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Perfecting the College Football Playoff

Jumping right in – I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about league and playoff structure for various sports. I’ll let a future therapist get to the reason behind this particular interest of mine. For now, please just take it for granted that I have my Malcom Gladwell 10,000 hours in this subject, honed via a lifetime of sports fandom and a half decade plus spent drawing up round robin, double elimination Hawaiian ping pong tournaments at the Circus Club. I even take my talents on the road for bachelor parties.

*Whipping up a nice little 14-team, 3 group round robin tournament for the boys.

On to the task at hand – perfecting the College Football Playoff.

Now I say perfecting because what we’ve got, as of this year, is acceptable. 12 teams. the top 4, who must be conference champions, get a bye. The other 8 participants are at-large (meaning voted in). The at-large teams play an initial round at the home field of the higher-ranked team. Following that, it’s on to neutral fields for the quarterfinals, semis and title game. This is exponentially better than the 4-team playoff, and we’ll not even bother harking back to the BCS. But we’ve still got some obvious issues. There is the questionable significance of conference championship games, lack of clear path for the little guys, and general bits and bobs we can improve upon.

So, I’ve decided to approach a revamp here from first principles. Here are the overarching goals for my structure and the raison d’etre for how it’s laid out.

No meaningless games – The goal of a good game designer should be to lend some significance to every regular and postseason game – no meaningless games, both teams involved should have something on the line.

Objectivity – We’ll always have some subjectivity in college football over where teams should be ranked. It’s such a Balkanized system that the central authorities need to be able to thumb the scale a bit.However these arguments needn’t be front and center for every debate.My system still includes at-large bids at the margins, but “what it takes” to make the CFB playoff will be imminently clear from the first snap of the season.

Accessibility – Call me old fashioned, but I believe that every single D-1 FBS team should have a chance at playing their way into a national title. Under the current system, would a 13-0 Jacksonville State team (C-USA) make the 12 team playoff? Maybe, and hopefully one year we’ll find out. But it’s not guaranteed, and we can be certain that most any 12-1 team from a lower conference wouldn’t have a chance to make it. I’m under no illusions that all conferences are equal, but I say let them play it out on the field. So I’ve built an on-ramp for all these schools to touch greatness.

Incorporating the existing framework (i.e. Conference Championship Games) – A truly ideal system would probably do away with these altogether. However there’s zero chance these money making conference t¹itle games go away entirely. So being the pragmatist that I am, I’ve folded these into the playoff itself, and now they have clear benefits and consequences to the participants. The Lower Conference title games are part of round 1, while the Upper Conference title games are part of round 2. More details below.

Recognizing Conference Inequality – I believe in equal D-1 opportunity, but we can’t ignore the obvious talent gap between conferences. So I’ve tranched the conferences into Upper (SEC, Big 10, ACC and Big 12) and Lower (American, C-USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt). As you’ll see in the tournament structure, this classification gives a significant advantage to teams in Upper Conferences. Two quick points on this: First, this advantage already exists in the current system, just informally. Second, under my regime, the Upper and Lower designations are subject to annual reclassification based on inter-conference play.²

Now that you’ve patiently read my lengthy preamble, here’s the structure and how it would have played out this season.

First, the high level elevator pitch. After that, I’ll go into detail with examples from the current year.

Elevator Pitch. 24 teams, 6 rounds, starting with a upper and lower bracket.. The opening round consists of the 5 lower conference title games and 3 at large games (the lower bracket). The lower bracket is single elimination. The best 4 conferences will play their title games in week 2 (the upper bracket), thereby skipping the opening round of games. Winner from the upper bracket go on to the quarterfinals. Losers from the top 4 conference title games drop to the lower bracket, with a chance to play into the quarterfinals. Quarterfinals onward are a regular 8-team tournament.

So, finishing top 2 in your conference (thereby making the title game) gets you into the playoffs.³ Any D-1 school can play their way into the tournament. They just might have to do it starting farther back than the blue blood conferences. At large teams, and GDIs⁴ like Notre Dame have a path. Teams that make the SEC, Big 12, ACC or Big 10 Championship games get rewarded with a bye relative to any 3rd place teams in those conferences.⁵

Deeper Dive...Who makes the dance?

24 Teams, consisting of:

18 teams, by virtue of reaching their respective conference championship games. For most conferences, this just means the two teams who finished first and second in the regular season.
6 at large bids. Can be independent schools (looking at you Notre Dame) or also-rans from the top 4 conferences.
Below are the 24 teams who would have qualified this year.

Team	Method of Qualification
Oregon*	Big 10 Title Game
Penn State*	Big 10 Title Game
Texas*	SEC Title Game
Georgia*	SEC Title Game
Arizona State*	Big 12 Title Game
Iowa State*	Big 12 Title Game
SMU*	ACC Title Game
Clemson*	ACC Title Game
Boise State	Mountain West Title Game
UNLV	Mountain West Title Game
Army	American Athletic Title Game
Tulane	American Athletic Title Game
Marshall	Sun Belt Title Game
Louisiana	Sun Belt Title Game
Jacksonville State	C-USA Title Game
Western Kentucky	C-USA Title Game
Ohio	MAC Title Game
Miami (Ohio)	MAC Title Game
Notre Dame	At Large
Ohio State	At Large
Tennessee	At Large
Indiana	At Large
Alabama	At Large
Miami	At Large

*The top 4 title games aren’t played until Week 2, so these 8 teams a get a bye.

Week 1

Who is playing:
- 5 Conference Champion Games. The Bottom 5 conferences play their championship games in their current format.
- 3 At Large Play-in Games. The 6 at large teams play at the home field of the higher seed. For example if Notre Dame is the highest At Large team and Miami is the lowest, then the Irish will host the Hurricanes.
- Who is on a bye: The Top 4 Conference Championship games will take place Week 2. So those 8 teams all have a bye.
Who is left: After the Bottom 5 Conference Championship games and the 3 at large play-ins, you’re left with 8 survivors from this week. All are re-seeded for Week 2 matchups.
No need for a bracket just yet as the winners will be reseeded after this round.

Week 1 Play-In Games
Game	Team 1 vs. Team 2*
American Athletic Title Game	Army	Tulane
C-USA Title Game	Jacksonville State	Western Kentucky
MAC Title Game	Ohio	Miami (Ohio)
Mountain West Title Game	Boise State	UNLV
Sun Belt Title Game	Marshall	Louisiana
At Large Game 1	Notre Dame	Miami
At Large Game 2	Ohio State	Alabama
At Large Game 3	Tennessee	Indiana

*Projected winners indicated in bold.

Week 2

Who is playing:
- 4 Conference Champion Games. The Top 4 conferences, who had a bye Week 1, now play their championship games.
  - Winners move on to Week 4 and get a next round bye. Losers keep going, playing one of the “Round 2” winners in Week 3.⁶
- 4 “Round 2” Games. The 8 teams who survived Week 1 are now randomly drawn into games against other week 1 survivors.
  - Only restriction on the matchups is that at-large teams can’t be drawn together.
  - In a game between a conference champion and an at-large team, the conference champion gets to host.
  - In a game between two conference champions, the higher rated conference gets to host.
Who is on a bye:
- Nobody, everyone in contention is playing this week.
Who is left:
- From the upper the bracket, the four winners are now off to the quarterfinals with a week off before that starts. The losers from the top half will now drop down to play the winners from the bottom. For those keeping count, we are now down to 12 teams…on to Week 3!

Week 3 Games
Double Elimination Games (Upper Bracket)
Big 10 Title Game	Oregon	Penn State
SEC Title Game	Georgia	Texas
ACC Title Game	Clemson	SMU
Big 12 Title Game	Arizona State	Iowa State
Single Elimination Games (Lower Bracket)
Game 1	Boise State	Tennessee
Game 2	Notre Dame	Jacksonville State
Game 3	Army	Marshall
Game 4	Ohio State	Ohio

*Winners projected in bold for example purposes.

Week 3

Who is playing:
- 4 “Round 3” Games. Losers from the top half of last weeks’ bracket get to host a winner from the bottom half of the bracket. Match-ups to be re-seeded.
Who is on a bye:
- Last week’s winners from the SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and ACC championship games.
Who is left:
- The four winners of this week and the four who got to sit this round out. We’re now down to 8, and from here it’s pretty simple!

Week 3 Games
Game 1	Texas	Army
Game 2	Penn State	Boise State
Game 3	Notre Dame	SMU
Game 4	Ohio State	Iowa State

Weeks 4 – 6

Now we’ve got a nice, familiar 8 team bracket. This is all single elimination. For the quarterfinals, the 4 “Top Conference” Champions get to host a winner from the lower bracket. Conference rivals to be place on opposite sides of the bracket if possible.⁷
For the semis and final, these are neutral sights at the traditional Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, etc.
Winner takes all. For those who had to earn their way via Week 1 play, this would mean 6 straight wins. If a Big 4 champ runs the table, they can get it done in 4 games.

Silencing the Haters

Let’s get the counterarguments out of the way. At a potential six playoff games for those Week 1 teams, we’re looking at extending their season by a whopping 50% of games. Even the NBA, where the playoffs take forever, a team could only max out at extending their season by 20% if every series went to game 7. (Bonus points if they also had to go through the play in game). To this critique I say… tough. You want to get paid like professional athletes? You can play a few more nationally televised games. For lower conference teams, this will provide exposure and dollars.

One more criticism to raise and then discard – teams from the lower conferences, and GDIs like Notre Dame and UMass, will have a longer road no matter how well their regular season goes. Again I say, tough. Join a conference, or get your conference boosted up the coefficient rankings. There’s the not so remote chance that the top 40 schools jettison entirely the poorer 2/3rds of division 1 schools. At least this keeps everyone in the dance.

Revisiting First Principles

Time to circle back and ensure we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.

Does every game matter? Absolutely – this system puts a huge premium on the regular season for the big dogs who need to finish top 2 to guarantee a spot. Further, the conference title games now have a clear benefit for the participants, with plenty at stake once you’ve made it that far. As an added bonus, the conference coefficient, which determines the top 4 and lower 5, would lend excitement to every interconference matchup. San Jose State vs. Stanford⁸ would have Boise State and Clemson fans watching intently.

Is it objective and accessible? Yup, every team from every conference gets a shot and there’s still the excitement of committee rankings when determining the 6 at large teams. There’s no point in whining about strength of schedule anymore. Conference games are most important and pre-determined. Out of conference heavyweight games have more potential benefit than downside, as they can give you the nudge in an at large bid but won’t go against the straightforward conference qualification method.

So in sum, we as fans get more games on tv, winning programs get extra home games, and everyone makes much more money. This is the future I want and we all deserve. Please forward this to your local member of Congress so we can reach the promised land.

For a counter example, look at the recent ACC Championship game between SMU – Clemson. Clemson won and so played its way into the final 12. The committee ultimately didn’t fully punish SMU for losing and kept it in. That’s fine, but it was a subject call by the committee, and if you’re going to make two teams play an extra game, the consequence, and benefit, of winning or losing should be set upfront. ↩︎
For those familiar with the UEFA Champions League, we’d just use a similar coefficient to determine respective conference rankings. Fun bonus of added significance to out of conference regular season and bowl games. ↩︎
The Sun Belt has an East and West division, whose respective winners make the title game. So technically a slight difference, but close enough for our purposes. ↩︎
God-damn independents ↩︎
Compare to a scenario this year , Tennessee vs Texas. Texas qualified for the SEC title game and lost in OT to Georgia. They have a slightly higher seed that Tennessee, but the Vols got a week off and now they’re slotted into the same round of the tournament. Not a disaster, but again the point of this article is to perfect the college football playoff, and clearly we can do better! ↩︎
Shoutout AFL for the idea. This is how they do their playoffs, nuts right? ↩︎
Intention here is to avoid a conference title game rematch unless it’s in the finals. ↩︎
The Bill Walsh Bowl. ↩︎

Pokebirds: What is the bird equivalent of every Pokemon?

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I’ve always loved animals, but I have Pokemon to thank for turning me into a birdwatcher. For those unfamiliar, Pokemon was a very popular game in the late 90’s, the point of which was to catch and train fictional wild animals/monsters. Most Pokemon could “evolve” into stronger versions of themselves, and some were so rare that they could only be found in a single place in the game. To beat the game you needed to collect all 150 Pokemon, hence the game’s tagline, “Gotta Catch ‘Em All.”

When I first came across a book on bird-watching (thanks Kepler’s!), my eleven year-old brain immediately made the connection to my favorite game. Birding’s purpose, besides the general enjoyment of nature and whatnot, is to find as many different species of birds as you can. It’s basically an animal scavenger hunt to be played with all 10,000 species of birds in the world, neat!

Pokemon transitioned into birdwatching for me, and with my free quaran-time, I decided to repeat the process and find each Pokemon’s bird equivalent. Now, a few notes before we dive in.

I’ve “only” matched birds with the original 150 Pokemon, from versions Red and Blue. In the twenty-plus years since these games originated, a dozen or so fresh installments of Pokemon have been released, each bringing with them new characters to catch (there are now 807). I’ve matched Pokemon and birds based on rarity, looks, cool factor and whatever other criteria I thought I could make stick. Not all Pokemon translate well into birds (I mean, Jynx?), but I was pleasantly surprised at how many of these matches seemed to click.

Second, since my birding journey began in the Bay Area, I’ve populated the list with mostly Californian birds, although many of these are also found nation-wide. A clever wrinkle of the original Pokemon Red and Blue games was that a few Pokemon were exclusive to only one version of the game. In order to obtain the missing critters and complete your collection, you needed to trade with a friend who had the other version. Since Pokemon Blue was my game of choice, I’ve made the “Red Exclusive” Pokemon into East Coast birds, which require traveling across the country in order to “collect.” For “Blue Exclusive” Pokemon, I went with West Coast endemics.

Lastly, I’ve ordered evolutions mostly by size, although in some cases I gave the rarer species higher ranking. I’ve included hyperlinks for each bird species which lead to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s excellent online field guide, appropriately titled “All About Birds.” There you can find further information on each species, including its calls, identification tips, and even where best to find them.

Now, it’s time to trade in your Pokedex for a lifelist…

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The Tiers of a Sports Fan

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Hey sports fans,

Law school is back so free time is once again on the endangered species list; however I wanted to squeeze out a quick sports related post before I retreat into my hole for the semester. So here we go.

If you follow one sports team, you probably follow more than one. Realistically you probably have at least one preferred team in every major sport (the local team being the default choice). More often than not some of these teams will be doing well, while others will be doing poorly. So at any one point there will be lots of balls in the air, so to speak.

To determine your mood as a sports fan you need to weigh your relative attachment to each team individually. For example if you’re a big baseball fan from the Bay Area, a San Francisco Giants’ win is worth more to you than a win for the 49ers. We all do this balancing on some level, but I wanted to measure my allegiances to see just how much (or little) I care about certain teams. So what follows is a tiered ranking of the sports entities that I follow. (I prefer a tiered ranking to a strictly ordinal positioning, since the latter is often too subjective and involves the splitting of hairs that don’t really exist.)

Tier 1, In My Blood: San Francisco Giants, San Francisco 49ers, United States Men’s National Soccer Team

The top tier is reserved for teams with which I share a deep, lasting bond. Lots of friends and family also care about these guys, so any success achieved is shared throughout my community. Any time these teams lose, the pain is undeniable. Conversely any and all victories reaffirm my faith in the world. If I had to put a 1A, it’d be the USMNT, mostly because winning the World Cup would be an immensely satisfying diplomatic victory. Sadly that’s about as likely as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker being found alive (i.e., it’s not happening).

Tier 2, Burning Passions: Liverpool FC, Golden State Warriors, Tiger Woods

The members of this tier are really, really fun to cheer for, and truth be told I spend more time watching their games then the teams in Tier 1 (also they play more often). Liverpool and Golden State are recent flings of mine that are developing into full-fledged romances, however both lack the pedigree of a childhood obsession that the top tier teams possess. Also I have fewer fellow fans to celebrate with, since Liverpool isn’t local and the Warriors haven’t been good for very long. Tiger gets a spot because watching him in contention on a Major Sunday is one of the most entertaining things in all of sports. His presence in a tournament single-handedly determines whether I’ll be watching four days of golf or doing pretty much anything else.

Tier 3, We Have History, but I’ll Distance Myself If I Have to: Florida Gators Football, Stanford Football, French Men’s National Soccer Team:

Having two potential competitors on the same tier should be a no-no, but whatever, that’s just the case and we’ll survive. College football is one of my favorite sports but my undergrad institution thinks having a team would be bad for morale, so I’m a sailor without a ship. The Gators are the team of my youth and rank just slightly above the Cardinal in terms of my loyalty. However since I’m not truly engaged to either I can back away when the losses are too painful (I’m looking at you Rose Bowl). Similarly, Les Bleus (Team France) is a favorite of mine that is far enough removed from my everyday life to not cause me instant grief or joy.

Tier 4, Reserving A Spot On The Bandwagon: San Jose Sharks, San Jose Earthquakes, Duke Basketball, United States Women’s National Soccer Team

I like these teams, I want them to win, but I don’t need to follow their every move. Wake me up once we make the playoffs.

Tier 5, For Some Reason I Like You: The Buffalo Bills, Paris Saint-Germain, Napoli, English Men’s National Soccer Team

If any of these guys are playing a neutral, I wish them well. Since pretty much every team they’re likely to play is a neutral to me, I guess you’d call me a fan.

Bonus Tier, Teams I Love to Loathe: Los Angeles Dodgers, Miami Heat, Mexico Men’s National Soccer Team, Manchester United, Dallas Cowboys

Some of these are rivals of my loves, some are just showboating tools with crappy fans in fair-weather markets with more Sportscenter coverage than they deserve. A loss for one of these guys is roughly equivalent to a win for a tier 3 team.

Anyway those are the tiers, sorry for the rush job on this post. The actual contents of my tiers shouldn’t be incredibly interesting to any of you, but I found it a fun exercise as a sports fan, and I’d be curious to see what other people come up with for their own fandom pyramid. Also it would be interesting to assign numerical values to wins/losses for the different tiers so that at any given point you could calculate your precise happiness as a fan. But alas I have torts reading to do.

All the best, see you at the end of the semester.

Gone but not forgotten: 3 extinct species you should know about

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Hi everybody,

Happy boxing day! Did you guys all catch that Liverpool match this morning? No? Well that’s ok they lost anyway.

So with the holidays and a bit of free time on my hands I thought I’d provide some mediocre reading material for my (half) dozens of readers. In this post I’ll be bringing you a bit of information on three lovely animals which have sadly gone by the wayside. Unlike dinosaurs or saber-tooths or Megladons these critters weren’t knocked out of the game due to environmental changes or meteors or whatever. Rather these three were extinguished from God’s Green Earth by greedy humans like ourselves who failed to lay off the hunting and poaching in time. Instead, like the Giving Tree, we took and took until there was nothing left but material for a sad children’s book.

Why should I spend the holidays eulogizing bygone animals? Well, why do we fall? (So we can learn to pick ourselves up). Looking back on past environmental mistakes is a helpful and hopeful way of avoiding new ones. And if nothing else, extinct animal trivia is quite useful I’d imagine; it’s almost certainly been a jeopardy category at some point.

1. Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius)

In 1800, there were as many as 5 billion Passenger Pigeons in North America, making it (probably) the most numerous species of bird on the continent. The birds would travel in giant flocks up to a mile wide and nest in enormous colonies numbering in the millions. Understandably, these large gatherings of pigeons were a popular source of food for both Native Americans and early colonists, However the colonists took this hunting to an extreme in the late 19th century when pigeon meat became an extremely popular way of providing food to the poor and enslaved. Hunters engaged in large scale reapings that including burning or cutting down the nest-filled trees and shooting anything that tried to escape. Because the birds traveled in large, tightly-packed flocks a single shotgun blast could easily take down 6 birds, according to Wikipedia. And since the pigeons were so numerous this mass birdicide was not seen as unsustainable (double negative). A few legislatures attempted to pass bills preventing the hunting of the birds but the general populace ignored the laws and the birds continued to drop like insect-birds (flies).

Naturalist Paul R. Erlich noted that the Passenger Pigeon illustrates an important principle in conservational biology, namely that it isn’t always necessary to kill the last two members of a species to cause its extinction. Passenger Pigeons were gregarious birds that were used to breeding in gigantic colonies, so when these colonies fell from the millions to the thousand the reproduction rate dropped precipitously. Eventually there was only one Passenger Pigeon left. Her name was Martha and she passed away at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1st, 1917 (the zoo now has a statue in her honor). The poor Passenger pigeon went from being the most popular bird in the States to getting hit by a metaphorical bus, except unlike Regina George this little guy never made it to prom. And now I don’t get to add it to my life list either.

2. “Thylacine” Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus)

The Tasmanian Tiger was like the Tasmanian Devil except a little bit cooler. The last of its kind (apex marsupial predators), this guy was once found throughout Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania. Before British settlement of Australia it was pretty much only found on Tasmania, and by about 1900 that island was officially the land of its last stand.

In essence the Tasmanian Tiger was the Australian version of a coyote, except that this title probably belongs to the dingo. So it was more like the Tasmanian version of a coyote, with a pouch and stripes. This coyote-dingo-likeness was its downfall as Tasmanians were quite prejudicial to the beast. The locals thought of the tiger as a chicken and sheep stealer and placed bounties on the Thylacines. Like other apex predators, there were never a great deal of Tasmanian Tigers in the first place since local ecosystems only supported a few of them at a time. So once farmers were rewarded for gunning them down, the boys never stood much of a chance. The last known Tasmanian Tiger perished at Hobart Zoo on September 7th, 1936. Now September 7th is recognized in Australia as National Threatened Species Day, so that’s nice.

3. Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer)

The Baiji, also known as the Chinese River Dolphin, is probably gone now. The main reasons for this species’ bucket-kicking include pollution, damning of the river, and accidental capture in fishing nets. In 1950, there were approximately 5,000 of these lovely cetaceans in the Yangtze river. This number dropped to 300 by the 80’s, and an expedition up the river in the 90’s found a mere 13. A recent survey in 2006 turned up a whopping zero dolphins, and the species has been declared functionally extinct. While it is possible that a handful of Baiji are still swimming around in the Yangtze these individuals would not be enough to support a sustained population. In the immortal words of Ice Cube, don’t call it a comeback.

So that concludes my holiday list of ghost animals. Thankfully the environmental world is not all one of doom and gloom. Success stories do exist. Like the California Condor, which was once down to a mere 22 in 1987 and has now number over 430 birds (big thanks to the San Diego Zoo on that one). Also crows and ravens seem to be doing just fine. So there’s that. (Birding tip of the day: How do you tell a crow apart from a raven? The easiest way is to look at the tail. Crows have rectangular tails, while ravens was wedged tails. Next time you’re outside feel free to play “crow or raven?”, it’s more fun than it sounds).

Well I hope you all learned something. Have an awesome new year and remember to recycle any empty glass bottles you may find at your house/apartment come January 1st. Also take Michigan State +5.5 in the Rose Bowl. I still think Stanford will pull it out but it’ll be a close one.

League of Nations: Part II

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Bienvenue to the second installment of the League of Nations. I hope you all were able to scrape some enjoyment out of the first sixteen teams because I’ve got another dozen and a half cities to share today. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the introduction/explanation to the League, please see the post prior (below) this one.

Before I unveil the “Asia” Conference, I’d like to reemphasize just how subjective this selection process really is. I’ve spent an embarrassingly long time on this already and still I find myself changing cities and rearranging divisions at the deadline. There aren’t any right answers, and the necessity of grouping the league has caused plenty of headaches. But it’s still been fun, and I’d love for any of you to chime in with suggestions. Eventually these franchises will need names, so if you’re bored and starting to daydream, maybe direct some creative thoughts my way.

Conference II: Asia

Division A: Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai

Division B: Hong Kong, Taipei, Manila, Bangkok

Division C: Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Sydney

Division D: Dhaka, Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi

The reasons why…

Tokyo is the largest city in the world, according to 5 of the 6 measures used by Wikipedia (thank you Jimmy Wales), losing out only in the measurement of ‘city proper’. There were no other contenders for the top spot in Japan, and while Osaka may be deserving of a nod (population nearly 20 million), this island nation is only getting one team into the League.

Seoul, assuming the region’s stability holds, should be an extremely productive member of the L.O.N. Thanks to the American military’s benevolent and ultimately successful intervention 60 years ago, South Korea has been able to grow into a vibrant economic powerhouse. And as the capital city, Seoul has become an indisputable member of the world’s elite cities, boasting a metropolitan population of 25 million and coming in at number 8 on the Global Cities Index. It’s a little tempting to also grant Pyongyang a team, given that they do have the world’s largest stadium (the May Day Stadium, capacity 150,000), and that Kim Jung-un would make a better owner than Chris Cohan.

Beijing gets a team, and they are required to play at the Bird’s Nest. Easy choice.

Shanghai. Remember when I said that Tokyo is considered the biggest city in all but one category? Well you’re looking at the city that beat them in the other category (city proper, in case you forgot). And honestly I’d say this is the most relatable measure for sizing up a city. For example, using ‘city proper’ we’d say that the population of San Francisco is approx. 800,000, whereas if we use some of the other measures (metropolitan area, urban area, etc.) the population jumps to as much as five million. For the purposes of sports teams these latter numbers are very important (think of how many people travel to Giants game from outlying areas), but if you are just trying to visualize how big a place is, you’re better off using ‘city proper’. Sorry for that undoubtedly boring rant, sometimes these things just slip out.

Hong Kong is an important city and seemed like an obvious choice. I don’t have much else to say about it, other than that the ‘Hong Kong King Kongs’ would be a cool name for the franchise.

Taipei‘s inclusion serves two purposes: giving China a fourth team (equal footing with the US) and representing the country of Taiwan. Either way the city has tremendous infrastructure, a large population, and a history of winning Little League World Series titles.

Manilla is the capital of the Philippines, and while Quezon City is technically the country’s largest city, both cities fall within the same metro area (conveniently called the Manila Metro). The Philippines contain approximately 100 million people, good enough for twelfth in the world, and surely you’d all agree they deserve a spot in the League.

Bangkok isn’t all cocaine, ladyboys, and face tattoos. It’s also where they filmed The Hangover 2 (ha-ha). In the league Thailand’s capital city will help to represent the approximately 610 million people of Southeast Asia. Also considered for this slot were Hanoi, Ho Chi Min City, and Phnom Penh, but Bangkok’s superior numbers and (projected, planned, possible) infrastructure wins out. Besides I’m sure opposing players will circle games in Bangkok with glee. If professional athletes can find trouble in Milwaukee, I’m sure Bangkok will produce some phenomenal headlines.

Kuala Lumpur might seem undeserving at first glance, but let me throw some stats at you and we’ll see if anything sticks. First off, KL is rated as an Alpha World City (same level as Los Angeles, Madrid, and Beijing). It has hosted the Commonwealth Games and Formula One Grand Prix. About 9 million tourists visit KL a year, making it the sixth most visited city in the world. FInally it should at the least provide some satisfying regional balance and serve as a possible alternative to any Southeast Asian fans who don’t like Bangkok.

Singapore is the only city-state in the League, which is a bit of a bummer, since city-states are awesome (just ask Ancient Greece). Singapore ranks 11th on the GCI, is the world’s fourth-leading financial center, and contains one of the five busiest ports in the world. Oh and did I mention it’s a city-state?

Jakarta. Here’s a ‘fun’ trivia question: What’s the biggest (population-wise) Muslim country in the world? With a population of 237 million, about 90% of which practice Islam, the answer is Indonesia! Isn’t learning fun? Anyway Jakarta is the capital of this archipelago and holds nearly 30 million people within its metro area. Whatever sport the League chooses to adopt (my personal choice would be a reincarnation of Slamball) I’m hoping that the sheer mass of people in the area will lead to a sizable following. Also the main island of Indonesia, called Java, is the world’s most populated island (138 million). The more you know…

Sydney is swell. According to the GCI, it is the world’s 12th most powerful city, and the 2000 Olympics showed that the city is comfortable hosting the world. While Sydney was an obvious choice, I did sadly have to leave out both Melbourne and Auckland. Melbourne is Australia’s second city (the Boston to Sydney’s Big Apple) and impressively hosted the 1956 Olympics. However Australia’s modest population doesn’t warrant two teams in a worldwide league, and for the same reason I had to leave out Auckland, (New Zealand has 4 million people, about the same as South Carolina), despite the City of Sail’s impressive growth.

Dhaka is one of the world’s megacities (defined as having a population of 20 million or more) but most people have never heard of it, myself included. It’s the capital of Bangladesh, a country the approximate size of New York State with a population of 150 million, making it the most densely populated nation in the world. According to Forbes, Dhaka is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, with a population increase of 45% between 2000 and 2010. Hopefully this franchise will be able to capitalize on the explosive growth of the city, and Dhaka will be a household name in the future. Oh, and it’s known as the “city of rickshaws”, another great potential franchise name.

Mumbai, or Bombay, is the largest city in India and the fourth-largest in the world. Interestingly, the city originally consisted of seven separate islands, which were connected over the course of 500 years by different land reclamation projects. Pretty neat.

Delhi is technically a metropolitan area, while New Delhi is the actual capital city of India; for our purposes ‘Delhi’ will suffice. It’s also a megacity, and gives the second largest country in the world a second team. Narrowly left out is Kolkata (Calcutta for your British Imperialists), India’s third largest city. Rather than adding a third team to India I chose to include Dhaka, thereby hopefully including Bangladesh’s immense population. However if the League of Nation ever does expand (and frankly how could it not?) then Kolkata will be among the first cities granted an expansion team.

Karachi: Pakistan’s largest city, and according to Forbes (same article as before), the world’s fastest growing city. It’s the economic and educational center of Pakistan and its inclusion in the same division as India’s two teams should make for some explosive rivalries.

That’s it for this edition of the League, please see below for a map of the teams (without Sydney, but I’ll bet you all know where that is). Next time I’ll be introducing the Middle East/African/Eastern Europe Conference. Hopefully I’ll have thought of a better name for it by then.

The League of Nations

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Hello and welcome back to Sports and Animals, so sorry to keep you all (the glorious half dozen of you) waiting.

As you may have surmised by now I made it back safe and sound from the Southern Hemisphere. I’d like to thank all of the interesting people I met down there, but to be fair their company is to blame for the lack of updates to this site. I had anticipated being alone for long stretches of my trip, and therefore having a lot of time to think, write, edit, etcetera. However backpackers are a friendly bunch (I’d like to think this includes myself) and rather than type away on my ipad I found myself learning Dutch jokes, discussing ‘footy’, and drinking Goon. Entries were left half-finished, cities unchronicled, photos never posted. Oh well, I’m back now and with nothing but time between me and a date with Duke Law, I figured I’d catch up.

To reward your collective patience, I would like to share something I hope you’ll find more interesting than my reflections on Australia; which by the way, was awesome. What follows below is a pet project I’m referring to as the League of Nations – a working title – that I spent some long bus rides brainstorming. Here goes…

It began with an article I once read (and now can’t find) discussing the NBA’s possible expansion to Europe. It’s no secret that US leagues are eager to increase their audience, and the NBA has been playing exhibition games in London for years now, with the thought that one day an expansion team may be based across the pond. However this article pointed out that for travel reasons the NBA would need to stick an entire division of teams in Europe at once, rather than have one isolated franchise attempt to survive on its own. This division would (most likely) consist of teams in five cities: London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, and Rome. The interesting aspect of this – to me at least – is how those five cities were chosen among all possible candidates. To be fair those five seem rather obvious choices, but who is to say that Berlin isn’t better than Rome, or whether Spain really needs two teams. The next logical step was to see how an expansion to the rest of the world would play out.

The result is the League of Nations, a hypothetical (duh) 64 team worldwide league to be formed at a later date for a yet undetermined sport. The league is broken into four conferences with 16 teams each, and within each conference are four divisions holding four teams. It’s like two NFLs smushed together, if that helps you with the visual. The main criteria for selection included size (both of the city and country), regional balance, and an effort to avoid geographical overlapping. Infrastructure, Olympic history, the Global Cities Index, and regional balance were also considered.

Hopefully this long and garbled introduction hasn’t turned you off to the idea, because I think the concept is pretty neat even if I’m not the best to execute it. I’ll be “releasing” the league in four parts, starting today with the “Americas” conference. I’ve included some basic reasons as to why certain cities were chosen (or left out) and I’d be happy to hear your thoughts. Please try to keep in mind – as I had to myself – that a worldwide league will never be able to satisfy all of our provincial wants, even if 64 teams does sound like a large number; the world is a big place. Hope you enjoy.

CONFERENCE I: The Americas

Division A: Vancouver, Los Angeles, Chicago, Mexico City

Division B: Toronto, New York City, Atlanta, Havana

Division C: San Jose, Bogotá, Caracas, Lima

Division D: Rio De Janeiro, Sâo Paulo, Buenos Aries, Santiago

The Reasons why…

Vancouver recently hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics and is an up and coming Canadian city, picked here to represent the Pacific Northwest. It won out over Seattle in my effort to avoid picking too many US teams. (For those curious, the original iteration of the league featured eight American-based teams, now trimmed to four).

Los Angeles is huge, uber-relevant globally (ranked #6 on the AT Kearney Global Cities Index), and tremendously shallow. Sadly I had to go with the home of Hollywood at the expense of beautiful San Francisco, since I wasn’t willing to stick two teams so close together without a deeper division existing between the potential fan bases. For example Barcelona and Madrid get two unique teams (as you’ll see later) because the people of these cities hate each other and fought a war relatively recently. As much as the NorCal v. SoCal rivalry matters to college freshman and baseball fans, it wouldn’t necessarily preclude residents of the Bay Area from supporting a team a little farther south in lieu of their own, nonexistent franchise. Also LA hosted the 1984 Olympics.

Chicago is any easy choice to represent the midwest. With a population of 10 million and a GCI (Global Cities Index) ranking of seven, the windy city deserves its spot. A passionate tradition of sports fans didn’t hurt either, and minor challenges from Detroit and St. Louis were shrugged off.

Mexico City‘s metropolitan area contains over 20 million people, and the city is unquestionably the center of all things Mexican. Another easy choice.

Toronto is the second representative of Canada, and is the highest ranking Canuck city according to the GBI (coming in at an impressive 16th). Quebec made a push on behalf of French-Candiens, but their voices were not heard and the home of the CN Tower shall receive the spot in the L.O.N.

New York City is number 1 overall in the GBI, and is one of just two cities (along with London) given an Alpha++ Global city ranking. By the way, if you find any of these rankings interesting (and who knows maybe you do) you can find them by going to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

Atlanta is potentially the most controversial of the US teams to be selected. Truth is I had room for one more American franchise, and Atlanta checked the most boxes without repeating geographically. Boston is too close to New York, Washington DC has other things to do besides host a franchise (the Redskins play in Maryland) and Miami’s demographics are covered by Havana’s team. Meanwhile Atlanta is a large city (metropolitan area includes approx. 5 million souls), played host to the 1996 Olympics, and stands as the de facto capital of the American South, despite Sherman’s best efforts.

Havana is probably wishful thinking on my part, but this is a forward-thinking league. I also thought it was a sexier choice than Miami, being that it gets the L.O.N. footprint into one more country. There might be some worries about Havana players bolting their hotel rooms after away games, but I’ll set that issue aside for someone else to deal with.

San Jose was chosen to represent Central America. Frankly I don’t have strong facts to back up all of my selections, so I’ll just say that I was happy with the way San Jose’s marker looks on the map. Also I’ve been hearing great things about Costa Rica (you probably have as well) so I figured they deserved a little something for all their hospitality.

Bogotá is the capital of Columbia, ranks 55th on the GCI, and holds nearly 8 million people within its borders. Columbia as a country holds nearly 50 million people, and I’d like to think they’ll all get behind this team. And because I gave Columbia a squad I had to include their rivals and neighbors Venezuela one as well.

Caracas is Venezuela’s capital, ranks 57th on the GCI, and has a population of approximately 3 million. They also have oil.

Lima has nearly 9 million residents and is the capital of Peru. As you can see I’m not exactly an expert on South America, and these picks sort of made themselves. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong, just relatively uneducated choices. Judge for yourselves.

Rio de Janeiro, assuming it survives the massive amounts of tear gas currently in its atmosphere, will host the 2014 World Cup, 2016 Olympics, and potentially the 2020 World’s Fair. It is in every sense (besides public transportation) a global city, and its widespread (but trending downwards? hopefully…) crime and poverty don’t stand to make it any less so.

Sâo Paulo is Brazil’s second city on the list, and was originally overlooked by me. Rio may get all the headlines, but Sao Paulo is in fact Brazil’s largest city with a metro area of 20 million. Furthermore it ranks an impressive 33rd on the CGI, while poor Rio doesn’t even make the list.

Buenos Aires: another no brainer. Besides being the home of Johnny Rico and friends in Starship Troopers (and getting wiped out by a bug-directed meteor attack) B.A. is the highest-ranked South American city on the GCI, coming in at number 22. Its city limits and suburbs hold 12 of the 40 million people in Argentina, and its fans will look forward to matches against the two Brazilian sides next door.

Santiago has over 5 million residents, a full third of Chile’s population. It’s home to the Metro de Santiago, South America’s most extensive metro system, and really seems to be going places. Montevideo was a tempting choice, but sadly Uruguay and it’s measly 3 million inhabitants didn’t qualify for a team.

Anyway that’s a full quarter of the League of Nations, just as Wilson imagined it I’m sure. You can see the cities pinned on the maps below (click to enlarge). I’ll do by best to get the next segments up in a timely manner. Glad to be back.

Somewhere on the South Island

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Catching Up

Well it’s been a bit longer between posts than I planned, and I apologize for the delay. Not sure if anyone out there is really chomping at the bit for updates, but just in case you are, I’d hate to keep you waiting.
Anyway, I’m happy and (relatively) healthy down here on New Zealand’s South Island. One of the reasons I’ve fallen behind on my writing is that there is a lot to do down here and I’m trying to fit in as much of it as I can. And to be honest when I’m not hiking or bungy jumping or drinking with foreigners, I’m usually too tired to do much beside sleep and stare off into space. But today I’m catching up, sitting cross-legged and cramped on a bus that smells like stale beer and reverberates with dubstep, surrounded by friends speaking Dutch and German and heavily accented English, as snow-capped peaks and the occasional waterfall fly by the windows and I don’t really notice because New Zealand has way too many mountains and waterfalls.
Last I wrote I was resting in Taupo, recovering from a long night of two-for-one drink specials. Since then I’ve spent nights in Whakahoro, Tongariro National Park, Wellington, Abel Tasman National Park, Blackball, Franz Joseph, Wanaka, Queenstown, and Milford Sound. Tonight it’s Invercargill, one of NZ’s southernmost cities, then back to Queenstown for some further sampling of the Kiwi nightlife. Below are the spark notes of my last two weeks.
We’ve been a bit unlucky with weather, and unfortunately missed out on the Tongariro Crossing (home to Mount Doom and one of the best hikes in the world) due to 100km/hr winds on the mountain. It was still pouring rain when we got into Wellington, but I loved that city anyway. Wellington has the awesome, and most importantly completely free, Te Papa Natural History Museum. It also has great bars, a lively music scene, and is home to Peter Jackson’s film studios.
Skipping to the South Island, which is a three hour ferry ride from Wellington, we were greeted with more rain. Our first stop was Abel Tasman National Park, where I fell in with five busmates and we went for a two day, one night, 40 kilometer (25 miles) hike. The park is gorgeous, filled with lush rain forests covered in ferns, estuaries that can only be crossed during the appropriate low tide, and more pristine beaches than any one traveler could be bothered to stop at. However all of this natural beauty was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I was marching 7 hours a day with a heavy backpack and eating Spaghettios for every meal. Upon reflection I’ve determined that the outdoors is nice, but I’m a city-slicker at heart.
In Franz Joseph we took a helicopter ride and hiked around New Zealand’s largest glacier. Blackball is an old mining town with nothing really going for it. Wanaka is the diet version of Queenstown, and Queenstown is its own analogy altogether; I’ll have to devote an entire post to its everlasting glory. MIlford Sound would almost certainly have been off the charts beautiful if the weather hadn’t been so atrocious. Invercargill has been described affectionately by others as “the asshole of New Zealand” so I’m not getting my hopes up for tonight. Either way I can’t complain since it’s back to Queenstown tomorrow night, and that is a known commodity for which all the hype has been fulfilled.
I’ll be sure to write more often now that I plan on settling in for a bit, and put down some roots here on the South Island. I hope that everyone at home is enjoying the summer weather. Also please appreciate hot showers, dishwashers, and not sleeping in a bunk bed every night. And go Dubs.

Editor’s note: Wrote this a few days ago but only got around to posting it now. Right now I’m back in Queenstown watching the Warriors try to hold on in game two against the Spurs. The game isn’t on tv here so the bartender (I’m at a sports bar, drinking delicious cider) is streaming the game for me on his laptop. It’s the choppiest thing I’ve ever seen, and yet it’s so beautiful that I want to commission an artist to paint the scene for me. Just went final, Dubs win, looking forward to game 3 (which will be on ESPN, thank The Lord).

American Paihia

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So the title only works if you know the pronunciation (Pie-heah). Anyway…

I am in a tiny little town called Paihia on the Bay of Islands, about 4 hours north of Auckland. I looked up the population online and it says 1700 but right now it must be about half of that. It’s a small resort town and a seasonal getaway for wealthy Aucklanders, most of whom own expensive homes in the area that are only lived in a few weeks out of the year. You can walk from one end of the town to the other in about 20 minutes, and I’m reminded everyday of Isla Vista. Well, an Isla Vista with only 10% of its population.

The backpackers I am staying and working at is called the Saltwater Lodge, and is about 30 seconds from two bars and the beach. It’s a two-story building with about 16 rooms, a large patio and lounge area. I am one of 6 or so “workawayers” or “woofers”: guests who stay for free in exchange for about 3 hours of work a day. We all stay in the same dorm room, and right now I am the only American and the only male. While being the only guy on staff sounds great on paper, in reality it means I am permanently assigned trash duty and heavy lifting. My mornings (10-1:30 approx) mostly involve sorting through recycling, emptying a few dozen trash cans, and being called in every 20 minutes or so to move a bunk bed or couch. In short I have lots of “Charlie Work” (Sunny in Philadelphia) and a healthy respect for anyone who cleans for a living. On the plus side I find lots of fun treasures in the trash, and I get to listen to music while I work.

The other staff include Julia, Mona, and Myriam from Germany. There is Servane from France, and a Chinese and Taiwanese girl who names I unfortunately won’t be able to spell. Everyone of us is here on our own and there is definitely a sense of solidarity in the group; a sense that comes from having to clean up the mess of everyone else staying here.

The local bar scene isn’t great but it’s definitely good enough. There is an adjacent bar (The Saltwater Pub) and a backpackers bar a little ways down the street that has sand covering its floor. Alcohol is really expensive here, about 25-30 NZ dollars for a 12 pack of beer or hard cider. I’ve started to pregame with wine because it packs the best alcohol to dollar ratio, and the staff and I usually play Kings Cup or some such nonsense before heading out.

I’ve watched a few rugby games at the Saltwater Pub too. The big league here is known as Super Rugby or Super 15. It has five clubs each from New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. In essence it’s a Champions League for Rugby and is the biggest club tournament in the Southern Hemisphere. The games were pretty interesting and I am looking forward to seeing more next weekend,. The quick notes I made were that they have instant replay, advantage play, and the refs wear pink. Also some old guy next to me said they call soccer “kick and kiss”, because they run around kicking the ball until someone scores, and then they all kiss each other. Other random notes on New Zealand: they say zed instead of z, coolers are known as chilly bins, and making fun of Australians is a national past time.

I have five days about left working at the Saltwater Lodge. After that I think I will be moving in with a young family that runs a small kayak touring business in town. I met the owner, Taylor, through workaway and he let me tag along on one of his kayak tours yesterday. He and his wife seem like really nice people and I’m looking forward to working for them and getting to stick around in Paihia for longer.

I’ll have more details when I get to know this place better but for now I am having a good time and feel like I’ve found a pretty special little corner of the world. I do really miss March Madness though.

Greetings from Auckland

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Hey there friends!

Before we get things started I’d like to say a quick word about blogs. Since I first heard the word I’ve associated blogging with tools of all shapes and sizes: from hipsters to neckbeards to whiny intellectual wannabees. To me a blog sounded like a publicized diary that inherently shows an inflated sense of self-importance and need for attention, and frankly I was having none of it. In fact I still feel that way to some degree, as you can probably tell from the fact that I’m including this disclaimer. I cringe a little inside when telling people to “follow my blog”, because it makes me feel like someone with a constantly updated Facebook Status. But alas, here I am anyway, with my own url to boot. I guess what I’m trying to say is please don’t read what I put up here out of any kind of obligation to me. I (kind of) enjoy writing, and having an (admittedly tiny) audience serves as solid motivation for me to sit down and type. But I’ll feel a lot better knowing, or at least thinking, that those reading my stuff are doing so because they enjoy it, not because they feel compelled to. So with that in mind, I hope you enjoy my stories, and feedback is always appreciated. Except for grammar/syntax corrections; those you should keep those to yourselves.

Anyway, I’m here safe and sound in Auckland, New Zealand. I lucked out big time on my flight; very last row and seated next to a kickass old man who moved to an open row and let me have two seats to myself. When I describe this senior as kickass, I absolutely mean it. This gentleman, first name Thorpe, is an 83 year old Korean War Vet, Harvard and Columbia educated doctor, and started the largest malpractice insurance company in Washington State. He picked tobacco for 10 cents an hour during the Great Depression, currently spends his retirement trading options, and has been married for 52 years (his wife was sitting in 1st Class). He did do some weird old guy things, like accidentally take my fleece (I spent half the flight looking for it) and had a great deal of difficulty working his headphones. Also for all I know all his cool stories were blatant lies and really he spent his adult life directing pornography in the Valley. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt; pretty cool dude to be stuck next to on 13 hour flight.

I watched Wreck-it-Ralf on the plane, a solid B+ movie. Maybe it was the Ambien, but I thought the numerous candy-related puns were hilarious. The script showed a lot of creativity in how they tied all the different elements of arcade games together. Or maybe it didn’t. Some commercial for the movie that I saw a while back had a critic praising the film for it’s creativity, so I’m not really able to separate that preconceived notion from whatever my own opinion woud’ve been without that commercial. Either way, decent movie.

I’ve only been in New Zealand for a few hours so I don’t have much to report. It’s overcast and a little drizzly, which is apparently a good thing since the North Island has been having a bit of drought this year. There is a nice warm wind so it’s not bad at all, and frankly I’m too tired to care even if it was snowing. The few people I’ve interacted with so far (bus driver, cafe owner, hotel receptionist) have been stereotypically friendly. Auckland seems like it might be a bit expensive relative to the rest of New Zealand, so I’ll keep an eye out as I go.

I’ll be in Auckland for the next three nights and then I’m hopping on a bus to Paihia in the Bay of Islands, where I’ll be working for my room and board at the Saltwater Backpacker’s Lodge. If you need me go head and throw me an email and I’ll get back to you fairly quickly.

P.S. No new birds yet, just a bunch of House Sparrows. Ubiquitous little shits.

Group A : AFC West

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Well, this post may be a bit late for the start of the NFL and Champion’s League (as in two weeks and one game into the respective seasons) but that’s better than never. Here are the teams from each division, matched according to club history, star player similarities, and in some cases. uniform color.

The Oakland Raiders are…..Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)

Dinamo Zagreb are a Croatian team, best know for the fact that they are, well, Croatian. The Raiders are certainly a known commodity to anyone reading this, so I’ll skip their introduction.
The clubs are similar mainly for the ~~rabid~~ enthusiastic fan bases. Raiders fans are notorious for dressing like the product of 5th grade nightmares, most likely to distract television viewers from the fact that they play on the last dual sport field in the NFL. Quite frankly I’d also have a chip on my shoulder (or in this case, spikes) if I had to watch my quarterback get tackled behind 2nd base for half of the season. Meanwhile, supporters of Dinamo Zagreb are referred to as the “Bad Blue Boys”, apparently in reference to a Sean Penn movie (really). The group is among the craziest in the Champions League, and was sited by the Bleacher Report as one of the 16 fan groups you wouldn’t want to mess with. Add to that the fact that many of these fans served in the Croatian army, and you’ve got a great match between the Bad Blue Boys and the Black Hole.

The San Diego Chargers are…. FC Porto (Portugal)

Both these teams from the respective Southwest of their divisions. After that, the similarities sort of dry up. FC Porto has actually won the Champions League twice, while Charger fans have no silverware to fondly look back on.
One thing to remember about FC Porto, their best player is named Hulk. One name, like Madonna. Which reminds me, I’d love to see a Brazilian rock the single name in an American sports league. Only Hehateme could touch that name.

The Kansas City Chiefs are… Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine)

We don’t often turn our attention to Ukraine, unless it’s to make a joke about “Hostel” or Nuclear Fallout. Similarly Kansas City doesn’t get a lot of love except when people look out of their airplane windows on the flight to one of the coasts. That being said, both locations are on the rise. Kansas City is now deemed the “Silicon Prairie”, thanks in large part to Google Fiber, and Ukraine is a now slightly less scary place to visit, due to the cleanups made prior to Euro 2012 (which Ukraine co-hosted).
Neither of these teams will make the playoffs, so I guess there’s that.

The Denver Broncos are…Paris Saint-Germain (France)

Finally, we reach the heavyweights. Both Denver and PSG are the hot commodities in their groups. The Broncos are headlining thank to the acquisition of Peyton Manning, perhaps the most recognized football player in America. PSG meanwhile have Zlatan Imbrahimovic, a footballer (different than a football player) who is superbly skilled and incredibly toxic as a teammate. Zlatan is part of a spending spree put on by PSGs new Qatari owners, while Peyton certainly didn’t come cheaply to the Broncos.

Hopefully this will give Broncos, Chiefs, Raiders, and Chargers fans a random team to throw their hat in the ring with. If not, at least you’ll know that PSG is a good sleeper team in FIFA.