It might get you sponsors.

MLS is a joke of a sports league. I've always thought the idea of sports teams as franchises of a big central organization was a little bit odd, but MLS is run like a fuckin' co-op. You can buy and sell players but only if you're already a member and you have to bring your own bags.

Someone in my family competed for the US in the Olympics after college. So, here are some first-hand facts:

All this obsession with getting calls right is chasing fairy dust, in my opinion. The fact that we are 15 years into the instant replay era and these mistakes still happen suggests to me that replays don't solve the problem. If you want to get everything perfectly called, cover every player, surface, and piece of…

It's largely the fault of three groups of people.

Apropos nothing, I bet that's also where the variant spelling "cum" ... er, comes from.

I'm like this but an even weirder wrinkle: when people tell me so-and-so is obviously interested in me, they are always wrong, and these are people who are in other situations extremely good at reading people (they can always tell when I'm interested in someone, even if I'm trying to hide it). I have no idea how or…

If it's not about race, then why do white celebrities with even less talent have fashion houses lined up out the door to collaborate with them, but West - whose status as a menswear trendsetter is well-documented - has to struggle to get a venue for his designs? Why did Cristal complain about being popular with the…

The black community seems to be quite a bit more skeptical of allegations of sexual misconduct against celebrities. Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Bill Cosby... many people think it's just a way to take successful blacks down a peg. And it's not as if flimsy allegations of rape and miscegenation weren't used as a…

Neuer isn't the future of goal-keeping and that's why he should have the Ballon d'Or - no one else could possibly turn in a performance like he did. Germany played the whole tournament a man up because he doubled up as a sweeper, and you can't say about anyone else at the level of international play that they're…

Laying the blame at Paterno always struck me as a second cover up job - feeding the narrative that he had to have known it was going on all along and he's at fault for the school's inaction took the spotlight away from everyone else who might be culpable - and that's a long list, with everyone from then-state AG and…

"He didn't follow up" is bullshit. The same state law that requires him to report what he'd heard also specifically dictates that he take no further initiative in dealing with the issue - once it's reported, it's the sole responsibility of administration and law enforcement to handle. "Following up" except to…

"In his time" = "85 years before Mt Rushmore"

Personally, I think it'd be a mistake to count out McKinley. He led the nation handily through two armed conflicts, the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion, was an extremely popular politician, and oversaw the recovery from the panic of 1893. When he was killed it…

No, I think he's saying that the playoff system exists solely to appease two groups of notorious assholes: sportswriters and the type of sports fan whose favorite part of sports is arguing about the validity of the outcome. It's sort of like restructuring Medicare to better suit guys that make motorized wheelchairs.

That cuts both ways, though. You can also argue that all the energy spent on defending racist mascots and nicknames because they "honor" Native Americans would be better spent honoring them by ensuring they have better access to quality education, extracurricular activities, and jobs.

Antigone is well-known for being deep.

I agree. If they're going to steal names from European clubs, they should do it at least as incompetently as Salt Lake so there's something charmingly stupid about it. FC Bayern New York vs DC-St. Germain or the Miami Barcas would be worth watching just to mock.

Do Yankees fans get excited when the team drafts kids that aren't even from New York?

Firstly, though contractual restrictions can be voided under certain circumstances, like illegality of a particular term, but declining to release his full report to the public wouldn't count. Secondly, major international organizations like FIFA are a huge part of the Swiss economy, so it's very likely any ambiguous…

This isn't just a problem with the NBA's particular rules, though - the basic reality of the league is that talent is scarce enough that trying to build a good team without hitting jackpot in the draft lottery a few times is all but impossible. One top draft pick and four bottom-tier pros is always going to be a…