I hate to admit it, but I’ve caught Olympic fever. On Tuesday I sat down and watched women’s team gymnastics, a bunch of swimming relays, men’s volleyball, and women’s rowing. And I was completely sucked in. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I was actually holding my breath when Michael Phelps was swimming. Watching those gymnasts come so close to stumbling or falling would make my feet sweat and put my stomach in knots.

I’m a little embarrassed because I’ve written off the Olympics since the Atlanta games in 1996. It all just seemed so boring to me. The results never seemed to matter. US wins a bunch of medals, blah blah blah. Russians and Romanians are good at gymnastics, blah blah blah. Olympic spirit this, dreaming of gold that, blah blah blah. And always Bob Costas’s steady baritone narrating the soft-focused, feel good stories of the athletes who must have some struggle to overcome. Yet this year I’m eating it up. Well, most of it. I’m getting Phelps fatigue. How many times can you hear “eat, sleep, swim” before you start to hope he fails?

But last night I watched badminton for the first time in my life. It was China versus Germany (who actually had a Chinese athlete) and it was a fantastic game. Badminton is FAR superior to tennis. Those two women really fought for every single point. The shuttlecock would get slammed back and forth dozens of times before a point was scored. In tennis you’re lucky if you see the ball get returned three times. Booooring! The only time one of those badminton players didn’t practically kill themselves to hit the shuttlecock, was at the second game’s matchpoint when Germany’s athlete didn’t move because she was doubled over gasping for air. Now that’s sport!

Oh but don’t let me leave out Bela Karolyi’s great commentary with Bob Costas after the US women’s team won the silver medal. Now, let me preface this by saying, I don’t pay any attention to gymnastics so maybe this was old news to you aficionados. When Karolyi started ranting about how half the Chinese team was under age 16, well I was just beaming with excitement. You just don’t hear that kind of rumor-mongering on TV, and I want to applaud it. It really brings you inside the sport.

Also, I feel I should say thanks to Alicia Sacramone. She’s the first gymnast I’ve ever thought was hot. Gymnasts have a certain status in pop culture I’ve never agreed with until now.

So I’ll probably be staying up late to watch more tonight. There’s the women’s gymnastics individual competition tonight. Plus who knows what else? I never knew how much I liked badminton until last night and I saw a really interesting rowing competition too.

My cablebox is busted. For about two weeks now, it will randomly lose its TV guide and I have to wait to download a new one from Comcast. So now I’m scrolling through the channels and I come upon the Arizona/Oklahoma NCAA women’s softball game. First of all, the difference between the girls is striking. Arizona’s team is nearly all petite and cute; not at all what you expect from a softball player. I totally have a crush on Adrienne Acton now. Oklahoma is like bizarro Arizona. It’s populated by husky farm girls. I’m sure their wide hips will help them with birthin’ babies for the farm though so it’s not without benefit.

But soon a question popped into my head. Why do these teams play softball? I thought the game was invented as a form of baseball that groups of people with a mixed skill set could play together. It’s the sport of choice for office teams around the country because it’s easy for uncoordinated and barely mobile people to play. So why do these girls play it? It’s not as if they aren’t athletic people. I don’t understand why they don’t play regular baseball. I feel pretty confident in saying they could handle that game. What gives?

Thanks to Britain’s dominance last century, Cricket is a global game. Yet even though people in India, Africa and the Caribbean play the game, it never shook off its stodgy British association. Some Indian entrepreneurs are taking a chance on breaking that upper-crust reputation.

The newly founded Indian Premier League is trying to jazz up the game with an American import – cheerleaders. For the inaugural game, the IPL hired the Washington Redskins cheerleaders to shake their junk and draw in the crowds. According to the Washington Post’s reporting, that seems to have worked. When the WP asked Setty Bishum what he thought about the cheerleaders he responded, “They’re the only reason I am here. I wanted to treat myself.”

The Redskins cheerleaders are also training Indian women in their choreography so I suppose India can look forward to this piece of Americana. Reading about this though I was getting whiffs of the XFL. You remember that right? No? Well that was WWE’s Vince McMahon’s personal football league. It was a skanked out NFL. The cameras were supposed to spend lots of time on the cheerleaders and in new positions on the field, we were supposed to hear what the players were saying, and looser rules would make the game tougher. More sex and more action were supposed to bring in the fans. Yet somehow no one was interested in watching. Pretty girls are lovely to look at but in the end people watch sports for the sports.

The odds are probably against the IPL lasting. The league, in another attempt at making the game exciting, is playing a version of cricket named Twenty20. It somehow speeds up the game from a week of play down to three hours. I really don’t want to know the details. I’ll let the cricket fans argue over the merits or evils of that. All I know is that it’s tough to get the public to pay attention to new sports. It’s like Arena Football in the US struggling to get attention from the public. Actually it’s like Major League Soccer in the US too. Using scantily dressed cheerleaders to get people to watch only works for the first couple of games. If the game sucks, people will remember, and no one will bother coming back.

By the way, the Redskins cheerleaders were rooting for the Bangalore Royal Challengers. The RC lost their inaugural game by 140 runs; whatever the hell that means.

Well here’s another reason I should register to vote. This November, Santa Clara is running a ballot initiative to decide if the city should pay for the 49ers new stadium. The York family, owners of the 49ers, have requested Santa Clara kick in $222 million towards the construction of a stadium in the city, near Great America amusement park. The Yorks would pay the remaining $694 million for the stadium complex.

Why should I vote? Because this is stupid. No city should ever pay to entice a sports franchise to set up shop. The costs never add up to benefit the city. I’m not even sure what the $222 million will get Santa Clara besides the presence of the 49ers. Will it give Santa Clara a percentage of ownership in the stadium, and with that, a share in the revenues generated in the park? That hardly seems worth it. How much money does a football stadium take in during a year?

I don’t care if the 49ers move to Santa Clara or not. If they do, it’s fine with me, but I don’t want to pay for them to come. Now maybe if the Yorks offered something of value to the city, I would change my mind. Forbes valued the 49ers at $799 million in 2007. So $222 million should buy 28% of the team. If the Yorks allowed Santa Clara to buy that percentage of the team, then yes I would vote to hand this money over because that would be an investment not charity.

Yet somehow I don’t see that happening. So the Yorks would have to find more money elsewhere. Unfortunately naming rights are only a drop in the bucket. The highest price I could find was $7.6 million a year for FedEx to buy the name FedEx Field for the Washington Redskins. At that rate, which the 49ers would never get, they would have to lease the stadium name for a little over 29 years.

Could the Yorks sell $222 million worth of corporate bonds to finance this? Probably not. The whole debt market is in upheaval now and I have my doubts considering that bonds issued by Santa Clara, with their tax free status, would probably be rated BBB. If the 49ers can’t find a way to cut construction costs, I don’t know what they can do. Whatever they decide, I sure don’t want it to include any handouts from Santa Clara.

 

Uh, did that actually happen? I watched that on Sportscenter late Sunday night and I was just stunned. Isn’t this the same guy who spit on another player? How the hell did he fall so in love with Tony Romo?

Owens is right though. It is pretty unfair to blame Romo completely for that loss. It wasn’t Tony Romo vs. the NY Giants. It was the Cowboys vs. the Giants. I watched that game and I wouldn’t say all of the Cowboys played so stellar.

Even so I do enjoy seeing Jessica Simpson get blamed for Romo’s performance and subsequently the Cowboys’ losses. It’s like America is one big high school. We’re all sitting around gossiping about how the head cheerleader is distracting the star quarterback and ruining his chances for a college football scholarship. 

I find it ridiculous people are actually bitching that Simpson and Romo took a vacation in Mexico. It was his frickin’ time off. Should we expect him to work and train when he’s off? That makes a lot of sense.

Bah whatever. The Cowboys are done, and I’m sure Romo and Simpson will break up next month. Go Giants!

The Bay Area sports scene has had an exciting last two weeks. Most recently the 49ers announced they would be leaving San Francisco for the sleepy little town of Santa Clara. The reason for the move isn’t so obviously. Clearly the new stadium deal failed but there’s more to it than that. A lot of it comes down to construction issues and a dash of San Francisco politics. I had the impression the city’s negotiators were responsive to the 49ers owner, John York. The problem actually came from the mayor, Gavin Newsom. His insistence any stadium deal had to be approved in a referendum was going to add millions of dollars to the cost because then the 49ers would have to pay for a media campaign to sell the deal to the public.

This deal I’m talking about would rebuild the stadium at Candlestick Point. This area east of Highway 101 has limited free space, so parking is a huge issue. I’ve heard part of the deal would have the 49ers having to use shuttles to parking lots in south San Francisco. Worse yet they would still need to build the world’s largest parking garage. York doesn’t like that because of the cost, for traffic issues and because no one wants to tailgate in a garage. Plus it remains undecided who was going to pay to rebuild Candlestick’s infrastructure and a new mass transit connection.

Santa Clara seems like an odd choice, but it turns out the 49ers keep their corporate offices there. This city can offer a lot more room to build. The chosen site is currently a parking lot in Great America. The land is owned by Santa Clara, but under the plan the land would be leased to the 49ers to build their stadium. Parking for games and Great America would be made up in the surrounding area. I’m not sure where though. Some buildings will need to be demolished for parking. Maybe those houses along Lake Santa Clara Drive can be.

I’m not a football fan so I can’t say I’m stoked about this deal, but I’m not against it either. The suburbs are an ideal spot for football stadiums because the big open spaces fit well with the culture. Tailgate parties require large parking lots. Plus there are a handful of games played during a season so traffic isn’t as big a deal as with frequent baseball or basketball games. The real nice thing is that Santa Clara isn’t paying for the stadium. At best they’re giving the 49ers a deal on the land lease but there are no out of pocket expenses. I can agree to a deal like that.

San Francisco is obviously upset, particularly since the 49ers want to keep using “San Francisco” in their name. San Francisco politicians are promising to stop them from taking the name with them. In the end though, there’s little they can do about the name or the move. San Francisco isn’t going to find more land for a parking lot and probably won’t cough up more money for construction for the team. It’s not that bad though. I don’t really think of that city as a football town. Politicians have more gain from losing the team and just making a stink, than actually trying to entice the 49ers to stay.