acts.1.eight

so i’ve received a few comments on here and on myspace regarding the city (or in the case of chris schwartz, the state) that i should teach gunnar to cheer for. but none have really stuck out to me yet.

tonight, i decided to be a little more mathematical about it and i devised a formula based mostly on arbitrary standards determined by me. I started with the 32 nfl teams (not cities, because you couldn’t just chose new york, you need to side with either the jets or giants). then applied my standards. these standards included OPT (Other Professional Teams), HIST (History and Tradition of their sports teams), UNI (Uniform and nickname quality), PROX (physical distance from me), BDWG (would chosing this city appear to be bandwagon jumping?), PLR (individual players or stars that i like who play for that city’s teams), NEG (docking them for something negative like, do the yankees play in that city? or did they steal the whalers from hartford?). Additionally, i gave certain cities extra credit for nearby franchises that don’t belong to an NFL city. for example, i allowed cincinnati and cleveland a bonus of .5 for the columbus blue jackets. i could cheer for them either way.

there were some professional franchises that i did not know what to do with, for example, the portland trailblazers. seattle already has a basketball team and i gave san francisco credit for sacremento and oakland credit for golden state. i decided that they could be used as a wild card to tip the scales for a city that doesn’t have have an nba team, like st. louis. i also was unsure of what to do with the toronto teams and the other canadian hockey franchises. they can also be used as wild cards, however, they should stay regional (i.e. vancouver, edmonton, or calgary could go to seattle but not to baltimore).

anyhow, here are the top five so far (no wild cards added):

chicago – 18.0
pittsburgh – 16.0
st. louis – 14.0
cleveland – 13.5
philadelphia – 13.0

and here are the bottom 5:

indianapolis – 7
tampa – 6.5
new york jets – 6.5
jacksonville – 6.0
carolina – 3.0

as for wild cards, pittsburgh or st. louis could use the portland wild card. just for the sake of chosing, i’ll give it to st. louis. buffalo will get two wild cards for the toronto blue jays and toronto raptors.  i also decided to give baltimore, seattle, and arizona credit for a canadian hockey team to be decided on later. these wild cards adjusted the top five like so:

chicago – 18.0
pittsburgh – 16.0
st. louis – 15.0
cleveland – 13.5
tie – baltimore, philadelphia, arizona – 13.0

so the wild cards did little to change the top five.  i’ve decided to give the edge in the three way tie to philadelphia because it did not require a wild card to move into the top 5.  so the top five are the same as they were originally.  chicago. pittsburgh. st. louis. cleveland. philadelphia.   keep the thoughts coming.