Austadiums Forum

University of Washington in Seattle: Death to Running Tracks

Full slideshow of Washington's stadium renovation

http://www.seattlepi.com/sports/slidesh ... 110482.php

anyone interested in attendance stats?

http://www.datafy.me/analysis/college-f ... ttendance/

So you're playing your arch-rival at home in the final game of the regular season. The team that wins goes to the conference championship game. They're the reigning national champions.

The game is tied with 1 second left. They have the ball and line up for the field goal that will break your heart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... v1EVSn95yk

Simmo79 wrote:So you're playing your arch-rival at home in the final game of the regular season. The team that wins goes to the conference championship game. They're the reigning national champions.

The game is tied with 1 second left. They have the ball and line up for the field goal that will break your heart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... v1EVSn95yk

You know what the funny thing is here?

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away something similar happened. The sport was football. The gods of mathematics and poetry did the unthinkable - Serbia and Croatia in the same group for world cup qualification. And it all came down to the final game, and the final play. If Serbia scores, they qualify, and Croatia doesn't. Serbia gets the ball in a massive gap, surges forward in possession of the ball and it is a mere formality that the one player will advance the entire length of the pitch and score that goal.

Where these videos differ is in one key detail, which I found eerily lacking. Eerily lacking because anyone who has been in the vicinity of a Croatian bloke in the last 3 months has had this video youtubed down his throat so often at work, every day, that anything that resembles it has the person instinctively expecting to see Canberra boy, 3 yellow Josep Simunic running out of nowhere and decking the living sh*t out of said Serbian player, with no intention for welfare of player before --or after-- and Croatia is off to Brazil.

About half of the population of Gungahlin want a statue of the bloke.

Fantastic article on how college players get their under-the-table payments

A good bag man will never be famous. He will never be that guy hovering right next to the head coach after a big win. His name will never be known by the majority of students, fans, and alumni of the university he loves. There is no dead bag man memorial on the campus of any football powerhouse. There are no memorial scholarships named after the guy who gave a running back's mother $3,000 a month for four years.

Whatever the minimum of necessary paperwork to absolve a player of improper benefits received is, it's not a problem. A title for a moderately priced SUV can be created in a relative's name, as can a receipt of sale for a reasonable price.

"Hey, how'd he get that ride? His uncle bought it. How did his uncle buy it? Paid cash. Paid cash, how'd he do that? sh*t, we don't know, but here's the receipt where he paid cash, and now y'all ain't got sh*t. Go tell the NCAA you think we're cheating because this kid's uncle bought him a used Tahoe in cash, you racist."

http://www.sbnation.com/college-footbal ... -interview

Best one has always been putting relatives on payroll. Leaves a paper trail but so what? They're office support staff, paper is their business.

There's no real reason why these tactics couldn't be adapted to Australia's salary capped leagues. Want to poach a player but can't fit him under the cap at his full market rate? Maybe you're desperate to retain a player that's on the radar of some rivals.

Just top of their parents' super accounts. Get grandma into a big house in a nicer part of town for a near peppercorn rent. Everyone gets a new car. The player can draw down from a Bahamas bank account which receives his extra 200k per season.

All the player has to do is mouth a few platitudes that he signed for less than he's worth because "I want to join a club that's contending for the league/I've supported X since I was a kid and couldn't refuse the offer to join them/I couldn't imagine ever leaving - we're just like a family here".

College football's lesson is that if there's more money in the sport than the sport allows to be spent on players, the extra cash will find it's way into their pockets one way or another.

That's capitalism, yo.

Simmo79 wrote:There's no real reason why these tactics couldn't be adapted to Australia's salary capped leagues.

What makes you think this hasn't been happening here for years?

Boba Fett wrote:

Simmo79 wrote:There's no real reason why these tactics couldn't be adapted to Australia's salary capped leagues.

What makes you think this hasn't been happening here for years?

You reckon someone ought to check if Nick Maxwell's mum is driving a Lexus?

Boba Fett wrote:

Simmo79 wrote:There's no real reason why these tactics couldn't be adapted to Australia's salary capped leagues.

What makes you think this hasn't been happening here for years?

Underlying all of these schemes is the simple problem that it has to be by contract. Nobody, player or not, will agree to a sweetheart deal that isn't in a contract. It's the old catch-22 - if you're doing something wrong, and someone wrongs you, who do you complain to? Then, once you do have it in contract, if a dispute arises then it's game over. Happened to the Storm, happened to the Cows. I think the risk factor here is what stops everyone from doing it. An added protection is the player contracts are lodged with their league administration, so if there is a dodgy agreement in place it's achieved by having 2 contracts running concurrently which is a mental cluster f**k when it's discovered.

What we're really talking about in the aforementioned scenario is black and white subversion of the salary cap. But the real risk is in the grey areas. For instance, putting a player's wife on payroll - if they're paid award and they're doing the hours, it's not cheating. But if this player's wife happens to be a retarded bimbo who couldn't get a job at KFC, then having them employed in office support is grey area, borderline cheating. Carlton were masters at this in the mid 90s (before it progressed to black and white, brown paper bags). Sydney FC were another in the first season (and possibly later) seasons who exploited external payments for player media commitments. Hell, it was even league sanctioned by the AFL for Brisbane Lions to have a larger salary cap specifically because heartland states had greater capacity to offer 3rd party earnings to entice players than Brisbane who were largely un-f**k-gived in their market.

Drone flight into Texas A&M's Kyle Field to check renovation progress. Cool vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwBGJtjCpC4

Boba Fett wrote:

Simmo79 wrote:There's no real reason why these tactics couldn't be adapted to Australia's salary capped leagues.

What makes you think this hasn't been happening here for years?

Has been in the WAFL...

Man Utd and Real pulled 109k @ Michigan Stadium this morning

http://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments ... us_soccer/

(afl supporter mode)

Man Utd to Michigan, Hawthorn stay in Tassie and Real Madrid merge with Real Salt Lake and call them the Snowboarders to commemorate the snowboard owned by an aussie stationed at a US airforce base during the great wars #prayformh17