The common thread to these stories is a desire to keep secrets off Twitter. Sports officials are worried that indiscreet tweets will fuel a frenzy of gambling, while the Germans don't want voters improperly biased against perceived losers, or against turning out to vote for perceived shoe-ins.

But why not let the information run wild? Player tweets will feed free publicity in sports blogs; the better stories will make it up into the big media. Political parties, meanwhile, can spin online exit polls in such a way as to increase voter turnout, for example by saying the opposing candidate is suddenly doing better than expected, or that a lead might fizzle without a strong last-minute showing. Gamblers and voters, meanwhile, will have to guess which Twitter leaks are legit and which ones intended to deceive them. In the end it will mostly be a lot of confusing sound and fury, twisted for various self-promotional agendas. Just like the rest of Twitter.

(Pic: spike55151 on Flickr)

Shaquille O'Neal, Mike Piazza and DeLisha Milton's Dunk.net
Launched in 1999, Santa Monica startup Dunk.net was supposed to promote Shaq's shoes and sports apparel with marketing help from a pre-Mets Mike Piazza and WNBA great DeLisha Milton. But within months of founding, Dunk.net laid off its entire staff and replaced the CEO with a marketer tasked with resuscitating the company. Didn't happen. Now Dunk.net is owned by a domain squatter.

John Elway, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky's MVP.com
Back in 2000, chairman John Elway and board members Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzy piled their cash together to launch MVP.com, an online store. They pledged to spend $50 million marketing the site over the next year. A couple of years later and several rounds of layoffs later, MVP.com, owing some $120 million folded as a failure into CBSsportsline.com.

Mets reliever Billy Wagner and sports author Burton Rock's ChatWithAStar.com
After writing a bestselling book about Yankees outfielder Paul O'Neill and his father, author Burton Rocks convinced Wagner, another New York baseball star to help fund ChatWithAStar.com, a celebrity blog portal, featuring such well known voices as Miss USA 2006, Tara Conner. The site, launched with a party at one of Jay-Z's bar in 2006, no longer exists. We're still holding out for the company's "blogmobile," though.

Revision3 Coach David Prager stated in a press conference after the game, "Digg came to play dirty, but little did they realize that we can play dirtier." In a post game interview, Digg's Kevin Rose said, "I founded both companies ... I'm going to join the Revision3 team now."

The state assembly refused to consider the matter by Ballmer's April 10 deadline, and now Seattle mayor Greg Nickles has turned out the city's pockets and come up with nothing but lint. Meanwhile, Ballmer's moved on, issuing ultimatums to Yahoo instead — at least he isn't asking taxpayers to help him cover that deal.(Photo by Andrew Hitchcock)

"It is a bit ridiculous to pay 20 dollars a month to beta test a product," one fan commented.

It's interesting that CBS is able to handle weekend traffic for the NCAA tournament, display a beautiful picture for a high-motion sport, and then give it away for free.

At one point, I asked Cuban about his interest in buying the Chicago Cubs. I already knew what his answer would be; I'd recently spoken to baseball sources for a story for New York magazine that made it clear Cuban, no matter how many billions he had, would never be allowed into the grey-haired old-fashioned clique of baseball owners. The guy has no chance. But, if just to promote himself as a tilter toward windmills, he stayed strong.

Don't count me out yet. Don't count me out. All [baseball owners] have to do is call other NBA owners, and there are NBA owners who are part owners of Major League Baseball teams, who see me in the meetings. They know me beyond what the media write and how websites like Deadspin characterize me. They know that I contribute as a partner. I hope, along with the money, that that's the important thing.

In our world of social networking and high-definition television, Mark Cuban is the 1,000-pound gorilla in every room. But in the boardrooms of professional sports, he's just this punk Internet new money kid who doesn't understand how proper decorum and deals get made. And Mark Cuban is almost 50 years old! He's old enough to be Mark Zuckerberg's dad!

Cuban's hardly the only one to run into an old-money, new-money fight in the sports world. Paul Allen had his own issues after buying the Portland Trail Blazers and the Seattle Seahawks, and Research In Motion CEO Jim Balsillie has run into nothing but brick walls with his attempted purchase of the Pittsburgh Penguins and continued moves to try to move the Nashville Predators to Hamilton, Canada. These are new thinkers, with new ideas and new ways of doing business. This is not how professional sports operate, so they are shunned as radicals, or rejected all together. Most often, their idealistic notions of "changing the game" are crushed under the unceasing inertia of The Norm. Owning a sports team doesn't turn out to be nearly as fun as they thought. What is new and different must be crushed. This is why Mark Cuban will never own the Cubs, no matter how much money he waves in front of the Tribune Corp.

Every sports fan has daydreamed of falling into sudden riches, buying their own sports team and running it on their own whim. Now, all three of those things are equally unlikely; money just isn't enough anymore. The engines of finance and technology are driven by innovation; sports runs away from it, terrified. Mark Cuban will never be the next Ted Turner unless he changes his last name to Selig.

Responding to rumors we broke earlier today that College Hoops 2K9 has been canceled due to a breakdown in negotiations with the license holders for collegiate basketball, 2K Sports parent company Take-Two had this to say to Kotaku:

2K Sports has decided not to continue negotiations with the CLC for the license for its top-rated College Hoops franchise, which would have been released next in November 2008. We are committed to providing fans with high-quality, critically-acclaimed sports games, but given our disciplined approach to the business, we do not believe the current discussions would result in an acceptable outcome.

I followed up with Take-Two to try and get more details and while the declined to talk about any roll EA might have had in the break-down, they did confirm that College Hoops 2K9 has indeed been canceled.

No word still from The Collegiate Licensing Company or Electronic Arts, but we'll keep you posted.

Rumor: 2K9 College Hoops Canned, EA Seeks NCAA Deal [Kotaku]

The portal is making a strong play in sports with original content. Yahoo already dominates the world of fantasy sports; adding real reporting to the mix, though, could boost Yahoo's pull with advertisers. The site has 20 sports writers, up from four two years ago. In fact, Yahoo is the most popular sports site on the net according to Nielsen/NetRatings, with 22 million visitors last month compared to ESPN.com's 20 million.

How does old media feel about this? A sports editor at the Washington Post says "we're used to being a destination, not a steppingstone." Get used to that feeling of being stepped on.

Unless, that is, you work for the national desk of a major newspaper. Remember Yahoo's disastrous experience with original news reporting: Kevin Sites's Afghanistan war-reporting diary hasn't been updated in a year. And people still giggle about former Yahoo media exec Lloyd Braun's proposal for an online news show with puppets. Sports is a good business bet, with talent getting rewarded competitively. Hard news? As the TV broadcasters figured out long ago, that's a sure money-loser.

City people don't get why anyone would move out of SF or Oakland to the Valley, unless they were going broke or something. But local business trade mags have the sports exodus figured out: "Santa Clara County is home to more than 110 big businesses, more than both San Francisco and Alameda counties combined. Those businesses — each with annual revenue of $200 million or more — may be enticed to buy sponsorships, naming rights, luxury suites and strike other promotional deals with the teams." What, did you think the A's wanted to be closer to you?

Persistent whispers that Oakland's Raiders will also move to Fremont haven't panned out — yet. That would leave the San Francisco Giants, who play across the street from my office on the waterfront, as the last team still in SF or Oakland. My immediate reaction: Good riddance.

Friends who don't live here think working across the street from Barry Bonds must be the ultimate job perk. But when the Googlers move into their new digs at the Gap building a few blocks up the waterfront, they'll find out Game Day sucks for techies. Never mind the traffic jams — you can't even use the sidewalk unless you're heading to AT&T Park with the rest of the mob. Fans who aren't visibly drunk, rowdy or giddy over their big day at the ballpark are ... well, I haven't run into any who aren't. More accurately, they run into me.

Getting to and from work on a game day means chosing between clogged streets and overstuffed trains. Parking on my block flips from $12 to $40 for the day. Lunch spots overflow with people unclear on the concept that I've got a meeting in thirty minutes. City Hall's zoning screwup is obvious: The Giants are their own economic sector, yet none of the Internet or biotech professionals who pack the neighborhood productively go to their games.

San Francisco has built a lovely park with killer views and free Wi-Fi on the most enviable waterfront spot in the world. I'm sure the new Googlers on the block could do a lot with it, if only it weren't already booked for a bunch of sports. Please, will somebody in the Valley buy the Giants?

What a loss. It would have been fun to see Ellison buy the Sonics, add five guys to the team so it's the biggest in the league, get BMW to sponsor the stadium, and dabble in actually coaching them before getting bored and replacing them with a baseball team.

The NBA in S.J. not dead deal yet [Mercury News]

Get your game on and don't fuck with the Jesus! One of the Web 2.0 crowd forwarded this invite to the Valley's new dot-com bowling league. E-mail prefixes redacted to prevent spam.

From: Vinnie Lauria
Date: May 19, 2006 5:07 PM
Subject: Bowling 2.0
To: xxx@riya.com, xxx@themintpage.com, xxx@imvu.com, Seth Sternberg , xxx@zazzle.com, xxx@box.net, joseph@plaxo.com, xxx@sixapart.com, xxx@3bubbles.com, xxx@gmail.com, xxx@stormventures.com, xxx@weekly.org, xxx@jot.com, xxx@renkoo.net
Cc: Paul Bragiel

Is that the smell of bowling shoes and varnished floors I smell in the air?
Bowling 2.0

I think so... we're starting a little web2.0/startup bowling league out here in the valley. We looking for some friendly competition, and who knows, maybe some cash prizes to go along with bragging rights.

So do you think your team has got what it takes? Meetro has been staffing bowling ringers for months now preparing for this moment. This would be a weekly league, with teams around 4 ppl (all teams should be the same size.) Typical leagues run 10 weeks, but that might be too much commitment for some (hell, startups live and die in that about of time.)

So if you think you're company is interested, please send me a note. Details to follow.

Feel free to pass this on to other companies, but I may have to close off the invite list at some point.

I haven't even mentioned the best part.... Bowling shirts with your name and company logo... Now you can finally fit in with that hip swingers crowd.

—
Vinnie Lauria
Meetro HQ

Above: Team Flavorpill. The Flav gang sign is either two scrunched up hands or a pair of pinched nipples.
Below: Team thehappycorp. I am not sure what's up with the reptile claw.

Earlier: Grab life by the ball: WWW Dodgeball Invitational [Valleywag]

Sadly, it's real. Google, Flavorpill, AOL, Root.net, The Happy Corp, and MSN will compete in a two-hour dodgeball tourney in New York City this weekend. It will not be pretty (but if anyone sends pictures, I'll put them up).

After the jump, the template-crushing full-size flyer. And if you must comment but have no account:

1st Annual WWW Dodgeball Tourney [Valleywag on Flickr]