Who Dat Nation?

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for conquering the United Countries of Football

2009 UCF Conference Championships

Conference Championships this weekend in the United Countries of Football.

Congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. We'll see these two Football "Countries" fight it out in two weeks! Peyton Manning will play against his old "home team" (he was born in New Orleans, and his Dad, Archie Manning, used to play for the Saints).



So, were all these playoffs necessary? At the end of the day, the two teams with the best records in their conference go to the Super Bowl.

My early prediction is that the Colts will win another Super Bowl. But good on the Saints for finally making it to the big game.

#535

2009 UCF Divisional Playoffs

Divisional Playoffs this weekend in the United Countries of Football.

As a sports fan, I was happy to see the Colts win and the Cowboys lose. As a poor mapmaker, I was happy to see the Ravens lose so that I wouldn't have two purple Football Countries.



Next week, for the first time in NFL history, both Conference Championship games will be held indoors. I'm looking for a Colts/Saints Super Bowl.

2009 UCF Wildcard Weekend

Last week I introduced the end-of-2009 NFL season United Countries of Football map.

Tonight, after an exciting overtime win by the Cardinals, the Wild-Card round of the playoffs have ended. Four Football Nations have been vanquished: Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New England and Green Bay. The new map stands at this:



Aside from my disappointment at the Bengal's loss and the Cowboy's win, I did pick 3 out of 4 correctly. However, I have a problem with the map. Once again I used poor color choices and now the Minnesota Vikings' and the Baltimore Ravens' territory is colored with the same shade of violet!

Therefore, next weekend, I will find myself rooting for the Vikings over the Dallas Cowboys (I would anyway), and I will naturally be rooting for the Indianapolis Colts over the Ravens. Then all things will be map-color-well.

#525

2009 United Countries of Football

The NFL 2009 regular season has come to an end. For the third year, I am playing around with the imaginary United Countries of Football.



What if the fans of each team formed their own country, and by the end of the season, Divisional Champions have "conquered" their foes? Why the cartogram? See the original post for more details.

NCAA College Basketball Tourney Map

Today, U.S. college basketball is in the middle of the "Sweet Sixteen" round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. I'm not really much of a BBall fan, but I'll usually watch a little bit of the tourney.

Want to see the geographic distribution of teams in the tournament? Here is a closeup of a portion of the full 64 team map published on billsportsmaps.com:



Bill (I presume that is his name) has produced multiple maps showing the shrinking field on contestants as the tournament progresses.

It's not exactly a United Countries of Basketball (see United Countries of Football), but it's good fun.

billsportsmaps.com has many other sports related maps, showing the locations of American baseball and football teams as well as European and South American football (soccer) teams.

#360

Steelers Nation

Thanks to the Steelers for winning the Super Bowl. I get to use my Pennsylvania/USA graphic afterall:

2008 UCF Conference Championships

I have to confess that I am disappointed with this particular match-up the the Super Bowl:



My disappointment has nothing to do with the Steelers or Cardinals. I was just hoping for an All-Pennsylvania Super Bowl. I even made this cool map to commemorate it. If not that, then perhaps a Mason-Dixon Super Bowl between the Baltimore Ravens and one of the Pensylvania teams... Or I would have been happy with a Ravens vs. Cardinals or Eagles... for the first ever All-Bird Super Bowl. But no... we've got the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Arizona Cardinals. Where's the hook? Where's the gimmick?

Oh well, congratulations to both teams. Here's to great Super Bowl game in two weeks!

2008 UCF Divisional Weekend

Down to four NFL teams left.



Once again, my Super Bowl predictions are in the crapper... So, now I'll predict a Pittsburgh v. Philadelphia (All Pennsylvania) Super Bowl.

With my track record that is, of course, the kiss of death.

2008 UCF Wildcard Weekend

Last week I introduced the end-of-2008 NFL season United Countries of Football map:



I am Indianapolis Colts fan, and was disappointed that they lost on Saturday and will not go forward. I found I had an unusual basis for the teams I rooted for on Sunday. As you can see on the map above, I made some poor choices of colors. I gave the Minnesota Vikings and the Baltimore Ravens the same shade of purple, and I gave the San Diego Chargers and the Miami Dolphins similar shades of orange! What if the wrong teams win and their colors mix, or I have to change colors? Thanks to the Eagles and the Ravens, that is no longer a problem...



Now I have each team with a unique color. I am predicting a blue and blue Super Bowl this year, Tennessee Titans v. New York Giants... we'll see... I'm usually very wrong.

I should have taken map color advice from John Krygier's book, Making Maps.

#320

2008 United Countries of Football

The NFL 2008 regular season has come to an end. Just as I did last season, I am playing around with the imaginary United Countries of Football.



What if the fans of each team formed their own country, and by the end of the season, Divisional Champions have "conquered" their foes? See the original post for more details.

Football TV Coverage Maps

College football has been under way for a week, and NFL football started on Thursday night. All is as it should be in the universe... except that sometimes, you cannot watch your game of choice... Which college or NFL game is going to be shown in your market?

ESPN offers coverage maps of the games their channels and partner network ABC offer:



The Map Room has alerted me to the excellent NFL TV coverage maps on the506.com that now make use of Google Maps technology:



I am often frustrated by the choices that the networks make, to decide which games I get to see in my town. Naturally, being very close to Cincinnati, we always get the Bengals games, however, there are a great many Cleveland Browns fans in this area. Their families have been Browns fans since long before the Bengals were in Ohio. So, not too surprisingly, we will get Browns games, when they don't conflict with a Bengals game. The next nearest football markets are Indianapolis, Detroit and Pittsburgh. So why do they keep showing us Dallas Cowboys games? I hate the Cowboys. They call themselves "America's Team" but they have never been my team. The networks like to assume everyone in Ohio gives a flying frak. In my opinion, Dallas Cowboys fans that don't live, or have some connection to the Southwest, are all just a bunch of bandwagoners. Even Adolph Hitler was a Cowboys fan!

End of football rant.

This division of the United States by perceived interest in a specific football team only reminds me of my own United Countries of Football map (shameless plug):

Indoor and Arena Football Nation

In addition to my passion for maps and boardgames, I am also a big fan of minor league arena and indoor football; a fast-paced, high scoring version of American Football. While games are played indoors on a 50-yard field, with padded dasherboard walls, they are two different game systems. Both the Arena and Indoor football seasons started this month.

Arena Football is the patented game system used by the Arena Football League and arenafootball2. The distinctive feature of Arena Football is the large net stretched across the end zone. If the ball bounces off the net, it remains in play. Indoor Football avoids violation of the patent (which expires this year) by leaving out the nets. In most other ways, the game is the same. Eight men on the field (sometimes seven), emphasis on passing, quick scoring, and fans close to the action.

Over the years many Indoor and Arena Football teams have come and gone in Ohio. Currently there are six teams in four different leagues.

• Arena Football League:
• Columbus Destroyers
• Cleveland Gladiators
• arenafootball2:
• Mahoning Valley Thunder
• Continental Indoor Football League:
• Miami Valley Silverbacks
• Marion Mayhem
• American Indoor Football Association:
• Canton Legends

However, the team that first got me hooked on the game was the Dayton Skyhawks, of the now defunct Indoor Football League. I happened to attend the last home game of the 1999 season and was able to get a front row seat near the endzone. I not only enjoyed the style of game, I appreciated being very close to the action. I could see and hear every hit, and it was even possible to interract with the players and coaches with some good-natured "trash talk". We teased one player about what he was going to do, and he looked right at us and said, "I'm going to score a touchdown!"

After the Skyhawks and the IFL folded up their tent, I had to wait a few years for another team. In 2005 the Dayton Warbirds offered terrific action on the field. Unfortunately, the shady financial dealings of their owners, and their league (the infamous National Indoor Football League), left a sour taste for the city, making it unlikely that another team will be able to succeed in this market for years to come. Fortunately, the Miami Valley Silverbacks play in the city of Troy, to the north of Dayton, and I can always make the trek to Columbus to see the Destroyers.

During the last two seasons I ran a website and fan forum for fans of indoor and arena football in Ohio. It was called Ohio Indoor Football, but that venture is currently on hiatus (update: now defunct). You all must admit, that I had a cool logo... (logo design by Robert Cole).

The best place on the Internet to find news and other info about indoor football teams, arena football teams, and teams in any other American and Canadian minor league sport (baseball, hockey, basketball, soccer and outdoor football) is OurSportsCentral.com. In addition to news, press releases, fan message boards, and netcasts, they also provide Google maps to locate all of the teams in all of the leagues. Below is the map for the Arena Football League.



Indoor and Arena Football. Check it out. Remember, if a ball goes in to the stands, you get to keep it. If a player ends up in your lap, you have to throw him back...

Giants Nation

Congratulations to the New York Football Giants, NFL Super Bowl Champions and conqueror of the United Countries of Football.



Giants 17

Patriots 14

Only two left in the United Countries of Football

The New England Patriots and the New York Football Giants have vanquished all comers in the civil war among the United Countries of Football.



The two armies will now converge on Tempe, Arizona, in two weeks for the final battle. The Super Bowl. Only one more of these silly maps...

While sorting through some of my map postcards this evening, during the game, I discovered this one. I had forgotten that I had it.

It's a bit out-of-date... the Rams are still in Los Angeles, the Oilers are still in Houston, and there are no Ravens, Jaguars, or Panthers...

Divisional Upsets in the United Countries of Football

Suprising upset victories in the civil war among the United Countries of Football. San Diego was able to defeat Indianapolis in the last game to be played in the RCA dome, and the New York Giants stomped the Dallas Cowboys out of the playoffs.



The mose embarassing defeat was my Super Bowl prediction... both the Seahawks and the Colts are out. Oh well.

Go Packers!

The Ohio State University - Cannot beat the SEC in a bowl game

The Ohio State University is now 0-9 vs. the SEC in bowl games. For the second year in a row, OSU has lost in the BCS College Football National Championship game.

LSU 38
OSU 24

However, I have a fine map postcard from Columbus:



"The statue of William Oxley Thompson, former president of The Ohio State University, stands in front of the Main Library and looks over the Oval, the academic hub of the campus."

Wildcard weekend in the United Countries of Football

The civil war among the United Countries of Football continues. Four nations of football fans were conquered, leaving eight nations to battle next weekend.



Apologies to those of you with no interest in American Football. But, you were warned...

United Countries of Football

In honor of the National Football League playoffs, that begin this evening, I present the United Countries of Football:

In August, when the baseball pennant races were starting to heat up, Strange Maps brought this map to my attention. The United Countries of Baseball, presented by Nike. Imagine the United States (and Ontario) divided into separate countries based on their allegience to a Major League Baseball team. Since I much prefer American Football over baseball, yesterday I started looking for a similar "United Countries of Fooball".

I couldn't find one from Nike, but while searching, I did come across this one, a hand drawn football fan map of the United States. I found this map on PFCcritics.com (artist unknown). The map is clever, but incomplete... he turned the entire state of Ohio over to the Browns, and ignored that the Chiefs share a state with the Rams, and the Jaguars and Buccaneers are also in Florida along with the Dolphins.

Continuing the search, I got very close to my goal with this map from The CommonCensus Map Project. The CCMP is "redrawing the map of the United States based on your input, to reveal the boundaries people themselves feel, as opposed to the state and county boundaries drawn by politicians." I'll have more on this project in a future post, but a "side project" of the CCMP is the CommonCensus Sports Map project. This map plots fan loyalties to American sports teams. It's very close, but still not a thematic companion to the Nike map.

Since I could not find the perfect map, I decided to make my own. I present the United Countries of Football:



This map is based on the data from the CCMP, as well as my own fanciful notion of how the nation might be divided, if regions were obliged to divide based on team loyalty. Your mileage may vary... For instance I am a Detroit Lions fan living in the Cincinnati Bengals country. Where do you draw the dividing line in Ohio between Bengals and Browns fans? In Missouri between Chiefs and Rams fans? etc. Feel free to comment and question my assumptions about your region of the country.

However, there is something wrong with this map. Because many of the western states are geographically large, but sparsely populated, this map give the false impression that the Denver Broncos have the largest fanbase. As discussed in my earlier post, The Purple states of America, maps can "lie" or present false impressions. So, I replaced the map above with a similar map using Mark Newman's population cartogram:



Now we see a more even distrubution of fans throughout the country.

By the time I finished this map last night, it was getting late, and I started feeling a little silly (as if all these maps so far are not silly). So, I carried the idea of independent countries based on fan loyalty to its logical conclusion. At the end of the football season, there were only twelve nations left standing. I imagined the Division winners as conquerors over their Divisional rivals (except for the Wild Card teams), then redrew the map to show the conquered territory:



You know what this means, of course... you will now be subjected to at least four more of these silly maps until the Super Bowl winner unites the country under one United Country of Football. Will the New England Patriots complete their perfect season? Can the Indianapolis Colts repeat? Can anyone else stop them? For what it is worth, I am predicting that Indianapolis will shock the Patriots in the AFC Championship game, then go on to beat the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. You read it here first (although my picks are notoriously bad).

UPDATE 1/6: Wildcard Weekend Results

UPDATE 1/13: Divisional Playoff Results

UPDATE 1/20: Conference Championship Results

UPDATE 2/3: Super Bowl Results

In Honor of the Red Sox...

In honor of the Red Sox, who as I type this are on the verge of sweeping the World Series, I present several Boston and Massachusetts postcards from my collection:

Here is Boston:



Take the subway to Fenway Park:



Paul Revere should have warned the Rockies that the Red Sox were coming...