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It really is the "No Fun League" |
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February 01, 2007 |
 Ming Ming |
 Potato Chips |
 Ford |
Los Angeles, February 1, 2007 – The NFL has issued a notice that venues which do not regularly show televised sporting events may not do so for the Super Bowl. So, the threat of a copyright violation has put the end to the plans of several Indiana churches who were planning Super Bowl parties in support of the hometown Colts. According to a report in the Indianapolis Star, the NFL demanded that the Fall Creek Baptist Church not hold a party for the benefit of its congregation. And you didn’t believe that NFL stands for “No-Fun League”?
= Tonight’s menu =
>> In what could be the game of the year in the Pac-10, 18-2 UCLA will host Oregon at Pauley Pavilion tonight. Oregon beat a then-undefeated UCLA team, 68-66 in Eugene and the Bruins are currently ranked fifth while Oregon is ninth. The Ducks average 80 points a game and the Bruins only give up an average of 60 and while Oregon is 6-1 on the road – and has a 19-2 record – UCLA is 11-0 at Pauley. The oddsmakers think the Bruins will take a bite out of the Ducks and have UCLA as an eight-point favorite. The over-under is 136, so the Bruins are supposed to win, 72-64.
>> At the Galen Center, 16-6 USC will host 9-13 Oregon State and the Trojans have won six of the last seven meetings between the schools, including a win in Corvallis earlier this season. The Troys are favored by 15 with an over-under of 131, so the sharpies have penciled in USC 73, Oregon State 58. No need, plenty of tickets available at the door!
>> At Staples Center, the 17-30-3 Kings lace up the skates against 18-25-2 Chicago. The Kings are 1-9 in their last ten while the Blackhawks are 1-10 in their last 11, so the game is even on the money line: bet $130 on either team and wake up later to see if you won $100.
= College basketball =
>> One of the greatest individual performances in college basketball history was last night’s 37-point, 23-rebound demonstration by Texas’s 6-9 freshman Kevin Durant. He almost singlehandedly beat Texas Tech in a tough road game, 76-64, against a Bobby Knight-coached team that should know about defense. Meanwhile, Durant has Texas at 16-5 and 6-1 in the Big 12 and in position to be the number one pick in the NBA Draft, regardless of the availability of Ohio State freshman center Greg Oden.
= NFL/pro football =
>> Researchers at UCLA, in conjunction with a company called FKF Applied Research, will be using brain imaging equipment during the game to measure the effectiveness of Super Bowl ads.
>> Food fight: the figures on food served during the Super Bowl game border on the preposterous. The American Snack Food Association says 30.4 million pounds of snacks will be consumed, of which about 11.3 million pounds will be potato chips. Then there’s America’s Bar and Grill in Aurora, Colorado, which has stocked up with 15,000 chicken wings for game day, compared with 3,000 served on a normal NFL Sunday. And Domino’s stores are getting ready to deliver 1.3 million pizzas on Sunday, a third more than they normally do. The heaviest time for orders is just before kick-off and just before halftime and the most popular topping is pepperoni at 60% of all orders, with sausage second.
>> Attention Steve Reinemund, Chairman of the Board of PepsiCo: A national online survey of sports fans conducted by Domino’s – which serves Coca-Cola products – indicated that just 9% of the viewing audience planned to watch the Pepsi-sponsored halftime show featuring Prince! Your opinion?
>> More Super Bowl spending: a survey from the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association indicated that 2.5 million Americans have planned to buy a new television for the Super Bowl!
>> Super Bowl game info: yes, a football game will actually be played amid all the hoopla! Anyway, the NFL announced that Tony Corrente will be the referee for the game and for the first time, brothers will work on the officiating crew. Carl Paganelli and his brother Perry will both be working the game, although a third brother, Dino, was not selected. He just finished his first season as a back judge.
>> NFL coaching carousel: is it true that Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy could retire after the Super Bowl? Dungy hinted at it in interviews and said he would talk it over with his wife and with Colts owner Jim Irsay after the commotion of the Super Bowl subsides. Said Dungy, “I have some other things I really want to do, some things in the ministry work I want to do. When will that come? We will see. Right now, I’m able to do everything and I’m enjoying it.” Dungy’s contract extends through the 2009 season.
>> More carousel: in Baltimore, head coach Brian Billick was rewarded for the Ravens’ 13-3 record and second seed in the AFC this season with a one-year contract extension worth about $5.4 million, adding one additional year to his current contract that was to expire after next season.
>> The All American Football League, which was supposed to start this year, has postponed its launch until 2008. The league is designed for 8-10 teams, playing a 14-game schedule from April through July and all of the players must be college graduates. So far, the AAFL has agreements to use college stadiums at Florida, North Carolina State and Tennessee and Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.
= NBA/pro basketball =
>> Court report: Sacramento Kings coach Eric Musselman, 42, pled no contest last week to a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol from an incident last October and as a result, was suspended by the NBA for two games, coming up on Saturday and Monday.
>> Kobe report: The Lakers star had lunch with well-known Boston Globe columnist Jackie MacMullan, who said Bryant always preps for games by downing a nice steak.
>> More Lakers: not only was Bryant serenaded by chants of “MVP” from the TD Banknorth Garden crowd during the 111-98 Lakers win last night, but there were more than a few folks in the stands with Lakers jerseys bearing No. 24 on them. Times have changed in Boston.
>> Sky’s the limit: the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association signed 7-foot, 9-inch center Sun Ming Ming. He’s 23 years old and hasn’t played a lot of basketball, being threatened by two operations last year for pituitary tumors. He is expected to begin playing with the Nighthawks on Saturday. Question: if Maryland’s new star leads the team to the ABA championship, will it be the start of the “Ming Dynasty”?
= All around the world =
>> Doping pipeline: Finland seems to be a center for the smuggling of drugs for use in sports doping, according to a report from the Finnish Customs Office. Agents reported 72 incidents of smuggling of drugs which could be used for doping last year, including one character who brought in 10,000 hormone capsules. According to the Customs Office, such pills can be sold for up to 20 times their original price, with most of the smugglers arriving from India and Thailand, or closer to home, Greece and Spain.
>> Funny money: the Olympic bid of the City of London listed a total budget of $4.67 billion dollars (U.S.) for the 2012 Games, but Members of Parliament are asking for a final budget for the Games in light of reports that the true cost is much higher. Now reports have surfaced that the cost of rebuilding London’s East End, where much of the Games would be held, won’t cost $2 billion U.S., but $10 billion! So the final cost is now projected at about 8 billion pounds, or about $14.6 billion U.S. Talk about missing the mark!
>> Former University of Texas El Paso pole vaulter Larry Jessee is being inducted into the Ohio Track & Field Hall of Fame this week. He was NCAA champion in 1974, giving the Miners the team championship and made the U.S. Olympic team in 1980 . . . the team that didn’t go anywhere. Jessee told Bill Knight of the El Paso Times about how he met former U.S. President Gerald Ford once on a commercial flight and how nice he was. Noted Jessee, with more than a little wistfulness, “I thought later that if he had been elected, we might not have boycotted the Olympics that year.” Comment: as a former athlete and a veteran of Cold War politics thanks to decades of service in the U.S. House, it’s unlikely that Ford would have sacrificed the dreams of young people to compete for their country on foreign soil to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. But he wasn’t our President then and history cannot be changed. We didn’t have a Ford, just a pill named Carter.
>> The sold-out Wing Bowl to be held Saturday at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center will be graced with a performance by former Eagles defender Hugh Douglas, singing his rendition of the Commodores’ 1977 hit “Brick House.” It’s not known if Douglas picked the song to inspire one of the contestants, perhaps Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas?
~ Rich Perelman
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