Announcing: The Road to the superbowl² ! (February 11)

So, our mod dragonfly came to me a while ago, and asked if I had anything planned for February. Not being a sports person, at first I thought they were referring to Valentine’s Day, but then I figured out they meant the Super Bowl! 🤦

I spent a bit of time thinking about how best to do this, as I wanted it to be something both NFL people or not could both enjoy. I still haven’t ironed out all the details, but I think I’ll try something similar to Owl of the Year, but also to try to get you all a little more involved.

Here’s where I’m at so far, all subject to change of course…

Name so far: superbowl², short for the Superb Owl Super Bowl. If you got a better name, feel free to share.

What is it?: Create 2 fictional teams of owls, such as Philadelphia Eag-owls vs Kansas City Screech or something based on whoever we find out is in the actual game today. Each team will have maybe 6-12 “players,” which I want to be made up of owls picked by you.

What you do: Reply to this post something like this

  • Verreaux Eagle Owl (what species you want to see play)
  • NFC (which team you request your owl to play for, completely optional if you don’t know or care about football)
  • You don’t know anything about football, what the heck is this?! (any additional comment you have for me)

I’m going to try not to double up on species too much, but if both teams really want a whatever, I’ll try and accommodate, though I’m going to promote diversity to spread awareness of the most owls. With over 200 owls to pick from, I trust you guys to find at least 20 different ones! 😁

Gameplay: Like Owl of the Year, you vote for your faves. I’ll put one owl from team A vs one from team B, and you upvote one, both, or none. I’ll do it at random somehow.

I want to have it run for 24 hours, so everyone everywhere has an opportunity to play a good portion of the game. I’m thinking every 2 hours, I’ll start another match. How long I’ll let them run is undetermined yet. Whoever gets the most votes in a match “scores” points.

Scoring: This was a really tough thing, since there’s no skill or anything involved, so I need to contract potential vote rigging or any kind of intangible imbalance. I’m thinking if it’s a tough battle, with the votes coming down to the last moment, that’s worth more points, so close matches will be a “touchdown” good for 7 points.

If it’s a blowout, the winner still won, but it was easier. That sounds like a “field goal” for 3 points. I’m thinking a margin somewhere in the 10-15 percent range, but I’ll have to see what that looks like.

I think I’ll leave team nominations open until Feb 7 so I have a few days to get everything together, or wherever we get a decent amount of “players.”

In the meanwhile, upvote anyone’s player you support here, so if I have to cut some “players” I know who you want to see most.

If you got any other suggestions, I’m open to hearing them, but since I’m putting in the work, whatever I feel like doing wins! 😉

I’ll post any rules updates as edits to this post.


Kansas City Screech

  1. Blakiston’s Fish Owl
  2. Buff Fronted Owl
  3. Boreal / Tengmalm’s Owl
  4. Whiskered Screech Owl
  5. Northern Hawk Owl
  6. Pending
  7. Pending
  8. Pending
  9. Pending
  10. Pending
  11. Pending
  12. Pending

San Franciscowl Bay Owls (not sure I like this name yet)

  1. Buffy Fish Owl
  2. Flammulated Owl
  3. Snowy Owl
  4. Ural Owl
  5. Pending
  6. Pending
  7. Pending
  8. Pending
  9. Pending
  10. Pending
  11. Pending
  12. Pending
Winged_Hussar,
@Winged_Hussar@lemmy.world avatar

Hopefully I’m not too late! Didn’t see this one until reading your most recent post 😭

Papuan Hawk-Owl

Either team

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/600d0b54-356c-453f-8311-202d4bafa72b.webp

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Well, I’m hoping I have some overall good news for you.

It is kinda too late, but that owl was one of the ones I looked at to fill out the remaining spots with weird ass owls I haven’t shown you all yet.

The problem doing that, is I need to find a loooot of pics to do these tournament things, and some owls are harder to find a lot of high quality pics of, and I thought that was the problem with this guy.

The good news though, is there are a decent amount of similar owls that are a bit more documented!

I went with the Christmas Island Boobook. It’s got that same great face, body, and it’s a little rusty/redder, which I thought was pretty stylish.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/744028e3-d04d-4e80-ae90-486c4f092e30.jpeg

Whatcha think?

Winged_Hussar,
@Winged_Hussar@lemmy.world avatar

Boobook is perfect!! Thanks for setting all this up

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Good, I’m glad that you liked it as well!

Thank you for still coming around and commenting.

I feel this place has gotten a little quieter lately, so it perks me up when people chime in, especially you handful of regulars.

It makes this feel more like a club than just some random Internet stuff. For me at least. It keeps me motivated.

Wistful,
@Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Can we get these little guys (Ural owls), in whichever team has less “players”.

https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/26db0274-fa25-4886-8de7-df9ef740fdfd.png

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

A great choice!

These guys remind me of Bill Murray, with the big round face and sunken eyes and melancholy attitude. (I usually think of sad era Bill Murray)

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5b407f71-625f-468d-b648-9504807c796b.png

Thank you for your participation!

FuglyDuck,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar
anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

You got it!

dragonfly, (edited )

In honor of what’s falling from the sky atm, I’ll go with:

Snowy Owl

San Franciscowl

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Anything for you, your mod-lyness! 😇

Chetzemoka,

Flam-my! 👏 Flam-my! 👏 Flam-my! 👏

We the fans of the Flammulated Owl are a devoted bunch and we will get this little guy to victory

Tengmalm’s Owl

I saw him in your post earlier and I definitely need more of this big-headed weirdo in my life

Maybe we could throw Burrowing Owls in the mix and do BFOs vs. the little guys

I’m indifferent to teams. I follow NCAA not NFL ¯_(ツ)_/¯

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll put Flammy in the list for now, and if you get someone to second the Tengmalm’s I’ll add that too.

tired_lemming,

I’ll second the Tengmalm! Let’s celebrate all the owls.

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

You’ve got it!

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA,
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world avatar

Go Flammy 🚩

blubton,

As someone who barely knows anything about American Football, I have spent way too much time researching this. It was worth it though, for I have finally found the truth about the greatest owl team in the world:

Once upon a time, American football was just American. However, the CIA wanted to increase the influence of America around the world, and therefore started pushing for an international football league. They wanted to call it the International Football League, but the name was owned by Donald Trump. Therefore they named it World League of American Football, or WLAF. However, the WLAF stopped after just two seasons.

One of the teams in the WLAF was the Birmingham Fire from Alabama. But when the team was about to disband, something unexpected happened. A coup.

A group of owls took control over the team and rebranded it to Birdmingham Fire Owlabama, or, in short, BFO. The owls in the team were all BFO’s: Blakiston’s Fish Owl, Buffy Fish Owl, Brown Fish Owl and Buff-Fronted Owl.

However, the owls realised that just 4 members would not be enough to compete in serious competition, which is why they haven’t played in all these past 30 years. But things are changing: real progress is being made to get to at least 6 BFO’s. The Bare Legged Owl, although no real BFO, has become part of the BFO’s under the name of Bare Footed Owl. When accused of betraying their name, the Bare Footed Owl replied: “what is a leg, other than an extended foot?”

A sixth member is still missing, although Blakiston’s Fish Owl argues that they count for two due to their size. Opponents of this say that the balance is restored if intelligence is taken into account.

In short, the idea is: team Birdmingham Fire, Owlabama. Members: Blakiston’s Fish, Buffy Fish, Brown Fish, Buff-Fronted, Bare Legged.

I don’t know about this idea myself, because there really aren’t any more BFO’s that I could find. Also, maybe we want NFL teams instead of long disbanded ones. If anyone has an idea for improvement, please let me know!

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Someone’s been learning a lot of owls!

You don’t need to come up with a full team though, just one owl you want to see in it. I was going to put them into the teams so everyone gets to see an owl they like.

That team would have a nice variety of owls though!

blubton,

Someone’s been learning a lot of owls!

Well, I just looked at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_owl_species?wprov=s… trying to find BFO’s.

I kind of misunderstood the idea it seems, but your rules are probably more fair.

One question: are you allowed to do multiple suggestions (in separate comments), or only one suggestion per commenter? I would love to see Buff-Fronted in this, as I didn’t know about it and it seems to be a very interesting species. However, I don’t want to let the Blakiston’s Fish Owl down.

Anyway, thanks for organising yet another fun event for the Superbowl community. It’s always nice to wake up to a new post!

anon6789,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

No worries, it’s the first time doing this.

Someone else has already nominated Blakiston’s Owl, so you can nominate Buff Fronted.

I just want to let people get some say, but I don’t want this to be quite as huge as undertaking as Owl of the Year, so I’m requesting one nominee per person for now. My goal is by next week to have 12-24 owls you guys want to see.

blubton,

Buff Fronted it is then! Curious what owls the rest of the community comes up with!

pseudo,
@pseudo@jlai.lu avatar

deleted_by_author

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  • anon6789,
    @anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

    Nope, you don’t need to know anything to play! I wanted something everyone can do even with no interest in American football. The only thing actually football related is the day it will occur, and the general theme.

    The teams will essentially be totally fictional, so you need not know or like any real team, but if you do have a favorite, that’s a potential positive for you, but you miss nothing if you don’t.

    For example, if you wanted Tawny Owl to play, you just comment:

    • Tawny Owl
    • No preference

    After that, just pretty much wait until Feb 10-11, where we basically speed run a mini Owl of the Year tournament.

    Points assigned based on American football scoring. Highest scoring fake team wins.

    Here in the US, they run the Puppy Bowl concurrent with the Super Bowl. Adoptable dogs are out on fake teams, and they score whenever they carry a dog toy over the goal line. I pretty much just copied that principle, but voting on owl pictures.

    I have no real interest in professional sports, so this is just to promote the community and to catch anyone searching for the actual Super Bowl over the next 2 weeks by surprise.

    I do like your team naming convention! Depending how this goes, maybe we can do an international themed event, though with just me doing the work, it’s hard to do something that represents all the places you all live, and also since there’s not any actual event being held!

    I think I will just announce the team names when I get them, and after that just leave off the city part of the name and refer to them without it to leave it ambiguous to anyone that has no interest in the real team is based on.

    Kansas City Chiefs (example real team) > Kansas City Screech (for screech owl) > The Screech or KC Screech

    pseudo,
    @pseudo@jlai.lu avatar

    Oh, so if I only need to choose a specie, then I want BFO teams: I want a team for the buffy fish owl and one for the bakiston’s fish owl!

    anon6789,
    @anon6789@lemmy.world avatar
    • Blakiston Fish Owl
    • Opposite of Buffy Fish Owl
    anon6789,
    @anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

    You got it!

    I’ll just make little posts to let me spot them easily.

    • Buffy Fish Owl
    • No Preference
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