Bringing the Blog Back, Again

We couldn't go a week without updating the blog, so here's an entry. Like was said in a recent post, we know nothing. Given all of the travel this week, that's particularly true. I was surprised to learn yesterday that the Broncos are 4-0. I nearly missed all of last weekend's NFL slate.

The Canes host FAMU on Saturday. The Rattlers are Miami's first unranked opponent. Hopefully the Canes come out strong and win big.

The Cardinals host the Texans and Larry Fitzgerald is hoping for a pinkout (at the stadium some thought would be named the Pink Taco). Hopefully the Cards come out strong and take advantage of what should be a weak Texans secondary.

Other than that, we don't know much here. So that's all for this week's weak entry.

Random Friday Thoughts

It's been a busy week and I have a bunch of thoughts. Since none of them are coherent or linked to each other, I'll make a bulleted list (which will be numbered, since I haven't fixed the bulleting issue yet):

1. The host of the 2016 Summer Olympics will be announced today. As you could surely guess, we here at The Book of Mike are hoping Chicago gets the games. Whether they do or not, Chicago has surely pulled out all of the big guns for their bid. A host of American Olympic champions are in Copenhagen to help demonstrate Chicago and the US's sincere interest in the bid. But more than that, Chicago / the US sent the most recognizable and influential African-American (and possibly the most well known American in the world currently) to help push for the bid. How will this work out? Will it be the final push that puts Chicago over the top? If it is, will Rio and Tokyo feel that the US simply outmuscled the rest of the world to get these games? If Chicago doesn't get the games, what will we make of the late push by our national icon? No, I'm not talking about President Obama. I'm talking about Oprah Winfrey. I hope we didn't overplay our Oprah card here.
2. The Hurricanes take on the Oklahoma Sooners this weekend. It's a home game for the Canes, which is good news. There should be a big crowd too (70-75k), which is great too. A night game at the Orange Bowl with a big crowd like this was usually good news for the Canes. Will it be Saturday night? No idea. The Canes get two defensive linemen back and one top wide receiver (all of whom missed the Virginia Tech debacle last week), but they'll be without a starting safety. Hopefully the Canes at least represent themselves well, even if they're not able to win the game.
3. The Cardinals have a bye week this week. Yes, it's unfortunately early. As seems to be the case for the Cardinals. It's probably a conspiracy by the powers that be from within the league to annually give the Cards a way-too-early bye week so that they can struggle through the middle and latter parts of the season. I'd look into it to confirm it, but I'm too lazy.
4. Despite the bye week and the crushing loss the Cards suffered heading into it, the Cardinals are talking big today. It's amazing, isn't it? The Cardinals are trash talking about a franchise weakness during their 1-2 start.
5. Reports came out this week that the University of Florida is prepared for a flesh-eating zombie attack. While this may sound like non-sense, or -- as the university is now saying -- an attempt at leviy on their part, I can assure you it's serious. I have been to Gainesville and I can definitely see how a zombie attack is a possibility. All those freaks can't be mouth breathing hillbillies. The odds are that at least some of them are actually zombies.
6. In other news from the University of Florida this week, it was reported that due to concussion symptoms, Tim Tebow was not able to watch television or read. Actually, it was reported that Tebow "can't watch television or read." What this left unclear was whether Tim Tebow can read when he is not suffering from symptoms of a concussion or not. Maybe he can't read. And maybe the inspiration for his locker room speeches really is Varsity Blues.
7. Staying in bizzaro world, David Letterman admitted to affairs and an extortion attempt on his show last night. If talk radio and Twitter are indicative of public opinion on the matter, Letterman is being lauded for the situation. Frankly, this amazes us. While we've always been fans of Letterman, talk of affairs is hardly praise or applause worthy.

That's all we've got for today. Pathetic, we know, but we're still getting back into this regular blogging thing.

The Curse of the Cardinals

Talk of curses is fairly commonplace in sports. One curser, however, doesn't get much publicity and that's because it is rarely invoked. But as an Arizona Cardinals fan, I feel obliged to discuss The Curse of the Cardinals and to apologize to fans of the Carolina Panthers fans.

First of all, what exactly is this curse?

Well, history has proven to us that any team that loses to the Chicago / St. Louis / Phoenix / Arizona Cardinals on its home turf is set to suffer a trying future.

Do you doubt it? You shouldn't. The facts are inarguable.

In 1998 the "wild card" (how appropriate!) Arizona Cardinals travelled to Irving, Texas and defeated the Dallas Cowboys at (old) Texas Stadium. What have the Cowboys accomplished since then? In a word, nothing. The Cowboys haven't won a single playoff game. Immediately prior to that, the Cowboys had been dominant. Arguably, they were the team of the 90s - winning three Super Bowls under two different coaches. While the Cowboys did manage to reach the playoffs in 1999, they were eliminated in the first round and did not return to the playoffs until 2003. To date, the Cowboys have still not won a playoff game since their loss to the Cardinals in the 1998 playoffs. The Cowboys current playoff drought is longer than any other in the team's history. Who's to blame? The Cardinals.

Now it seems that the Carolina Panthers may be suffering a worse fate. Last season the Panthers were dominant. At least in the regular season. When the playoffs came around, they were nearly the opposite. The Panthers were soundly beaten by the Cardinals, and it all happened on the Panthers home turf. Since then the Panthers have imploded (to some degree). They are winless on the current campaign, despite returning nearly all of last year's team. It's worth noting that one significant change for the Panthers this season was the addition of Chuck Cecil as defensive coordinator; Cecil, of course, spent part of his career with the Cardinals.

Will the Panthers suffer the same maladies as the Cowboys? How strong is The Curse of the Cardinals?

Only time will tell.

N.B. There are only two known examples of the curse of the Cardinals. Despite the teams long history, it is decidely not storied. The Cardinals have only two road playoff victories in their near century of existence.

Interesting Concept / Partial Redemption

Despite last week's rant, I'm still reading the Wall Street Journal's sports page (but only because it shows up -- gratis -- on my front lawn each day). Today, the WSJ partially redeemed itself with an interesting, yet highly incomplete, article about a new "trend" in sports stadium financing.

Here's a summarized version (although you're welcome to read the entire article here): to help finance new stadium projects (or wholesale refurbishments of existing stadiums), some teams (colleges) are selling "seat mortgages" to fans who are willing to make a long term committment. This is entirely different from a personal seat license (PSL), which has been common for at least a decade. PSL's give fans the right to buy tickets. They're simply a money grab.

These seat mortgages are very different. While they're still a money grab, they work very differently from PSLs. Fans who pay up front for their seat mortgage are guaranteed rights to their particular seat for a long term (30, 40, or 50 years). Cal-Berkeley has sold a few thousand such seats for $175,000 to $220,000 each.

While that obviously sounds like a lot (plus you're paying interest -- or as the school likes to call it, an "administrative fee"), it may not be such a bad investment. If you're a lifelong fan (or planning to be one), you can guarantee yourself tickets for a long time. By paying today, you protect yourself against future price increases (leaving you to assume that football tickets continue to increase in price as they have over the past 10-20 years -- which is a big assumption).

Should your team do well and should prices increase over the years, you could theoretically profit from reselling your seats (possibly even at the prevailing "face" value) for a tidy profit.

What's not clear is how this works for the school/team in the long run. They're guaranteeing a lot for money up front (details here). This is great in terms of the facility enhancements it permits. But what happens to alumni giving and ticket revenue in the long run?

Cal is selling their best / highest price seats (between the 30's on the home sideline) for the next few decades. Today those seats require a $1,200 annual donation per seat, plus the purchase of season tickets. In the future, that annual revenue stream is gone. So Cal has to be sure that their $200,000 price tag is worth it.

Should the school need money in 2035 from football revenue to help fund women's basketball or men's baseball, will they be able to raise that money? Today they likely can, from football related donations and ticket sales. That becomes tougher in the future when the prime donatable seats are pre-sold and no longer require an ongoing donation.

Granted, I haven't done all the math here. And surely the folks at a school as prestigous as Cal have. But Cal has clearly placed their bets on facility enhancement and has put future revenue streams at risk in order to do so. Is that the right risk to take? Time will tell.

Interestingly, the WSJ article doesn't explore this angle at all. They simple laud the concept and the creativity of financing projects. This is interesting. Again, not to blame the WSJ for the current financial situation in the USA / world. But as with numerous other dubious financial schemes that have developed over the past few decades, the WSJ lauds the short term upside and completely ignores the potential long term implications.

It's fine for the paper to be so short-sighted (being as such will likely cause them to not exist in a few more years). But the rest of us should keep our eyes open and think things through a little farther down the line.

I Know Nothing

Going into the football weekend, my hopes were high. Both the Canes and Cardinals had "big" games against well respected opponents.

Despite that the Canes were on the road against Virginia Tech, I thought Jacory Harris, Mark Whipple, and the boys would find a way to win. To be honest, I thought the Canes would win big. It turned out to be pretty much the opposite of that. If there was a silver lining in Saturday's loss, it was how true sophomore QB Jacory Harris handled himself in the post-game press conference. It would have been easy for Harris to blame receivers (notably TE Jimmy Graham) for dropped passes, just as it would have been easy for Harris to blame his struggles on the weather. He did neither. Harris held himself accountable. Hopefully that mentality helps him to turn it around this coming weekend against Oklahoma.

Don't get me wrong though: not every cloud has a silver lining. Go stand outside the next time it's raining. Let me know if any silver drops in your yard.

The lack of a silver lining brings me to the Cardinals game. Which was just horrific. The Cardinals offense piled up some decent stats (300+ yards in the air). But much of that was meaningless. Not only did the Colts generate more yards of offense, they scored far more points too. Points are what count, obviously.

Now the Cardinals find themselves at 1-2. On a positive note, the Super Bowl champion Steelers are also 1-2 and the Cardinals are only 1 game out of the division lead. But in reality, the Cardinals have looked pretty awful through three games. In the opener, they were sluggish. Talk to a Jaguars fan about game two and you'll hear that the Cardinals caught a break with a missed pass interference call (which is probably true), soon after which came the blocked FG/TD return, and then the rout was on. Jags fans would say it was more of a momentum change and everything falling apart after that. Based on how the Jags played yesterday, maybe that's plausible. Time will tell... Then, last night, the Cardinals were simply out played. If the Cards and Colts faced off ten more times, I'm not convinced the Colts would win each meeting (better execution on the Cardinals part -- not fumbling, completing some open passes, etc -- could lead to beter results). But the Colts would win the majority of the rematches.

Now the Cardinals have a bye week. While it's exceedingly early, it comes at a good time. The Cardinals need to regroup. A lot needs to be fixed. Hopefully the Cardinals rediscover themselves in the coming two weeks. Otherwise the Football Outsiders pre-season prediction of doom and gloom is probably right.

Other thoughts from the weekend:

1. TO deserves some credit for handling himself well in yesterday's post-game press conference. It was the first game in memory where TO didn't catch a pass. The media battered him with questions about his happiness with the playcalling and the like. TO didn't bite. He kept it professional.
2. Possibly the only prediction (thought) that I had right about the weekend was picking the Bengals to beat the Steelers. The Bengals are better than people think and the Steelers are worse.
3. I'm not sure what to make of the Jaguars (who looked awful against the Cardinals) or the Texans (who continue to confuse people). I'm out of my survival pool league after failing to understand either of these teams (I had the Texans).
4. College football is wide open this season. Miami blew their chance at earning a national title birth with the loss against Virginia Tech. However, the Hokies blew a door open and are now officially in the hunt. If/when Florida or Texas slips up, my guess is that VT finds themselves in the BCS title game picture.
5. Although he's a Gator, I'd never wish injury on anyone, not even Tim Tebow. While much has been said about the hit, I think it was clean. It's part of football. It's unfortunate, but these things happen. The impact from the both the hit of the defender and Tim's collission with his offensive linemen led to an ugly looking concussion. If there's blame to lay today about the play, it probably lies with Florida coach Urban Meyer, who must defend why his star QB is playing in a game that's already been decided. Not only does UF need to get their backup QB some experience, but more importantly, there's no reason to risk injury to your star players. Injury is the risk you run when you always look for an extra score even when the outcome of the game is no longer in doubt.
6. Notre Dame struggled against an outmanned Purdue team. The Irish even benefitted from an inexplicable time out call by Purdue late in the game (a call which effectively game Notre Dame an extra down because they didn't have to spike the ball -- that down proved crucial, as ND scored the go ahead TD on 4th and goal). What gives with Charlie Weis? The only potential explanation for his struggles is that he and his coaches are failing to develop players. Notre Dame has a roster full of talent that matches nearly anyone in the country's. And between Weis and his assistants, they should be able to outscheme nearly anyone they face. So the gap must be development of talent. How long does Weis last?
7. I saw Jupiter on three nights in a row through my little (sub-$50) telescope this weekend. Now I really can't wait to upgrade to a better scope (with tracking). I'm just not sure what to buy.

Lots of "I" today. Off to find the Royal We.

EDIT: updated the bullets to numbers. Man, the bullets suck in this format.