The crowd for tonight's game between Arizona and Northern Arizona should be a decent one, though it won't sell out. If 50,000 make it out to Arizona Stadium for the 7 p.m. kickoff that would be considered a success, seeing as it's a Friday and it's Labor Day Weekend.

If you're not among those going to the game, though, how you track the progress of the Wildcats and Lumberjacks depends on your access to media — sorry DirecTV subscribers, time to find a watering hole with DISH — and how you like your information disseminated.

Or you could be at the game itself and be one of those dorks that wears their headphones to "listen" to the game while physically attending it.

If sports bars aren't your thing, might I suggest a more 21st century way to follow the UA-NAU game: namely, via Twitter feeds?

The most bare-boned way to do this would be to follow the official feeds for UA and NAU's football programs, though you'll be getting a very different take from each side. Look at some of the tweets leading up to the opener as an example.

For UA, it's pretty much business as usual:

#GameDay #AZvsNAU #BearDown
— Arizona Football (@ArizonaFBall) August 30, 2013

For NAU, though, the most recent tweets make tonight's game seem like a super-cool fifth grade field trip to the planetarium:

Can't sleep? It's ok, neither can we. It's 🏈 GAMEDAY Lumberjack fans. #NAU at #UA 7 p.m. Good luck @NAU_Football #BeatUA #NAUTakeover
— NAU Athletics (@NAUAthletics) August 30, 2013

Another approach would be through the tweetage of local beat writers, but that might not provide you with your daily quota of exclamation points and emoticons:

Happy game day Arizona Wildcats! Can't wait to see @JakeFischer33 @TucTownTevis @VanillaV1ck7 & the rest of the guys take the field! 😄👍🏈
— Kayla Anderson (@KayKGUNArizona) August 30, 2013

Unless, of course, you're looking for a somewhat different take on the goings on at Arizona Stadium, like from someone who's not actually allowed in the press box:

T-minus 11 hours until I see if the extra $100 (for 2 less games, mind you) was worth it for my #Arizona season tix. #seatbacksandarmrests
— Brian Pedersen (@realBJP) August 30, 2013

But if you want the real inside scoop, the info that you can't get anywhere else, look no further than tweets straight from the (not really) sideline:

I'm so excited. I wore my headset, polo, & khakis to sleep last night. #FearTheRichRod
— Fake Rich Rodriguez (@FakeRichRod) August 30, 2013

If you aren't consuming alcohol yet then I'm disappointed in you
— Fake Rich Rodriguez (@FakeRichRod) August 30, 2013

I am a DISH Network subscriber, have been for more than three years now. And while it's not the greatest provider in the world, it gets the job done. Besides, I also get to yell HOPPAH! all around the house as I bask in the ability to record six shows at once and watch them in whatever room I choose.

I probably would not be a DISH subscriber, though, if it hadn't picked up the Pac-12 Network last year. Though the channel as a whole is pretty lame, it's what is necessary to watch whatever Arizona football and basketball games don't get picked up by the other channels. And that's important to me, both as a sports fan and as someone who gets paid to bitch about watch sports.

The Pac-12 Network is available on Cox and Comcast, too, so all of you Tucson-area non-satellite people (you know, the old schoolers) are also in luck.

Sucks to be y'all, DirecTV patrons.

The college football season officially begins tonight, with games on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, CBS Sports Network and the fledgling Fox Sports 1 (the channel formerly known as, but never watched as, Speed). So, Pac-12 fans, you're in luck, for at least one night.

But you don't get the Arizona-Northern Arizona game on Friday, nor do you get games involving UCLA or Oregon State (sorry Dan Gibson) on Saturday. And next week you'll miss out on six of the nine games involving Pac-12 schools.

So, why the heck haven't you switched over, like a lot of people (at least according to retweets from Pac-12 people and Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne would indicate) have already done?

Both the Pac-12 and DirecTV have said it's the other one that is at fault for why there's still no deal (and likely won't ever be a deal) between the entities. I say bullsh*t, which is the same thing that is said in a much more polished, but just as blunt take on the issue that Awful Announcing put together this week.

You can read that piece over and over, DirecTV subscribers. Meanwhile, I'll be running around my house, yelling HOPPAH! as I watch any and every game involving the Pac-12.

When Tucson lost the Sidewinders last decade, it looked like the end of minor league baseball, and deservedly so. Attendance was pathetic, despite a team affiliated with the big-league Diamondbacks and which under former UA star Chip Hale had some pretty exciting teams.

Then, through some stroke of freaky luck, we got another team, albeit likely only on a temporary basis. But when California's financial woes caused a planned stadium in suburban San Diego to get scrapped, there seemed like a real chance Tucson could again be a permanent minor league baseball city.

But then you all fucked it up again by not patronizing the team. Whatever your reasons were, they were wrong. And as a result, the Tucson Padres are going away. And minor league baseball is never coming back here.

Can I say it more plainly? YOU LOST A TEAM TO EL PASO. NO CITY WORTH ANYTHING LOSES ANYTHING TO EL PASO. ]

Ok, rant over. For now. The whole point of this post is to remind you that, after Thursday night, the Tucson Padres' short tenure here will end, as the team finishes up the regular season on the road.

The T-Pads' local management, led by the tireless efforts of Mike Feder et. al, have been pulling out all the stops in terms of promotions and special events for these last few minor league games, and the Thursday finale is no different.

Along with being Thirsty Thursday — that's $1 beer and soft drinks, for all of you that think Kino Stadium is 'too far' or 'in a bad part of town' or some other bullshit reason for not going — Feder's wife, Pattie, will be throwing out the first pitch before the game pitting the T-Pads and the Reno Aces.

Yes, there is some poetic irony to the fact the final opponent is the team that used to be here before but smartly went to where it was more appreciated and draws 4,900 fans a night as opposed to 2,700 here.

A Facebook event page was set up for the final game, with Feder (and, subsequently, others) sending out invites to more than 1,800 people. As of Tuesday night, though, only 125 people had RSVP'd as planning to attend, a far cry from the 10,000+ people who have 'liked' the T-Pads' team page.

Let's get that RSVP number bumped up a bit, huh? And let's get a decent crowd out there for the sendoff of pro sports in Tucson, why don't we? There's nothing else really going on Thursday, unless you're attached to one of the handful of high schools playing football that night.

Just bite the bullet, conquer your fear of 'the south side' and go have a couple-seven beers and enjoy some baseball on a late summer evening. But if you don't, by all means stop complaining that there's nothing to do in this town.

The student section at Arizona Stadium for UA football games has been a source of pride, disappointment and sometimes flat out embarrassment over the years.

Though large and in charge for pretty much every home game I can remember, the overall population of the lower bleachers spanning the UA's side of the field after halftime has often been the subject of ridicule for its dearth of diehards who stick around for the third quarter. The school has gone so far as to have players implore those in the Zona Zoo to stay all game via video board messages, and the club issuing shirts to its members this year with what can only be called a strong 'reminder':

But Zona Zoo organizers may have found the best motivation possible — that is, short of concession guys with margarita pumps going up and down the aisles — to make the student section look as bountiful at the final whistle as during the opening kickoff of Friday's season opener against Northern Arizona:

Cold. Hard. Cash.

Just think how many AMFs or Long Islands that will buy, bro!

• MS Paint art by Dan Gibson

UPDATE: The tickets have been claimed!

The response to our Padres ticket giveaway was incredible and seemingly we sent a bunch of happy fans to the last games in Tucson Padres history, but yet, there is still one set of four tickets available for tonight's game against the Reno Aces at 7:05 p.m.

So, who wants them? Email us at [email protected] and we'll reply to the first email that comes in. HERE'S THE CATCH: You need to be able to pick these tickets up BEFORE 5 P.M. at our office at 3280 E. Hemisphere Loop. Our offices are largely inconvenient to everyone, so Google Map where we're located and what it would take for you to get here before emailing. If we pick someone for the tickets and the tickets end up unused, that would be a bummer.

Get to emailing! I'll update this post when the tickets have been awarded.

The predictions for Arizona's football season in terms of performance have ranged from the disappointing (Sports Illustrated says 5-7, with only two wins in the Pac-12) to the realistic (I'm guessing 7-5) to the delusional ('Rose Bowl, baby!!!' according to 70 percent of radio show callers).

At least the Wildcats know that if the pigskin pursuits don't work out, a good number of the players have at least a fighting chance of getting on So You Think You Can Dance or one of those other ridiculous reality/talent shows.

Check out the video from Arizona's 'first annual end-of-camp dance-off,' as head coach Rich Rodriguez put it. And make sure to stick around to the end to see RichRod himself do what I can only imagine is probably called something like the West Virginia Wiggle.

No matter how many times I update the settings, both on the main site and my mobile app, discounted-things-you-didn't-know-you-needed pusher LivingSocial keeps thinking my location is Phoenix. Whatever, it just usually means I hit delete on the emails without ever opening them.

Until I saw this in my inbox:

While yes, I admit I was slightly intrigued by discounted entries to a race where I could get away with wearing a fuschia tutu, it was actually the 'Sun Devil Football' that really caught my eye.

At first I thought it was some sort of specialty item related to the the football program at Girls Gone Wild University and Casino, but once I clicked on the link I found that, nope, it was indeed discounted tickets to ASU's home opener, Sept. 5 against Sacramento State.

I think it's going to take more than the deal offered (an upper deck seat and a T-shirt for $25, or a slightly better upper deck or lower end zone seat, plus the shirt, for $37) to get people to head to Sun Devil Stadium on a Thursday night to see a game against a lower-division opponent. Especially when the deal itself is only for one ticket, and you can't buy a second for someone else. And you have to redeem the voucher in advance, so you can't just go in on the deal with a bunch of friends and get your seats together when you show up just before kickoff.

Or maybe that's the demographic ASU is going for: lonely single people who will all likely sit three seats apart from each other, thus making the Living Social-filled sections look like acne on an awkward teen.

But then again, maybe this will sell like gangbusters. Who knows? As of 3:45 p.m. LivingSocial had sold more than 110 of these, probably mostly to people who were lured in by this awesome (and well-attributed) piece of predictive analysis on 2013 ASU football:

With an amazing recruiting class coming in for this season, and likely another big one shaping up for the following year, University of Arizona men's basketball coach Sean Miller is slowly but surely getting some of us Tucsonans to forget how to spell Olson.

But Miller is doing it more than just on the recruiting trail, or on the court itself during the regular season. He's also a master tweeter, according to The Sporting News.

Miller checks it at No. 9 on the top 10 'Twitter Bunch,' as SN put it (complete with a Brady Bunch knockoff graphic that for some reason only shows the top five guys.

No. 1 on the list, not surprisingly, is uber-slick John Calipari, who has more than 1.2 million followers. He is considered 'five-star caliber,' which I guess makess him a Kardashian or something.

Miller is given credit for his diversity of tweets, including reviewing Kendrick Lamar lyrics. So, there's that.

ASU's Herb Sendek, amazingly, is considered the second-best tweeting Pac-12 hoops coach, though his 6,800 or so followers is far behind the 16,980 that Miller had as of 1 p.m. today.

Expectations — at least on the local level — were high for Arizona football this year after Rich Rodriguez's initial Wildcat team went a surprising 8-5 last season.

The college coaches (or, rather, their sports information directors) didn't share those lofty thoughts when the USA Today preseason Top 25 poll came out two weeks ago, as Arizona was only among the 'others receiving votes' category and were basically ranked 42nd overall.

Seems like the national media is just as meh on the UA, as the preseason Associated Press poll has our hometown squad ... among the others receiving votes. But this time, it was for a TIE FOR 39TH PLACE with Cincinnati and North Carolina.

So, there's that.

For the record, the Pac-12 Conference is well represented in the poll, as Oregon is No. 3, Stanford is No. 4, UCLA is No. 21, USC is No. 24 and - in what can only be described as a pity ranking - Dan Gibson alma mater Oregon State was picked 25th.

Like all such before-the-season rankings, they're essentially meaningless because they cannot factor in yet-to-occur events such as injuries, suspensions of uber-douchey Heisman winners who aren't satisfied just cashing the trust fund baby checks and other such season speed bumps.

Undoubtedly, though, at least one member of the local mainstream media — probably the TV guy in the ill-fitting station logo polo — will ask RichRod about being 'spurned' by the polls following tonight's UA scrimmage that likely won't be a scrimmage because RichRod is sandbagging the heck out of this team based on his comments to this point.

Like many NBA teams with no shot at being successful anytime soon, the Phoenix Suns have taken it upon itself to do whatever it can to get lined up for one of the expected plethora of top prospects available in the 2014 draft.

For most of the league's also-rans, this just means dumping any players with talent in order to put together a roster so pathetic it's almost guaranteed to result in a bottom-of-the-standings record and the corresponding high draft spot.

But it appears the Suns are taking it one step further and implementing the look-bad, play-bad approach.

With that being said, I bring you the 2013-14 Phoenix Suns uniform lineup, which (of course) was unveiled before a packed crowd of people at Scottsdale Fashion Square who happened to be getting Cinnabon or Sbarro and stumpled upon the event:

• Arizona Republic

Yes, those are sleeves on the alternate orange jersey. And yes, there are fancy-schmancy suns bursts on the shorts:

Not even delving into the fact the 'SUNS' part makes me think of Snus smokeless tobacco — I smell a sponsorship deal!!!!! — the jerseys overall look way too much like the early 90s uniforms popularized by Charles Barkley, which themselves were hideous.

Ultimately, though, the new unis will still probably sell a shit ton's worth, which is really the only reason the Suns keep changing them (this is the fourth change since 1968, by the way). And for anyone who's on the fence about making a new purchase, you can read this flowery article from the Arizona Republic that basically reads like a press release as far as describing the unis' "nine speed rays coming off the numbers symbolize the nine former players in the team’s Ring of Honor" and other such blah, blah, blah.