Thursday, November 7, 2024

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. (SPORTS!!!!)

Now that we have the election nonsense behind us we can return our focus to sports, and sports gambling, which is the focus of this little corner of blogging and what I enjoy writing about the most.  I'm just going to touch on a few things today that have happened while I was out in Las Vegas and relatedly, while I was sick with the travel crud afterwards.

1. The CFP early ranking remain crap. Nothing against them really, but they don't mean shit at this point. The only thing that we really learned from them are two things. First, the CFP committee understands their marketing obligations to the B1G and the SEC. They are in love with brands, not teams. I don't think this will change any in the future. Second, I'm not as upset about Boise State being close to BYU as most people are. While I feel for Indiana, they have it all in front of them. But if Boise State and BYU played on a neutral field I feel the former would be favored.  Who I feel for is Army, who might be the best of the Group of 5 teams but who might not get a chance to show it.  The CFP committee says that they "watch all of the games" but that is certainly not true. Otherwise the rankings would look far different than what they do.

2. The NFL is top-heavy this year. Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo. Those are the 4 teams right now that seem like they are Super Bowl Contenders. Teams that we thought might be good (Houston, San Francisco, Tampa Bay) don't seem to be all that good. There are other teams out there with winning records but they don't seem to really have a shot. The fact is the NFL is not very entertaining this year. Most games are poor, the officiating is borderline awful, and the fact that you only get three games per day without paying for a package that's not available unless you subscribe to a certain service makes Sundays must-miss TV.  And no, NBC, we are not waiting all day for Sunday Night, we're using that time to get ready for work on Monday.

3. College basketball is BACK. There have already been upsets, the return of Calipari and a handful of teams that looked REALLY good so far. This is going to be a REALLY good season, and Big XII Men's Basketball is going to be fire.

4. The NBA is back.  Zzzzzzzzzz.  Call me when the playoffs start.

5. The NHL is starting off hot. Scoring is up, there are some amazing things happening on the ice, there's a new(ish) hockey team in Utah. Oh yeah.


We're currently in the best time of the year, a time where football is on TV 7 nights per week. There's not day without a football game until almost Thanksgiving. Yes, some of it is bad, really bad, but it's a needed reprieve from the noise that surrounds the world right now. And, if you don't like the football games, there's basketball and hockey on if you're looking for something to do.


Since I was in Las Vegas and then down with the travel crud there will be no discussion of sports gaming this week. I honestly have not had the energy or time to re-run my numbers but I'm going to get them updated Sunday morning so I should be ready to go next week.


Good luck this week however you choose to play. 

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