Daily Options Report

So it's a New Year, time to amend some officiial Daily Options Report positions.

Such as "who would watch hockey on New Year's Day, it's a College Football Holiday? Yet another Bettman f*** up"

I was totally wrong on that one. I loved the idea of outdoor hockey, just figured it would get lost on New Year's. I thought maybe the Sunday between NFL championships and the Super Bowl. But alas I forgot that the BCS gave up New Year's Day, there was a nice window there. And the NHL walked in. Hockey in Wrigley, then Fenway. It's awesome. Next year sounded even better.....except.

One scenario for next year's Winter Classic being discussed informally among league officials would pit the Capitals and New York Rangers at Yankee Stadium. That plan, though, recently hit a stumbling block when the Yankees announced that they plan to host a college football bowl game between Christmas and New Year's Day for each of the next four seasons. Once a venue is secured, the league needs more than week to set up boards and ice.

NOOOOO.

So they're going to give up the Winter Classic in favor of a showdown between like the 9th best SEC team and the 6th best in the Big East? That makes no sense, they'll sellout the hockey 20 times over vs. about zero local interest in a random mediocre college football matchup in the cold.

Which leads to another question. Does anyone understand the economics of bowl games? They clearly make some financial sense for corporations as new games sprout up faster than Kudlow's green shoots. My son's into watching them this year, but I'm at a loss to explain why Arkansas and East Carolina merit an extra game, and they're not even two of the sillier one's. For that, how about 6-6 Minnesota facing off against 6-6 Iowa State? Finally we can settle once and for all whether Mary Tyler Moore was better than Field of Dreams.

I guess the answer is that ESPN pays enough to broadcast it and alums will buy enough seats that's worth it.

Oh, and retracting one other postion, we have now seen the light and are in favor of a college football playoff. Either that or go back to just having all the best teams play on New Year's like they used to. Anything but this. And I really enjoy college football.

I didn't want a playoff before because I liked the whole idea of the whole regular season being one big playoff. If that's the case, then it was a really lame one this year. It was clear Texas would face the Bama-Florida winner from about early October on. Another reason was that instead of arguing over who should play in the title game, they'd just bitch and moan over who should make the field of 8, or 16. I'd vote for an 8 team tournament with the 6 BCS conference winners, the top small conference winner and a wild card spot. But that wild card spot has to go to a non-BCS team that meets certain qualifications. So you couldn't hose this year's Boise State in favor of a bigger school (so no Florida this year, they had their playoff and lost).