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Monday, January 3, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

So, you think that all that stuff I teach you is worthless?

Well, from The Sports Economist’s post “NFL Even MORE Competitively Balanced than We Thought” the following sentence popped out at me:

The 2024 season was, according to the popular actual-to-idealized standard deviation ratio, the second-most balanced NFL season since 2024, and it is the same story if one instead uses other popular measures, such as Gini coefficients or Herfindahl indexes.

That’s right:  Gini coefficients!  So there:  a practical application for your knowledge ;)

Thursday, December 2, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

Via the BBC:  Colombia vows to eradicate drugs money from football

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has promised to stop the infiltration of drug money into the country’s professional football clubs.

[…]

The Colombian congress is debating legislation intended to make the financing of football clubs more transparent.

Independiente Santa Fe is alleged to have laundered millions of dollars in drugs money for the fugitive drugs trafficker Daniel "El Loco" Barrera.

Prosecutors allege that $29m and 17m Euros (£33m) seized in October were destined for the club.

The club’s directors have promised full co-operation with the investigation.

My first thought on this is to think back to the notorious relationship between Colombian soccer and drug cartels in the 1980s and earl 1990s, including the Colombian national team (see my review of The Two Escobars here).

My second thought is that it is a a sign of progress for Colombia that the president and congress have time to deal with such issues and that it is making international news (rather than stories about violence and the like).

Filed under: Colombia,Sports,War on Drugs | Comments Off|
Monday, July 12, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

From me at OTB:

Filed under: OTB,Sports,pop culture | Comments Off|
Tuesday, June 29, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

Things have been busy and blogging light, although here a few short posts from the last two days from me over at OTB:

Filed under: Europe,Israel,OTB,Sports,US Politics | Comments Off|
Wednesday, June 23, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

What with the start of summer school and whatnot, I haven’t written much the last couple of days.

Two OTB posts:

Filed under: Courts,Europe,Latin America,OTB,Sports,immigration | Comments Off|
Thursday, June 17, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

I always wondered why we call it “soccer”—now Slate explains:  Why Do We Call It Soccer?

Tuesday, June 15, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

Including the pages of El TiempoLas vuvuzelas pasaron de ser un tema simpático a un sonido de pesadilla.

Filed under: Colombia,Not Politics,Sports | Comments Off|
Thursday, June 3, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

I noted from the Facebook feed from an acquaintance in Colombia that on the day that there are three World Cup matches scheduled for the same day as the second round of the Colombian presidential elections.

From FIFA I note the following: games at 6:30am, 9:00am and 1:30pm—two of which involve Latin American teams (Paraguay in the 6:30 game and Brazil at 1:30).

One has to wonder if that might affect turn-out for the election.

Filed under: 2010,Colombia,Sports,elections | Comments Off|
Wednesday, May 5, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

James Joyner notes a story I was going to blog last night:  Los Suns Cinco de Mayo Jerseys.

The stated purpose of the Los Suns jerseys is allegedly twofold:  1) to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, and 2) to protest the new Arizona immigration law.

James, however, notes a third reason (quite frankly, the most important reason) which I was going to point out as well:  “if they happen to make a ton of money selling jerseys, that’s a consequence they’re willing to live with.”

Indeed.

The teams do this to make money—and that is really all one needs to know to understand the choice.  They do it with St. Patrick’s Day jerseys as well.1

While the immigration law related aspect of this does overtly inject politics into the situation, we seem to go through outrage over Spanish language jerseys at this time of year on a regular basis.  For example, see my post on Michelle Malkin’s outrage on the subject from 2024:  ¡El horror de los Rangers!

Indeed, as James post notes with a photo, Spanish-version jerseys are nothing new.  Here’s another example:  Los Spurs (whom I hope beats Los Suns tonight!).

  1. Which no one freaks out about, oddly enough. []

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