NFL 2012 Preview

by Dugald Skene

It may be one of the shortest sports seasons around, but what the NFL lacks in longevity, it more than makes up for in competitiveness.

And so here we are again, on the cusp of another 5 month whirlwind that sees the New York Giants stepping out against the Dallas Cowboys tonight to defend their Superbowl champion status.



Eli Manning and the New York Giants Superbowl XLVI

But who will win their divisions, conferences and the big one, the Superbowl?

It's The Little Things That Count

by Dugald Skene

£9 billion, £10 billion, £11 billion. Whatever the final cost of the Olympic Games in London, it's hard to get your head around what that actually gets you.

On the face of it, it's a huge sum of money and many will associate it directly with the finished products like the velodrome, the stadium and the aquatic centre. 

What's less understood perhaps is the level of investment in the things you don't see, such as the cleaning of the river Lee, the demolition of the existing structures on the site or the decontamination of millions of tonnes of earth for the vast swathes of new natural landscaping.

Permanent or temporary, the effects of London 2012

will be felt for a long time to come

These grand visual gestures are one thing, but it was the smallest attention to every detail that surprised me when watching each of the sports on offer during the 16 days.

It's clear that the games organisers brought specialists from each participating sport to set out the requirements for that event, it's venue and it's participants.  What's great about that is that it meant every sport had a unique feel and a different approach to how it was run.

Take the beach volleyball. Enjoyed by many and a real hit of the Games for more obvious reasons than others, the venue at Horseguards Parade had a real carnival atmosphere. Dancers would invade the sand at time outs and between sets, while the crowd would join spontaneous conga lines and dance around the tiers. There was a real, if slightly stereotyped feel of Copacabana beach in the heart of London, synonymous with the sport and contributing to it's overall success.

This level of detail was also laid on for those of us watching events through the tube.  In the basketball, the logo 'Inspire A Generation' was written on the inside of the hoops, seen only by the small camera located behind the backboard and those watching the pictures they provided.  It's the kind of thing you may not normally think of, but those more accustomed to the professional game would advise on as it's a popular place for commercial slogans or adverts as some who watch the NBA regularly would recognise.

Whatever the final sum of the games, it's far better to think it as the summation of hundreds of thousands of smaller things, from beach volleyball dancers & DJ's to basketball hoops.  Of course, some things have bigger impacts than others and many will be taken away now the Games have concluded, but the effect that this level of organisation and expense has had is both literal in it's impact on East London and figurative as we fondly remember the little things that combined to make a truly impressive Olympic Games. 

The more I think about it, the more value it appears to have been. I just hope the effect of this intense focus of expenditure and organisation is far further reaching and a lot longer lasting.

Bolt vs Rudisha - Could It Actually Happen?

by Dugald Skene

Two of the brightest stars to come out of the athletics at London 2012 were global superstar Usain Bolt and lesser known but equally impressive Kenyan David Rudisha.

With his Olympic record time of 9.629 seconds in the 100m, Bolt is now the owner of the three quickest times ever recorded over the distance.  When you consider it's not his favoured event and his relatively slow starting for a bigger man, it boggles the mind.

Usain Bolt claiming gold in London

In equal measure, David Rudisha produced the only individual world record on the track in London, breaking his own world record for the second time in the 800m in a time of 1:40.91.  Like Bolt, this makes him the owner of the three fastest times ever recorded over the distance.

David Rudisha with the gold to go with his world record

In the hysteria surrounding each man's achievement s and those happening elsewhere over the week of track and field in London, it seemed inevitable when people started to pit the two against each other in a hypothetical 400m race.

But could it actually ever happen?

Bolt has muttered in the past that he would be interested in taking on the 400m, explaining that he runs the distance regularly in training to build up speed endurance for the shorter sprints.  Bolt clearly has raw speed over the shorter distances, but Rudisha already has the stamina for the distance.

I would stick my neck out and suggest that if they were to race each other tomorrow, Rudisha would win hands down.  In achieving his latest world record in the 800m, he clocked a first lap time of 49.2 seconds, perhaps around 5 seconds off world class and a full 6 seconds off Michael Johnson's 1999 world record.  I'm pretty sure that if he knew his race finished at that point, he could go at least 2 or 3 seconds faster.

The other big question over Bolt is his motivation.  He is a self proclaimed 'bad trainer' and doesn't enjoy the day in-day out drag on the training track of being the fastest man on the planet.  It's therefore hard to imagine him being enthusiastic about training for an event which requires a relative huge amount of additional stamina over the distances he currently runs.  He may have the raw speed from the start but Rudisha would pull him in by the end.

The physical match up is one thing, the incentive to take on such a race is quite another.  There would no doubt be huge public interest and commercial benefits for both athletes, but I can't see it ever happening.

Firstly, both men are bred to be the best, the fastest, the strongest.  Any contest between the two over 400m would be a compromise and would be unlikely to produce a world beating time.  Having said that, if both men were to train specifically for the 400m, say in time for the next Olympic cycle, who knows what time they could run.

The way I see it, both men compete over the distances they do because they are the distances they are strongest over.  If they wanted to race the 400m, they would, but they don't.

Fantasising over these sorts of sporting match ups is fun but fanciful.  It's like asking who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark -  I don't think we'd ever know.

How Big Is The Optimum Sports Stadium?

by Dugald Skene

This week, the Japan Sport Council officially launched its design competition for a new national stadium.  The stadium is to form the backbone of Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games and would be due to be complete in 2018.

What is interesting to me is that the brief calls for a capacity of 80,000 seats.  In the most populated city on the planet, it seems that Tokyo could fill a stadium 3 times this size, so what are the factors at play that makes the ambition for this new stadium so modest?

Gone are the days it seems of the ‘mega’ stadium, the 200,000+ seat leviathans typically built in the Americas and Eastern Europe during the middle of the 20th century.  Indeed, it is rare to see any new stadium being built over the 90,000 seat barrier, with Wembley stadium in London and the 'Bird’s Nest' Olympic stadium in Beijing typifying the seemingly acceptable limits of size.

The Strahov Stadium in Prague could seat around 240,000 people

As with most things in the 21^st century, it seems a lot of this comes down to two things; safety and economics.

Many stadiums are limited by factors immediately around them, most notably transport infrastructure.  You can build a stadium as big as you like, but if you can’t get people there to fill it within an acceptable timeframe, there’s no point.  People arrive at stadiums over a much larger time period than when they leave. The exodus of 80,000 or 90,000 people from one place at one time often overwhelms the local area, it’s people and it’s transport system. 

There are also the inherent safety risks associated with large movements of people.  If badly organised or if panic ensues, it’s very easy to see crowds running over each other.  There is plenty of precedent highlighting the dangers of mass movement of humans.

So what of the economics?  This varies from stadium to stadium, depending on the sport and the team, the supply and the demand.  We have seen in the UK many top football clubs upgrade their stadia or move into new purpose built arenas, most notably Arsenal in London recently.  Local rivals Tottenham are also in the throes of building their new home (should their bid for the Olympic stadium fail).

London's Olympic Stadium seats around 80,000

The legitimacy of going through that process depends entirely on the amount of cash coming in week in, week out to these clubs.  For the English Premier League, there are 19 home games across the duration of the season, plus any cup fixtures.  Often, this isn’t enough, and clubs are increasingly looking to supplement their income by hosting music events.

In the NFL, the richest sports league in the world, stadium capacities are kept relatively low, around the 65,000 mark, because each franchise is only guaranteed 8 home fixtures each season.  These stadiums are seldom used for anything other than NFL fixtures, so typically for 357 days of the year, they sit redundant, essentially losing money.

It’s a similar story for national stadiums.  Used only a handful of times each year and rarely sold out, national sporting organisations need to find other ways to generate income.  Take Scotland’s home of rugby, Murrayfield.

At a capacity of 67,500, it is by far and away the largest stadium in Scotland by some 7,000 seats and yet is only guaranteed to host 5 Scotland games, in a sport that is generally considered to come a distant second in popularity to football.  The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) have long struggled to justify the size of its home.

Murrayfield; the home of Scottish Rugby

The ongoing drama regarding the London’s newest stadium’s life after the Olympics is just the latest of many.  With multiple parties expressing interest in the structure, most notably from football teams and even a bid to include an F1 track in and around the Olympic Park, it seems that any new stadium requires to have the flexibility to adapt.

The Populous designed Olympic stadium has that flexibility built in, with the ability to downsize significantly from its 80,000 seat capacity.  But don’t expect that to happen soon as the intention is to retain it in its current form at least until the World Athletic Championships have been hosted in 2017.

Sydney seem to have got the balance right with their Olympic Stadium, now called the ANZ Stadium, built for the 2000 Olympics.  Built with a temporary capacity of 110,000, it was soon reduced to a more manageable 82,500.  More crucially, it is constantly used and it has the ability to host a number of sports with varying pitch requirements including rugby union, rugby league, Aussie rules football and cricket.  It of course helps that the city is sports daft and although the stadium rarely sells out, the sheer number of fixtures it can host keeps it very much afloat.

The ANZ Stadium in Sydney

It begs the question in the UK as to whether we really require a separate stadium for each sport?  In Australia, each major city is very much isolated from the next, but have very centralised fan bases.  This means each city only really needs one principal stadium, whether it be the ANZ in Sydney, or the MCG in Melbourne.

In London, to supplement the multiple premier league stadiums which vary from 25,000 to 60,000 seats, there is also Twickenham, Wembley and now the Olympic Stadium, totalling around 250,000 seats between the 3!

This is admittedly a hangover from the past, but as Tokyo seeks to build a new national icon, thoughts for designers must surely be to provide a facility that can provide for every sport.  For the largest stadia in the world, the overwhelming emphasis is to be financially self-sustainable.  The best way to achieve that is to consolidate as many sports as possible, increase the usage and maximise revenue. 

Let’s wait and see what the competition throws up.

What is your favourite stadium, and why? Leave your thoughts below.

Dundee Invited Back To SPL

by Dugald Skene

Is the dust finally starting to settle on the Newco debacle at the club formerly known as Rangers?

Let’s not hold our breaths.

Firstly, the Scottish Football League’s vote to condemn the Newco to the Scottish third division is NOT a punishment for the new club, it is merely due process.  Any other outcome would have been a gross injustice to other teams who have fallen to the same fate, no matter how small they are in comparison to the Glasgow club.

Secondly, the SPL have yet to reveal their findings and resultant penalties (if any) on the EBT system employed at Rangers for the best part of a decade.  I’m not going to go into the system, not least because I don’t have the firmest grip on it, but to me, any club that pays 53 of its employees from a fund adopting ludicrous tax loop holes is at a fundamental level terrible business, and should be punished as such.  What those sanctions are, we will surely find out soon enough. 

That’s my two pennies worth.

So why start blogging now about an issue that has gone on for months?  Well, it’s not all about Rangers or their new identity.  Their demise has also affected a number of other Scottish clubs, both now and will no doubt continue to in ways we may not be fully aware of yet.

It was announced yesterday that Dundee Football Club have been invited to be the ones filling the void from the departed Rangers, fulfilling the role of ‘Club 12’ in the 2012/13 fixture list.  Simple, right? Not quite, not least because of the way it affects that fixture list.  With the way it has currently been set out, Dundee would be playing at home at the same time as city rivals Dundee United on 9 occasions, meaning the SPL will have to re-jig a number of the fixtures causing as few ripple effects to the timetable as possible.

Dens Park is set to host SPL fixtures again next season

I don’t disagree with the decision to admit Dundee to the league.  Their efforts on the pitch in the first division both last term and the season before, having suffered a 20 point deficit for entering administration for the second time, are testament to a real resolve at a club that has had to survive with the scarcest of resources.  Their reward of being admitted to the SPL is well deserved, in a purely footballing sense.

How much they and the rest of the SPL clubs profit in the coming season depends greatly on the TV deal that the SPL strikes with Sky and ESPN. With arguably their ‘stand out’ fixture of Celtic taking on their Glasgow neighbours (whichever guise you take them as) not on the cards for at least another 3 years (by which time the fixture may not be the rivalry many assume), many predict a huge cut in the TV money coming into the league.  SPL Chief Executive Neil Doncaster has remained tight lipped about any deal, but has implied that it will be a case of damage limitation.  Both Sky and ESPN were due to sign a £80 million five year deal, but still have a £13 million annual contract to run for the coming season which may or may not be renegotiated.

So there are still a huge number of things to come out yet about the state of the league, the numbers of clubs and fixtures within it and the money coming in.  What’s almost certain is that Dundee are coming into a league that won’t have nearly as much money as it has the last time they enjoyed premier league football.

Saints Agree Record Breaking Deal With Brees

by Dugald Skene

Yet another sign of the burgeoning financial might of the NFL came to light last Friday as it was revealed by the New Orleans Saints they have finally met starting quarterback Drew Brees' wage demands, settling on a five year deal worth an average of $20 million a year.

This new deal represents the highest average wage payments to any player in the history of the game, beating the Indianapolis Colts who paid former star quarterback Peyton Manning an average $19 million a year.

Drew Brees has signed a record deal with the New Orleans Saints

The Saints have likely had to reorganise their finances to accommodate Brees' new wage agreement in order to keep to the $120.6 million salary cap. It means that one player will command 1/6 of the total available funds available for team wages. Of the $100 million, 5 year deal, $60 million is guaranteed, with $40 million of that due to Brees in the first year of the contract. This is an unprecedented payment to any player, and has shocked many in the game. The reason the Saints can do this is that they are allowed to spread the signing on fee of $40 million over multiple years, meaning that it'll likely only cost them around $10 million a year.

Brees, who broke the all time league record for passing yards last season, is by far and away the Saints MVP, with the franchise revolving around him. With all the scandal surrounding the Saints in the past few months with 'bountygate' and the subsequent suspensions, most notably of head coach Sean Payton, the talismanic Brees has become more and more the club's figurehead and face of the franchise.

In short, Brees could name his price and has waited more months than many feel was necessary for the Saints to agree his sum. Many fans have turned against Brees for his belligerence during the negotiations and some of his comments aimed at the organistation, but more have criticised the Saints for not settling sooner, particularly given the negative headlines of late. I don't think anyone can grudge Brees the deal, he has helped make the franchise the perennial Superbowl competitors they are and deserves to be rewarded.

Now that terms have finally been settled, attention for Saints fans now turns to pre season as the players head to camp for July 24th.  They will all be hoping that the Saints ship has now been stabilised and the team can look forward to another push for the playoffs in 2012.

Murray Misses Out As Federer Claims Seventh Title

by Dugald Skene

Andy Murray yesterday failed to claim his first Grand Slam win at Wimbledon, but gained many more fans as his first set assault on Roger Federer and his emotional speech at the match conclusion won him both respect and admiration in equal measure.

There is a lot that can be taken from this defeat, not least that he made the final at all, the first time for a Briton in 74 years and that he managed to claim a set for the first time in his 4 grand slam finals.  As he said himself after the match, “I’m getting closer”.

But it was Roger Federer who fulfilled what most people saw as the inevitable outcome, claiming his record equalling 7^th Wimbledon crown, and first since 2009, and 17^th overall grand slam singles title, extending his all time record.

Murray loses to Federer in Wimbledon Final

The match itself was a tense affair.  Andy Murray declared his intent immediately by breaking Federer in the first game and consolidating it with a confident first service game.  Roger seemed all at sea at times, racking up as many unforced errors in the first set alone that we would expect in an entire match.

Despite being broken back, Murray claimed the final game by once again taking Federer’s serve and claiming the first set 6-4.  It was hard fought, particularly on Murray’s service game where he spent an average of over 6 minutes serving to his opponent, saving multiple break points in the process.

First blood to Murray.

The second always looked to be leaning towards Murray as both players held serve for the first 11 games with Murray in particular settling into his game well, spending less time on his service game and taking Federer to deuce and facing break points far more regularly.  But in a cruel twist, Murray was broken in the 12^th game, with two sublime points from the Swiss that saw him claim the second set.  Not undeserved, but certainly against the run of play.

Play hadn’t made it to the end of the 3^rd game of the 3^rd set when the heavens opened and play was suspended, forcing the players out for 45 minutes as the roof was closed and the court reset.  Had the rain started to fall half an hour earlier, it would have been considered harsh on Murray who certainly held the momentum in the match, but following the disappointment of the second set, it may have been a blessing.

Upon their return, there was certainly a change in the match.  Federer, who could perhaps have considered himself fortunate to be level in sets, had clearly used the break well and came out all guns blazing, playing shots that deserve to be put in storage and on display for all time.  His sublime single handed backhand was graceful, and deceptively powerful at times, sending Murray slipping and sliding all over the court, landing heavily at one point and clutching his hamstring at another.  If Murray had Federer doing all the running in the first two sets, it was Murray covering the yards in the third and into the fourth.

Federer went on to claim the set to go 2-1 up, winning it 6-3.  There was a certain sense of inevitability in the reconditioned air under the roof on centre court, and it didn’t look favourable for Murray.

However, as we’ve come to expect from him, he didn’t make it easy for the 6 time champion, playing the sort of tennis that on another day or another era, would have surely helped him clinch the title.  Federer’s game just got better though, and he pushed Murray on every service game, often returning to deuce on at least 5 or 6 occasions in each game.  Murray held on as long as he could but finally succumbed to Federer’s seemingly perpetual class as he claimed the fourth and final set 6-4.

Murray will rue the chances he had, particularly in the second set, to break Federer when the Swiss was relatively under par.  He’ll also be kicking himself if and when he chooses to watch the game back at the number of games he struggled to kill off after being 40-0 or 40-15 up.  As much as Federer made it hard for him, he also struggled, particularly on his first serve in the second half of the match.

He is getting closer, of that there is no doubt and as many have said, most notably Andre Agassi of late, if Murray existed in another era of tennis, he would be comfortably winning his fair share of grand slam titles.  He still has time on his side.  At 25, he has 5 years on Roger Federer, he’s a year younger than Nadal and the same age as Djokovic.   

He also has Ivan Lendl in his corner, who must see Murray’s record in grand slams starting to mirror his own.  After 4 grand slam final defeats, he went on to win 8, his first against John McEnroe.  He knows what it takes to win in an era of greats and after multiple disappointments.  He strikes me as the perfect role model for Murray.

The season isn’t over, and Murray can now look forward to the Olympics and then the US open on his favoured hard court surface.  He should walk away from Wimbledon with great hope after breaking a 7 decade stigma in British men’s tennis.  With one monkey off his back, he can continue to strive for the biggest prize of all – that grand slam title.

AVB Gets Another Crack At EPL

by Dugald Skene

Tottenham Hotspur have announced Andre Villas-Boas as their new manager in place of the sacked Harry Redknapp.

Having been sacked himself at the start of the year by Chelsea, AVB split opinion amongst fans.  Criticised by many for trying too much too quickly and praised by others for at least trying, there is no doubt that he is a risky appointment.

34 year old AVB has shown ambition to

return to the EPL so soon

Having said that, you feel that Spurs are a better fit for the man who tried to make Chelsea play the fluent, stylish sort of football that we have become accustomed to with Tottenham.  With a more stable framework in place, it may well provide a more solid platform from which AVB can impress his own style.

Spurs have taken their time on the appointment, so this is not a knee-jerk signing following Redknapp's dismissal, but rather a calculated gamble.  Like any managerial appointment, it is impossible to assess the prospects immediately after the signing, but I have a feeling that Villas-Boas and Spurs will get on just fine.

He has about 6 weeks until their first match of the season against Newcastle, which should be enough time to settle in.  With players like Bale, Van der Vaart, Lennon and Parker, he is no doubt relishing the prospect of proving his doubters wrong.  His very ambition to return to the League that left him bemused and bewildered at times so soon can only be seen as a credit to his character.

It should add a bit of spice when Spurs travel to West London to meet his old employers too.