I believe a while back Mark Cuban said it was impossible to own an NFL team and not make money.  Well, it looks like in a down economy the NFL is still going to get paid 1 billion a year from DirecTv for four years according to this Wall St Journal article.  Keep in mind this money is only for the NFL Sunday Ticket on Directv and doesn’t even include the sunday cable games, Sunday Night Football in America, and Monday Night Football which bring in over another 2 billion.  That is just 3 billion a year in TV revenues alone.   If you didn’t know this before, the NFL is definitely the strongest sport in the country if not in the world.  Soccer is solid but there is a ton of competition all over the place.

Now on to why I like them again.  If you remember one of my posts a while back about the NFL Sunday Ticket deal being a monopoly, then you will know the reason I said it was a monopoly is because people like me live in an apartment that don’t have a line of sight for a satellite dish.  The good news is that the NFL will be offering games online for people like me.  Here is the quote from the Wall street Journal article:

The agreement with the El Segundo, Calif., company allows the NFL for the first time to pursue deals with cable operators and Internet providers to offer subscribers the Red Zone Channel, which provides cut-ins to the crucial moments of NFL games. In addition, cable subscribers living in areas where satellite service isn’t available will be able to buy the full Sunday Ticket package over the Internet.

This sounds great.  Until this is actually offered though I will not terminate my petition which actually has a solid 41 signatures. Haha!

Some thoughts that come to mind.  Will DirecTV subscribers get access to these games online for when they are traveling?  Will the NFL limit people to one session per login?  MLBTV does not limit this so I know there are a lot of people out there splitting the cost.  This should be huge for NFL.com.  They are going to see a huge spike in the number of page views on their site.

The one issue I have with the NFL is the layoffs they just had.  How can an organization so successful use the economy as an excuse to lay people off?

The MVP race for 2009 will be a landslide victory for LeBron James. There is no doubt in my mind that he is the clear cut MVP favorite and will run away with the trophy despite tough competition from superstars Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul.

LeBron is the ultimate definition of the term MVP. MOST VALUABLE PLAYER. He means the most to his team than any other player does to his respective team. Without LeBron, the Cavs are just another non playoff team picking in the lottery draft.  With him they are the top seed in the Eastern Conference and a my bet to go to the finals.

His stats are damn near unbelievable prove that he may average a triple double very soon. Right now he is averaging 28.6 points, 7.6 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. He is the leader on his team in all five of those categories. Take a look at that stat line once again all you fantasy nerds and basketball junkies.  Let those numbers sink in and you will realize that he is doing everything he can to make the Cavs win, and is basically a one man team. LeBron is even averaging 7.3 assists per game on a team that features the likes of Delonte West and Big Z.
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Hat tip to TGI Sports

Barack Obama will be releasing his 2009 NCAA March Madness Presidential Picks sometime early this week.  We found out about this via the Huffington Post who read it on Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times’ twitter account.

I am sure he will have Illinois pulling off a couple of wins.  Check back here later in the week and we will post his picks.

Update: 7/19:  Here is President Obama’s picks on ESPN: