Sports stories without the shouting
As the NFL Playoffs start this weekend spare a thought for Arizona Cardinals fans. Their 8-8 season is hardly earth shattering but they were the seventh best team in the NFC but failed to capture one of the seven playoff places. The reason is that the playoffs are made up of the four division winners …
Continue reading “What the NFC Wild Card games could have looked like”
Looking back at a year of sport blogging there was still plenty to discover in this strangest of seasons. I can’t remember who wrote it, but I remember reading that a good way to get yourself through lockdown was to find something that interested you and dedicate some time to that. So this year I …
Continue reading “Lessons from a year of writing about sport”
The stats show it doesn’t pay to follow the winner of the King George Chase on Boxing Day all the way to Cheltenham. The expression “horses for courses” is listed in the Cambridge Dictionary as a phrase ‘to say that it is important to choose suitable people for particular activities because everyone has different skills.’ …
Continue reading ““Horses for courses” has a measure of truth”
If your team scores a goal in the Premier League but then it goes to VAR, don’t get your hopes up. So far this season 80% of VAR goals decisions have resulted in a goal being disallowed. Ten teams have had goals disallowed, while only four have had them confirmed, and only one team (Aston …
Continue reading “If your goal goes to VAR, expect the worst”
The last two years have seen new trends emerging among the winners of cycling’s Grand Tours. Not only is a much younger generation of riders emerging, but a larger pool of talent suggests a more unpredictable and exciting future for fans. Last year I wrote a blog about how cycling’s Grand Tour winners tend to …
Continue reading “The future of cycling is young (and there are lots of them)”
The news that a horse has become “the most expensive yearling sold at auction this year” always catches attention, and this month was no exception as Coolmore paid £3.5m at Tattersalls Yearling Sales Book One at Newmarket. However, looking at the results of the last ten years does not suggest we should be expecting too …
Continue reading “What does the future hold for the most expensive yearling bought at auction?”
This week has seen an inordinate amount of articles and analysis about where Lionel Messi will be playing next year, with more interest on his release clause value than the fact that the contract was pretty clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. This did lead me to wonder, if this is the season for outlandish …
Continue reading “What would one billion euros get you in the current football market?”
Comparing Premier League shirt sponsors at the start of this season with those twenty years ago gives an insight into how the league has expanded into new territories, both geographic and industry type. The most commonly discussed change is probably the emergence of gambling sponsors, with five teams now advertising online. However, football sponsorship has …
Continue reading “Modern Premier League sponsorship and the two G’s – Gambling and Globalisation”
Last month the Irish Cup Final between Ballymena and Glentoran received an unusual amount of national attention, as it became the first game to be played in the UK with a crowd since the COVID-19 shutdown. While there were only 500 supporters allowed (a big crowd for Irish League football some comedians would suggest) what …
It is a general rule of thumb in professional sport that the teams that pay the biggest salaries are the most successful. Looking at the final Premier League standings this year supports that trend, with the top four in the table also having the biggest payrolls*. However within the top four, some teams got more …
Continue reading “Which Premier League clubs got what they paid for?”
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