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It's sad. Hockey could be #1 in sports headlines right now but instead the headline is for racist fans. I can't imagine how any league would turn down the free publicity of the Olympics, likely worth tens of millions of dollars or more, but here we are.

AirBNB has been great from a vacation perspective...I've had a blast staying in people's vacation homes all over the place. I can't imagine why I would ever want to own a vacation/investment property when you can pay to stay in a different on every time, and they are often way nicer than anything I would ever be able to afford. But if you do own one, you can rent it out when you aren't there and it can potentially pay for itself or return a profit. I know someone making her entire salary via AirBNB.

Looks like $126M, options to $150. Could be a steal.

Cubs get Darvish--locking this.

According to Rosenthal... Edit--$126 million, options to $150M.

100% agreed. The interest of the Bucks would clearly be to block an NHL team and any NHL ownership group would need to build their own arena, likely without public funds. The Admirals were not even allowed to reach the bargaining table to play at the new arena. Another Seattle parallel--the Mariners were quoted as NBA/NHL supporters but didn't want the arena near Safeco Field. Fair enough, but at the time the parcel near Safeco Field was the only location being considered and had already been purchased by the potential ownership group. Their efforts (in collaboration with the vehemently anti-arena Port of Seattle and its political influence) are a big reason why Seattle failed to produce an arena in time to expand with Vegas in 2017. At the time it was big news when Seattle failed to submit an NHL expansion application--but fortunately for Seattle the NHL decided it would rather wait than try to expand elsewhere. Eventually a different ownership group came along and solved another problem for the city by offering to fix the city-owned existing arena which was bleeding cash. The other group is still trying to build an NBA arena on their land near Safeco Field. It's not clear what the NHL's interests will be after Seattle solves the conference alignment issue, but in general they seem to be against relocating existing teams (see the repeated attempts to solve the Coyotes' issues). The Carolina situation has stabilized and the Florida Panthers continue to collect free cash from the local government despite nobody going to the games. https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/new-mariners-ceo-calls-potential-sodo-arena-big-ugly-house-right-at-the-end-of-your-driveway/

Agreed, that would have gotten my attention. Instead he's emphasizing the two worst things about the NFL (the violence and political divisiveness). I can't imagine it will ever actually launch.

The NY Times magazine article from last week helped me understand several aspects of the blockchain that I didn't understand before...as a whole it made me more of a believer and a skeptic at the same time. The problem is where to put an investment...it's like the 90's dot-com era when there were undoubtedly be some huge winners but 95% of these cryptocurrencies will be worthless. Buying tokens doesn't really equate to investing in the blockchain and the tokens that eventually win out might not exist yet.

Nailed it. It's also not surprising that it's the old guard of voters that is keeping Edgar out, the same ones that are keeping their ballots hidden. Edgar is over 75% of revealed ballots. Fortunately it seems like Walker is picking up momentum, I bet he will continue to gain with the ballot being a little less crowded the next few years. As for the PED users...I would personally vote them in but I can't hold it against those who disagree.

Thanks Jeets!

Nice to see the #EdgarHOF campaign finally paying dividends. Next year is the year!

Wait, I thought there was an NFL conspiracy against the Patriots? Or was that only last year?

I think we have completely polar opposite views on this topic...therefore I nominate trwi7 to start up the Milwaukee NHL advocacy group.

I suspect the good ratings had something to do with the inevitability of getting a team. That's certainly the case in Seattle...interest in our two local WHL teams has picked up quite a bit lately. I had the same impression about Vegas fans based on TV, but I went to the Caps game in Vegas in December and it was a shock to see how popular the team is. They are the talk of the town. Yes, it's popular with visiting fans, myself included, but hockey is the #1 sport in Vegas right now by far and that is something that is only the case in a select few other US cities. Maybe it will change in the future with the Raiders and when the team has a losing season, but for now there are indeed hundreds of thousands of hockey fans in Vegas. I don't think that local minor league hockey attendance means much (otherwise the San Diego Gulls will be an NHL team any day now) but hockey attendance doesn't help Milwaukee's case at all. Admirals attendance has been unimpressive for many years now and has slid to the middle of the AHL upon moving to Panther Arena. Wisconsin hockey has also been bleeding fans for the better part of a decade now. If Milwaukee wants to raise their chance at an NHL team to greater than zero, they are going to need a concerted grass roots effort to raise awareness and draw attention to the demand...and/or a prominent public figure to champion the cause. Neither of these are currently occurring in Milwaukee, but they are occurring in other cities like Houston and the media has picked up on it. It doesn't even matter that the Aeros relocated.

Yep--and now the Hartford Whalers have a better chance of being reborn than Milwaukee does of getting an NHL team. Having the existing fans and hockey interest in Wisconsin is a detriment, not a plus. Of course people would switch allegiances to the Milwaukee team but there isn't much room to grow the sport beyond the existing hockey fans. Compare Milwaukee to Las Vegas where the NHL just picked up hundreds of thousands of new hockey fans. Of course the winning helps but as us hockey fans know, the product is excellent and can sell itself in any market with a half-decent ownership and arena situation.

It's not so much sharing as it is that a NHL rink is much bigger than a NBA floor. Yes, you can collapse sections/move seats, but those are the premium seats - if you are going to charge premiums for premium seats, they need to be premium seats and not benches or folding chairs. Either the hockey seats will be elevated up off the ice (no longer premium seats) or the basketball seats will be far from the court (no longer premium seats). Then there's the issues of condensation on the basketball floor that crop up every now and then. It's a good idea in theory, but does not maximize revenue or fan experience. Yes, these are good reasons why I think separate NHL-NBA arenas are becoming a trend. The two newest shared facilities have both been disasters (Brooklyn--hockey team in basketball arena, Detroit--basketball team in hockey arena).

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't look at the list. But yes, it is Riverside/San Bernadino. As someone who lived in the LA area for seven years, LA is not Riverside/San Bernadino. It's faster to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago than from LA to Riverside. Particularly in afternoon/evening rush hour for a sporting event. Austin is not much farther from San Antonio than Riverside is from LA (and can drive that faster too; Riverside to the Staples Center is about 60 miles, Austin to San Antonio is about 80 miles). Pop quiz #2 - excluding Green Bay, what is the next smallest MSA with a pro sports team? (No peeking at a MSA list!) Memphis?

This topic always comes up every couple years but the issue is beyond settled. It's never happening unless the Brewers or Bucks depart and it's especially not happening soon since they are about to bulldoze the arena that was built to support it. Having separate NBA and NHL facilities seems to becoming a trend...the NBA group in Seattle is still moving ahead with its own privately-financed arena plans independent of the NHL group. Turns out billionaires don't like to share.

The fans are definitely starting to speak with their wallets. Attendance is down in all major and college sports and the evidence suggests that it's going to continue dropping. MLB is down 6 million per year from its peak. Nearly half of NFL teams are not selling out. It's also clear that inflated attendance numbers (counting "tickets distributed" instead of "tickets scanned") is disguising the true nature of the decline. I won't speculate on all the reasons for the decline (they are numerous) but I think the key relevant point is that more than other sports, MLB depends on local fans watching their local teams. So it's a problem if the talent gets concentrated in 4-5 super-teams like is currently the case.

I don't consider this a problem. One interpretation is that the best players are getting paid the most money, as it should be. If low payroll teams are winning championships then baseball has a big problem--specifically the problem mentioned in this thread with pre-arbitration players being underpaid. The unfair part is that not every team can be a big spender every year. But the Brewers proved back in 2012 that a small market team could have a top-10 payroll, at least temporarily. It's a tough balance for the league to encourage spending while keeping competitive balance.

Lots of good thoughts here. One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that from a revenue perspective, attendance doesn't matter like it used to. Most revenue is now tied into long-term TV contracts and corporate sponsorships and there is less incentive to sign players for the sake of putting people in the seats. Additionally, the fans understand the FA market as well as anyone else and don't want the big contracts either. MLB attendance in 2018 is likely to be the lowest since the 1990s--mostly because all live sports are losing attendance but also because of the large number of teams that are not trying to win in 2018. The pace of play initiatives are also critical to increasing attendance and interest in the sport over the long term. It is important that teams recognize the intangible importance of getting people in the ballpark to cultivate interest in the team, even if the tickets are free. Empty seats look bad on TV and lack of interest can snowball into irrelevancy if not taken seriously. Fortunately the Brewers are ahead of the curve and make it easy for fans to cheaply attend games. MLB needs to help by making baseball less boring and not letting the minority voice control the discussion. Selig was very good at this and was willing to be the villain in exchange for getting reforms through that later proved to be popular. The Marlins situation is obviously a complete disaster and the biggest stain so far on Manfred's tenure as commissioner. How did they manage to downgrade from Loria? There are many parallels to the Dodgers' situation where Selig stepped in and took control, I wonder if Manfred will eventually do the same. The big picture is that MLB's problems are easy to solve when compared with the NFL or college sports. The long term outlook of the sport looks good.

I have placed exactly one sports bet in my life...I put $50 against the Packers last month (+6.5 vs. Minnesota) when I was at the MGM in Vegas. That was the easiest ~$40 I ever won. At least the Packers were good for something this year. I immediately blew the winnings on roulette.

Wisconsin beats Miami on the road, and drops in the AP. Makes perfect sense doesn't it? Even worse, Miami was being picked by a lot of national talking heads to knock off Clemson and be a real factor for the Natl Champ. That was with like a wee or two to go in the regular season. How Clemson is still #4 is a complete mystery to me, but Ohio State got an easy bowl game and had no chance to prove that they were better. Clearly UCF's promotional blitz worked well. It's clear that the AP and coaches polls needs to be abolished prior to abolished prior to week 4 or so. It would be one thing if the polls were "for fun", but the final rankings show that some preseason biases and overall program biases made it all the way to the end. Why should Alabama get to start the season at #1? Make them earn the #1 first and if they start the season looking flat or lose an early game, start them where they belong and let the 4-0 teams occupy the top-10.

Looking at common opponents...Missouri lost to Purdue. Nebraska beat Purdue. You listed 12 bad football teams. How is there any evidence that one set is better than the other? As for the other comparisons, how can one put Michigan State and Penn State below SEC teams that lost their bowl games? In the final AP poll, MSU>LSU and PSU>Auburn. Both the B10 and SEC had 5 teams in the final top-25. I'm not saying one conference is better than the other. I would say that we don't know because the top B10 teams didn't play the top SEC teams.

Ha! My wife and I do that on purpose because it always annoyed us. Kroger grocery stores are based out of Cincinnati and everyone down there calls it Kroger's. So we just started doing it all the time. "I'm running to Krogerzzzz." I never noticed this until leaving Wisconsin but everyone watches the "Packer" game in Wisconsin, never the "Packers" game.