Just when you thought the stakes in Sunday’s NFC title game couldn’t get any higher, GeekWire has challenged those upstarts down at Re/code — the new California-based tech news venture from Kara Swisher, Walt Mossberg and crew — to a friendly bet over the game, matching our Seattle Seahawks against their San Francisco 49ers.
Yes, the “Nerd Bowl” just got real.
There will be no kissing of biceps in this contest (at least not by us) but the situation may require a bit of Beast Mode, as the loser of the bet will have the task of writing a guest post for the other site. (We’re popping some Skittles right now to get fired up).
In the unlikely event that the Seahawks lose, for example, we’ll offer up a post for Re/code drawing startup or technology leadership lessons from the 49ers victory. (Again, highly unlikely.)
If the Seahawks win, Kara has promised to have one of the Re/code staffers write, “How Seattle Is still not SF, even the coffee anymore.” (We may have to work on that column idea a bit, but you get the point.)
And yes, food will be involved, with the losing tech news team shipping the winning team a package of hometown treats.
As we worked out the details on Twitter, GeekWire’s John Cook and Re/code’s Ina Fried talked about putting a staffer up for grabs as part of the bet, with Re/code getting me and GeekWire getting Re/code’s Mike Isaac, but that was a joke … um, right?
There is some competitive history here, with Kara having played in one of of our past ping-pong tournaments, knocking off BlueBox CEO Jesse Proudman in an epic first-round match, if we remember correctly. Ina, meanwhile, was once crowned the “Lord of All Catan” in one of our Settlers of Catan tournaments. So we’ve got some ground to make up here.
Win or lose, we can promise that our bet will be far more entertaining than the mundane wager between the Seattle and San Francisco mayors, which they used as an opportunity to urge each city’s fans to treat each other with respect.
You’ll get no such preaching from us, but we will say this: Go Hawks!
