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Section One: The Legal Battle
Before there was the Isco Disco™, the seemingly perennial (and at times bi-annual) links to Real Madrid’s talented attacking midfielder – before there were transfer sagas that eventually resulted in the sale of high profile stars like Leroy Sané, or being spurned by the likes Dani Alves, Alexis Sánchez, or Jorginho – there were the links to Lionel Messi.
Dating back to 2011 when it was reported that City’s bosses had met with Lionel Messi’s entourage to ascertain the diminutive superstar’s intentions in light of news that Barcelona were trying to sign then-emerging Brazilian talent Neymar, rumors linking the Barcelona star to City have been injected into the news cycle like a steady drip from an IV. The links would continue over the decade, with City officials taking each chance they were given to impress the Argentinian, both on the pitch and off it.
Speculation that Messi could actually join City reached it’s zenith during the first half of 2016 when it was announced that his former Manager, Pep Guardiola, would be joining the Manchester club. That his arrival happened to coincide with Messi entering the final 12 months of his contract at the Camp Nou, speculation reached new levels. Though there were many who wondered aloud if circumstances may be ripe for a move, in the end no formal approach was made. City embarked on an expensive and extensive rebuilding project for their new star manager, one that was largely built on the backs of precocious young talents like Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, and Gabriel Jesus, along with a cohort of tenured City stalwarts like Sergio Aguero, Fernandinho, Vincent Kompany, and David Silva.
With the 2016 summer window coming having come to a close with no formal approach having been made, Messi put pen to paper on a new four year extension with the only club he’s ever known. In doing so he set a new standard for himself financially, earning a compensation package that’s worth anywhere between €45m and €100m a year depending on which source you choose to trust. In turn the club gained the safety of an untouchable €700m release clause. Also inserted into that contract was a little thought of termination clause that would allow Messi to void the final year of his contract should he choose to do so. But it would be that clause, one few expected he would ever trigger after a lifetime at the club, in combination with the emergence of global health pandemic that would set the stage for one of the most stunning transfer sagas of the century.
If the journey to reach this day has been long, and the path winding, the process of actually signing Messi is likely to be even more complex. So while this will be a meandering article that will cover many topics – from contract law, to FIFA rules, to finance, it’s perhaps best to start at the beginning.
What About His Release Clause?
On August 25th a Burofax arrived at the offices of Barcelona Football Club containing official, legal notice of Messi’s intent to activate the termination clause in his contract and become a free agent. It’s this clause, and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic upon that clause, that lie at the heart of all the difficulties that have followed.
Only a few people are privy to the exact terms of Messi’s contract, but it has been widely reported that his contract contained a termination clause that would allow him to void the final season of his deal as long as he provided notice of his intention to do so prior to June 10th. Under normal circumstances that date would’ve allowed him somewhere between two and four weeks from the completion of the season to serve notice that he would be leaving. However, due to league shut-downs brought about by the pandemic, Messi’s season didn’t end until August 14th, by which point his termination clause had long since expired. As a result Messi’s future has been left in limbo, with the outcome hinging upon complex and sometimes competing legalities, financial difficulties, and a healthy dose of hubris.
While the player’s camp will continue to try and make the argument that his clause should be honored due to extenuating circumstances, Barcelona is certainly under no obligation to do so and Joesp Bartomeu, President of Barcelona, is plainly in no mood to to do. He is in fact in no mood to allow Messi to leave under any circumstances other than the complete fulfillment of his €700m release clause.
Could City Trigger His Release Clause?
Though there were reports circulating that the €700m release clause built into Messi’s contract had somehow expired at the end of this season, those reports have been shown to be false. On it’s face, the reports made little sense, as all players in Spain are required to have a release clause, so the idea that he suddenly did not never didn’t add up.
The reports led to La Liga taking the highly unusual step of publicly and officially declaring that Messi is still very much bound to Barcelona, and that his release clause is still very much in force. Again, operating under the assumption that Messi does indeed have a release clause (as he is legally obligated to) and that La Liga hasn’t foolishly exposed themselves to a lawsuit for falsely disseminating details of his contract in an official and public capacity, that would mean that the one guaranteed way for City to move the transfer forward would be to pay his release clause.
For obvious reasons paying €700m for a transfer fee alone would be extremely challenging under the existing Financial Fair Play frameworks. While clubs have the ability to amortize the costs of a transfer fee over the duration of a player’s contract, that would still leave City on the hook for €140m a year in expenses over the next five years (should they sign Messi to a five year contract) for the fee alone, before accounting for any potential salary. The numbers only get more challenging if the contract is for the two years that’re being reported. In that case City would have an FFP hit of €350m per year for the next two years just for the transfer fee.
Assuming a salary in in the range of €60m per year, that would leave City shouldering a FFP hit of somewhere between €200m and €410m per year. The first number would be extraordinarily challenging, the latter, likely impossible.
Given the financial difficulties associated with triggering his release clause, and Barcelona’s – or at least Bartomeu’s – stance that they will not agree to sell Messi for a lesser fee, that leaves all parties looking at what would likely be a protracted legal battle.
Could Messi Secure His Exit Through The Courts?
That, in many ways, is the million dollar question. While Messi and his attorneys will argue that extenuating circumstances should allow him to have the June 10th deadline in his contract extended to reflect the date when the season actually ended, it’s hardly a certainty that the Spanish legal system will allow this.
Thanks to excellent reporting work done by a team of writers at The Athletic, including City correspondent Sam Lee amongst many others, we know that under Spanish law deference is always given to the specific date when a question of interpretation arises in contracts. Plainly, that means that Messi and his team would have an uphill battle on their hands to show that his option to terminate his contract should be honored more than two months after it actually expired.
The one saving grace they may have is if there was what is known as a ‘force-majeure’ subclause attached to his void-option. Force-majeure is a fairly common clause to see written into contracts that protects one or both parties from harm due to unforeseeable, and catastrophic events (the term literally means, ‘force of nature.)’ In the event that there is such a clause, it would give Messi’s legal team a fighting chance. They’d still need to successfully argue that the Coronavirus pandemic qualifies as such an unforeseeable and devastating act, and they may very well do so successfully, but it’s far from a sure thing. If there is no such clause, the odds of success are likely stacked firmly in Barcelona’s favor.
There is, of course, another problem with needing to go to the court: legal proceedings take time. Sometimes a lot of time. Even under a best-case scenario (from Messi’s perspective) it’s likely that any legal battle would last months, taking both the player and any interested parties well beyond the transfer deadline of October 5th.
If Messi Believes His Contract Is Void, Could He Just Sign For Whomever He Wants?
Let’s call this the, “going rogue” option. As I’ve discussed above, Messi is in a sub-optimal position from a legal perspective, but if he’s really of the opinion that his contract is indeed void, could he just sign for City – or whomever else he wanted to – anyway?
In short: yes, he could… But both Messi and the acquiring club would be subject to an Article 17 Breach, and Barcelona would then be in an extremely strong position to bring a lawsuit for breach of contract, holding Messi liable for (at least) the full amount of his €700m release clause, plus whatever material damages that Barcelona feels it might incur as a loss of his services. That amount could, at least theoretically, be even greater than the €700m from his release clause, depending on what types of de-escalation clauses are (or are not) tied to Barcelona’s various marketing contracts.
Unfortunately, In order to understand the second part of those potential liabilities we have to delve into the realm of hypotheticals.
For example: Barcelona is reported to receive somewhere between €140m and €155m a year from Nike as their primary kit sponsor. If there is a clause in that contact that would trigger a decrease in that payment should Messi leave (as is likely to be the case) to, say, €100m a year, Messi could be held legally liable for the €40m-€55m loss Barcelona were to incur.
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, that’s a hypothetical scenario, but it’s likely that Nike would demand language to that effect before signing the biggest kit contact in history. There may be no such clause, or it may be for a smaller – or larger – number. No one besides the interested parties knows.
Furthermore, should the loss of Messi lead to a devaluation of the club by the lenders currently financing the club’s debt of approximately €1.3b, that could trigger escalator clauses that could increase their interests rates on those loans. Again, the club would have a strong legal position to argue that Messi is liable for those increased expenses.
These may all be hypotheticals – we don’t know what clauses (if any) are attached to Barcelona’s sponsorship agreements, and if so, how much they would cost Barcelona should Messi leave during this window. But there are almost certainly a bevy of material damages Messi could be held liable for, and those – along with the €700m release clause – would constitute the better part of a billion Euros.
The odds that Messi is bold enough to throw caution to the wind to simply sign with whomever he wants without being absolutely certain that his contract with Barcelona either is, or will be voided would be suicidally foolish, and as such it’s highly unlikely to happen.
Additionally – as if there weren’t enough reasons to avoid going rouge – if Messi were to sign for another club without being absolutely certain his contract was indeed voided and FIFA were to review the case and side with Barcelona – which seems unlikely given their stated guidelines on contracts as it pertains to contracts and Covid-19 (more on this in a moment) – Barcelona or FIFA could file an Article 17 complaint.
Article 17 of FIFA’s Transfer Regulations states that in the event that a player unilaterally terminates his contract without just cause, the player is liable for all potential damages.
“In all cases, the party in breach shall pay compensation. Subject to the provisions of article 20 and Annexe 4 in relation to training compensation, and unless otherwise provided for in the contract, compensation for the breach shall be calculated with due consideration for the law of the country concerned, the specificity of sport, and any other objective criteria. These criteria shall include, in particular, the remuneration and other benefits due to the player under the existing contract and/or the new contract, the time remaining on the existing contract up to a maximum of five years, the fees and expenses paid or incurred by the former club (amortised over the term of the contract) and whether the contractual breach falls within a protected period.”
Additionally and specifically to address potential meddling by the acquiring club, it goes on to state in section two that no third party can pay the resulting damages (IE: a club can’t pay those damages for the player).
Additionally under section three the player would be subject to a ban from all competitions for a period of 4-6 months depending on the severity of the breach.
And of last, but of course not least, the acquiring club would be subject two a minimum two window transfer ban.
What About FIFA, Could They Intervene On Messi’s Behalf?
There is, at least in theory, some ground for thinking this may be a possible avenue for Messi to escape his contract, and it would involve invoking Article 14 of FIFA’s Transfer Regulations, which states,
“A contract may be terminated by either party without consequences of any kind (either payment of compensation or imposition of sporting sanctions) where there is just cause.“
Exactly what FIFA would accept as a just cause remains to be seen, as the wording of the clause is incredibly vague when compared to, say Article 15, which governs contract termination for sporting cause, and to my knowledge, there have been no attempt at invoking Article 14.
In Messi’s favor would be FIFA’s own declared stance that contracts should handled with the spirit of the contract in mind as they declared in their April 7th release to address the legal consequences of Covid-19. Of relevant note:
“If parties cannot agree and, as a consequence, cases come to FIFA, the factors to be examined will include the following:

whether there was a genuine attempt by the club to reach agreement with the players;
what the economic situation of the club is;
the proportionality of any adjustment to player contracts;
the net income position of players after any contract adjustment; and
whether players have been treated equally or not.”

Invoking Article 14 or appealing directly to FIFA are of course hardly grantees of success. In the case of Article 14 it will be difficult to define precisely what qualifies as ‘just cause.’ Messi clearly wants the spirit of his contract to be honored, but he has not been materially harmed in any way by the club, and as such, that argument may not be enough.
And though the FIFA guidelines with regards to player contracts exist, they are guidelines, not official policy, and have never been subject to any kind of legal test like the ones they would surely face at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who are the designated arbitrators for FIFA. Should FIFA agree with Messi that his contract is voided, Barcelona’s next step would be to file an immediate appeal to CAS and hope for an injunction.
As if all of that weren’t muddy enough, this is where things get really murky. Let’s say FIFA declares Messi’s contract void and he immediately signs with a new club, but upon review, the Court of Arbitration for Sport were to rule in favor of Barcelona – what then? Is Messi’s new contract voided? Are the new club and/or Messi liable for damages? Worse still – what if a Spanish civil court ruled Messi is in breach of contract regardless of what FIFA or CAS say?
This is, to say the least, extremely shaky legal ground that has no precedent to guide it, and both Messi and his new club would be taking an enormous financial risk even if FIFA were to back the player’s desired move.
Given the enormous financial risks involved, it’s unlikely that either the player or the acquiring club would have much of a stomach for this fight, even if the odds of success were somewhat better, especially if such resolution were to take another five to six months to achieve, during which time the player would be in limbo, and the club be deep into the most meaningful matches of their season.
What else is possible?
With Barcelona’s stance appearing to be fixed – no negotiations will be had – and all legal avenues either against the player or on unsteady legal footing, and with both sure to take many months to finalize, what other options does Messi have?
So far Messi and his camp are taking an approach that would be familiar to fans of the American NFL – he has refused to show up to mandatory team actives in violation of his contract – a holdout. In doing so he’s made himself subject to fines that could cost him his paychecks, but he’s also ratcheted up the pressure on Barcelona to find a solution.
If Messi’s stance is indeed to hold out – to refuse to play for the club without signing for someone else – he’s showing that he’s willing to stay at home for an entire year and in the process forfeit his pay. That, at least in theory, leaves the club in a bit of a bind. Assuming they don’t care about the optics of playing hardball with a club legend – and it certainly doesn’t appear Bartomeu cares much for what those around the club think of him – then the holdout does very little from a financial perspective. In fact, they can maintain all of their sponsorship agreements as they are, and the club won’t have to pay Messi a single Euro (at least in base salary, he’d still be due his image rights and other provisions). In doing so the club would likely save somewhere in the neighborhood of €45m/€60m – Messi’s exact salary is unknown.
Although we don’t know what stipulations are attached to Barcelona’s many sponsorship agreements as it pertains to Messi, it’s fair to say the club stands to lose a lot of money if Messi is sold or released before the start of the season. As a result it could be that Bartomeu’s refusal to sell Messi is borne less of any malignance toward the club legend than it is pure economics. In short, he may believe that between the money the club save in salary they aren’t paying Messi, in addition to the sponsorship revenue that they would be able to maintain – there is no financial agreement that could be made that would be of greater value than meeting his €700m release clause.
Or it could simply be that Joesp Bartomeu is an egomaniacal ass. There’s certainly some precedence for the belief, as the long – and ongoing – legal battles between Barcelona and former star Neymar clearly illustrate. The two parties have been engaged in near perpetuity from the moment the player left for PSG in a string of lawsuits, countersuits, and countersuits to countersuits; with the club accusing the player of being in breach of contract, while the player accuses the club of refusing to pay him wages he is owed for his time with the club. All of which was preceded by attempts by La Liga to intervene on the club’s behalf by initially refusing to accept his buyout clause, while lodging appeals with UEFA surrounding PSG’s adherence to Financial Fair Play.
The lesson: Barcelona under Bartomeu is not averse to engaging in long, protracted legal engagements against star players even when there is precious little to be gained by doing so.
So What’s Most Likely To Happen?
Regardless of whether Barcelona’s stance under Bartomeu is the result of financial imperative, ego, or a combination of both, it’s left no one with a clear path forward, and it may be that in the end the best option for everyone is for Messi to simply see out the final year of his contract, and sign a pre-contract with the club of his choice, free of any legal ramifications Barcelona could bring to bear, on January 1st.
As it stands today, September 2nd, Messi is less than four months away from such a situation. With nothing but a contentious legal minefield awaiting him – a field where there are no real winners, only those who lose less – perhaps it’s an opportunity for Messi to prove to the Barcelona faithful one last time that even in the face of the absurd stance of the club’s President, one man, despite being short of stature, can find yet another way to rise above the rest.
Section Two: The Finances
Determining what type of financial package an acquiring club would have to put together to make a Messi transfer a reality is a multi-part problem. The first requires determining what type of fee would be required to secure the players release from his current club, the second would be determining how large his wage packet would be.
In most cases these matters are relatively straight forward, but due to the legal uncertainty surrounding Messi’s contact status with Barcelona, and the enormity of his existing wages, the task of signing Messi is anything but routine.
In order to paint as thorough a picture as possible we’ll first explore the three primary scenarios in which Messi could sign for another club: by payment of his release clause; through a negotiated fee; or on a free transfer after securing his release, or in the winter window.
We’ll then look at ways that City may try to finance such a move.
Paying The Release Clause
The easiest way, and indeed perhaps the only way that Lionel Messi will be leaving Camp Nou during the summer window, will be for an interested club to take the audacious step of meeting his daunting €700m release clause. Doing so would require that club to find a way to finance a fee most triple that of any that’s ever been paid. To say the least, there are very few clubs in the world who could dream of financing such an outlay, but Manchester City may be one of the few who could.
In City’s favor will be the fact that they have a large amount of liquid assets at their disposal after the sale of 10% of the Club to Silver Lake Capital for $500m (£389m/€423m) in November of 2019. It is possible that the club could utilize the capital raised in that sale to fund – at least in part – his release clause. What would be more difficult, would be funding the remaining €275m. Seeking to sell more shares of the club is likely out of the question – such ventures take at a minimum many months to complete, and City have just over a month to raise the necessary capital. That would likely mean taking out a loan.
If we assume that City can raise the funds, and/or have the willingness to do so, the next question is how can they account for that expense under the constraints of Financial Fair Play?
Working in that club’s favor will be what’s called amortization. Though we briefly touched on the concept earlier, let’s do it slightly more justice now. Amortization at it’s most basic is the process of spreading a payment out of a longer period of time.
What may be confusing to some in this instance is that the actual payment itself would not be able to be spread out – if someone want’s to trigger Messi’s release clause they will need to find a way to furnish the entire €700m in one go. Instead what this is referring to, as we touched on earlier in the article, is how the payment is accounted for.
As a result of this allowance, a player’s transfer fee, at least for the purposes of compliance with Financial Fair Play, is usually not accounted for as a single lump sum, but rather is apportioned out across the length of the players contract. Still, no matter the accounting methods used, the acquiring club would be looking at a substantial FFP hit.
Reportedly Messi is only interested in a two-year contract, if so, that would leave the acquiring club in a highly untenable position, as that would mean taking an FFP hit of €350m per year on the transfer fee alone before accounting for any salary he would be owed. If we assumed a fairly conservative wage packet of €50m/yr for the Argentinian superstar that would mean the acquiring club would be taking on an eye-watering €400m FFP hit for each of the next two seasons. To give that number some context, Manchester City’s entire player expense sheet for the 2019/2020 season was roughly €450m. Even if Messi were to accept a longer five year contract, the Financial Fair Play hit would be €190m per season.
However, as a result of the Silver Lake sale, and the capital it raised, City aren’t necessarily priced out of this move. If the contract is only for two years, they can use that cash influx in any three-year Financial Fair Play accounting period. Th Silver Lake capital alone wouldn’t cover the expense of Messi, but it would take them more than half way home, and that combined with the sale of someone like Riyad Mahrez or Gabriel Jesus – two players who’s minutes would be directly impacted by Messi’s arrival – would get them closer.
The club could then do what Juventus did in renegotiating their sponsorship with Jeep after their acquisition of Christiano Ronaldo. Though City have only recently locked in their new apparel deal with Puma, their long standing – and much maligned – sponsorship with agreement with Etihad is due to expire at the end of the 2021 season. City could, at least in theory, use the acquisition of Messi as justification for renegotiating that contract at a significantly higher value – just as Juventus has.
Further, they could get creative with their wage packet. The could offer Messi a token salary, along with full image rights, and competition bonuses – all things we would normally receive – but make the bold move of offering him an ownership stake in City Financial Group. Given the firm valuation £3.89b that was imparted upon them with the Silver Lake acquisition, a 4% share of CFG would be worth roughly £155m. That would be strong compensation for two years service.
In that scenario, City may, just barely, be able to ride a combination of a fortuitously timed capital injection, player sales, a cleverly designed wage packet and renegotiated contracts, over the FFP finish line. Still, it would take every resource at City’s disposal to cover that release clause and even then, it may not be enough without the sale of another significant player or two.
Let’s call this scenario highly unlikely.
Paying A Negotiated Fee
In most cases, including that of Christian Ronaldo at rival Real Madrid, losing a long-tenured star player is a painful process, but one that both club and player work to make as amicable as possible. Doing so protects both the players image amongst supporters, and the clubs image to those who may with to join in the future. It’s never been a necessity, clubs have always been free to refuse to sell, and players have alway been free to hold out to try and force a move away – but football has an unspoken gentleman’s agreement that when a painful situation arises, it will be handled with class and dignity.
Josep Bartomeu does not appear to be a man who cares for the rules of convention. Whether it was with his aforementioned treatment of Neymar, or as it would appear to be in this instance – when Bartomeu has decided a player will not be allowed to leave, he would appear to mean that quite literally.
Though many may view that behavior as petulant or egotistical (and it may well be), there is a another far more likely culprit driving his decision making: financial imperative.
Though Barcelona are an incredibly wealthy and successful club, they are also a club carrying a significant debt load (almost €1.3b), and one that would appear to have been particularly hard-hit by the impacts of Covid-19, with the President himself taking the unusual step of declaring, “since March 14, we have barely receieved nearly €1. We have lost €200 million in revenues. 200! We have recovered some money by reducing wages and with the ERTE. We had to close the shops and the museum and there were no ticket sales. We also gave money back to season ticket holders for the games that were not played.”
While the motivations of that kind of statement should be questioned – heads of major companies are loathe to publicly declare loses as it negatively impacts their leverage at the negotiating table – there’s no doubt that the pandemic will have hurt the club.
On it’s face then it would appear that agreeing a fee for Messi would be a logical move to counteract that financial pain. After all, they could secure a significant fee, whilst ridding themselves of his onerous wage bill.
There are, however, hidden landmines that may be lurking in the field should the club allow Messi his leave. The first and most obvious is that there are likely de-escalator clauses in many of Barcelona’s sponsorship agreements. Just as Juventus was able to renegotiate their primary kit sponsorship with Jeep, it’s likely that there are clauses which would see Barcelona’s major sponsorships cut dramatically in the event Messi leaves.
Perhaps worse still a decline in the valuation of the club – such as the one Real Madrid saw when Ronaldo left – would have more than a paper impact on Barcelona. That’s because when a club takes out a significant loan, such as the €800m loan it’s said to have taken out this past year for renovations of Camp Nou – they’re using the value of the club as collateral against that loan. A significant change in valuation, such as the one that would happen as a result of the loss of Messi, would likely impact the interest rates Goldman Sachs charges.
At the end of that Bartomeu is a businessman. Though he may not be the most pleasant man when he doesn’t get his way, it’s more likely that he has simply looked at the bigger financial picture and come to the conclusion that there genuinely is no fee of less than €700m that would offset the loses he feels the club would incur should Messi be sold this summer.
Logically speaking, if that weren’t the case, there’d be no obvious reason for his refusal to even accept the possibility of negotiating his stars release. He surely understands that Messi could leave the club on a free in ten months time – and sign a pre-contract in less than four – and has decided that despite this, it still makes more sense to refuse to allow the player to leave.
Perhaps it’s merely hubris, or arrogance, or petulance that’s led him to this position, but it’s unlikely that he’s reached this point in his career – as the head of the highest grossing sports franchise on Earth – by being that emotional. Whatever personality traits Bartomeu may possess, he’s a prudent man, and his stance is likely borne of that same view.
Waiting Till The Winter Window
If we operate under the assumption that financing the acquisition of Messi by triggering his release clause is either impossible, or implausible enough to treat as such; and that Barcelona will remain steadfast in their refusal to sell – as they very much appear to be – then that leaves Messi but one way out: on a free at the expiry of his contract.
If Messi is forced to stay at Barcelona, he can use it as one last opportunity to further cement his already indelible legacy with the Barcelona fanbase: a player who acted with class and dignity in the face of an ignominious club President. In the process he can use that time to solicit the very best offers from clubs around the world, maximizing the value of whatever contract he signs next.
Messi’s decision to leave the only club he’s every know has always appeared to be a hasty one; driven as much by a realization that Barcelona would be unlikely to deliver his dream of one last Champions League win given their current aging roster, as it was the sting of their humbling at the hands of an ascendant Bayern Munich side.
However, if Messi’s desire to leave had been driven in part by those factors leading up to his announcement, he now likely has a greater one: a disdain for Bartomeu. Though the President’s tenure is up for vote in March, he’s likely to retain his position, and it’s hard to envisage a scenario where Messi agrees to sign a new contract under his tenure, as all faith in his, or the Club’s willingness to honor the spirit of those contracts is now likely decimated.
It will also give Manchester City, and any other clubs that care to make a run at his signature, time to formulate concrete plans for how they’ll fund such an acquisition.
In the meantime, all anyone can do is wait. Perhaps Bartomeu will have a change of heart, or perhaps the approach of the deadline and the threat of losing Messi on a free will compel him into last minute negotiations. Perhaps the player will initiate a lengthy, costly, and uncertain legal battle either though the Spanish courts or through UEFA to try and secure his release during the winter window. But as of this moment, all signs point to Messi playing out the final season of his contract with Barcelona, perhaps reluctantly, before making a decision that will inexorably alter not only his life, but a significant portion of the European football landscape.

PSA / FYI: For any customers who order food via delivery - thru Postmates, GrubHub, or DoorDash.

Edit 01/20/20: Long story short all these companies are shady AF. Deal with them as you would with a guy selling watches on the pedestrian overpass - you may or may not get what you wanted, but it's gonna be a hassle if you end up wanting your money back.
Edit 09/09/19: New pay model is in effect for LV. Rolling out incrementally across the country by 09/30. You can now safely tip in-app knowing that the tip goes 100% to the driver, & not to DD's coffers. You can also choose not to tip or to tip in cash, but that probably isn't the best strategy, b/c driver offer screens look like this now when you zero the tip out. Doubtful to get your food on time, if at all. But at least for customers the tipping shenanigans for DD are over, so much of what is written here can be disregarded as outdated reference.
Edit 07/26/19: DD recently announced they will be changing their pay model. No details given & status quo for now, but best guess is by Week 1 NFL they will have changed things (read: pay cut), & my advice about DD will become outdated. Will update accordingly for anyone keeping tabs. Lastly, don't believe a word Tony Xu says. He's a liar & a fatmouth & would steal your socks if you weren't looking. Scroll the comments to his tweet for verification.
TLDR: Okay this this going to be super long, but it is meant as a comprehensive expository regarding what you as a customer are paying for, & the root motivation behind it is that locals are being deceived, & to an extent, stolen from.
Source: Full-time driver for the past 15 months.
Disclaimer: Depending on your reaction, this may benefit me financially. I invite you to cross-check my claims with other drivers, driver subs, google, other references, etc.
First of all, I need to thank you as customers. I have my gripes with the platforms, but you customers have enabled me to pay off quite a few bills. In 15 months I've taken 11 days off, usually clocking 10-12 hr days, racking up around 75,000 miles & putting a proper beating on more than one vehicle. So I do feel like I've earned it - but much moreso than to the restaurants or the platforms, I owe a debt of gratitude to you.
The most beneficial info here will be to DoorDash customers - but the only way I can really explain what's going on there is to break down the other platforms first, so bear with me.
Postmates. PM works most similarly to how you would tip a server at a restaurant - you order your food, & then post-delivery, you rate & tip accordingly, based on the service. Late food / poor service, & you have every right to withhold your tip. Good communication / prompt delivery, & do what you feel is right.
However, keep in mind regarding PM - they hire anybody/everybody. All bets are off on arrival time, if your driver is on a moped with a milkcrate, if he ate half your food, or if he robs you at gunpoint. Don't mean to exaggerate here; they have good drivers too, but like I said - no bets.
GrubHub. Probably the most reliable to receive your order correct & on time (if you tip). The reason for this is b/c you have to set your tip when you order, so the offer screen sent to the driver shows the total payout, including your tip. Thus, the driver knows up front exactly what they'll be paid, & is properly motivated to get it delivered quickly & move on to the next delivery.
The flip side to the GH coin, when you don't tip (or zero it out to say 'cash tip'), is that the offer screen shows the total payout as low as $2-$3. Most drivers will reject that offer, & your no-tip order may sit in the queue for an hour or more before GH can find a driver to accept it. That driver is also likely to be less than enthusiastic.
[Please note that while you might tip in cash every time, 99/100 customers don't. So drivers never rely on cash tips, & regularly reject lowball offers.]
Just to recap; on PM with no tip I get shit, & they don't show if you tipped or how much until the next day. So I'm very wary of accepting PM offers b/c I don't want to get stiffed. On GH, I see the total payout including your tip before I accept the delivery, so naturally I reject the no-tip/low-tip offers, & cherry-pick the big ones.
Which brings me to DoorDash. Finally. The point of the damn post, & where you as a customer might be throwing money away.
DD plays the middle for the driver & says, "Hey, with DD you'll never get stiffed, b/c our minimum payout is $7.00." So even when the customer tips $0, the driver still gets $7, as opposed to $2 on GH or PM. Sounds great, right? Except that money has to come from somewhere, & FYI, locals - it's coming out of your pocket.
Grab your shovel & dig this: - If you tip $0, DD pays me $7. - If you tip $3, DD pays me $4, I still get $7. - If you tip $5, DD pays me $2, I still get $7. - If you tip $8, DD pays me $1, I get $9.
In essence, DD uses your tip to subsidize driver pay. When you tip any amount $6.00 or less, the driver doesn't get a penny more than if you had tipped nothing. When you tip $6.01 or more, that means DD only has to pay the driver $1.00. The vast majority of my DD deliveries include a $1-$5 in-app tip. I receive absolutely none of that. In-app tips do not really go to the driver - you are only paying DD a higher fee for your order.
Solution: if you use DD, zero out the in-app tip, then tip your driver in cash upon delivery, assuming it's on time & correct. Totally understandable if you prefer to not use cash, but in that case I suggest using other platforms b/c DD is just playing verbiage games. "100% of tips go to the driver" - technically true, but I think you see what's going on here.
[That last part applies to DD only; if you tip in the app on PM or GH, the driver gets it with no shenanigans.]
Again, I apologize for post length, but this is about your money, so please help spread the word. With your friends & neighbors, on FB, etc. Not looking for any credit & it wouldn't make sense to link to this long ass post, but here is a pic you can download & share, taken from this driver activist site. (Note that the minimum payout is different for every market - in Vegas it's $7, but I have seen other cities where it's lower than $5.)
I really just want to effectively convey the message that Vegas locals who use this service are spending more than they have to, & are being deceived about the tips they give.
And to hell with all that.
.
Edit: Formatting, clarification, additional points.
Example of DD payout screen after delivery.
An interesting Forbes article about how Instacart recently reversed a similar pay model under pressure, but DD & Amazon refused.
A petition page where Tech workers have been boycotting working for DD b/c of this pay model.

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Apr. 12, 1999

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUS YEARS ARCHIVE: 1991 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998


1-4-1999	1-11-1999	1-18-1999	1-25-1999
2-1-1999	2-8-1999	2-15-1999	2-22-1999
3-1-1999	3-8-1999	3-15-1999	3-22-1999
3-29-1999	4-5-1999

Davey Boy Smith was hospitalized in Calgary with some sort of spinal infection and is in really bad shape. He's been in crippling pain for weeks with back pain as well as abdominal pains and had dropped around 40 pounds. Tests determined it wasn't cancer and doctors were stumped. Finally, he went to a doctor again last week when his daughter noticed a large lump on his back. Doctors determined it was a bone infection spreading through his body. He was given aggressive antibiotics but that didn't work so now he's hospitalized. Doctors think it's a staph infection on his spine and shouldn't be life threatening, but he'll be hospitalized for a long time and it's unknown if he'll ever be able to wrestle again. Smith described the pain as having a knife in his back 24 hours a day and the pain has gotten worse since he was in the hospital and he could be there for months. He's still under contract to WCW but hasn't been used in several months after injuring his back on the trap door built under the ring that was used for Ultimate Warrior's entrances back in the fall, which is likely where all this stems from.
A Japanese women's wrestler named Emiko Kado was also seriously injured in a match after taking a bump wrong over a week ago and has been in a coma ever since. Dave has very few details on this one, other than she was a rookie and had only worked a handful of matches. Dave says a lot of people have compared this to the 1997 death of Plum Mariko in a match in Japan (yup, Kado eventually dies from her injuries. Later found to be a "sprained acute membrane in her brain").
Wrestlemania 15 numbers are coming in and early estimates are that it did around 830,000 PPV buys, which will make it the biggest money PPV in wrestling history. WWF will bring in more than $12 million just from the buys alone. The New York Daily News reported that WWF had tried to get both Howard Stern and Monica Lewinsky to appear, but they both turned down 7-figure offers. Lewinsky apparently turned it down immediately, while Stern negotiated for several weeks before deciding against it. He talks about how WWF has proclaimed it to be the best WM ever but Dave naturally disagrees and says WM 10 still holds that honor. But he does give his personal picks for the top 10 WM matches ever and he puts Austin/Rock from WM15 at the #10 spot. Just in case you're wondering the rest:

Michaels vs. Razor Ramon ladder match (WM X)

Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (WM XIII)

Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (WM X)

Ricky Steamboat vs. Savage (WM III)

Warrior vs. Savage (WM VII)

Hart vs. Michaels (WM XII)

British Bulldogs vs. Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake (WM II)

Ric Flair vs. Savage (WM VIII)

Hogan vs. Warrior (WM VI)

Rock vs. Austin (WM XV)

AJPW is expected to officially announce their 2nd ever Tokyo Dome show for next month. Dave breaks down the matches and says that the show will also have an official ceremony honoring Giant Baba, which will also feature legends such The Destroyer, Gene Kiniski, and Bruno Sammartino appearing, all of whom are well-respected legends in Japan and will likely never appear in a ring there again, so it'll be a big deal. AJPW also wanted to bring in the Road Warriors, Steve Williams, and Steve Austin for the show but Dave doubts it'll happen. WWF has big house shows booked that weekend and Austin especially would cost AJPW a fortune to get. And since the show will likely sell out the Dome regardless, Dave doesn't see the point in spending a ton of money to bring him in. No word on Road Warriors or Williams (they do get them, but not Austin).
Wrestling, especially the WWF, is dominating the home video market in the "Sports" listing according to Billboard. Of the top 20 selling sports videos this week, 19 out of 20 of them are wrestling related (mostly WWF). The only thing keeping it from being a full 20-for-20 is the tape of Super Bowl 33 which charted at #9 this week.
The subject of backyard wrestling seems to be the new hot topic everyone is concerned about now. There have been several news stories about it recently and ABC's 20/20 is doing a piece on it this week, featuring interviews with Vince McMahon and Mick Foley, who Dave calls "the crown prince and ultimate hero and god to every teenager who wants to bash a light bulb into their head and fall on thumbtacks." Dave isn't sure that this is worthy of being a big story. Obviously the idea of teenagers doing dangerous moves, blading, falling in barbed wire, etc. is bad. But it's not like there has been a huge epidemic of hospitals reporting wrestling injuries. Dave isn't sure that this whole backyard wrestling phenomenon is common enough to warrant all these breathlessly panicked news stories. Dave talks about how he used to play tackle football in the street with no pads when he was a kid and basically sums it up as, hey, kids do stupid shit and sometimes they get hurt. But unless we start seeing evidence of backyard wrestling causing more injuries than football or skateboarding, Dave doesn't think this is really a story.
Raw won the ratings battle again this week but the gap wasn't as wide as usual, and WCW was even a little competitive for 2 segments. But overall, it didn't make a difference. One of the biggest mistakes WCW has made lately is not taking advantage of their first hour. Nitro is a 3 hour show and that first hour has no competition from Raw. If they were smart, they would use that hour to build the hell out of the rest of the show and do everything they can to keep viewers. Instead, week after week, they just throw out curtain jerking jobbers out there to have boring matches and do nothing to take advantage of the hour lead time they have. So now, even without competition, Nitro's first hour ratings are starting to plummet because the show just sucks. They've managed to kill the one hour of Nitro that should be the most successful.
Brian Pillman's former wife Melanie has apparently been studying the effects of Human Growth Hormone and is convinced that is what killed him, which is why she talked about it on the ESPN show last week. Pillman reportedly was using so much HGH for more than a year but quit cold turkey shortly before his death, largely because he couldn't afford it (Pillman and his wife were having financial troubles and HGH is prohibitively expensive). She believes his quitting led to an enlarging of the heart, which killed him. Dave goes into the science behind some of this stuff but basically says we'll probably never know for sure what the exact cause was, and it likely was a combination of many things.
The newly revived Stampede Wrestling, led by Bruce and Ross Hart, ran their first major show this week. Most of the wrestlers weren't anyone of name value. Stu Hart was there, moving around very slowly, but got a huge reaction from the crowd of about 1,800 fans.
Mr. Fuji filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against Nintendo and THQ over the WCW vs. NWO video game. There's a character in the game named Master Fuji that he feels is based on him. Mr. Fuji was at times called Master Fuji when he was in the WWF.
Jake Roberts was arrested in Athens, GA for being $21,000 behind on child support payments.
In news that was destined to happen, Sid Vicious no-showed ECW's Cyberslam PPV and now appears to be done with the company. He missed his first flight, so they booked him a 2nd flight. He called and got that 2nd flight upgraded to first class....and then missed that flight also. Paul Heyman says he talked to Sid the next day and Sid evidently told him that he no-showed in order to get Heyman's attention because he wants creative control. In response, Heyman told him to go get fucked and said that Sid won't be brought back to ECW unless he posts an appearance bond, which he would forfeit in the event he no-shows. So Sid's done in ECW (nah, he comes back a couple more times).
In-ring wise, ECW is now poised to put on the best PPV shows in the U.S. Dave mentions that WWF doesn't have the depth as far as talented in-ring guys goes. WCW has plenty of in-ring talent, but none of them are ever pushed. Meanwhile, ECW has quietly been rebuilding their undercard with guys like Jerry Lynn, Super Crazy, Taka Michinoku, and others. The base of ECW is now built on strong in-ring performers and unlike WCW, Heyman is at least making a clear attempt to push these guys to help them get over.
New Jack's trial in the Mass Transit incident has been postponed until May.
ECW has a lot of potential deals in the works to try to bring in money. There's been discussions with TNN about ECW getting the Friday night time slot that RollerJam currently has. The first season of RollerJam just ended and was a ratings flop and it's unknown if the show will even get a 2nd season. They're also still working on a video game deal, negotiating with 2 companies: Take Two Interactive and Acclaim (they end up going with Acclaim and, in fact, Acclaim ends up buying a 10% ownership stake in ECW, but we'll get there). Heyman has also had meetings with WWF about some licensing ventures. All of this is basically an attempt to bring in much-needed cash for ECW. They recently got that big loan and that has smoothed things over for now, but it's not a permanent fix.
Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch made their return to ECW at the most recent Arena show. Candido had noticeably lost weight but looked good. Sytch looked better than she did a few months ago, but still looked like she's been through hell. For now, they're not really being written into any storylines, but if they can stay clean, Heyman plans to ease them back into the mix.
WCW will be getting a visual overhaul this week. New logo, new set design for Nitro and Thunder, and other little visual changes. Given the state of WCW right now, Dave says that's like putting a fresh coat of paint on a house that was just hit by a tornado. Speaking of, apparently the new stage set isn't the safest and all the wrestlers backstage were making bets on who would be the first to trip over it while making their entrance.
Scott Hall is scheduled to be out for the next couple of months and when he comes back, he will be working a 5-nights-per-month schedule (Nitros and PPVs only). Obviously, a lot of people in the locker room aren't going to be happy, since Hall is making a guaranteed 7-figures per year, while guys who go on the road, work all the house shows, all the Nitros, Thunders, and PPVs aren't even making a fraction of that. It's basically the same deal that Hulk Hogan has. And while Hall is undoubtedly a big star, he's not Hogan. But Dave says once they opened the door a crack and gave Sting a similar deal to Hogan, it led to the inevitability of other top stars angling for the same deal. Basically, WCW is going to end up where all the top stars only work TV and PPV and it's going to kill house show business. But then again, Dave says that Hall has been such a disaster in the last year or so that this is probably the only way they'd be able to use him effectively anyway.
Bret Hart had surgery to repair a groin tear and will be out for about 6-8 weeks. After they did the angle on Nitro with him quitting, they didn't mention Bret at all on TV this week (since doing so would give away that it's an angle and, for whatever reason, Bischoff is still intent on trying to work everybody with these "shoot" storylines). Of course, if they never mention Bret's name during the next 2 months, everyone is just going to forget about it. "But WCW would rather try and fool people and not get something over than emphasize something other than Hogan's program and get anyone else over," Dave says.
Chris Jericho's sidekick Ralphus is done on TV and believe it or not, word is the reason they got rid of him is because he was getting too big of an ego (yeah I think Jericho has confirmed this).
Random notes from the latest Thunder tapings: during the NWO battle royal, "The crowd went dead, like they had each individually had their hands covered in Novocaine." Describing the whole show, Dave says, "This was basically everyone just goofing off because nobody cares." At one point Norman Smiley did his big wiggle dance and the camera cut away to a crowd shot so as not to show it. Just overall a total shit show.
No word on Kevin Sullivan's scary collapse backstage last week, but he was perfectly fine the next day. And I think that's the last we hear about it. Seems like that'd be a bigger deal but whatever.
Chris Benoit was on a radio show in Toronto and had some interesting stuff to say. When a caller asked if there was a conspiracy to destroy WCW from within, Benoit said, "It appears that way." Benoit also said that when he signed a new contract last year, he had vowed never to complain about WCW again, but then said Bischoff hadn't delivered on promises that were made so...he's back to complaining again. He said he's still wrestling for the money and that in 3 years, he'll be 34 years old, be a free agent, and will have a lot of money in the bank. So at this point, he's basically just going through the motions and collecting a check. Amazing that WCW, at least temporarily, managed to kill Chris Benoit's passion for wrestling. His entire identity—prior to, ya know—was that he was borderline obsessive about pro wrestling. And WCW made him not care. During the show, Benoit also complained that Kevin Nash only pushes his friends.
Several Canadian indie wrestlers had tryouts with WCW before Nitro last week (Mike McFly, Greg Pawluk, Eric Freeze, Todd Douglas, Gary Williams, Peter Smith and Scott D'Amore).
MMA fighter Tank Abbott has signed a WCW contract and will probably end up working with Goldberg at some point. Dave says he always knew Abbott would end up in pro wrestling, given his charisma, but Dave is "betting strongly" against this working out.
WCW execs were so upset with how the company (and Bischoff especially) were portrayed in the ESPN show last week that they have cancelled all planned media pieces. No more media outlets allowed to film backstage and Bischoff cancelled an interview on TSN's Off The Record, saying he wasn't doing anymore interviews due to the ESPN show, which he apparently feels misrepresented him.
Chad Brock, a former WCW jobber, has a country song out called "Ordinary Life" that is #7 on the country music charts. Enjoy. I didn't.

WATCH: Chad Brock - "Ordinary Life"

Kevin Nash reportedly told Vampiro that he's being taken off Nitro and Thunder and won't be on TV at all. There was a lot of heat on Vampiro after a recent match with Juventud Guerrera, with everyone feeling like Vampiro was careless and didn't protect Guerrera in the match.
Fitness model Trish Stratus, who has reportedly been trying to get into the WWF, was backstage at WCW Nitro when they were in Toronto recently, looking to get hired there also. I'm befuddled that Trish had such a hard time finding a job in wrestling in 1999.
WCW ordered a ton of new business cards, stationary, etc. that features the new logo. Except they goofed and the address on all of it lists their headquarters as "Altanta." Ha! Calssic WCW.
Time Magazine is doing another one of those Man of the Century online polls and Ric Flair is in 2nd place (behind Jesus Christ). More than 20 million people have voted, making it the biggest web pole in internet history and Flair has over 310,000 votes. But the editor of Time.com has said that Flair will be removed from the poll because his ranking is due to "unfair lobbying from wrestling websites." The whole thing led to Time posting this notice on the poll: "Whimsical candidates and others who do not fall within the spirit of the title will not be counted." Word is they are planning to remove Jesus from the poll also, although they're hesitant because of the flak they know they're going to catch from religious nutcases and wrestling freaks whenever they remove the top 2 gods from the list. Funny enough, if you remove Jesus and Flair, that would bump 3rd place up to #1. Who's currently in 3rd place, you ask? A former painter named Adolf Hitler.
Mick Foley's knees are in bad shape and he needs to take time off to get them worked on, but with this month's Backlash PPV being built around him so much (he's on the poster and commercials), he felt now wasn't the time to take time off so he's planning to work through it.
WWF will be running a special on UPN later this month that will somewhat act as a pilot for their planned women's show. It won't be all women though, since they need to draw a big audience, so expect a couple of the male stars. But it will be primarily focused on the women. If the show is a success, the plan is to run a new 1 hour show on UPN starting probably in August, that will air in the middle of the week, probably on Wed. or Thurs. (needless to say, the idea behind this show changes somewhat).
A biography about Mick Foley is being written by ghostwriter Lou Sahadi (turns out Foley wasn't happy with Sahadi's version of the book and decided to write it all himself and the rest is history).
Shawn Stasiak will be starting with WWF in about 6 weeks. He's currently undergoing a hair transplant before he starts. Matt Bloom, who has been working in Memphis as Baldo, will be starting around the same time. The original plan was to book him as George Steele's son but that idea seems to have been dropped.
Bart Gunn suffered a concussion in his knockout loss to Butterbean at Wrestlemania and was still disoriented even the next day. All told, the Brawl For All concept has been considered a flop. Savio Vega suffered a neck injury he still hasn't recovered from. Steve Williams was brought in to be a top guy and ended up getting injured and humiliated by Gunn, which not only killed his planned push but has pretty much wrecked his entire aura as a tough guy which his whole career was built on. And Bart Gunn, who WWF officials apparently thought had a legit shot against Butterbean, got murdered on live PPV and they haven't mentioned the match on TV since. So really, nothing was gained in the end.
Steve Austin and D-Lo Brown are in a 1-800-COLLECT commercial that started airing this week.

WATCH: Steve Austin/D-Lo Brown 1-800-COLLECT commercial

Steven Regal has been released by WWF. He's been in drug rehab for the past few months and was only 3 weeks away from completing it. Since he was almost done with treatment, he was allowed to leave rehab and go home for a weekend and, well...it went poorly. Apparently that was the last straw for WWF and they fired him.
Shawn Michaels' promo that he cut at Wrestlemania was apparently not what it was supposed to be. Dave's not sure how it was supposed to be different, but apparently Shawn went off-script somehow and it led to a lot of heat on him about it, which is why he wasn't on TV the next night. Speaking of Michaels, he just got married last week in Las Vegas to Whisper of the Nitro Girls. The two have only known each other for a few weeks (and now they're coming up on their 20 year anniversary together).
Forbes Magazine had a really interesting article about how pro wrestlers have basically no leverage when it comes to their paychecks. The story noted that on average, wrestlers only get about 15% of the revenue that the business generates and compared it to the NBA, who's athletes get 48%. Dave has talked about this in the past actually, when people would write in and say that WCW wrestlers were overpaid and Dave would respond saying that, given the money WCW brings in, the wrestlers are actually underpaid. He's compared it to different sports and it's the same across the board. Players in MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, etc....all of them are paid a much higher percentage of the revenue than either WWF or WCW wrestlers are (this is still true to this day). Point being, wrestlers BADLY need to unionize. Anyway, in the Forbes article, they talked to Ken Patera who was a major star in the 70s and 80s. Patera said that at his peak, he earned $140,000 per year but after expenses (mostly travel and hotels and whatnot), he only netted about $42,000 in his best year.
Random Dave thoughts: he says Stephanie McMahon has been very good in her limited role on TV lately. He also thinks X-Pac is the best in-ring worker in WWF right now.
The plan was to do an Austin vs. Rock rematch at Summerslam, but instead, they're going to rush it and do it at this month's PPV. The reason is that they realize they can't keep Rock a heel for much longer (he's just too popular) so they need to do the rematch now.
On the WWF website, Vince McMahon once again called Phil Mushnick a liar and a gutless coward for not appearing on the Fox News show to debate him face-to-face. Conveniently, they left out all the other details about Vince backing down from debating him over the phone, or how Mushnick was never actually scheduled to appear in person in the first place or any of the, ya know, real facts.
Someone writes in to ask Dave if he was paid for being a UFC judge at their PPV awhile back and says that if he was, it would compromise his ability to cover the promotion fairly and he should disclose it. Dave responds and said he was not paid to be a judge and he agrees that it would have compromised his ability to cover them fairly and says that if he had been offered money to be a judge, he would have turned it down for that very reason.

WEDNESDAY: WCW fires Davey Boy Smith while he's hospitalized, WCW Spring Stampede fallout, wrestling mainstream media coverage, NJPW Tokyo Dome show, and more...

Week 48; Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.

The humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico worsened with the inadequate response by the federal government. Amid criticism, Trump threatened to pull out, but later backed off. Although the death count officially stands at 45, reporting revealed possibly hundreds more preventable deaths related to the Hurricane Maria.
Trump remains silent on both California’s deadliest wildfires and the deadliest combat incident since he took office. He continues to focus on undoing Obama’s legacy, piece-by-piece. The Mueller investigation hit Trump’s inner-circle, and social media’s role in aiding Russia continues to unfold.

On Saturday night, Richard Spencer led another white supremacist torch-lit rally at University of Virginia. The rally lasted 10 minutes and 40-50 people attended. Spencer vowed, “we will keep coming back.”
On Sunday, Trump attacked former ally Sen. Bob Corker in a series of incendiary tweets, saying “Corker “begged” me to endorse him for re-election” and “wanted to be Secretary of State.” Trump claimed to have said no to both.
Corker responded, tweeting it’s a shame the WH has become an “adult day care center,” and that someone “missed their shift this morning.”
On Sunday, Pence left a Colts game after a protest during the national anthem. Pence later issued a full statement opposing the protests. The Colts were playing the 49ers, a team known to protest.
Before the game, Pence tweeted a photo of him and the Second Lady wearing Colts gear. The photo was one he originally tweeted in 2014.
Shortly after, Trump tweeted he had asked Pence to leave the game “if any players kneeled,” and said he was proud of Pence and the Second Lady.
The pool of journalists covering Pence were not allowed into the stadium, and were told, “there may be an early departure from the game.” ABC estimated Pence’s flight cost taxpayers nearly $250k.
Bowing to pressure from Trump, the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones, after kneeling with players in week 3 of the season, changed course saying any player who “disrespects the flag” by kneeling will not be allowed to play.
On Tuesday, Trump threatened the NFL over protests saying the league is “getting massive tax breaks” and the law should be changed. This claim is false: the NFL gave up its 501(c)(6) tax-exempt status in 2015.
On Tuesday, bowing to pressure from Trump and fans, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who previously had said players had the right to voice their opinions, sided with owners opposed to letting players demonstrate.
On Monday, Pence headlined a fundraiser in CA for Republicans including controversial, Kremlin-ally Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher had a previously undisclosed meeting in Russia with Veselnitskaya described in Week 47.
University of Wisconsin approved a policy which calls for suspending or expelling students who disrupt campus speeches and presentations. The policy mirrors Republican legislation passed by the state Assembly.
On Columbus Day, unlike Obama, Trump celebrated the “arrival of Europeans,” but did not mention of the suffering of Native Americans.
On Sunday, the Trump’s DHS allowed the Jones Act waiver, which helped speed relief to Puerto Rico, to expire. No explanation was given.
Trump’s EPA announced it would repeal the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The statement described the regulation as the “so-called Clean Power Plan.”
On Friday, Trump addressed the Value Voters Summit hosted by the Family Research Council, which has been classified by SPLC as an anti-gay hate group. Trump is the first US leader to address the group.
Reuters reported the Trump regime has been quietly cutting support for halfway houses for federal prisoners, severing contracts with as many as 16 facilities, necessitating some inmates stay behind bars longer.
ABC reported the Treasury Dept’s inspector general is looking into allegations reported by BuzzFeed in Week 47 that agency officials have been illegally looking at private financial records of US citizens.
A report compiled by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) at House and Senate Democrats’ request, found the Trump transition team ignored ethics officials and refused to cooperate with the GAO.
Trump named Kathleen Hartnett White to the WH’s Council on Environmental Quality. Hartnett White, a climate science denier, once also said, “fossil fuels dissolved the economic justification for slavery.”
In response to a filing by CREW, Trump’s DOJ told a court in DC that Trump can destroy records without judicial review, including tweets.
Brian Brooks became the second candidate under consideration for deputy Treasury Secretary to withdraw from consideration. Mnuchin said he has no plans to fill the number two slot in his agency.
WAPO reported at the Interior Dept, when Zinke enters the building a staffer takes the elevator to the seventh floor, climbs the stairs to the roof and puts up a special flag. The flag comes down when he leaves.
On Wednesday, NBC reported Tillerson calling Trump a “moron” was provoked by Trump suggesting a tenfold increase in the US nuclear arsenal during a July 20 meeting with the high-ranking national security leaders.
In response to the story which he called “Fake News,” Trump tweeted a threat to revoke the broadcasting licenses of “NBC and the Networks.”
Later that afternoon, at a news conference, Trump again lashed out at the independent news media saying it’s “frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.”
In a statement Wednesday night, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse asked Trump if he was “recanting” his oath to protect the First Amendment.
Indiana Republican lawmaker Jim Lucas drafted a bill that would require professional journalists to be licensed by state police.
Under pressure to confirm Trump’s judicial nominees, McConnell will no longer allow “blue slips,” used by senators to deny a nominee from their state a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and vote on confirmation.
The Trump regime withdrew from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), citing anti-Israel bias and a being in arrears on a $550 million payment. Israel remains part of UNESCO.
NYT published an interview with Corker in which he said Trump is treating his office like a “reality show” with reckless threats at other country that could put our country “on the path to World War III.”
Corker said he is concerned about Trump, and Trump’s behavior should concern “anyone who cares about our nation.” He added there is no ‘good cop, bad cop’ underway with Tillerson — Trump is undermining diplomacy.
Corker said nearly all Senate Republican share his concerns: “the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here.”
WAPO reported Trump is frustrated by his cabinet and that he is not getting enough credit for his handling of three hurricanes. Trump is lashing out and rupturing alliances with both Republicans and Democrats.
One confidant said Trump is like a whistling teapot, saying when he does not blow off steam, he can turn into a pressure cooker and explode: “I think we are in pressure cooker territory.”
Politico quoted 10 sources current and former WH aides who employed strategies like delays and distractions as “guardrails” in trying to manage Trump’s impulsivity.
Vanity Fair reported sources say Trump is “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.” They say the WH is in crisis as advisers struggle to contain Trump who is increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods.
Trump allegedly told his former bodyguard Schiller, “I hate everyone in the White House!” Kelly is allegedly miserable in the job, and is staying on in a sense of duty and to keep Trump from making disastrous decisions.
One former official speculated Kelly and Mattis have discussed what they would do if Trump ordered a nuclear strike — “would they tackle him?”
According to sources, Bannon said the risk to Trump’s presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment. Bannon thinks Trump has only a 30% chance of making it the full term.
In a column “What Bob Corker Sees in Trump,” conservative columnist Peggy Noonan urged Republicans they have a duty to speak on the record about what they see happening with Trump.
On Thursday, at a signing ceremony for his health care executive order, Trump nearly walked out of the room without signing the order. Pence pulled him back in.
On Tuesday, Trump said in an interview with Forbes that he could beat Tillerson in an IQ test. Trump met with Tillerson later that day at the WH.
On Friday, Corker called out Trump for his effort to disempower Tillerson saying: “You cannot publicly castrate your own secretary of state without giving yourself that binary choice.”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria said, “It’s very clear now that we essentially have no diplomacy going on in the United States,” adding the way Trump has treated Tillerson is “the most dramatic example of it.”
On CBS’s 60 Minutes, Parscale claimed he fine-tuned ads on Facebook to directly reach voters with the exact messages they cared most about. He also claimed he handpicked Republican Facebook employees to help.
Daily Beast reported the Kremlin recruited two black video bloggers, Williams and Kalvin Johnson, to produce incendiary YouTube videos calling Hillary a racist. The videos were spread on social media platforms.
WAPO reported Google has uncovered evidence about $100k of ads purchased by Russian agents to spread disinformation on across the company’s many products, including YouTube, during the 2016 election.
Google said the ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-linked troll farm that bought ads on Facebook. Some ads touted Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Jill Stein, while others aimed to fan the flames of divisive issues.
Rep. Devin Nunes, who recused himself as Chair of the House Intel Committee’s Russia probe, unilaterally signed off on subpoenas to Fusion GPS, the research firm that produced the Steele dossier. Democrats were not consulted.
Reuters reported Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is also taking steps to discredit the dossier according to Democrats on the committee.
Carter Page told the Senate Intel Committee that he will not cooperate with any requests to appear before the panel on Russia, and will plead the Fifth.
Daily Beast reported the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is looking at Cambridge Analytica’s work from the Trump campaign as part of its Russian probe.
Cambridge Analytica, which has ownership ties to the Mercers and Bannon, was brought in to help the campaign by Kushner. The company is also under investigation in the UK watchdog for its role in Brexit.
NYT reported Israel caught Kaspersky Lab working with the Russian government to search the world for US secrets, using Kaspersky software to scan for classified words. Kaspersky software is used by 400 million people.
WSJ reported that Russia’s use of the Kaspersky program to spy on the US is broader and more pervasive than the operation against one individual in Week 47. Trump continues to deny Russian meddling in the US election.
Politico reported as part their posture to cooperate, Trump’s attorneys may offer Mueller a meeting with Trump. If Mueller doesn’t ask by Thanksgiving, attorneys may force the issue by volunteering his time.
Legal experts were surprised by Trump’s lawyers strategy noting Trump would be speaking under oath and he routinely distorts facts, and that Trump would be interviewed in connection with a criminal investigation.
CNN reported Russian operatives used YouTube, Tumblr, and even Pokémon Go as part of their effort to interfere in the election, using a campaign titled “Don’t Shoot Us” to spread a divisive message.
NBC reported Manafort had a previously undisclosed $26 million loan from Deripaska through a series of transactions. It is unclear if the $26 million is a loan or an indirect payment from the Russian oligarch.
The loan brings the total financial relationship between Manafort and Deripaska to $60 million over the past decade, according to financial documents filed in Cyprus and the Cayman Islands.
Manafort’s spokesman, Jason Maloni, initially responded to NBC with a statement including: “Mr. Manafort is not indebted to former clients today, nor was he at the time he began working for the Trump campaign.”
Maloni’s statement was later revised and that sentence was removed. Both Manafort and Maloni have received subpoenas to supply documents and testimony in the Mueller probe.
Yahoo reported Andrew Feinberg, former correspondent for Sputnik, provided a guide and emails to FBI investigators looking into possible violations of the law which requires agents of foreign nations to register with the DOJ.
Further, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is investigating RT and Sputnik as possible parts of the Russian state-run propaganda machine in the broader probe into Russia’s election meddling.
On Friday, Mueller’s team interviewed Trump’s former chief of staff, Priebus. Priebus’ lawyer said he voluntarily met with investigators and “was happy to answer all of their questions.”
Priebus was present during Trump’s efforts to limit the Russia probe, and for discussions that led to the firing of Comey. He was also asked to leave the Oval Office before the infamous Trump-Comey conversation.
Politico reported Twitter deleted tweets and other user data of potentially irreplaceable value to investigators in the Russia probe.
Federal investigators believe Twitter was one of Russia’s most potent weapons. Bots and fake accounts launched recurring waves of pro-Trump, anti-Clinton story lines that were either false or greatly exaggerated.
AP reported Twitter has turned over 201 accounts linked to Russian attempts at influencing the 2016 election to Senate investigators. It is unclear if the posts associated with these accounts have been deleted.
CNN reported an attorney for Roger Stone said he has complied with the House Intel Committee request to provide the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks’ Assange.
WSJ reported Congressional investigators are homing in on connections between the Trump campaign, and Facebook, and Twitter. Digital director Parscale was paid $88 million during the campaign, the highest paid vendor.
Every vendor that worked with Parscale on the Trump campaign signed a nondisclosure agreement, and there are no federal disclosure requirements for online ads.
Both Congress and Mueller are investigating the role activity on Facebook and Twitter played in the 2016 election, and whether the Russian social-media activity was in any connected to the Trump campaign.
A Morning Consult poll found Trump’s approval has fallen in every state since he took office. The swings were as high as 30 percentage points in blue-states IL and CA, to 11 points in red-state LA.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump’s popularity is eroding in small towns and rural communities: in September 47 approve/47 disapprove, down from 55/39 in his first four weeks in office.
WAPO reported as of October 10, Trump’s first 263 days in office, he has made 1,318 false or misleading claims.
The Brookings Institute released a 108-page report which concluded Trump “likely obstructed justice” in his firing of Comey. If Mueller agrees, there are legitimate articles of impeachment that could be drawn up.
In a letter to Mattis, over 100 Democrats are demanding proof that Trump did indeed consult with the Pentagon as he claimed in a tweet, prior to announcing his ban of transgender individuals from military service.
A Kaiser Foundation poll found 62% of Americans say Puerto Ricans aren’t getting the help they need. 76% were aware Puerto Ricans are US citizens.
On Thursday, in a series of tweets, Trump threatened to abandon Puerto Rico’s recovery effort, blaming the island for its infrastructure problems and saying and relief workers would not stay “in P.R. forever.”
The tweets follow harsh criticism from Puerto Rico of the Trump regime’s response to Hurricane Maria. One Puerto Rican said, “He doesn’t think of us as Americans.”
Trump also quoted a Sharyl Attkisson, a television journalist with Sinclair Broadcasting, in saying that while Puerto Rico survived Hurricane Maria, now “a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.”
Later Thursday, the WH issued a statement committing “the full force of the U.S. government” for now, but adding “successful recoveries do not last forever.”
At a House Energy and Commerce hearing about efforts to rebuild the island’s energy grid, Sec. Rick Perry referred to Puerto Rico as a country.
Next day, Trump referred to the Virgin Islands’ governor as a president.
VOX reported although the official death count in Puerto Rico is 45, they found 81 death linked to Hurricane Maria, as well as 450 more reported deaths, most of causes still unknown, and 69 still missing.
Puerto Rico’s governor said four deaths are being investigated as cases of leptospirosis, a disease spread by animals’ urine through contaminated water. A total of ten people have come down with the disease.
Rachel Maddow reported a doctor resigned from the disaster response team in Puerto Rico after seeing medical workers getting manicures and pedicures from residents of the island in medical triage tents.
NYT reported on Puerto Rico’s health care is in dire condition, and continues to suffer from mismanagement. The US Comfort ship with 800 medical personnel which can serve 250, has seen 82 patients in six days.
CNN reported Puerto Ricans are drinking water from a hazardous-waste site, having no other options for water.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll found just 32% of registered voters think the federal government has done enough to help Puerto Rico.
Bloomberg revealed one of its reporters was inadvertently put on the Pentagon’s internal email list which detailed how to spin Hurricane Maria to convince the public that the government response was going well.
On Thursday, Trump also signed an executive order ending Obamacare subsidies for the poor. Not paying the subsidies could boost premiums for millions and send the health insurance exchanges into turmoil.
NPR estimated consumers who earn 400% of the federal poverty level — $48k for individuals or $98.4k for a family of four — will see their the cost of their plans rise by, on average, 20% nationwide.
Doctors, hospitals, insurers, state insurance commissioners and patient advocates denounced Trump’s move. Trump actions puts pressure on Congress to protect consumers from soaring premiums.
WSJ reported if Congress doesn’t succeed, WH aides said Trump “will claim victory” for ending the Iran deal, cutting billions in payments to health insurers, and deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
On Friday, a coalition of attorneys general from 18 states and DC filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s halt to subsidy payments under Obamacare.
NYT reported as of Friday, Trump has taken 12 actions which could weaken Obamacare and curtail enrollment, including spreading negative news releases and posting infographics criticizing the health law.
On Saturday, Trump boasted on Twitter that health insurance companies’ stocks “plunged yesterday” after his steps to dismantle Obamacare.
A Kaiser Health poll found 71% of Americans say the Trump regime should work to improve Obamacare, while just 21% say make it fail.
On Friday, Trump slammed Iran as a “menace” and called for “decertification” of the nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), saying Iran is “not living up to the spirit of the deal.”
Trump sent the deal back to Congress with a 60-day window to address its “many serious flaws” or see it “terminated.”
Top officials on Trump’s national security team, including Mattis and Tillerson, said Iran has technically complied with its restrictions. The International Atomic Energy Association also confirmed compliance.
Daily Beast reported while McMaster also wanted to save the Iran Deal, Trump consulted Fox News’ Sean Hannity and former UN Ambassador John Bolton, two neoconservatives who pushed for decertification.
The leaders of Britain, Germany and France declared their commitment to stand by JCPoA. They deal was the culmination of 16 years of diplomacy.
After being added to Trump’s travel ban, Chad pulled its troops from the fight against Boko Haram in Niger. US officials had warned Trump his decision would have major consequences for the fight against terrorism.
California’s deadliest wildfires charred more than 221,754 acres of land in Northern CA, and left at least 35 dead and hundreds more missing. Trump has yet to publicly comment or tweet about the wildfires.
Nor has Trump publicly commented on the deadliest combat incident since he took office, which took place in Niger last Saturday while Trump was golfing. The ambush by ISIS left four soldiers dead and two wounded.
As the week ended, 24 days after Hurricane Maria, just 64% of Puerto Ricans had access to drinking water, and only 14.6% had electricity.
Trump spent his fourth weekend since Hurricane Maria golfing. On Saturday, he visited Trump National Golf Club in VA, his 72nd day of golf since taking office.

132+ Teams in 132+ Days: California Golden Bears

University of California, Berkeley PAC-12
Year Founded: March 23, 1868
Location: Berkeley, California
Total Attendance: 35,899 (25,574 undergrad)
Mascot: Golden Bears
Fight Song: Fight for California
On-Field Mascot: Oski -You cannot resist his soul-sucking stare.
Live Mascot: Up until 1941, live bears were used as mascots, but were discontinued due to “safety concerns”.
Cheerleaders: Picture and another
Stadium: California Memorial Stadium newly retrofitted in 2011 with $300 million in renovations, mainly to make it more earthquake safe.
Stadium Location: Memorial Stadium stands right under Strawberry Canyon, a gorge-filled hiking haven that rises to beautiful and impressive sweeping panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge. It’s absolutely gorgeous and offers some of the best views from a football stadium in America.
Marching Band: The University of California Marching Band, or the Cal Band 1, 2, and 3
Conference Champions (14): 2006-t, 1975-t, 1958, 1950, 1949, 1948-t, 1938-t,1937, 1935-t,1920-1923, 1918
Number of Bowl Games: 21, with a 10-10-1 record
National Titles (5): 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1937
Rivals

Stanford - By far our biggest rivalry and probably one of the top rivalries nationally (I like to think so anyway), due to the proximity of the two schools. The rivalry is so big that the yearly game is simply called “The Big Game”. Each year, the Big Game is played for posession of the Stanford Axe. The story behind the axe is actually pretty cool. The axe originally popped up on April 13, 1899, where Stanford students used it to decapitate a blue and gold strawman. When it resurfaced for a Cal-Stanford baseball game, Cal students manage to steal it, leading to a wild chase through the streets of San Francisco. Eventually, a Cal student posing as a girl was able to smuggle it across the bay to Berkeley where it rested in a bank vault for 31 years. Then, in 1930 a group of Stanford students known as the Immoral 21 used camera flashes and tear gas to blind the axe’s guards and steal the axe. In 1933, it was made the trophy for the Big Game. However it has still been stolen 7 times (3 by Cal, 4 by Stanford) since then. Even during the Big Game, the intensisty is obvious in the traditional “Stare Down”. While Cal won 7 of 8 matchups between 2002 and 2009. Stanford’s recent success has given them three straight victories. Stanford leads the all time series 58-46-11. Your mascot is still creepy. And your band is weird.
USC - More of a one-sided rivalry, but most Cal fans can’t stand USC. Probably because they beat us a lot of the time (they hold the record 65-30-5). Both teams have managed to spoil the others good seasons, though, which keeps this matchup intense.
UCLA (AKA Southern Campus) - Our little UC brothers to the South. After the awkward rip-off of our colors, songs, and mascot, we enjoy beating our offspring. While this rivalry is nowhere near as big as the Stanford Rivalry, it can lead to some great games. Last year, this game was the only bright spot in a bleak season for Cal, with a 43-17 Cal victory. UCLA holds the all time record 50-32-1.

2012 Season
Record: 3-9 Coach: Jeff Tedford, now fired. Replaced by Sonny Dykes.
2012 Roster
Key Players for the 2012 Season:

Keenan Allen- WR: Probably our most nationally known player and one of the lone bright spots on our offense, he was one of the few highlights of the past few years. As is mentioned at least a dozen times every Cal game, he is the half brother of QB Zach Maynard. Even though he sat out part of last season, he was still the leading receiver with 61 receptions last year for 737 yards and 6 TDs. A projected first-round pick, he was drafted in the third round (in what was considered a huge steal by many) by the San Diego Chargers. Here’s some Draft highlights and 2010-2011 highlights.
CJ Anderson - RB: The head of our running back tandem which also included Ise Sofele and Brendan Bigelow. On his own, he ran for 759 yards and 4TDs.
Nick Forbes - ILB: One of Cal’s emerging leaders on defense who had 85 tackles last season and 3 fumbles recovered.

Biggest Plays:

2013 Season
2013 Schedule
2013 Roster
The Greats
Greatest Games:

2003 USC vs Cal - highlights. Cal takes on #3 ranked USC and beats them 34-31 in Triple OT.
1982 Stanford vs Cal - In John Elway’s last college game, Stanford was looking for a win to make them bowl eligible. Late in the 4th quarter with Cal leading 19-17, Elway completes on a 4th and 17 to put Stanford within field goal range. Elway calls time with 8 seconds left, leaving extra time for a second kick if Stanford drew a penalty. Stanford’s kick is good, giving them a 20-19 lead with 4 seconds left. However, Stanford received a critical 15-yard penalty for celebration. What follows is the most debated, most argued, most watched play of all college football, simply known as The Play. What followed was a flurry of five laterals, near tackles, and something about a trombonist.
2009 Stanford vs Cal - Toward the end of Jeff Tedford’s tenure, highlight games became rarer and rarer. One of the last few was an upset over #17 Stanford on the road, when Mike Mohamed picked off Andrew Luck late to seal the victory. Toby Gerhart - amid a furious and memorable Heisman charge - rushed for 136 yards and 4 touchdowns that day, but it wasn’t enough to carry the Cardinal to a win, because Shane Vereen matched his production with 193 yards and 3 touchdowns on 42 carries. No, that is not a typo.
1959 Rose Bowl : While Cal lost, this was the last time Cal went to the Rose Bowl, so it has to be mentioned.
1993 Oregon vs Cal

Greatest Plays:

“The Play” His knee was not down.
Brendan Bigelow’s run @ OSU
Desean Jackson’s punt return vs Tennessee

Greatest Players:

Craig Morton- QB. He was named an All-American QB even though Cal did not have a winning season during his tenure. He had a career 4,501 passing yards and took most of Cal’s all time passing records.
Russell White- RB. In his three seasons, he ran for 3,367 yards and 35 TDs and was recognized as a consensus All-American in 1991.
Joe Roth)-QB. In 1975, he led the most potent offense in the nation and took the Bears to a conference co-championship. After the 1976 season, he revealed that he had melanoma, but still honored his commitment to play in the Hula Bowl and Japan Bowl. He died roughly a month later at the age of 21.
Joe Kapp The QB for Cal’s last Rose Bowl team in 1959, Kapp went on to have a moderately successful professional career, and even had a Pro Bowl appearance. In 1982, he returned to his alma mater as a coach, where he went 20-34-1 in 5 seasons, memorably vowing to his players that he would not drink tequila until Cal saw another Rose Bowl. Sadly, he still hasn’t had any.

Recent Great Players:

QB Aaron Rodgers - Green Bay Packers - Everyone knows that Aaron Rodgers went to Cal, but not everyone knows he came to Cal by accident. True story - Jeff Tedford was at Butte Community College scouting another player (TE Garrett Cross), when he spotted Rodgers. And the rest is history. Cal saw many of their greatest moments in the 2000s with him under center, and they’ve been struggling to replace him ever since. No, seriously.
RB Marshawn Lynch - Seattle Seahawks - Beast Mode was born at Cal.
DB Nnamdi Asomugha - San Francisco 49ers - The long-venerated cornerback (and predecessor to Revis Island), Nnamdi Asomugha was once “the” premier cover corner in the NFL. Since his long career in Oakland, he’s had a somewhat rocky time with the Eagles (then again, no one on the Eagles had much of a year or two), and is now on the 49ers. It’ll be interesting to see what role he plays being back on the west coast this upcoming season.
WR Desean Jackson - Philadelphia Eagles - Desean Jackson’s known for his “turn on the afterburners” speed, his on-field antics, and also what NFL.com voters named the best play of all time (NY Giants fans, feel free to click the link but it’s probably not a very good idea)
TE Tony Gonzalez - Atlanta Falcons - Tony G will probably be one of the best tight ends to ever play football. Also played basketball for Cal alongside NBA star Jason Kidd (and newly minted Nets head coach) to a Sweet 16 berth.
C Alex Mack - Cleveland Browns - Alex Mack is one of the best centers in the game, also winner of the “academic Heisman”, the Draddy Trophy, while at Cal. Former two star recruit.
DB Thomas DeCoud - Atlanta Falcons - Thomas Decoud is an underrated ball-hawk (but a known sneaker aficionado) and one-half of the safety duo in the Atlanta secondary that generated so many Falcons defensive turnovers this season.

Greatest Coaches:

Andy Smith ) -1916-1925. 74-16-7 record. Coach of the “Wonder Teams” that won 3 PCC championships and 3 National Championships, as well as five undefeated seasons. In 1920, Cal outscored their opponents 510 to 14.
Lynn “Pappy” Waldorf - 1947-1956. 67-32-4 record. From 48-50, he led Cal to three undefeated regular seasons, 3 PCC championships, and three Rose Bowls (all losses). He also posted a 7-1-2 record over Stanford during his tenure.
Jeff Tedford - coach from 2002-2012. 82-57 record. Tedford took a Cal program that hadn’t had a winning team since 1993 and took them to 7 straight bowl games. He really turned the team around and coached some amazing quarterbacks, including Aaron Rodgers. He had the most bowl wins, conference wins, and games coached of any Cal coach. However, after a number of poor seasons combined with poor football player graduation rates, he was fired.

Traditions

Big Game: The Big Game is more than just the football matchup between Cal and Stanford. In the week prior to the game, Cal comes alive with a number of rallies and reunions. There are number of other sporting events against Stanford, including water polo, volleyball, ice hockey, and quidditch. Yes, quidditch. On the eve of the game, a giant bonfire is held.
Cal Band: The Cal band is a big part of Cal sporting events. It was first started in 1891, and adopted its high tempo style after facing Ohio State in the 1950 Rose Bowl. Here’s a really cool video of Cal Band’s 2007 Video Game Show. In addition, there is also the Cal Alumni band, made up of former Cal Band members.
The first incident of card stunts as performed at the 1910 Big Game at Cal. Card stunts have become popular around the country at halftime shows as a way of entertaining fans and making them feel a part of something, but they originated right here in Berkeley. Here are two of our more recent card stunts here and here
Carillon bells played 3 times a day. Fight songs on Friday at noon.
Naked Run at the Main Stacks Library during Finals week. This one’s pretty self explanatory.
Tightwad Hill. From the Stadium and From the cannon on the HillLocated right behind Memorial Stadium, many a cheapskate have been able to catch games from up here. One plus of the Tightwad Hill experience - you can drink all you like. After every Cal score, they shoot off a cannon that is located on the hill as well.

Campus and Surrounding Area
City Population: 112,580
City Skyline
Iconic Campus Buildings:

Sather Tower (“The Campanile”): 307 ft tall, making it the third tallest bell and clock tower in the world.
Doe Memorial Library
Wheeler Hall
Sather Gate
Bowles Hall
Wellman Hall
Hearst Memorial Mining Building
Album

Local Dining:

Top Dog - $3-$3.25 quality hot dogs and sausages served in a sesame seed bun. From Polish Sausages to Italian Calabrese. This place is usually packed during football game days since it is a mainstay in Cal alumni’s memories.
Cheeseboard - Vegetarian pizza for $2.50 a slice, very good quality pizza that changes everyday.
Zachary’s - Pizza joint that serves Chicago style deep dish.
Fenton’s - Dineice cream place located in nearby Oakland - and, fun fact, a favorite of local Pixar animators. It makes an appearance in Up.
Chez Panisse - A former Michelin-star restaurant run by Alice Waters, Chez Panisse focuses on serving healthy, organic food, and unique blend of California cuisine.

Random Trivia

Texas Rose Bowl Controversy. - Utter the name Mack Brown around Cal fans, and you’re likely to elicit a string of expletives. In 2004, the Aaron Rodgers led Bears went 10-1, and came within 7 yards of knocking off USC at The Colliseum. USC went on to make the BCS Championship Game, which meant that Cal, who finished #2 in the Pac-10, should have gone onto the Rose Bowl. But, thanks to a combination of Mack Brown’s lobbying late in the season, as well as a relatively unimpressive 26-16 win over Southern Mississippi (which was many voters’ first exposure to Cal that season, and in which Tedford decided to run the clock out instead of run up the score to sway voters) gave the Rose Bowl bid to Texas, instead. The Bears ended up in the Holiday Bowl, where they came out uninspired and unmotivated in a 45-31 loss to Texas Tech.
The stadium lies directly on top of the Hayward Fault, although $300 million of renovations occurred in the 2011 season to make it more earthquake safe.
The University is associated with the discovery of 16 chemical elements while as 6 chemical elements are associated with Cal and its past researchers (Californium, Seaborgium, Berkelium, Einsteinium, Fermium, Lawrencium)
Also, 71 Nobel Prizes (including 28 alumni Nobel laureates), 9 Wolf Prizes, 7 Fields Medals, 15 Turing Awards, 45 MacArthur Fellowships, 20 Academy Awards, and 11 Pulitzer Prizes. Yup.

What Is and What is to Come
2012 was a terrible season that began with high expectations of the veteran RB core of Isi Sofele and C.J. Anderson, and the hopes of increased efficiency from QB Zach Maynard who would be throwing (for his 2nd season no less) to his half brother WR Keenan Allen. However, as the season progressed, despite the more-than competent talent on its rosters, the Bears kept losing games due to inconsistent play calling, equally bad quarterback performance, and terrible O-Line work that ended up making Zach Maynard one of the most sacked QBs in the entire FBS. However, flashes of brilliance were evident as Cal took on #25-ranked UCLA at home during the homecoming game. I myself was there and the expectations were low coming into the game even from die-hard Cal football fans. Despite that, Cal shocked us all and was able to shine in all 3 phases of the game, showcasing Zach Maynard’s best performance of the year, as well as Kameron Jackson’s DB play (after replacing starting CB Marc Anthony due to injuries).
2013 is a new time for Cal football; new systems have been brought in along with the all-new coaching staff. On offense, the Bears are switching from Tedford’s old pro-style scheme to Dykes/Franklin’s new up-tempo spread. On defense, the Bears are switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3 scheme. Furthermore, despite the coaching change, Cal was able to take in talent on both sides of the ball (the Golden Bears’ Rivals recruiting class ranked 23rd in the nation in 2012, and 32nd in 2013). With its emphasis on beefing up what was pretty much a wet cardboard excuse of an O-Line we had last season, we took in a lot of O-line players, however, concerns regarding the offensive center position remain since during Spring practice quite a few of the observed snaps were errant snaps that were either too high or too low. From being at the majority of spring practices, these were pretty painful to watch, and hopefully the issue will be remedied by the time the season starts.
The lack of depth at the RB position is another concern, since besides Brendan Bigelow and Daniel Lasco being the only potential quality starters, Khalfani Muhammad was the only RB recruited this season (though that being said, he’s the 100m and 200m California state track champion). Plus, after explosive play throughout the 2012 season, Bigelow is expected to get more touches, and thus a more impressive season with his explosive speed and agility.
The Golden Bears’ receiving corps loses star wideout Keenan Allen to the draft, but still remains a diverse and promising group. With the installation of the new up-tempo spread offense, look to returning receivers Bryce Treggs, Chris Harper, Kenny Lawler, Richard Rodgers, (and quite a bit of depth to back that up) to be standout targets in the new Bear Raid offense. All in all, a solid group here.
From the defensive standpoint, Cal looks solid in the front seven; this is a talented group on the defensive line and the linebacking corps (especially the latter, heh, it helps switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3 scheme in that respect). Also, Penn State transfer Khairi Fortt, who sat out last year due to injuries, should be slated to start day one at weakside LB across from MLB Nick Forbes, who has risen up to become one of the leaders of this Cal defense. However, both starting veteran cornerbacks in the secondary declared for the draft this year (Steve Williams, who ran the fastest unofficial 40m time for a DB at the combine this year, 5th round - San Diego Chargers, and Marc Anthony, 7th round - Baltimore Ravens), so the Bears’ will have two “new” starting corners in the form of Kam Jackson and Stefan McClure, the latter whose ACL injury forced him to sit out his entire 2012 season. Both showed starting-level promise in Spring practice, and will need to, in order to face some of the high-powered offenses in the Pac-12. Safeties Alex Logan and the exceptionally hard-hitting Avery Sebastian round out the secondary, though as a entire unit, depth is still largely unproven, since admittedly, this year's recruiting class was relatively thin at the defensive backs position.
Finally, that brings us to quarterback, which is a tad ironic, since, well, no one QB has really emerged as the definite starter for Cal yet. Now don’t get me wrong here, Spring practice has showed us that we have three very talented quarterbacks, though each of those three QBs have distinctly different skill sets. Highly-touted redshirt freshman Zach Kline has a veritable cannon for an arm and a year under his belt with the team, incoming freshman Jared Goff played in an Air-Raid type system in HS and has familiarity with the system that will be run by Dykes/Franklin, and redshirt junior Austin Hinder is the most athletic and mobile of the three and was often lined up in WRB/TE during spring practice. Klinedergoff, as some of us have resigned to calling it, Cal’s three-headed QB cerberus, if you will. Only time will tell who grabs the reins of the starting job come fall.
Sonny Dykes was brought in as the new HC for an ailing team that not only failed to perform on the field but also off the field academically. Right off the bad, he presents a different philosophy in interacting with fans, while Tedford was relatively aloof, Dykes has already been know to come down around campus and mingle with the Cal community.
The new Air-Raid style offense has been nicknamed “Bear Raid” and expectations are that Cal will be able to put more yards on the field and more points on the scoreboard since, well, Cal was 89th in passing yards and 93rd (23.0 pts/game) in scoring last season. Dykes/Franklin’s Louisiana Tech team was ranked 1st in the nation in scoring offense (51.5 pts/game) and 3rd in passing yards (those are not typos, I repeat, not typos), though only 119th in points scored against (Cal was 98th). That’s where newly-minted defensive coordinator and former Wisconsin linebackers coach Andy Buh comes into play, leading a Badgers defense that was ranked in the top 20 (17th) in the country last season in points against. That being said, this newly revamped Cal team on all ends has a potentially bright future coming up ahead, and hopefully will become a team to be reckoned with in the Pac-12 and beyond in the upcoming season.
Overtime
Notable alumni:

Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy
Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder
Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google
Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder
Jerry Brown, Governor of California
Natalie Coughlin, Olympic swimmer
Jason Kidd, basketball star and as of recent, NBA head coach
Gregory Peck, Academy-Award winning actor

Current Cal players in the NFL
More Information Subreddit: /Berkeley *Contributors: domderek, DeusExa, RollyPalma, pietya, sheuv, GameofFangs TheGoldenBear
Please upvote this thread even if you are not interested in the team so that users who are interested will see it For more information on the 132 Teams in 132 Days Project, click here.

[OC] Lost Leagues- Part III: History of the FXFL

For those that wanted minor league football in the fall, the demise of the United Football League was sad. However, the UFL always wanted to compete against the NFL, despite what they said otherwise. They made players that left the UFL to join the NFL pay a buyout fee, they scheduled games at the same time as Thursday Night Football, and they were looking to go directly against the NFL. They had an identity crisis, along with a bunch of other things, and eventually, the league died without people even knowing it existed towards the end.
But what about the opposite approach? What about a league that wants to be a minor league to the NFL, and doesn’t want to compete? This is the story of the Fall Experimental Football League, or the FXFL. What started off as a modest idea quickly became a joke of a league that, unlike the UFL (which at least had some glimmer of hope at one point), never had a fighting chance. The inaugural season was a near-disaster, and the second season (because somehow it was around for a second season) was a complete mess that didn’t even finish.
So how did they get to that point? How did they get from a league that had a TV deal with ESPN3 to a league that had a team playing in a stadium that was deemed too unsafe for football? This is the FXFL.
Part I: Developing the League
Stop me if you heard this one before. An upstart league wants to have a certain number of teams in the league, but is only able to get 4 teams in the league when all is said and done because they didn’t have enough owners. It happened to the UFL, it happened to the short-lived SFL, and, no surprise, it happened to the FXFL. I’ll give the XFL credit- for as colossal of a failure as that was, they at least delivered on all of their promises leading into the first season, and then some.
What made the FXFL a bit different, though, was that it flat out said they were not trying to compete against the NFL. In fact, they never had any intention of competing against the NFL. Their ambitions were so low that it’s almost admirable how low they set the bar. The goal of the FXFL was to be a developmental league for the NFL. The commissioner of the league was Brian Woods, whose only experience running a sporting event or league was running the failed Medal of Honor Bowl. He didn’t exactly have the greatest resume to run this league. However, he stated about the FXFL:

Given the current Division I landscape in football and the CBA the NFL has with the union, there is more than ever a need for another platform out there—a platform like for basketball and baseball players. The NFL has the practice squad, but it does not develop players because they don’t get into games. You don’t develop if you aren’t getting on the field.

The FXFL’s goal was to become a glorified practice squad for the NFL. The league even made it so that the rules were pretty much exactly the same as the NFL, and coaches had to play NFL-style offenses. If a team wanted to play like Navy or Georgia Tech and run the triple option all the time, they could not do that. While I definitely understand the premise behind that, what’s with the name FXFL? How is it an experimental football league if there’s no experimenting going on?
When I think of an experimental football league, I think of rules like always having to go for 2, no punting, an A11 offense… stuff like that. I don’t think of a league that runs exactly how football is played already. The FXFL had an identity crisis with that name. The only difference was that extra points were 35 yards and kickoffs were at the 25-yard line. Other than that? Nothing new.
On May 7 of 2014, the FXFL was formed, and would begin play later that fall. In a matter of about five months, the league would go from just a figment of someone’s imagination to actually staging games. The original plan was to have the sites of the franchises named later that month, but that announcement didn’t come until late June.
The plan was to have 6 teams in the league. The FXFL would have teams based in Brooklyn, Boston, Omaha, Portland, Austin, and somewhere in Florida. How many would the FXFL end up starting with? Three and a half. The Brooklyn Bolts, Boston Breakers, and Omaha Mammoths all went on as planned, but Austin and Portland were gone due to cost measures, and the Florida Blacktips became a traveling team only about a month away from the start of the season.
You can already tell where this is going. A four-team league is too small at the start. Commissioner Woods, who forced half the teams to play a 4-3 defense and the other half to play a 3-4 defense, said that while they wanted to have more teams, they couldn’t because they wanted to minimize costs. Want to know how you minimize costs? Don’t place your teams on the East Coast and then place a team in Omaha. Don’t place teams in markets where you have to fly to get to the games.
The market selection for the FXFL was absolutely terrible. Omaha, while a good football market (as evidenced by the success of the Omaha Nighthawks in the UFL), was in the middle of nowhere compared to the other teams in the league. Brooklyn played in a market that not only had 2 football teams, but had a team in every other sport. The same thing happened with Boston. Miami would’ve been in the same problem, but they became a traveling team. Don’t place minor league teams in cities that already have other sports. Go for the big markets that don’t have a whole lot of competition, like Portland or Sacramento. Going for Boston is just incredibly stupid.
Commissioner Woods might be the most brain-dead commissioner in the history of any professional football league. Aside from placing teams in cities that didn’t need football teams, he basically said the only way the FXFL could survive was if the NFL bought them out. This was before the season even started. In this ESPN article, writer Kevin Seifert stated, “By Woods’ own admission, the league’s future likely is tied to arranging a formal affiliation with the NFL.”
The end game was to get the NFL to notice them. Why did he think this could ever work? The NFL is an organization bringing in eleven figures per year. They’ve got so much money and power that Roger Goodell might be the most powerful commissioner of any annual domestic league in all of sports around the world. If the NFL wanted a minor league, they’d do it themselves. They don’t need the help of the FXFL. The FXFL was trying to create a solution to a problem that the NFL didn’t even have or want to fix. Maybe the NFL will create a minor league soon, but they’ll do it themselves. They won’t do it with a league that’s so bad that they’d have to relocate every team (minus Omaha) so that they’re not playing in the same market as an NFL team, and they won’t do it with a league that played almost every game in a baseball stadium.
The only thing the NFL ever used the FXFL for was as a training ground for officials. In terms of players from the FXFL to make it to the NFL? That pipeline was nonexistent. Tickets for the league went on sale three weeks before the start of the 2014 season, and the FXFL received a grand total of $0 for television rights. Aside from a Mike & Mike interview in September, there was minimal promotion for this league.
This league seemed doomed to fail from the start. So how did the first season get on?
Part II: The Inaugural Season
The 2014 season started on October 8 with four teams- the Brooklyn Bolts, the Omaha Mammoths, the Boston Breakers, and the Florida Blacktips. Good idea for the league to play their first game in Omaha, seeing as the city welcomed the Nighthawks a few years beforehand with open arms. As for what the league was thinking by naming the team as the Mammoths, I have no idea. Their other options were the Channel Cats and the Drive, so the option for the Mammoths was clearly the best one… but what’s with the reasoning? Commissioner Woods stated, “We developed a team brand that accurately depicts the type of team that the Omaha community will want to see on the field: big, strong, and unstoppable.” Yep, Mammoths are unstoppable… except for the time where they were extinct and all that.
Once again, Omaha had the best team in the league in terms of fan support. Unfortunately, that wasn’t saying a whole lot. The attendance at the first game that the Mammoths had was significantly less than the sold out crowd that the Nighthawks got in their first game. About 3,000 fans showed up, which was one of the highest attended games of the season.
Commissioner Woods stated that the turnout was a number that would be very good for a minor league baseball team, even though it wasn’t huge. Let’s analyze that number, shall we, because if Woods and other pundits are comparing this to Triple-A baseball, let’s see what the attendance would be stacked up against Triple-A. In 2014, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked last in the International League by about 1,000 fans. Only one team in the IL drew less than 4,000 fans per game, and that was the Syracuse Chiefs. So, that’s not too good. In the Pacific Coast League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked last by about 2,000 fans.
If we go down to Double-A, in the Eastern League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked 10th out of 11, only ahead of the Binghamton Mets. In the Texas League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked dead last by more than 1,000 fans. And in the Southern League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked 8th out of 11. So, to answer your comment, Commissioner Woods, that number of 3,000 fans is not even good for a minor league baseball team. He was a diluted commissioner who was in over his head, and comments like that showed exactly why.
But we’re only one week into this disaster. After Omaha won the first game 41-18 over the Boston Breakers, the next games were scheduled for one week later on October 15. For the record, this was some footage of the inaugural game, so you can judge for yourself whether or not this would’ve been a good minor league attendance. Omaha won 20-19 over the ~~Florida~~ Blacktips in a game attended by half the crowd of the original game (about 15,000), while the Brooklyn Bolts won their inaugural game in front of less than 2,000 fans. The following week, Boston played their inaugural home game in front of less than 1,000 fans at Harvard Stadium (which seats 30,000). I think this picture says it all. That same week, Brooklyn played a home game against Omaha, and maybe 2,000 people showed up; while they never released an attendance figure, keep in mind that MCU Park seats 7,000.
In the middle of the season, the league got a glimmer of hope when they announced Nivea as a sponsor. But that was about all that went right in 2014 for the FXFL. The Boston Breakers were a joke of a franchise, outside of the fact that there was already another professional soccer team called the Boston Breakers that played at Harvard Stadium. For their second and final home game against the Brooklyn Bolts, they didn’t even announce an attendance. There are no shots of the crowd from any highlight videos of the game, but let’s just say that playing a game on Halloween isn’t a smart idea if you’re a minor football league.
The best attendance of the season came one week later when the Omaha Mammoths drew 4,000 fans in a thrilling 10-8 victory by the Mammoths where they turned the ball over 5 times and had 95 yards of offense in the first 58 minutes of the game. In the highlights, you’re seeing near-empty bleachers at TD Ameritrade Park. Keep in mind that this was the highest FXFL attendance of 2014. Brooklyn drew maybe 2,000 fans per game. Omaha drew roughly 3,000 fans per game. Boston drew less than 1,000, and the Blacktips were a traveling team. Attendance was not on the league’s side.
After Brooklyn defeated the Florida Blacktips of Miami and Route 66 by a final score of 26-13 on November 7, the league cancelled the remainder of their games. The proposed championship game the day before Thanksgiving? Cancelled. They just declared Brooklyn the first ever champion of the league and called it a day. And yet, the league was satisfied with their mini season.
I can’t believe how low the FXFL set the bar. They had a 9-game regular season and couldn’t even finish that, they drew maybe 2,000 fans per game (and that’s a high estimate; this article said that Omaha drew 2,000 fans per game, and they were the highest attended team), and they’re satisfied? How can you genuinely say you’re satisfied when you cancelled part of your season?
One month later, the FXFL realized that having teams fly to every game because of how spread apart they are was a bad idea, and was left in a bit of a pickle. Of the four teams, Commissioner Woods expected Brooklyn (a team where the Cyclones controlled all the operations except for the football operations) to return, as well as Omaha, and he wanted to expand the league to places such as Memphis, Austin, Oklahoma City, and Florida (even though they already technically had a Floridian team). Again, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when they want to lower their costs yet they want teams in Brooklyn and Oklahoma City.
The first season was pretty much a trainwreck. Was the second season any better?
Part III: The 2015 Season
The FXFL wanted to expand from a 4-team league. By the start of the 2015 season, it had 3 teams. Any sympathy you might have for Commissioner Woods is going to be thrown out the window by the start of the 2015 season, because Woods was not just a clueless and horrible commissioner, but also a backstabbing, slimy liar.
The Brooklyn Bolts would be back. The Omaha Mammoths? Yeah, they’d be back too. Except for when the commissioner changed his mind and announced they wouldn’t return. The FXFL model was apparently based on selling 6,000 tickets per game, but no team even reached half of that number, so the league was flat out delusional. I feel genuinely sorry for Omaha- they’ve had the best support of any city in the UFL and the FXFL, and they’ve been hurt by poor management by the league. This city deserves better.
The Boston Brawlers would relocate to Mahoning Valley in Ohio and become the Mahoning Valley Brawlers. This was a huge deal for the city- they hadn’t had a pro football team play for them in over a century, and this was going to be huge for a town with a population of just under 20,000. Commissioner Woods called the addition the opportunity for an exciting new market with an attractive fan base.
Time for tryouts for the Brawlers. Hundreds of players looked for their opportunity to play professional football and maybe get a shot at an NFL tryout. Only problem? There was no tryout. The league cancelled the tryout without ever informing the players. A day later, the league announced that, by the way, we don’t have the money to have the Brawlers play, so we’re gonna have you guys fold. The team was ready to go and play their October 3 home opener, and less than a week before, the FXFL made them pull out.
No notice, no refunds for airfare or hotels, no nothing. Players drove from Alabama and got no notice that the team was folding. Not only that, but the Brawlers were supposed to have tryouts on September 20. A player flew in, and didn’t get a notice until September 19 that the tryout was cancelled. So, he flew back home, then came back to Ohio on September 27 before realizing that the team folded. Also, another genius idea by the FXFL- have tryouts on a Sunday. Because nothing will get the NFL to notice you by holding your tryouts on a Sunday.
How the FXFL avoided a lawsuit, I’m not sure. The only lawsuit the FXFL ever had was a $60,000 lawsuit in legal fees during the offseason, but I think that got settled out of court, since I can’t find anything else on it or even what the reasons behind it were. How the players didn’t come together and sue this league, I have no idea, because this seems like an open and shut case. So now the Mammoths are out, and the Brawlers are out. Who’s left?
You’ve still got the Brooklyn Bolts. You’ve got the Blacktips, who are still a traveling team. And, you’ve got the newly formed Hudson Valley Fort. Why anyone would name their team as the Fort, I’m not sure. The team was located in Fishkill, New York. I’ve actually been to Fishkill before. Not sure how that city ever had a professional team. The population of Fishkill is just over 2,000. The Fort were the last hope the league had left.
There were now three teams in the FXFL for 2015. You had a traveling team, a team in a city where there’s every other sport as competition, and a team in a town with a population of 2,000. Seems like a league destined for success.
The season went about as you’d expect. No game drew more than 2,000 fans. The Fort drew 1,776 fans for their first game, and were a complete disaster of a franchise. The Fort may have been the worst run professional football franchise ever. After one game, nobody was paid. Their coach resigned, the players walked out, the team didn’t have enough equipment for the players, and “there were times at practice when water wasn’t available.” One player wrote:

We will do a team session where all defensive players are fully padded but we have 3 offensive linemen without shoulder pads and no receivers with helmets. Even during the game, we are forced to share helmets. This can be very dangerous, especially with staph infection going around.

Commissioner Woods’ response to this, along with the fact that the Fort didn’t have a trainer? According to the article, “he said he considered the issue a ‘non-starter’ and didn’t think it was a story.” How is that not a story? How is a team not having enough equipment and running out of water not a story? Again, Commissioner Woods went from clueless to downright dirty during the 2015 season.
It got worse for the Fort, though. This was their opening game. The field doesn’t look so good. Looks a bit dangerous. Looks like it wasn’t made for football. There are some baseball stadiums that can pull off the football look, and some that cannot. And then, there’s the Hudson Valley Fort. Look at these beautiful sightlines on the field. Turns out, Dutchess Stadium wasn’t safe for football. It was so unsafe that the league cancelled the remainder of their games, and any high school football games scheduled to be played there were cancelled.
Because of this, you had yet another shortened season. Brooklyn finished 4-1, the Blacktips (who were a traveling team yet again) finished 1-1, and the Fort finished 0-3. But make no mistake… the league was going to come back for the 2016 season bigger and better than ev--- nope. They folded. Brooklyn Baseball Banter of all places broke the news that the FXFL folded, and on August 31 of 2016, this failed experimental football league was no more.
Part IV: Legacy
The FXFL was doomed to fail from the start. Word to the wise- don’t try and do the NFL’s job for them. If the NFL wants a minor football league, they’ll create a minor football league. If the end game is “the only way we survive is if the NFL notices us,” then you’re going to die pretty quickly. This league was ridden with poor management, poor attendance, and a poor gameplan. Their identity was really bad. The quality of football was really bad; their marquee players were Josh Freeman and Tajh Boyd. The commissioner was bad. Everything about this league was bad.
Some tips for creating a league: Don’t try and place a team in a market that already has a team. Don’t have a traveling team. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t set the bar so low (there’s a difference between realistic expectations and then expectations that will just set you up for failure). Don’t play games in stadiums that aren’t safe for football. Don’t place a team in a town that holds 2,000 people. Don’t place teams all across the country when you don’t have the money.
I could see what the UFL was trying to do, even though it failed. But the FXFL? This was a colossal failure. Again, how the league didn’t get sued up their rear end, I’m not sure, because the way the Brawlers and the way the Fort were handled was absolutely terrible. The NFL didn’t want a minor league. The FXFL created a minor league. Not surprisingly, the FXFL failed.
Call it the Failed Experimental Football League.

Lost Leagues (Sundays)	Record Watch- Offense (Mondays)	Draft Scratchers (Tuesdays)	Record Watch- Defense (Wednesdays)	One Hit Wonders (Thursdays)	Weird Stat Threads (Fridays)
Part I: United Football League	Part I: Passing Yards	Part I: Roger Vick (NY Jets, 1987)	Part II: Sacks	Part I: Derek Loville (San Francisco, 1995)	Part I: NFL vs. Eurovision
Part II: Spring Football League	Part III: Receptions	Part II: Tyson Alualu (Jacksonville, 2010)	N/A	Part II: Patrick Jeffers (Carolina, 1999)	Part II: NFL vs. Preakness
Part III: Fall Experimental Football League		Part III: Rick Mirer Trade

[Table] IAmAlexis Ohanian, startup founder, internet activist, and cat owner - AMA

Verified? (This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet)
Date: 2012-06-22
Link to submission (Has self-text)
Link to my post

Questions	Answers
Hi. you have done a great job with Reddit. Reddit is unique and has raised a very outstanding community which can be never found in the internet. And I love it! What made you start a website like this? what was your inspiration? What do you think about the current Reddit community? Is Reddit now as exactly as you imagined? or do you expect anything more from the current community? How do you think the future of Reddit will be? and what do you expect the future to be?	Thank you. But to be fair, this thing has grown far beyond what Steve and I started in that Medford apartment with. Sure, we can take credit for starting the planter box, tilling the soil, adding seeds, and watering, etc, but it's since grown into a freaking ecosystem. We jumped at the chance, took the next train back to Boston and met with him for about an hour. He pushed us to drop mobile (it was 05) and think about a web app that we'd personally want to use every day. We left that meeting with a phrase in our heads that PG crafted "front page of the internet." Then it was just up to me and Steve to make it. At the time, we were intrigued by delicious/popular, which was an interesting byproduct of their bookmarking service. Incidentally, we didn't learn about digg until weeks after we launched. It goes to show how much our ignorance helped, because you may remember all the blatant digg-clones that came and went before digg did -- Steve and I weren't trying to just copy, we were thinking about solving this problem from a clean slate. I need to get better at distinguishing between the many varied reddit communities. The culture & community on /NBA is very different from the culture on /aww and reddit is just the platform that enables such varied discourse. Steve and I always debated about subreddits vs tagging and I'm happy he won, because although it's taken longer to grow and develop, it's resulted in this marvelous variety in communities all using this common platform. So in a way, all of these varied communities are what we'd hoped for, but we've still got a ways to go until the reddit platform really is the ubiquitous way online communities share and discover content.
Out of curiosity, what was the idea with tagging? One big front page ad people just tag the post with a corresponding topic?	I wanted submitters to choose, say, three tags to identify the post with to quickly create a rather broad categorization system.
I am also glad Steve won if that's the case!	URL: Headline: Categories/Tags (3):
Now that subreddits are established you should introduce a system that allows the same post to be submitted to a number of subreddits, but only appear on someone's front page or /all once. It would be similar to tagging but the communities would persist.	At this point, I like how one post submitted a few different reddits with different headlines creates different discussions based on community.
	(Imagine if I submitted an article about a Skins victory over the Cowboys to both subreddits because it's technically could be categorized as cowboys and redskins news, I would give it an awesome headline for a Skins fan but it'd be awful for a Cowboys fan).
What are your thoughts on the subreddit SRS? I know most people will view this from a "lost karma" perspective, but I don't care about karma, I mean from the perspective that a lot of thoughts and ideas are downvoted and never seen because this group doesn't agree with their thoughts. In my opinion, it kind of kills the spirit of reddit. Also, what are your thoughts on subreddits like /picsofdeadkids and /beatingwomen (or whatever its called)? Do you feel that these are ruining the credibility of the site?	I, like most, find people who use the reddit platform for awful stuff to be awful people. Just like @deadbabygoon (I didn't spend much time looking but this is rather offensive) doesn't ruin the credibility of twitter, I don't see why these awful reddits would ruin the credibility of the reddit platform.
Do you feel like there is enough sexism/racism/homophobia etc on Reddit to warrant a subreddit like SRS?	I think there's enough sexism/racism/homophobia in the world to warrant people calling it out when it happens.
	Clarification: (that means yes, it's everywhere)
Do you have any opinion on Reddit no longer being the bastion of intellectuality it once was?	You'd be hard-pressed find me calling it that, ever.
	I look at reddit as a platform, not unlike, say, YouTube, where I can go see an inane video of a dimwitted human hurting himself on camera, but I can also use it to watch Carl Sagan (which I highly recommend and I hope you'd agree is at least intellectual).
	Like wise, Twitter lets me follow Nick Kristoff (I loved Half the Sky and girls' education in the developing world has been a big project of mine for the last few years through breadpig - here's the first school we visited in Laos that Room To Read built with the profits from our first book, xkcd: vol 0). Other can use it to follow someone like Chris Brown.
	Please don't confuse the platform with the humans using it.
Quick question. Why does that administration still cling to the name "reddits" when the community almost exclusively calls them "subreddits"? GET WITH THE TIMES, OLD MAN.	That's a question for Yishan ;) I'll bring it up at the next board meeting.
What's your thoughts on /yishansucks ?	Funny. Bonus: his wife subscribes to it.
Ah, leave the big questions to the new CEO. very smart. slow applause	OK, but seriously, I have no idea. Shorter is usually better, but, yeah...
Hey Alexis, thanks for doing this!!	Sure! Just learned about /upliftingnews yesterday. My fave of the moment.
Fairly simple question: what are your favorite and least favorite subreddits?	Least favorite? /Cowboys
You would be well received in /nfl my friend.	Oh, I'm there. And trying so damned hard to get /redskins an RG3 appearance.
	Also, Chris Berman once made fun of me and my buddies. That was awesome.
When I found out about /upliftingnews yesterday, I felt like I had been living behind the moon. Good to know that that's where the Reddit founder lives, too.	We should get a duplex together. Or be space roommates?
Just to let you know Romo will get his ring this year. So...^suck ^it.	I hope so. He gets awfully upset when he doesn't get what he wants ;)
	Edit: OK, one more video. I have this saved on my laptop and watch it literally every week when I need a boost.
Alexis just 'fuck the Cowboys'd. Serious god damn hard on.	You really don't want to see me on gameday at FedEx. One day footage of that is going to get online and it'll be the end of me.
Hey I was at that game! I can confirm I didn't see you doing that. But now I did. Go skins HTTR.	Woo! Look for me. Always with the Sean Taylor banner. Say something about narwhals and I'll buy you a $10 fedex beer!
The two RG3 vs Vick games are gonna be insta-classics. Cant wait! Ps Romo sucks balls.	Agreed on both counts.
Can we get a rule, in honor of A.O., that allows Cowboy losses to be posted to upliftingnews?	LOL. What have I done....
Now that I think about it, pretty sure I ALWAYS see you guys being awesomely fannish. I'm usually opposite side club level. Beware I will be shouting narwhals at you from afar.	We're being insane, that's what we're being. See you at the Colts opener (I'll be tamer because it's pre-season).
The founder of Reddit owns Karma. You heard it here first, people.	She definitely owns me. But owning Karma was the best decision I made right along with investing in reddit gold!
The founder of Reddit doesn't take many pictures of his cat. My world has just been shattered.	I do talk to her in a weird higher-pitched voice, though.
Your cat is business cat.	She is! She broke the glass ceiling with her paws!!!
Here's an exercise montage starring Karma.	I had to watch it again and when I did she came running over.... she's getting fit I tellz yah.
When she behaves badly, do you look at your gf and say "Karma's a bitch"?	LOL. Nice. Only if she were a dog ;)
	I do say "Good Karma" when she's good, which she always is. And sometimes "Bad Karma!"
What is this "reddit" you speak of?	Just a pinterest clone.
Who was your favorite coworker at reddit? (don't worry, I won't tell anyone your answer).	The intern.
What are your thoughts on the whole Funnyjunk/Oatmeal ordeal?	The whole thing is ridiculous. And just when it can't get any more absurd - it does!
	So what I'm saying is this.
In your opinion, why did reddit succeed and digg fail when digg had such a huge head start?	Basically, we always moved toward the best interests of users and they went the opposite way.
	Longer version here. And here.
What are your thoughts on the Reddit Enhancement Suite? And what do you think could make it better?	It's nifty. I don't actually use it anymore, but mostly because I'm content without it. (and lazy?). That said, I don't have any good feedback :(
	The biggest product enhancement reddit needs atm imho is subreddit discovery, which we're working on. That'll be a glorious day when we nail it.
The day that reddit becomes totally homogeneous.	No no! People will subscribe to the subreddits they want to follow, not unlike how people use twitter to pick & choose to follow the communities they're interested in.
Hey Alexis! When you initially started the website, what were your hopes for it?	Steve and I just wanted to create a place where we could always come and find something new & interesting online.
	Oh, and cats. Please spay & neuter!
I recently read about how you and Steve made hundreds of fake accounts at the beginning to get the site going. How much of your time was consumed with gathering useful links and posting them and how exciting was it to start seeing the site grow and people other than you and Steve upvoting those links?	Not hundreds. Maybe tens. I don't have a good enough memory. We submitted links (there were no comments back then) for the first month or so while we bugged friends into helping. The day about a month an a half in when we didn't have to do anything, submit a link, or even vote, was awesome, because we'd set a tone and apparently people didn't hate. it. I'm always telling people about the 1% rule) and why it's so important to treat those first hundred users well.
	Remember, there was no 'social media' to speak of back in 2005, so all I had to spread the word was begging small bloggers to do writeups about a company they'd never heard of with a misspelled name and silly mascot.
You know one thing I've always wondered is, how much work went in to the website on a daily basis back when you were CEO? And another question, how did it feel when the website made it this big? You must've had some bragging rights. :D.	Fortunately, most people don't know what I look like. I even got taunted by a guy at an /NYC meetup a little while back because he asked how long I'd been using reddit and I said I'd been a user for quite some time, joking that it was "before reddit was popular."
How long did it take you guys to reach 10k users? Is there a chart somewhere?	Oof. Hmm.. you're in luck. I found an old pdf from keysersosa that he hacked together back in the day.... You can see when we launched a little less than a month into YC.
	Also! If you enjoyed this, you should email chris AT hipmunk.com right now and DEMAND that he do an AMA. He's our first hire at reddit and pretty close to that at hipmunk -- chief scientist and smartest dude in the room. He's a Physics PHD from that safety school, Harvard.
Well I guess the anger could come because of hipsters really. I met a hipster not too long ago in the nearest city to me, complete with ironic hat & glasses, and I found him ridiculous. But yeah I mean some people are just irationally angry I guess. Also I can't believe you replied to me.	But I don't have hat or glasses :( I was wearing a plaid shirt though. MFA would be proud?
If you were to do it differently, would you? Or has the journey so far been worth it?	There are plenty of things I'd do differently, but I wouldn't want to fuck anything up ;)
Alternatively, did you ever see yourself getting to this point?	I expected to be President of the Universe and wielding a real lightsaber by 25, so really everything has been a disappointment.
I've actually have been hoping you were going to do one of these! I have a lot of questions for you!	Barev!
Do you think you have become an inspiration to many young Armenian and Armenian-Americans.	I don't know. I did an interview with Yerevan Magazine and another Armenian publication. I grew up in a suburb of Maryland where I didn't know many Armenians so I was rather isolated from that half of my identity. I knew the history (and food!) of course, but I grew up far from Glendale. I actually know the community in Yerevan better from my 3 months living there. But if I can inspire, that's awesome. I get inspired by people I don't even know on reddit every day.
What type of influence did the Armenian Culture have in your career.	I hate to bring it back to the genocide, but knowing what sacrifices my relatives made was incredibly motivating. As is the case with many immigrant stories, it creates invaluable perspective. I got to go out-of-state to UVA ($$$) without a single student loan because my great aunt, Vera Ohanian, saved money all her life for my college fund. She had no children of her own and wanted to be sure that I could go anywhere I wanted for college. So you can be damned sure that when I got to UVA, I took full advantage of the tuition. That's why I double majored in business and history (with high honors) and minored in german. I was told by deans that they'd never seen anyone complete a distinguished majors degree in the college and a degree in the business school and a minor to boot, all in 4 years.
What is the greatest thing you experienced when you visited Armenia?	But maybe they didn't meet many Armenians ;) we're tenacious.
Do you like khorovats? And if you do, how does it compare to most American Foods!	Fresh lavash. Oh, and apricots.
You are a huge inspiration for me! I hope I can do great things as an Armenian just like you!	I must've eaten it every other day in Armenia. I don't eat a lot of meat these days, but as a general rule I wish 'the typical American diet' were less based around packaged and fast food. The long-term effects of this are going to be awful.
Here's an interview he did about the story of reddit, and some of his personal life. One of the best interviews I've seen. Really hit me hard for some reason. Edit: Here's a text version of the story written by Alexis himself. It's really a touching story.	Ah, thanks, that was the first time I was ever asked about my mom. I don't talk about it a lot. The whole thing was pretty cathartic. I was happy I did it.
Having been through "mom has cancer" and "daughter has cancer", dude...you are an inspiration. Thanks.	Fuck. I'm so sorry. I couldn't even fathom... but for what it's worth, I'm wishing you all the best. And if she's old enough to like reddit I'll send her something cool, just email me contact at alexisohanian.com.
That's a lot to go through, especially when rolling out a huge site like this. You've got my respect for sure! Also cancer sucks.	It does. I'd had such a great, stress-free life until that summer. I knew it would happen, just not all at once ;) but so it goes. I know I'm still 100000x better off than most. But it sure makes you appreciate things. And fuck cancer.
Also, fuck cancer.
Do you get a lot of pressure to more effectively monetize Reddit?	I'm the one putting pressure on our CEO, Yishan :)
	In all seriousness though, we never want to sacrifice the community for revenue. We've grown (costs) slowly by having a small team and I believe we can keep that up while also responsibly growing the business.
	Stay tuned. Yishan and the team have some nifty ideas...
When it started did you ever have any wild ideas in how you might monetize or was it really all about creating something people love?	We thought if we could in fact become 'the front page of the web' it'd be valuable real estate to advertise on. Little did investors know we'd want to be so good to our users and not have obnoxious ads ;)
	But sponsored headlines have been a not-awful way to make money in that they both make money and it's not an awful user experience (sometimes actually kinda fun with commenting).
How have you seen reddit gold play in to this monetization? Is it an actual source of revenue or is it more like a fun optional "proudly show your support for reddit" kind of thing?	More of the latter. But it's given us some great ideas because of how it's gifted. I totally stole the idea from Drew Curtis btw (Total Fark) - he's a gentleman about it.
When I visit Drunken_economist in NYC, you want to grab a beer?	Let's just tie it to a /nyc meetup?
Have you ever posted pics anonymously in GoneWild?	No. No one wants to see that.
I disagree. You're one of the top all time on /ladyboners. Link to www.reddit.com.	I just can't help but feel like you're about to spring a joke on me....
I imagine thousands of people reading this AMA disagree. I am not one of them.	They've all mistaken me for Ted Mosby :)
What's the most disgusting thing you've seen on the internet? or Reddit in general?	I used to occasionally visit rotten back in high school. It's a shame you can't un-see things, but I'm not sure what I'd say is most disgusting.
	I'm the kind of person who'd much rather look at photos of kittens, anyway.
Thanks for making awesome things for all of us to use and enjoy. My questions-	Sorry for the delay!
In your role as YC ambassador, you probably read a ton of applications from hopeful startup founders. What makes an application stand out? Conversely, what sort of things on an app would cause you to hesitate in moving it forward in the application process?	Quite a few. And it gets harder each round because quality and volume go up. I'm not actually the best person at YC to ask because I don't have nearly as much data as the partners. But we want to see a team we can believe in, which we largely gather from what they've built together in the past. It's not a science, though, and it continues to impress me that YC has had consistently great rounds of startups (FD: I'm an employee of YC and investor in a bunch of startups)
Do you think it's necessary to move out to the bay area to be successful in today's startup world? What are some other great places to work on a tech-related startup?	Definitely not! We started and sold reddit from Medford and Somerville, MA! And I live in NY now not just because I was born here and family is close and I love New York, but it's also a great place to do a startup. Only downside is our Mexican food isn't as good as SF, but I'm dealing with that.
Question: have you ever tried pizza with ranch dressing?	I have tried pizza with ranch dressing. My girlfriend enlightened me. Did you know: Papa John's has a bunch of other random 'dipping sauces'? Not just their buttegarlic stuff, but also ranch, and then some really random (not good) stuff... cheese sauce....
Had no idea -- but then again, I've never eaten Papa John's in my entire life. I've had Dominos more times than any human should. Their deep-dish pizza is disgustingly good. Also, their cheesy bread, holy shit.	I was a Pizza Hut dishwashecook/waiter through most of high school. After I left, I never ate there again. I'd always been partial to PJ, but recently tried the new Domino's - everything went better than expected. I might give it a second go. I live in Brooklyn, though, so it's my guilty pleasure to order delivery PJ's from time to time. Please don't tell anyone or post this knowledge on a public forum.
Can you ban Karmanaut?	I don't have those powers anymore.
Can you pull a Superman II and drain the other admin's powers while being safe in the chamber?	Only when Jedberg is not wearing his pants.
	So basically whenever.
Where do you see Reddit in 10 years? What will you do to stop Reddit from becoming Youtube Comments? This is a real concern.	The commenting system Steve built is a thing of beauty. Yes, pun threads win the day in the more mainstream subreddits, but take a look somewhere like /askscience. It's pretty awesome.
	With that and better subreddit discovery, I'm hopeful we can continue to grow this vast network of varied subreddits an communities all over the internet can continue to share and discuss great web content.
Do you wear long socks or short socks?	Long socks. I love bizarre, colorful dress socks and wish I had more of them.
Do you think it is harder to start-up a project than it was back in 2005?	Easier! Launching hipmunk compared to reddit was night and day because of all the different ways people can now share awesome things. Granted, there's more competition, but it's only gotten cheaper and easier to get something going (e.g., we had to order servers from newegg, build them, and install them in the colo facility back in 2005 -- now just AMEX the AMZN EC2/S3 account or just heroku it!)
I tell people all the time that I graduated with the guy who co-founded Reddit, as if we know each other. We clearly do not. But thanks for giving me some cred, dude :)	Oh hai! Nicely done. Feel free to namedrop. I'll even photoshop a photo of us high5ing on the Lawn if it helps.
Any thoughts on the Teresa Sullivan debacle?	I'm just in awe of the whole thing. It seems super shady. And as a regular donor to the university, I've told fundraising that I'm holding off until this gets a satisfactory resolution.
Is your cat an inside or outside cat?	Inside. I live in Brooklyn. She wouldn't last long outside - she was maybe a month or so old when the shelter found her and she hasn't been outside since. I thought about getting a leash though....
Yowza that made the tears stream pretty freely, it does lead to another question though, had circumstances been different and your mother health not been an issue would you have held onto reddit longer?	Maybe. But the benefit of hindsight and experience would've had even more of an impact. Ultimately, I don't spend a second wondering. I've been really fortunate with the way things turned out (and continue to turn out). No regrets.
Ignoring the internet drama portions, you have to admit that "witchhunting" is a rather serious flaw in the community and site. The fact that users can be targeted and effectively silenced with a sea of downvotes solely because the community hates them (because of legitimate reasons or misunderstandings) is a violation of redditquette on a massive scale. Do you have any idea of how to fix this issue? Do you think it's an issue that even needs fixing?	Witchhunting is a flaw of human behavior, which admins can only do so much against. I have no idea of how to fix it from a software pov, beyond what we're presently doing.
One thing I really admire is that you've seemed to stay so level-headed throughout all the media coverage and success that you've had- is this difficult? Your public image is unique- you're painted as a jokester yet still taken very seriously. How often are you evaluating your statements and making sure you're words aren't being interpreted the wrong way?	Interesting. I don't think too much about my public image but what you're telling me could be a lot worse ;)
	All of the live TV coverage SOPA/PIPA brought was a great education in how to deliver a message in a short time period to a distracted audience. I was pretty awful at first, but I dug through feedback in reddit/HN/twitter comments and rewatched tape of masters in the medium (e.g., Hitch) to figure out craft soundbytes that the format craves.
	I've improved, but I'm always very critical about my appearances because I know there's stuff I'd like to do differently next time. e.g. I was on CNN this am talking about the reddit fundraisier for the bus monitor and I should've been wayyyyy more succinct.
I demand you be allowed to link to your tumblr in your posts.	Wha?
Is Alexis aware of how Roy was using his alt's to censor you across the boards?	Edit: Oh! Sorry, I thought you were talking about censoring me - I got super confused. Yes yes. I know about this.
If you could urinate any one liquid without anatomical difficulty, what would it be and why?	Potable water. Think of all the water I'd save ;)
Here's a source for Albub's gender claim. The chart maker got their numbers from Google Ad Planner and here's the full breakdown of their data.	Thanks. Well, hmm, I wish we had better data for this -- even our internal demographic data just comes from surveys...
	Anyway, I do agree that it's anecdotally male (reddit) // female (pinterest), but like I said, the user behavior on both sites is fundamentally different. I'm curious to see what the demographics of both platforms look like a few years from now....
Which is your favorite restaurant in Brooklyn?	Colonie or Iris Cafe. They're my two neigborhood jams. The former was the first restaurant funded on kickstarter and a welcome fancypants addition to the dinner scene. Iris Cafe is the friendly neighborhood place where people know your name and have great avocado toast and iced coffee.
Right? When Grimaldi's is right there.	Guilty pleasure! :( the sauce!
Hey Alexis! Can we expect to see you at the next PennApps in September? We'd love to have you judge :)	Hmm, I'd like to, I think I got an email about this. The two big things right now are #1 finishing writing my book (plug!) and #2 not traveling on Redskins home games. If I can satisfy both of these, then yes. Thank you for the invite :)
Why were you so active in the fight against SOPA but seemed withdrawn from the CISPA debate?	Link to duckduckgo.com
	CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Forbes....
	And had lunch with Rep. Issa, although it didn't actually happen until after he voted yes, where I askedreddit beforehand what I should ask him.
How did you like Howard High? All of the students here pride in the fact that you are a Lion Alumni.	Whoa?! Are you serious??? I'm being presumptuous but I'd love to speak at a graduation....
Do you speak at conferences? Who do I contact?	I do! Quite a bit, in fact. You can see my past speaking gigs on the left rail of my website, alexisohanian.com. All my gigs go thru Jeff Lesh: JLesh AT wmeentertainment.com.
If you could trade the whole Reddit experience for a week long threesome with Angelina Jolie and Nathalie Portlan, would you do it?	Maybe, if it were Natalie Portman, I don't know who that other woman is ;)
Hi Alexis! Nice to see you're Armenian like myself! What kind of Armenian are you and where did you grow up?	I'm only half, but it's my best half! I grew up in Columbia, MD.

Last updated: 2012-06-26 20:07 UTC
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