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Central Florida sports fans – visitors and residents alike – will have plenty to cheer about during 2007 with such popular spectator sports as the Orlando Magic of the National Basketball Association (NBA), Orlando Predators of the Arena Football League (AFL) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) Golden Knights football team. Orlando is also bustling with baseball action during Spring Training as the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros come to town this spring, as well as Tampa Bay Buccaneers Training Camp starting in late July.

The Orlando Magic play all their home games at the 17,500-seat Amway Arena (formerly known as the TD Waterhouse Centre) in downtown Orlando. Founded in 1989, the Orlando Magic advanced to the NBA Finals during the 1994-95 season. Many basketball superstars have played for the Orlando Magic over the years such as Shaquille O’Neal, Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway and Tracy McGrady. The current Orlando Magic roster includes Dwight Howard, Grant Hill, Jameer Nelson and J.J. Redick. Brian Hill is the head coach of the Orlando Magic, which compete in the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference. The Magic’s 2006-07 regular season schedule concludes on April 18, 2007, against the Miami Heat. Construction on a new, 20,000-seat Orlando Magic Arena in downtown Orlando is scheduled to begin in early 2008.

Founded in 1991, the Orlando Predators, who captured the Arena Bowl Championship in 2000, compete in the 19-team AFL. The Predators have made the playoffs 15 years in a row and compete in the Southern Division of the National Conference against the likes of the Austin Wranglers, Dallas Desperados, Georgia Force, Las Vegas Gladiators, New Orleans Voodoo and Tampa Bay Storm. The 16-game regular season includes eight home games at the Amway Arena (a.k.a. “The Jungle”) and runs from early February to late May. Jay Gruden is the head coach of the Orlando Predators, which finished the 2006 AFL season with a 10-6 record and lost to Chicago in ArenaBowl XX. The Predators open the 2007 season on March 2, 2007, against the Tampa Bay Storm.

The UCF Golden Knights football team competes in Conference USA against such teams as East Carolina University, Marshall University, Rice University, Southern Methodist University, Tulane University, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Houston, University of Memphis, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Texas-El Paso and University of Tulsa. George O’Leary is the head coach of the Golden Knights, which finished with a record of 4-8 during the 2006 season. The Golden Knights formerly played their home games at the Citrus Bowl in downtown Orlando but a new stadium is currently under construction at the UCF campus. The 45,000-seat Bright House Networks Stadium is set to be completed in time for the Golden Knights’ home opener against the Texas Longhorns on September 15, 2007.

Central Florida is also the site of Major League Baseball (MLB) Spring Training when the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros arrive in February 2007. The Braves play 16 home games at a 7,500-seat, state-of-the-art ballpark within Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex, while the Houston Astros compete at the recently renovated Osceola County Stadium in Kissimmee. The Braves’ Spring Training season runs from February 28 to March 29, 2007, while the Astros will be here from March 1 to March 31, 2007. In addition, the 2002 World Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers spend Training Camp at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex starting in late July. Practices are open to the public and admission is free for Buccaneers Training Camp.

Other spectator sports scheduled to take place in the Orlando area over the next year include the Capital One Florida Citrus Bowl, which pits the second-ranked college football teams of the Southeastern and Big Ten conferences at the Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium on New Year’s Day; the Silver Spurs Rodeo, the largest rodeo East of the Mississippi, which takes place at the Silver Spurs Rodeo in Kissimmee from February 16-18, 2007; and the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club (March 12-18, 2007) and Walt Disney World Resort Classic (November 1-4, 2007), two immensely popular golf tournaments that draw some of the world’s top professional golfers on the PGA tour.

Orlando visitors should plan ahead and pre-order tickets for spectator sports they wish to attend during their stay, according to Kyle Collins, Director of Interactive Marketing for HotelsCorp.com.

“Tickets to sporting events, as well as theme park tickets, can often be added to discount vacation packages, allowing families to enjoy significant savings on their Orlando vacations,” said Collins.

Ryan Wiseman
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/a-comprehensive-2007-guide-to-orlando-spectator-sports-99098.html

I want to go to the Houston Rodeo on March 20th (Taylor Swift) How much do children cost. My brother is 4. Is he free,or does he have to have a ticket?

ticket

Erase images of cowboy hats, dusty bars and the Wild West from your mind before you book your airfare to Dallas. What is wild about the 9th largest city in the United States are the professional sports teams, blaring jazz clubs and bustling commercial skyscrapers towering over Downtown. The gigantic metropolitan area of Dallas (nearly 6 million people) is home to two major airports: Dallas/Fort Worth and Love Field. Be sure to check both airport destinations when searching for airfare to Dallas.

Even Dallas’ beginnings were more white-collar and industrial than the rest of the south and southwest of the United States. Once Dallas was incorporated into the United States, most of its industry revolved around its world-class cotton industry and manufacturing trade. In the 1930s, oil was discovered near Dallas and the rest of the city’s booming economy is history. Financiers, insurance and banking industries were consequently drawn to Dallas, which is the foundation for the modern financial and technology boom that occurred throughout the 1970s until the close of the 20th century.

Texas Cosmopolitan: Dynamic Dallas

Downtown Dallas is the city’s heart and soul, where nightlife, dining, shopping and Texan history come together. To get the best feel of Dallas through history, begin your trip in Main Street. Several historic buildings have been preserved here, standing out awkwardly against the post modern designs of the recent urban renewal projects. Main Street is also the traditional city center for Dallas, although the urban sprawl of the city renders this no longer true.

The Arts District in downtown is home to a renaissance of emerging modern artists, galleries, lofts, public art/sculpture gardens and Dallas’ major performing arts facilities. Spend an evening at the Symphony and take a starlit stroll past the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin Guadalupe and through the Nasher Sculpture Center. By day you might enjoy the West End Historic District, where an old trading post sprouted into a steady rise of brick manufacturing warehouses that are now preserved as restaurants, galleries and boutiques. The West End also happens to be the home of Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Visit the Sixth Floor Museum in the old Texas Depository Building, the location from which Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, according to government investigations.

Everything’s Bigger in Texas

Despite Dallas’ humming technology industry and commercial prosperity, the city still maintains quite a few amusements. If it’s the right season, treat yourself to a Dallas Cowboys football game or round up the kids and head to Six Flags for some rollercoasters or waterslides. Dallas also boasts an elaborate zoo, an aquarium and tranquil botanical gardens on White Rock Lake for those who need some fresh air and escape from the shadows of post-modern skyscrapers. In Dallas, everything is possible; it’s time to secure your airfare to Dallas and see why this city is in a league of its own in Texas.

Elyse Morgan
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/get-down-in-dallas-without-the-rodeo-dallas-travel-information-96057.html

I know the Greeks did something like bulldogging and before that some other culture used dogs to bite bulls on the lip to bring them down. I thought maybe there were cave paintings or something that take rodeo back even further.

stone craving..

DirecTV has been in the programming business for some time now and their management has had plenty of time to study and watch to see just what it is that rings their customers bell when it comes to sports broadcasting and sports channels and this is one of the reasons why DirecTV is the unchallenged sports leader in the whole wide universe.

One observation that the folks at direct TV have made careful note of, is that when it comes to sports, the true sports fanatic is pretty much all over the radar screen when it comes to choosing what type of sporting event they are selecting to watch at any particular time.

They gave up a long time ago trying to predict exactly what the true sports nut really prefers to watch and have chosen to take the shot-gun approach to sports programming for the sports fans in its viewing family. The shot-gun style of sports programming means that you offer as many different types of sports, on as many channels that you can, because then there is at least one of them that will hit when they sit down to soak up their sports fix.

People who aren’t true spots fans have often questioned why DirecTV offers sports programming such as pro rodeo or trap and skeet shooting amongst so many other diverse offerings, when they consider football and basketball and baseball to be quite enough.

True sports junkies can’t ever get enough and there is never too wide a variety for them to choose from and the folks at DirecTV know this. This is why DirecTV offers twenty-five sports channels for their viewing family to choose from. DirecTV even has some sports channels that they have exclusive broadcasting rights to that no one else has.

These exclusive channels are your guarantee that special sporting events will be there for you when they come around and you won’t have to leave your home to go to see them. While other programming services are offering wiz-bang services like mobile satellite service that you can have attached to your riding lawn mower if you need to.

DirecTV is choosing to keep it real by putting on the table what they feel that most of their viewers are really going to want. A broad variety of sports topics means that even people who never thought that they were into sports might find that there is something there that interests them.

One quirky new fan of DirecTV sports, likes to play turkey and waterfowl hunting programming at Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons for his family and surprisingly his family loves it because this is how the first Thanksgiving feast was gathered together.

Another new sports fan can’t get enough golf programming even though he has never stepped foot on a golf course in his life. His parents have promised him a set of golf clubs for his sixth birthday so maybe then he will get a chance to take a shot at the game. You never can be sure if you are a sports fan or not, until you have checked out the sports channels on DirecTV.

David Johnson
http://www.articlesbase.com/television-articles/this-aint-directvs-first-rodeo-163989.html