Admittedly, I'm a college football nut and honestly am thrilled that Bowl Season has become a month-long, non-stop festival of games - but as I was flipping through the tube today and came upon the "Little Caesars Bowl" showing a Dec 26 match up between Marshall and Ohio, I had to wonder, "Who Cares?!"

Surely the local fans in Detroit weren't adding "Tickets to the Little Caeser Bowl" to their Xmas wish list - and I can't imagine the 8 football fans from Ohio Univ (not Oh St) bothered spending their holiday in a hotel in suburban Detroit, gearing up in anticipation for today's early kick. Between "We Are Marshall" and that awesome teammate-literally-carrying-him drive by Byron Leftwich in the GMAC Bowl many moons ago, we are admittedly rooting for the Thundering Herd - but we cant imagine that many West Virginian's are hopping on a plane to the D-Town to watch.

While we get that bowls are a nice reward to a decent season - keep in mind that Marshall finished 6-6 and their coach is "resigning" after this game - and we know that they help bring in revenues for the schools to fund scholarships, blah, blah, blah - but we are left scratching our heads as to why they even bothered to make this game, let alone play it. The only humorous part of the story is that they couldn't have possibly have found a better sponsor, bc if you eat a slice of Little Caesars pizza I suspect you will soon agree that you'd rather go hungry than have another piece.

Looks like this guy just had a slice of pepperoni at the Little Caesars bowl.

Over in the UK this idea of fan's running a sports team has been around for a little while and we've made some new friends who are working on a very similar model as Project Franchise. The group is Five Pound Football Club and basically for 5 of their British bucks you can own a share of a yet to be determined "football" team. While we aren't really the biggest soccer fans, we are fans of beer and screaming our bloody heads off in the stands, so these guys seem pretty ok with us - plus they want to buy a team in Ireland, which we hear invented Guinness and St Patricks Day, so score 2 for the guys who talk funny.

Overall they seem to have a great concept and are really focusing on the fans perspective to help shape how they run the team. If you're reading this from the UK or are just a big fan of the other kind of "football" check them out at http://www.fivepoundfootballclub.com/

Cheerio!

Don't call it a shocker, unless truly, you really are shocked by this news, but the WNBA team the Detroit Shock is about to pack their bags and head down to the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was leaked this morning that the deal is done, but an official announcement has yet to be made.

If (and when) the Shock move to Tulsa, former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson will take on the role of both coach and GM.

We here at Front Office Fans aren't huge WNBA groupies, but out of all the WNBA teams (of which there are what, like six?) we could probably name two. The Shock being one of them.

It seems like Tulsa will be a good fit for the Shock. It's a smaller town with a lot less professional and collegiate sports teams to compete with. Plus, bringing in Richardson as coach will probably draw some nearby fans from Arkansas. And while they seemed to be one of the marquee teams of the league, winning titles in 03, 06 and 08, their attendance was down and with the Detroit economy as it is, it wasn't heading back up any time soon. Furthermore, they never managed to steal enough fans away from the Tigers, Red Wings, Pistons and the very first WNFL team the Detroit Lions.

So here's to what's left of the Detroit Shock. It was fun while it lasted, but just like the Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets, Miami Sol, Orlando Miracle, Portland Fire and Utah Starzz, their time has come. See ya in Tulsa.

It's always boggled my mind that the Southern California is home to two NBA teams (Lakers & Clippers), two MLB teams (Dodgers & Angels), two NHL teams (Ducks & Kings) and zero NFL teams. Technically, it's been argued that USC is LA's "pro" team, but the worse the Trojans do, the more the NFL talk starts up. Although it's been years since the NFL had a team in Cali, it looks like things might soon be changing.

According to the losangelesfootballstadium.com website:

By a 22-14 margin, a bill to exempt a proposed NFL stadium in Industry from state environmental law earned approval Wednesday in the California state Senate....The bill, sought aggressively by billionaire Ed Roski Jr. and his Majestic Realty Co. in September, would grant the 75,000-seat stadium project an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act, the environmental law that governs development. To take effect, the plan must be signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I think the governor wants to restore the economy," said state Assemblyman Isadore Hall II, D-Compton, the bill's author.

The proposed stadium will be located in the City of Walnut. I've never been there either. But it's smack in the middle of LA and Anaheim.

Now all they need is a team. According to Majestic Realty, talks with a number of teams will start up as soon as the season ends. On their short list are the Minnesota Vikings, Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars, St. Louis Rams, San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders.

So who should move? Vote in the poll below, and if your choice isn't listed, post to the comments which team you'd relocate and why.

If we were Al Davis there are a lot of things we would do differently, but the first would be getting the heck out of Oakland and head south on the 101, again. The Raiders are miserable and dont seem to be doing anything to get better anytime soon, but the big problem is that they went from being one of the most valuable franchises in sports to one of the least valuable in the NFL in just the last 10 years. A big reason is because they no longer play in the second largest media market and now share the Bay Area spotlight with the Niners, who really are the local team of choice. It also doesnt help that they play in a completely miserable, oversized stadium in a city on the low end of the California economic scale, meaning they rarely sell out. Not having a big name star hasnt helped either, but that still doesnt seem to stop thousands of Los Angelenos from buying silver and black jerseys and making the pilgrimege up north 8 times a year to watch their miserable team play. Dont believe us, spend a Sunday evening during football season in the Southwest terminal at the Oakland airport and you'll see its chalk full of Raiders fans flying back to LA... On second thought, never spend a Sunday evening at the Oakland airport by choice - although if you do get stuck there, we highly recommend the peperoni pizza at Round Table.