The Long Dreary Days Of February

 

This is such a bleak time of year.  I've escaped a couple of times, to Mexico and California, but despite the reprieve you know you're headed back to your little suburban prison of ice.  It's the second week of February and this is the point when the calendar in NE Ohio has turned from "The Abyss" straight to "Soul Sucking".  We haven't had a winter like this in a long time, which will no doubt embolden every moron I know to reveal themselves as such on social media saying things like "It was 14 degrees today.  So much for Global Warming!" as if they just landed the ultimate "gotcha".  For the record, it's "climate change" not "global warming" and there are easily accessible data points on outlier drastic weather events, water accessibility issues, frost, hail, deluge rains, extended droughts, heat spikes, introduction of new pests into regions without natural predators, and...  It's exhausting.  Why does every debate now have to be with complete morons that have no information on the topic yet are completely positive they have it all figured out?

Football is over so even that distraction is gone.  There are some people around me that are into the Olympics but I just can't get into sitting there and watching ice dancing or luge.  I think I'd like to take a luge run assuming I could do so without shattering my spine, an outcome that seems unclear, but I don't have any interest whatsoever in watching some dude from Poland jet down an ice chute.  I was asking one of my riveted friends about what the point is of getting all jacked up about whoever emerges as the women's mogul champion as whoever that is will be largely forgotten by those outside of that niche inner circle in about ten minutes.  You spend your entire life to become the best in the world in mogul skiing and then what happens?  He then gave me the response that seems to be the end game of everyone in our attention currency culture.  "She will cash in on the internet."

This idea of gaining huge wealth because you are either a notorious person or physically very desirable and you will gain vasts sums of money by putting images of yourself online is our current version of "writing it off on taxes".  Much like the elusive tax write off, the nuts and bolts of how people actually make money on short bursts of fame is very unclear.  The guys that own my gym are absolutely convinced that all women who are on OnlyFans are funding glamorous carefree lifestyles for themselves by adopting the lifestyle of a low rent porn star, which seems unlikely to me.  "No, you just don't know."  Look, I have no clue as to what the economics are in that world, so maybe I'm wrong.  My thinking is that only the platform and the performers with leverage make money just like the world of music streaming, TikTok and YouTube.  Why we have allowed people the produce no ideas or products to become filthy rich and have vast control over the minds of the population, I have no idea.  I decided to take a deep dive into it.  Are there untold riches available to those that win a gold medal in women's moguls?  Is there more at stake than being the best in the world at something sorta weird that not many people even attempt?

I looked into women's skiing sponsorships.  I turns out that if you are good enough (and healthy enough) to be in the top 5 of the sport, companies like Red Bull, Rolex and Porsche can drive sponsor dollars to the top 3 stars to about $10-25 million annually.  Hey, that's pretty good money.  The problem is there is a massive dropoff after that with a 2018 report showing that those not in the Top 10 earn only $30,000 a year from the sport.  The costs of training and travel are out of pocket, so for most of them they are at a loss.  It can't be cheap to spend all your time in ski resort towns in Colorado, Switzerland, and Austria.  For example, when is the last time you saw someone at a WalMart strolling by you who then passed you a few weeks later with a hot chocolate in Gstaad Switzerland?

Maybe by "the internet" they mean social media.  OK, so let's say that you need to get social media going where you build a community where you sell some merchandise and have ads running on your professionally shot video clips.  Now you're tapping into the murky world of "influencer money".  If you have 10,000 to 50,000 followers you are a "micro influencer" in that industry.  They'll get paid $100 to $1000 depending on the product and level of endorsement.  The women that took the silver medal?  She has 20,000 followers.  Here's the other problem on this front.  Your content needs to be very high quality to boost engagement.  If people aren't reacting to the stuff, you can't convince potential sponsors to give you money.  I read a line about skiing content creation that an annual budget will be $50,000+ a year for logistics, filming, post-production and travel.  The gross take on these accounts tends to be $100,000 for very noteworthy personalities.  Net, $50,000... 

OK... So let's say you're more morally flexible and don't mind getting naked or having sex on video.  It seems like you'll lose all of your Red Bull money, but it's time to get paid!  I have been consistently assured that all these women are making MILLIONS on OnlyFans.  According to an article on Reuters, an average OnlyFans model makes $2.06 per subscriber.  The top .1% of creators make 76% of the revenue.  Only 4.2% of site users spend money.  The median revenue generated per month is $180.  So wait... You mean a few people with these accounts are like Beyonce/Taylor Swift and everyone else is is playing first on a three band bill at the Happy Dog on a Wednesday?  Hmmm... Looks like this isn't the answer to the financial problem either.  By the way, the owners of the OnlyFans platform itself make $1.9M A DAY.  He would be the "pimp" in this relationship for those of you keeping score.  

Now I'm really out on all this Olympics malarky.  There is only one thing to do.  Focus on MLB futures win totals.  Much like in 2024 when the Oakland A's took me to the promised land and in 2025 when my beloved Brewers came up big, I will be searching for a team to put an uncomfortable amount of money on to help conjure up some enthusiasm for MLB across the entire Spring/Summer.  It's tough going into it because the teams I'm looking for have a few key qualities.

- They need to be flying under the radar.   It is very challenging to find an edge in betting on the Dodgers or Yankees.  These teams are dissected daily on national sports programs much less their major media market content farmers.  What am I going to figure out before a dialed in MLB fan about the Yankees pitching rotation?  There is no edge to be had there.  Yankees, Mets, Phillies, Dodgers, Cubs, and Red Sox are out right off the bat.

- They need to be hovering with expectations around 75-82 wins.  I have spent a season locked into bad teams like my doomed bet against the White Sox last year, and nothing is worse than watching a Tuesday night White Sox game at home versus the Royals in July with no one in the stands.  Watching the Marlins play indoors all year?  No way.  Nationals and Rockies are too grim.  I just can't do it.  I'm looking for a team that I can get behind that could, just maybe, slip into the Playoffs as a Wild Card.

- The team needs to have wearable gear.  Look, if I'm getting behind the team, I'm going ALL IN.  I have a bunch of A's and Brewers stuff now, and there is nothing like getting stopped in the supermarket by someone asking you if you're a fan and then getting into how excited you are about Sal Frelick's play in right field for the Brew Crew.  I can't back the Reds because if I'm walking around in that red cap people might think I'm a Nazi Trumper.  The Rays, while a well run organization, have largely terrible gear.  I'm out on them too.  I can't see myself in baby blue Royals shit all season.  It's really a illogical but important component to this wager.

- Is there is disconnect between the line and the sabermetrics totals?   This is an absolute key for consideration.  Right now my main focus on my 2026 Team Of Destiny are the following teams based on what the geek patrol sees as gaps in perception versus realistic outcome.  I am taking a hard look at the Pirates, Twins and Braves for the OVER.  I also like to bet against a team I think is vastly overrated.  Teams under consideration for further analysis include the Guardians, Red Sox, Phillies and Padres.

I expect to kill the rest of February cooped up inside reading about wine and studying baseball spread sheets looking for value.  While some foolishly involves themselves in the stock market or bitcoin, I think we can all agree that the real action is on what are the implications of the Pirates trading Mitch Keller?  There is much to consider.  I will be releasing these results in mid-March, with enough time for you to jump on board this train bound for glory and get your new cap by opening day.   

2025 NFL Season Total Record:  41-33         

Mock Exams and Super Bowl Week

 

I attended the Master of Wine seminar this week in Santa Rosa CA, a more budget minded stay than glamorous nearby Napa Valley on the other side of the mountains.  I prefer Sonoma to Napa these days as Napa is now in a doomsday spiral of “premiumization” where each winery and restaurant is trying to outdo each other on who can be the most focused on conspicuous spending.  While there are plenty of great wines and places to eat, after all, an unlimited budget can really help deliver results, it’s all a bit of overkill.  Sonoma, while hardly a cheap place to hang out, is very conscious of not becoming Napa.  Of course this means they sell $75 wines instead of $175 wines, so it’s sort of splitting hairs at that point.  Still, the people are nice and the weather is good, so it’s a good stay in February.

I did four consecutive mock exams on Tuesday through Friday.  What that means is I have 12 wines poured in front of me and I must identify them blind and write full page notes on why I came to conclusion I did.  That went first thing in the morning from 800a to 10:15a.  It sounds sort of easy until you have to fill up a 16-page test paper with writing on conclusions you arrived at moving very swiftly with the pressure of not looking like an asshole in front of your peers, some of the best blind wine tasters in the world.  The time is about two minutes per wine for identification, which is faster than it sounds, and then the writing is 9 minutes per wine.  

What has become the most challenging part for me now is the writing, which you wouldn’t think would be that big of an issue for a guy the writes as much as I do.  I find it difficult sometimes to write not only the basic facts of what they are looking for, but the way they want it written.  Like If the question was “what kind of bird is this?” and they showed you a photo of Daffy Duck, you’d immediately know it’s a duck because, well… you know what a duck looks like.  However, can you prove that Daffy is a duck in a series of logical statements?  It has to be written something like this:  “Evidence of feathers points to being a bird.  Lack of scales or fur confirms the creature is a bird.  Evidence of a billed mouth and ability to swim points to waterfowl.  Webbed feet confirms water based bird.  Considered duck and goose as identity.  Dark feathers and ringed patterned neck consistent with duck.  Orange tinted bill confirms duck as goose would have white feather and black elongated type bill.  Considered Looney Toons and Mallard type duck.  Black feathers and white patterned neck, 12 pound body weight confirms Looney Toons species.”  So, I did that for four days with a bunch of weird ass wines and then tried to defend my point in group settings for saying a late harvest Gruner Veltliner from Austria was a reasonable miss on something I painstakingly wrote an answer for that I thought was a warm vintage Vendage Tardives Riesling from Alsace.  It’s all sort of ridiculous as nobody but the people in this room really care, but that’s how I spent the week.

The great news was that I was able to avoid all the banal Super Bowl hype.  The worst part of that is the NFL threatening to sue anyone that even says “Super Bowl” out loud which is perhaps the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.  Maybe FIFA will come and knock down your door with a bunch of ICE goons if you say “World Cup” out loud but I don’t think they’ll do that.  They have the wherewithal to understand that all publicity is good publicity, and if a chicken wing bar wants to advertise a “World Cup Finals Party” it’s good for the brand.  The NFL is a bunch of fuckers though.  They don’t want most of the money on the table.  They want ALL of the money on the table.  

I was talking with Krusty about this year’s game and it seems odd that all the chatter from the sports gambling community is centered around props.  I haven’t heard anyone floating out speculation on who is going to win the game, with an even more muted level of conversation than when some of those Cowboys and Niners monster teams were clearly going to fucking destroy their second rate foes.  Gen Z dudes like betting props and parlays, so that’s where all the public money and interest is focused.  I don’t really understand that thinking as to me, the Seahawks are clearly the better of the two teams and at the Draft Kings opening line of -3.5 seem like a gift.  Nobody seems to give a shit though.  

The Seahawks metrics are really good.  They are top 8 for almost anything you want to rank a good football team on.  They won the #1 seed and beat the Rams twice (a team I still think is the better team BTW), and had to tangle with the 49ers twice.  The only real question is our national agreement on refusing to believe that Sam Darnold is not going to flame out in the bright lights despite putting up two 13+ win seasons in a row on two different teams as a Top 3 overall draft pick pedigree QB.  I think he just had to scrub the Jets off him and that takes time, but who knows what happened there?  All I know is that he’s been solid, but the real thing that sells me on Seattle is how good their defense has been.  If you have a tough defensive team in these big games, that’s usually who has the edge.

The other key to this game to me is the Patriots schedule.  Look, I know you can only beat who is on your schedule, but what are this team’s best wins?  Beating Buffalo on the road I guess?  The Playoffs were a dream scenario for them.  You had Stroud putting up maybe the single worst playoff game performance I have seen since Brian Hoyer flamed out as a Texan and threw like 5 INTS.  Stroud singlehandedly lost that game for Houston.  Brutal.  Then they get to play a Broncos team that had to run out a backup that hadn’t played a game in over two years.  That’s not exactly the same run as beating the Niners and Rams, is it?  At a certain point you’d want to look at the Patriots and think, “OK, these guys are a Top 5 NFL team”, and I just don’t think that’s possible with the data set we have in front of us.  I’m on the better team who played the much tougher schedule with who I think also has the better Xs and Os coach.  Seattle -3.5