NASCAR Looks for Upgrade Over the ‘Poor and Stupid’ Demographic

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For decades, poor and stupid people across America have flocked to NASCAR as a safe haven for their poor and stupid culture.  That demo used to be large enough to be profitable, but those prospects have fallen on grave times lately.  According the Wall Street Journal, ratings and revenue have been in a free fall since the start of the 2008 financial crisis.  TV ratings are down 50%, and 1/4 of seats in all racetrack stands have been removed due to declining attendance.  It turns out that recessions hit harder on the poor and stupid than it does for people that live in cities.

Fans may be crying otherwise on the internet, but this move to ban confederate flags is not about caving to lib wokeness – it’s about business.  Another recession is hitting, and NASCAR needs to open up to people that aren’t poor.  Some may say that’s impossible, but I disagree.  One example is Charles Barkley, who in 2004 was on his way to check out his first NASCAR race but had to leave before he finished parking because he had already seen too many confederate flags around.

Race days aren’t necessarily about the cars and drivers – it’s primarily about day drinking.  Dak and Zeke may not become diehard racing fans, but they may certainly come to find that race day is a great environment for their bromance.  Countless other bros across America fall into that same category.  And not just African Americans, but people of any minority group and even whites who don’t enjoy seeing racist symbols.  Basically, anyone who lives in civilization (cities) is a part of this untapped demographic, and fortunately for NASCAR every track except Talledaga is near a city.

This is why I recommend every sports fan give NASCAR a shot this year.  That doesn’t mean watching any of it on TV because that is obviously too boring and always will be.  But race days are cool, and they are a tradition that should live because day drinking and watching huge ass machines will always be fun as shit.  Reward NASCAR for taking this step and start pricing out all those poor and stupid losers.  This is one way capitalism can be a force for good.

Obligatory:

NASCAR Looks for Upgrade Over the ‘Poor and Stupid’ Demographic

Troubled Tulane Athletes Piling up in 2020

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In the first week of 2020, it appeared Tulane football was finally leaving (irrelevancy) on a Jett plane once and for all. For those who aren’t from Texas, the picture above shows a bonafide baller quarterback (former Texas Tech starter) donning Mardi Gras beads and a Green Wave jersey to announce that he was taking his talents to the AAC.  What a huge get for Tulane.  PFF College had him rated as the top returning starter in the Big 12, and I’ve seen enough of him to easily concur with the nerds.

This kid wasn’t a pro prospect or anything like that, but he has a highlight reel against half the Big 12 teams – we were guaranteed to be UCF/Memphis level awesome with him on board.  Our previous QB, Justin McMillan, made a lot of sick plays and an equal number of horrendously awful plays.  That was good enough for us to start 5-1, with the only loss being a screw job by the refs at Auburn (two red zone takeaways overturned on BS premises).  Jett was the upgrade we needed for 1998 vibes to start coming back.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.  That picture was deleted from Duffey’s Twitter account a week after he posted it because Tulane denied him academic admission.  It’s nice to have pride in academics and all that, but this seemed a little ridiculous.  When it comes to quarterbacks of his caliber, the minimum admission requirements should be nothing more than basic literacy.  Why would a supposedly smart school do something so stupid?  Apparently, the academic issues were just a smokescreen.

Later in February, Central Michigan also rejected his transfer, this time citing an issue with his freshman season suspension for sexually assaulting an incapacitated student in addition to a new complaint filed in 2019.  That explains why he mysteriously entered the transfer portal to begin with, and is the reason he’s without a program despite originally being a top transfer target for The U.  Given that Tulane is just two years removed from a somewhat disturbing sexual assault climate report, it was probably best to err on the side of caution.

Last year, we had a big basketball transfer when Teshaun Hightower came over from the Georgia Bulldogs to become our leading scorer and play well enough to enter the draft.  It turns out he’s a bigger criminal than Jett Duffey ever was, because in April he was charged with MURDER.  Yikes. At least be good enough to carry us to the tourney if you’re gonna be a murderer.

Finally, last week we showed big improvement in our rap sheet by moving on from rape and murder to mere domestic violence.  Defensive back Tyler Judson, a prized 3 star recruit who we stole from Ole Miss, was suspended indefinitely after beating up his girlfriend outside of a Waffle House and sending her to the ICU.  This story is sad because in addition to being good, he was supposed to be a pretty bright guy.  He decommitted from Ole Miss because of our architecture program, which is rigorous as hell and fairly exclusive.  Unfortunately, he was not yet smart enough to limit his life’s problems to only 99 at a time.

Troubled Tulane Athletes Piling up in 2020

The Madden Vision Cone Was Actually Good

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On Thursday, EA and the NFL announced a renewal of their exclusive licensing agreement, meaning football video games will continue to suck for another undisclosed length of years.  Madden veterans remember when this deal was first announced in 2004, a sad turning point for the industry.

The prior year, 2K Sports released NFL 2K5 for only $20 a month before Madden came out.  The game was pretty sick, featuring a new ‘first person football’ mode, awesome celebrations (that came with a risk of fumbling into the end zone), and Boomer highlights.  The pass defense AI was trash however, so Madden’s Ray Lewis title with a ton of defense innovations kept them holding on to king status.

2K5 was still legit though, so football gamers were optimistic that the competition would breed great products for years to come.  That all died with the exclusive rights announcements and Madden devs have been mailing it in since.  Sad times.

That being said, I will give EA credit for trying a little at the start for Madden 06.  They introduced a very controversial ‘QB Vision’ feature that everyone hated, but it was a legitimately good idea.  Playing zone defense starts with looking at a QB’s eyes, and this was a way to do that in a video game.  After all the Vick cheese that happened the year before, there needed to be a way to level the playing field between pocket passers and scramblers.

Even though you could turn it off easily, the Madden community was beyond outraged and the message was sent to never again disrupt their comfort zone.  At the point, there was no good reason to mess with further innovations and the game sucked forever from then on.  (Maybe it got better, but I’ve had no reason to find out)

Manning vs Vick vision cones. It was a cool feature, but people hate change

Speaking of said Vick cheese from the 05 game, I always found it hilarious back then to watch Madden Bowl matches consisting of two scrambling quarterbacks (mostly just Vick) and a rotation of three glitchy plays being called the entire game.  That’s why it gave me great joy to learn that this year’s Madden champion won without attempting a single pass.  The rosters were set via salary cap drafts, and he just used a punter for a QB and o-linemen for WRs and ran the ball every play.  Amazing!  What a joke e-sports are.  It’s getting bigger and all yeah yeah, but I doubt it ever peaks to levels of say… current day women’s soccer.

Also, one very important but sad Madden note is that Charles Rogers died last November.  RIP in peace to a legend.  It doesn’t matter what he accomplished on the field; we should be forever grateful for his performance in the best Madden commercial of all time…

The Madden Vision Cone Was Actually Good

Bundesliga Blue Balls

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Germany took its most important step to date in atoning for WW2 when the Bundesliga restarted, and the past two days have been far and away the high point of the league’s short history of relevance.  We had what was essentially a title game between Dortmund and Bayern Munich on Tuesday, kicking off a total of ten games over two afternoons.  Like I’ve always said, there is nothing better than weekday daytime gambling.  I love it just like Larry David loves daytime sex.

That being said, I came out of this experience with a bit of blue balls.  Imagine you’re one of those North Dakota oil workers, or in a more topical example one of those slaves who’s finishing up the Qatar stadiums.  You’ve been isolated from females for months, maybe years, and you finally get some time off to head to town and buy a hooker.  Only problem is you’re charged per load instead of per hour, and you burn through all you can afford in 30 seconds.  Sure, you got laid and you really needed it, but you’re not healed.

That’s what it’s like with a sports calendar with bundesliga and nothing else.  Usually I am served with a main course of evening gambling on American sports after a casual afternoon of soccer gambling.  That wasn’t available and those became two of the antsiest nights of my entire lifetime.  Also, Bundesliga is cool but it’s nothing like the EPL.  That’s why my sports pants are feeling the happiest they’ve been in ages after this morning’s news:

Praise.  The God.  Damned.  Lord.

Bundesliga Blue Balls

Who Will Dominate the 2020s Decade More – Luka or Zion?

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Luka Zion

Yesterday’s ‘Battle of LA’ was a likely preview of the next one or two WCFs, but the rest of the decade will be dominated by two rising powers that battled for the first time last Wednesday – Luka’s Mavs and Zion’s Pelicans.  Dallas drew first blood in a close overtime victory (highlights), and unfortunately for New Orleans that is probably how this rivalry will play out over the long term.

Zion is the most popular popular rookie since Lebron, but last year Luka was the best rookie since… well since ever.  He spent the first few months of this season neck and neck with Giannis for MVP, but has regressed to merely an average superstar level as of late.  2019 Luka would’ve splashed this buzzer beater last Monday and that is not a hyperbole, but he’s been a bit more human since new year.

He’s been targeted by nervous vets all year, and it seems every game there is an enforcer assigned to give him a beating.  Just last night he took a flying knee kick to the face as well as two other face punches that didn’t get called.  He’s getting pounded and it’s causing injuries and it’s bullshit, but I guess we can just deal with it for now.  After some playoff wins, the star treatment will activate and then he’s invincible from there on out.

He started the All Star Game before having his first legal drink (paid for by Mark Cuban) and is still fully ensconced as the goat-in-training.

 

The Pelicans still have a formidable icon in their own with Zion who is an absolute monster.  He has power in the post game that will be the most dominant we’ve seen since Shaq, and he is the best rebounder in the NBA already.  On defense, he is always threat to force a turnover and tally the ‘points off turnover’ column in a flash.

I don’t buy the nailbiting over his health or the new idea that big players can’t enjoy healthy careers.  Gentry may need to get some Coach O advice on keeping gumbo servings in check, but overall he is right in saying people worry about Zion “too freaking much”.  New Orleans will enjoy this Monstar for years to come.

zion monstar

Both teams have deep and promising supporting casts – Dallas better on offense and New Orleans better on defense.  However, the coaching disparity is huge.  Carlisle has pretty much taken the reigns from Popovich as the best coach in the league, while Gentry has done nothing of substance to warrant trust.  That‘s why I foresee Dallas becoming the new Spurs and New Orleans becoming the new Mavs.  Pelicans fans should be happy with that.

 

The war has just begun, however, and there are still some big moves coming.  Dallas will have max level cap room for basically the first time in the Cuban era along with no state income tax and the chance to rack up all your scoring stats with prime Luka.  In fact, there is a growing underground fear amongst NBA execs that Giannis is destined to end up in Dallas.

The Pelicans on the other hand are sitting on more tangible assets with the goldmine of future Lakers picks.  It will almost certainly be three straight lottery picks starting next summer or the year after, depending on how quickly it takes for the Lakers to suck.  If the balls fall right or if Gayle can pull in another favor, the Mavs might have a threat in their decade of dominance about halfway through this thing.  Until then, Luka and Carlisle all the way.

What a blessing it is to have a ticket on both wagons.

 

🚨🚨 NBA LAYUP LINE 🚨🚨

Mark Cuban was fined 500k for protesting after we got robbed in Atlanta.  He matched the fine with a 500k donation to charity.  Just a cool mill to speak up for the people.

NBA execs have discussed a new calendar with the season starting in December, which would be awesome.  But instead of shortening the season, they will have the finals in August.  No thank you.  Chill out NBA.

Spike Lee is upset about losing access to the employee entrance despite paying $300k a year in season tickets and over $10M lifetime.  Any Knicks fan who gives James Dolan that much money is a moron. 

Patrick Mahomes was at the Mavs-Pelicans game, but the most famous athlete in attendance might have been sitting in general admission

Who Will Dominate the 2020s Decade More – Luka or Zion?

Angels Fire 30yr Employee for Helping Opponents Cheat

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Angels Mickey Mouse

The Angels fired their visiting clubhouse manager of 30 years because he was selling a foreign substance called Go Go Juice to opposing pitchers.  It’s an odd story because how does someone work their whole life for an organization while helping out the enemy the whole time.  Was this going on for a long time, or was it a recent thing?  Either way, it’s just further proof that the Angels are a Mickey Mouse organization that Otani is a huge fucken loser for joining.

The true lead here is that the Angels had no idea this was going on until the MLB tipped them off.  How did the MLB come across this information?  They were conducting a league wide investigation on ball tampering.  Why were they doing that?  Hmm…

Take a look at this cringeworthy team site article about all the ‘analytics’ involved in increasing spin rates for every single Astros pitchers spin compared to their metrics on prior teams.  Woke baseball fans have been saying for years that the Astros were stealing signs and doctoring baseballs (aside from corporate espionage) to cheat.

Sure, almost every pitcher doctors baseballs these days and it’s probably necessary for the safety of hitters to allow this stuff in cold weather games.  However, it’s pretty obvious the Astros went much farther than the normal pine tar to fuck with their baseballs.  There is no doubt they had a propriety substance similar to this Go Go Juice, and the MLB is finally doing their part to crack down.

Why don’t they make this public like the sign stealing?  Because death penalties are bad for business and no former players have come out about this yet.  Hopefully Collin McHugh becomes the man to step up and do the right thing.  He just said he’s willing to give up his World Series ring, and that his fellow pitchers should’ve been braver and spoken out against the sins they were seeing.  Why is he of all people trashing the organization who’s ‘analytics’ salvaged his career and made him respectable for the 2017-2018 seasons only?  Your guess is as good as mine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

🚨🚨 MLB FASTBALLS 🚨🚨

Nobody has a hard on for Astros hate more than me, but this Blue Jays pitcher Reese McGuire that got caught cracking stick in the spring training parking lot might be a close second.

Blue Jays Bater

Speaking of the Astros, former cheater-converted-Yankee Gerrit Cole gave up back to back homers, twice, over just two innings, against the Tigers, in his latest spring training outing.

Speaking of Yankees, Goose Gossage is yelling at the clouds again.  He’s still bemoaning analytics, saying that “It’s like the Democrats are running baseball.”  I agree.  Math is for morons.

Yu Darvish caught a slight case of the coronavirus, but he’ll be fine because he’s not old enough to die from the flu yet.  Better for him to get this out of the way now and clear himself up for the inevitable Cy Young campaign.

And finally, the biggest actual baseball story of spring training was Nolan Arenado wanted a trade because the Rockies weren’t spending enough on free agents.  The Rockies have pledged over $200M to free agents over the past two seasons, and just one year ago gave Arenado a $260M guaranteed contract.  What a whiny baby this kid is.

 

 

Angels Fire 30yr Employee for Helping Opponents Cheat

Michael Bloomberg Will Always Be a Dallas Cowboys Hero

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plaxicogun

There’s a lot of Eli Manning HOF truthers who like to say that he was never good outside those two Super Bowl years.  I don’t know what they were watching in 2008, but it sure wasn’t NFL.  The Giants were awesome that year and it was terrifying.  At Thanksgiving weekend, they were 9-1 and cruising to home field advantage when Plaxico Burress learned the hard way that sweatpant waistbands are not the safest gun holsters.

Burress spent 20 months in prison, which was unprecedented for an athlete and it was hard not to feel at least some sympathy for him.  His teammate Steve Smith had just been robbed at gunpoint three days earlier, and the gun was previously registered back in Florida (expired and out of state but still).  He was certainly no Pacman or Crittenton that’s for sure, but New Yorkers wanted to get rid of guns and he served as a powerful example to help make that happen.

Most importantly, the Giants season completely derailed after suddenly losing the best possession receiver in the league.  For that, I give eternal thanks to Mike Bloomberg.  He’s in the news lately for a political race that will cause 40-60% of the population to feel deep despair, but it is nothing like the despair of watching your rival go back to back.

 

🚨🚨 NFL EXTRA POINTS 🚨🚨

The biggest trade since Herschel Walker looks to be this brewing deal between NBC and ESPN for announcers.  The true winners of this trade are fans and society.  Spending Monday nights with Al Michaels and Peyton Manning instead of Boog is going to lift everyone’s moods, and we finally get Mike Tiri-goat back!

The NFL is going to the going to the Supreme Court to fight a very frivolous lawsuit.  Apparently some people think that $293 is a rip off for the hundreds of hours of pure bliss that Sunday Ticket provides.  What kind of psychopath likes football but doesn’t watch other teams?  Must be the russians again.

The Tom Brady to 49ers speculation has finally started.  Called it.  Garoppolo is turning into the next Matt Cassell right before our eyes and they have a $4M out on his contract.  This has been a no brainer all along.

Baker Mayfield’s offseason has barely started and it’s getting brutal – possibly more brutal than that season long ad campaign he did.  Last week, a host on the Browns flagship network called him a midget.  But that was nothing compared to a few weeks back when a woman gave a radio interview about blowing him in a Cheesecake Factory parking lot.  She provided proof in the form of dick pics as other women called in to tell similar stories like the time he cheated on his Instagram wife the first night after his honeymoon.  Our heroine signs off the interview by saying (34:30 mark) “I think he already ruined his career anyway because he sucks at football now”

Michael Bloomberg Will Always Be a Dallas Cowboys Hero

Inter Miami and FC Dallas Are Set to Dominate the 2020s

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Inter Miami Fans Game 1

As I’m sure everyone remembers, FC Dallas snuck into the playoffs last year and nearly beat eventual champion Seattle in one of the wildest MLS games of all time.  Not bad for a rebuilding year.

The 2020 season started off with a bang last week with the official signing of academy phenom Tanner Tessman.  It sounds like this kid has all the makings of a transcendent talent.  Dabo Swinney vigorously recruited him to kick for Clemson and claimed that he could start at any of the skill positions if he focused on football full time (never played before).  Most notably, he starred for our special youth squad that thrashed the USWNT back in the day.  I’m not sure the financial details of the contract, but it certainly had to be a lot considering how valuable those women were supposed to be.  Thanks Clark Hunt!

Tessmann started our opener on Saturday and performed very well, especially defensively, against the hated Philadelphia Union.  We won 2-0 off this beautiful strike from THE KOBRA.

So far so good for FC Dallas season.  Unfortunately, nobody else I know from Dallas cares about them so it’s time to make room for a new first love – Inter Miami.  Thank god I moved here before they started, because Beckham’s squad has to be the most inevitable dynasty in sports history, or at the very least Miami sports history.

Sunday’s debut was a 1-0 loss, but it was undoubtedly the biggest moral victory of my career as a sports fan.  LAFC is the best MLS team ever assembled and they had just throttled the best Mexican team in champion’s league.  If you listened to the ESPN announcers, LAFC are as good as Liverpool (I’m not kidding they said that).

We didn’t start our best players, opting for experience over potential in a game that was sure to produce jitters, and yet our veteran backups held their own against western hemisphere’s Liverpool.  They even had a chance on a last second set piece to equalize.  Incredible debut!

Our goalie and captain, Luis Robles, is no doubt the best in the league.  He was an absolute brick wall and stopped everything except for this magic trick by Carlos Vela.

 

 

🚨🚨 MLS QUICK HITS 🚨🚨

Atlanta United lost Josef Martinez to a torn ACL and their run is over.  Too bad.  It looks like their opponent, Nashville SC, is taking over as the new cool team of the south.

Nashville SC

San Jose Earthquakes fans un-ironically shed tears over Chris Wondolowski’s final season opener.  This is why they’re America’s least favorite team.  Go move to Belgium already.

Montreal Impact is now my Canadian team after signing Victor Wanyama.  They have the easiest champions league draw against some shitty Honduran team (Olimpia) in the quarters.  Go ahead and bet on them, watch this clip, and start dreaming of how you’ll spend your winnings.

Hero 😇 😇

Inter Miami and FC Dallas Are Set to Dominate the 2020s

Proof That Josh Allen’s Lateral Was the Correct Decision

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Josh Allen

On Saturday night, the Bills took another baby step forward in their steady march back to relevance.  Josh Allen played admirably enough for us to hold on confirmation that he sucks.  As a matter of fact, he almost doubled Deshaun Watson’s rushing yards 92-55.  However, he still made too many mistakes for us to be able to start saying he’s good:

  • Two dropped interceptions (one pick six)
  • Lost a fumble
  • Lost another fumble that was overturned by replay
  • Heaved a 50 yard throw to a double covered fullback
  • Took a 3rd down intentional grounding to fall out of FG range with 1:41 left to play down by 3

The dumbest mistake of the game was McDermott’s decision to go for it on 4th and 27 with three timeouts, but nobody cares because they still made overtime and he’s an awesome coach.  Instead, everyone is harping on the Josh Allen lateral and I thoroughly disagree!

First of all, there were no Texans players near #88 Knox and therefore no Texans players came anywhere close to recovering the football.  Second of all, because there are no Texans players near #88 Knox, he had a lot of green ahead to turn the game on its head with an all time historic play.  The execution was poor, but I love the decision.

Let’s put it another way.  Best case scenario and the play works, Bills are in FG range with the clock stopped and plenty of time to drive for a win.  Worst case scenario (keeping in mind there’s ZERO texans around) Allen fucks up the lateral so badly that it goes over #88’s head and out of bounds for 1st and 10 with the clock stopped.  Oh wait a minute that’s what actually happened, which is way better than the ‘smart play’ of getting tackled and running off 15 seconds to spike the ball for 2nd and 10.

And one last point to all those hoity-toity fake nerds out there who are lambasting Josh Allen for a net positive play…

The numbers say laterals are good.  So suck it

Proof That Josh Allen’s Lateral Was the Correct Decision

The Most Popular Sports Story From the Weekend Had Nothing to Do With NFL Football

Wilbanks

 

Wu Lei2

When Wu Lei became the first Chinese international to score a goal against Barcelona, a trend on Weibo hit 370 million views.  That is more than the entire total of the US population, so I assume it was more popular than anything NFL-related on the internet.  Apologies if I am wrong.  

After watching the goal, I am now fully onboard with Chinese fans in saying that Wu Lei is my new favorite Chinese player.  It was a true beauty…

The time and score of the game.  The through ball.  The strike.  The Chinese dude in a Barca jersey going ape shit even though it meant Madrid caught up to them for first place.

This dude in the stands who just started screaming ‘Wu Lei Wu Lei Wu Lei’ over and over again before he even got the ball.

Everything about it was pretty wild.  My favorite by though, was this tribute video afterwards:

https://twitter.com/manizuela/status/1213579947333365761?s=21

Espanyol is still in last place, but there’s still half the season left to play and they got a new coach who is smart enough to give our boy Wu Lei more minutes.  They’re also qualified for the Europa knockouts, so Champion’s League for next year is still on the table.

In the meantime, they have quite the marketing asset.  Wu Lei’s debut last year, despite being only 12 minutes, garnered 40M total views in China.  For reference, that is twice the number of viewers for the GoT finale.  For La Liga as a whole, its digital following in China almost doubled (82%) last year because of Wu Lei alone.

The Most Popular Sports Story From the Weekend Had Nothing to Do With NFL Football