Rob Minto

Sport, data, ideas

Month: March 2017

Sport Geek #71: Raiders move, Wembley at 10, and Partridge F1

Let’s crack on, shall we?

RAIDERS ON THE MOVE

You might have heard that the Oakland Raiders are going to become the Las Vegas Raiders. This might seem strange after a great season with a great new quarterback (Derek Carr), but there’s a few reasons why. Number one, as ever: money. Forbes does the numbers. Here’s the four key things you need to know.

ALAN AND F1

I love this. The headline says it all: ​”A worryingly deep dive into Alan Partridge’s enduring love affair with Formula 1“.

WEMBLEY AT 10

Of course it’s not good value. Then again, the Raiders new stadium will be 20,000 fewer seats for $1.9bn…

FOOTBALL

José Mourinho thinks it’s getting harder to buy success. Is he right?

Syria: Football on the frontline. A great piece from the BBC.

How to save a penalty: the truth about football’s toughest shot.

GLOBAL!

Forget the NFL, the 39th game and all that – Rugby league’s Toronto Wolfpack are the first transatlantic sports team.

TENNIS

Australian bad boys – unlike Tomic, at least there’s hope for Kyrgios.

That will be all.

Sport Geek #70: some radical ideas

If this week has a theme, it’s some pretty outlandish ideas. Here we go…

Crazy idea #1) Should we relegate half the Premier League each season? It would certainly liven things up a bit. Mid-table mediocrity begone! Weirdly, as the Guardian points out, it’s a idea that’s been around for a while… (since 1926)

Crazy idea #2) Should we make hooliganism a sport? An idea that has come out of… Russia.

Good idea #1) Let’s simplify and speed up golf.

Good idea #2) Why not create an Olympic city to stop the financial ruin of hosting the Games? Or perhaps create a pool of 5-10 cities that rotate. Less waste!

Interesting point #1) Football managers have way less influence than you think. Ranieri wasn’t a genius, and nor should he have been sacked.

Interesting point #2) Sports writing (esp in the US) is a liberal profession. How did that happen?

Interesting point #3) Wimbledon’s football rebirth is, arguably, the greatest sports story (n)ever told.

Adios

Sport Geek #69: snakes, Trump and pop culture

FOOTBALL
Where have Leicester been all season? They’ve played badly, got rid of the manager, and then beat Liverpool 3-1. So are the players really snakes? Perhaps not. The Guardian’s Fiver email picks apart the narrative brilliantly .

RUGBY
What the hell was that? Italy have either betrayed the game, or been brilliantly clever. They still lost though.

POP CULTURE REFERENCES
He _____’d him: sometimes one basketball player does something to another that can only be described with an extremely specific pop culture reference. Such as these.

GOLF
Should golfers play with Trump? Most seem not to care too much about him being, you know, a fascist.

RICH
LeBron James is now ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo on Forbes SportsMoney Index.

NFL
Who to blame for the Patriots’ insufferable success?

CRICKET
T20 is playing the data game.

RUGBY LEAGUE
Forget the NFL or Premier League getting an overseas team – rugby League is way ahead of you there.

Ciao.

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