FIFA, die in a fire

Sepp Blatter evidently wants to play the 2022 World Cup in the winter, which pretty much proves that Qatar's magic air-conditioning was bull (I wish the Americans had promised world peace in return for the Cup, it'd be more likely). Twitter is all atwitter with people claiming that a shift will hurt viewership in the United States, and stunt the growth of the game. The idea is that people won't watch because of NFL football in the States, especially if the Cup conflicts with the NFL playoffs.

More stuff
An issue that I haven't seen mentioned is that while I'm sure overall coverage will be affected - ESPN will never cede to another sport; in fact, they rarely do so even during the NFL offseason - the actual games will not conflict with NFL games, unless the NFL decides to play in the morning. Time zone differences will prevent that. I'm not sure whether this is something nobody else has realized or whether they're dismissing it intentionally, but I think it bears mentioning.

The true issues are twofold: first, the US fanbase will not grow during a Qatar World Cup or even, more than likely, during a Russia Cup, due to the aforementioned time zone differences. The casual fan could fairly easily spend an afternoon watching soccer during South Africa 2010, but he's not getting up at 7 am to watch a Spain-Uruguay match. Soccer fans will watch, but that's not going to raise American interest. I'm not implying that it's all about the US here; just that FIFA has expressed a desire in the past to expand the game here, and the next two World Cups are more than likely going to be missed opportunities on that front.

Scheduling is also a major issue. The world football schedule is built around a winter club season with a summer offseason. That offseason is where the World Cup gets slotted in. If the Cup were to be contested during the winter, it would wreak havoc on club team schedules. The only options would be outrageously early starts and late ends for league seasons, with a month-long break in the middle for the World Cup. It's been done, in a way - the NHL does something similar to allow its players to play in the Olympics, but the Olympics are much shorter than the World Cup. I just feel that a winter Cup would be logistically impossible.

I take great issue with this idea, for those reasons and one more. As I hinted earlier, Qatar was granted this World Cup based on a bid that included air-conditioned stadiums. This talk of moving the Cup to the winter is a tacit admission that there's at least a good chance that one of the main pillars of the Qatar bid is not possible. In my opinion, that means one of two things (or possibly both): Qatar submitted a fraudulent bid, or FIFA approved a bid based on fantasy. Neither is acceptable.

I am American, and I wanted the 2022 World Cup to be played in the United States. That said, that's not why I'm upset about this. I would have been disappointed, but not angry had Australia or Japan or Spain/Portugal or Holland/Belgium been awarded the Cup. What upsets me is that we lost to a country that it clearly at best not able to back up its promises, and at worst flat-out lied to win. Either way, this isn't making me feel any particular confidence that a Qatar World Cup can be successful.

This is awesome: Best rant ever

In honor of the Mets beating the Indians last night (barely, thanks to the fact that Frankie Rodriguez is incapable of making anything easy ever), I present to you the greatest baseball rant in the history of baseball or rants. This is Bruce Drennan, Indians sportscaster, decrying their crappiness.



I don't know what he'd do if he was working for the Pirates.

This is why the economy tanked

Evidently, bros are icing bros at Goldman Sachs and Raymond James. One would think that they have better things to do than frat boy crap like this, but evidently managing all of the money in the world doesn't take that much effort.

I'm with Drew Magary. This is lame. Stop doing it, kids of America.

Beat L.A.

Okay, I was not expecting that at all.

After the Magic demolished the Hawks to get to the Eastern Conference finals, the sports world practically had a coronation for them. They were supposedly so good after winning eight of their first eight playoff games that they were going to roll through the Celtics unfettered, and the road to a championship was clear.

The Celtics, on the other hand, had gone through the Heat fairly easily, and looked surprisingly good against the Cavaliers. Of course, the Cavaliers lost "because LeBron choked," and the Celtics were too old to be able to compete with Orlando.
More stuffRemember when everyone thought that? Yeah, that was dumb. Evidently nobody noticed that the Hawks and Bobcats are not that good at basketball. So the Magic got punked by the suddenly-not-old Celtics, and now Boston's in the finals. I mainly find this funny, and it's a big reason why about 95% of sports analysis is total crap (not what you find here, though!) and why it's mostly useless.

Nobody knows what's going to happen. People make assumptions usually based on faulty information (like the idea that the Atlanta Hawks were ever a good basketball team), and they make these predictions that we the viewers are all supposed to take as gospel, because if you're on television, you're automatically an "expert."

But the concentration on what's going to happen next obscures the role that analysts should be performing, one that they can actually perform. I don't want these people to play Nostradamus. I have no interest in bad predictions. What I want is for people who understand a game to explain to me what happened or what's happening. I want to understand what is happening and why it works. I want breakdowns of plays and strategies. These are things that a proficient analyst can actually do reliably, as opposed to predicting the future.

So now we come to the Western Conference. Game 6 is tonight in Phoenix. I have no idea who is going to win this game; I have no idea who is going to win this series. If I had to, I would guess that the Suns will probably win tonight and lost Game 7. What I do know for sure is this: Amar'e Stoudemire is not very good at defense, and if the Suns are going to win, they need to figure out a way to make up for that. The zone is doing that to an extent, but at some point the Lakers are going to adjust. I fear that the Suns won't be able to adjust to the adjustment, based on the fact that I'm pretty sure that Alvin Gentry is an inferior coach to Phil "X" Jackson.

I also know this: I hate the Lakers. I hate pretty much every player on the team, and I do not like Phil Jackson. I like the Suns, and I'm a Celtics fan. So I want somebody - ANYBODY - to beat L.A. I just don't know who it's going to be.