Kyle and Russ cover Kyle’s recent trip to a sports gambling conference in New Jersey, the future of sports gambling in Pennsylvania, the technology barrier to narrow bets, and more. Also discussed: the Eagles Super Bowl rings, World Cup, and a delicious Gordon Ramsay meal.
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Audio after the jump:
Anthony and Russ recap the Stanley Cup Final, Alex Ovechkin’s first Stanley Cup victory, and potential Flyers’ draft targets. The guys are then joined by Flyers general manager Ron Hextall to discuss old rivalries, the differences in hockey eras, how to measure analytics vs. the human element to a player, the importance of a player’s character, the development of Flyers prospects and their playoff run with the Phantoms, the goaltending logjam, how to build a team in the modern NHL, the team’s identity, and when to make a big splash via free agency or a trade. After the interview, Anthony and Russ break down their biggest takeaways from the interview and project the Flyers’ off-season.
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Full transcript of the interview after the jump: Continue Reading
Anthony and Russ discuss:
Audio after the jump: Continue Reading
It’s two-time Arena Bowl champion Dan Raudabaugh.
Just kidding.
It’s JJ Redick, who checks in at #86 on the list with $23.5 million in combined salary and endorsements from June of last year to June of this year.
That’s it, just one Philly player, though Joel Embiid and Jake Arrieta will enter the top-100 next year with their beefy deals. Carson Wentz will be there when/if he gets a long-term deal.
Otherwise, the list is pretty interesting, with a top five of Floyd Mayweather Jr., Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Conor McGregor (who hasn’t fought in almost a year), and Neymar Jr. All five made more than 90 million dollars, with Ronaldo pulling in $47 million in endorsements alone.
The ridiculous purse of the Mayweather/McGregor superfight was strong enough to put both fighters in the top five. Mayweather got a $275 million payday in his only boxing match dating back to September of 2015.
The rest of the top ten is LeBron James, Roger Federer, Steph Curry, Matt Ryan, and Matthew Stafford. There are some head-scratchers on the list, with Alex Smith clocking in at #20 overall ($41.4m), Jimmy Garoppolo at #28 ($36.2m) and Ryan Tannehill at #32 ($35.2m). Gotta find that franchise quarterback, no matter what the cost.
I was browsing Twitter dot com this morning when I came across Anthony Gargano’s opinion on the Las Vegas Golden Knights:
“No expansion team should ever be able to win a league, its just started, its nonsense just like the Marlins winning the WS, there’s real fans that are starving since 1975 for this, it’s about real fan-dom” – @AnthonyLGargano
— 975TheFanatic (@975TheFanatic) May 21, 2018
“It’s about real fandom.”
Hmm, alright, I disagree, but I’ll play along.
Sure, it’s not like Las Vegas hockey fans are desperate for the Stanley Cup. They haven’t been waiting since 1967, like Toronto fans. They aren’t St. Louis, Vancouver, Buffalo, or Washington, who have never won a title. They aren’t any of the eight other teams that joined the NHL after 1979 and still haven’t won a cup.
By the same token, I’d assume Flyers fans, who have been waiting since 1975, would at least be annoyed to see an expansion team cruising through the playoffs while enduring a slow rebuild under Ron Hextall and Dave Hakstol.
So if you wanna roll your eyes at Vegas’ success or say it’s “corny,” I get that. It’s corny that a brand new team comes into the league and rips off a bunch of wins while diehard fans of traditional hockey teams get to enjoy another first-round playoff exit.
But I’m not sure what fandom really has to do with anything. Is there some rule in place that you have to suffer through 20 years of losing before you’re allowed to win? Do you have to “pay your dues?” Do you have to endure a Joe Jurevicius or Rodney Harrison situation before Nick Foles comes along? It’s such a Philadelphia way of thinking, that a “low” must predate a “high,” and if it doesn’t, it’s somehow not authentic.
People have somehow twisted the Vegas story into a narrative that “this is bad for the NHL,” and I don’t know why that’s being tossed around. I find the story compelling. I’m watching the playoffs with more interest than ever before.
Anthony and Russ discuss:
Audio after the jump: Continue Reading
Ah yes, it’s a traditional unlike any other in Philly. No, I’m not talking about Philly TV personalities tweeting about their glam night at [insert local charity dinner] where they, and other celebutants, can get their rocks off under the guise of philanthropy. I’m talking about the annual blame the captain calls on the heels of yet another Flyers playoff defeat.
Today, we have two entrants, one of whom has a pile of poop for a head, and another who just likes to hate things.
First up, Marcus Hayes.
I’ve been waiting to do this for a while now, and so it is with great pleasure that I bring you this dramatic reading of portions of Hayes’ piece taking Claude Giroux’s comments about fans booing substantially out of context: Continue Reading
Many believe Flyers fans are expressing their distaste with the team’s seeming perpetual mediocrity both at the box office and with their remote control.
In short, the arguments have been that clusters of empty seats at the Wells Fargo Center for playoff games coupled with declining TV ratings mean that apathy has set in among the Orange and Black faithful, who not so many years ago were dubbed “stepford fans” for being robotically conformist to whatever the organ-eye-zation did and said.
Maybe the fan base is changing. Maybe Millennial fans are not like their Gen-X predecessors or the original Baby Boomers who made Philadelphia akin to a Canadian city when it came to hockey fandom.
Maybe they are getting tired of mediocrity. Maybe they are more discerning about how they are going to spend their entertainment dollars than those fans that came before them.
And then I saw this series of Tweets traipse down my Twitter timeline the other day – the first from a Canadian reporter who does some work for the New York Times (quoting Sports Business Journal), and then the rest from the site manager of Broad Street Hockey, the SB Nation fan site, and her cohorts: Continue Reading
