Generally, we here at SB Nation tend to steer away from the content at Bleacher Report. The reasons are plenty, the top reason being that you are never certain it is original content, or if the "author" has simple stolen it from another source, published it, and claimed it as their own. The ethics of online journalism aside, it is downright thievery. How the editors or whoever is in charge there hasn't implemented a massive crack down is beyond me.
The second reason we tend to avoid Bleacher Report is because more often than not, the content contains some sort of photo shoot of half naked women. While I am all in favor of the female form, and appreciate it as much as the next, when half of your content is lists of "The Top Ten Underboobs in Sports," it tends to erode your credibility as a resource for actual sports insight. You want to be a T&A site, so be it, but don't try to sell yourself as anything but that.
The final reason to avoid the sewer of information that is Bleacher Report? Because it will make you dumber for having read it. The best way to sum up this thought is near the end of the movie Billy Madison:
Without forcing you to go and sift through the mountain of drivel, it is difficult to express to you just how bad the content is. I leave it to you. Have 15 minutes of your life you don't need anymore? Head over and kill some brain cells without even the courtesy of a good buzz to accompany it.
Unfortunately, one of the downsides of being a crack SB Nation reporter is that you are forced to suffer for the readers. We dig into to every corner of the web to find the information we feel you need to have at your fingertips. In doing so, we are exposed to some of the worst forms of what people describe liberally as "writing." Remember, we do it for you.
No need for a ceremony, you can just mail me the medal.
Today, we have a classic example of the multiple ways that Bleacher Report can make your head hurt for days at a time. In a post entitled "Minnesota Wild and Gophers Should Pay for Roof on Vikings' New Stadium," Andrew Rosten gives us a rip off of a piece that must have been written by someone of relation to him, Drew Rosten. The original can be found over at Drew Rosten's Sports Thread.
Who wrote the original? Who knows. What we do know is this. The entire idea of it is absolutely ludicrous. Why, dear Mr. Rostens, would the Wild wish to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to put a roof on the professional football stadium, that the Vikings don't even want? Turns out, which ever Rosten actually wrote this has that answer for us... outdoor hockey.
Yes, really.
This year's Winter Classic, played at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh between the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins, drew a capacity crowd of 68,111 and 4.65 million viewers on NBC. This is despite the game being delayed for about seven hours due to rain.
Outdoor hockey is a trend that hasn't been limited to the NHL. In December, Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor hosted a winter classic between Michigan State and Michigan's hockey, a game that broke the record for most fans witnessing a live hockey game with an attendance of 113,411.
Just imagine what kind of crowds and viewers the Wild and Minnesota hockey teams could attract by playing at the open-roofed new Vikings stadium. It would provide the potential for publicity that would more than make up for the cost of one-third of a retractable roof.
Let me be crystal clear on this point. The Rosten boys feel the Wild should spend their own money to put a multi-million dollar roof on a building they would then use just one time. The Winter Classic is not something that comes to town every year, so where is the financial benefit for Craig Leipold? Follow the money, boys. Unless Mr. Leipold gets some kind of cut from every Vikings game ever played, he isn't going to do this.
Real money. This isn't NHL11. This is the real world. A cost benefit analysis by a second grader figures this is a bad idea.
What about that proposed outdoor college game for the Gophers. Surely, that will make the university jump at the chance to shell out the cash to the Vikings, right? Again... the game would happen one time. Just once. Also, where so the Rosten boys think the money for the University to give to the Vikings would come from? Every dime the U gets comes from... wait for it... taxpayers. If the taxpayers are already paying 2/3 of the bill, why do they want another tax-based institution kicking in?
Wait... they have the long term gain for both detailed out.
First:
And I'm sure the Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball team wouldn't mind hosting the Final Four, or at least the Big Ten Tournament.
Did the Target Center suddenly implode? Did we determine the Dome wasn't worth fixing, and no one told us? One more rhetorical question: did the Rosten boys think this through at all?
Turns out it wasn't just a dumb idea given a bullhorn, they actually buy into their own mind numbing line of thinking. In defense of the idea, in the comment section, Andrew adds this:
The point of my article, however, was not to propose a good place to have outdoor hockey in Minnesota. The point of my article was to propose an idea that would create a stadium-funding solution that would keep the Vikings in Minnesota.
If Minneapolis loses the Vikings to relocation, it could have a very devastating effect on the economy. The economic hit would cut jobs in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, forcing some out-of-work natives to give up on purchasing Wild tickets, forcing the Wild to relocate as well (which, by the way, wouldn't be the first time an NHL franchise moved from Minnesota).
So, in the long run, it might be a good idea for the Wild to pony up some money for the Vikings' stadium.
Let that soak in for a moment. If the Wild do not provide for the Vikings to have a new roof, the Vikings will leave town, the people who are now out of work due to the Vikings leaving will have enough of a ripple effect in the economy that the Wild will lose so many paying fans that they, too will be forced to leave town. Never mind the fact that the Vikings don't want a roof.
And where exactly are the Twins and Timberwolves on this deal? If the Wild are going to lose ticket buyers and be forced to leave town, why aren't the Twins and the Wolves? Truly, if this line of thinking is to be followed, then the Lynx, the Saints, and the NSC Stars should all contribute as well.
Honestly, I am not sure how major retailers like Target, Wal-Mart and The Home Depot are avoiding pitching in their share, too. If the Vikes leave, the out of work people can't buy things at those stores, so they will have to leave town as well. Right?
Even better, since the Vikings leaving town is going to cost those people their jobs, maybe they should chip in, too. In fact, to save those jobs, maybe everyone in the state should contribute, say through some kind of mandatory payment, garnished directly from their paychecks each week and collected by a central governmental agency. That way, the Vikings get their roof they don't want, and everybody wins.
Look, Misters (mister?) Rosten, I don't have any issue with outside the box thinking, but this idea only works as a piece of comedy to lighten the mood at the Capital while the lawmakers debate the issue. If this was an idea born of a little too much Cannabis sativa, just let us know. We get it. Ideas that sound good when drunk or stoned sound really good when drunk or stoned.
Next time, just make sure you rethink it while sober before putting it out into the world where other people will read it.