iPads in baseball dugouts. Drones at football games. Gambling on gambling. All that and more in my latest post for TechGraphs, a roundup of the week’s top sports technology stories.
The full post is available here.
Hey, football is a thing that’s happening, and my latest post for TechGraphs reflects that, highlighting news stories about the NFL, tennis, baseball, and even a hint of hockey.
The full post is available here.
Lem Barney had just finished a round of golf at Detroit’s Palmer Park Golf Course in the summer of 1968. Palmer, one of four prominent courses in the area, attracted many of the city’s black celebrities, including Joe Louis, Smokey Robinson and The Temptations.
Barney had heard Marvin Gaye, one of his favorite artists, lived nearby. With time to kill before heading back to training camp for afternoon practice, he figured why not? Gaye sang the score to Barney’s high school and college years at Jackson State University. The second year defensive back introduced himself to Palmer’s clubhouse employees, who quickly obliged with his request for Gaye’s address.
Barney easily found Marvin’s house, less than a mile-and-a-half from the course. When the legendary Motown crooner and avid sports fan opened the door, he instantly recognized Barney, inviting him in for breakfast.
For nearly two hours, the athlete and the singer chatted like long-time friends, bonded by mutual passions: sports and music. … Read More
(Via The Undefeated)
Last night, the Detroit Lions opened NFL preseason action by stomping– when the Dan Orlovsky scores on you, that qualifies as a “stomping”– the New York Jets, 23-3. Before Lions fans run off to soil their newspaper pages, web logs, Twitter feeds, and MLive.com comment sections with flowery projections of now and present greatness, some perspective may be helpful, and I’m not even talking about the manual/surgical realignment of Gino Smith’s jaw. We all hope the Lions have a good season and make a good showing on Thanksgiving Day, but if you are a fan of these or any other Detroit Lions, it will benefit your sanity to recall that a win (or four) in the preseason is but a nugget of fool’s gold.
Here, then, to cut through your Honolulu Blue hangover of victory is a selection from fairly deep in the ALDLAND Vault, such as it exists, that seems as likely as anything else we’ve published to be of perennial import. -Ed.
_________________________________________________________________
The NFL’s as-yet-unabridged preseason finished up last weekend, and the Detroit Lions turned in another dominant performance, posting a 4-0 record and notching an especially impressive win over the New England Patriots. Analysts and commentators repeat the common mantra that the preseason doesn’t mean a lot, but in the same breath, many of them are pointing to this year’s Lions as a team that could be a surprise success. . . . Read the rest . . .
A collaborative effort this week, my latest post for TechGraphs highlights news stories from the worlds of golf, hockey, tennis, football, bionic sports, and more.
The full post is available here.
In the context of yesterday’s Jason Pierre-Paul fireworks/amputation news, my latest post for TechGraphs asks whether the increasing use of wearable sports technology could have negative consequences for athletes, and, further, whether athletes may be effectively powerless to avoid those consequences.
The full post is available here.
A federal district court today upheld the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s cancellation of the Redskins mark. A federal statute bars registrations of marks that “may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute”; the district court agreed that the Redskins fell within this prohibition. This decision doesn’t bar the Redskins from using their name, but it does reduce their ability to use trademark law to stop various infringing Redskins gear.
…
The analysis strikes me as unpersuasive: I don’t think that historically trademarks have been used to “communicate[] messages from the [government].” I don’t think “the publicly closely associates [trademarks] with the [government].” And while the government does have and does exercise some control over which trademarks are allowed, I don’t think that this itself can suffice to justify viewpoint discrimination, since in all viewpoint-discriminatory programs (including ones the Court has condemned), the whole dispute was about the fact that the government was trying to exercise control about what speech is allowed.Instead, it seems to me that trademark law is much closer to the programs in which viewpoint discrimination is forbidden . . . . The special government-provided benefits given to trademark owners — or copyright owners — are similarly private speech, despite the government involvement, and the government shouldn’t selectively deny those benefits to speakers who have certain views. … Read More
(via The Volokh Conspiracy)
All of sports is a pageant. All sports are, in their own way, propaganda. They create a self-contained ecosystem within which people are convinced to vest themselves — emotionally in their teams, and economically in the various corporate partners with which the institutions of sports have allied themselves. It is a universe of cognitive manipulation that has grown thicker and more complex as the media has changed and accelerated. This is fine for selling beer and shoes and expensive automobiles. It should not be used to sell the idea of military service, and it should not be used to create a false iconography of vicarious heroism for the folks in Section 444.
Most veterans you will see on the field in an NFL stadium, or standing on top of a dugout between innings, are genuinely worthy of the country’s admiration. They’ve earned every cheer they get. They also have earned decent health care and a chance at an education and whatever counseling they need to get beyond what they’ve experienced. What they don’t deserve to be are front people through whom the rich get richer, to be walking advertisements for the services that they already have paid back in full. This is a transaction grotesquely inappropriate for their sacrifices. … Read More
(via Grantland)
Over the last 10 years or so total offense in the NFL has been on the rise. Most of this increase has come from passing attacks. With this stat firmly in hand, people have pointed to a number of causes. A common example is the NFL’s attempt to increase player safety by penalizing dangerous hits. As a backlash to this, people argue (complain?) that rules like these make it harder and harder to play defense and that the NFL is increasingly becoming a passing league with the offense and, in particular, the quarterback, becoming of increasing importance to a team’s success at the expense of the other half of the game – the defense.
I hereby propose a rule change to give the defense a slight edge in their eternal battle to shut down the likes of Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Manning, and Stafford. Make the end zones farther away. Stretch out those chains a bit. Considering the increases in yardage, and the likelihood of future rule changes limiting the actions of defense, I suggest a 10% increase in field length (total offense has increased by about 10% in yards/game in the last ten years). Let’s change 100 yards for a TD -> 110 yards and 10 yards for a first down -> 11 yards.
Or how about 100 yards -> 109.4 yards and 10 yards -> 10.94 yards?
That’s what would happen if we began to correct a mistake this country has been squatting on since Europeans landed here. Let’s make football fields 100 meters between the endzones and make it 10 meters for a first down.
It’s like Publix, but more restrictive. Unless Bdoyk drops by to rep her Patriots, we’re going to be light on the Super Bowl previewing for this season. Part of the reason I think it’s hard for impartial fans to be excited about this game is that the ancillary trappings finally seem to have swallowed the game itself. Ray Rice. Adrian Peterson. Deflated balls. The media on Marshawn Lynch not wanting to talk to the media. The NFL making like 1Ls on a torts exam trying to concoct some way to fine Lynch for his media day appearance. Head injuries and premature player deaths. Even the abysmal NFC South. To say quite possibly the least, this hasn’t been the most fun or intriguing NFL season.
As a result, ALDLAND’s Super Bowl XLIX preview will consist of the following:
Get excited.
The Super Bowl starts at 6:30 pm on Sunday.
ALDLAND 