Category: College Basketball

“That’s All Things Considered’s Music!!!” and Land-o-Links for 8/18/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

During my ten-minute drive from my house to the train station every morning, I usually listen to National Public Radio. This is because: (a) the music stations seem to think that people only want to hear 45-minute discussions about the latest celebrity engagement/marriage/divorce during the morning drive as opposed to, say, listening to music; (b) the sports stations have about a 2-to-1 commercial-to-program ratio in the morning; and (c) I like my news coverage to be more than reciting the latest Yahoo! News headlines.

So, since I only spend a few minutes in the car each day, NPR is perfect for that time. I know that I’m going to get a couple of in-depth news stories that I wouldn’t have found on my own. (By the way, do you know how you have that stomach turning moment in life where you realize that you have turned into your parents? For me, it was when I started to willingly listen to NPR. I used to complain to my father all of the time in the car when he listened to NPR instead of the mysogynist hip-hop music that I favored. Now look at what’s happened to me – I own a house in the suburbs and listen to NPR while driving a minivan. Once I start complaining about any hoodlums in neighborhood that keep partying with the bass too loud, my transformation will be complete.)

At the same time, I’m not going to be deluged with a bunch of commercials in the traditional sense. NPR does have sponsors for segments, which are usually refined entities that fit the tone and tenor of the station such as financial services companies, corporate law firms, museums, and fine arts festivals.

Considering all of this, I nearly urinated on myself in the car the other day when the NPR announcer non-chalantly stated, “Your Chicago Public Radio traffic and weather report has been brought to you by the WWE SummerSlam.” My goodness, the Hulkster is body slamming the Hezbollah!!! Who’s ready for the Garrison Keillor/Carl Kasell tag team??? The only thing that could have been funnier is if the announcer had capped it by informing the listeners that they could watch everything live this Sunday at the Rosemont Horizon. Vince McMahon must have sent in one helluva check during the spring pledge drive. Anyway, here are the links for the weekend:

1) Slippery When Airborne (Malay Mail) (from Danny M) – YES, THOSE SNAKES DESERVED TO DIE, AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL!!!

2) 2006-07 Illinois Men’s Basketball Schedule (FightingIllini.com) – The nonconference schedule is definitely a step down from the last five or six seasons, although that’s appropriate since this is probably going to be a weaker transition year before the Illini ramp it up again for the monster freshman class starting in 2007-08 (assuming Indiana stops doing the devil’s work in trying to steal our recruit). I’m definitely looking forward to the Arizona game on December 2nd, which will be our first meeting with the Wildcats since the greatest sports event I have ever seen and probably ever will see. If for some reason you need a reminder of what occurred on March 26, 2005, bestill the power of YouTube here.

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(Random Note #1: A couple of my buddies were playing pickup hoops in downtown Chicago last weekend when out of the blue, Dee Brown showed up along with an entourage of 5 other guys and joined the game. Quoting one of the players regarding Dee: “He broke my ankles, drained threes in my face, and trash talked…it was awesome. In one game, we were on the same team and he caught me on a backdoor move. The play was so smooth…it’s like we’ve been playing together for years.” That might be the most awesome story I have ever heard in my life.)

(Random Note #2: The picture above of Deron Williams posterizing Channing Frye has been the wallpaper on my computer since March 27, 2005. Just so you know.)

3) 5 Predictions for the Big Ten (ESPN.com) – Switching to football, I’ll gladly take “long-term optimism” and run with it.

4) The Barkers Meet MySpace (E! Online News) – Well, this is certainly one way to get your side of the story out to the public.

5) The Buerhle Bile File: Making History: Game 120 Thoughts (Chi-Sox Blog) – After what was supposed to be a break in the schedule against the Royals (the White Sox ended up barely splitting the 4-game series against the worst team in baseball), the Sox now have 10 straight games with the Twins and Tigers. I was really hoping that I could enjoy the next 6 weeks without having the worry about the Sox making the playoffs, but no dice here.

6) Snakes on Claire Danes (YouTube) – Heh-heh…

And finally…

7) Australians Upset Over Loud Manilow Music (San Francisco Chronicle) – Sometimes, you’re better off just putting up with those punk kids because the solution is ten times worse.

(Image from FightingIllini.com)

Chi-Town vs. Motown: Rivalries Across the Board

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports8 Comments

Dennis Rodman. Ben Wallace. John Salley. Magglio Ordonez. Al Simmons. Chris Chelios. Erik Kramer. Bobby Layne. All of these prominent sports figures from past and present have one thing in common: they have played for teams in both Chicago and Detroit during their careers. Chicago sports teams might have individual rivals from cities other than Detroit such as the Green Bay Packers and St. Louis Cardinals that are more pronounced. However, Chicago and Detroit are linked by having geographically defined and historic rivalries in every sport across the board whether it’s in the professional or college (when taking into account the Big Ten plus Notre Dame) ranks. Not even New York vs. Boston (they have the pro sports covered, but you couldn’t pay enough money to the average person on the street to watch Rutgers play Boston College in anything on the college front) or Los Angeles vs. San Francisco (L.A. doesn’t have an NFL team while the Bay Area only has a quasi-NBA franchise in the Warriors) have sets of sports rivalries that run as wide and deep as Chicago vs. Detroit. With the important series between the White Sox and Tigers (the Sox took game 1 last night after a marvelous performance by Jon Garland) occurring this week, here’s my ranking of the top Chicago vs. Detroit rivalries taking into account history and present fervor:

1) Bulls vs. Pistons – As I’ve stated before, the Bad Boy Pistons were the first team I ever had pure hatred for during my childhood. During the late-1980s and early-1990s, this was the most heated rivalry in all of sports with annual nationally televised Christmas Day matchups at the old Chicago Stadium and inevitable meetings in the NBA Playoffs, coming to a peak when the Pistons walked off of the court after being eliminated by the Bulls in 1991 without even acknowledging Michael Jordan and his team. The rivalry subsided when the Bulls, during their 1990s dynasty, eventually found new foils in the Knicks and Pacers and then the Pistons rose back to dominance after the start of the new millennium right when Chicago went into the cellar. However, with Ben Wallace defecting from a Motown fan base that loved him to go to Chicago out of all places (the basketball equivalent of Johnny Damon spurning the Red Sox for the Yankees), these two franchises are going to be rekindling that old hatred this season and beyond.

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2) Notre Dame vs. Michigan – Michigan fans will tell you that while Ohio State, without question, is their biggest rival, they save their harshest vitriol for the Irish. At the same time, even though Domers count USC as their most important game of the season, there’s a certain respect for the Trojans in contrast to the pure hatred for the Wolverines. Notre Dame and Michigan are the two winningest programs in college football history with fight songs that are beaten into everyone’s heads, whether or not they care one iota about these teams, from birth. When you add in the pompous fans on both sides, the only thing comparable to this game is watching the Yankees play themselves in an intrasquad game: you hope there’s a way that both teams can lose. Regardless of how much I might hate these teams, the college football season really doesn’t start until Notre Dame plays Michigan in September.

(Sidenote: I really wish I could put Illinois vs. Michigan on this list, but I’ve learned over time that the “rivalry” is completely one-sided with my Illini brethren. Now, the most emotionally scarring sports moment that I have ever witnessed at an event that I actually attended was the 2000 Illinois – Michigan football game, where the Illini had the game stolen by the Big Ten referees who, with less than four minutes left in the game with Illinois ahead, incorrectly called a fumble by Illinois’ Rocky Harvey when he was actually down and then seconds later inexplicably didn’t call a fumble on Michigan’s Anthony Thomas when he dropped the ball when his knees weren’t anywhere near close to the ground. Michigan would go on to score the winning touchdown on that drive. The errors were so egregious that the Big Ten issued an unprecedented apology to Illinois a couple of days later and spurred the conference to begin using instant replay. What happened in Champaign that Saturday evening wasn’t a case of heartbreak a la Illinois losing in the 2005 NCAA Championship Game. Instead, it was probably the only time I’ve ever felt completely violated after watching a sporting event. To say the least, my disdain for Michigan peaked at that point.

However, when I went to law school at DePaul, the two undergraduate schools that matriculated the most students there by a substantial margin were Illinois and Michigan. Everytime I spewed my anger toward the Maize and Blue, my Michigan alum classmates were sincerely and genuinely perplexed. They had absolutely no feelings toward playing us whatsoever. In fact, a number of them upon moving to Chicago even started cheering for Illinois when they weren’t playing Michigan. They simply didn’t think about us at all as any sort of rival – we might as well have been Northern Illinois. While learning about this apathy was initially even more enraging from a personal standpoint, it also made me realize that Illinois vs. Michigan was a fictional rivalry and we, as Illini fans, look pretty petty into making the matchup into something more than what it actually is. This is now so apparent across the Big Ten that the Michigan Daily even had an article a couple of years ago examining how much we hate them in contrast to their ambivalence toward us. From that point on, I decided that if I was going to hate a team that really wasn’t a true rival of the Illini, I’d redirect more of my sports rage toward someone outside of the Big Ten: Duke. Of course, that’s not to say that I won’t continue to drop “Muck Fichigan” lines at every opportunity.)

3) Bears vs. Lions – In 1934, the Detroit Lions began their tradition of playing on every Thanksgiving Day by matching up against the Chicago Bears. When examining longevity and frequency, only the Packers are bigger rivals to the Bears than the Lions. While in terms of sporting excellence this rivalry has seen better days, the Bears and Lions are, year-in and year-out regardless of records, the most important franchises in their respective cities. So, as we wait for Matt Millen to put together an offensive formation that features one quarterback and ten wide receivers, we can appreciate the history between these two NFL teams along with the passionate fan bases that they bring to the table.

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4) Blackhawks vs. Red Wings – As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this rivalry once would have been the clear and undisputed #1 on this list. However, this matchup is looking more like Illinois vs. Michigan as opposed to Bulls vs. Pistons with every inept team that the Blackhawks trot out on the ice. Still, there’s incredible history here, from their mutual status as Original Six franchises to the Bobby Hull vs. Gordie Howe boxing matches.

5) Illinois vs. Michigan State – A continually growing college basketball rivalry that is based more on excellence as opposed to bad blood. When looking at the Big Ten over the past decade, these two programs have perennially been at the top of the conference, which makes their annual matchups that much more important. For the record, if I had to pick the one head coach in college basketball other than Bruce Weber that I respect and admire over everyone else, it would definitely be the Spartans’ Tom Izzo.

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6) White Sox vs. Tigers – This season, these two teams are battling for supremacy in the American League. I’ve got to rank this rivalry at #6, however, because they have spent the last one hundred seasons as pretty lackluster franchises. It wasn’t very long ago that the Tigers were battling to avoid losing 120 games in a season, while the White Sox finally broke an 88-year World Series championship drought in 2005. If these two clubs can sustain some success over multiple seasons after this year, then we’ll have another true rivalry on our hands.

And finally…

7) Cubs vs. Tigers – This isn’t a real rivalry at all, but it serves me with an opportunity to remind my readers that are Cubs fans that your team (a) hasn’t won a World Series since 1908, when they defeated none other than the Detroit Tigers in five games and (b) hasn’t won a National League pennant since 1945, when they then lost to the Detroit Tigers in the World Series in the maximum seven games. The Circle of Life continues (as well as the Curse of the Billy Goat).

(Images from Pistons.com, Beckett.com, Beckett.com, FightingIllini.com)

Land-o-Links – 7/18/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

Have the Mets stopped scoring on the Cubs yet? All jokes aside, my White Sox didn’t fare any better against the other New York team this weekend. The three game sweep at the hands of the Yankees makes the series beginning tonight against the Tigers a pivotal point in the season. I still don’t quite believe in Detroit because of their inexperience, but I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention that the baseball world didn’t think the Sox were for real until the last out of the World Series last season. In fact, the 2004 Red Sox are the only World Series winners of the last five years that really had any “big game” experience prior to their championship season. Until tonight’s game, here are the links for the day:

1) The True Nature of Bo’s Tecmo Dominance (Deadspin) – The Big Three of Old School Nintendo: Mario in “Super Mario Bros.”, Link in “The Legend of Zelda”, and Bo Jackson in “Tecmo Bowl”.

(Update: Per TK, the Bo Jackson footage was from Tecmo Super Bowl as opposed to Tecmo Bowl. The original Tecmo Bowl didn’t use NFL teams or players.)

2) Oprah: I’m Not Gay (Washington Post) – Crisis averted for American males: there will not be an Oprah/Rosie love child.

3) The Deal-Breakers (Chicago Tribune) – Rationally, to paraphrase the former Hollywood magnate Samuel Goldwyn, I believe that verbal commitments aren’t worth the paper that they’re written on, so I can’t really be shocked by this or play the “unethical” card here. Emotionally, however, if Kelvin Sampson and Indiana somehow steal Eric Gordon from Illinois, my hatred for the Hoosiers would catapult them past Duke and the Packers on my personal list of the most evil teams in all of sports (and that’s akin to switching the order of the Ten Commandments for me). If you’re not up for a couple of rants per week on this blog for the next umpteen years about how Sampson is the Anti-Christ, you absolutely do not want this to happen.

4) DePaul Big East Basketball Opponents for 2006-07 (DePaul Blue Demons) – Having two games apiece against Notre Dame and St. John’s is a good thing. However, what’s up with South Florida (who I don’t believe should have ever been invited to the Big East) appearing twice on the schedule instead of traditional rival Marquette? That’s not very cool. All in all, I have some doubts as to whether DePaul is going to have enough to get to the NCAA Tournament next season since the tough Big East gauntlet is coupled with a brutal non-conference schedule with home games against Kansas (speaking of a school with a coach that is the Anti-Christ), Wake Forest, and California, along with a trip to the Maui Classic that will feature Kentucky, Memphis, UCLA, and Oklahoma.

5) Chicago Weighs New Prohibition: Bad-for-You Fats (New York Times) – If Ed Burke had read my list of Chicago buffets from last week, he never would have proposed such a clamp on the joys of humanity. Do we live in Russia or something?

6) Never Say Never (Chicagoist) – See, Naperville isn’t such a bad place to live! However, I do remember seeing the noted T-shirt being sold around the corner from my old apartment in the city right before my wife and I made the move out west.

And finally…

7) Snoop Dogg Planning West Cost Dominance (AllHipHop.com) – Tell us what you really think about non-West Coast rappers shooting videos in your ‘hood, Snoop.

Fine Explosions in Naperville and Land-o-Links for 7/5/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

When my wife and I decided to buy a house in Naperville and leave our apartment in Roscoe Village on the North Side of Chicago a couple of years ago, most of my friends thought it was more sane for us to move to a space station using a shuttle that had pieces of foam falling off of it. The majority of the comments were along the lines of, “You’re moving to Yuppie-ville?” and “Enjoy the beige houses.” Of course, these friends at the time were all (a) not married and (b) looking at things from the perspective of renting for the next year as opposed to emptying out a bank account to buy a place to prospectively raise a family for the next ten to twenty years.

Granted, there are plenty of things that I miss about living in the city. In particular, I loved our neighborhood of Roscoe Village, which was lined with classic Chicago brownstones and close enough to Wrigleyville to walk to Clark and Addison within twnety minutes yet far enough away that we didn’t have idiot Cubs fans pissing on our lawn after games. (As a Sox fan that lived that close to Wrigley Field during the all-consuming Cubs playoff run in 2003, I have little patience for Cubs fans claiming that South Siders have been too obnoxious since we won last year. The only thing worse than being a White Sox fan living on the North Side during that time in ’03 was being a Red Sox fan stuck in the Bronx at that same time.) There’s no place in the world that I love more than Chicago and I still get a small adrenaline rush when my commuter train pulls into view of the city’s skyline every morning.

That being said, moving to Naperville was a terrific decision. Forget about the stellar public schools or the accolades that it is the best place to live in the nation. Here’s what it all comes down to, which I learned about last night: Best. Fireworks. Ever.

They were so good that I actually felt compelled enough to dedicate an entire post to such an inane subject. Let me note that I’m not throwing these positive proclamations around very lightly. My parents to this day are certified fireworks fanatics, which means that I spent my Fourth of July weekends as a child hitting the South Suburban fireworks trifecta of shows in Hazel Crest, Chicago Heights, and our hometown of Glenwood on consecutive evenings. They seriously go out of their way to catch as many fireworks performances as they can not only during the Independence Day season, but for the rest of the year, as well (i.e. Chicago’s Venetian Night, the twice-weekly Navy Pier shows, etc.). At the same time, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness fireworks displays in Chicago’s Grant Park, the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Lahaina Harbor in Maui, and at Walt Disney World in Florida (for a view on Philadelphia’s fireworks, check out my sister’s blog). (The Most Disappointing Fourth of July Fireworks Ever: Las Vegas. Last year when I was there, instead of the city having the fireworks shoot off of the rooftops of the hotels on the Strip as it had in the past, the show was shuffled off into a largely inaccessible area someplace north of the Hilton. I was upset for a moment until I realized that I was still in Vegas, which made me happy again.)

Honestly, when it comes down to pure pyrotechnics (obviously, the locale of, say, the nation’s capitol adds to the overall experience), the Naperville Ribfest fireworks beat them all. Considering the inordinate number of fireworks shows that I’ve watched, the fact that probably over half of the the fireworks there were shot off were types that I had never seen before, ranging from ones that dropped down looking like unbroken streamers falling from the sky and a number that exploded to form smiley faces. At the same time, I have never seen a fireworks display that was as perfectly synchronized to music as this one. The soundtrack wasn’t there for background filler; each song sample had its own separate types of fireworks and the explosions were timed right in line with the proper beats – simply phenomenal. If you’re in the Chicago area next year during the Fourth of July weekend, I’d highly recommend the Naperville Ribfest fireworks over the Third of July fireworks at the Taste of Chicago based purely on the overall quality of the show.

Anyway, I know a few of you are dying for my take on Ben Wallace signing with the Bulls (WOW!!!), which will be forthcoming, but I’ll also be spinning some baseball thoughts into that analysis for those that are weary of my NBA focus lately (you’ll see how). Until then, here are the links for the day:

1) Keith Richards to Be in ‘Pirates’ Movie (Washington Post) – Disney is going to save a ton of money on makeup costs with this move.

2) ‘Punch A.J.’ Campaign Under Way (whitesox.com) – I’m sure Minneapolis Red Sox is going to push for his man Francisco Liriano (and I’ll grant the argument that the Twins phenom is more deserving of an All-Star spot), but you’ve got to give credit to the White Sox marketing staff for having a great sense of humor. I can’t wait to see what the Maloof brothers are going to do to get out the vote for Ron Artest next year.

3) NBA Draft: The Illini Spin (Illini Board) – A look from John Brumbaugh about the next destinations for James Augustine and Dee Brown.

4) Lil’ Kim Leaves Prison in Style (AllHipHop.com) – This is really going to hurt her reality TV show career.

5) Benny the Bull Charged With Attacking a Police Officer (CBS Sportsline) – This is when we really need those mugshots from The Smoking Gun.

And finally…

6) Kobayashi Stands Triumphant Again (Deadspin.com) – The only time he has ever failed was against a bear in “Man vs. Beast” (a great reality show better known for then-unknown but eventual Olympic gold medalist Shawn Crawford seriously coming close to accusing the zebra that he lost to in a race of taking injections in the behind from Jose Canseco in an Oakland A’s lockeroom stall). Regardless, statues need to be erected for Kobayashi on Coney Island.

(Update:  This link couldn’t wait…

7) Hot Dog – Moo & Oink Jingle Gets Some Flavor (Chicago Tribune) – If you ever watched Soul Train back in the day on WGN with any regularity (I know I’m not the only half-Chinese/half-Polish guy out there that did), you understand that this is a travesty.) 

Beaming Up the Big Ten Channel

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Sports, Television5 Comments

As I noted yesterday, the Big Ten has entered into a deal with Fox and DirecTV to launch the Big Ten Channel in August 2007. After reviewing the details of this network coupled with the conference's new agreement with ABC/ESPN (which in and of itself also improved the conference's exposure), I believe the Big Ten has made a great deal both financially for its member institutions and in terms of exposure for its fans across the nation.The key element of this deal, from my perspective, is that DirecTV is going to be carrying the channel nationally on its Total Choice tier (the equivalent of basic cable) as opposed to the premium sports tier (which subscribers need to pay extra for a la HBO or Showtime). That means every DirecTV subscriber in the country will receive the network. Considering that NBA TV, ESPNU, and CSTV are all on the premium sports tier, this new deal is indicative of how powerful the Big Ten Conference is on its own.

How does this change things for the average Big Ten fan? The largest item is that there will no longer be the syndicated ESPN Plus package for football and basketball games on local television stations – all of those games will be moved to the new Big Ten Channel. There are some pluses and minuses to this. On the positive end, all of those previously locally televised games will become national telecasts with, at the very least, respect to DirecTV.

The potential problems stem from the prospect of the Big Ten Channel first, not having those games available to those that do not have cable and second, for those without DirecTV, not being able to get onto basic cable in, at minimum, its home team markets in the Midwest and Northeast. For instance, if the Big Ten Channel isn't able to get onto the basic tier of service on Comcast Cable in Chicago, Illinois fans and other Big Ten alums in the Windy City will be shut out from a significant portion of their teams' telecasts. I'm a DirecTV subscriber (and I absolutely recommend it 110% over Comcast – if at all possible, get the dish) so it won't affect me personally, but it will not be a positive change if the average Big Ten fan either has no access or has to pay extra for access to games that were previously provided for free over-the-air. Getting onto the basic cable systems in the Big Ten home media markets is essential (any carriage outside of that would be gravy).

The network is a significantly positive development for the fans living outside of their favorite team's home market since those that are DirecTV subscribers will get access to games that they previously had to pay extra for on ESPN Full Court. Thus, this won't only benefit the Illini fan living in Florida, but also the Ohio State fan living in the heart of Big Ten Country in Chicago or Indianapolis. This also means that I'll be able to watch every single Big Ten football and basketball game from the comforts of my leather sofa, which means that I'm probably not going to be moving away from my television much from September through March. (Note: my appetite for Big Ten sports is so insatiable that I end up watching most Northwestern games, who play something that vaguely resembles basketball, just to tide me over between Illini games and other big conference matchups).

With all of the hub-bub regarding the new network, it's easy to forget that the Big Ten also significantly improved their deal with ABC/ESPN, with every ABC regional football game being broadcast nationally on one of the ESPN networks in the markets where the ABC affiliate isn't showing the Big Ten game along with more basketball telecasts on ESPN with a new nationally televised Thursday night game that's in addition to Super Tuesday (hooray for more games not involving Duke or UNC). That means that the Big Ten has increased the number of nationally televised football and basketball games on both ABC and, most importantly, the worldwide leader of ESPN.

On top of all that, there's the monetary aspect of the deal. Sources from Iowa and Michigan State report that each school is expected to receive an additional $7.5 million in revenue in the first year for the Big Ten Channel alone. Keep in mind that this figure doesn't even include the Big Ten's separate contracts with ABC/ESPN and CBS for men's basketball games (the old television contracts are expected to give the Big Ten $6.4 million in 2006, which is a number that should go up with the new ABC/ESPN contract). That means the Big Ten is looking at upwards of $14 million per year in television revenue for each school. To put this in perspective, Notre Dame, which is the standard-bearer when it comes to money and college sports, made $6.43 million per year in its deal that ended in 2004 with NBC (figures for the current Notre Dame/NBC deal are unavailable, but the annual rights fees in the contract ending in 2004 were actually lower than the first deal signed between the two entities in the 1990s). (Update: Other reports pegged the amount of the Notre Dame/NBC deal at $9 million per year).

These numbers mean two things: (1) the Big Ten has put itself into position to be the most financially dominant conference in the country, if it wasn't already and (2) expansion of the conference will almost certainly not happen unless that new member is named Notre Dame. I suggested a few months ago that if the Irish continued to balk at the prospect of joining the Big Ten, the conference ought to look at Syracuse as a potential 12th member. With this new deal, however, it will take a new member to provide upwards of $14 million per year in additional revenue just for the current schools to make the same amount of money with 12 teams as they had with 11 teams. Even with additional money from the creation of a Big Ten football championship game, I doubt that anyone other than Notre Dame could possibly provide the additional revenue that would make expansion worth it for the conference.

There are certainly risks from taking content that networks would surely pay a lot of money for in-house, but the Big Ten is the one conference that overcome such negative prospects. The Big Ten's home base of markets that includes Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia is the largest and strongest out of any other conference while its alums are spread widely from the Michigan and Penn State grads on the East Coast to the Illinois and Wisconsin expats in the Sun Belt and West Coast. All in all, this looks to be a great deal for the Big Ten and reaffirms it as the preeminent conference in college sports.

Other thoughts from across the nation on the Big Ten Channel:

1) A Look at the Big Ten Channel (IlliniBoard)

2) Big Ten Network is Set Up with Fox (New York Times)

3) Big Ten Gambles on TV Channel (Chicago Tribune)

4) A Big Ten Channel Would Be A Big Boon (Sporting News)

5) Will Cable Outlets View Big Ten Channel as Must-Carry TV? (Capital Times)

6) Big Ten Creates its Own Network (SportsBiz)

And finally…

7) Big Ten Network Unfortunately to Include Northwestern, Purdue and Minnesota Games (Sports Pickle)

Land-o-Links – 6/21/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

What an evening! Mark Cuban got fined $250,000, Dwyane Wade lived up to the Michael Corleone analogy Shaq dropped a few months ago (where Kobe Bryant is Sonny and Penny Hardaway is Fredo), the White Sox hammered in 20 runs on the Cardinals, and Ozzie Guillen turned a new rookie into a sacrificial lamb in yet another beanball war. On top of that, there was such a plethora of fantastic news that I just had to post some more links for today:

1) Guillen Has Choice Words for Mariotti (Chicago Tribune) – How those in professional sports feel about Jay Mariotti.

2) Jay the Joke – How all of the rest of us feel about Jay Mariotti (actually, Ozzie summed it up pretty well above, but the detail on this blog is a public service to society as a whole).

3) YWML Suddenly Huge With 13-Year-Olds (Deadspin) – Frequent Deadspin readers will understand why this is such a ridiculously hilarious development. For those that need a refresher course, just consult your friendly Wikipedia.

4) Nine Lives, Still Intact (Hartford Courant) – The life of Lewis the Cat was spared by a Connecticut judge yesterday, although he'll be on house arrest for the rest of eternity. We in the legal field call this "The Martha Stewart Treatment" (celebrities get all of the breaks).

5) Big Ten Creates Another Revenue Channel (The Wizard of Odds) – All Big Ten, all the time. You had me at hello.

And finally…

6) Career Suicide (Siberia, Minnesota) – There are some things that you see and you can't unsee them.

Dick Vitale is on Suicide Watch

On By Frank the TankIn College Basketball, Sports1 Comment

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When J.J. Redick gets arrested for a DUI, an emergency post with his mugshot is not just warranted, but necessary.

(Photo from Deadspin)

(Update: In a classic case of being careful for what you wish for, there's speculation that Redick would drop down in the NBA Draft to where the Bulls might take him with their second pick at #16. Now I'm on the suicide watch.)

NCAA Tournament Expansion? Don’t Mess With Success

On By Frank the TankIn College Basketball, SportsLeave a comment

Gregg Doyel has presented some interesting perspectives as to how the major conferences are actually the biggest proponents of expanding the NCAA Tournament from 65 teams to around 80 (the column also goes into separate conflicts over non-conference guarantee games). The rationale here is that the major conferences would be the most likely beneficiaries of additional at-large slots. Illini head coach Bruce Weber says, "[I]t's not a surprise that the big guys are clamoring." The high mid-majors that have been receiving multiple bids recently such as the Missouri Valley Conference and CAA are also for it (albeit with a little less enthusiasm), but the smallest conferences don't believe they would benefit from an expansion at all.

For the record, even with my admitted major conference bias as a Big Ten guy, I'm completely against expanding the tournament to this level. In my opinion, the tournament should only be expanded to a maximum of 68 teams, where there would be 4 play-in games involving the 8 lowest seeds playing for the right to a matchup against each of the number one seeds. Anything more than that would severely dilute the prestige of the event overall.

Plus, the largest knock against college basketball is that it has the least important regular season of the major sports. At least with the current tournament format, the last month of the regular season provides a ton of excitement in weeding out the teams that are on the bubble. Expanding the tournament to around 80 teams would pretty much allow every team that would have been on the bubble in present times into the dance. That might add a couple more days of tournament interest for those who don't start paying attention to college basketball until March, but it would come at the expense of eliminating what is now the most valuable and entertaining aspect of the regular season. As a monster college basketball fan, that's definitely not worth it to me.

Big Loss for the Windy City and a Bigger Loss for the Big Ten

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Sports2 Comments

Groucho Marx once said, “I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member.” If sports leagues and conferences had any brains, they would apply Groucho's skeptical train of thought to cities that throw an overwhelming number of incentives to woo them. However, despite being a conference that generally makes solid and grounded decisions for its members (i.e. standing firm on not taking bastardized television time slots for conference football games), the Big Ten just made a huge mistake by choosing Indianapolis over Chicago as the permanent home of its annual conference basketball tournament (and this has nothing to do with my loyalty to the Illini, where I admit that I love our complete homecourt advantage at the United Center).

In this case, Indy was willing to throw a multitude of incentives that Chicago wasn't going to match. The Big Ten's move here smacks of the short-term decision by the NFL to put a team in Jacksonville as opposed having a club in the nation's second-largest television market of Los Angeles. From an immediate dollars and cents standpoint, I can understand the Big Ten's reasoning for choosing Indy, but this is not a positive long-term business move for the conference (in addition to this post, I went through a number of other reasons for this back in March).

The Big East used the locale of its tournament at Madison Square Garden to propel its entire conference to national prominence. That association with New York City provides extra intangible value to the perception of the league across the country. Using the Big Ten's recent logic, however, the Big East should move its tournament to Hartford, a town that's rabid for college basketball compared to New York and where the event would take over the entire city for the weekend. Something tells me that Mike Tranghese would seriously (and correctly) question the sanity of anyone who would suggest such a thing.

Yet, the Big Ten is essentially doing what pretty much any other conference would consider to be ludicrous. Now, is Indy proportionally a bigger college sports town than Chicago? Sure. Does Big Ten Tournament completely dominate Indy while it's treated as just another event on the full sports calendar in Chicago? Of course. However, we could say the same so-called advantages for Indianapolis about Hartford, Tucson, and Birmingham. The entire allure of holding an event in a large and sophisticated city is that people actually would want to visit that location even if there wasn't a tournament going on. It's the reason why the Big East chose NYC for its tournament, the Pac-10 planted itself in LA, and the SEC and ACC fight over turf in Atlanta as opposed to picking "intimate" cities where their respective events would be much bigger deals.

This isn't meant to slight Indianapolis, which is a fine town and by every account that I've heard and read has a fantastic basketball facility in Conseco Fieldhouse. However, just as the NFL was short-sighted in putting a team in Jacksonville as opposed to one in LA, the Big Ten not trying to do everything to tie itself to the nation's third largest media market (not to mention being a major base for alums from EVERY school in the conference as opposed to the Hoosier-Boilermaker oligopoly in Indy) is a failure in basic logic. I have previously argued that the Big Ten ought to try to become the beneficiaries of large market biases as opposed to being the victim of them. The Big East has New York, the Pac-10 has Los Angeles, and the Big Ten should have Chicago. Unfortunately, the Big Ten took a step backwards toward provincialism as opposed to solidifying the link the greatest conference in the nation to the greatest city in the world.

Who Do You Root For? The Choice is Yours… or Not.

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports6 Comments

If you've read "Now I Can Die in Peace" by Bill Simmons (ESPN.com's Sports Guy), he has a list of rules in the book's introduction on how and when you can be a fan of a sports team. Essentially, you need to cheer for the teams in the region that you grew up in (for college sports, you or your parents need to be alums or you grew up in a town or region where college sports dominated the scene) or the teams that your parents that transplanted from or went to school elsewhere raised you to root for unless your favorite team relocates to another city (or, as in the case of the Blackhawks, the team's owner destroys all will of the fan base completely). Dan Shanoff, also from ESPN.com, has some more flexible rules regarding how you can pick a team (such as "fan-in-law" status by marriage – I don't know if I buy that one). Finally, Minnesota Red Sox broached the subject of raising your child as a fan of a team other than your own in order to avoid constant heartbreak (great article, although Minnesota Red Sox must freely admit that he broke a number of the Sports Guy's rules, such as committing "sports bigamy" by being a diehard fan of both the Cubs and Red Sox along with having to answer questions from a higher power at the pearly gates in the future as to how he could ever, ever, ever cheer for the Packers after being raised in Chicago).

I tend to agree with the more restrictive tenets set forth by the Sports Guy. It's one thing to jump on the bandwagon of a great story, such as the Red Sox comeback in 2004 or George Mason this year, but a person should only be a true fan of one team for every sport. For me, it's the Fighting Illini, Bears, White Sox, and Bulls. There are other teams that I follow with a lot of interest, such as DePaul and the Cubs, but make no mistake about it – there will never, ever be an instance where my rooting interests aren't 100% clear if any of those two teams meet. I spent three years in law school at DePaul and want the Blue Demons to do well, but if Illinois ever plays them in basketball, every ounce of me will be cheering for the Illini.

What infuriates me are sports cherrypickers. For instance, I read a Steve Rosenbloom interview with Penny Marshall a few months ago where she expressed how she is a diehard fan of both the Yankees and the Lakers. Jack Nicholson and a host of other celebrities claim to have the same loyalties. This is why half of America believes that Hollywood doesn't have a soul. Certainly, it doesn't have a sports soul when its citizens pick the two most powerful franchises in sports to root for that, by the way, are located on opposite ends of the country. It's like rooting for both Hitler and Stalin. That's just sickening.

Almost as bad is our favorite Duke apologist Dick Vitale also being honored as an honorary alum of Notre Dame as well as being a season ticketholder for Irish football games. A Duke basketball/Notre Dame football fan – could you imagine anyone being more insufferable? At least Dicky V has somewhat of an excuse since he's sent his kids to Notre Dame. In his aforementioned column, Shanoff states that a parent that spends $40,000-plus per year sending a kid to a school gives that parent every right to cheer for that school. Considering that tuition for a year at Notre Dame could buy me White Sox season tickets for the next 40 years, I'll side with Shanoff on this one. Still, just the thought of a Duke/Notre Dame combo gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I'll grant that there are large sections of this country that might not have a natural rooting interest dictated by geography or people that went to schools that either don't have sports teams or don't care about sports. So, at first, I thought that those people could be entitled to a "team draft" of sorts, where they could pick teams to root for but couldn't get greedy. For instance, if I'm a person that lives in North Dakota, I could root for the Yankees, but since I picked such a dominant baseball, I would need to take, say, the Arizona Cardinals as my football team. That would ensure that evil combos such as the Yankee/Laker fan wouldn't become a nationwide epidemic.

As I started thinking about it more, however, it became clear to me that there are just certain teams that no one should ever cheer for unless there is some type of geographic/family/alumni connection. Here's my top ten list counting down in reverse order:

10) New York Knicks – Every year, teams vie for the ESPY Award for The Most Putrid Team That Sportscenter Pays Way Too Much Attention To. We've had a banner year in this category, with the top contenders being the Eagles ("T.O. is selfish, crazy, and wants to get paid? This calls for a breaking Sportscenter Update!"), Cubs ("Prior and Wood are both hurt at the same time? I haven't heard that one before!"), and Lakers ("From an unconfirmed source, Shaq reportedly said he saw Kobe and R. Kelly handing out room keys at the Brookwood Junior High graduation dance"). Unfortunately for all of these teams, the Knicks have captured this award for the 57th year in a row, which just happens to be how long the NBA and its New York franchise have been in existence.

9) Indiana Hoosiers – If you went to a different Big Ten college, you don't need any explanation. If you didn't go to a Big Ten college, all you need to know is that they're evil.

8) Michigan Wolverines – See #9 above.

7) San Francisco Giants – This doesn't have anything to do with the franchise itself, which has blessed baseball fans with Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" and Willie Mays. The Giants are here simply because of the "Despicable Athlete" exemption (other qualifiers from the past and present: any team with Terrell Owens or Bill Laimbeer), although Bay Area fans seriously need to get some perspective. I know all about blindly cheering for your team, but c'mon, folks, this is beyond being in denial.

6) Dallas Cowboys – Honestly, I really don't care about T.O. that much – he just seems to be a common thread on this list so far. With or without T.O., however, the Cowboys would be high on this list one way or another as a carryover from their high-minded attitude during their dominance in the 1990s. Now, with T.O. plus Bill Parcells, the Cowboys might become the foremost challenger the Knicks have ever had to that ESPY Award described in #10 above (as long as Isiah Thomas is at the helm, though, put your money on the Knicks).

5) USC Trojans – If you skimmed the top 1% of the Laker fan base in terms of income and snobbiness, you'd be left with USC supporters. In addition, have I told you how much I hate their fight song? For some reason, the average person on the street believes that the USC Trojan Marching Band is an elite group since they appeared on some televised Fleetwood Mac concert a few years ago. Rest assured, I heard them play that goddamned fight song live for four hours straight at the first college football game I ever went to in Champaign – they royally suck. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that it would have been a ridiculous amount of fun to go to school there.

4) Notre Dame Fighting Irish – To me, just because you're Irish Catholic doesn't mean that you've got to worship the Golden Dome (which seems to be common refrain here in Chicago). Now, I'll grant Irish fans that going to a game is quite an experience for any sports fan. It's a beautiful campus and seeing Touchdown Jesus on gameday is spectacular. In general, however, if you took away the nice weather, attractive women, and recent national success from their rivals at USC but raised the pompous arrogance up a notch commiserate with having a contract with N(D)BC, you'd end up with Notre Dame.

3) Los Angeles Lakers – All of the other teams on this list do have one admirable thing in common: they've got rabid fans that would die for their teams (even if they are annoyingly insufferable). Lakers fans, however, are without question has the biggest bandwagon jumping fan base of any franchise in sports. The beautiful celebrities show up for games in droves when the Lakers are winning and flee for better clubbing atmospheres when they're losing. The Lakers would be #1 on this list if their fans weren't so pathetic.

2) New York Yankees – In the Sports Guy's book, he noted that one his favorite emails of all-time from a reader stated the following: "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in blackjack." Absolutely perfect.

1) Duke Blue Devils – A combination of all of the worst traits of the aforementioned rest of the top 4: the Borg-like perfection/conformity of the Yankees, the loudmouthed and spoiled fan base of Notre Dame, and the bandwagon backers of the Lakers. Coach K doesn't consider himself a basketball coach that happens to be a leader; Coach K considers himself a leader that happens to coach the team that no one anywhere should ever cheer for (unless they fall into one of the exceptions and even those people are suspect) if they have a sports soul.