Sports (News & Discussion)

[Danster]

^ I had every intention of coming here to bring up Bill Belichick, knowing your attachment to the Patriots. Glad to see that you beat me to it. I also see that they've already hired a replacement.

I'm not sure about the circumstances but the headlines seem to say Bill was "fired." Being a lifelong Steelers fan, a team that has only had 3 coaches in my entire lifetime, I tend to think that he should have been allowed to finish out his career in New England if he wanted to. But I guess that's where New England and Pittsburg are different. With the Steelers you're pretty much "family."

I completely agree, he'd earned the right to end it on his own terms, regardless of how many losing seasons he suffered. But I think everyone knows that Kraft is a complete twat. It's hard to get that rich without being so.

I'm intrigued by Mayo, he's obviously a fan favourite which will buy him some patience, but to go from one of the league's most experienced coaches to one of the most inexperienced is definitely a gamble. He benefits from the fact that expectations are at an all time low so he'll be given time to build towards something you'd hope. Given the rumours that Belichik wanted to bin off Mac Jones but ceded to Kraft and stuck with him, you'd suspect Mayo will be forced to continue with him to start with at least. I don't personally think they'll go anywhere with him as QB.

[General Ceel]

Steelers playoff run ran last night in the rescheduled game in Buffalo. Now my focus is fully back on auto racing. There is some great dirt track racing going on in the USA right now, and then in a few week's its back to Daytona for IMSA then NASCAR.

[General Ceel]

Been watching a lot of dirt racing recently to fill my need for speed over the winter break: https://www.youtube.com/@floracing

Nascar is back in two weeks for the Clash at the Coliseum.

[General Ceel]

Daytona Rolex 24 Hour IMSA race starts in a couple hours. I'll be logging some serious couch time for the next day! And then next weekend NASCAR is back on the quarter mile track in the L.A. Coliseum! Can't wait!

[General Ceel]

Well, it looks like the Super Bowl is all set. I'll probably tune in at least for the first half and the opportunity to catch some new movie trailers. If the game is good, I'll watch the whole thing...

[General Ceel]

Really excited for the NASCAR season to kick off this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday the Nasar Cup Series and the Nascar Mexico series will be racing inside the L.A. Coliseum. For the Cup series its the "Busch Clash," a sort of pre-season non points race that until 3 years ago had been held in Daytona. Its just a lot of fun to see large cars with huge horse power racing inside a football stadium. Rumor has it that the Clash won't be back at the Coliseum in next year, but there is also lots of talk of doing an international race as well. Will it be a stadium race or something on an existing large track remains to be seen.

Here is the 2021 race: https://www.youtube.com/live/VfOmatsGZ9s...TCoBp3W8IK

[Danster]

Been watching a lot of snooker the last couple of months. I watched the AFC Conference at the weekend, the Ravens really blew it with poor discipline. I wanted a Ravens v Lions Superbowl so pretty disappointed.

Big news in Formula 1 with Lewis Hamilton announcing he will go to Ferrari for the 2025 season.

[General Ceel]

"Big news in Formula 1 with Lewis Hamilton announcing he will go to Ferrari for the 2025 season."

The bigger news here is that the assholes running F1 denied to let Andretti enter F1, based on completely absurd reasons.

[Danster]

Yeah, that is a ridiculous decision, I was quite excited at the prospect of an American team with genuine backing hitting the grid.

[General Ceel]

As were many here. Everyone pretty much figures that when it comes down to it its a greed thing. They'll wait until after the next concord agreement so they can jack up the cost to join.

I hate to break it to the clowns running the show but 1) Andretti is a recognizes name in motorsports world wide. 2) Andretti Global fields successful cars in several forms of racing. 3) Their partner, GM, is a bigger, more valuable, company than most of the auto manufacturers currently in F1, while also currently building great race engines across multiple forms of racing.

This weird claim they have that Andretti wouldn't add value is so off base. While F1 has seen some growth in the USA, they're still only drawing about a third as many viewers as Nascar, while Nascar itself is down from its historic peak in the early 2000's when it was as big as American Football. We're a nation of 330 million people, and F1 is only getting a little over 1 million viewers here per race. And they're worried about splitting the pie 11 ways instead of 10? Seems to like Andretti is the perfect way to make the pie BIGGER! But I guess there are 8 teams who are happy to continue being paid to lose.