21 matchs for olympic:
big year for you, bill. both skateboarding and surfing are in the olympics for the first time along with karate, 3x3 basketball and bmx freestyle. sure you will be glued to the tv or livestream at 430 am if you can figure out the schedule.
olympic village is famously an international fuck fest but with japan desperate to contain a potential outbreak the broke out the breakable beds. only records will be shattered at these games and with such a crap night sleep probably fewer than usual.
kind of interested to watch sunday night on espn (or one of their channels) a new 30 for 30 documentary about the 1980 russian olympic hockey team.
with all this talk of bitthdays and bacteria i nearly forgot that the biggest non-world cup game of the year is on this afternoon. today is the champions league final from lisbon. turns out its an all madrid final with real madrid up against this years spanish league champs, athletico madrid, who are the first non barcelona/real madrid winners in 10 years. athletico beat real in last years copa del rey final (look it up if you care what it is) after years of being essentially the ny mets or the la clippers, the other team in a city where one team dominates the headlines. historically though they have won more la liga championships (10) than anyone but real madrid (32) or barcelona (22) so its not completely unprecedented. but they will have trouble holding on to their stars (their top scorer like last year is all but gone) after this season which is the plight of many teams not among the elite dozen or so. but surviving this far in the champions league will mean about $50 million in tv revenue and adding that to fees for selling their top players should put them in a position to be competitive for the next couple of years. at least until someone comes along and poaches their coach.
and dont forget, world cup starts in three weeks so its time to pretend to care about soccer for a month. if you can do it for the olympics i dont see why you cant do it for soccer. ill start you off.... i mean, can you believe klinsmann kept donovan off the 23 man roster!?!
oh, the champions league final starts on fox in three minutes.
flicked on the tv to catch the back nine of the pga championship. my tv was tuned to the new(ish) nbcs(ports) network. flipped it on the other day for the first time as they have the rights to the upcoming english premier league season. thus far ive seen a couple of minutes of a sailing event and, just now, a polo tournament. kind of reminds me of the early days of espn when they would broadcast bowling, billiards and whatever else they could get the rights to. nbc is not quite so desperate with soccer, hockey and the olympics but there are a lot of hours in the day. although espn is mostly chatter at this point. i always thought an olympic network was a no brainer, so maybe nbc will take that under advisement.
oh, and england beat the us at polo in overtime. champagne for everyone! up next, summer at saratoga. horsies!
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New Yorkers beware, now maybe the Olympics too:
New York City joined four European capitals — Paris, London, Madrid and Moscow — as the five cities unanimously selected today to advance to the final bidding round for the 2012 Olympic Summer Games.
