#2018 nfl season

[leclerc-s]

the honest series - formula one

─── ❝ i wish you could be honest with me ❞ ───

masterpost

click here to be added to the honest series taglist

THE PRELUDE

an honest timeline

meet the leading cast

THE ALBUMS

if this was a movie - m.verstappen - starts in early 2015

enchanted - d.ricciardo - starts in late 2015

i wanna be yours - c.leclerc - starts in 2018

te quiero besar - c.sainz - starts in early 2019

bad idea right? - p.gasly - starts in late 2019

call it what you want - l.norris - starts in early 2021

different - a.leclerc - starts in late 2021

say yes to heaven - m.schumacher - starts in late 2021

la curiosidad - o.piastri - starts in late 2022

how you get the girl - l.sargeant - starts in early 2023

por el contrario - o'ward - starts in early 2023

THE EPS

he’s good for my heart but he’s bad for business

alternatively: a blurb series of the songs inspired by max verstappen (takes place from 2015-2022)

i want your midnights

alternatively: a blurb series of the songs inspired by daniel ricciardo (takes place from 2016-2022)

met you at the right time, this is what it feels like

alternatively: a blurb series of the songs inspired by lando norris (takes place from 2021-2023)

you, me, and your friend steve (the 1k special)

the paddock family couples and their third wheels as seen through the fans and themselves

THE BONUS TRACKS

seven

mae and daphne write a song together for max featuring charles leclerc (takes place september 2019)

the unhinged younger brother

the jones sisters have a little brother, he's more unhinged than anyone could imagine. (takes place from 2019-2023)

(daphne's version)

daphne finally gets to own her work (takes place from 2021-2023)

wait, there’s another one of you?

turns out older brothers, feelings, and spilling secrets, is not a healthy mix. who would've thought?! (takes place in early 2022)

nonsense

mae reveals the inspiration behind her most unhinged song ever while also traumatizing a few drivers (takes place may 2022)

a christmas nonsense

nonsense gets a merry sequel while mae and max continue to traumatize their friends and families (takes place november 2022)

the daphlonso scandal

the entire internet is convinced daphne is dating a driver but they’ve got the wrong one or where loose-lipped lando strikes (takes place march 2023)

who's daniel ricciardo anyways?

a star nfl player tries giving his number to daphne, chaos ensues between the f1 girls and the nfl fandom, several people lose their minds, mostly isabella and daniel. (takes place july 2023)

the trophy boyfriends

daphne and mae are everything while daniel and max are just ken (takes place september 2023)

karma is the guy on the track

daphne and daniel break the internet, again. (takes place november 2023)

most likely to...las vegas edition

grill the grid has it out for pierre and rowan (takes place november 2023)

what happens in vegas never stays in vegas

someone gets married in vegas…again (takes place november 2023)

fruitcake

the release of mae's christmas ep has a few people worried. (takes place from november 2023 - december 2023)

a paddock family christmas

christmas, paddock family style (takes place december 2023)

divorcegate 2024

alternatively: isabella and rhys loses their minds over lewis' unexpected move to ferrari. (takes place february 2024)

let him be a trophy husband!

the paddock family takes on the 66th annual grammys and a surprise album announcement by daphne (takes place february 2024)

the end of an era

isabella choses chaos. (takes place february 2024)

she's married you idiots!

relationship rumors strike again! only this time mae and max seem to be at the center of it all. (takes place february 2024)

struggling to survive netflix

the paddock family takes on a new season of drive to survive. (takes place february 2024)

thirsting on the main?

isabella thirsting over her boyfriend with a sprinkle of brocedes (takes place march 2024)

let the games begin

the start of the 2024 formula 1 season, occurs in the usual paddock family chaos (takes place march 2024)

so american

the internet learns just how much zoya torres loves logan sargeant. spoiler, it's more than they could imagine. (takes place march 2024)

of ice cream shops and puppies

think the barbie of formula 1, charles leclerc, starting his new business venture while suffering from dog-napping at the hands of his 'own children' (takes place april 2024)

espresso with a shot of depresso

the impending release of espresso and the tortured poets department has people cracking jokes (takes place april 2024)

the tortured poets department

the release of the tortured poets department by daphne jones-ricciardo. (takes place april 2024)

take me back to the city that i call my city, where everybody knows my name

charles leclerc finally wins his home grand prix. (takes place may 2024)

short n' sweet

it may be mae's 6th studio album, but it's her first as a married woman. (takes place august 2024)

UP NEXT!

[mydaddywiki]

Mike McCarthy

Physique: Husky Build Height: 6"

Michael John McCarthy (born November 10, 1963) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL. From 2006 to 2018, he was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers. In 2011, he led the team to a win in Super Bowl XLV over his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers. He was previously the offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints.

During his 16 seasons as a head coach in the NFL, this big, cuddly, fuckfest of a man has an overall regular season record of 155–97–2. He is among the only five head coaches (Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Andy Reid and Bill Belichick) to lead one franchise to eight straight playoff appearances. McCarthy is second to Curly Lambeau in all-time wins leading the Packers.

Again married, but aren't all the hot ones are? Married to his second wife, together the couple has five children between them. McCarthy and his wife have a history of giving back to communities and people in need with the McCarthy Family Foundation. So maybe if I beg enough, McCarthy let me give that ass of his a good, hard pounding. What? He was a two-time all-conference tight end. I won't go into any more detail, I want to keep this a wholesome blog. Also he has a very bad temper and I don't want him to come over here and punch me.

[voidvannie]

꒰ఎ KAELYN BURROW ━━━━ NONSENSE AU

ᥫ᭡𓆪┊GET TO KNOW KAELYN !

┍                                      ┑

⋆✩⋆ ─── meet kaelyn

┖                                      ┙

kaelyn’s proflie ─── ⋆✩⋆

୨୧ Full Name ─── Kaelyn Jo-Anne Burrow ୨୧ Nicknames ─── Kae, KJ, Jojo, Little Burrow, Baby B ୨୧ Date of Birth ─── May 11, 2003 ୨୧ Hometown ─── Ames, Iowa ୨୧ Family ─── Joe Burrow ୨୧ Face Claim ─── Sabrina Carpenter

୨୧ Favorite Animal ─── Kittens ୨୧ Favorite Drink ─── Water, Mountain Dew ୨୧ Favorite Food ─── Chicken nuggets ୨୧ Favorite Celebrity ─── Ja'Marr Chase ୨୧ Favorite Movie ─── Legally Blonde ୨୧ Favorite Color ─── Red ୨୧ Favorite Season ─── Winter ୨୧ Favorite Holiday ─── Halloween

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪┊EXTRA FACTS!

୨୧ she's super close with joe despite the seven-year age difference. ୨୧ joe is super proud of all of her hard work and dedication in everything that she does. ୨୧ the entire bangles team buys her merch and listens to her music in the locker room even if they don't admit it to anyone. ୨୧ growing up, she wanted to be famous so bad that she begged her parents to let her audition for acting gigs, and later she started putting out music. ୨୧ she lives on her own out in la, but she has her own bedroom at joe's house in cincinnati for when she visits or just wants to get away for a while. ୨୧ her and olivia are absolute best friends and it warms joe's heart to have two of the most important women in his life being so close to one another. ୨୧ even though her brother plays in the nfl, she's a huge nhl fan, but most specifically she's a jersey devil's fan. ୨୧ her best friend is joey king. ୨୧ she loves anything sweet, but she's a big sucker for donuts. ୨୧ she's not a real blonde but keeps up with dying her hair because she doesn't like her original hair color. ୨୧ she calls joe almost every day but she'll call him more than once when she's really missing her brother. ୨୧ she dated her girl meets world costar, tanner buchanan, in 2016 before the two split in 2018 on mutual terms. ୨୧ during the summer, when she's not on tour, she's spending time at the lake house with the boys, but she leaves early to make sure she sees her brother before their schedules get hectic. ୨୧ she will NOT eat mcdonald's, she's told herself that she can't have it and she's sticking to it. ୨୧ she prefers waffles over pancakes and cupcakes over cake. ୨୧ she's allergic to nuts and makes sure to keep her epipen with her at all times. ୨୧ joe is her emergency contact so the one time in the summer where she accidently eats something with nuts (the boys at the lake house freaking out during) he jumps on the first flight to michigan just to check on her. ୨୧ she doesn't keep in touch with any of her girl meets world co-stars, but she has kept in contact with corey (her closest male friend) and sometimes she's seen commenting on peyton meyers instagram. ୨୧ she hates her middle name and knows she's in trouble when her parents (and even joe) call her by her first and middle name. ୨୧ she has a small butterfly tattoo behind her ear that she got matching with olivia. ୨୧ she has a necklace that was given to her from ja'marr chase for her birthday with a diamond encrusted plaque of her name that she never takes off. ୨୧ to add to the necklace from ja'marr, she had a shorter necklace that has jacks' initials hanging from it that he gave her that she also hardly ever takes off.

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪┊KAELYN & JACK'S TIMELINE!

୨୧ in 2021, she was on james cordan where she played 'spill your guts' and admitted to having a thing for new jersey devil's player, jack hughes. ୨୧ after the episode aired, everyone on the internet freaked out, making sure to tag the devil's center player in everything. ୨୧ jack was seen commenting on her instagram just a few days after the episode aired. ୨୧ joe, being the overprotective big brother that he is, made sure he did his research on the hockey plater before approving of them. ୨୧ their relationship was confirmed in june of 2021 when he posted pictures of her from a concert he went to while she was on tour with the caption, "my girl❤️". ୨୧ jack's family adores kaelyn, her and luke ending up being the best of friends due to being the same age.

[frontproofmedia]

Chiefs' Penalty Record: Exposing the Truth Behind NFL Favoritism Claims

Chiefs Penalty Analysis: Debunking the 'Special Treatment' Myth

By: Joseph Correa

In the passionate world of NFL fandom, perceptions can often overshadow reality. A persistent narrative has emerged in recent years: the Kansas City Chiefs, particularly their star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, receive preferential treatment from NFL officials. But does this claim stand up to scrutiny? Let's dive into the numbers and expert opinions to separate fact from fiction.

The Controversial No-Call

The debate reignited following a primetime game against the Atlanta Falcons, where Chiefs DB Bryan Cook appeared to commit pass interference against Falcons TE Kyle Pitts. The no-call sparked outrage among fans and reignited claims of favoritism. However, isolated incidents rarely tell the whole story.

By the Numbers

Let's take a look at the numbers. Since Mahomes took the helm in 2018, the Chiefs' penalty record paints a surprising picture:

Sixth Most Penalized Team: The Chiefs have accumulated 659 penalties, ranking them 6th in the NFL for most infractions.

Super Bowl Seasons:

2019 (SB LIV win): 18th most penalties (107)

2020 (SB LV loss): 4th most penalties (105)

2022 (SB LVII win): 87 offensive penalties

2023 (SB LVIII win): Tied for 6th most penalties (126)

Last Season: In 12 out of 17 games, the Chiefs were flagged more than their opponents, exceeding the league average.

The Mahomes Factor

Critics often point to Mahomes having the most interceptions overturned by penalties since 2018. However, context is crucial. As NFL analyst John Johnson explains, "Mahomes has attempted more passes than any other quarterback in that timeframe. It's a volume stat that doesn't necessarily indicate favoritism."

Expert Opinions

Dr. Sarah Thompson, a sports psychology professor at the University of Kansas, offers insight into the perception of favoritism: "Fans tend to remember controversial calls that benefit star players more vividly. This 'availability bias' can lead to a skewed perception of preferential treatment, even when the data suggests otherwise."

Former NFL referee Mike Davis adds, "In my experience, top players might get the benefit of the doubt in borderline situations, but that's true across all sports. It doesn't explain away the Chiefs' success or their penalty numbers."

The Chiefs' Perspective

In a recent press conference, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid addressed the controversy: "We focus on playing within the rules. Penalties are part of the game, and we've had our fair share. Our success comes from hard work and execution, not from any special treatment."

Conclusion

While the debate over officiating in the NFL is unlikely to subside, the numbers tell a compelling story. The Chiefs' penalty record suggests they're far from immune to flags, and their success under Mahomes appears to be a product of exceptional talent and coaching rather than favorable officiating.

As fans, it's natural to scrutinize every call, but looking at the bigger picture is equally important. The Chiefs' journey to the top of the NFL has been paved with penalties, challenges, and hard-fought victories – a testament to their resilience and skill in a league where nothing comes easy.

Featured Photo: Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images

[leonsliga]

At the request of the wonderful @realmadrider, here’s some of my comfort footy vids 😁 happy watching!

All things DFB and Bundesliga:

Bayern Summer Games 2022 (especially the Guess the Song challenge)

Agility Challenge • Kimmich vs. Goretzka (AKA Kimetzka being an old married couple for nearly 7 minutes)

Wer kennt mehr? Leon Goretzka & Joshua Kimmich

Stadt, Land, Fußball - Thomas Müller and Leon Goretzka

Thomats Challenge: Bundesliga Edition

The big FC Bayern quiz with Manuel Neuer and Sven Ulreich

Google Autocomplete Challenge with Serge Gnabry and Leon Goretzka

Servus, Leon Goretzka!

Leon Goretzka vs. Julian Brandt: Buzzwire Challenge

Bundesliga Stars Try to Draw Their Team Logos - Witsel, Goretzka, and Co.

Mats Hummels vs. Thomas Müller: Me or Him Challenge

Pro vs. Pro:Direct with Thomas Müller

Read My Lips: 🇩🇪 vs. 🇫🇷

Close-Up with Leon Goretzka

60 Seconds Challenge: 🇩🇪🆚🇫🇷

Neuer, Müller, and Lahm making fun of Kramer’s memory loss during the 2014 World Cup final

One gotta go with Marco Reus and Julian Brandt

Manuel Neuer and Bastian Schweinsteiger dancing on the beach

Don’t get distracted! With Julian Brandt and Marco Reus

Müller & Co. Decorating the Christmas Tree

Hummels & Brandt: Which of You…

FC Bayern Teammate Insights

Neuer, Martínez, and Hernández Carpool Q&A

EURO Taxi with Thomas Müller and Mats Hummels

Manuel Neuer vs. Thomas Müller

New Season, New Berni ft. Müller, Neuer, Sané, and Davies

So feiern die Bayern das Triple

Neuer, Piszczek & Co. Try to Draw - Who is the Best Artist

Take it easy | BVB-Challenge with Marco Reus and Julian Brandt

Kimmich vs. Gnabry | Copy the Penalty Challenge

Chunkz vs. Neuer | YouTuber vs. Pro Keeper Penalty Shoot Out Challenge

Manuel Neuer im Interview

Who am I? BVB-Challenge with Mats Hummels and Marcel Schmelzer

Manu lifting up a jar of Nutella like it’s Simba

DFB Nutella Commercial

Will Grigg’s on fire! Is Mats Hummels terrified?

Bayern Summer Games 2021

Thomats Christmas Challenge

Serge Gnabry: Unlocked feat. Yung Filly

Who knows more? Marco Reus vs. Mario Götze - 2018 edition

Who knows more? Marco Reus vs. Mario Götze - 2019 revenge

Netradio Newcomer with Marco Reus and Julian Brandt

Best of Radio Müller

Thomats dieses Mal olympisch - eng subs

Don’t get distracted! With Mats Hummels and Marcel Schmelzer

Cow-Milking and Welly-Throwing | Team-Building Fun at FC Bayern

Shell Game w/ Manuel Neuer

Pantomime w/ Manuel Neuer

Drawing w/ Manuel Neuer

Marco Reus vs. Mats Hummels - Buzz Wire Challenge

Manuel Neuer reveals the results of his doping test (spoiler alert: it was urine)

Thomats Basketball Challenge

Thomas Müller “JAAA” compilation

A Spanish Lesson for Neuer with Thiago - Repeat after Me Challenge

Fußball-Dart: Goretzka gegen Burgstaller

You Have to Answer - Marco Reus

Bayern Team Photo Vlog

Who knows more 2.0: Brandt vs. Hummels

Thomats Tangram Challenge

FC Bayern wish you a Merry Christmas

Mario Götze’s Most Famous Picture

Mats Hummels pranks Gio Reyna

DFB Water Polo Teambuilding

Erling Haaland being a funny guy for 3 minutes straight

Bromance: Manuel Neuer & Leon Goretzka

Manuel Neuer, Per Mertesacke, & Arne Friedrich - Sky ad

Neustädter vs. Reus

Literally anything else:

50 most shocking moments of the 2010 World Cup

Jose Mourinho explains football to a baffled Ted Lasso

Timo Werner being the funniest German for 2 minutes (because he’s an adorable bean)

Lingard and Rashford | Roommates

Ney…freezin innit

Wingmen: Bruno Fernandes and Jesse Lingard

Manchester United x Stone Roses

I am Jose Mourinho 😎

Sergio Ramos drops the Supercopa under the bus

Marcelo, Bale, Ramos, & Co. joking around on a plane because why not

Lies | Toni Kroos & David Alaba

Kroos & Modrić | Teammates

Toni Kroos’s fantastic interview after RMA beat Liverpool in the UCL final

Luka Modrić taunting Gerard Piqué like the girlboss he is

Real Madrid x NFL with a heavy dose of Modramos

Roy Keane’s angriest moments discussing Manchester United - very validating as a United fan in the modern era tbh 😭

THE Kunessi stream - eng subs (55 minutes in all its glory)

When Kun met Leo

Kun calling Leo on stream

Sergio Agüero interviews Lionel Messi

Honestly every episode of the Champions

[wildlife4life]

Seven (+) Sentence Sunday

Tagged by @giddyupbuck, @exhuastedpigeon, @wikiangela, and @theotherbuckley Thank you all so much and I am so excited for all your upcoming fics.

NFL Buck, what else. Here is the lead into Buck's leg injury.

Buck clicks his tongue, “You’re an asshole. I’m telling Linda to take the rest of week off, let you fend for yourself with meals.” He threatens emptily, trying and failing not to smile. Eddie places a hand over his heart, overdramatizing his mock dread to the threat, “Would you really deprive the man you proclaim to love more than football itself, the great wonders of Linda’s cooking?” His boyfriend snorts loud and the screen shakes with his laughter, “Yes, but given your last cooking attempt, I’ll reframe from doing so.  I like our new kitchen too much for you to potentially burn it down.” Eddie was not going to argue with him. His piss poor cooking skills were a fault he embraced. He almost burned down their first home in Houston, trying to make a celebratory dinner for Buck after he signed his million-dollar contract with the Texans. “How’s camp going? Taking your own advice and making some new friends?” Eddie asks. Evan frowns a bit, “Still getting a hang of McVay’s system. I got to know the receivers when I had those private work outs with them and at OTA’s. Wolford and Perkins are good guys, I’m around them a lot. I get along great with the O-line, especially Whitworth, which is good. Don’t need another unguarded linebacker snapping my leg.” He wrinkles his nose at the memory and Eddie notices the slight movement of the arm not holding his phone, probably rubbing scars along his left leg.  Eddie grimaces, remembering that game, Buck’s recovery, and the potential loss of his starting job to Watson. The 2018/2019 season really was the worst for Evan.

I ignore canon and embrace the quirk that is Eddie's very bad cooking skills. Hope you all enjoyed! If you want to see more NFL Buck just go here.

Tagging (no pressure): @hippolotamus @disasterbuckdiaz @spotsandsocks @jeeyuns @fortheloveofbuddie @forthewolves @ladydorian05 @devirnis @eddiebabygirldiaz @thewolvesof1998 @loserdiaz @thekristen999 @lizzybizzyzzz @try-set-me-on-fire @jesuisici33 @spaceprincessem @shortsighted-owl @homerforsure @sibylsleaves @monsterrae1 @lover-of-mine @watchyourbuck @rogerzsteven @eowon @911onabc @911-on-abc @cowboydiazes @cowboy-buddie @cowboy-buck @brokenribsdiaz @buck-coded @bvckandeddie @housewifebuck @honestlydarkprincess @transbuck @elvensorceress @glorious-spoon @bigfootsmom @eddiediaztho @buddierights @athenagranted @rainbow-nerdss @rainbow-nerdss @gayhoediaz @gayedmundodiaz

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from Becky:

I actually would love to hear where ticket/concession/merch money for concerts go. If someone has already asked about that, can you do something similar for a sports game of your choice?

Already got a request for concerts, but I can do the sports game!

So, let's go with... baseball. I've been to professional baseball games ('twas the Ducks), even if it's been a Very Long Time, so that's the one I have some perspective on. Who is in control of the money any given game (as in, who owns the stadium and the home team) varies by place and sport, so let's use the Mets and Citi Field as our example when we need a specific.

Mostly, this is because I'm in New York and so it's down to either them or the Yankees, and between the two... the Mets, through a wholly owned subsidiary, Queens Ballpark Company, are the ones that actually own their ballpark, which makes a few things easier and includes a Fun Fact about the naming. It also means that I can treat the team and the stadium as one singular entity instead of waffling over who gets to be the Main Character of this simulation. It's not exactly uncommon for teams to own their own stadiums, but it's not most of them.

(The Mets, btw, are owned in large part by a hedge fund manager. Like, 95% of the team stock is owned by this one guy. Why can't more sports be like the Packers and just belong to the city.)

In this case, I will be referring to the Forbes article on Citi Field's revenue for 2022 as a guide or framework, as they have an actual image of the financial report; they don't do much explaining of the actual data, though, so my part will be explaining the less-obvious things and doing some maths. A few other articles will also be cited as they come in useful.

I'll also note that the Mets are a very expensive team operating at a loss, but they still work for our purposes.

MONEY COMING IN:

Tickets, most obviously

To quote the wiki article on Major League Baseball:

"MLB is the second-wealthiest professional sport league by revenue after the National Football League (NFL). [...] MLB has the highest total season attendance of any sports league in the world; in 2018, it drew more than 69.6 million spectators."

I didn't know that until I started researching for this post, but it makes sense. After all, baseball is "the American pastime." The Forbes article cites average attendance of 33,000 per home game. The stadium seat about 41,900, so we're looking at roughly 79% attendance. This is fine, because attendance is not the only stream of revenue.

Advertising

If you have seen a professional sports game in the past however many years, you have seen that, depending on the type of court, they are plastered in advertising. Let's take a look at Citi Field:

(Image Source: MLB website)

The Forbes article states that the stadium makes about $48.5 million per year from advertising. About $28.5 million of that comes from the various 'temporary' and long-term ads, the Nikon and Geico and Toyota and Coca Cola, etc.

$20 million of it comes from one company. I'm going to quote Wikipedia again:

The naming rights were purchased by Citigroup, a New York financial services company, for $20 million annually.

This is not uncommon! ESPN has an article about it, and some standout examples are Bank of America Stadium, Coors Field, Delta Center, FedEx Field and FedEx Forum, General Motors Place, Gillette Stadium, Heinz Field, and the list just goes on. I'm not even sure if the list is up to date, because I'm seeing even more articles elsewhere with higher figures.

Concessions

The financial report that Forbes cites has $22mill in concessions. This is not entirely surprising. Going by this page, we're looking at... 84 home games in that 2022 season. Let's assume that 33,000 average cited earlier. That's 2,772,000 attendees over the course of the season. So, what, a little under $10 per attendance tick? Entirely plausible. A hot dog plus a soda is $15, so... that tracks.

Parking

Apparently parking is, collectively, about $13mill annually. That's... genuinely a little concerning to me, for uh. Reasons. Also parking is $40.

(A lot of people go to games via train, if anyone's interested.)

Luxury Suite Premiums

I had to google this one, but uh. Turns out those fancy private box seats are even fancier and more private than I thought, bringing in over $10 mill a year.

Other Revenue - Stadium, undefined

"Other Revenue" and "post season revenue" are not given any further information, but they're about $16.5 mill so. They're definitely doing their part? Wish we had more information.

One guess is that there are events in the vein of the Citi Field Spring Carnival that contribute to the revenue through either fees to the stadium (if this is a carnival that rents the parking lot) or concessions and tickets (if the stadium rents a carnival).

Other Revenue - to the team that is not direct operating income of the stadium itself

Not counting the "other revenue" section of the financial statement, the Forbes article tells us that:

National broadcasting deals with Fox, ESPN and TBS that pay over $60 million a year to every MLB team, as well as the local cable fee the Mets get from SNY, which is over $80 million a year.

That's another $140mill in addition to the $244mill that the financial report cites.

Merchandise - not direct stadium revenue.

Get your Mets hats here! And your jerseys! And your logo bats! And your commemorative plushies! And--

MONEY GOING OUT

Operations

This one's easy: you have to pay wages to your employees, from the players themselves to the food sellers to janitorial to security to field maintenance, etc. Also, you have to pay for utilities (those billboards and floodlights aren't cheap), product to sell (frozen hot dogs), supplementary materials for products you sell (plastic cups, paper for the ticket machines, bags for garbage cans, and so on), and repairs/maintenance for the stands themselves (can't imagine they get through a season with all 41,900 seats intact).

Player salaries (and a few others, like the coach) aren't actually included in stadium revenue, but since the stadium is owned by the team, we're bundling them together for the sake of this case.

Payment in Lieu of Taxes

So this is an interesting one, and while the Forbes article does touch on it, there's a bit more detail to the story.

Citi Field was built in 2009, and the process cost $850 million. Of that, $615 was public subsidies. A lot of this was municipal bonds, which the Mets have to pay back with interest for the lifetime of the park; those municipal bond repayments are an offset, and in return for paying tens of millions in municipal bond repayments each year (the 2022 report shows about $43.5 mill), Citi Field does not have to pay property taxes.

Wikipedia only cites property taxes, but the financial report doesn't include any other taxes, so I'll assume the only other taxes they're on the hook for are sales and payroll, which aren't displayed in the financial report.

Parking

Right, so, parking as a bundle is about $7.5 mill in expenses, which means that parking alone has a marginal profit of about 42.3%, given the earlier figure of $13mill in parking revenue. I'm not finding any solid information on where that money goes, but it seems very like that New York City's taxes on land use for parking is not included in the property tax exemption we discussed above, and that most of the $7.5 mill is in that regard.

Post Season Expenses

I'll be honest, they don't define this $1.8 mill, but given what is and isn't included in the other sections, I'm going to hazard a guess that this may be about upgrades (more than maintenance) or replacement of physical billboards that are also not included as regular maintenance but require a lot of manpower to get up and set if complicated enough.

General and Administrative

This is the other possible allocation of the utilities and related payments. This is also where back of house activities like accountants, lawyer fees, payroll clerks, facilities managers, and so on are bundled in. It's about $5.5 mill.

Publicity and Promotions

This one's easy, it's just marketing that doesn't fall into General Mets Things and is rather for home games specifically.

Depreciation and Amortization

Bit trickier, but you know how a car loses value the second you drive it off the lot? That is depreciation. You paid $20,000 for a car, but two years later it's worth $16,000; on a financial report, you put that down as a $4,000 loss to depreciation. Amortization is similar, in that it lowers values of various assets in relation to time and relative value to what it was when new.

Interest Expenses

Expenses related directly to interest rates tend to get their own line separate from regular debt repayments. This isn't really relevant beyond 'loans are more expensive than when you first get them.'

Travel and League Expenses

Since this is a traveling team, being professionals, and a Major League Baseball Team in particular, money has to be spent on the plane rides, team bus, and of course, the league fees. I wanted to end that a bit more pithy, but it turns out it's not easy to find league fees for the MLB.

(A new team joining would have to pay about $2.2 billion, according to one article, while previous new additions were a couple hundred mill, so... 100 mill? Maybe?)

Hope that answers your question!

[izharzia]

Lamar Jackson

Lamar Demeatrice Jackson Jr. (born January 7, 1997) is an American professional footballquarterback for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Louisville Cardinals, winning the Heisman Trophy in 2016, and was selected by the Ravens with the final pick (No. 32) in the first round of the 2018 NFL draft. Intended to serve as a backup in his rookie season, Jackson became the Ravens' starting quarterback after an injury to the incumbent Joe Flacco. He went on to clinch a division title with the team and became the youngest NFL quarterback to start a playoff game at age 21.[1]

FULL VIDE

https://sfl.gl/444mNZh

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng at Rolling Stone:

Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift hasn’t even endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection yet. That hasn’t stopped members of MAGAland’s upper crust from plotting to declare — as one source close to Donald Trump calls it — a “holy war” on the pop mega-star, especially if she ends up publicly backing the Democrats in the 2024 election.

According to three people familiar with the matter, Trump loyalists working on or close to the former president’s campaign, longtime Trump allies in right-wing media, and an array of outside advisers to the ex-president have long taken it as a given that Swift will eventually endorse Biden (as she did in 2020). Indeed, several of these Republicans and conservative media figures have discussed the matter with Trump over the past few months, the sources say. While Swift has not yet issued an endorsement in the 2024 race, The New York Times reported Monday that Swift is a key name on Biden aides’ “wish lists of potential surrogates.” A potential Swift appearance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already prompted the MAGA right’s culture war pugilists into a conspiracy-fueled froth about how this NFL season has been rigged to boost Biden.  Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. In recent weeks, the former president has told people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has also privately claimed that he is “more popular” than Swift is and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone.

Last month, the source close to Trump adds, the ex-president commented to some confidants that it “obviously” made no sense that he was not named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year — an honor that went to none other than Swift in December. In an email to Rolling Stone, Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller shrugged off the prospect of a Taylor Swift endorsement for Trump’s rival. “Joe Biden might be counting on Taylor Swift to save him, but voters are looking at these sky-high inflation rates and saying, ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,’” Miller wrote. The former president has already taken public swipes at Swift because of her endorsement of two Tennessee Democrats running during the 2018 midterms. “I like Taylor’s music about 25 percent less now,” Trump said following the pop singer’s statement. 

Swift also blasted Trump during the 2020 election, accusing him of trying to “blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk” following the Trump administration’s efforts to hinder mail-in voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  Meanwhile, as Trump has been having a popularity contest with Swift in his own head, others close to him —including GOP operatives, some of his 2024 staff, and Trumpy media figures — have been brainstorming different ways to go after Swift. Since late last year, these Trump allies have repeatedly discussed how to turn the culture-warrior dial up to 11, if she re-endorses Biden this year, the sources recount. “It would be more fuel thrown on to the culture-war fires,” says an official working on the Trump reelection efforts. “Another left-wing celebrity who is part of the Democrat elite telling you what to think.”

Publicly, members of Trump’s inner sanctum and social circle are already signaling Swift’s prominent position atop their enemies list — a situation that has reached fever pitch now that Swift’s boyfriend will once again be playing in the Super Bowl. [...] MAGA pundits have spent months fuming about Swift and her boyfriend — already a hated figure for his role as a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine spokesman. During a rant in November about the GOP’s losses across a string of state elections and abortion-related ballot initiatives, Turning Point USA founder and Trump ally Charlie Kirk warned that Swift was “going to come out in the presidential election” and “mobilize her fans,” adding that “all the Swifties want is swift abortion.” Fox News host and Trump buddy Jesse Watters declared Swift a potential “Pentagon psyop” and “a front for a covert political agenda” during a segment earlier this month. 

According to reporting from Rolling Stone, Donald Trump and his allies are plotting a "holy war" against Taylor Swift, especially if she decides to endorse Joe Biden's re-election bid, and Trump himself has delusionally claimed that he is "more popular" than Swift. Such a strategy would further alienate younger women from the GOP.

This is part of the MAGA Cult's tantrum-throwing war against the popular pop (and formerly country) singer, partially due to the fact that she is a vocal LGBTQ+ rights supporter and is currently dating Chiefs TE Travis Kelce (who is appearing in Pfizer commercials, further angering the anti-COVID vaxxer extremists).

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Donald Trump gripes he has more fans than Taylor Swift as GOP panics over her massive influence

HuffPost: Donald Trump Reportedly Tells People Close To Him That He's Bigger Than Taylor Swift

Vox: Why conservatives are melting down over Taylor Swift

[dystini]

Indycar Driver Lore

Indycar Driver Lore Masterlist

Josef Nicolai Newgarden

His name was originally Joseph Edgar Newgarden but it was changed when he was 6

Birthdate: Dec. 22, 1990 Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Residence: Nashville, Tennessee Height/Weight: 6’0/177lbs

Rookie Year: 2012

Team: Penske

Follow him on: Instagram Twitter YouTube

Career Stats

2012: Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing - 23rd Overall 2013: Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing - 14th Overall 2014: Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing - 13th Overall 2015: CFH Racing - 7th Overall 2016: Ed Carpenter Racing - 4th Overall 2017: Team Penske - 1st Overall 2018: Team Penske - 5th Overall 2019: Team Penske - 1st Overall 2020: Team Penske - 2nd Overall 2021: Team Penske - 2nd Overall 2022: Team Penske - 2nd Overall 2023: Team Penske - 5th Overall

Cohosted (as of 2024 on indefinite hiatus) fan-favorite behind-the-scenes video series Bus Bros with teammate Scott McLaughlin. Bus Bros Playlist

Behind-the-scenes race weekend videos. Admit1 playlist

SRX - 2022 Nashville, 2023 Motor Mile

IMSA 2023 - Tower Motorsports - Daytona 24 | Porsche Penske Motorsport – Petite Le Mans 2024 - Porsche Penske Motorsport – Daytona 24 win

-a versatile athlete, who appeared on a 2016 episode of “American Ninja Warrior” with other NTT Indycar Series drivers and has participated in the NFL Combine and the Indiana Pacers Slam Dunk contest. He played baseball and basketball before turning to racing. -Listens to R&B and dance/EDM and is a fan of Twenty One Pilots, The Weekend, Skrillex, and Diplo -Avid gamer; is a brand ambassador for Forza Motorsport and is featured in voiceovers for multiple versions of the game, including Forza Motorsport 7 -Is an outstanding ping pong player and hosts an annual celebrity ping pong tournament around the Music City Grand Prix. It serves as a fundraiser for SeriousFun Children’s Network -Enjoys rock climbing and most outdoor activities; an avid Forza player

-cannot resist chocolate chip cookies or brownies

-doesn't like heights

Iconic/memorable moments

The rainbow cake deep throat at 15:00 "I may just put this in my crotch." 11:55 (keep watching for shirtless, sweaty Josef) Pullups with chains around his neck 0:15 (plus other drivers working out and highlights) The infamous Milk Gimp Indy 500 ad (viewer discretion advised) Drivers of the Corn - starring: Simon Pagenaud & Josef Newgarden BUS BROS Episode 12: We Got You My Favorite Summer Salad! (Because the world needs Josef Newgarden squeezing the life out food to make a salad.) starting at 0:50 Josef and Sage Karam at the 2015(?) NFL Combine 2022 INSIDE THE RACE // JOSEF NEWGARDEN Josef Newgarden shares BBQ Turkey Burger recipe LET THERE BE MILK. IndyCar off-season training hits different. Indy 500 Champ Josef Newgarden Shows Us His Workout | Train Like | Men's Health Josef Newgarden and James Hinchcliffe Visit Space Camp 2023 Indy 500: Josef Newgarden Victory Celebration Speech Josef Newgarden relives 'the worst wreck I've ever had' at Texas | 'I Survived' | Motorsports on NBC Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin are teammates, friends, competitors | Motorsports on NBC PLAYING THE NEWLYWED GAME WITH THE BUS BROS: SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN & JOSEF NEWGARDEN!!!! Josef Newgarden: Defending a Championship Google Search - Josef Newgarden IndyCar Chronicles with Josef Newgarden INDYCAR 101: Driver Fitness with Josef Newgarden Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud | No. 1 Josef Newgarden III (Incognito 3) INDYCAR FANswers: Josef Newgarden INDYCAR Travels: Josef Newgarden in Milwaukee Josef Newgarden Undercover

The INDYCAR Off-Season with Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Josef Newgarden and Conor Daly IndyCar: Robin Miller with Josef Newgarden at Road America Driver Josef Newgarden Red Carpet Interview from the INDYCAR Championship Celebration Josef Newgarden | Christmas Movie Quotes Reddit Asks Josef Newgarden Anything! 2022 Edition Reddit Asks Me Anything! Part 1 Reddit Asks Me Anything! Part 2 Josef Newgarden goes INTO THE CROWD to celebrate his Indy 500 victory! James Hinchcliffe talks donuts, mac & cheese and chocolate with Josef Newgarden , Romain Grosjean Will Power and more. Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin | Hot Seats with Hinch

2024 Cheating scandal Team Penske hit with penalties over Push to Pass use; O’Ward declared St. Petersburg winner How Team Penske took push-to-pass beyond the limit

Penske Perfect and Details Matter are two phrases often used in conjunction with the Penske organization. And when they can be used to dunk on Ferrucci, all the better.

Josef is a perfectionist. This is a combo of his highly competitive nature - which has been said about him from a young age - and the Penske Perfect motto which he has taken to heart. He is highly critical of himself - getting very down on himself if he makes a mistake and taking the blame for things not wholly under his control. But he tried to maintain a genial if slightly arrogant image in public. He slips sometimes - there have been a few angry Twitter interactions that he later apologized for and on occasion after a race, his temper will get the better of him and he'll say things he probably shouldn't.

He can be goofy as hell as seen on Bus Bros. Scott McLaughlin has brought this out of him since becoming teammates. Josef has said that Scott makes him feel more comfortable being his real self.

I would be remiss if I did not point out Josef's thighs. He is a specimen in general but those thighs should get special attention.

Fanfic Lore

Frequently paired with teammate Scott McLaughlin. As of 2024 there has been a cooling of their friendship as Josef pulls back to focus on racing/the championship.

Historically paired with Conor Daly. They raced together in karts and lower-series cars.

[mydaddywiki]

Chip Kelly

Physique: Husky/Average Build Height: 6' (1.83 m)

Charles Edward Kelly (born November 25, 1963) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the UCLA Bruins. He came to prominence as the head coach of the Oregon Ducks from 2009 to 2012, whom he led to four consecutive BCS bowl game appearances, including the 2011 BCS National Championship Game. This success led to him serving as a head coach in the NFL for four seasons, three with the Philadelphia Eagles (2013–2015) and one with the San Francisco 49ers (2016). Kelly only made the playoffs in his first season with Philadelphia, and he was fired from both teams. After leaving the NFL, Kelly returned to college football in 2018 to coach UCLA.

Chip Kelly, a name synonymous with offensive brilliance even though his UCLA record is around .500. Obviously he has a cute, sexy body but the main attraction was his face. I don’t think there’s been a time where I’ve seen Chip and immediately had thoughts of boning him and milking him dry.

Once married, Kelly is reluctant to discuss his life outside of football. The Dover, NH native lives in Los Angeles, California but has a small, tight-knit group of friends in Manchester, NH, who never speak about him to reporters. That kinda adds to the rumor that Chip use to swing when he was married and coaches for both teams if you get my meaning.

[lboogie1906]

Karl Anthony Malone (July 24, 1963) is a retired basketball player. Nicknamed “the Mailman”, he played the power forward position and spent his first 18 seasons (1985–2003) in the NBA with the Utah Jazz and formed a formidable duo with his teammate John Stockton. He played one season for the Los Angeles Lakers. He was a two-time NBA MVP, a 14-time NBA All-Star, and an 11-time member of the All-NBA first team. His 36,928 career points scored rank second all-time in NBA history behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and he holds the records for most free throws attempted and made, in addition to being tied for the second-most first-team All-NBA selections with Kobe Bryant and behind LeBron James. He is considered one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history.

Born in Summerfield, Louisiana, he was the youngest of nine children and was raised on a farm by his single mother, Shirley. Shedrick Hay, his father, was married to a different woman and raised a family with her.

He played college basketball at Louisiana Tech University. In his three seasons with Louisiana Tech, he helped the Bulldogs basketball team to its first-ever NCAA tournament and first place in the Southland Conference. The Utah Jazz drafted him in 1985 with the 13th overall pick in the first round. He appeared in the playoffs every season in his career, including the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998 with the Jazz. He played his final season with the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he played his third Finals in 2004. He competed in the Summer Olympic Games of 1992 and 1996; he won gold medals. He joined the staff of the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs basketball team in 2007 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

He married Kay Kinseyn (1990), winner of the 1988 Miss Idaho USA pageant. They have four children. K.J. played football at LSU and was invited to the 2018 NFL Combine. He has three other children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[battleangel]

Hallucinatory & Dreamlike: Problematizing the Balletic Violence in the NFL & NCAA

I have never been as emotionally affected by any piece of media whether it be a film, novel, album, television show, documentary or otherwise as I have by a recent video I just viewed by former NFL lineman Jared Odrick entitled “Am I Crazy? – Damar Hamlin Prelude”.

Please, give it a watch as it is only 3 and a half minutes long.

Jared’s description of the prelude is as follows:

“Why are we so willing to ‘live & die by the games we play’….but then so quickly abandon the game’s importance when someone’s life is threatened? What is the value of making heroes out of players if we know they’re just playing a game that doesn’t really matter? Well - I’d argue that it does matter. Whenever a tragedy like this happens in #football, I take it as an opportunity to reflect on my current #CTE investigation. A tragic event like this helps us all reassess value, tone & messaging when trying to connect with football families looking for answers. I’ve asked myself a lot of questions since leaving football behind. Flying private with foes, in emergency rooms with friends - but most recently, sitting silent in my house watching a heart attack on National TV…”Am I giving consideration to all the various elements at play? Risk. Disease. Resilience. And the acceptance of Death.” Sometimes during a tragedy like this, when very little information is being released - but even less medical information…pop-media struggles to assess the underlying meaning of football….”What are we doing & why?”

Certainly, with Tua suffering yet another concussion which caused yet another fencing response resulting in him having to be stretchered off the field after a tackle by Damar Hamlin, who we just saw die live on our TV sets on Monday Night Football two seasons ago, and this is Tua's fifth concussion in as many seasons — two of which Tua played through just last season — and Tua's obstinate refusal to even consider retirement and, far from it, him standing at attention on the sidelines during the entire Dolphins game this past Sunday — I'm sure what Tua's concussed brain needed was NOT a stadium full of 70k screaming fans, bright lights, constant noise but who cares, right?

Tua is there to captain his troops.

And now with Brett Favre announcing his Parkinson's diagnosis at 54 which he testified in front of Congress today he believes was caused by the hundreds, and very likely, thousands of concussions he suffered during his NFL career.

And the NFL's own actuaries confirming in a study that they predict that 1/3 of NFL players will be diagnosed with a neurological condition or disorder — that is NINETEEN TIMES the average of non-NFL players.

And finally, a study was released yesterday that found that 1/3 of former NFL players believe that they have CTE.

I wanted to ask — what does the violence we see every Saturday & Sunday mean?

What happens if we problematize the balletic violence we are presented by the NFL & NCAA every single weekend?

What is it about the violence in football that is so alluring, so balletic, so much like a dark ballet or opera?

What is it about the violence, bodies in motion, athleticism, feats of courage, physicality, athletic grace that is so magnetic, exhilarating, cathartic, devastating, addictive, atavistic & mythological?

How might we filter that violence through a different lens than what the NCAA & NFL presents it as and see it for what it truly is?

I have always felt that the moment of a football tackle — a hit — was devouring.

In Josh Begley's "Field of Vision: Concussion Protocol" montage of every concussion that occurred during the 2017 to 2018 NFL season slowed down and in reverse, Josh said in an interview with The Intercept that he felt that the moment that a concussion occurs is "devouring", however, I've always felt that the so-called "normal" and routine everyday violence in football — the typical tackles inherent in football itself — were devouring, violent, brutalistic, unrelenting, merciless and inhumane.

As you may imagine in our football obsessed society, my protestations of the brutalistic violence inherent in football itself were dismissed as hypersensitivity.

Despite this, I always felt that the "normal" tackles often occurring in the open field at 20 to 25+ mph with human beings literally smashing and crashing into one another at full speed was inhumane no matter how much the violence was normalized during every broadcast of every game, sanitized by the network's presentation, sanctioned by the overly legalistic rules of the game and embraced, rationalized, handwaved, justified & eye rolled away by the ever rabid and bloodlusting fans.

I have done extensive research on tackle football, concussions, brain damage, CTE, neurological conditions & disorders (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia & ALS), chronic pain, opioid addiction, early deaths, suicides, mental & physical trauma, PTSD and more resulting from playing the sport of tackle football for nearly ten years. I have read hundreds of scientific and academic research articles regarding the same as well as former NFL player autobiographies, blogs, interviews and more.

As my research deepened, so did my concerns and cognitive dissonance towards the NFL as an organization and the sport of tackle football itself. I eventually ended up researching, reviewing and reading former players and players families lawsuits against the NFL, NCAA & Pop Warner as well as contacting non-profit organizations, player advocates and attorneys regarding these lawsuits.

In addition to the above, I also started writing articles regarding my observations, thoughts & musings on the above mentioned issues as well as the NFL's very well-earned and deserved reputation of League of Denial. I'm constantly doing ongoing research into these issues and have about 100+ browser tabs open at any given time in my mobile browser.

While researching the NFL being a bloodsport, I came across the documentary I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, "Am I Crazy?" by former NFL lineman Jared Odrick.

Specifically, the Damar Hamlin prelude video.

I instantly started sobbing towards the end of the video when the football tackles were slowed down, reversed, pixelated, distorted then the players were shown disintegrating with haunting background music playing over the almost hallucinatory dream-like sequence and disturbing imagery.

This is what football violence is actually like slowed down and reversed without any of the pageantry or sanitized presentation with men in suits with microphones presiding over the carnage.

To see the slow damage that befalls many football players who later succumb to neurological disorders like CTE, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Disease, ALS and dementia from the thousands of subconcussive head impacts they endured throughout their football careers artistically represented by the violence the players were dishing out in terms of hard hits and tackles while other footage showed players on the receiving end of devastating hits and ferocious tackles reflected in the prelude by the players themselves becoming distorted and pixelated, their images slowly disintegrating similar to what progressive neurological conditions actually do to former NFL players which is slowly deteriorate and disintegrate them and break them down over time to the point where they are broken shells of their former selves and it was hits just like the ones shown in the prelude to the documentary – the thousands of hits endured by players from Pop Warners to the Pros that leads some players to a debilitating and disabling cognitive decline which they never recover from.

I was so used to people telling me both in real life and online that I was being overly sensitive or that I was just plain wrong about how disturbed I've always felt by the violence in football.

I had never before seen someone express what I have always felt since I was 14 years old in 1996 watching Chad Pennington get knocked around like a human pinata — that the violence in football was inhuman and inhumane.

Hard tackles would bother me for days on end and I would play them back in my mind without meaning to – I would randomly just get the images and they would play in my mind during the course of my day.

The artistic and haunting presentation of the violence in Jared Odricks “Am I Crazy? Damar Hamlin prelude video” distorts and defamiliarizes what is all too familiar – a hard violent football tackle – and thus problematizes what is presented as totally ordinary – a good old fashioned football tackle or a nice, hard hit as any football fanatic would say.

It made me cry so hard my eyes hurt. The every game, every snap, every down violence that at all times is simultaneously and paradoxically denied, legitimized, excused, endlessly consumed, defended, handwaved, sanitized, commodified, commoditized, packaged in plastic, Photoshopped, presented in cinematic 4K glory, sanctified, glorified, Americanized, militarized, consecrated and presented to the viewing audience for mass consumption while almost never being actually questioned had finally been not just questioned in an intellectual, academic and scientific way but in a humanized, empathetic, emotionalized, artistic, haunting, disorienting, hallucinatory way.

Maybe what adrenaline, pain, the rush of 70k roaring fans, smoke-filled tunnels and hysteria feels like.

I was honestly so affected by the “Am I Crazy? – Damar Hamlin prelude video” that after sobbing, I immediately woke my husband up at 1 am when he had work later that morning and forced him to watch it.

My husband is a South Jersey born Philadelphia Eagles fanatic who is a simple dude that just wants his football, adrenaline rush, spectacle and pageantry. It's his weekly escape and he's not really trying to "get that deep with it" outside of my numerous articles, text messages, IMs, emails and countless conversations with him regarding the disturbing violence that is inherent to the sport of football itself which he does read in their entirety and he does give me his honest thoughts about but rest assured it did not keep him from watching Eagles Saints this past Sunday.

As anyone who is honest I think can admit, once you start to actually look closer at the actual violence in football, it gets harder to just turn your mind off and "get ready for some football" once you actually think about how the sausage is made so to speak.

I have yet to watch the entire hour long plus “Am I Crazy?” documentary by Jared Odrick but I plan to do so later this month when I have the time to really sit down, watch, digest and contemplate the documentary in its thought-provoking, artistic and emotionally evocative entirety.

Just from viewing the prelude videos, it is clear that “Am I Crazy?” delves into the sport of tackle football and the interplay of capitalism, politics, militarism, patriotism, masculinity, exploitation, violence and other intersectional societal factors.

Although I have very rarely ever watched college football – only when someone else had it on and I was visiting their house – Jared Odrick’s Youtube short for “Am I Crazy? Episode 3” literally haunted and disturbed me so much.

In fact, the picture at the top of this blog post are screencaps from, "Am I Crazy? Episode 3".

I attended Rutgers from 2002 to 2007 and the football team was doing very well during my last few years of attendance and definitely by the time I graduated.

I absolutely refused to ever attend a Rutgers football game despite my husband, at the time my boyfriend, being a fanatic and attending all their games.

As you can read above, I have always had cognitive dissonance towards the sport of football as well as a natural aversion towards the violence inherent in football itself.

But college football literally disturbed me on a different level from the NFL and the Jets games that were always on at my parent’s house – uninsured athletes making their schools billions who are left to pay for their own injuries out of pocket was a different level of exploitation that made me feel literally physically ill.

When 86% of NCAA Division 1 football players are below the federal poverty line yet their coaches are paid millions and are some of the highest paid employees in their state, we do have a fucking problem.

During the time I attended Rutgers (2002 to 2007), this was before NIL so not only were those athletes not paid but they couldn’t even make any money off of their status as college athletes as their schools were disgustingly able to do with jerseys, videogames, licensing deals, network TV deals, streaming apps and more.

Only .06% of NCAA Division 1 college football players ever actually play a down in the NFL. Not practice squads. Actually suiting up and playing in a game. You know. The dream?

.06%!

Put another way, there are 100k NCAA college football players every season.

There are only 1,600 NFL players.

That is some very unforgiving math.

But beyond the violence, exploitation and straight up racism – keep in mind, that over 50% of NCAA Division 1 football players are Black yet Black men only make up 6% of the US population – the mass hysteria I witnessed on game days at Rutgers fucking terrified and unnerved the living hell out of me.

I would literally be filled with existential dread that would induce physical nausea.

The mass hysteria. The unthinking elation and ecstasy. The screams and school chants in unison by over 80k people.

The face painting. The unthinking crowds. The mobs. The fervor. The pageantry. The spectacle. The tradition. The unrelenting violence.

The feeling it evoked in me was reminiscent of the worst examples of mob violence that I could envision ever reading about in history from the French Revolution to lynchings.

It was insidious, pervasive, pernicious, suffocating, dark and sickly.

The unthinking hysteria that unnerved me to my literal core just walking past the Rutgers students with their faces painted red and black decked out in game day gear waiting for the buses on College Ave to take them to the stadium.

I have never seen anyone else capture the unease, dread and unnerving feelings that the mass hysteria endemic to college football has always induced in me as Jared Odrick does in “Am I Crazy? Episode 3”.

Please watch it – it is less than a minute.

The all white. Like a fever dream.

The men screaming and yelling their faces distorted in what appears to be rage but is pure unbridled unhinged fanaticism.

The students — thousands of them — all dressed in white running down the steps in an extremely unnerving blurred mass of total and complete hysteria.

White white white students – you did catch that, didn’t you?

To watch players — where Black men are way overrepresented as they are 52% of NCAA Division 1 college football players but only 6% of the US population — beat, tackle, hit, collide with and hurt each other.

All for the fans' delirious school spirit. For their delirium. For their unhinged unbridled ecstasy. For their fervor and elation. For their religious orgiastic pleasure.

Who cares about brains being damaged permanently and concussed?

Who cares that college football players — the vast vast majority of whom never make it to the NFL, less than 1% — have a much higher chance of developing neurological conditions and disorders like CTE, Parkinson's disease, ALS, Alzheimers and dementia from tens of thousands of subconcussive hits to the head accumulated over a lifetime of playing tackle football from Pop Warner to the Pros?

Many college players start as children as young as 8, some as young as even 5 – so by the time they are done with collegiate football at around 21, they have already endured potentially 10 to 15+ years of repetitive head impacts.

On average, Pop Warner players (aged 5 to 14) endure 336 head impacts a season.

High school football players endure 600 to 1000 head impacts a season.

College football players endure 1000 head impacts a season.

That is a lot of fucking head impacts even for those players who stop at the college level and never make it to the NFL – over 99% of them.

And the fans deliriously cheer on the helmets clashing & smacking together, the head hits, the collisions, the players running into each other at 20+ miles per hour, the unmitigated violence.

All for school spirit and school pride. All for tradition and spectacle and pageantry. All for emotional release. All for being in a mass crowd. All for hysteria. All for elation and ecstasy. All for religious fervor. All for orgiastic ecstasy. All for mindless indulgence.

All for screaming, yelling, school chants, school songs, school pride, school spirit.

All for catharsis.

All for being one with 70k to 100k other screaming fans.

All for the mob mentality.

All for drinking and getting drunk. All for rushing and storming the field. All for getting caught up and swept up in emotion. All for a cathartic release. All for a vicarious experience.

All for the glamorized violence, the gloss, the marching bands, the cheerleaders, the patriotism, the brightly colored uniforms, the jets flying over the stadiums.

All for students scrambling their brains and minds and breaking their bodies for you.

All for injured students being stretchered off the field.

All for players – most of them still teenagers under 21 – risking life, limb, brain and mind just to entertain you.

Just to give you your school spirit.

Just to give you your mindless escape.

What must that be like – as a player – feeling all that bloodlust, that elation, that hunger, that mania, that mass hysteria, the screams in unison, the school chants and songs, the eruptions, the mob, the screams, the yells, 100k people all dressed in white, the violence, the stadium so much like a bullfighting arena, you the warrior out to give the tens of thousands in the stands and the millions watching at home – they, safe and secure in the stands and on their couches – you, vicariously fulfilling their gladiatorial fantasies.

You being urged on by your coaches not to let the fans down, to make them proud – these people you dont even fucking know and have never even met before yet you are risking your literal health, mind, brain, body and fucking life for – to make your school proud, to go out there and give it every single thing you’ve got, to never give up, to fight, to play through your pain, to play through every injury, to go out there and be their warrior, be their Roman shield…

What is that like for the men who aren't in the stands, drinking, eating, imbibing, vibing, laughing, talking, cheering, screaming, dancing, singing, taking selfies – what's it like for the men on that field risking serious debilitating and incapacitating injury on every single down on every single play – what’s it like for the men on that field risking catastrophic injury and paralysis – what’s it like for the men on that field constantly incurring & accruing permanent brain damage, suffering concussions, risking future memory loss, amnesia, personality & behavioral changes, suicidality, aggression, volatility, mood swings, violent behavior, difficulty swallowing, breathing & moving their muscles in their 30s, in their 40s, in their 50s and will they even live to see their 60s?

What’s that like for the men who can never show even a single solitary ounce of fear or any hesitation whatsoever – as they have been trained and brainwashed not to since they were kids – who have to walk out into the gladiatorial arena – to the mass hysteria – to the screaming mob of 70k to 100k fanatics all decked out in their school’s colors – one hysterical massive blob of flesh all decked out in the same identical school colors – terrifying in its insanity and intensity – yet you as a player have to be a cool customer, a cool hand Luke, never betraying fear nerves or anxiety – cool, calm, collected, confident, cocky – tough, high energy, braggadocious, ready to sacrifice yourself on every down, to give your body up on every single play, to leap to tackle to hit to collide to sneak to lower your shoulder to deliver the boom the hit stick stiff arm to lower your head to gain the extra yardage to run through the wall to hit opposing players and run through them like theyre not even there to play hurt to play injured to be shot up drugged up pills popped wrap it up tape it up shoot it up numb it ice it ice tub hot tub absolutely anything to stay on the field where the gladiators belong…

I think it feels exactly like what Jared Odrick showed in this short for his CTE documentary and what I would always feel when I would see groups of Rutgers students all decked out in game day gear waiting for the buses that would take them to the game.

I felt cold. I felt shivers. I felt nausea. I felt existentialist dread. I felt fear. I felt loneliness. I felt physically sick.

I felt an insidious, pervasive, thick, suffocating, mindless, mob-like, violent, delirious, manic, zealous, bloodthirst, bloodlust, fanatical emotion that was hungry, sick, pulsating and alive.

It felt exactly like Rome with their gladiators.

It felt exactly like a Spanish bullfighting arena with their toreadors.

It felt like bloodlust and death mixed with a sickening excitement and feverish delirium.

It felt like the fever dream Odrick presented in his short.

It felt hallucinatory and dreamlike.

It felt like a dark ballet, a violent opera, a dark pageant.

It felt like death and like resurrection, a public execution, a guillotine in the middle of the blood-soaked streets.

It felt like teen spirit and esprit de corps.

It felt like heaven and hell.

It felt like a nightmarish dream and a dream that was a nightmare.

Between Jared Odrick’s “Damar Hamlin Prelude video” and his “Am I Crazy? Episode 3” short which were both previews of his full-length “Am I Crazy?” CTE documentary, I felt this surreal existentialist moment because I had never before encountered someone – much less a former NFL player – who had artistically and emotionally depicted in a haunting and distorted manner the problematic balletic violence and dark spectacle and pageantry that is so inherent to both the NFL & NCAA.

It unnerved me, made me cry so hard I sobbed & my eyes hurt, as waves of nausea washed over me and I instantly recalled how I felt when I would see the students at Rutgers on College Ave waiting for the bus to take them to the arena so they could see their gladiators hurt and maim themselves and each other for their entertainment to roars of approval.

I felt sick as I thought back to how many times I had watched “regular” hits, tackles and collisions in NFL games and I was wholly disturbed by the violence, the sanitized viscera, the glamorized destruction, the devouring violence on display slowly destroying these men in slow motion decades after they stop playing – while it doesn’t happen to all players, we also don’t know the percentage of how many NFL players develop neurological conditions and disorders like CTE, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, Alzheimer’s and dementia from the thousands of head impacts they endure throughout their playing careers – so the truth is, out of the NFL players that the audience is cheering on today – how many and which ones will end up like Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, Andre Waters, Justin Strelczyk, Mike Webster, John Mackey, Ken Stabler, Earl Morall and literally hundreds of others?

Unable to recognize their own children when their wives show them pictures like John Mackey?

Committing suicide like Seau?

Dying in agonizing pain with severe memory loss, confusion, dysfunction, amnesia, emotional volatility, aggression, suicidality, personality & behavioral changes, violent behavior, hallucinations, mood swings, disabled, unable to work, living in a nursing home, unable to walk, unable to feed or clothe or bathe themself?

How many? 10%? 20%? 50%? 90%?

What number of players dying agonizing and excruciating deaths in slow motion oftentimes without dignity and alone is too high of a number for the fans?

What is an acceptable number?

Even if the number is 10% – do those 10% not matter at all just because they are outnumbered by the 90%?

Should anyone willingly sign up – often as a child – for debilitating neurological conditions and disorders that the thousands of repetitive subconcussive head impacts in football have been proven to cause such as Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and dementia?

LBD, what John Mackey was diagnosed with which led to him eventually not even recognizing his own children, is particularly debilitating, physically painful and agonizing and often leaves sufferers with a severely affected gait, unable to walk, having difficulty swallowing, breathing, moving their muscles, feeding clothing and bathing themselves, and often the individual dies within 5 years of being diagnosed.

It is estimated that NFL players on average live up to 22 years shorter than non-NFL players.

Is any game worth that?

College football is even worse – players are bigger, stronger, faster & hit harder than high school and you are taking 1000 hits to the head every season where high school football is estimated on average to be 600 to 1000 hits to the head every season – but there are no multimillion dollar contracts just a scholarship that can be taken away from you at any moment NIL or not the vast majority of these athletes are not being paid directly by their schools only select Big 10 schools offer direct payment so the reality is often times dictatorial coaches can remove your scholarship due to injury, underperformance, etc. The players fate lies in their coaches hands. Remember, 86% of all NCAA Division I athletes live below the federal poverty line. While the NCAA does have a pooled insurance for certain catastrophic injuries, absolutely everything else is the financial responsibility of the player who as I just stated is usually coming from an impoverished background where their parents do not have benefits so they are without health insurance paying out of pocket for the violence exacted upon them on the field that will not be covered under later insurance plans as it will be considered pre-existing conditions so any broken bones torn ligaments tendons post concussive syndrome migraines dizziness nausea arthritis joint replacement surgery torn tendons injured groin herniated discs broken back neck spine fractures degenerated joints bone muscles neurological conditions disorders CTE Parkinsons Alzheimers dementia LBD ALS is all paid for completely out of pocket by the player and their families.

It is totally exploitative and unfair to the athletes and nobody gives a damn.

Here comes Saturday night!

All that risk, all those hits to the head, incurred by the players alone, never by the fans who cheer so deliriously for the violence they endlessly consume.

College students unlike NFL players also do not have a union to advocate on their behalf so unlike the NFLPA that got hitting in practice greatly reduced to “only” 14 practices a season – college students are at the literal mercy of their coaches who once again can take away their scholarships at any time and there is no enforceable NCAA limit to how much college football players can hit each other in practice so it is left to the discretion of their coaches as the NCAA only issues guidelines that are not enforceable.

Only the Ivy league has had the courage to remove hitting from practices — five years ago and not one college has had the balls to follow suit.

A study conducted in 2017 determined that three quarters of concussions suffered by the college football players studied over the course of one season occurred in practice – those concussions are avoidable if these coaches would show leadership and reduce full contact in practice.

But no one protects college football players.

They aren’t in high school anymore so they are treated as adults yet they have no union to protect them as NFL players do and most of them are under 21!

NFL football. NCAA football. Big 10. SEC.

The dark ballet. The dark seductive pageant. The dark alluring spectacle.

The Roman colliseum.The spanish bullfighting arena.

Your gladiators await…

[whitehotharlots]

Free Kareem

Kareem Hunt was probably the shittiest MeToo incident of the sports world. It happened over 4 years ago, which is an eternity by the standards of the today’s discourse, so let me recap what happened:

In February of 2018, two of Hunt’s friends went to a club while he stayed behind with his girlfriend in their hotel suite. The friends returned around 3 AM, and they had two very drunk and underage girls with them. Hunt did the correct thing: he told the girls to leave and had them escorted out of his suite.

The girls refused to leave. They stood outside Hunt’s suite for a half hour, screaming, failing, and pounding on the door. We know for certain this happened, because it was all captured on a security camera (full footage of this does exist, I’ve seen it, but Google has a way of burying primary evidence that contradicts popular narratives).

After approximately 20 minutes of screaming, Hunt���s girlfriend comes out of the suite to tell the girls to leave. This only intensifies the screaming and flailing. After a minute or so, one of the girls can be seen shoving Hunt’s girlfriend, who maintains her composure and goes back into the suite.

A few more minutes pass. The girls continue to pound and scream. Hunt himself comes out of the suite. He gestures toward the exit. The girls keep screaming. The same one who shoved his girlfriend now shoves Hunt. Again, he points toward the exit. The girl shoves him again, and he shoves her back, knocking her to the ground.

At this point, all but the most brain-damaged of feminists would agree that Hunt has done nothing wrong. But then he crosses a line: he raises his leg, hesitates, and gives the girl a kick, as if to accentuate that she needed to get her ass up and out of his hallway.

Now, yes, he should not have done the kick. Fine. But if you watch full video, it’s clear that he did not kick with anywhere near full force. It was more of a gesture than anything else. And, well, if an NFL running back were to kick a small woman with anything close full strength, that woman would not be able to get up and walk away.

I hold the retrograde opinions that men should be afforded some degree of dignity, and that random white women are not legally or morally entitled to enter the dwellings of black celebrities without permission. If I were the one to adjudicate this incident, I would have told the girl to go fuck herself. There’s really nothing Hunt could have done in this situation that would have escaped scrutiny. It was clear that the girl was unhinged and fully aware that she could manipulate MeToo discourse to force the black man to bend to her will: “Kareem Hunt Caught With Underage Girls Drunk in His Hotel Room” is also a bad headline, after all.

But, no, the headlines that were printed did not mention the girls’ intrusion, their initiation of physical contact with both Hunt and his girlfriend, or their statements to hotel staff about planning to exaggerate their claims so as to ruin Hunt’s career. 

9 months later, when TMZ released a very selectively edited expert of the footage, the headline read KC CHIEFS RUNNING BACK KAREEM HUNT BRUTALIZES AND KICKS WOMAN IN HOTEL VIDEO. At this point, his goose was cooked. The Chiefs threw him under the bus with alacrity, saying they weren’t going to bother digging into the specifics of the incident because they had already been contacted and Hunt (very, very understandably and justifiably) lied and said he never left the hotel room. This technicality was enough to end his tenure on the team. He was consigned to the living hell of the Cleveland Browns organization, and suspended for the first half of the following season. 

The average career in the NFL lasts just over three seasons. Running backs play the most physically taxing position in all of professional sports. The loss of a half season of pay is a massive, massive fine. But, still, that wasn’t good enough. The Root (a black-focused, Gawker-affiliated website that would have the exact same editorial content if it were owned by the KKK) ran the following headline “Cleveland Browns Sign Kareem Hunt Despite Video of Him Assaulting Woman. Kaepernick Still Banned for Kneeling.” From Vice we got “Kareem Hunt and a Sports World that Ignores Domestic Violence Victims:” a headline confirming the girls’ entitlement to a space in Hunt’s living area, regardless of not being invited and also being repeatedly told to leave. From Yahoo Sports “NFL should leave you feeling sick after recent revelations involving Kareem Hunt, Reuben Foster,” comparing Hunt to a man who appears to have actually committed domestic violence on multiple occasions. When Hunt was eventually signed by the Browns--which, again, is a punishment in and of itself--the President of the National Organization of Women used the occasion to claim that “women do not matter to the NFL,” and once more repeated the bizarre claim that he had committed “intimate partner violence” by shoving and kicking a stranger who had shoved him first. 

This, dear reader, is Intersectionality as it actually exists. It is not liberation. It is not leftist. It does not even provide protection to the groups who supposedly fall under its purview. The only goal of this wretched political movement is to divorce a person’s actions from the judgments of outsiders, to establish a hierarchy of NGO-defined victimhood statuses and provide hack journalists with a simple and unchallenagable means of sorting out the good guys from the bad guys. 

It’s not justice. It’s not an improvement over old systems. It’s a new way of being broken. It is, in short, the entirety of the modern American left.

[twopoppies]

Hi Gina... I need to rant 😠 lmfao

As a life-long Chiefs fan and KC native all I can say is this T*ylor shit is fucking annoying. I know you talk to a LOT of people in the fandom, so you may not remember, but I'm a fellow Sw*ftie hater (maybe that's too harsh but idgaf) and I didn't think it was possible to get more annoyed with this woman than I've been since I stopped being a fan in 2018. Boy, was I WRONG. I'm a die-hard Chiefs fan. I loved my team even when we sucked and couldn't make it to the playoffs (before Patrick Mahomes), so to see EVERYONE make the game on Sunday about her is beyond frustrating. People (Sw*fties) are seriously saying she's the only reason we won. Like we haven't won multiple AFC championships and two Super Bowls in the past three years. Maybe I'm just taking it too seriously, but when our boys played a kick ass game on Sunday after such a shitty season opener (that we lost), it was so nice to see that we're getting our mojo back but I literally can't look at any post, tweet, article, tv segment, etc that doesn't make the game about her.

God, please don't let her be around for the rest of the season 🙏🏻

Also, I'm not saying they're not hooking up, but this is 100% for PR. I've personally never seen them pan to a celebrity so many times during the game. I've never seen "candid" photos of Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, or any of the other popular Chiefs' players leaving Arrowhead Stadium after a game like we just got with Travis & T*ylor, or "candid" photos & videos of any of the popular players driving through the city, which is so sus. And then what really sealed the deal for me was that T*ylor announced earlier today that her concert film will be shown internationally. She was also named as an entertainer of the year for entertainment weekly and is on the cover. Not to mention, she has a new re-recording coming out in a month and continues to announce new versions of the 1989 re-recording. "Someone" must not be happy enough that she's already broke records with the Speak Now sales, is selling the most number of albums overall, but she must be aiming to break those Speak Now records with the 1989 re-recording sales bc she's releasing new versions quite often. I mean, how greedy can one person be. Like you haven't sold enough albums? You don't have enough publicity? You don't have enough money? It's just gross to me.

Also, I personally just found her reactions over the top for someone who isn't even a fan, especially whatever that head shake thing is at the end. But maybe that's just because I find everything she does annoying and cringe.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxmAHqjrACL/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Plus, the stats around Travis and the Chiefs have skyrocketed. So they're absolutely getting a lot out of this as well as the NFL like someone mentioned earlier.

I'll attach an article but here are some numbers:

Travis' jersey sales went up almost 400%

Stubhub ticket sales for Chiefs' home games increased threefold in just 24 hrs

Travis gained 325k new ig followers - more than he gained after winning the last Super Bowl

Sunday's Chiefs' game was the most watched NFL game on any network last week

It was also the most watched game among girls and women 12 to 49 yrs old

https://www.axios.com/2023/09/26/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-merch-sales-up-chiefs-kansas-city

And yes, I know I know a lot about her for someone who doesn't like her. But she's inescapable even when I have muted everything related to her... And now she's taking over my everything related to my favorite football team and my city 🤢 Where's Pete Davidson when you need him? 😂

Ok, sorry for that rant. I know I probably sound ridiculous, but I prefer my life T*ylor free just like I prefer my life Ol*via free, and I thought you might understand 😂 Anyways, feel free not to post if you don't want to discuss her anymore.

I hope you're having a good night, Gina. Lots of love.

She really is a horrendous actress. Everything she did at that game was so embarrassingly fake. But clearly people want to believe it because it’s everywhere.

That’s bananas how much his stats already went up and just shows why it’s worth it to do this kind of nonsense, even to someone who’s already really famous.

I’m not interested in football at all, but I’m so sorry she’s contaminating your safe space. 😩

[the-football-chick]

"The Panthers have an NFL-worst 1-10 record and are assured of a sixth straight losing season since owner David Tepper purchased the team in 2018 for $2.275 billion."

via espn.com (11/27/23)