowing out the Oakland bullpen to complete a 10-3 victory.  Play was extremely sloppy; I'm not sure if it had to do with the rain that covered the field all afternoon prior to first pitch, but both teams made costly errors and could have been charged for a few more if not for some questionable scorekeeping.

In fact, "sloppy" is the term I'd use to describe my entire first experience at what was formerly known as Oakland Alameda County Coliseum.  From the parking lot flooded with oily water to the lack of beer and hot food vendors (they only walked around with snacks and sodas), everything about the game presentation what somewhat underwhelming and askew.  Particularly discouraging was the giant sign in left field that announced the arrival of "Free Parking Tuesdays" accompanied by the small writing beside it that noted that the promotion was available on "Most Tuesdays."  Not shockingly given the "premium" opponent, we paid $17 per car to park despite the Tuesday night scheduling.

Against the Yankees, "Free Parking Tuesdays" turn into "$17 Parking Tuesdays"

I came in expecting the Oakland Coliseum to be a dump, so I wasn't surprised to see that it was run down and ugly.  The concrete stands were visably stained, the metal-work was rusted and the giant "Mt. Davis" premium seating structure behind the center field fence was a complete eyesore. The concession stands were poorly designed so that even short lines backed up into the walking area and blocked foot traffic.  Overall, not the ideal venue for Major League Baseball.

That being said, there were definitely some positives about the A's game experience.  Despite the lack of vendors selling it, inside the concourses the Coliseum had an excellent beer selection - one of the best I've ever seen at a baseball game.  The food seemed pretty good overall, and for an old venue there was a decent amount of selection and variety.  The playing surface itself was well-maintained, and the giant foul territory (a result of the stadium also being used for football) led to some exciting plays on balls in foul ground.

If you're looking for a great Bay Area baseball experience, there's no question that you should go to AT&T Park to see the Giants - the stadium is nicer, the area is more scenic and the home team is more competitive.  But baseball is baseball, and for a much cheaper price you can get great seats to watch the A's battle some of the American League's elite.  If you're willing to put up with a dingy stadium and a flooded parking lot, $50 a ticket can get you some of the best seats in the house, and hopefully when you make the trip "Free Parking Tuesdays" is actually in effect.

Even for a "Premium Game," $50 gets you a great view of the action.