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The Daily Digest for Monday, December 3, 2007 |
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December 03, 2007 |
≡ Interim Report ≡
 London 2012: biggest fleecing since Jason & the Argonauts? |
= Program Note =
We expected that TheGoodSportsNetwork.tv would be up and running on September 24, but the site is still not live. We were told that TheGoodSportsNetwork.tv site will be up in November, but it is now December.
While we wait, we’ll continue posting a weekday note and sending out the Tip Sheet to keep you informed. Stay tuned, and hope for the best.
= Tonight’s Menu =
>> Tonight’s NFL match is 11-0 New England on the road at 4-7 Baltimore. Even away from Foxborough, the Patriots are a 20-point favorite, almost unheard of for an NFL game. The weather is supposed to be in the mid-40s and windy and the Ravens have lost five straight since starting 4-2. Steve McNair is doubtful for the Ravens, with a shoulder injury and Kyle Boller has five touchdowns and five interceptions compared to Tom Brady’s 39 and four. The over-under is 48, so the Pats are expected to romp by a 34-14 final.
>> Edmonton (12-14-1) visits the Kings (10-14-1) tonight at Staples Center, with Los Angeles at just 21 points in the standings, second-worst in the NHL. But the Kings have won two in a row over the Oilers and are favored (!) tonight: it takes $170 to try to win $100 on the Kings, but $110 on the Oilers could return the same $100.
= L.A. Stories =
>> What’s Bruin: See our daily blog on UCLA sports at LATimes.com!
>> Talk of Troy: Some teams have all the luck. USC finishes with a nice 10-2 season and gets a New Year’s feast against 9-3 Illinois. The Illini will have a nice time in Southern California, but quarterback Juice Williams will have a difficult time with the Trojan defense. Oddsmakers have made USC a 13-point favorite with an over-under of 51, so the final is projected at 32-19. Illinois will have a hard time scoring that many points.
= Panorama =
>> Bowl bound: Opening lines have been released for the major bowl games. Highlights: Georgia opened 11 over Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl; Oklahoma is a 6 1/2-point choice over West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl and LSU is a six-point choice over Ohio State in the BCS Championship Game. That last line will suit OSU coach Jim Tressel just fine.
>> College Gridiron: While some commentators howl about so many coaches being fired, two coaches picked up endorsements and contract extensions despite tepid results.
Bobby Bowden put Florida State on the map and helped to make the university known nationally while piling up 300 wins against 85 losses and four ties since he became head coach there in 1976. Although the Seminoles have been 8-5, 7-6 and 7-5 in his last three seasons, university president T.K. Weatherell said Bowden can stay as long as he likes. His contract, due to expire in January, was extended for one year with a raise from $1.7 million this season to $2.5 million next season, probably a nice going-away gift as the 78-year-old will likely retire after next season.
At the other end of the spectrum in terms of achievement is Mike Gundy, the feisty 40-year-old coach of Oklahoma State, whose Cowboys have been 17-19 in his three seasons. He got a one-year contract extension as well, for this year’s 6-6 season. “During the 2005 season, we won just one conference game,” said Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder. “We saw improvement last year and this year we were competitive in every conference game but the last one. That shows improvement to me.” Gundy is now contracted through 2013; by then, he’ll have to be winning, not going 6-6.
>> NBA Hoopla: In a lengthy interview with the Times of London, Phoenix Suns star Steve Nash was asked to name his all-time starting five. Nash replied:
The answer is Magic, Jordan, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Magic was just a genius, such enthusiasm and charisma, such a special player. M.J. I don’t need to explain. Burd was such a competitor, a winner who, with the games on the line, made the winning shot time after time. Timmy is just great. He’s a winner, nothing fancy about him, but at the end of the day, he gets it done and wins year after year after year. Kareem, well, at his size to develop a hook shot that nobody else has been able to master since was just incredible.
Nash’s choices are all viable, of course, but he limited his scope to players he has seen in their prime. Older ex-players would shake their heads and ask where Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Julius Erving and even George Mikan are on any list of the top players in basketball history.
>> Rings & Things: As a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1991 and president since 2000, you would think Jacques Rogge would be a keen observer of Olympic sport and Olympic cities. Maybe not.
In an interview with Sky News, Rogge said the London plans for its main stadium in 2012 – an 80,000-seat temporary facility that would be reduced to a soccer and track facility of about 25,000 seats afterwards – is a good idea. After all, it has worked before, right?
“I think it’s a very interesting model,” he said. “It reminds me a little bit of the stadium in Atlanta that was a very big stadium for the Games themselves. I think 85,000 places, it has been reduced after the Games to a baseball stadium for about 20,000 people and that’s a very intelligent model.”
The Atlanta Braves would like to note that Turner Field seats 50,096. And in another demonstration that Rogge is not always on the same page as his membership, there are plenty of IOC members who are still steamed that the 1996 Olympic Stadium is no longer standing and is, instead, used for a privately-owned baseball team.
>> London Calling: Simon Jenkins of the Sunday Times delivered a missile against the 2012 Olympic Games, as well as other issues facing the Labour government. Some highlights of a brutal, well-written attack:
Gordon Brown should announce forthwith that he is putting his three wildest white elephants out to grass: identity cards, the National Health Service computer and the plan to locate the 2012 Olympics in Stratford. All have budgets out of control. Such is this centrist squandermongering that Brown could take 2p off income tax for a decade or give every school, hospital and library in Britain a Christmas bonus of £1m [about $2 million U.S.].
. . .
Anyone who cannot stage a two-week sporting event in a well-equipped capital city for that amount of money [the original budget of about $5 billion U.S.] should not go near a whelk stall [a booth that sells edible mollusks]. He should certainly not sit, like the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) atop 700 staff and £400m [$827 million] in “delivery expenses” and be allowed to go junketing to Ascot, Twickenham and Claridge’s, as consultancies vie for “cost-plus” contracts.
Because the ODA is in the pocket of the obscure and unaccountable IOC, the two are in effect conspiring to rob British taxpayers of colossal sums of money. Little or none of the £9 billion [about $19 billion] budget reflects sporting necessity. As for legacy, this is no longer described by the ODA as an investment but as a cost. More than £1 billion [$2 billion] is going into regenerating a tiny corner of east London that would surely regenerate itself with a decontamination grant.
. . .
London sold itself to the IOC as offering a low-cost “people’s Games.” It now seems likely to cost more than any sporting event since Nero. Only a dictatorship, China, has managed to extract more from its citizens (roughly £15 billion [about $31 billion]) and it is getting big infrastructure for its money.
Jenkins notes that Sir Stuart Lipton, a very well known developer, “walked away” from the chairmanship of the ODA, “saying it could not be delivered for less than £15-16 billion [$31-33 billion].”
Is anyone in Chicago listening to this?
~ Rich Perelman
>> Have an opinion? You can send it using the “Comment” button below!
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