Dave’s Football Blog

The UEFA Champions League Final is set: Manchester United v. Chelsea. My, how original…

I have yet to see the obscenity-laced tirade that Fright Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger spewed at Deadspin chief Will Leitch last night on HBO’s Costas Now, so I’m probably ill-equipped to respond to it. Tons of sports blogs have chimed in already with intelligent responses to that rant, including the target of all that vitriol himself — who, in all honestly, reacted far better to this attack than I would have. Here are a few more worthwhile responses:

• Awful Announcing
• Every Day Should Be Saturday
• FanHouse
• Fire Joe Morgan
• The Run of Play
• Techdirt

The more I read about Bissinger’s tirade, though, the more one thing seems to pop up in my mind — he sounds an awful lot like music industry executives, doesn’t he?

About six months ago, Wired ran this profile of Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music. Morris is 68 years old and has a documented history of calling iPods “repositories for stolen music.” He also served up this gem:

All the sharing of the music, right? Is it correct that people share their music, fill up these devices with music they haven’t paid for? If you had Coca-Cola coming through the faucet in your kitchen, how much would you be willing to pay for Coca-Cola? There you go. That’s what happened to the record business.

There’s one underlying and unspoken thought that connects Morris and his peers with Bissinger and his colleagues, and it’s the same thought that rattles around the heads of corporate executives across America: We don’t understand the Internet. We don’t know how to react to these changes. We prefer for things to stay as they were.

Those RIAA labels grew up in a world where they controlled the distribution, and that monopoly ensured they made all the money and had full control over the flow of music. Likewise, the newspaper and magazine columnists used to have a monopoly over opinion in sports. They could control the flow of information and shape that opinion among the people.

That doesn’t exist anymore. Any band can create a Myspace page and start selling their music right there. Any sports fan with half a brain (or less) can create a blog and start typing. The barriers to publishing have deteriorated. All it takes is cheap web space and a worthwhile product, and individuals becomes just as easy to access as the biggest media monoliths. A few of those individuals will become well-liked and well-respected, because they produce interesting and/or entertaining material. Sure, there will be dick jokes. People like dick jokes, or they wouldn’t tell them.

This frightens guys like Morris and Bissinger. They used to have final say over what was interesting and worthwhile, and thanks to this Internet thing, they don’t anymore. What makes this tragic is that they refuse to accept this fundamental change. They would rather paint their new competition as the great Satan and lure the huddled masses back to their old harbors.

Sorry, guys. The huddled masses all have blogs and Myspace pages now. We don’t want to be mere consumers anymore. We want to be creators, too. But hey, you guys are more than welcome to come join the party. It’ll be going on for a while.

UPDATE: Here’s the video.

And in doing so, he compares the NFL Scouting Combine to a strip club. Sounds about right.

Courtesy of Deadspin: 47-year-old Bolivian president Evo Morales made his soccer debut with second-division club Litoral and played 41 minutes. Coming soon: Barack Obama in the D-League?

Do you think Rafa Benitez is making a mockery of the Premier League by playing reserves against Birmingham City this weekend? EPL Talk hereby invites you to piss right off.

After John Arne Riise's howler at Anfield on Tuesday, The Run of Play takes a look at some of the worst own goals in football history. I think Riise will get off easier than Andres Escobar. Just a hunch.

This weekend is the NFL Draft, the event that makes Premier League owners look at the NFL and think, “Wow, and Americans call our football communist?”

As the week approaches, we’re getting bombarded with scouting reports, pundit predictions and, most importantly, mock drafts. Everyone thinks they know where every player is going, so they put on the Mel Kiper Jr. wig and make their picks as if they a.) were in charge of the place and b.) had any clue what they were doing. Mel Kiper Jr. has turned us all into Mel Kiper Jr. wannabes this week — proof positive that manufacturing your job out of thin air makes you a big fat genius. (One day, we will all recognize the genius of John Ratzenberger.)

Of course, I’m not immune to the prediction game myself. I participated in not one, but two mock drafts this year — one at NFL FanHouse (natch!) and one at NBC Sports. If you’re not sick to death of this overhyped media orgy yet, go check ‘em out.

The footy press down under is all agog over Jonathan Brown’s new contract demands. The Brisbane Lion goal machine — who only uses that Vaseline to keep the sweat out of his eyes, honest — is reportedly asking for a 5-year, AU$6 million deal. This would make him the highest-paid player in the AFL.

Let me repeat that for you. AU$1.2 million a year would make Jonathan Brown the highest-paid Australian football player on the planet. Based on today’s exchange rates, $1.2 million in Australia is about $1.13 million in America. It’s also about £570,000 in England, or €712,000 in the rest of Europe.

Let’s compare this for a moment to what the Minnesota Vikings are paying Jared Allen, the Pro Bowl defensive end they just acquired from the Chiefs for three draft picks. According to reports, Allen will receive a 6-year, $74 million deal, with $31 million guaranteed. The price difference between the contracts of Jared Allen and Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney — who, IMHO, has been a better pass-rusher and will be again if he recovers from that lisfranc injury — could pay Jonathan Brown for almost two seasons.

Indeed, £570,000 wouldn’t cover Cristiano Ronaldo’s hooker budget for one season. According to futebolfinance.com (hat tip to EPL Talk for the link), the Manchester United goal machine will make in more in five weeks than Brown would make in a year. Indeed, the Red Devils have 12, count ‘em, twelve players who will make more this season than Brown would get for the life of that contract he wants. Chelsea tops that with 15 players. Five years of Jonathan Brown is worth one year of Carlo Cudicini.

Now, I’m sure the economics of Australian footy are very different than the economics of the NFL and the Premier League, both of which have far more lucrative domestic and international TV deals. Plus, the NFL and the EPL practically own football in their home nations, something the AFL doesn’t quite do yet. And let’s not lie — who among us wouldn’t be pretty happy with $1.2 million a year for 5 years?

Still, that’s quite the salary gap, isn’t it? It’s a wonder that more young AFL stars don’t consider taking their athletic abilities to other football codes. Perhaps the AFL is the last fully professional football league on the planet that’s more about the love of the game and the glory of a Saturday afternoon than the straight cash, homey. After all, if Jonathan Brown really wanted to get paid, he would have learned to be a striker or a wide receiver years ago.

Pitch Invasion takes a closer look at the sudden shift in Arsenal's philosophy, brought on by the shift from George Graham to Arsene Wenger.

I admit that I haven’t done a particularly great job keeping up with the AFL so far on here. The Premier League has gotten most of my attention lately, and after watching two live games on Saturday morning, staying on the couch and watching a recorded Aussie Rules match for another 2-3 hours only reminds me of my rapidly expanding gut.

Nevertheless, I did catch some of the Geelong Cats v. Sydney Swans game over the weekend. The more I watch Geelong, the more impressed I am with their style of play. They just run right down the central corridor like a force of nature, just daring you to stop them — and you can’t do it, can you? They’re running roughshod over this league.

Other teams can slow the Cats down for a little while, which the Swans did during the 2nd & 3rd quarters, but you almost feel like the Cats are just toying with their opponents. They’re just a plastic mouse, and the Cats will pounce on it at their leisure — BOOM! Goal, goal, goal, it’s over.

That said, someone will beat the Cats this year. There have only been two NFL teams that have gone undefeated in the regular season, and only one of them won a title. (Not sure about any undefeated teams in the AFL, and honestly, I’m too lazy to look this morning.) The AFL season is a longer slog than the NFL season — 22 games v. 16 — and eventually injuries, fatigue and the pressure built up from the press will drag a team down. Better to be dragged down in the middle of the season and take the pressure off to build up for a stretch run.

Sure, every team wants to win every game they play, but ultimately, that’s not the goal. The goal is to hoist the trophy at the end of the season. We saw with the New England Patriots in America how much pressure builds up as a team builds a huge winning streak. What happened? They finally lost a close one in the Super Bowl. I’m pretty sure these Cats don’t want that.

That said, they are looking awfully unbeatable right about now. The game I want to see, though, is Geelong v. Hawthorn, July 25. Lance Franklin is just raining goals from the sky right now. That could be the game of the year, couldn’t it?