Category Archives: Sports

Business, Sports

49ERS AND SEAHAWKS WILL PLAY TO A HALF-EMPTY STADIUM

1 Comment

imageSeattle, Washington – CenturyLink Field, the Seattle Seahawks’ home stadium, seats 67,000 people, but Sunday’s game between the Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers will play to just half capacity, thanks to the Seahawks’ brilliant idea not to sell tickets to anyone whose billing address has any zip code in California.

Seahawks fans are notoriously the noisiest football fans in all of th US of A. They seemed threatened by the equally passionate 49er fans, so they were hoping to shut out the latter from watching the game live in Seattle. The winner of this game moves on to the Superbowl.

CenturyLink Field is poised to lose millions of dollars from the expected half capacity,  not to mention lost revenue from beer and hotdog sales. A brilliant plan that backfired.

Meanwhile, sports bars and other venues in California that will show the game on their large screen TVs are in for brisk business on a Sunday preceding a holiday (Martin Luther King) .

Go 49ers!

International, Sports

SCOTLAND, FIJI, AMERICAN SAMOA SHUT OUT OF SOCHI WINTER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONIES

64 Comments

imageSochi, Russia – When contingents from participating nations march in for the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Olympics on February 7  in Sochi, Russia, spectators will not see the athletes  from Scotland, Fiji and American Samoa.

The reason? Vladimir Putin’s government has banned male athletes from wearing skirts in public. The ban is consistent with Russia’s controversial law prohibiting any public display of homosexuality. image

The Scottish olympians were supposed to wear kilts, traditional attire for men and boys in Scotland, while the Fijians and Samoans were to wear the traditional lava lava, a male version of the female sarong. Fiji and American Samoa are among the few tropical nations that send a delegation to the quadrennial winter competitions.

“These attires closely resemble women’s skirts, and for men to be wearing women’s clothing in public is inconsistent with Russian law,” Putin said in a press conference yesterday at The Kremlin.

International, Politics, Sports

EDWARD SNOWDEN IS U.S. FLAG BEARER AT 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS

Leave a comment

flagbearerSochi, Russia – The 2014 Winter Olympics is just weeks away, and this spectacle to be hosted by Russia is gaining all the publicity plus a lot of controversy. Among other things, there have been numerous attempts to organize a boycott of the Sochi Olympics because of laws enacted by the government of Vladimir Putin criminalizing the public display of homosexuality within Russia.  And just last month, the White House announced that  the  official U.S. delegation won’t include a member of President Barack Obama’s family or an active cabinet secretary, but it will include openly gay athletes  including Billie Jean King, the tennis legend; and figure skater Brian Boitano.

Today, in a statement that stunned the sports and political world circles, the U.S. National Olympic Committee (USNOC) said that it has chosen the U.S. flag bearer for the February 7 Opening Ceremonies. It will be none other than Edward Snowden, the American accused of espionage in connection with leaks of top-secret information from the National Security Agency. Snowden is now living in Moscow and has been granted political asylum by the Putin government – another stickler in the hot and cold diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia.

Snowden
Snowden

In justifying its selection, the Olympic Committee said that regardless of the charges against him, Snowden represents the true spirit of strength, courage and perseverance which are among the prime ideals of Olympic sports.  The Committee also admitted that using a controversial and recognizable figure like Snowden would generate a lot of buzz and would add to the popularity of the U.S. Olympic team. It is also part of the USNOC’s continuing strategy at cost savings. “Since Snowden is already in Russia,” we won’t have to pay for any travel expenses,” a USNOC spokesperson said.