The Official Unofficial BS Report Notes Page

8/12 David Stern

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:16:43 -0400

2230 DS: one of the players’ main concerns is that “you’ve got to be able to play for your career contract” - guaranteed money (which they currently have, and sometimes harmful to the product). owners want to make contracts shorter, more incentivized and aligned with continued performance.

8/10 Mike Lombardi

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:12:02 -0400

4930 the Jets let Braylon Edwards go. ML: ”you have to understand the dynamics of the locker room. there’s no way Braylon Edwards could walk back into the Jets locker room taking a $1M salary when he was supposed to be a beloved free agent, and he’s looking across the locker room and Santonio Holmes is making $10M a year. players never take less [money], or significantly less, to stay in their own locker room. when they hit the market, you got a better chance of stealing a guy at the same price rather than keeping him” So, the Jets never could have kept Braylon for the price he signed with the other team.

7/19 Dave Dameshek (Pittsburgh Pirates)

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:40:52 -0400

1430 best ballparks: Fenway, Wrigley, Dodgers. newbies: San Fran, Pittsburgh, Seattle

2230 underrated american cities: Milwaukee and Pittsburgh

27 NFL strike: “in any other sport (mlb, nba, nhl) when they go on strike or they get locked out, the fan reaction is usually threatening never to come back, sickened at millionaires bickering over money. you never hear that with football (nfl). it’s a crack addiction. ‘please come back, we need you’”

3430 which sport has the most satisfying waning-moments-of-the-game celebration? DD: football Victory formation. TITLE GAME, not the super bowl. “we’re on our way to the superbowl!!”

3830 Green Bay is Titletown, Pittsburgh is City of Champions

7/11 Seth Meyers (ESPY's, White House, etc)

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:26:44 -0400

2430 SM: “when people say ‘oh i hate commercials,’ it’s like saying ‘my least favorite part of the grocery store is the checkout’”

(hulu, grantland, tv, monetizing on a product that starts out as free or must rely on advertising to survive, and the consumer’s entitled attitude to entertainment)

7/5 Mike Lombardi (NFL Future)

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:21:07 -0400

6 an NFL expansion team in Europe is possible (and the only major american sport able to do so because they only play one game a week. also, the nba has done a good job globalizing.. the nfl, as hot as it is, could get even bigger). the likeliest country would be Germany.. culture most receptive to american football. maybe London. maybe Vienna.

6/24 Henry Abbott (NBA Draft)

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:15:58 -0400

8 pickup hoops tip: run to the free throw line! easy to grab rebounds

28 HA: “not to beat a dead horse, but the Hornets do not have ‘the guy’ who takes the shot, and they’re the best [crunch time] offense ever.. ..it’s not close. they just kill.”

5/31 Chad Millman, Joe House (NBA Finals Preview)

Tue, 31 May 2011 20:54:51 -0400

58 random idea: finals be a 2-2-3, the last three games in VEGAS

5/20 Brian Burke, Alan Sepinwall (Hockey, TV)

Mon, 23 May 2011 22:25:06 -0400

31 tv: Good Times every episode: guy who thinks he’s going to get job so he buys something expensive

5/19 Charles Barkley (NBA Playoffs)

Mon, 23 May 2011 22:20:06 -0400

1830 barkley grandma: stand up, don’t be a punk. cause if they make an asian joke or a jewish joke with you, theyre making a black joke behind your back

2030 when you’re rich and famous your job is to bring along for the ride as many people as possible

5/18 Chuck Klosterman

Mon, 23 May 2011 22:15:06 -0400

53 biographies. ck” i don’t care about their life until they start having sex and doing drugs”

5/12 Sean Grande (Celtics)

Mon, 23 May 2011 22:11:06 -0400

15 biggest indicator of celtics succcess is two Rondo stats: FTA and rebounds

31 this isn’t the end of celtics big3

3630 celtics atl 2008 series was a 5 game series disguised as 7

3930 celtics playoffs have already been an extra season worth of games for the big three

45 westbrook in 3rd overtime (game 4 vs grizz) still in 5th gear kind of makes up for the turnovers. how do you still have energy?

5/11 Willie Geist (MSNBC & News)

Mon, 23 May 2011 22:05:06 -0400

21 Fox News clobbers everyone in the ratings but on big events & breaking news ppl go to CNN

5/10 Mike Lupica

Mon, 23 May 2011 22:00:06 -0400

19 “you can never assume there’s going to be justice in sports”

5/9 Jimmy Kimmel, Marc Stein (Lakers, Mavs Sweep)

Mon, 23 May 2011 21:55:06 -0400

40 the mavs are 10-0 against the spread in the playoffs (11-0)

5/5 Matthew Berry, Henry Abbott

Mon, 23 May 2011 21:51:06 -0400

1:03:30 in sports, nothing drives tv ratings like uncertainty. not ticket sales, but tv ratings. see: english premier league. the 63 NCAA games in march madness make more in revenue than the entire 1000+ game nba regular season

4/26 Jonah Keri

Mon, 23 May 2011 21:45:05 -0400

1930 Toronto is black vegas - place players love to visit but stop short or wanting to live (b/c of taxes and weather) - Jason Whitlock

4/18 Dave Jacoby, Dan Silver (Reality TV, Horror Movies)

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:15:06 -0400

5430 “horror movies are the genre where real visual storytelling is done bc you need to frame it right, light it right, sound needs to be there, it’s not about dialogue, that’s why guys like danny boyle, peter jackson, sam raimi, oliver stone, scorsese, polanski - all these guys who are making a gazillion dollars on their movies now - started in horror movies”

scream 1 made horror a mass-appeal genre because it was smart and self-referential

4/14 NBA Playoff Preview (J.A. Adande, Henry Abbott, Mark Stein, Joe House, etc)

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:14:47 -0400

1530 BS: Kobe’s confidence exceeds his talent at this stage in his career. JA: but that’s what you want.

5130 The Heat have the “magic” play, the play all the experts were excited about when they signed the big three, which is the LeBron-Wade high screen. they’ve been saving it for the playoffs. so have Durant-Westbrook. a two-man game.

53 Dwyane Wade has horrible running form (sticks his heel out, locks his knee up, slows him down and puts pressure on tendons and ligaments) . LeBron James has great running form (lands on ball of his foot with knee flexed)

5430 Virtual reality guy from NYU at MIT Sloan conference… they can take airport security camera footage and differentiate, just from reading body language, whether they are palestinian or israeli soldiers. based on exhale rate, moment of arms… so these people work in sports now. next generation stuff beyond stats.

1:09 it ain’t easy being [jeff] green

4/13 Wright Thompson, Greg Wyshynski (Masters, Cricket, Hockey)

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:14:24 -0400

11 the whole sport of cricket has been changing over the last ten years, going from a 5-day defensive chess match to a newer, more aggressive 3-hour form. it’s called Twenty20. certain skillset demands are changed, affecting which players prosper

1330 the india that you think of today was born in 1990, when its economy opened up. the sport of cricket has mirrored that economical and societal change, with the rise of Sanchin Tendulkar as the sport’s Michael Jordan / Muhammed Ali

17 cleveland peaked in 1950; it was the third-largest US city then. the number of things invented there is astounding.

25 pappy. van. winkle. (bourbon whiskey)

4/6 Chuck Klosterman (NCAA Hoops)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:43:12 -0400

22 ck: the NCAA’s token response to the absurdity of not paying men’s football and basketball players is that they’re student-athletes. however, it would be reasonable for them to say “look, if you want funding for all of your collegiate sports, men’s and women’s (title IX), from mainstream to obscure, the money has to come from somewhere.” right now the NCAA acts like they’re offended when people say that the system is crazy, but that statement would be publicly understandable

46 what really is an ideal attendance size for a basketball game? we see so many empty arenas around the NBA. the minnesota twins’ new stadium heeds that advice, sporting a lower than average capacity

5630 ck: the achilles heel in every sports league is it’s insistance to cater to and woo a market that isn’t interested in the game at all. over-extension, over-expansion, and dilution of the product results. “we need to appeal to a wider audience” - the nba in particular is too concerned with that

1:08 the nba has desirable problems, at least compared to where the league was in the late 70’s early 80’s (couldn’t get prime time tv for their finals). franchises were bought for around $10M at that time.