On Sunday night, twelve of the biggest teams in European soccer announced that they would be breaking away from the current Champions League and forming their own Super League. The new venture would operate exactly the same as the current setup but with one key difference: the founding members would automatically qualify every year. Instead of having to earn a spot through success in their domestic leagues, the biggest brands in soccer would now be guaranteed a seat at the $6 billion table. Two days later, it looks like the league is already dead. Continue reading
Category: Blogs
Failure to Monitor: Tark the Shark
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor. When we left off last time, the NCAA national office had established absolute control over the member schools. They gained the power to shut down entire programs if they saw fit. For the next few decades, they retained this power unchallenged. They punished schools for cheating, and the schools accepted it blindly. The 1970s, however, were a different story. Continue reading
Sigma Oasis Is Modern Phish at Its Finest
A little over a year ago, Phish released their fifteenth studio album Sigma Oasis through a YouTube live stream. At the time, everyone assumed it was going to be an April fool’s joke, but it ended up being a much-needed gift at the beginning of the pandemic. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: Bluegrass Bluff
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor, the series about the NCAA and how they’ve been shaped by scandal. Last week, we took a look at the origins of the NCAA, and how the modern organization functions. We saw that it was born out of necessity and that their authority comes from the precedents they set. Today, I’m going to tell you about the first chance they got to set a major precedent. While the first few years of the NCAA’s existence were relatively quiet, the scandals came in fast and hard in the 1950s. And although they doled out punishments to multiple schools, one in particular set the tone for the future: the University of Kentucky. Continue reading
2021 NFL Mock Draft
I know I’ve said before that I’m not a big NFL fan, but I absolutely love the draft. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: The Founding
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor, a series about the NCAA, and how its sordid past shaped what it is today. Before we can talk about its past, we obviously have to talk about what the organization is, and how it started. Because with the NCAA, the scandals go back to day one. So join me, as I give you a brief overview of how the NCAA works, and how it started on its path towards domination. Continue reading
Introducing a New Series: Failure to Monitor
So, one of my assignments for my audio production class is to create a podcast series, with an emphasis on the production and mixing involved. I of course chose to talk about college sports and the NCAA, so I’ve gone all-in on it. But it’s an intro class, meaning the mixing is definitely not professional quality. So, in the interest of protecting your ears, I decided to adapt it into a blog series as well. For the next 10 weeks, I’ll be posting my new series: Failure to Monitor. Continue reading
Joker is a Modern Day Rorschach Test
In the age of the MCU and summer blockbusters, it’s become incredibly rare that someone makes a truly controversial movie. Not a movie that divides fans and critics a la every DCEU movie, but one that people think poses a genuine threat to society. A few years ago, we finally got one in the form of Joker. Continue reading
The NBA’s Treadmill of Mediocrity is Getting Crowded
If you asked any casual fan what topic has defined the NBA over the past few years you’d probably get one of two answers: super-teams and tanking. Teams are either stockpiling superstars like they’re toilet paper at the start of quarantine, or they’re hoping nobody will notice that they’ve been playing Shelvin Mack 23 minutes a game. This race to the top/bottom means that the true losers are the teams stuck in the middle. And thus, the “treadmill of mediocrity” was born. Continue reading
Why College Football’s Parity Problem Isn’t a Problem At All
If you’ve paid any attention to college football the last few years, you’ve probably heard one major complaint. “The same three teams win it every year, so what’s the point of even playing?” College football is built on chaos, but chaos only comes from parity. And the claim that the dominance of a handful of teams is bad for the sport isn’t exclusive to football. The Warriors heard the same gripe while they built their dynasty. On its surface, this looks like a sound argument. If casual fans feel like they know who will win then there won’t be any suspense, so they won’t watch. However, hard evidence exists that proves this theory wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the English Premier League. Continue reading
