GoingFor2’s “2018 Sports Stories that Matter to Me”

GoingFor2’s “2018 Sports Stories that Matter to Me”

We are about to turn the page on another year in sports — and what a year it was. We had a couple of firsts with the Philadelphia Eagles winning their first championship — in what may go down as one of the best Super Bowls in the history of the NFL. and the Washington Capitals finally getting over the hump to bring the Stanley Cup to Washington for the first time.

We have also seen some familiar faces winning championships with the Warriors winning their third in four years, the Boston Red Sox winning their second in five years and ninth overall, the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Villanova Wildcats winning their second National Championships in three years in college football and basketball respectively.

Sports affects us all differently. Every game has winners and losers, and as fans, we win and lose with our favorite teams and players as if we ourselves were playing in the games. The New England area was heartbroken after losing Super Bowl LII, but in Philly it was pandemonium. Cavs fans were left wondering “what’s next” after LeBron James and Co. fell to the Warriors in the NBA Finals and Washingtonians are still talking about the Caps winning the Cup.

It’s the end of 2018 and most sports sites are doing some version of the “Top Sports Stories from 2018”. Here at GoingFor2, we do it a little differently. We ask our writers to pick one sports story that mattered to them, as a fan, the most. It could be anything from a national headlining story to a local story that you may only read about if you lived within 10 miles of it. Over the next few slides, you will find a collection of GoingFor2’s 2018 Sports Stories that Mattered to us…

8 Team College Football Playoff by Dan Turner 

College Football has always seemed to have a problem in finding out who really is the best team in any given season. The split national champions of the pre-90s era gave way to the BCS which has given way to a playoff. A playoff is what everyone has been screaming for since around 2007 when Boise State did the unthinkable and beat Oklahoma. Here was the proof people needed that a playoff was necessary.

Fast Forward nearly a decade later, and the four-team College Football Playoff was introduced. People were rejoicing for finally being able to settle the championship on the field, where it belongs. The past 4 years has calmed a lot of the noise about how unfair the system has been. The problem is that the same issues are cropping up. Deserving teams are being left out. Conference favorites are being thrown around. An update on this good idea is necessary, and there are three very good reasons why it should be.

The first reason is viewership and ratings for the games. Despite most bowl games not mattering in the slightest, they still pull in some very respectable numbers. When you get to the national semifinals, you are looking at an average of about 23 million people tuning in to see who will face off in the title game. On average that is about 9 million more people than who tuned in to watch the Final Four. If we extrapolate those numbers to the “Elite Eight” of college football, you are looking at around 15 million sets of eyeballs watching your product as a floor. The upside is incredible. That many more viewers would equal a ton more of my next point.

Revenue would be up. Conferences are already awarded 6 million dollars when their schools make it to the semifinals. All told, teams and leagues take home about 600 million from the bowl games and almost two-thirds of that comes from just the top 5 bowl games alone, including the playoffs. If you push the playoffs to 8 teams, that’s an additional four games of TV revenue, naming rights, and sponsorships that can be used to make that 600 million an even bigger pot. That helps the conferences and the schools with their other athletic programs, among other things. It’s a win for everyone, especially the TV networks that get to broadcast them.

If you are going to have an eight-team playoff, well you are going to need teams to fill them. This will address the most often cited complaint about the playoff, which is that not every deserving team goes, and is usually jumped over by a less deserving one. In my model, you would give the 5 power conference champions an automatic bid. That should take out a majority of complaints. Win and you’re in. The next spot should go to the highest ranked Group of 5 teams (UCF), with the final 2 spots be at-large bids. this ensures that everyone gets a legitimate shot at the title, and cuts down on all the unnecessary rage being thrown at the NCAA these days.

So there you have it, the actual case for an eight-team playoff, with stats and figures from ESPN and the NCAA themselves. it is beneficial for everyone in college football to make this a reality. The hope is people in charge listen, and we get more Cinderella teams like the 2007 Broncos. College football deserves it.

Manziel Mania by Kyle Senra

What a year it’s been. In January, the CFL’s Hamilton-Tiger Cats offered Johnny Manziel a contract that he initially declined. The way it works in the CFL is that teams can add players to a negotiating list and if that team offers a contract, then the player can only play for that team. Unable to sign with anyone else, Manziel eventually accepted the offer and joined the Tiger-Cats part way through training camp.

Hamilton had traded last year’s starting QB Zach Collaros so they were going into 2018 with Manziel and the previous backup Jeremiah Masoli in competition for the starting spot. Apparently, it wasn’t much of a competition as Head Coach June Jones never let up on his belief in Masoli. This belief was well placed as Masoli went on to win the CFL’s Most Outstanding Play award (which is the CFL’s version of MVP). Masoli finished the year with a 66% completion rate, 5,209 yards and a 28:18 TD to INT ratio. He also led the Tiger-Cats to the East Final where they lost to the Ottawa RedBlacks. Still, in his first year as the starter, Masoli brought the team back to the playoffs and put up those numbers even though 3 of his top 4 receivers ended the season on the injured reserve.

Manziel meanwhile, was traded mid-way through the season to the Montreal Alouettes after not playing a single snap for the Tiger-Cats. Manziel’s first CFL start, ironically, came against the Tiger-Cats. The may have been a huge mistake as the Hamilton defense had far more information on Manziel then he did on them. In a 50-14 blowout loss to his former team, Manziel threw 4 INTs, including one on his very first regular-season CFL pass. He was much better in his second start against the RedBlacks, but he, unfortunately, suffered a concussion after a great 17-yard run. Antonio Pipkin then took over as the Alouettes starter for the next 4 games as Manziel recovered and he even managed to win a couple of times in that stretch. Manziel returned for the final 6 games on the CFL season and won his final 2 matches. He finished his first CFL season with a 64.4% completion rate with 1,290 passing yards with a TD to INT ratio of 5:7. He also ran for 215 yards on 29 attempts.

Overall it was not a great season, but he did show some improvements as the year went on. Anyone who expected him to come in and dominate the CFL was sadly mistaken. It takes time to adjust to new rules such as only 3 downs, 12 players on the field and a larger playing size.

Moving forward, Manziel still has one-year left on his contract. The Alouettes may be pleased with his progress and decide to keep him on as the starter. The interesting elements here is that there may be several teams looking for a new starting QB in 2019. The great Rickey Ray suffered a neck injury early in 2018, which may force his retirement and the Toronto Argonauts to look for a new franchise guy. Both Bo Levi Mitchel and Mike Riley may attempt to make it on to an NFL team leaving their respective CFL teams (the Calgary Stampeders and the Edmonton Eskimos) in the hunt for new signal callers. All of this to say, that even if the Alouettes do not want to keep him, Manziel should at least be able to compete for a starting job somewhere.

Now that he has been initiated to the CFL, I expect big things from Manziel in 2018. His running ability has made him an interesting QB, ever since his college days. In a league where there are only 3 downs and every play matters all the more, Manziel’s scrambling ability makes him well suited to play up north. Only time will tell if he can extend his football playing career beyond 2019.

“Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything” by Geoff Lambert

Get over it America, Colin Kaepernick is not going anywhere.

Nike made sure of that on September 5th, 2018, when they released the most controversial ad campaign I can ever remember. Not because of the message, but because of the messenger. Kaepernick has been one of the most polarizing figures in America since 2016 when he decided to kneel during the National Anthem before a preseason game — and then every game he played in after that. Love him or hate him, he has been immortalized by Nike in what could be their most ambitious endeavor since signing Michael Jordan to a large shoe contract — before shoe contracts were commonplace.

The ad campaign — one that commemorates the 30th anniversary of the most recognized slogans in history, “Just Do It” — came under fire even before its September release, in fact, Nike’s stock took a hit when the collaboration was first announced. However, they recovered quickly, and it is now reported that Nike has seen double-digit profit increases since the initial two-minute commercial was released.

Those reported increases came in spite of boycotting threats, public demonstrations burning Nike apparel, and President Trump calling the campaign a “terrible message.” Whether you side with the POTUS or not, the message was heard, and that is exactly what Nike and Kaepernick wanted. To this point, Kaepernick’s stand (or kneel in this case) against social injustices has been mainly an American issue, but by making him the face of this campaign Nike has put him on a global stage.

Kaepernick has remained relatively silent when you consider everything that has happened since 2016. His Twitter account is mostly retweets that reflect his views, but rarely anything in his own words. His supporters speak for him, as do his actions, like the $1-million he pledge to various charities and his “Know Your Rights” campaign that is funded entirely by the Colin Kaepernick Foundation.

He was named “Citizen of the Year” by GQ magazine, yet declined an interview for the magazine giant. In fact, the only public forum, be it a speech or interview, that I was able to find was from April 21, 2018, when he was awarded the Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award and he spoke for seven minutes on stage in Amsterdam. It remains to be seen if this engagement to Nike will break his relative silence.

His career as an NFL player is all but guaranteed to be over. Especially when you see a player like Josh Johnson, who hasn’t played in a game in seven years, get signed by the Redskins, or Nathan Peterman joining the Raiders — a QB most known for throwing five interceptions in the first half of a game and sports a 3-to-12 TD-to-INT ratio for his career.

No, he will never play football again, but his shadow looms large over the NFL and will continue to do so for years to come. For all the barbershop debates over who is the best QB of all-time or was Joe Montana better than Tom Brady, nothing draws a more heated conversation than when you bring up Colin Kaepernick’s name in any capacity — and that is exactly how he wants it.

As a fan of the 49ers, I’ve followed the story closely and applaud both Nike and Colin Kaepernick for not being afraid of the backlash that was sure to come when they came together to do this. I never thought I’d be writing about a sports commercial for my entry into the “Sports Stories that Mattered to Me”, but there is no denying the impact this entire thing has had on America and the release of this campaign will not only go down as one of the top sports stories in 2018 but as one of the top stories, period. I can’t wait to see what 2019 will bring us…

Lombardi, Pops, and Broad Street by Matthew Garrett

I don’t know if you know this but the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Yeah, that’s right. The best city in the world finally got the opportunity to celebrate sports’ most crowning achievement. It also was an opportunity to trash talk those stupid Cowboy fans and any other fanbase that gets their jollies of making fun of the former “ringless” Eagles.

This championship meant a lot for me, like A LOT. To understand that significance we have to start from the beginning.

Well, not like me in the womb beginning, but the genesis of my love for football and the Eagles.

I grew up in a Dallas household; my mom and dad are huge fans. Growing up in the ’90s meant that I got to watch the Cowboys dominate. Irvin, Aikman, Smith, and Jimmy Johnson were household names. The family would come over every year to watch the Super Bowl. It was kind of a holiday.

And I hated every minute of it.

I didn’t like watching football, at all. I would literally use it as nap time. That is until I watched the 2004 Eagles.

You remember those Eagles, right? McNabb, Westbrook, Kearse, Dawkins, Shepherd, Runyan, and the great T.O.

The more I watched that team the more hooked I became.

They scored points in bunches and Dawkins annihilated anything that moved. Man, that team was special. Even though they lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl it was an easy decision, I was an Eagle. It just felt right.

My dad was not pleased knowing his son had decided to root for a division rival but he made peace with it.

Fast forward to the night February 4, 2018. Brady’s hail mary falls incomplete and Philadelphia are world champs. My father was the first person to call, congratulating me while also throwing in that it must be nice to feel what winning is like. Forever the shade thrower, that man.

I had made a promise that if the Eagles ever won a title I’d move heaven and earth to go to the parade. A few friends had agreed to come along for the trip but they couldn’t get off work on such short notice. I was about to go alone until my dad volunteered to go with me. He’s retired and was itching to do something. So we rented a car and left Richmond at 4:00 AM on parade day.

We decided to park at a hotel just outside of the city and uber in. The hotel had a restaurant so we decided to grab a bite. When we sat down I told my dad not to tell anyone that he’s a Cowboy fan since…you know… we were in Philadelphia.

The waitress came over to take our order. My dad looks at the menu, then at her and said,

“You know, I’m a Dallas fan. My son here is a Philly fan. We came up here because he might never see this again.”

The waitress then tells us about a guy who got beat up downtown for wearing a Brady jersey and talking smack to a group of Eagles fans. I don’t know if she made that up to mess with my dad or if it was true but we got a chuckle out of it just the same.

Once we got to the stadium for the start of the parade we found ourselves at Xfinity Live! It’s a bar in the middle of Philadelphia’s home team arenas/fields.

We walk inside and scope the place out. Before I realized what was going on my dad was hanging out with the locals, drinking green beer and having a blast. During the parade, he found some fellow Virginians and didn’t stop talking until it was all over.

He confessed numerous times that he cheers for the Cowboys but they didn’t care. They welcomed him as if he were one of us.

See, Eagles fans are class acts. No matter how many times people harp on the Santa Claus story.

Since we’re here let’s get to the bottom of that story.

The spirit of Philadelphia consumed him to the point where he argued with the cab driver about his machine malfunctioning and charging us too much. It was great.

The Eagles won the Super Bowl and I got to spend one of the most special days of my life with the man who raised me. The man I’m proud to call dad.

What more can a kid ask for?

One more time for the fans.

Fly Eagles, Fly.

@ me: madads14

As always, thanks for reading.

Oh yeah, you wanna watch the Eagles win again? Of course you do.

Boxing Entered A New Zone by Reginald Woodson 

Despite its current lower-tiered status in the world of professional sports, boxing is one of the world’s oldest sports. The sport’s mentions date back to BC dates in the Middle East and its debut in an early Greece Olympiad. Bare-knuckle fighting became popular in England in the late-1600’s, and about 200 years later the creation of the Marquess of Queensberry rules set the foundation for “prizefighting” to begin evolving into what we know as boxing today. Add in quite a few subsequent revisions to the original dozen rules and we find ourselves at the advent of streaming.

Boxing may exist today as a niche sport, but it’s one that typically maintains a loaded calendar and one that generates numerous multi-million dollar purses annually. Unfortunately, growth or further improvement isn’t driven by a single individual – or even a single unified group of qualified individuals – like the other sports leagues which are guided by commissioners supported by competition committees.

Conversely, change in boxing is often championed by state athletic commissions, promotional entities, one of its four major sanctioning bodies, at times the fighters themselves or the television networks that deliver the sport to viewers.

The most recent move currently driving change in boxing is the proliferation of streaming fights, or entire fight cards, to viewers over the internet. There are plenty of players in this space – Fite TV, FightNight Live, premium cable network Showtime, 360 Promotions, and the ESPN+ and DAZN apps.

In an effort to keep this simple, in 2018 providers began streaming fights via their social media accounts, others offered a subscription-based app, and a third category featured a combination of methods. A fading option is for a stream to be hosted on a website. The final fights of the World Boxing Super Series’ (WBSS) 2018 super middleweight and cruiserweight tournaments could be viewed by clicking on links on the organization’s website. In contrast, Showtime streamed some special fights (often international matchups) or undercard fights from its bigger shows on both its Facebook page and YouTube channels.

In May, German video streaming app DAZN announced its expansion into the U.S. to distribute boxing and MMA events to American fight fans for a monthly subscription of $9.99. DAZN previously provided NFL games to Canada, which represented its major presence in North America. The streaming app’s new combat sports offerings featured Bellator’s MMA events, as well as boxing from Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing company – a Matchroom Boxing USA offshoot was part of Hearn’s deal with DAZN.

Like any newly introduced product or service, DAZN’s reception was mixed, and the app’s launch was met with acceptance and rejection. The sport’s die-hard fans who have long held a strong dislike for Hearn, for a variety of reasons, may have never given the app a chance. Some open-minded fight fans may have opted to subscribe to DAZN after taking advantage of a free 30-day trial period associated with unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s September title defense versus Alexander Povetkin. As part of the trial period fans also got the chance to watch Matchroom USA’s first card October 6, held in Chicago, IL. The card’s co-main event and main were Jarrell Miller vs. Tomasz Adamek  Jessie Vargas vs. Thomas Dulorme, respectively.

This card failed to deliver a true box-office caliber event to U.S. fight fans, along with a November 17 Miller-headlined card held in Mulvane, KS. And this is where Hearn and DAZN detractors took their shots at the venture, claiming it as a total failure for the app and Matchroom Boxing.

As the key piece to bolster its roster, and help with driving subscribers, DAZN landed boxing’s biggest Pay Per View draw in one-loss middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. The movie featured a 5-year deal with a guaranteed $365 million for 11 total fights. The deal also signaled a partnership between DAZN and another promoter in Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. In addition to superstars Alvarez and Joshua, DAZN also agreed to a deal with undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.

Not everything’s gone as planned for DAZN. Hearn has yet to deliver a heavyweight unification bout between Joshua and WBC champion Deontay Wilder – the sport’s most highly-anticipated match-up. A couple of good names migrated to DAZN over the past few months, but the app’s struggled to land an American fighter who qualifies as a real game-changer.

For some boxing fans, DAZN’s on-demand feature and ongoing coverage of the quarterfinal round of season two of the WBSS’ bantamweight, super lightweight and cruiserweight tournaments suffice, with regards to the $10 monthly bill. For others, the $120 yearly total hasn’t offset the 2-3 the usual $75 Pay Per View events on boxing’s schedule.

For right now, this writer appreciates not having to waste time with potentially dangerous links just to watch some developing United Kingdom talent only heard and read about in previous years. DAZN and the ESPN+ app, a $4.99 per month multi-sports platform that’s also a major vehicle for ESPN’s deal with Top Rank, Inc., made it possible for avid boxing fans to watch a wider range of action. In 2019, both just have to figure out how to deliver their respective Super Bowls for their product.

ATTN Dynasty Commissioners: Do you want to do something cool for your league? How about a 1-hour live show dedicated to YOUR league? Team-by-team breakdowns, rankings, and more. For details and to book a show, visit: GoingFor2.com/plp.

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