The fact that South Carolina is going to the Final Four in Villanova’s bracket makes me ill.

Ew! Vomit everywhere.

Let’s hit it!

 

But first, a word from our sponsors:

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The roundup:

I’d like to think we deserve most of the credit for T.J. McConnell and Dario Saric’s bromance becoming a thing.

 

Kentucky fans:

https://twitter.com/UNCBarstool/status/846151996868640768

Oh yeah, and they lit stuff on fire and chanted “fuck UNC!

 

Look for Pinson to foul out 8 minutes into the Final Four.

 

Here’s what to expect, preparation-wise, in the run up to the NFL Draft.

 

Oh hey, Jahlil Okafor’s surgically repaired right knee – torn meniscus, just like Jojo! – is still bothering him, a year later. From Keith Pompey:

As much as the 76ers try to paint a positive picture, things don’t appear to be good with Jahlil Okafor’s right knee.

The center missed his second consecutive game and ninth of the season with right knee soreness Sunday against the Indiana Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Okafor also did not participate in the shootaround that morning. Team officials said they do not know when he’ll return. The Sixers have nine games remaining. Their next matchup is Tuesday night against the Brooklyn Nets at the Barclays Center.

One would assume that the Sixers would be better off just shutting down the big man for the rest of the season. Okafor keeps saying that team is being “super cautious.”

“If we were like on the verge of trying to get a playoff spot or something like that, I could go out there and play,” Okafor said Friday. “But Coach Brown and all of our people behind the scenes don’t believe it’s necessary for me to play if my knee is feeling sore and stuff like that.

This is becoming a Mad Lib with the Sixers. The Sixers say [proper noun] would be able to [verb] if the team were in the playoffs, but they are being overly cautious with his [body part] as he recovers from [exotic procedure], which was performed after he missed [number] [games or seasons] with the initial injury.

Meanwhile, Richuan Holmes is now ranked higher than Okafor in NBA 2k:

https://twitter.com/SpikeEskin/status/846052389270511617

 

Here’s an article from Philly.com about a local startup:

Fandom is a place of suffering. And Bagelle and two friends since middle school, Jeff Phillips and Tim Wozniak, are hoping to cash in on it with their SportsVenting app, focused on fans’ frustrations and the teams they hate.

With a free app launched Feb. 1 in the Google Play store, you can post pictures and videos of yourself in full meltdown. You can list not only the teams you adore, but those you despise. SportsVenting’s principals are now trying to raise $30,000 on Kickstarter to offer a version for iPhones.

Aspiring to become a nationally recognized brand and a radio show on Sirius XM within five years, the start-up also is looking for seed investors — including you, Mark Cuban, Shark Tank star and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.

With $2,000 from his brother, Mike, he got design help for the logo. App development started a year later, in July 2016, after $53,000 was raised from family and friends. That work, which took seven months, was done by a firm in Peru charging $35 an hour vs. the $100-plus that U.S. companies were routinely asking for, Phillips said.

App development left no money for marketing.

And from the Kickstarter page:

Facebook and Twitter have monopolized social media. However, they are missing a significant segment… the ability for sports fans to “VENT”. SportsVenting is NOT a platform to discuss movies, music, politics or religion. SportsVenting is more than happy to leave those discussions to Facebook and Twitter. We are committed to offering a forum to vent only about sports.

Here’s the video:

OK, these seem like decent guys who have an #appidea and are trying to make it work, so I’ll be kind here and offer strictly constructive criticism: this is a terrible idea. Don’t waste any more money – yours or someone else’s – and head back to the drawing board with a non-app-advertising revenue based business concept. Reasons:

  1. This is almost a parody of an app Philly sports fans would invent, like one of Mac’s harebrained scheme’s on Always Sunny, where angry sports fans fire angry missives into the ether.
  2. YouTube and Twitter already serve exactly this purpose, and, bonus!, there are already people there to view and read the rants.
  3. Even if this was the best idea in the whole world, like ‘Gram 2.0 wrapped inside of a Snapchat, I’d be suspect of the management group and their finances. $2,000 for a logo? For this logo? Voila_Capture 2017-03-27_08-50-56_AMAnd out of that (miraculous) $53,000 investment, all they got was a Google Play app and not an iPhone app? What the hell? It seems to me that firm in Peru calculated exactly how many $35 hours it would take to spend $53,000, and scoped the project accordingly.
  4. Ironically, one of the founders, in the Kickstarter video extolling the merits of the app over YouTube, used YouTube to host the video. Face fucking palm.

Consider this friendly advice that the app will not work.

 

Dave Hakstol got shredded for this Tweet (mostly just jokes about him being awful):

https://twitter.com/hakstol2/status/845620136455360513

Jonathan Tannenwald wrote about the issue, and in doing so described it in exactly the PC way that most other journalists describe any topic relating to equality:

Among the issues on the table is that USA Hockey only pays women’s national team players $1,000 per month during the six-month residency period leading up to an Olympics, and no other money during the rest of the four-year cycle.

Some players participate in the fledgling National Women’s Hockey League, and Duggan said the league “supports the players and looks to push women’s hockey as a great product.” But those salaries aren’t enough to be considered full-time compensation either – certainly not in comparison to the salaries that professional men’s players make.

Spagnuolo told CNN last week that the players want a $68,000 annual salary, child care, maternity leave and other benefits. They are also asking for increased support for youth national team development programs, claiming USA Hockey spends nearly $3.5 million per year on its boys’ program but has no comparable program for girls.

Oh for God’s sake. Nowhere in that article – and presumably many others – does it mention the discrepancy in what men’s hockey generates vs. women’s hockey. This same issue is present with the US Women’s Soccer Team, but at least they garner actual, substantial ratings every few years, and can claim their worth, as a product, in the fight, even if it pales in comparison to what men’s soccer generates worldwide. You can’t just write an article and claim that women should be paid more, without acknowledging the fact that the men’s version of the game is a product that throws off billions in revenue. If women’s hockey could garner millions of viewers, and therefore the lucrative TV and sponsorship deals that go with it, then no one would argue that they shouldn’t be paid more. But it doesn’t (at least not at the same level). The entertainment value is simply not the same. Look at a sport where the men’s and women’s versions are similar in entertainment value– like tennis. According to Forbes, Serena Williams made more in salary and winnings than Roger Federer last year, (though he did earn more in the free market world of endorsements). That’s because both versions of the sports are commercially viable products on at least somewhat equal footing.

I’m not arguing that women soccer or hockey players shouldn’t be paid fairly for their efforts– they absolutely should, and $68k with benefits sounds fair. But fair is a defined by a lot more than “what the men get paid,” which is what the players (and writers) often cite in this argument. You have to account for what the men’s games make for their respective groups and leagues.

 

Here’s a great article about an old Philly sports bar home to athletes, writers and mobsters.

 

Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and YouTube are bidding for the NFL Thursday simulcast rights. From Recode:

The NFL is selling the rights to stream its “Thursday Night Football” games next season, and at least four big tech companies are interested.

Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and Google’s YouTube have all submitted proposals to the NFL in the hope of streaming the games, according to two sources familiar with the process.

All four companies also talked to the NFL last year about the same deal, which Twitter won with a $10 million bid for the right to stream 10 games. (CBS and NBC pay a lot more for the rights to broadcast the games on television.) It’s possible others have also submitted proposals.

Twitter had it last year, but to me they seem like the worst potential partner of this group. The other three are all viable video platforms. Twitter isn’t. Amazon and YouTube, in particular, are increasingly major players in traditional video content (movies, scripted shows, sports). With YouTube launching a streaming service, they seem to make the most sense here. The Twitter experience last year was downright awkward.

 

Red Sox first base coach Ruben Amaro still keeps tabs on the Phillies prospects he acquired. From CSN Philly:

“Absolutely,” he said before the Phillies and Red Sox played Saturday afternoon (see story). “It’s human nature.

“It seems like they’re doing OK. I think eventually they will all be contributors in the big leagues. If you get five of those guys to contribute in the big leagues, I think that’s a pretty good trade.”

Go, go, go! Wait, no, hold up. There are two outs. You’re running on contact. Herrwego.

 

I just want to say hello to all the people who gave me shit for this Tweet and called me a know-nothing idiot who was just pissed that he missed out on the bull market:

The markets were literally trading on the promises of a madman. How’s Aetna’s stock doing over the last two weeks since it became apparent the healthcare bill was on life support:

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Repeal and replace, right?

 

I love this– guy tracking flights to find curious “coincidences” of Trump associates and Russian oligarchs being near each other:

One of those planes is Jared Kushner’s– he’ll oversee an overhaul of the government and run it like a business. Cool.

 

Podcast:

Airing of Grievances with Josh Innes:

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The Stepover Episode 27– a snow day March Madness preview:

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