cabiness42

In Indiana, you are not allowed to pay any person or organization to run a charity poker event. It must all be volunteer. If they ever changed the law, I'd probably go into business to do it.

Sounds like a great time! I run charity poker tournaments for a local church down in my neck of the woods, so if you ever need any help with blind/payout structures I'd be glad to help, but it sounds like you have everything pretty well covered.

Top four teams from a conference have to go to different regions, so if Wisconsin gets a higher seed than Ohio State, they will avoid being in the same region as IU, MSU, or UM.

Rangers schedule nearly 100% of their May-August games at night. As for the Sox, I don't know how you avoid weather problems. You can't have all 81 home games during the last two weeks of May.

The BCS (or whatever they're going to call it) bowl bid is worth that much, but ND does not get access to that. ACC champ is still guaranteed that bid. ND is in the rotation with second place teams from the Big 10 and SEC to be the opponent in that game.

Big 10 is going to lose some of their games as a result of the deal, so it's really a +3-4 games for the ACC and not just +2. Also, the bowl bid is a bit less important now that there is a playoff.

ND has given the ACC five guaranteed games a year, which is something very tangible to the ACC schools. That means they get a guaranteed home-and-home series with ND a minimum of two out of every ten years, and the bigger names (FSU, Clem, GT, UNC) probably get them more often than that. Not doubting how big Texas is, but while Oklahoma is very good in football, they are not a ratings draw.

Again, you are comparing the ACC to the Big 10 and SEC. Nobody is disputing that those two conferences hold all the cards. What I'm saying is that the ACC has put themselves in a better position to compete with the Big 12 by getting Louisville and ND. Remember ND turned down a similar offer from the Big 12 before taking one from the ACC. The ACC has a lot of big markets in the Northease. The Big 12 has Texas and a bunch of states nobody cares about.

OK, well now I have an admin's permission to say all I want. That's a relief.

You can keep saying that all you want. Doesn't make it true.

I don't think the number of teams in the playoff is going to have an effect on the number of conferences. If you use 2012 as an example, there would have only been 2 conferences represented in the 4 team playoff. The SEC is going to get 2 teams in the playoff more years than not, so even if you condense down to four conferences there is still at least one left out.

1) Didn't know SO was banned when I made that post 2) There was a post to somebody else besides SO, who, to my knowledge, is not banned.

People bring up old stuff all the time. But oh, they weren't doing it to defend something that you don't like. I forgot that part.

I don't think keeping up with the Big10 and SEC is the ACC's goal. The other two are always going to be the strongest football conferences. The ACC is making sure they keep themselves as strong as they can, which is what they've done in getting Pitt, Syr, Lou, and ND. It's probably enough to keep FSU, Clemson and UNC in the conference.

Yep, it isn't all right to respond to people saying all kinds of nasty things about my alma mater, even though it's OK to say all those things in the first place. Got it.

I see, so it's OK to be anti-ND on this board but not pro-ND. Got it. Also, it's very nice of you to publicly discuss a suspension. First-class act right there.

U of L has a small stadium. 50k per game represents 91% capacity. Also, ticket sales are a pretty small chunk of football revenue. In any case, all three schools will probably see an increase in attendance now that they are replacing South Florida, Rutgers, and Cincinnati with FSU, Clemson, and BC on their schedules.

To add to what has already been said about PECOTA projections is that I think one reason PECOTA has historically underrated the Sox is that it has consistently underrated Mark Buehrle. PECOTA is based on the assumption that pitchers who had a BABIP that strayed far from the .300 average were either very lucky or unlucky to do so and were likely to revert to the mean in the future. They never adjusted for the reality that Mark actually had the skill to get a lot of outs without missing a lot of bats. Of course Mark is no longer with the Sox, but that's just an example of how PECOTA is flawed.

Sports leagues have learned that having a larger number of divisions containing smaller numbers of teams keeps more teams in the playoff hunt for a longer period of time which keeps late-season interest high in more cities. Being "fair" is not the primary concern of the leagues.

The ACC got a guarantee of 5 football games per year from ND--something the Big East never had. I also don't see how Pitt/Syracuse/Louisville are watering down the ACC. Louisville and Pitt are just as good if not better than anybody the ACC has in football now outside of FSU and Clemson. Plus Pitt & Syracuse help with the TV money by being a draw in the Northeast. It's not going to put them up there with the Big 10 or SEC, but it's going to help a lot.

If the Big10 wanted UNC, they should have gone after them a couple years ago, before the ACC landed Pitt, Syracuse, and ND and made the ACC a more attractive place to stay.

I've lost a lot of weight, so the panties are always bunched.

I'll let it go when I'm ready to let it go.

They needed an NL Central team to move to the AL West to balance out divisions. Geographically, Houston made the most sense. Of course, the real reason was probably more that MLB could force the move on a new ownership group and that the geographic fit was a nice coincidence. I guess you could have moved the Padres to the AL West and then the Astros to the NL West and that still could have worked.

What new rumors?