The 2010 World Cup Draw took place today in South Africa, aided by the incredibly beautiful Charlize Theron. This is when we can really start to get serious about thinking about how this tournament is going to play out. Here’s five initial thoughts on the draw:
Continue reading “2010 World Cup Draw – Initial Impressions”
Today is the Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League. It takes place in Calgary, and pits the Western Conference champs the Saskatchewan Roughriders against the Eastern camps, the Montreal Alouettes . The game is the most popular televised event in Canada each year, and the trophy that the winner will hoist is an old one – it was first awarded in 1909. Even if you aren’t a Canadian, this game, which kicks off after 6:30 pm eastern time, is worth a look. To get you up to speed on this contest here are five things you’ll need to know if you aren’t familiar with the league:
Happy thanksgiving from everyone here at Madduxsports.com. We hope you have a great day watching football and basketball with your families, and eating enough food for 16 people.
All the best!
We don’t talk about swimming here much for obvious reasons, but a story today caught my attention. Michael Phelps is currently swimming at a World Cup meet in Stockholm. He’s not at his peak fitness by his own admission, and he’s sporting a beard, so he clearly isn’t looking to set world records. He’s still Michael Phelps, though, so it is very significant that he failed to qualify for two of his first three finals at the meet. The most glaring explanation for this is the swim suit. Swimming is doing the right thing next year by banning the ridiculous high tech swimsuits that have so changed the sport over the last couple of years. In anticipation of that, Phelps is using a regular suit at this meet while his competition uses high tech ones. This is a clear example of just how much of an impact the suits have. It seems ridiculous that a sport would allow something that would change the sport so fundamentally. It would be like MLB suddenly deciding to allow aluminum bats, or using softballs instead of baseballs. Those changes would make a mockery of hitting records just like the new suits have destroyed the meaning of world records.
So, when did the NFL become less competitive than non-conference college football? Six of the 12 games played yesterday were decided by at least four touchdowns. That’s preposterous. It makes for ridiculously uncompetitive action, and therefore mostly uninteresting football. The good news, I guess, is that at least we aren’t taking bets on the games – books are getting absolutely killed by favorites covering monster spreads like this. The favorites were 8-3-1 ATS this week, and the three biggest spreads, usually the public money magnets that the books feast on, all covered. Ouch. The disparity in the league this year is amazing. For the first time ever we have three undefeated teams through seven weeks of the season. On the flip side, we have three teams that could quite conceivably not win a game, and for a couple more it seems impossible to believe that they have already won one (or more). I thought salary caps were supposed to bring competitive balance?
Very interesting things are going on in Dallas right now. Jerry Jones had to come out and give an suspiciously strong endorsement of Tony Romo this week. He was forced to do so because Tony Dorsett became the latest former Dallas star to throw the quarterback under the bus. Dorsett didn’t mince any words in his criticism of Romo. And here’s the interesting thing – in a lot of ways he was right. Romo has been cast as a QB superstar largely because of where he plays and who he dates, but he doesn’t yet have the numbers or the trophies to justify being called an elite player. Jones had better hope that Romo starts to turn his game around quickly, because this is one of those situations that could turn ugly if he doesn’t. It’s yet another layer of drama for a team that has already had more of that than it can probably stand.
For the first time in a long time, a UFC event is being overshadowed – in a very big way – by a good old boxing match. It’s not that surprising, really – UFC 103 is a lousy card full of less than captivating fights without headline names, while the boxing match features the return of one of the top fighters of this or any time after a two year break against a stellar pound-for-pound star.
I just finished watching that crazy New England game. There is a lot to digest there, and it will take a few days, and probably a second viewing, to digest it all. Tom Brady mostly looked pretty good, though he was tentative in the first half. It was amazing how many passes he threw, and how well he connected with Randy Moss again after a year apart. He still has a lot of work to do, though. The biggest first impression from that game, though, is that the Bills didn’t deserve to lose that one. They were outplayed in most ways by the Patriots, but they were tough when it counted and they deserved better than that ending. Alex van Pelt may not have been much of a quarterback, but he did a remarkable job of getting a team ready after taking over the offensive coordinator gig just a week ago. Buffalo may not be nearly as bad as I thought they would be, and the Pats have a whole lot of work to do to prove they are still worthy of their reputation.
– Sports betting was dealt a significant blow today. A federal court of appeal was supposed to rule on the sports leagues’ attempts to get an injunction to stop Delaware from starting sports betting on September 1. They decided not to stop there, though – they went all the way and ruled that the whole thing broke the law. Delaware can still appeal to the Supreme Court, or even ask the court of appeals to reconsider, but the chances of success seem bleak. The NFL has admitted that the state is allowed to take multi-game bets – parlays and the like – but they can’t do single game bets. It’s the single game bets that were going to be the most attractive, so the state may not even bother going forward with their plans now. Very disappointing.
Haven’t yet figured out why the Vikings signed Brett Favre? I haven’t really, either, but here’s a big part of it – in the 24 hours following the signing they sold 3,000 season tickets and 10,000 individual game tickets. They have 7,000 season tickets left, and you can only go to the Green Bay game with a season ticket, so they will certainly sell even more. The extra ticket sales and jersey sales alone will pay for the contract, and now the team won’t have to struggle with blackouts like they have in recent years.
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