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 Issue III - December, 1993                                by D.P. McIntire 
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS.                                                         
 (1) Back-Checking:  Memphis miffed by comments.                            
 (2) Bernie & Belichick:  The Cleveland Brown Bruhaha.                      
 (3) Yawn.... Basketball season has started.                                
 (4) College Bowl Games:  Commentary.                                       
 (5) The NFL:  We now know who, but the question is:  Where?                
 (6) Kind of a short issue, huh?                                            
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ͻ
 BACK-CHECKING:  MEMPHIS MIFFED BY COMMENTS.                                
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Last month in SportsBeat, I did a tounge-in-cheek look at the group trying to
garner an NFL expansion franchise for the city of Memphis in 1995.  In the
article, I mentioned the team's would-be name, "Hound Dogs", fourteen times.
I have heard from the people of Memphis on this, and they are miffed.

Apparently my commentary on the subject has the people of Memphis barking up
a tree.  I received five letters and two E-mail comments on SportsBeat's
home BBS (AmeriBoard (tm) of Indiana, Pennsylvania), complaining to me that
my comments could jeopardize the Memphis expansion bid, and that I shouldn't
have used "Hound Dogs" so frequently.

Me?  Hurt the Memphis NFL expansion bid with my puny little electronic rag? 
I don't think so, folks.  Paul Tagliabue, Neil Austrian, Art Modell, Jerry
Jones and Company don't sit around the big table saying, "Well, D.P. McIntire
thinks Memphis shouldn't get a franchise, so..."  It just doesn't happen.  If
it did, they'd have added four teams instead of two as I suggested last month.

I wish the city of Memphis the best of luck in acquiring an expansion team.
Odds are they won't get it, but nonetheless I would like to see the NFL put a
team in Memphis.  If Memphis doesn't get it this time, maybe later on in the
decade, or perhaps the next.

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 BERNIE & BELICHICK:  THE CLEVELAND BROWN BRUHAHA.                          
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Being an avid fan of the Cleveland Browns, I was somewhat surprised by the
team's decision to cut loose favorite native son and hero Bernie Kosar, their
starting quarterback for the past several years and a native of the area.

The team has been in a tailspin ever since, flagging its way through the rest
of the regular season.  The Browns with Bernie were flashing and slashing
their way to the playoffs.  Without Kosar, the Browns are bumbling and 
stumbling towards obscurity.  I wasn't bitter about the Kosar move, in fact I
thought he should go elsewhere - Bernie's style and injury habits are chaotic
at best, and the Browns offensive line has been weak his entire career there.
I think that the team he wound up with (Dallas, for those living in a cave)
will utilize his skills well, and he'll make a killing in free agency when the
1993-94 season comes to a close.

Bill Belichick, the Browns latest comeback guru (the first was quarterback
Brian Sipe of "Cardiac Kids" fame, the second was Marty Schottenheimer, who'd
still be the Browns HC had Modell not been such an idiot) decided that Bernie
didn't fit into the Browns mold anymore, so he cut him loose.  

Vinny Testaverde, the so-called "back-up" to Kosar, will in all likelihood
take the starting reigns upon his return from injury.  Testaverde is a decent
quarterback, and he'll in time make the Brown management proud.  Maybe even
lead them to the brass ring (read "Super Bowl" in the NFL).  But the Browns
timing was way off on the move.

I'm sorry, but cutting loose a player of Kosar's capabilities when his
successor is injured just doesn't seem like a smart move to me.  Testaverde,
hampered now for the better part of the season, couldn't immediately take the
reigns and be the "take charge" guy.  This position they've temporarily put
in the hands of Todd Philcox, who so far has only proved why he's a back-up
quarterback in Cleveland, rather than a starter in say, Phoenix.

Note to Art Modell, Bill Belichick, et al.:  next time you wish to dump your
starting quarterback, make damned sure that his replacement isn't injured.
The fans won't throw as many dog biscuits at you.

ͻ
 YAWN.... BASKETBALL SEASON HAS STARTED.                                    
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The NBA's 1993-94 season is underway.  Have you noticed?  Yeah.  I'm sure it's
started.  I'm looking at the USA Today and they've already played 1/7th of the
season!  Wow!  I missed it!

So far the NBA isn't getting much attention for two reasons:  (1) No Michael
Jordan to deify or kick around, depending on whose reporting on him, and (2)
Other sports are picking up the coverage.  Football is gearing up now as the
snow starts to fall, and hockey has boomed the past few years, so basketball
suffers in terms of promotion and media coverage as a result.

The NBA's top teams as of this writing (New York, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte,
Houston, Utah, Seattle and Phoenix are the top two in each division) combined
don't have the media clout of one Michael Jeffrey Jordan.  Patrick Ewing?  A
New York figure, nationally known, but not necessarily nationally loved.
Dominique Wilkins?  Who?  Haven't heard of him in years now.  Alonzo Mourning?
Charlotte may be crazy about basketball, but basketball isn't quite crazy
about Charlotte yet.  Can anyone name more than three Boston Celtics anymore?
The Houston Rockets are unbeaten (as of 26 November), but have no true marquee
players.  Same with Seattle.  Utah has Karl Malone, who is an outstanding
player and could be Jordan's successor in terms of marketing (he won't be),
but the Jazz as a team would give Madison Avenue the blues.  Phoenix has one
true star, "Sir" Charles Barkley, but even as he is becoming the NBA's next
great superstar, its next larger-than-life figure, he's talking retirement.

And as the league becomes a larger and larger monolith, player's salaries are
skyrocketing as they did in Baseball these past 17 or so years - and that can
lead only to trouble.  Kevin Johnson, an $ 84 million contract over 10 years?
$ 8.4 million a year average doesn't upset too many these days, but everyone
in the media seems to be mentioning the $ 84 million, and not mentioning the
10 years.  I'm not condoning it, but I thought it was worth mentioning.  This
just adds to the fans dislike for professional sports, and it will - count on
it - hurt the NBA in the long run.

So, whip out your remote control and watch the NBA games on NBC (where they'll
be until at least 1997).  Don't forget your Gatorade...

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 COLLEGE BOWL GAMES - COMMENTARY.                                           
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Bowl games are the only college football I watch on television.  I just can't
get into a college football game simply because there are literally hundreds
of different colleges or universities one can root for.  I can't see myself
rooting for Notre Dame one week, Ohio State the next, and Florida the next.

Bowl games interest me simply because there are just so damned many of them.
There are 18 college bowl games:  Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Fiesta, Peach,
Holiday, Gator, Independence, Aloha, Copper, John Hancock, Freedom, Liberty,
Hall of Fame, Citrus, Silver, and Sunshine.  There is also to be another new
one, the Alamo Bowl, to be played at the new AlamoDome in San Antonio (and
probably no doubt sponsored by Alamo Car Rental).  38 different teams trying
to beat one another in an all-important bowl game.

Corporate sponsorship of bowl games doesn't bother me that much anymore.  I
used to cringe when I saw something like the "Sunkist Fiesta Bowl".  The Sun
Bowl became the John Hancock Bowl, and I shrieked.  But now it's become 
commonplace, and we're so jaded by it all to the point where we don't care.
Most football fans still don't refer to the Orange Bowl as the "Federal 
Express" Orange Bowl, so I suppose it's all right.

I don't blame the colleges involved, the NCAA, or the bowl committees, after
all they have to self-perpetuate, and they can't without the type of money
that corporate sponsorships provide.  But the number of bowl games astounds
me.  Eighteen.  What's worse is that three more, the Bluebonnet Bowl, the
Cherry Bowl, and the All-American Bowl, ceased to exist in the past fifteen
or so years.  Add to that the old Garden State Bowl and you've got almost as
many bowl games as you do teams in most pro sports leagues.

Here's the breakdown on the sponsorship history of college's Bowl Games:
ROSE BOWL:
     Hasn't ever been sponsored, and probably never will be.
ORANGE BOWL:
     Sponsored by Federal Express since 1990.
SUGAR BOWL:
     Sponsored by USF&G Financial Services since 1987.
COTTON BOWL:
     Sponsored by Mobil since 1989.
FIESTA BOWL:
     Sponsored by Sunkist from 1986-1991.  Went without a sponsor in 1992,
     but got a new sponsor in "IBM OS/2" in '93.
GATOR BOWL:
     Sponsored by Mazda Motors from 1986-1991.  Sponsor changed to Outback
     Steak House the following year.
LIBERTY BOWL:
     Previously unsponsored; will be known as the "St. Jude's Hospital 
     Liberty Bowl" starting this year.  I used to donate to St. Jude's - now
     I see where my money's going.
PEACH BOWL:
     Has so far retained its integrity and been without a sponsor.  I'm kind
     of surprised on this one.  Coca-Cola would have an inside track I would 
     believe.
FLORIDA CITRUS BOWL:
     This game is so bad off that it requires TWO sponsors.  The Tangerine
     Bowl changed to the Florida Citrus Bowl in 1983 after being sponsored
     by the Florida Department of Citrus, and starting in 1993 is being
     sponsored as well by CompUSA.
INDEPENDENCE BOWL:
     Sponsored by Poulan and has been known as the Poulan/Weed Eater
     Independence Bowl since 1990.
HOLIDAY BOWL:
     Sponsored by Sea World from 1986 to 1990.  Got new sponsorship money in
     1991 from Thrifty Car Rental.
LAS VEGAS BOWL:
     Has emerged unscathed from corporate sponsorship since moving to Las
     Vegas from Fresno.  But in Fresno, the California Bowl was known from 
     1989 to 1991 as the California Raisin Bowl.  No wonder the game was
     moved to Nevada.
ALOHA BOWL:
     Sponsored by Chrysler's Jeep/Eagle division since 1987.
FREEDOM BOWL:
     Has been referred to as the Anaheim Freedom Bowl, but apparently has
     never been sponsored.
HALL OF FAME BOWL:
     This bowl has never been sponsored, probably because no one would dare
     throw their money down this big a well.
COPPER BOWL:
     Sponsored by Domino's Pizza in 1990 and 1991, the game now has a new
     sponsor in the Weiser Company (since 1992), and is affectionately known
     as the Weiser Lock Copper Bowl.  How nice.
SUNSHINE BOWL:
     Sponsored since Day One.  This game was originally known as the
     Blockbuster Bowl, from 1990-1993.  Blockbuster dropped sponsorship after
     the 1993 game.  Plans were to have the game unsponsored, but along came
     CarQuest rentals and voila!  The CarQuest Bowl.  Or the CarQuest Sunshine
     Bowl... or the Blockbuster CarQuest Sunshine Bowl... oh well.

and let us not forget the granddaddy of them all...

JOHN HANCOCK BOWL:
     In 1986 the Sun Bowl became the first collegiate bowl game to take on a
     corporate sponsor in John Hancock Financial Services.  After two years
     of being known as the John Hancock Sun Bowl, the bowl committee allowed
     itself to be railroaded into dropping its name, the Sun Bowl, after 52
     years.  The John Hancock Bowl has been the result since 1989.  Hooray!

The NCAA gets revenue from bowl games, which is fine.  I say more bowl games!
More revenue for the NCAA!  Let's see if we can come up with some interesting
possibilities:

-  A bowl game to be held in Rich Stadium near Buffalo, played between the #6
team of the Big 10 (or 11, depending on your concern for being accurate) and 
the #5 team from the Big Eight conferences, called the "Toro Snow Bowl."  
Catchy, huh?  ESPN or TNT would give millions for that one.  If the #6 team
in the Big Ten or the #5 team from the Big Eight aren't available due to being
in other bowl games (which today is more likely than you think), then make
it a fun encounter between teams like Texas A&M and Arizona State - two teams
who are totally unaccustomed to playing in cold weather and snow.

-  A bowl game to be held in Guam, called the Dole Pineapple Bowl.  Doesn't
matter what two teams play against one another, but Dole could supply to the
winning team a year's supply of, what else?  Pineapples!

-  A bowl game to be played in Boston, called the Red Lobster Pot (can't call 
it the Lobster Bowl now, can we?)  We could have a field day with this one.  
Get two college teams with crustaceans in their names, like "the Fighting 
Crabs" or the "Mighty Squids", ehr, excuse me.  "Mighty Calomari."

-  A bowl game to be played in Nome Alaska, called the Klondike Frostbite Bowl.
You could have two Ivy league schools play in this one, like Yale and Columbia,
just so Alaskans could show these soon to be millionaires what life is like in
the Great White North.  Sell Klondike Ice Cream Bars for 20 cents a piece to
try and hook the natives!

-  Finally, a bowl game to be played in my adopted hometown, Indiana 
Pennsylvania, called the Eljer Toilet Bowl.  I don't know, seems appropriate
to me.  Have some college from Flushing New York (where else?) come down here
and play someone else every year.  Has little TV potential, but it would be a
big boost to our local economic picture.

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 THE NFL:  WE NOW KNOW WHO, BUT THE QUESTION IS:  WHERE?                    
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The third issue of SportsBeat was literally minutes from being placed "on the
lines" as it were when I learned of the NFL's vote to expand to Jacksonville,
Florida for 1995.  The Jacksonville Jaguars will join the Carolina Panthers,
who were selected earlier to join the NFL's glee club starting with the '95
season.  Although I'm kind of surprised by the move on the NFL's part, I have
a question:  where are these two going to fit in the divisional alignments?

I brought this topic up in the first SportsBeat issue two months ago:  the 
NFL sorely needs to reorganize itself, and fast.  Carolina could have maybe
squeezed into the AFC Central without anyone noticing, but Jacksonville?  In
an NFC West maybe?  No chance.  Time has come to set it all straight, once
and for all... well, at least until someone pulls a Bob Irsay and moves his
club without the NFL's okay.

There are other questions as well:  what about Baltimore and St.Louis?  Will
they get franchises due to relocation?  If so, where would these relocated
teams fit in the picture?  Well, I don't have an answer for that, but I do
have a couple possible solutions for realignment, IF the thirty teams now in
the NFL stay where they are.  My solution:  (a) six divisions of five teams
each (which is undoubtedly what the NFL plans as well), or (b) two divisions
of eight teams, and two others of seven.  How each would work:

SIX DIVISION FORMAT
-------------------
Keep the divisions as they now are:  Eastern, Central and Western in both 
the AFC and NFC.  

JACKSONVILLE IN AFC, CAROLINA IN NFC:
Put Jacksonville in the AFC East, where a natural rivalry is born between
Dolphins and Jaguars fans.  Move the Indianapolis Colts to the AFC Central,
where they should have been since 1984.  In the NFC, do a full re-shuffling:
take Dallas and Phoenix out of the NFC East and put them in the West where 
they belong.  Move Atlanta to the NFC East, and put the Carolina Panthers in
the NFC Central.

CAROLINA IN AFC, JACKSONVILLE IN NFC:
Put Carolina in the AFC East, primarily to lessen travel burdens on other
AFC East teams.  Move Indianapolis to the AFC Central.  In the NFC, again,
take Dallas and Phoenix and put them in the NFC West, move Tampa over to
the Central, and place Jacksonville in the East.  Move Atlanta over to the
Central Division.

Eastern Division...............Central Division............Western Division
Buffalo Bills..................Cleveland Browns..........San Diego Chargers
Miami Dolphins.................Cincinnati Bengals.......Los Angeles Raiders
New York Jets..................Houston Oilers................Denver Broncos
New England Patriots...........Pittsburgh Steelers.........Seattle Seahawks
Jacksonville/Carolina..........Indianapolis Colts........Kansas City Chiefs

Eastern Division...............Central Division............Western Division
New York Giants................Chicago Bears...............Los Angeles Rams
Washington Redskins............Detroit Lions...........San Francisco 49'ers
Philadelphia Eagles............Minnesota Vikings..........Phoenix Cardinals
Tampa Buccaneers...............Green Bay Packers.............Dallas Cowboys
Atlanta/Jacksonville...........Carolina/Atlanta..........New Orleans Saints


FOUR DIVISION FORMAT
--------------------
Get rid of the AFC-NFC garbage and do divisional alignment based purely on
geography.  Have Eastern, Southern, Central and Western divisions.  No AFC,
No NFC.  Something like this:

Eastern.............Southern.............Central.............Western
Buffalo.............Miami................Cleveland...........San Francisco
New York Jets.......Jacksonville.........Cincinnati..........San Diego
New England.........Tampa................Chicago.............L.A. Rams
New York Giants.....Atlanta..............Detroit.............L.A. Raiders
Philadelphia........New Orleans..........Minnesota...........Phoenix
Pittsburgh..........Houston..............Green Bay...........Seattle
Washington..........Dallas...............Dallas..............Denver
                    Carolina.............Kansas City

Do the regular season as it is now:  two games against each team in that
division (12 games for Eastern and Western clubs, 14 for Southern and
Central), then play four (or two, depending on division) against teams chosen
by the league schedule maker, either at random, or based on past rivalries or
even by potential television ratings (which is what the NFL folks are geared
toward, even though they picked Jacksonville as the 30th club).

For playoffs, keep the number of teams at 12.  Give the top three teams in
each division playoff berths.  Give each division champion a bye in the first
week of the playoffs (the NFL knows the meaning of the "bye" week well).
Have the 2nd and 3rd place teams in each division duke it out in divisional
playoffs, with the winners going against the regular season division champs
in a divisional championship game.

When you get to the final four, seed them #1, #2, #3 and #4 based on the
NFL's tiebreaking format.  #1 plays #4 while #2 and #3 square off in Semi
Finals.  The winners go to the Super Bowl, and perhaps, just maybe, the NFL
would actually have the best two teams in the entire league going to the
Super Bowl each year, instead of the current "NFC team whomps AFC team"
format.  Great games for NFC fans, lousy ratings and TV revenue for the NFL.

Drop a line to Paul Tagliabue, Neil Austrian, and all 28, ehr, whoops, excuse
me, 30 NFL team owners, and let them know your suggestions for realignment.
YOU ARE THE FANS - they will listen if prodded enough.  Even they realize
that when it all boils down that without YOU, THE FAN, all the television
money in the world won't mean a hill of beans.  Because without people to
watch the games, be it in the stands or on the couch, they won't last long.

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 KIND OF A SHORT ISSUE, HUH?                                                
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Well, there's honestly not that much for me to report ("rag") on this month in
SportsBeat, so I think I'll quit while I'm ahead of the game.  Until next
month, keep your eyes on the ball, keep your head in the clouds, and keep your
hand on your wallet!

- end -