Unpopular Opinions (sports edition)

[Flint1979]

I disagree. The Browns team that moved to Baltimore is the same team regardless what happened to any of the records. If Art Modell wanted to move to Baltimore he should have sold the Browns and Baltimore should have been the city to get an expansion franchise not Cleveland. I mean seriously over a new stadium? It's not like moving into Memorial Stadium in Baltimore for a few years would have been much different than staying at Municipal Stadium for a few years, but then again the new stadium in Cleveland was built on the same property as the old stadium but still look at the White Sox, Mets, Yankees and other teams that have built new stadiums right next to the old one. If Cleveland still hates Art Modell I don't blame them.

[texaskdog]

I disagree. The Browns team that moved to Baltimore is the same team regardless what happened to any of the records. If Art Modell wanted to move to Baltimore he should have sold the Browns and Baltimore should have been the city to get an expansion franchise not Cleveland. I mean seriously over a new stadium? It's not like moving into Memorial Stadium in Baltimore for a few years would have been much different than staying at Municipal Stadium for a few years, but then again the new stadium in Cleveland was built on the same property as the old stadium but still look at the White Sox, Mets, Yankees and other teams that have built new stadiums right next to the old one. If Cleveland still hates Art Modell I don't blame them.

Exactly.  The Texans weren't allowed to have the Oilers name even though it wasn't being used.  Had they been allowed to, it's still not the same team.  The Browns history is in Baltimore with the winning team, the new team is a different team.  Cleveland fans can pretend all they want.

[texaskdog]

Now, being an out-of-region fan of a bad team, though...  That makes no sense.

When the Cubs got to the playoffs in 2015 and 2016, almost everyone wanted them to win.

Not me, still pissed about what they did to Steve Bartman.  That was ridiculous.

[texaskdog]

I don't cheer for the Browns success.

Also agree. One wild card season and a victory over a slumping team in a game you almost legendarily choked away doesn’t elevate them off the bottom of the league. Sure, they have reasons to be optimistic, but the level of disillusionment from their fanbase is off the charts.

They're certainly elevated from the very bottom of the league. This the best season/offseason they've had in several decades. I'd say let the fans enjoy it.

- Washington Football Team isn't the bad of a name.

That's not an unpopular take. If it was, they would have found a new name by now.

Washington FC   

[hotdogPi]

- Washington Football Team isn't the bad of a name.

That's not an unpopular take. If it was, they would have found a new name by now.

Washington FC

Virginia Woolves
Maryland Crabs

[thspfc]

Not sure if this is unpopular, but baseball has some terrible rules. The dropped third strike rule needs to be axed. The overcomplicated foul tip rule also needs to be simplified. If a player catches a ball after it touches the bat but before it touches the ground, the batter is out. Doesn't matter if the ball went forwards, backwards, or sideways, doesn't matter if he smashed it or barely hit it at all. It should be that simple. But no, baseball is so obsessed with tradition and trying to return to its glory days that it is going to be completely irrelevant in the American sports scene by 2050.

[triplemultiplex]

Unpopular sports opinion:
If sports teams want taxpayer money for stadiums, then in exchange, the city the team plays in gets 51% ownership of the team.

[kphoger]

Unpopular sports opinion:
If sports teams want taxpayer money for stadiums, then in exchange, the city the team plays in gets 51% ownership of the team.

Does that opinion extend to other, non-sports venues such as performing arts centers?

[Scott5114]

Unpopular sports opinion:
If sports teams want taxpayer money for stadiums, then in exchange, the city the team plays in gets 51% ownership of the team.

Does that opinion extend to other, non-sports venues such as performing arts centers?

If it did, maybe Oklahoma City would have a functioning Stage Center rather than a vacant lot.

[formulanone]

Unpopular sports opinion:
If sports teams want taxpayer money for stadiums, then in exchange, the city the team plays in gets 51% ownership of the team.

Does that opinion extend to other, non-sports venues such as performing arts centers?

[purple]
Take it to the Unpopular Opinions (performing arts) Thread
[/nurple]

[hbelkins]

I don't use that term to insult the team. I use it to insult their bandwagon fans who live in another team's geographical market but still root for them. Yes, there are other teams in all sports for which that happens, but Dallas fans are the most obnoxious, followed closely by Duke/North Carolina/Tennessee fans who live in Kentucky and have ties to none of those schools.

For what it's worth, the same could be said of Kentucky basketball fans who live outside of Kentucky . . .

Parts of Ohio and Indiana (the states, not the universities) are much closer to the University of Kentucky than areas like Paducah or even Owensboro.

I lived in Jeffersonville/New Albany, IN for 10 years and in that area, fans were split about 40/40/20 for Indiana/Kentucky/Louisville

I don't disagree about the out-of-territory people, and I know there have been a lot of bandwagon fans that have come along because Calipari's thick with Drake and LeBron and a bunch of other pop culture notables in the past few years.

Part of Kentucky's fandom can also probably be attributed to television markets. (SP Cook will know something about this.) The Louisville TV market encompasses a bunch of Indiana counties, so they're going to be exposed to outsized UK coverage. (And remember that years ago, before ESPN and the SEC Netowrk, schools had their own TV networks for showing non-conference games, and conferences had their own networks too, and it was common for UK games to be tape-delayed and shown at 11:30 p.m. if they weren't picked up for live conference network or national network TV.) The Cincinnati market covers a big swath of northern Kentucky so they had to provide UK coverage. And the Huntington/Charleston TV stations get a huge chunk of eastern Kentucky, from the upper Licking River valley and Pike County all the way to the Ohio River. Hoosiers, Buckeyes, and West Virginians were all exposed to UK basketball because stations in Louisville, Cincinnati, and Huntington/Charleston were UK network affiliates.

And consider this ... a former co-worker of mine graduated from UK, and like many others in the state, is a UK fan. Her son is a freshman at Baylor this year. So naturally she's going to root for Baylor.

[Flint1979]

Now, being an out-of-region fan of a bad team, though...  That makes no sense.

When the Cubs got to the playoffs in 2015 and 2016, almost everyone wanted them to win.

Not me, still pissed about what they did to Steve Bartman.  That was ridiculous.

Really not much different than what Red Sox fans did to Bill Buckner.

[SP Cook]

Agree with everything HB said.  When I was a kid, the only live college sports we got regularly was UK and SEC syndication out of WSAZ in Huntington.  WVU (which is much further away than UK is) didn't produce games until the early 80s and then they were on PBS, it was later in the decade before they were on commercial TV.   If Ohio State/Big 10 had any TV deals, they were not on in Huntington.  People that got the Bluefield station got ACC syndication.

Side story.  Two WV related people were big in the early days of syndication of college sports.  One was a guy known as Dan Shoemaker, who was a local school teacher in Huntington.  He figured out that satellite uplinks made production and syndication of games much easier.  He started with Marshall and moved to a lot of schools around the upper south.  He called his company "Creative Sports" because he was creative in how to finance the deals, getting odd ball local sponsors and such.  He sold it to ESPN where it formed the basis of ESPN's college inventory.  He worked for Disney until he died a couple years ago.   The other guy was Bray Cary, who figured out about the same thing and worked with first WVU and then Virginia Tech and then some others.  He sold his company to Disney as well and went to work for NASCAR, where he rode the wave and got rich.  Returned to WV about 10 years ago and bought a bunch of TV stations, which he ran into the ground and had to sell.  Now is "senior advisor" to the governor and heir apparent.

[thspfc]

SOCCER:
- Soccer is the sport of the next generation, four generations and counting.

Us missing out on the World Cup in 2018 killed that narrative. Strong performances in Qatar next year and on our turf in 2026 might change things though.

[1995hoo]

Makes me remember the NASL slogan: "Soccer–The Sport of the '80s."

[gr8daynegb]

Curious if this would be a popular opinion or not for NFL.  If your team wins the Superbowl you get to host the game for the following season(or two years after if feeling there needs to be a gap in-between to help city/state prepare).

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Curious if this would be a popular opinion or not for NFL.  If your team wins the Superbowl you get to host the game for the following season(or two years after if feeling there needs to be a gap in-between to help city/state prepare).

The problem is the NFL has rules about who can host a Super Bowl based on climate (basically if you don't have a dome or don't play in CA or FL, you're out). They made an exception for NYC, but that's because they're NYC.

[Big John]

^^ Also they have rules on minimum number of lodging rooms in the metro area.

[gr8daynegb]

Curious if this would be a popular opinion or not for NFL.  If your team wins the Superbowl you get to host the game for the following season(or two years after if feeling there needs to be a gap in-between to help city/state prepare).

The problem is the NFL has rules about who can host a Super Bowl based on climate (basically if you don't have a dome or don't play in CA or FL, you're out). They made an exception for NYC, but that's because they're NYC.

Let's for the sake of this argument pretend that minimum hotel requirement isn't there. It's apples and oranges but let's treat in more in line with how MLB, NHL, and NBA treat championships without having the hotel requirement(yes I am aware of the winner take all vs best of format difference).

[NWI_Irish96]

^^ Also they have rules on minimum number of lodging rooms in the metro area.

Other than Green Bay, there isn't any NFL city that couldn't handle hosting a Super Bowl if it weren't for the weather, but aside for that one-time NYC exception, nobody really wants an outdoor Super Bowl in the cold.

I do think there should be a more equitable rotation of host cities though. Indy got one, and everybody seemed to like it there, but there have been several in Miami, New Orleans and Phoenix since then without going back to Indy.

[oscar]

Curious if this would be a popular opinion or not for NFL.  If your team wins the Superbowl you get to host the game for the following season(or two years after if feeling there needs to be a gap in-between to help city/state prepare).

The problem is the NFL has rules about who can host a Super Bowl based on climate (basically if you don't have a dome or don't play in CA or FL, you're out). They made an exception for NYC, but that's because they're NYC.

Let's for the sake of this argument pretend that minimum hotel requirement isn't there. It's apples and oranges but let's treat in more in line with how MLB, NHL, and NBA treat championships without having the hotel requirement(yes I am aware of the winner take all vs best of format difference).

That leaves you with the climate issue, which the other leagues sidestep by playing indoors and/or not in the winter. The Packers, Bills, Browns, Steelers, Broncos, Bears, and Patriots could have weather issues with hosting Super Bowls in the winter.

Similar issues with when they host conference championships, but those are one-day affairs vs. the week-long extravaganza the NFL wants for Super Bowls.

[NWI_Irish96]

Curious if this would be a popular opinion or not for NFL.  If your team wins the Superbowl you get to host the game for the following season(or two years after if feeling there needs to be a gap in-between to help city/state prepare).

The problem is the NFL has rules about who can host a Super Bowl based on climate (basically if you don't have a dome or don't play in CA or FL, you're out). They made an exception for NYC, but that's because they're NYC.

Let's for the sake of this argument pretend that minimum hotel requirement isn't there. It's apples and oranges but let's treat in more in line with how MLB, NHL, and NBA treat championships without having the hotel requirement(yes I am aware of the winner take all vs best of format difference).

That leaves you with the climate issue, which the other leagues sidestep by playing indoors and/or not in the winter. The Packers, Bills, Browns, Steelers, Broncos, Bears, and Patriots could have weather issues with hosting Super Bowls in the winter.

Similar issues with when they host conference championships, but those are one-day affairs vs. the week-long extravaganza the NFL wants for Super Bowls.

Add Seahawks, Bengals, Football Team, Ravens, Eagles, Chiefs and maybe Titans to those where climate is going to be a problem.

The biggest difference between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl is that conference championship games are mainly attended by fans of the home team, and those fans will go regardless of weather. The Super Bowl is highly attended by corporate sponsors, and those people that drop hundreds of thousands on tickets, stadium suites, hotel suites, catered meals, etc, don't wan't to attend games in the cold.

[webny99]

A Super Bowl in Buffalo would be wild. Buffalo and Green Bay are probably the top two worst winter climates for a Super Bowl host city.

[hbelkins]

I'm old enough to remember the Freezer Bowl that was the AFC Championship between the Bengals and the Chargers in January 1982. That was move-in day for the second semester of my junior year in college. I left home early enough to get my TV and most of my stuff packed up to my room and watched that game on TV in the dorm.

[Flint1979]

A Super Bowl in Buffalo would be wild. Buffalo and Green Bay are probably the top two worst winter climates for a Super Bowl host city.

Chicago wouldn't be too pleasant either.