Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category

Conservatives’ quiet boycott of woke Olympics succeeds

Posted: August 8, 2021 by John Ruberry in culture, News/opinion, politics, Sports
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Blogger after a race in 2019

By John Ruberry

Did you hear about the massive organized protest by American conservatives of the Toyko Olympics? 

No?

That’s because there wasn’t one. 

The 2020 Summer Olympics, delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, got off to a bad start, unless you are woke.

In a women’s soccer match between Team USA and Sweden, athletes from both sides took a knee rather than stand for the Star Spangled Banner. Sweden won the match, 3-0. The US women’s soccer team was the overwhelming favorite to win a gold medal in Tokyo, it ended up with the bronze.

Earlier this year the International Olympic Committee rescinded its Rule 50, which stated “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

The Olympics are a dying movement. More on that in a bit. But the woke protests just add accelerant to the fire. 

In competitive sports success of course is achieved by winning a game, crossing the finish line first, or lifting the heaviest object, or throwing it the farthest. 

The Olympics are a big business, despite being comprised of not-for-profits such as the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, or more commonly in other nations by government ministries of sport.

The big money for the Olympics comes from TV rights and revenue for the broadcasters. If you envision television ratings as a shot put, then that heavy ball appears to have been thrown by a weak child.

From Fox News: 

NBC is giving advertisers who bought airtime during the Tokyo Olympics extra commercials due to underwhelming ratings for this year’s 2020 Olympic Games, fueled by a pandemic-weary population and backlash against woke athletes protesting the U.S. flag and national anthem. 

NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua insisted to the Associated Press that the network would still make money on the 2020 Olympics – but left out details about how much. 

NBC’s primetime coverage of the Tokyo Olympics on July 26 averaged 14.7 million viewers — for a 49% drop compared to the equivalent night from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and 53% less than the 2012 London Olympics. The opening ceremonies saw their lowest viewership since 1988.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, there are more television offerings than ever. And some people will watch Olympics segments on NBC’s YouTube channel and those viewership numbers are not included in the network’s ratings total. 

But the viewership numbers still suck. 

Wokism likely contributed to the ratings rout. That may change soon as conservatives are mobilizing against Critical Race Theory and the Democrats’ hard shove to the far-left, but conservatives don’t have a boycott apparatus in place, such as the liberals do with medium-sized groups such as Media Matters and tiny Twitter armies such as Sleeping Giants. That’s because those on the American right calmly reach for the remote and watch something else when they are offended. Or they simply stop buying products, such as what I did after Gillette ran its toxic masculinity television commercial two years ago. I loved its Good News razors. But I don’t want to put money into the hands of a company that insults me. And now I use Bic razors–which I like better and I probably never would have considered purchasing until that nasty commercial. Gillette owes Bic a finder’s fee for making me a customer. [Corrrection: a commenter mentioned that it should have been written the other way around.]

People watch sports, or buy tickets to live events, for many reasons, but the drama of a competitive event is likely the primary one. Not for the politics, that’s for sure.

And conservatives don’t need a Media Matters-type group to tell us what not to watch. Again that may change soon but the American right doesn’t possess the kneejerk compulsion to regularly pressure companies to avoid a network, a website, or a television program.

NBC is in trouble because it already purchased the US rights to every Olympics through 2032. Because leftism is a quasi-religion don’t look for the IOC to reinstate its protest ban for its athletes any time soon.

And yes, the Olympic movement is dying. Only two cities bid for the 2024 summer games, Paris and Los Angeles. The French capital was the winner and LA was immediately awarded the 2028 games. There was no other bidder. And for the 2032 Summer Olympics, the “winner” was Brisbane, Australia, the only bidder. 

For the 2022 and 2026 winter games there were only two bidders each.

Of course that’s because organizing the quadrennial Olympics are big money losers for host cities. Los Angeles managed to turn a profit with its last summer games–but that was in 1984. The 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were particularly ghastly financial debacles. Allegations of corruption in the bidding process over the years makes one wonder how stupid supposedly smart people can be.

Athens is a city of many notable ruins–and now Greece’s largest city can add numerous sites from the ’04 games for tourists to marvel at.

As the expression goes, when you get woke you go broke. 

But the Olympics were already arguably broke. 

Next year Beijing hosts the Winter Olympics. I can think of a bunch of reasons not to watch. China is a communist dictatorship, it has a long history of doping among its athletes, there are over two-hundred concentration camps that incarcerate Uighurs in China, and what else? Oh yeah, there’s a good chance that the COVID-19 virus escaped from the Wuhan laboratory, which destroyed the international economy and killed millions.

Woke protests will seal the deal for me and many more in a few months when the Olympic flame is lit in Beijing.

Corporate CEOs need to listen to the millions of quiet conservative protesters like myself and not the dozen or so left-wing screamers who show up at their board meetings. There are more of us than them.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Update: (DTG) Liberty Lanche! Welcome Liberty Daily readers Take a peek around. Discover the Mystery that has befuddled New York Writers , Check what’s under my Fedora this week, watch my occasional commentary, and if you’re a Catholic download our August Indulgence Calendar and if you liked John’s piece, you can find more of his writing here and don’t miss my other Magnificent Seven Writers:

Oh and if you’re wondering who this guy is and if you should help pay my writers and our bandwidth costs, I’m the guy who is a room full of hostile press during press conferences actually asked Donald Trump neutral or friendly questions.

It hasn’t made me a lot of friends.

Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora Mostly Olympics Edition

Posted: August 3, 2021 by datechguy in culture, Sports, Vive L'Empereur
Tags: , , , , ,

It really amazes me that the same people in the media who take no offense with American Olympic Athletes running down our country that they supposedly represent taking great offense at me choosing not to support them for that reason.

The people who are rushing to say the failure of the “transgender woman” weightlifter to place proves there is no advantage for men claiming to be ladies might have a better argument if the weightlifter in question was not in his mid 40’s.

The fact that a mid forty’s guy was able to beat out any women from his country to represent it in the Olympics speaks volumes concerning this reality.

If you really want to understand how crazy this all is go to a venue that requires masks and tell them you are in fact masked and define yourself as masked while at the same time insisting that you in fact the opposite sex of what you are.

Watching them slobber to call you by the sex you desire while insisting that the evidence of their own eyes is enough to determine if you’re wearing a mask will speak volumes.

I’m really torn on the Simone Biles business, particularly after she came back to compete in a singles event. A player who knows they are a drag on the team should not jeopardize their position on the other had at this level does a person owe it to their team to go forward if at all possible.

Can you imagine how the person who was the last cut from the squad must have felt knowing that they were bumped for someone who backed out of the competition?

It’s unfortunate that Biles will likely be remembered more for this moment then her previous successes, I wonder if she considered that before making the call?

Finally we once again had an Arab athlete in judo pull out because they drew an Israeli opponent in the competition.

This is constantly spun as being done in support of the Palestinians but in my eyes he is simply terrified at being beaten by a Jew on an international stage.

Given the record of Arab nation in warfare against Israel this fear is a lot less irrational than it sounds.

Finally China seems to be hypersensitive as to how their athletes are being portrayed, particularly in losses to Japan.

As I’ve written before I believe China as a nation still hasn’t gotten over what Japan did to them in WW 2 and I suspect defeat at their hands, really rubs them the wrong way.

My gut tells me that China is doing what it’s doing these days because they know the demographic clock is against them and figure their time to flex their international muscle is now.

Our trip to Georgia, or where Floridians spend their summer vacations

Posted: July 18, 2021 by John Ruberry in baseball, business, economy, News/opinion, politics, Sports
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Blogger at the summit of Black Rock Mountain

By John Ruberry

As you may have noticed I haven’t posted here for a couple of weeks. Mrs. Marathon Pundit were on vacation. And we traveled to, at least if you live in the Chicago area, to an unlikely place, Georgia. 

After MLB’s spineless commissioner, Rob Manfred, pulled the annual All-Star Game out of Atlanta over Georgia’s voting integrity bill, my wife and I decided to “buy-in” to Georgia. 

MLB moved the Midsummer Classic to Denver, the capital of Colorado, even though that state has more more restrictive voting laws than Georgia. The switch cost Atlanta-area businesses millions. Don’t forget Atlanta is a majority-black city–Denver is majority-white. Of the Georgia election bill, Joe Biden said, “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.” 

If that comment makes sense to you, or if Manfred’s panicky substitution swap does, then you need to switch off CNN and MSNBC.

Georgia’s new election laws, by the way, are less restrictive than those in Biden’s home state of Delaware.

So on Independence Day Mrs. Marathon Pundit drove south to the Peach State to make up, in a very small way, for the tens-of-millions of dollars shipped off by Manfred to Colorado. There were some diversions. We spent the night of July 4th in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is just north of the Georgia state line. We did some sighteeing there the next day, including time on Lookout Mountain, where a pivotal battle of the Civil War Siege of Chattanooga occurred in late 1863. But the lion’s share of that day was spent on the site of the Battle of Chickamauga a few miles south in Georgia. The two battles are often presented as one, or part of a campaign, which is why the these two locations comprise the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.

Of our Civil War battles only Gettysburg, fought two months earlier in Pennsylvania, had more casualties than Chickamauga. Unlike Gettysburg, Chickamauga was a Confederate victory. After being routed in Georgia the Union army retreated to Chattanooga. The northern commanding general, William Rosecrans, was relieved of his duties and replaced by Ulysses S. Grant. His breaking of the siege set the stage for the army led by his close friend, General William Tecumseh Sherman, to capture the strategic city of Atlanta the next year. Sherman’s March to the Sea, where Union forces split the Confederacy a second time, ended with the capture of Savannah late in 1864. 

We eventually made it to Savannah too. 

Mrs. Marathon Pundit was stupefied by the sprawling expanse of the Chickamauga Battlefield and the hundreds of monuments there. Her hometown of Sece, Latvia, was the site of a World War I battle. With the exception of a German military cemetery, there are no commemorations of that battle there. C’mon Sece, at least erect an historical marker in town about the battle.

We wandered for the next two days in the luscious Blue Ridge Mountains, mostly hiking, in these state parks: Fort Mountain, Black Rock Mountain, Smithgall Woods, Unicoi, and Tallulah Gorge. The latter is where much of the classic but disturbing film Deliverance was filmed. Around the time that movie was shot Karl Wallenda crossed the gorge on a high-wire. In fact, the Great Wallenda accomplished that feat 51 years ago today. Our first night in the mountains we spent in Helen, Georgia. Its buildings are in a Bavarian style and it’s filled with German restaurants. While it only has about 500 residents, Helen is Georgia’s third-most visited town. And I encountered mobs of Floridians there.  

People often wonder where Florida residents go on vacation–after all the Sunshine State is of course one of America’s most popular vacation destinations. In the summer many Floridians head to the slightly cooler climes of Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Yes, Tropical Storm Elsa, which passed through coastal Georgia after pummelling Florida during our trip, might have chased some people up north, but not all of them. 

I almost forgot–we hiked the Applachian Trail too.

After a couple of days in South Carolina–at Abbeville, Beaufort, and Hunting Island State Park, with a quick return to Georgia for a walking tour of Augusta and lunch with a high school friend in nearby Evans, we spent our last two days in Georgia in historic Savannah, an even better walking city than Augusta. Our own March to the Sea was over. Then it was time to drive home. 

On our way back, the day of the Home Run Derby of the MLB All-Star Game, we planned to visit Stone Mountain Park, site of “the Mount Rushmore of the South,” the largest bas-relief in the world, which is comprised of carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. But the weather that day was horrible–heavy rain–so we kept driving, straight through, back to Illinois. Stacey Abrams, the defeated Democratic candidate for Georgia governor in 2018, favors removal of the mountain carvings.

Stone Mountain Park is the most-visited attraction in the Peach State.

Abrams gave tacit support to a boycott of Georgia because of the voting reform bills, but she stealthily edited her USA Today op-ed call for one, but her disingenous act was later exposed. 

Abrams all but said to stay away from Georgia. 

So we visited. And and Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I had a wonderful time.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Five Reasons why signing Tebow Makes Sense but signing Kaepernick doesn’t

Posted: May 13, 2021 by datechguy in American Success Stories, culture, nfl, Sports
Tags: , , , ,

The left is having a hissy fit over the Jacksonville Jaguars signing of 33 years old Tim Tebow when the 33 year old Colin Kaepernick does not have an NFL job (not that he actually wants one but I digress). For those who have to deal with such people here are five quick reasons why signing Tebow makes much more sense than signing Kaepernick.

  1. Tebow is in professional sports shape.

While Kaepernick’s last game in the NFL was in 2016 and Tebow’s in 2012 Tebow has spent the last three years playing minor league ball in the Mets system rising to the AAA level before deciding to leave baseball this year. Thus the 33 year old Tebow not only is in playing shape while Kaepernick is not but he’s had three years of the routine of playing and being in shape to play daily.

2. Tebow’s most recent NFL Stats are better than Kaepernick’s

In his last two seasons as a starter Colin Kaepernick went 3-16 with no playoff appearances and was benched for lack of success

In his last two seasons as a starter Tim Tebow went 8-6 including a victory in the 1st round of the playoffs and oddly was benched despite his success.

3. Tebow is coming back as a TE,

Over the years teams that weren’t impressed with Tebow as a QB were still impressed with him as an athlete and were open to signing him at another position (Remember Julian Edelman was a QB in college) over the years Tebow steadfastly refused wanting to play QB. Tebow finally being willing to accept this fact is a big part of his being signed.

Meanwhile advocates for Kaepernick not only insist that he be a QB but also suggest that anything other than a starting QB (with a salary for a starting QB) would be beneath him. I have no idea if Kaepernick is interested in another position (WR?) but he’s not made any indication that he’d be willing to try one.

4. A Christian Brother to help Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville

Tebow brings a unique advantage to Jacksonville who just drafted Trevor Lawrence with the 1st pick.

Lawrence is very publicly a devout Christian in a society that is not kind to Christianity. Tebow is a very public Christian who has taken the slings and arrows for it. Tebow’s signing give Lawrence not only a Christian Brother in the clubhouse to confide in but a Christian brother who was a 1st round QB with direct experience in how to handle what the NFL will throw at him. Furthermore the attention that Tebow catches might lighten the load of the same on Lawrence.

Colin Kaepernick could not do this for Jacksonville and it’s very likely that for any team that he signed he would be more a distraction than an asset.

5. Tebow brings fans, Kaepernick chases them away.

Finally everyone forgets that the primary job of a sports franchise is to sell tickets, merchandise and eyeballs. Tim Tebow will not only draw fans but draw good publicity.

With a fan base already sick of “woke” sports Colin Kaepernick would chase fans away from the game and keep those who were thinking of coming back away.

Older Entries
Newer Entries