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There’s something missing from the offerings on the web for sports fans, but I can’t figure out what it is yet.

Fantasy sports are incredibly popular, and all backed by huge companies like ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS.  Direct gambling, though clearly less popular mostly due to stigma and questionable legality, is still a booming business online as evidenced by Bodog, WSEX, and BookMaker among others.  There are even sites like OneSeason where you can trade players like stocks.

But, there’s a chance for something else, I just know there is.  There is some kind of offering out there that is easy to understand and offers the rush of gambling with the legal comfort of fantasy sports.  Something that copies the ease of use that fantasy sports provides with the extreme technical calculations that can hook serious players in to it and the stock trading.  ESPN’s got their Streak for the Cash game, which does a pretty good job at addressing this.  But there’s still something missing.  Something that a very successful business can be built around, with a very clear exit strategy of selling to one of the major sports sites.

I’m trying hard to figure out what it is, but still trying to get there.  Dekalb and I had discussed some kind of site where you can set up a season’s worth of “pools” like March Madness, Super Bowl Squares, etc and track your performance against a group of friends.  The stock trading concept really intrigues me, but it’s so hard to explain to the casual fan that I just don’t think it can really catch on.  Maybe it’s just something as simple as finding something in the fantasy sports model that other sites are missing, but then you run the risk of being copied quickly and easily by companies that already have a user base WAY above anything you could hope to generate in a year.

I don’t know, but this is one of the ideas keeping me up at night.  So if you have an answer, please feel free to share.

Blonde singers with high breathy voices, whose songs get stuck in your head.

Taylor Swift
Nina Persson (The Cardigans)
Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer)

…

I need 2 more.  Can we throw Mandy Moore in here?

This installment brought to you by sports video clips from YouTube!

Reverse Pool Jumping (Deadspin)
I feel good that I can jump up and grab a basketball rim.  Jarron Gilbert, a guy you’ve never heard of out of San Jose State, can jump out of three feet of water.  And by jump out I mean, go from feet on the bottom of the pool, to feet on dry land, all in one fell swoop.  Not bad for a dude clocking in at 6’5″ 287.

Soccer = Terrorism (The Beautiful Game)
Fox News . . . really?  Soccer players and those who like to watch are “people who are basically terrorists?”  I understand that it’s satire, but my brain hurts just from hearing you speak.

Mascots Play HORSE Differently Than You or I (Deadspin)
From halfcourt, backwards, over the head, off the other mascot’s crotch, nothing but net.

It’s Not Traveling Unless Duke Says It’s Traveling (Deadspin)
Apparently Duke has their own 12-step program going on these days.  Only instead of using it to kick an addiction (like JJ Redeyes could’ve used), it’s a method of getting from the 3 point line to 8 feet further back without actually dribbling the ball.  Seriously, watch this.  It’s ridiculous.

And two non-sports links, mostly for Gouda’s enjoyment

Who Knew Bad Religion Was So Rich (The Luxist)
Guitarist Brett Gurewitz’s house in the Hollywood Hills is up for sale.  For $2.795 million.  And it’s hella nice.  Only downside is the doorbell playing a muzak version of 21st Century (Digital Boy).

Bear Sleeping Bag (Gizmodo)
Rawr.

I’m just plain burnt out right now.  They said it would happen, and they appear to be correct.

A lot of work, a lot of readings, group projects, trying to finish up reports for part time work I’m doing that ends in 6 days, new additions to my GRA role, GSM Vice President stuff, blah blah blah.  Oh yeah, and meanwhile I’m trying to find an internship in a field that require me to do most of the legwork because it’s outside of the scope of what the Career Services department does.  And the worst part is that if I’m not careful I’ll let myself get paralyzed by having too many things to do and not being able to pick where to start.

Now, I knew about all of this coming in, from the demanding second semester of schoolwork to how much harder my internship search would be than the average, so I’m not going to complain about it.  What I will do, however, is try to outline the few steps I’m taking to make this all a little more bearable.

1. Move the Finish Line
If I think of this stuff in the context of “I have a 10 page paper to write by Friday” and “I have to find a job in 2 months” and “I have to give an hour presentation on the corporate strategy for Red Hat” and “I have to basically launch a piece of software that sits over any operating system and will make interactions easier” and everything else, I’d go crazy.

So instead I don’t have to do any of those.  Right now, all I have to do is make it to Friday.  In order to that I need to finish a problem set by Wednesday, do my part on an econ paper due Friday,  skim 100 pages of strategy and re-read the case study by tomorrow at 10am, put together the market for portable toilets in Eastern Europe by 430pm on Tuesday, and get in touch with a couple people about where I can find a job.  Certainly not a walk in the park, but a hell of a lot better than if I let myself see what I have to do by March 27th.  Ugh.  On the bright side, at least after March 27th I will have a nice relaxing month of minimal grades as all but 2 classes will be “finished.”

2. Prioritize EVERYTHING
No matter how hard I tried, it just got ridiculous trying to sift through everything I had to do and then pick a project to start.  Now I put everything in order by how important it is and when it needs to be worked on.  For class readings, Strategy > Collaborative Product Development > Marketing > Econ.  For homework, Econ > Strategy > Marketing > CPD.  Etc.

Once I’ve got that stuff figured out I know how I’m going to attack everything and it’s on to step 3.

3. No Multi-tasking.  Ever.

I think the first place I read about this was in The Four-Hour Workweek, but I can’t promise that.  I can promise that it is the most important thing I’ve started doing.  It was really hard to get started since I was notoriously bad about trying to do a ton of things at once; mostly because I managed to do that and survive for so long.  Once I was able to force myself to sit down and actually bang out a task, I was amazed at how much more I was able to get done in the same amount of time.  I was doing 100% of 4 things in the same amount of time it used to take me to get partially done with 3 of them.  All that time you waste while moving from one task to another adds up more than I could ever believe.

Of course, there’s still time to get sidetracked and do things that are more enjoyable.  For instance, I just finished up some homework and an econ case, took a few minutes to write this up and grab a sandwich, and now I’m about to get on that strategy reading.

So yeah, do those 3 things and let me know what you think.

Also, exercise a lot.  I feel so much better when I’m trying to do work after running, and so much worse after I’ve spent the last couple days just sitting around.  It may directly take an hour out of the day, but it adds so much more in to your productivity.

Shockingly, I found another way to drop ~$400 in a day.

Only this time it’s going to be awesome and hopefully I can use it to take another step towards some things I really want to do.

MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

Boom.  Mark Cuban, Bill Simmons, and Jeff Van Gundy among the famous people you’ve heard of.  Also, TONS of people from the general management side of many of the most successful teams and organizations out there (Boston Celtics, Chelsea football, the NBA’s COO).

This may be the greatest thing I’ve ever heard of.  I really wish they hadn’t sold out of non-MIT student tickets so I wouldn’t have to debate spending $150 plus airfare and hotel for this.  Bah.

My preferred schedule would go:

8-9: Careers in Sports
915-1020: Evolution of the Fan Experience
1035-1130: Business of College Sports
1145-1240: Talent Identification
1240-130: LUNCH
130-225: Basketball Analytics (omg yes)
240-335: Team Chemistry
350-455: Value of Icon Players

This is going to be awesome.  Hopefully I can convince someone else from school to go up with me, otherwise I’ll just try to meet up with some 2p2 folk who are making the trip as well.

A few things I’ve been thinking about lately while running or trying to apply for internships.

- Figuring out how to match people with colleges (kinda like this company)
- Aggregation and analysis of public wagering info (actually, I’m already working on this and may actually launch something in the next couple months)
- Designing my own “you like this, you may like this too” engine
- Advanced sports statistics, preferably in basketball or soccer (basketball would be MUCH easier to work with, but I kinda think that the challenge of soccer would make it even more fun)
- An iPhone application that matches wine with food and doesn’t lack important things like being able to differentiate between hamburger and steak within a “Beef” category, or not listing actual brands, just styles.

President, Please.

“It’s a struggle out here man.  Nothing rhymes with President, knahmean?  It’s multi-syllabic.”

I don’t understand why, but Publix is a terrible place to buy fruit.  It really doesn’t make sense considering how much better all of the rest of their food is (a big reason behind this is how much of a pain it is to ship to them).  And yet of the last three times I’ve gone there, twice there have been no good apples and this time the apples that seemed to be good are all bad now that I try to eat them. 

Stop this now Publix, I don’t want to have to go somewhere else just to buy some apples and bananas.

I don’t know if you were aware of this, because I sure wasn’t, but apparently Jakob Dylan isn’t dead.  No, in fact just last year he put out an acoustic cd called Seeing Things.  And you know what?  It’s actually pretty damn good.

So if you happen to be in a Wallflowersy kinda mood but don’t really feel like you need all the rest of that instrumentation, definitely check out Seeing Things.

As for the links this week, I doubled up on a few thanks a multipart story and some pretty cool and closely related posts.  Hence the title.  Get it?

Deadspin Takes on the Westminster Dog Show
Part 1: Ma’am, There’s A Dog In Your Crotch
Part 2: Back To Bitches
Every year Deadspin sends a reporter to the Westminster Dog Show to take some pictures and write a few funny stories about the madness that goes on backstage.  Once again, it doesn’t disappoint.

Featured Desktops (Lifehacker)
The Heavenly Desktop
The Compartmentalized Desktop
I really like a lot of the programs out there to customize your interaction with the Windows desktop.  It really lets you create something that’s a little more usable, but more importantly much easier to look at.  These two just look amazing.

Another example, here’s what my desktop looks like now (click for full size)

Lego-themed Electronics (Gizmodo)
Cellphone
Camcorder
These are just cool to look at.  Good business decision by Lego licensing their look for other companies to make gadgets out of.

And now a couple links on the economy!

How Patent Trolls Are A Tax On Innovation (A VC)
Like Ben hates donuts and Krystal, Fred Wilson hates people who buy up old patents just to sue other companies who may have infringed on them in some way.  At first glance, it seems like the “use it or lose it” idea would do the most to solve this problem but I’m sure these guys would find some new way to try and make an easy buck.

Recession: Big in Japan (Paul Kedrosky)
Yikes.  If you thought things were bad here, check out the graph that shows Japan is taking it much, MUCH harder than we are.  Also doesn’t look good for the EU15, who are also doing worse.

Michael Lewis – The No-Stats All-Star

This article is a few thousand word masterpiece on the ways Shane Battier, who I hated at Duke but have grown to respect, manages to have a big impact on a basketball without ever showing up in the box score.

Lewis talks with Houston GM, and my new inspiration for what I want to be when I grow up, Daryl Morey who, at 36 years old, is helping to revolutionize the way basketball teams are put together.  They talk about new methods of measuring contributions, adjusted +/- statistics (team point differential) for who else was on the court, shooting percentage broken down by zone on the court and how they got the ball, etc.

It’s pretty impressive when a GM can be so in love with a guy that he describes as follows:

Battier’s weaknesses arise from physical limitations. Or, as Morey puts it, “He can’t dribble, he’s slow and hasn’t got much body control.”

Heh, yikes.

So, if you have a free 30 minutes, definitely go check out this article.

Or, if you have any connection to the Hawks or GT basketball, let them know that I will start compiling this stuff for them right now.