GREAT NEWS!

At least when is comes to the No Fun League.

There are more important things to worry about...

Mike Pereira, a former Pac-10 official under contract to the Pac-12, says the Ducks signature 'O' shape the players occasionally make with their hands after a touchdown, "borderlines on unsportsmanlike conduct."

Pereira pointed to the Lavasier Tuinei touchdown in the second quarter against Nevada as an example.

Really?

Continue reading this post »

I am not thrilled to link to him but Clay Travis makes some interesting observations on Yahoo!'s meteoric rise...

With yesterday's announcement that Yahoo is rebranding Sporting News radio and taking it over as its own radio network, YahooSportsRadio, which will now be the third largest sports radio network in the country, it suddenly hit me: Yahoo Sports is ESPN's biggest rival in the world of sports media.

Taking over the radio station is a brilliant move that comes on the heels of seven other equally brilliant moves that have combined to position Yahoo Sports as the true rival of ESPN for the second decade of the 21st century.

Don't believe me? Let's dive in and I'll tell you how Yahoo did it.

 

First, some details on why I believe Yahoo is the rival of ESPN. Yahoo Sports attracts more unique visitors every month than ESPN.com does. How many is Yahoo bringing in? Try 45 million uniques a month. That's an insane number.

The sports battlefield of the future is not going to be fought on television screens, it's going to be fought based on website eyeballs melding with television devices into a conglomeration of the two. I'm going to write later in the week about why I think ESPN's competitive dominance will die in the coming next two decades, but for now just know that website readership, I believe, is a more important metric than television numbers.  Now let me just sketch out the moves that occurred to make Yahoo Sports the primary rival to ESPN by the start of 2010.

1. Yahoo dominated fantasy sports.

No Internet site better understood the coming dominance of fantasy sports.

I could write -- and would love to -- an entire article on the brilliance of Yahoo Sports hitching its ride to the dominant sports addition of the era, fantasy sports. It was the first time any company really stole a march on ESPN. Anyone who played fantasy sports prior to Yahoo -- and I was one of them -- remembers struggling to tally up the scores week after week. It was mindboggling, boring, and riddled with errors.

I still remember the nirvana like moment in 1999 when I discovered Yahoo Sports fantasy site. There was nothing else that could match it and there still isn't.

I've played for 12 consecutive years with their products and they absolutely own this market. Since that time they've been the best at employing experts, integrating content, assuring ease of use and maintaining their status as the go-to destination for fantasy on the Internet.

This was step one on Yahoo's rise.

Yahoo! got in through the back door.

As Travis goes on to detail the next big move was to hire Dan Wetzel.

Wetzel has broken some stories, written controversial pieces and even got thrown off of the Reggie Bush story because he blurred the lines of journalistic ethics.

Still, even with all of that, Wetzel and fellow writers kept everyone's attention.

Yahoo! doesn't have the same millstone around their neck that ESPN does. ESPN needs their business partners to keep putting a solid product on the field. If ESPN had the same sort of investigative arm that Yahoo! does...that takes no one hostage, ESPN would have some very upset business partners.

You need to look no further than the the Cam Newton mess. Yes, Schlabach and friends broke one aspect of the story but for the most part Yahoo! has been in front of of the story....eating ESPN's lunch

Now, I am not saying that ESPN is journalistcally incompetent, but it can't be a comfortable for them to break a story that could nail one of their big names, thus hurting their product.

ESPN pick and chooses their battles...see one Bruce Feldman.

Color me crazy, but this sort of suicide from within is the start of the down fall.

Anyway, I thought Travis' article was thought provoking and a nice respite of his constant Lane Kiffin bashing.

In the interest of brevity, an attempt to avoid excessive rambling, I'll try to keep this short and sweet. I'm stepping down as an editor for Conquest Chronicles today after the past year and a half here. This shouldn't be a huge shock. As many of you are aware, I'm currently working as the sports editor for the Daily Trojan, and because of this, as well as other obligations, school-wise and other stuff, my participation on the blog has become all too sporadic over the past few months.

I have, honestly, enjoyed my time writing for the site: from covering USC hoops, NCAA sanctions and the first year of the Lane Kiffin tenure, but I no longer have the time to consistently update the site with posts, fan shots, etc. that I deem publishable. 

So, for the time being, I'm going to be primarily involved with the DT (it's only fair to SB Nation and to you guys), while also trying this whole "go to the library" thing next semester. At least my mom will be proud.

It's been great to be able to correspond with many of you throughout this process, whether it be in the comments section, email or Twitter, and I hope that doesn't change. I'll be commenting fairly frequently in the coming months, and well, I do tweet a lot as well. Come August, I'll be a junior, so I'll still be around campus for a little while longer at least, so don't hesitate to drop me a line. 

Paragon has done a great job running the site, and as he did before my time here, I'm sure he'll continue to do a fantastic job. It's hard to know what the future holds exactly, but for the foreseeable future, it's time for me to take a back seat. 

As always...

Fight On!

Tomb of the Unknowns (via FLICKR: Tony the Misfit)

I will try to say very little here...

Over the past few years it has been in vogue to take the time to publicly pay homage to our military personal who have served and who currently serve but especially those who gave their lives in service to their country.

For me to have seen our country openly embrace our armed forces after many years of apathy has been great to watch. Especially after years of ignoring the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform have made.

Everyone will reflect in their own way today. My thoughts will be on one friend who I lost very early on my Navy career.

I have said it numerous times before...my military career was unremarkable. I got what I wanted out of my service and the Navy got what they expected in return. The Navy and I settled up twenty years ago this month.

We're even...

But most important, I am happy to see our country go out of their way to openly support our service members after nary a glance for many years. The world is a much different place now and the stakes, along with the sacrifices these men and women make are a lot different than when I was serving.

My heart goes out to them.

I will leave it at that...

Rams vs. Seahawks. 5:20 p.m. PST. NBC. Turn your television sets on.

One team is 7-8. The other is 6-9. One starts a rookie under center, who's actually rather good. The other starts a balding 35-year-old. One used to play in Los Angeles, in the Coliseum for that matter. And hey, the other almost moved to Southern California. Tonight's winner is guaranteed a division title and a home playoff game, where for all intents and purposes, will likely result in a three-touchdown loss. Pretty freakin sweet, right? Right. 

Well, in a few hours, we'll see if one of those teams (the former being coached by Pete Carroll) can "earn" a trip to the postseason.

May your holiday season and New Year bring joy, peace and happiness. And of course, a successful NCAA appeal!

FIGHT ON!

Well this is interesting...

Heh...

Can't say I am surprised. What's Vince's mom going to say?