CS&T/AllsportsAmerica Friday Sports News Update and What's your take? 03/08/2013.

Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica
 

Sports Quote of the Day:

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." ~Vince Lombardi

 How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Blackhawks win 11th straight, extend points streak.

By MATT CARLSON (Associated Press)

Chicago Blackhawks left wing Daniel Carcillo, left, celebrates his winning goal with Niklas Hjalmarsson (4), of Sweden, and Johnny Oduya (27), also of Sweden, during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Colorado Avalanche, Wednesday, March 6, 2013, in Chicago. The Blackhawks won 3-2. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Daniel Carcillo scored the tiebreaking goal with 49.3 seconds left in regulation and the Chicago Blackhawks won their 11th consecutive game, beating the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 on Wednesday night to extend the best start in NHL history.

Jonathan Toews and Andrew Shaw also scored for Chicago (21-0-3), which reached the halfway point of a lockout-shortened season without losing in regulation. The remarkable Blackhawks have earned at least one point in their first 24 games, stretching their NHL record.

Dating back to last year's regular season, the streak is 30 games.

Carcillo knocked in a rebound with a backhand shot after Semyon Varlamov made two in-close stops on Viktor Stalberg during a scrum in the crease.

Our Hawks, never giving up, never giving out and most of all, never giving in. Their best just keeps getting better. As CS&T/AA has said from the start of the season, we have a great feeling about this team. This is our year, remember, you heard it here first!!!!! Go Hawks!!!

NOTES: Blackhawks right winger Marian Hossa, who was honored prior to Tuesday's game against Minnesota for playing in his 1,000th NHL game, did not dress for Wednesday's game. The team said Hossa has an upper-body injury, although at least one report indicated he's suffering from the flu. ... The Blackhawks assigned forward Brandon Bollig to their Rockford (Ill.) AHL affiliate. Bollig, 26, had appeared in 11 games this season. He had amassed zero points but 40 penalty minutes. ... Wednesday's game marked the first meeting this season between the Blackhawks and Avalanche, and the only scheduled regular-season contest in Chicago. The teams have a return engagement Friday in Denver. The Blackhawks return home to face Edmonton on Sunday before starting a four-game road trip. With Friday's return game in Colorado, the Avs begin a series that will see them play seven of their next nine games at home. ... Chicago extended its record sellout mark to 202 consecutive home games Wednesday. ... Colorado came into the game leading the all-time series 52-49-9-4.

NFL: Stance on sports betting has nothing to do with money.

By: David Purdum

There’s a belief among the gambling community that the NFL’s disdain for sports betting is more about money than protecting the integrity of the game.
 

Skeptics believe the NFL and the other leagues fighting to stop the expansion of legal sports betting in the U.S. ultimately want a piece of the profits and will continue to oppose it until they secure a share.

It’s a notion the NFL adamantly denies. When it comes to sports wagering, the NFL — with revenue of $9.7 billion in 2012, according to SportsBusiness Journal — is not interested in the money.

“(Revenue) has nothing to do with it and never has,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Linemakers on Sporting News.

Still, ideas have been floated in Washington, D.C. about how to share revenue from legal sports betting with the leagues. There’s been talk of licensing fees and sponsorships.

Lobbyist Joe Brennan, Director of Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (IMEGA), said one discussed plan was to use sports betting revenue to create a fund for retired NFL players.

Or how about using the revenue to study head injuries?

During a 2011 sports law conference in D.C., Brennan spoke about the revenue that could be generated from expanded legal sports betting and ways the NFL could benefit.

Jay Moyer, a Fordham law professor and former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the NFL, was in the audience and took umbrage with the suggestion that the league is or ought to be interested in revenue from sports betting.

“Getting the leagues revenue is not the issue,” Brennan said in a recent interview with The Linemakers. “They do not want people betting on their games.”

McCarthy echoed those sentiments in a Tuesday phone interview and emphasized that the popularity of the NFL is directly attributed to the unpredictability of the outcomes.

“The pillar of the success of the National Football League has been in part because fans don’t know what’s going to happen on any given Sunday,” McCarthy said. “To be able to watch unscripted, unfiltered drama play out on a football field is what keeps people coming back.”

Sports betting proponents argue that the increased regulation that would come from legalization would help protect the games’ integrity. And really, with the amount of scrutiny an NFL game receives and Nevada sports books on the constant lookout for suspicious betting patterns, it’s very unlikely any unscrupulous parties would choose an NFL game to fix.

“That’s a good thing,” McCarthy acknowledged.

Integrity of the game

The integrity-of-the-game argument has been attacked in the courtroom and by mainstream media, including some of the NFL’s broadcast partners.

In November deposition testimony, lawyers for the state of New Jersey pressed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the league’s willingness to play games at Wembley Stadium in London, where sports betting is legal.

McCarthy says the league closes the on-site betting windows at Wembley Stadium.

But there are more than 30 gambling parlors in the Wembley Park area, where the stadium is located. According to prominent UK sports book William Hill, six times more money, up to £300,000 (about $450,000), is bet on the NFL games played at Wembley Stadium compared to how much is wagered on a regular-season televised game played in the U.S.

“We try to shut down what we can,” McCarthy said.

Opponents also point to the NFL embracing fantasy football and stress that fantasy sports are just a different way of betting on the game, wagering on the statistical performances of individual players instead of the final score.

In a recent column, ESPN gambling columnist Chad Millman questioned how much “irreparable harm” the sports leagues really faced from legal sports betting.

Millman cited an academic paper from two St. Louis University law students that showed the value of NBA franchises had increased by 44 percent since the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal was revealed in 2007.

McCarthy declined to comment on anything regarding the NBA.

Size of the pie

Even if the sports leagues were interested in revenues generated from legalized sports betting, there simply might not be enough money to go around. According to the Nevada Gaming Commission, the state’s sports books won $68.4 million on football wagers (both college and pro) in 2012, 4.37 percent of the total money bet last year.

That’s a slim profit margin that gets even tighter if, for example, books were forced to pay licensing fees to the leagues in order to offer wagering on their games.

And the licensing fee or “rake” that could be generated from those figures amounts to a pittance compared to the NFL’s $9 billion-plus in revenues.

But the NFL says it isn’t interested in any of that and is fighting for only one thing.

“Protecting the integrity of our games is as important as many of our other priorities, like player health and safety,” stressed McCarthy. “It’s a major thing, not just the only thing.”

While the NFL’s not interested in the revenue, cash-strapped states are.

A study by veteran Nevada gaming company Cal Neva projected New Jersey sports books could take nearly $9 billion in bets annually. With an eight percent gross gaming revenue tax rate, the state’s annual windfall could be as high as $220 million, according to the study.

Despite New Jersey’s recent defeat in a U.S. District Court, Brennan doesn’t believe the sports betting issue is going away.

“Things aren’t getting any cheaper for the states, and they don’t want to raise taxes on their citizens, so the next thing out there is gambling,” Brennan said. “And sports betting is the most under-leveraged form of gambling.”

Will the publicity from the NRA 500 be a detriment or benefit to NASCAR?

By Nick Bromberg
 
That Eddie Gossage sure is one hell of a promoter.

The outspoken, gregarious (and conservative) Texas Motor Speedway president got his track's spring race a whole heck of a lot of publicity at TMS's media day on Monday when it was announced that the NRA would replace Samsung Mobile as the title sponsor of the Sprint Cup Series April 13th 500 mile race.

Yes, that NRA. The National Rifle Association, a group well known to most Americans and even more well-known to the people who make up NASCAR's core demographic.
 
Just two weeks ago, one of the most talked about cars at the Daytona 500 was one that bore a solicitation of monetary donations for the community of Newtown, Connecticut after the Sandy Hook school shooting left 26 people dead. In addition to that number that people could text to donate to, the car was even No. 26 for the race instead of its usual No. 30. To hear the car's owners retell the story, it was NASCAR President Mike Helton's idea. NASCAR CEO Brian France gave $50,000 to the Newtown charity. The NASCAR Foundation matched it.

Now, less than two months later, the group whose CEO announced a plan to install armed guards in every school in the wake of the Newtown shooting -- a plan that did not go over well, mind you, is sponsoring a race on the same circuit's schedule.

I don't blame you if that seems incongruous.

This isn't the first time the NRA has sponsored a race; they were the title sponsors of the Nationwide race at Atlanta Motor Speedway last season, so their foray into motorsports isn't new. And they also sponsored Austin Dillon's car in the Nationwide Series race at Daytona last July. On Monday, Gossage said he saw no connection between the Sandy Hook tragedy and the NRA.

From USA Today:

"I think, like everybody thinks, that was a heartbreaking occurrence," Gossage said. "But we don't see any correlation between that horrible act of violence and this organization."

Sponsorship agreements for races are negotiated and signed by the tracks and not NASCAR, but are ultimately subject to NASCAR's approval. And in a statement on Monday, NASCAR said that the agreement between Texas Motor Speedway and the NRA fell within the sanctioning body's guidelines for approval. So, in other words, there's no issue as far as NASCAR is concerned.

But should there be? It didn't take a soothsayer to see how controversial this sponsorship would be in the wake of Sandy Hook, even without the Newtown tribute car running at Daytona. But its presence in NASCAR's biggest race, and the attention that it was given when it was unveiled at NASCAR's media day preceding the Daytona 500 adds a layer of contradiction.

Yes, NASCAR is the safest area of sports sponsorship for the NRA. Many drivers, owners and crew members are avid hunters. The same can be said for fans. To put it bluntly, much of the NASCAR demographic is also the NRA's key demographic. The NRA knows this. NASCAR and its tracks know this. Gossage said that "The response on social media has been 99%, I'm not exaggerating, favorable. Most of those enthusiastically favorable."

As NASCAR has expanded from a regional southern sport to a national one that has only one full-time driver in its top series hailing from North Carolina, the sports home base, the tug of war of pleasing its most ardent and loyal fans while also appealing to a mainstream and corporate America has risen to the surface.

Fair or not, the decision to allow the NRA to buy the sponsorship rights for the race was going to churn up a lot of conversation and debate because of what was said by the NRA after Sandy Hook. In turn, that conversation could potentially cast the series in a not-so-flattering light of Southern Good-Old-Boys who just don't get it.

At Daytona, a Nationwide Series driver was suspended by NASCAR for two races after making an offhand racist comment in a conversation with a reporter. It was a strong public statement, one that was certainly made with any potential ramifications through public discussion from those remarks in mind. (Yes, sponsorship discussions were already well underway between the NRA and Texas Motor Speedway at the time of the suspension. However, it's another example of a contradiction.)

It's a perfect litmus test of that tried and true cliché that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Through this announcement, the issue of guns and gun rights is now near the forefront again. That discussion will continue through April 13, though it will be similar to what it was a couple months ago. Lines will be drawn. Minds won't be changed. There likely won't be much productivity. But this time, NASCAR will be involved.

Is the potential seven-figure amount from the NRA for the race sponsorship and the thousands of t-shirts sold -- not to mention the new NRA members enrolled at the track on race weekend -- worth it? NASCAR is about to find out. What's your take?

Torre: MLB examining expanded replay for 2014.

By DAVE SKRETTA (AP Sports Writer)

Major League Baseball intends to expand the use of instant replay for the 2014 season and will be studying over the course of this year which calls to review and how to do it.

Joe Torre, an MLB executive vice president, said Tuesday that league officials plan to visit Miami during the World Baseball Classic and various spring training sites to examine camera angles and other factors that will help them develop a plan.

''We're going to increase replay next year. We just don't know how we're going to go about it yet,'' Torre said before managing the U.S. team for the World Baseball Classic in an exhibition against the Chicago White Sox.

''I know we're using a number of venues to see what make sense,'' Torre said, ''and it's really making sense with the rhythm of the game as a priority.''

Commissioner Bud Selig has said he wants to add video reviews for trapped balls and fair-or-foul calls, but league officials also are considering whether it makes sense to review close plays on base paths - force outs and tags, for example - and other controversial calls.

Torre said technology could help dictate how widely instant replay is expanded.

During tests last year at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, MLB experimented with the Hawk-Eye animation system that is used to judge line calls in tennis, and the TrackMan radar software used by the PGA Tour for swing and ball flight analysis.

League executives also will be considering ways to implement wider review, such as giving the managers the option of challenging a call. A similar arrangement is used in the NFL, where coaches can throw a red challenge flag and have referees review whatever video is available.

''I don't think it would be a pure challenge system,'' Torre said. ''We've stayed away from that being part of the game. The manager already makes so many decisions, and to drop another rock or two in his pocket, I think it's a little bit much.''

Torre said the league is mainly ''looking at is some of the obvious stuff you can see right away,'' but that it's a balancing act to make sure replay doesn't interrupt the flow of the game.

He also referred to a play in the NFL to illustrate the drawbacks of replay.

During a game in Pittsburgh, the Steelers quarterback lost control of the ball and officials allowed the play to continue, because it wasn't clear whether it was a pass or fumble. The Chiefs recovered the ball and scored a touchdown, and then were penalized for excessive celebration.

The play was ruled an incomplete pass, giving the ball back to Pittsburgh.

''Now Pittsburgh, instead of being fourth (down) and having to punt, they have a first down because of a celebration of a touchdown that never happened,'' Torre said. ''So it's not ideal. Just because you have replay, you're not going to get the piece of cake that you want.''

One type of call that Torre said is not up for review is balls and strikes, though not so much because of limits on technology or questions about such a system's accuracy.

''I think balls and strikes, you have to have something to yell about,'' he said with a smile.

''I don't want to take the yelling out of the thing. That's part of the color.''

Two weeks until the start of the “CS&T 2013 March Madness NCAA Basketball Tournament” Pool.

Chicagosportsandtravel@yahoo.com wants you to join their NCAA Mens Basketball Bracket 2013 pool, named "CSAT 2013 March Madness NCAA Office Pool", at PoolTracker.com.

We're sending you this message because you have played in our pools before and hopefully enjoyed them. I'm requesting that you bring two friends, co-workers, acquaintances or diehard sports fans along with you to partake in this wonderful pool. Somebody's got to win, so it might as well be you!!! Our Pool is strictly for adult entertainment purposes only!!!The entry fee is $12.00 and we're looking forward to having 100 participants. All fees must be in by March 20, 2012.

Payouts will go to the Final Four Players (players with the most points accumulated based on 100 players):

1st place $500.00

2nd place $250.00

3rd place $125.00

4th place $125.00

Scoring Options: Progressive Pick 'Em

1 point for each correct pick in Round 1
 
2 points for each correct pick in Round 2

3 points for each correct pick in Round 3

4 points for each correct pick in Round 4

5 points for each correct pick in Round 5

6 points for the correct Champion

Tie Breaker: Total Points in Championship Game

Tie Breakers are calculated as follows:

If multiple players are tied for the highest points for any given week (or for the championship game in tournament type pools), the player with the closest tie breaker prediction, regardless if they are over or under, to the actual tie breaker value is the winner. If multiple players are still tied, then the player who entered their tie breaker value first*, wins.

* = The player with the earliest date/timestamp for entering their picks. Please note that the date/timestamp is updated every time a player's picks and/or tie breaker are edited.
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The Pool ID is: 75067

The Pool Password is: CSAT2013NCAAOP
 
 Important Note: You cannot make your picks until the brackets are established. The Brackets will be available March 17, 2013, and picks must be in by March 20, 2013.

There are four play in games this year bringing the total field to 68 teams. However, we do not know how the play in games will be used in scoring exactly. We will let you know when the brackets are established.

***Please email me at chicagosportsandtravel.com or call me at (312) 593-0928 with any further question(s). Good Luck and good picking.***

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NHL roundup: NHLPA approves realignment; NHL wants visors mandatory.

By The Sports Xchange

While the NHL has won a victory with the players association, an old battle has been rekindled.

The NHL Players Association approved the league's latest realignment proposal for next season Thursday with the provision that it be revisited after the 2014-2015 season.

The realignment, which has been discussed in some form since 2011, will be marked by the Winnipeg Jets moving to the Western Conference while the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets switch to the East. Also, the number of divisions will be reduced from six to four.

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the next step would be a vote of the Board of Governors for final approval.

Under the proposed plan, the league would be divided into two eight-team Eastern Conferences and two seven-team Western Conferences.

In addition, the new plan calls for divisional playoffs rather than the conference playoff system currently in place. The division winner with the most regular-season points would play the lowest-seeded wild-card team in the first round, with the other division winner playing the other wild-card team.

Meanwhile, the eye injury suffered by New York Rangers defenseman Marc Staal has re-invigorated the debate over a mandatory visor rule in the NHL.

Citing multiple sources, ESPNNewYork.com reported that the issue was broached during the talks for a new collective bargaining agreement in January, but the union remained committed to letting each player decide.

"It's a continuing discussion we have with the Players' Association and among our general managers," Daly told ESPNNewYork.com. "We have consistently been in favor of a rule mandating visors. The PA has historically been in favor of maintaining 'Player choice,' coupled with continued education and sensitization."

Visor use among players has increased to about 73 percent this season, up from 69 percent in 2011-12, according to statistics collected by the NHLPA.

--The Nashville Predators sent forward Matt Halischuk to their AHL affiliate in Milwaukee on a conditioning assignment.

The 24-year-old has one assist and six penalty minutes in 16 games this season. He last appeared with the Admirals during the 2010-11 season, and collected 11 goals and 12 assists in 37 games.

--EHC Olten defenseman Ronny Keller was paralyzed after a violent hit from behind.
The Swiss League player sustained "permanent spinal paralysis," Swiss Paraplegic Centre doctor Michael Baumberger told reporters. Keller didn't suffer any head or brain injuries, the doctor said.

Please let us hear your opinion on the above articles and pass them on to any other diehard fans that you think might be interested. But most of all, remember, Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica wants you!!!!!