Media & Entertainment Law
Sports Biz 
Covers the business, economics and law of professional and intercollegiate sports. Discusses the games, the athletes and the deals that allow the games to be played, the facilities to be built, and the games broadcast so they can play and we can watch.
Post Frequency: 146.7/day Last Entry: November 21, 2009 at 10:03:00 Recent Entries: 440
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LPGA 2010 Tour Dates Highlight Difficulties
Posted on November 21, 2009As we all know, sports has been particularly hard hit by the Great Recession as companies slash marketing budgets, fans are pressed to come up with cash for the ever increasing ticket prices, and TV ratings for most sports are tanking as narrowcasting takes holds...
Bayern Munich Lands Highly Lucrative Jersey Deal
Posted on November 19, 2009In the high stakes world of European club soccer, nowhere does the battle takes place for higher stakes than for the name on the front of the jersey. Leading the pack is Real Madrid, the Nuevo Galacticos ribery.jpgrecently renewed its deal with online gaming site Bwin, extending it for three years...
The 25 Highest Paid Coaches in the World
Posted on November 18, 2009What do you think it would take to be among the highest paid coaches in the world? Wouldn't you imagine that you should be at the very pinnacle of your game, having won mutliple championships either for one team. or perhaps, if you're a bit peripatetic, for multiple clubs? As this list makes clear, the expectation of winning is often sufficient to obtain the elusive lucrative contract, especially at the lower end of this extraordinary list of overpaid managers...
Federer Nets Big Deal with Credit Suisse
Posted on November 17, 2009Who says all banks are pulling in their spending. Tennis great Roger Federer has landed a ten year deal, which should take him right into retirement, with Credit Suisse. The deal thought to be worth in the neighborhood of $2,000,000 per year, which puts it in line without with Federer's other endorsement deals...
Mazel Tov Yuri, Israel's First World Champion
Posted on November 15, 2009Last night's Miguel Cotto-Manny Pacquiao title match was being hailed as the return of boxing for the press attention it drew and the number of celebrities who attended the fight. The early rounds didn't disappoint but after Pacquiao dropped Cotto in the fourth round, Cotto was never the same and Pacquaio hammered him relentlessly until the fight was stopped at 55 seconds of the 12th round...
5 Clubs Beakaway from USL-1 and Form New League
Posted on November 13, 2009The current situation in professional soccer in the US and Canada at the level below MLS can charitably be described as chaotic. Earlier this year, Nike sold USL-1, the recognized, and despite its name, Division II soccer league in the US and Canada...
Leafs Prove Losing Can Pay in the NHL
Posted on November 12, 2009Forbes is out with its annual look at the business of the NHL and its valuation of NHL clubs. A number of things are striking at first glance of the valuation of the franchises. The first is that it is clear that in Toronto, you can put six junior league players on the ice and you'll pack the Air Canada Centre...
2020 Olympics
Posted on November 11, 2009Now that the 2016 Summer Olympics have been awarded to Rio, campaigning has begun for the 2020 Games. Candidate cities are starting to express their interest or at least begin a whisper campaign of their candidacy. In addition, applications for the 2018 Winter Games have been received by the IOC from three cities, with cities lining up to bid for the 2022 Games...
Interesting Reading
Posted on November 11, 2009Below is a collection of links to articles I have read lately that I think you may find interesting:BARTICLEURLCo-owner of Boston Celtics running for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat (Bloomberg)BARTICLEURLBattle of the Blades, Canada's answer to Dancing with the Stars naturally takes place on ice (NYT)BARTICLEURLTwenty-Five most valuable blogs, and no SportsBiz was not among them (24/7)BARTICLEURLNike extends its sponsorship of USABasketball for 4 years at $4 million per year (Sportspromedia)BARTICLEURLAt least 25 college football coaches make more than $2 million a year, up from 12 in 2007, and a mere 9 in the dark old days of 2006 (USA Today)BARTICLEURLShould football be played without helmet to cut down on head injuries ( I think no pads or helmets a la Aussie Rules Football may significantly cut down on all injuries)(WSJ)BARTICLEURL
Where's the Outrage: Clips Owner Pays Millions to Settle Racial Discrimination Charges
Posted on November 07, 2009Donald Sterling is the not only the extraordinarily cheap owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, but a Southern California real estate developer with hundred of apartments throughout the Southland. Three years ago the Justice Department sued him alleging that he favored Korean tenants and systematically discriminated against blacks, Hispanics and familirs with children in renting apartments...
Adidas Ends Relationship With UCF Over Jordan Wearing Nike
Posted on November 05, 2009The UCF Knights basketball had an exhibition game against St. Leo Wednesday night and every player but one wore adidas shoes as is required by the school's contract with the shoe and apparel contract. The exception, as we would expect, was Marcus Jordan, Michael's youngest son...
Adidas Plans Huge Push Behind World Cup and New Zidane Boot
Posted on November 05, 2009Athletic wear sales tend to run in cycles. Interest often peaks around major sporting events and companies assoicated with star athletes see their sales rise as the athletes medals move up the metal scale. With 2010 approaching, adidas sees its biggest marketing event of every four year cycle ahead and is now taking steps to position itself for maximum advantage...
Election Results; The Day After
Posted on November 04, 2009Yesterday's elections produced a few surprises and a couple of results with significant impact in the world of sports. First, the upset victory of Chris Christie in New Jersey, where he knocked off incumbent governor Jon Corzine puts the renovation of the Izod Center, the current home of the New Jersey Nets in doubt as well as any funds needed to complete the nearby Xanadu project...
Rondo Signs for $55 Million; Did Celtics Overpay?
Posted on November 04, 2009It's been reported last night and today that the Celtics have signed point guard Rajon Rondo to a five year contract, worth at least $55 million. He would have been a restricted free agent at the end of the season, and likely the best point guard on the market, but he was comfortable in Boston and wanted to stay...
BetonsSports.com Founder Gets More than Four Years in Jail
Posted on November 03, 2009Concluding a more than four year investigation, BetonSports.com founder Gary Kaplan pleaded guilty yesterday to several felony counts and was sentenced to more than four years in jail. Kaplan, jailed since his arrest more than two years ago, had been charged by the US Attorney in St...
Newstex Interview
Posted on October 30, 2009An interview I did with Newstex, the excelllent content syndicator, can be found here. If you're not familiar with Newstex, they syndicate content to a variety of outlets including Reuters and Lexis-Nexis. You can find out more about what they do here...
North American Sports Day
Posted on October 29, 2009Sunday will be a groundbreaking day in the annals of North American sports As far as I've been able to determine, Sunday will be the first day on which all four/five major professional sports leagues have played regular season or playoff games on the same day...
McCourts Battle Each Other Tougher Than Dodgers Fought Phils
Posted on October 29, 2009The McCourt divorce is going to be the gift that keeps on giving this season. Already, 700 pages of documents have been dumped on Los Angeles Superior Court, and the fight is just beginning. We're talking about preliminary motions here; we haven't even gotten to any of the really good stuff...
Coyotes Sold to the NHL
Posted on October 27, 2009Phoneix, your long nightmare appears to be over. Jerry Moyes has agreed to sell the Coyotes to the NHL. While the deal must still be approved by the bankruptcy court judge, that would seem to be mostly formality at this point since the deal was struck under his guidance, or shall we say stern warnings and nasty stares and other signs of what exactly he wanted to have happen...
Michael Jordan's Son Could Cost UCF It's adidas Contract
Posted on October 25, 2009Marcus Jordan is an 18 year old college freshman basketball player at UCF, formerly referred to by its proper name: the University of Central Florida. When Marcus was being recruited by the UCF coaches he was promised that he could wear a particular shoe when he played for the Knights...
Myron Rolle: NFL Delayed for a Rhodes Scholarship
Posted on October 25, 2009There is a must read story in the New York Times today catching up with former Florida State defensive back Myron Rolle, who put the NFL on hold to accept a Rhodes Scholarship and a year at Oxford. All too often we hear coaches, athletic directors and university presidents talk about student athletes and it's a myth...
A New Civil Rights Movement for the MIddle Class
Posted on October 23, 2009This is a non-political blog and while I have strong political views and am very active in politics, I have not used this blog to discuss those views or issues, save the joy I felt, and still feel, with the election of President Obama. However, I am breaking that stance for a moment and if you don't want to read anything political feel free to skip this although I really hope you don't...
Dodgers Owner Fires Wife as CEO
Posted on October 23, 2009Los Angeles Dodgers fans better enjoy the memory of this year's run to the NLCS. It may be the last time the team gets there for a while if what has happened to other team's whose owners went through bitter divorces are any indication. Dodgers' owners Frank and Jamie McCourt are estranged and in the process of a not very pleasant divorce...
Goodell Says London May Get NFL Franchise
Posted on October 23, 2009The NFL is holding its annual regular season game at London's Wembley Stadium Sunday. This year features the New England Patriots playing the Tampa Bay Bucs, who are owned by the Glazer family, owners of the English Premier League and European Champion League's defending champion Manchester United...
Tiger Heads Sports Entrants on Fortune's Forty Under Forty
Posted on October 22, 2009Tiger Woods stands atop the sports world's under forty year old business people, according to Fortune's Forty Under Forty list, unless you consider Twitter, which is being used constantly to comic effect, by athletes everywhere, a member of the sports world...
Bankruptcy Judge Approves January Auction of Pimlico
Posted on October 14, 2009Coninuing our legal theme of the day, we turn now to bankruptcy court and for a change our venue is not the Valley of the Sun, but the land of the Black-eyed Susans. The federal Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing the bankruptcy of Magna Entertainment approved a proposal to conduct an auction of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park on January 8, 2010...
Kentucky and Billy Clyde Settle for Almost $3 Million
Posted on October 14, 2009When Kentucky hired Billy Clyde Gillispie to be the head basketball coach, no contract was signed. Instead, the two sides agreed on a memorandum of terms with a detailed contract to be worked out later. Well, two years later Kentucky decided to fire Billy Clyde and the contract had still never been signed...
Limbaugh Dropped from Rams Bidding Group
Posted on October 14, 2009Dave Checketts announced tonight that Rush has been dropped from the group bidding for control of St. Louis Rams since "it has become clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions; endangering our bid to keep the team in St...
A Look at the New Jersey Nets Financials
Posted on October 09, 2009Forest City Enterprises, the majority owner of the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets is a public company, with its stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange (FCE.A). As a result, its recent 10-K/A filed with the SEC last week in connection with the sale of the Nets to Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, provides us with the most detailed look to date into the financial affairs of a NBA team...
South Florida Superpass
Posted on October 06, 2009In what is probably a first in the annals of professional sports marketing, South Florida pro teams and sports attractions teamed up to present fans with a ten event package ticket. For $330 or $1,125 depending on seating, a fan will get tickets to see all four pro teams (2010 games in the case of the Marlins), Calder and Gulfstream race tracks, Nascar championship at the Homestead, the Sony Ericsson Open, the CA World Golf Championship and Miami FC soccer...
Rush Wants the Rams
Posted on October 05, 2009It would be rapture for Dittoheads everywhere - their very own NFL team to salivate over. Rush Limbaugh, the unctuous radio talk show has expressed an interest in buying, in partnership with St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts, an interest in the St...
Sports and Business Law Conference
Posted on October 05, 2009On October 23, 2009, the National Sports Law Institute will be holding a conference titled The Evolution of Sports Law and Business From the 20th to the 21st Century at the Alumni Memorial Union, on the Marquette University campus in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin...
Rio Gets 2016 Olympics; EvenObama Can't Deliver Chicago
Posted on October 03, 2009The 2016 Olympics are heading south for the first time. On the third ballot, the games were awarded to Rio de Janeiro, marking the first time that the Summer Olympics will be held in South America. While Rio had always been considered to be one of the favorites, the sentiment towards moving the games into a new locale was strong, Chicago was thought to be a close competitor...
Customizing Basketball Letters of Intent Now Banned
Posted on October 02, 2009As the carnival of coaching changes in college basketball each spring has spun ever more rapidly, it has become increasingly common for top recruits to ask for, and for colleges to agree to, addendums to the letters of intent committing those recruits to attend that school...
Tiger Woods - Billionaire
Posted on October 02, 2009By his standards, this year has not been one of Tiger Wood's most successful seasons. Oh sure, he won six tournaments, is the likely player of the year, won over $10 million in prize money and last, but most certainly not least, won the Fed Ex Cup Championship with its $10 million accompanying $10 million check...
Coyotes Judge Rejects Both Claims; NHL Winner
Posted on October 01, 2009The US Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing the bankruptcy of the Phoenix Coyotes rejected both bids to purchase the franchise but invited the NHL to revise its bid to meet his objections. He essentially ended any efforts by Jim Balsillie to purchase the team and move it to Hamilton, Ont...
Vick Resigns Endorsement Deal Withi NIke
Posted on October 01, 2009Michael Vick played in his NFL game in over two years last weekend and this week another step in resuming his career and restoring his standing in the sport fell into place. Yesterday, his agent announced that Vick has re-signed an endorsement deal with Nike...
Great Recession Hits Horse Sales
Posted on September 30, 2009The Keeneland September Yearling Sale is the largest and usually most expensive sale of thoroughbred yearlings in the world. It recently concluded its annual 14 day run while posting the largest declines in its history, as the full weight of the global economic crisis and the difficulties faced by horse racing in states that have not adopted some form of casino gambling or video poker, primarily Kentucky and Maryland...
Why Rent Your Stadium Seat When You Can Own It?
Posted on September 30, 2009The introduction of personal seat licenses about 20 years ago revolutionized the financing of stadium and arena construction around the country. By asking fans to pony up a lump sum merely for the right to buy tickets, team owners and colleges and universities created a revenue stream basically out of thin air...
NFL Study Finds LInk to Dementia
Posted on September 30, 2009The defending Heisman Trophy winner, heart and soul of the number one college football team in the country and the man crush of half the state of Florida, Tim Tebow, suffered a concussion in Florida's destruction of Kentucky last Saturday. Tebow's injury was significant enough to warrant his spending the night in the hospital in Lexington before returning to Gainesville on Sunday...
Yankee (or Gotham Redux) Bowl Slated for 2010
Posted on September 30, 2009The Big East, Big XII and the New York Yankees will announce tomorrow the creation of a new bowl game to be played in new Yankee Stadium. The game will pit the fourth place finisher from the Big East against the seventh place finisher from the Big XII, with the inaugural game taking place following this season, assuming NCAA certification can be obtained in time...
2016 Olympics Winner's Stock Market May Get Boost
Posted on September 30, 2009Seemingly counter-intuitive, at least to me, a study reported by Bloomberg claims that in the five days following the award of the hosting of an Olympics the stock market of the new host gains an average of 2%. I say counter-intuitive because with the exception of the recent games staged in America, almost every Olympics in the last 30 years or more has lost money, often considerable money...
Tuesday Tidbits and More
Posted on September 29, 2009Sorry for the absence of posts the last several days. I've had family in town and with Yom Kippur, I've been away from my computer, so I'll try to catch up by throwing up a few links I had been collecting without too much commentary. There may be another post or two today that will be more of the regular pearls of wisdom you've grown accustomed to reading...
Coyotes Will Stay in Phoenix For Upcoming Season
Posted on September 24, 2009While Coyotes' fans, Jim Balsillie and the NHL await a bankruptcy judge's ruling on who will be the next owner of the team, Balsillie, who intends to move the club to Hamilton, Ontario if he is the winner, committed to keep the team in Phoenix for the upcoming season...
Adidas, Puma to Patch 60 Year Feud
Posted on September 21, 2009The sports shoe giant Adidas and smaller rival Puma were born of a feud between brothers in a small German town more than 60 years ago. The two companies were formed in 1948 when Adolf and Rudolf Dass had a falling out during World War II and split up their growing athletic shoe business...
Thoroughbred Yearling Sale Prices Fall for Third Year
Posted on September 21, 2009It's the perfect storm of financial disaster for the thoroughbred breeding business. In 2007, when the current crop of yearlings which are now going through the sales ring were conceived, stud fees were at their recent peak. As those yearlings now come to market, breeders are faced with the Great Recession, an oversupply of foals as a result of the breeding boom in the high times of 2007 and shrinking demand for horses as a result of the difficulties race tracks face...
Nets New Owner to Be a Russian?
Posted on September 18, 2009Now that the Nets owner Bruce Ratner has secured all the approvals necessary to build his proposed new Barclays Arena in Brooklyn, the final search for the needed $700 million to fund construction is underway. In addition, or as part and parcel of the arena funding depending on which story you believe, he is negotiating a sale of a substantial and controlling (or managing) interest in the team itself...
How the Forbes 50 Live
Posted on September 18, 2009If you have ever wondered how the Forbes top 50 (well, 51 to be exact) lived, the Wall Street Journal today gave us a picture of the lifestyle of at least one member. Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich is a Russian oligarch, that fast fading breed of natural resource plundering friends of the Kremlin who made billions in the transformation of the old Soviet empire into the free-wheeling capitalist wild west of the late 90s...
The CEO of the WWE Wants to Be Your US Senator
Posted on September 17, 2009if you live in Connecticut, that is. Of course, the question is, wasn't one former WWE character in politics enough for this country? Apparently not, as Jesse Ventura's former boss, Linda McMahon, CEO of the WWE and the wife of WWE chairman and impressario Vince McMahon has announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination to the US Senate in 2010...
Premier League and UEFA Propose New Spending Requirements
Posted on September 15, 2009It seems to be soccer week here at SportsBiz and we're back in Europe today. Both the English Premier League and UEFA have proposed new financial rules in response to the flood of money that has been flowing into the game over the last few years. Let's look at the EPL first, as the reaction of the Premier League's clubs will impact the ability of UEFA head, Michael Platini's ability to get his proposals adopted...
Liverpool Signs New Jersey Sposnor
Posted on September 14, 2009Liverpool's search for a jersey sponsor to replace Carlsberg, its sponsor for the past 18 years is over. The club has signed a new five year deal with London based bank, Standard Chartered, for four years, for what is believed to be 80 million pounds a year, equal to the deal Manchester United has had with AIG, the recognized highest jersey deal in soccer...
Coyotes Auction Ends With No Decision
Posted on September 12, 2009Friday's auction hearing in the Coyotes' bankruptcy ended with Judge Baum requesting lawyers for the NHL and Jim Balsillie, the two bidders for the club, to file written versions of their revised bids by Tuesday and he will review them and then render a decision...
Coyotes Auction Tomorrow, Maybe...
Posted on September 11, 2009The US Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing the bankruptcy case of the Phoenix Coyotes today held the first of what was expected to be two days of hearing in the auction of the club. Right now, there are only two bidders for the Coyotes: Blackberry co-founder Jim Balsillie who has made his offer contingent on moving the team to Hamilton, Ontario, and the NHL, which has said it will play in Phoenix next season while it searches for a new owner...
Insurance Companies and Lawyers Cashing In on Fantasy Teams
Posted on September 11, 2009I suppose this was inevitable. Wherever there was this much money, you know that the lawyers and insurance companies couldn't stay away forever. You can now insure your fantasy against catastrophic loss, you know like Tom Brady, your number one draft choice, going down for the season in the first quarter of the first game, or submit your league dispute to arbitration by "real lawyers", as opposed to the ones played on TV...
Nets Get Practice Jersey Sponsor
Posted on September 09, 2009In the NBA's closest move yet towards adding sponsors name to jerseys, the New Jersey (Brooklyn?) Nets have signed an agreement with PNY Technologies to add the company's name to the Nets' practice jersey. The company was already a Nets sponsor, with in-arena signage, and that signage will continue...
Women's Tennis Shows Strength Through Recession
Posted on September 08, 2009The WTA has been able to withstand the Great Recession in excellent shape, according to CEO Stacey Allaster. The tour lost only one title sponsor in 2009, and is adding three new tournaments for 2010. Contrast that to the LPGA, which had to cancel seven tournaments this year because of a lack of sponsors...
10 Ways to Invest in New Beatlemania
Posted on September 07, 2009Happy Labor Day! Hope you're having bright sunshine and few clouds as we enjoy the end of summer. It's thunderstorms here in the Bluegrass so I'm not tempted to go outside. You're the lucky beneficiaries of the storm since I'm cooped up in the house, you get a few pearls of wisdom, or just a few interesting items I've come across over the weekend...
Lingerie Football League Debuts
Posted on September 05, 2009Last night marked the historic debut of the Lingerie Football League as the Miami Caliente came toChicago to take on the Chicago Bliss at the Sears Center Arena. The Bliss won 29-19. For a good write-up of the game, go here.There are currently 10 teams in the LFL...
A's to San Jose Brings $130 Million a Year to South Bay
Posted on September 04, 2009A's owner Lew Wolf is a man in search of a home. Oakland draws the second fewest fans in the majors behind only the Florida Marlins and Wolf is convinced that baseball is no longer economically viable in Oakland. He tried to build a stadium in Fremont, but that fell through earlier this year...
FIFA Gives Chelsea One Year Ban on Signing Players
Posted on September 04, 2009Roman Abramovich's millions have transformed Chelsea into one of the major powers of European soccer. The only trophy that has eluded Chelsea in recent years has been the Champions League and they have continued to spend his millions in an effort to take that one home to Stamford Bridge as well...
Cowboys Top Most Valuable List Again
Posted on September 03, 2009Once again, Forbes has released its list of the value of NFL franchises and once again the list is topped by the Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones' golden touch has seen the franchise increase by 2% to a whopping $1.65 Billion, yes with a "B", a value exceeded in the world only by Manchester United...
NY Giants Chase Bankruptcy Claim Against Lehman
Posted on September 02, 2009The Giants and Jets are privately funding the construction of the $1.6 billion New Giants Stadium (catchy name don't you think) now scheduled for opening in time for the kickoff of the 2010 season. To raise its $800 million portion, the Giants turned to the auction rate securities market, selling $650 million securities in August 2007...
P&G Signs On as US Olympic Sponsor
Posted on September 02, 2009Reversing a recession induced trend, the US Olympic Committee has landed a major new sponsor. Proctor & Gamble has signed on as a new sponsor and we will now see the USOC logo and the Olympic rings on 17 different P&G brands but especially on brands that appeal to women...
Do You Want to Sponsor a Golf Tour?
Posted on September 02, 2009The LPGA is looking for a title or presenting sponsor for the entire 2010 tour, including a year-end championship tournament, which would include media inventory in the tour's new exclusive television deal with Golf Channel which begins next year. The year-end championship would be moved to the beginning of the following season and include 32 golfers who earned their entry into the tournament through points earned by finishes throughout the prior season...
Delaware Limited to NFL Parley
Posted on September 02, 2009The federal appeals court that had earlier handed the NFL a victory in its battle with Delaware over gambling, clarified what would be permissible. The appeals court found that the grandfather clause in the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was meant to be strictly construed...
8 USL Clubs Threaten Breakaway League
Posted on September 02, 2009Soccer in this country has had many obstacles to success. For one , the management of professional leagues before Major League Soccer has consistently chosen the wrong path and as a result, the leagues have imploded. So far, at least, MLS seems to have hit upon a financial structure that appears to be working and acceptance by the public and media seems to be growing, albeit far too slowly for my taste...
Panthers Owner Fires His Sons
Posted on September 02, 2009What a way to start a football season. Normally the days leading up to the final exhibition game are filled with stories about the team's final roster: who's going to make it, who may be cut, free agent signings, possible trades, even, as rare as those are in the NFL...
Is Formula One Racing a Sport?
Posted on August 28, 2009One can argue about auto racing being a sport I suppose, although it seems fairly well settled, at least among the western industrialized world. In India, however, it has proved to be a different matter altogether. It seems that Formula One racing, the world's most popular form of auto racing, is not considered to be a sport, at least by the Indian government...
NHL Bids for Coyotes
Posted on August 28, 2009The long and winding story of the Phoenix Coyotes just got more interesting. While the group led by White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf dropped its bid for the 'Yotes, saying it couldn't reach a satisfactory agreement with the City of Glendale over a lease of Jobing,com Arena, the NHL jumped in before the bankruptcy court imposed deadline to offer a bid of its own...
Mazel Tov to the Greens; Onward and Upward in the Champions League
Posted on August 25, 2009Maccabi Haifa took care of business today, defeating Red Bull Salzburg, the sister club to Red Bull New York, 3-0 at the National Stadium in Ramat Gan, Israel to advance to the group stage of the UEFA Champions League for only the second time in the club's history...
Court Kills Delaware Single Game Bets
Posted on August 24, 2009A federal appeals court ruling today most likely ended Delaware's foray into single game betting on college and professional sports. The appeals court, hearing an appeal filed by the NFL, found that the single game betting proposed by Delaware violated the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992...
NCAA Vacates Memphis' Final Four Run
Posted on August 21, 2009Stop me if you've heard this one already. It's getting to be old hat for Memphis and John Calipari; another trip to the Final Four, another investigation by the NCAA and another visit to the Final Four wiped off the record books. Oh, the other thing that yesterday's announcement had in common with the last time Calipari took a team to the Final Four only to see its record wiped out, nothing was pinned out Coach Cal...
Former Curlin Owners Sentenced in Fraud Case
Posted on August 20, 2009Also while I was gone, a US District Judge in Kentucky pronounced sentences for the two Kentucky lawyers who formerly owned Curlin and who were convicted of defrauding their clients out of millions of dollars in the fen-phen case. Judge Danny Reeves sentenced William Gallion to 25 years in prison and Shirley Cunningham Jr...
What Did I Miss (Besides Tiger's Collapse)?
Posted on August 20, 2009I'm back from travels into the land of the Wahoos, helping my daughter settle into her new apartment. Seems like it was a weekend that was memorable in the sports world only for the epic collapse Tiger experienced on Sunday. I guess we can expect to see a new putter in his bag the next time he steps onto a course...
Road Trippin'
Posted on August 13, 2009POsting will probably be light to nonexistent over the weekend and on into next week as I'll be traveling with limited time and access, so you'll just have to carry on without me. Fortunately you have Tiger trying for a PGA win, Mike Vick searching for a contract and Rick Pitino saying who knows how many Hail Marys to keep occupied til I get back...
Jeremy Tyler Heads to Isreal
Posted on August 11, 2009Jeremy Tyler, the high school phenom basketball player who is skipping not only his first year in college but also his last year in high school, will likely begin his professional basketball career in Israel. The New York Times is reporting that Tyler is very close to an agreement with Maccabi Haifa, runners up in the Israeli top division last season to perpetual power Maccabi Tel Aviv...
Televiso, Azteca and Univision Need El Tri Win on Wednesday
Posted on August 11, 2009When the US and Mexico kick of in Estadio Azteca on Wednesday afternoon, there will be more riding on the game than a berth in World Cup 2010. That's not to say that World Cup qualifying isn't the most important thing at stake in the game, because there is no doubt about that - particularly for the home squad...
Pitino Admits to Sex with Extortionist
Posted on August 11, 2009In an admission that I'm sure came as no surprise to anyone, Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitio had admitted to police investigators that he had consensual sex with Linda Sypher, the woman now indicted for extorting money from him. In addition, Pitino told police that he paid her $3,000 to have an abortion...
NCAA Bans Championships From States with Gambling
Posted on August 09, 2009The NCAA was the first professional sports organization to react to the US District Court Judge's refusal to issue an injunction barring the implementation of single game wagering in Delaware. One day after the judge in Delaware issued his decision, the presidents of all three divisions of the NCAA voted to ban all rounds of championship events from being held in any state that permits gambling on individual games...
Texas A&M Nets Punter From Trademark Fight with Seahawks
Posted on August 09, 2009Remember the battle between Texas A&M and the Seattle Seahawks three years ago over the trademark to the "12th Man"?. Well, that fight, which got huge press throughout the Pacific Northwest and resulted in the Seahawks paying a license fee to A&M which had trademarked the term years earlier, paid other dividends for the Aggies...
The End of the Moneyball Era
Posted on August 09, 2009If you look at the standings in Major League Baseball's divisional and wildcard races across all divisional lines and in both leagues, one item pops right out at you - there are almost no small teams. The only small payroll teams still in serious contention are the Rockies and the Giants in the NL wildcard, and neither of those is truly a small market club...
Thursday Tidbits
Posted on August 06, 2009lBelow are a few links to get your Thursday off to a good start. However, before we get to the links I have to talk about one thing I saw last night. I turned on the Barcelona - Seattle Sounders soccer game, only to find a real assault to the visual senses...
Cablevision to Spin Off MSG
Posted on August 02, 2009At long last the long suffering shareholders of Cablevision will see Madison Square Garden, the Knicks and the Rangers depart from the Cablevision balance sheet and operating statement. Cablevision announced last week the intent to spin off MSG into a stand-alone company...
Buy a Soccer Club on Ebay
Posted on August 02, 2009Up until last Thursday you had a chance to buy a League 1 English soccer club on Ebay if you were the highest bidder. Bidding for Tranmere Rovers, in what appears to have been a genuine listing, began at $10,000,000. Peter Johnson, the club's majority owner had engaged Domoch Capital of the US to sell his interest in the club...
The 10 Most Disliked People in Sports
Posted on July 31, 2009Forbes recently released its list of the 10 most disllked people in sports and surprisingly neither A-Rod nor T.O. topped the list. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at the guy at the top of the list, but he hasn't even been in sports for the last 23 months so you tend to forget about him...
Book Review:You Bet: The Betfair Story
Posted on July 31, 2009I almost never review or recommend books on this site that I haven't read but I'm going to make an exception this time. I came across a review in The Economist that intrigued me as the reviewer described the book as recounting the beginning of online betting...
Why Big Ten Expansion Not Likely
Posted on July 29, 2009Many fans and even a few coaches, notably Joe Paterno and Minnesota's Tim Brewster, have been agitating for the Big Ten to pick up an extra school so that it could hold a championship game just like those other conferences do. Well, folks, it's not likely to happen anytime soon and that's not just because the conference is still smarting from being jilted by Notre Dame a few years back...
NCAA Has Spent $84 Million on Lititgation
Posted on July 28, 2009The NCAA, which can't seem to keep itself out of court or out of its own way, has spent at least $84 million on litigation in the last 10 years, according to a study done by the Indianapolis Star. This figure includes the reported costs of any settlements during that period...
NFL and Company Go After Delaware
Posted on July 28, 2009What accounts for the phenomenal growth of the NFL in the last 20 years? Certainly television played a major role and in that regard one of the great decisions the league made was to divide the TV money up equally, going a long way towards ensuring parity, or something close to it...
Are the Nets For Sale?
Posted on July 27, 2009The New York Post is reporting that Bruce Ratner, the commercial real estate developer and majority owner of the Nets has put the team up for sale. While the Nets deny this, as would be standard operating procedure, Nets officials confirm that the team is seeking investors, usual code speak for a sale...
LPGA Leadership Challegene
Posted on July 26, 2009We have discussed here before the players revolt that led to the resignation of former LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens. On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal ran an excellent story summarizing the challenges facing any new commissioner that the LPGA ultimately hires...
Former UCLA Star Files Class Action Against NCAA
Posted on July 22, 2009It's July so it must be time for the NCAA to be hit with another class action suit. The organization that can't keep itself out of the courtroom is at it again. This time, former UCLA basketball Ed O'Bannon filed suit in US District Court in California seeking damages for infringing on players' rights by using the likenesses for commercial gain...
Mountain West, WAC Lack Cojones; Sign BCS Deal
Posted on July 13, 2009For months, nay years, now we've been hearing nothing but whining out of the Mountain West and the WAC about the unfairness of the BCS and how the whole system reeks of antitrust violations. How the big boys have gotten together with ESPN to screw them out of the possibility of ever winning the national championship, not to mention those big paydays the power six routinely take home...
Cubs May File Bankruptcy to Expedite Sale
Posted on July 13, 2009When the Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy protection, the Chicago Cubs, one of its subsidiaries was deliberately left out of the filing to facilitate its sale and not unduly complicate the Chapter 11 process. Now, The Chicago Cubs are exploring the possibility of becoming the first Major League Baseball club in 39 years to seek bankruptcy protection in order to expedite the sale of the club to the Ricketss family for $900 million...
US Olympic Committee, Comcast Form Olympics Network
Posted on July 11, 2009The US Olympic Committee and Comcast earlier this week announced the formation of the Olympics Network, something which USOC has been working on for several years without success. Funny thing though, I thought we already had an Olympics Network - Universal Sports, owned in part by NBC...
LPGA Commissioner Is Out In Response to Player Revolt
Posted on July 10, 2009It's US Open Week on the LPGA tour and instead of the focus being on the players and the difficulty of the course and how treacherous the USGA has made the greens and how tall the USGA has let the rough grow, all of the focus has been on the fate of LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens...
College Football Players Sue NCAA, EA Sports for Royalties
Posted on July 06, 2009The NCAA, which proclaims itself the guardian of amateur athletics in this country and the protector of the rights of the student athlete, has been called to account once again. This time by student athletes, several of whom have filed class action lawsuits against the NCAA and Electronic Arts for appropriating their likenesses for commercial use without their consent and without compensation...
Tribune and Rcketss Family Reach Deal on Cubs
Posted on July 06, 2009The Tribune Company and the Ricketts family have signed a term sheet on the sale of the Cubs to the Ricketts and forwarded it to the Commissioner's office for approval by the owners. This will end, for now, the Tribune Company's flirtations with other buyers as the deal hit a snag over the last couple of months...
Tacos Replace the Big Mac at NBA Games
Posted on July 02, 2009Twenty year sponsor McDonalds is out at the NBA and Taco Bell is in as the league's fast food partner. The amount of the deal has not been announced but the deal has been confirmed by several sources and first reported by Sports Business Journal. It's a four year, all inclusive deal, containing ads on ABC, ESPN, TNT and title sponsorship to the All Star Saturday Night Skill Challenge and store promotions...
Supreme Court Grants Cert in American Needle
Posted on June 30, 2009Yesterday, was the last day of the Supreme Court's term, and Justice David Souter's career on the Court before he rides off into the New Hampshire hills, and the Court handed down a number of orders including a notice that it had decided to grant cert in American Needle v...
End of An Era for the Big East and Pac-10
Posted on June 30, 2009I shouldn't let today go by without noting the retirement of the commissioners of the Big East and Pac-10 conferences. Both men have been in their jobs for what seems like an eternity and I guess in the college athletics world, it probably is. Michael Tranghese has been commissioner of the Big East for 18 years, following Dave Gavitt, its first commissioner and Tranghese's boss at both the Big East and Providence College from where Gavitt brought Tranghese in to be the Big East's second employee...
Haveil Havalim is Now Up
Posted on June 28, 2009Haveil Havalim, the weekly carnival of Jewish Blogs is now up and you can and should go visit it here. While this is clearly not a Jewish focused blog, last week's post on Omri Casspi and the NBA draft was picked up. There is a great collection of a wide range of post on various topics and you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy them...
Reinsdorf Submits Bid for Coyotes
Posted on June 27, 2009I guess there was a real bidder for the Coyotes besides Jim Balsillie after all. Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf yesterday submitted to the bankruptcy court an outline of his offer to buy the Coyotes at the auction which the bankruptcy judge has scheduled for August 5...
Omri Casspi Makes History
Posted on June 26, 2009Many of you might know that basketball is the second most popular sport in Israel and that Israeli basketball has long been competitive in Europe. In fact Maccabi Tel Aviv , the New York Yankees of Israel, was the Euroleague champion in 2004 and 2005 and the runner-up in 2006 and 2008...
Deal Reached to Save Unified F! Racing
Posted on June 25, 2009Remember those dire predictions of the last few weeks that Formula One racing was never to be the same again as eight of the ten teams that make up the sport were leaving to form a breakaway tour, and taking many of the sponsors with them? Well, it's not going to happen...
Griffin Schools Jared (Yes, That Jared)
Posted on June 25, 2009What do you do when you're the number one pick in the NBA draft and you're in NYC with a couple of days to kill? Well, you do what your sponsors suggest and one of Blake Griffin's, formerly of Oklahoma and soon to be a Los Angeles Clipper, suggested a game of S-U-B-W-A-Y (H-O-R-S-E) between Griffin and Jared...
Now, Yanks Are On to the Final
Posted on June 25, 2009In what was a most improbably but well deserved upset of the number one team in the world, the US men's soccer team took out Spain 2-0 Wednesday in a Confederations Cup semifinal in South Africa. The US played with unaccustomed spirit for 90 minutes, taking the game directly to the Spaniards in sharp contrast to the Americans earlier somewhat listless efforts in losses to Brazil and Italy...
ESPN Grabs Premiership Rights Held by Setanta
Posted on June 23, 2009It doesn't call itself the Worldwide Leader in Sports for nothing. ESPN walked away yesterday with the rights to broadcast English Premier League games formerly held by the now financially crippled Setanta, which had defaulted on its payments. The EPL conducted a hastily arranged auction which ESPN is thought to have won with a bid of about 90 million pounds, which, together with the 40 million pounds already received by the EPL from Setanta means the league is actually coming out about even with where it would have been under the original Setanta contract...
Protesting Iranian Soccer Players Banned
Posted on June 23, 2009You may recall that some members of the Iranian national soccer team expressed solidarity with the protesters in the streets by wearing green arm and wristbands during their World Cup qualifying match last week against South Korea. The regime took its revenge announcing lifetime bans for four of the six players, the fate of the other two is not known at this time...
The improbable is Possible: US v Spain in Confederations Semis
Posted on June 22, 2009Congratulations to Bob Bradley and the US Men's Soccer team for the most improbable run to the semifinals of the Confederations Cup tournament now taking place in South Africa as you could possibly imagine. Listless, unimaginative and uninspired in a 3-0 loss to Brazil on Thursday, one could have expected the team to mail in today's game against Egypt...
Father's Day Links
Posted on June 21, 2009A few links for your Father's Day reading pleasure - hope you have a Happy Father's Day:It's been a bad month for Manchester United; first Ronaldo and now Carlos Tevez is gone (Guardian)Jets join Giants in selling space on their practice jerseys (Daily News via thejetsblog)Cubs sale may be in trouble (Tribune via Abnormal Returns)NHL looking at Winter Classic Doubleheader (Globe and Mail)FIA says that a deal is near to prevent Formula One break-up; we'll see (Bloomberg)University of Georgia signs what may be largest NCAA media rights deal, at least on a per annum basis (Atlanta Journal-Constiution via Wiz of Odds)ARTICLEURL
Hoist a Molson for the Canadiens
Posted on June 20, 2009George Gillett, the owner of the Montreal Canadiens and a 50% partner in Liverpool FC has been having a few financial problems thanks to the Great Recession. The fact that he and his Liverpool partner, Tom Hicks, he of the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars, aren't getting along hasn't helped...
Timex and New York Giants Naming Rights Pact Extends Beyond Practice Field
Posted on June 19, 2009So far, the Jets and the Giants have been unable to secure a naming rights sponsor for the $1.3 billion New Meadowlands Stadium scheduled to open for the 2010 season. That has not stopped the Giants from finding other ways to bring sponsors aboard. The Giants training facility located adjacent to the new stadium, will sport the name Timex Performance Center, as the centerpiece of a 15 year $35-40 million deal...
Formula One Racing Facing Split
Posted on June 19, 2009It was only last year that the men who run open wheel racing in the United States finally wised up and ended the fued between the Indy Racing League and Champ Car and merged, giving open whell racing fans something they had not experienced for years: a single unified calendar of races...
Team Iran Wears Green in Support of Protest Movement
Posted on June 18, 2009It is rare that international politics fails to find its way onto the stage of international sporting events and yesterday's World Cup qualifying matches were no exception. In a match beamed live to Iran, some members of the Iranian national soccer team wore green armbands in support of the Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi and the hundreds of thousands back home protesting the results of last week's disputed presidential election...
Phelps Gets First Endorsement Post Photo; Not for a Hookah
Posted on June 17, 2009Since Michael Phelps was spotted in the now infamous "bong photo", he has served a three month suspension from organized swimming, lost sponsorships (most prominently being Kellogg) and become the butt of late-night comedians (at least before they decided to take on Sarah Palin and family again)...
Judge Keeps Coyotes in Glendale For Now
Posted on June 16, 2009US Bankruptcy Court Judge Redfield T. Baum (great name, sounds like something out of the Wizard of Oz) yesterday ruled against a proposal that would have seen the team sold to Jim Balsillie who wants to move it to Hamilton, Ont. The judge ruled against an auction date of June 22, and Balsillie placed a June 29 "drop dead" date on his offer...
Rise of the Nuevo Galacticos
Posted on June 12, 2009I'm gone for a couple of days having contracted some sort of virus, no it was not swine flu, and an orgy of spending breaks out in the world of soccer and strange doings going on in hockey. Just goes to show, you never know what is going to happen next in the sports world...
Cost Cutting at Division I Colleges Looking in the Wrong Places
Posted on June 08, 2009There was a very interesting article on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday detailing some of the cost-cutting measures being implemented at colleges and universities across the west. If you follow college athletics, the litany of measures will not be new to you...
EPL Can Teach NBA All About the Joys of Bankruptcy
Posted on June 08, 2009You'll recall that yesterday in discussing the proposed marketing tie-up between the NBA and the English Premier League, one of the supposed benefits the NBA would get from the deal was help in learning how to diversify its ownership, particularly with international owners...
NBA and English Premier League Exploring Tie-up
Posted on June 07, 2009Get out the wedding bells and stock up on rice. David Stern has finally decided that maybe, just maybe, he doesn't have this international thing completely worked out the way he wants it and that expert help, particularly in Asia just might be a good thing...
NFLPA and Retired Players Settle for $26.25 Million
Posted on June 05, 2009In the surest sign yet that there is a new regime at the NFL Players Association, the union and the retired players reached a surprise settlement of the retired players' lawsuit against the NFLPA. The NFLPA agreed to pay the retired players $26.25 million to settle claims that the union failed to actively market the retired players in its marketing deals with EA Sports and others...
Panthers to Be Sold to Public Company
Posted on June 03, 2009The old boys club of the NHL has not had a good couple of weeks when it comes to keeping league business under the wraps the Board of Governors prefers. The NHL owners prefer to keep all information about team operations and financial data strictly private...
Aon and Man U in Record Jersey Deal
Posted on June 03, 2009And the winner is... Aon. Manchester United has confirmed reports that US insurance giant is set to replace disgraced and broke AIG as the jersey sponsor for the world's most popular soccer club, in a deal said to be worth 80 million pounds over four years...
Are the Rams Heading Back to LA?
Posted on June 02, 2009The St. Louis Rams (it still doesn't sound quite right to me) have been a success in St. Louis but have a lease problem. The Edward D. Jones Dome is now an old building, having been built in 1995. I know it's only 15 years old but by NFL standards that's old...
Delaware Really Wants to Be Las Vegas
Posted on May 31, 2009I'm a little late discussing the move by Delaware to legalize sports betting but it's still worth a mention. The state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the recently enacted statute permitting sports betting to be run by the state lottery...
Kentucky President: We Knew About Calipari and We Support Him
Posted on May 29, 2009The University of Kentucky has not had a good couple of days this week. It started off with the weekend disclosure that one of the stars of the football team had been suspended for his senior season for failing a drug test, due to performance enhancing drug he used from an over the counter supplement he was taking while rehabbing from an injury...
Cowboys Open Billion Dollar Stadium
Posted on May 28, 2009The Dallas Cowboys unveiled their new $1.15 Billion stadium yesterday in an invitation only ribbon cutting ceremony attended by 1,5oo guests. The basic figures surrounding this stadium are daunting enough at any time, but particularly so given the economic climate in which it is opening...
Roof Planned for French Open
Posted on May 27, 2009An arms race has broken out in tennis, particularly among the hosts and organizers of the four majors, and it's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to play. Wimbledon unveiled its new Centre Court, complete with retractable roof, earlier this month...
China Calling and the Cavs Answer
Posted on May 26, 2009When you have the largest consumer market and the largest television market on the planet, every entertainment company dreams of getting its share and the NBA is no exception. In fact, it was one of the first professional sports leagues to reach into China in a significant way, with games being broadcast there to an audience measured in the hundreds of millions...
Bottom of the Ninth
Posted on May 25, 2009Recently received in the mail a new book by Michael Shapiro entitled, Bottom of the Ninth, Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itself.ARTICLEURL It's the fascinating story of the late 1950's, early 60s and the Dodgers have left Brooklyn, the Giants have left the Polo Grounds and cities all across flyover country are besieging baseball for teams...
What's the Best Sports City in North America?
Posted on May 25, 2009Think you know? Is your first thought Boston, now enjoying a nirvana of professional sports success probably unequaled in the city's sporting history? Well, according to this study by the folks at the Toronto Star, limited to the cities in North America north of the Rio Grande (I guess success in the Mexican Football League was too hard to track, you know with all those Latin American tournaments they play in), Boston is only second best; the winner is probably the least likeliest city you would imagine...
Arena Naming Curse Continues
Posted on May 24, 2009The Arena/Stadium naming curse continues picking up its latest victim with the FDIC seizure of BankUnited in Coral Gables, Florida last week. If the name is familiar to you and you don't live in Florida, then you must be an ACC basketball fan, as it is the name of the University of Miami's basketball arena...
Wild Ignore Playoff Hiring Ban; Hire Pens Asst. GM
Posted on May 22, 2009When you're in desperate need of help, I guess rules, written or unwritten just don't apply. That must be what the Minnesota Wild must be thinking as owner Craig Leipold announced today the hiring of Pittsburgh's assistant general manager Chuck Fletcher to be the Wild's new general manager...
Yankee Fans Find Away Games Cheaper and Easier Than New Yankee Stadium
Posted on May 21, 2009It takes Yankee fans about an hour to get to the Bronx from some suburban New York locations and once there it can cost up to $1,500 from ground level seats. It takes about 5 hours to drive to Baltimore for a Yankees-Orioles game and ground level seats in Camden Yards go for about $70 a ticket...
Kentucky Horse Industry Pleads for Help
Posted on May 21, 2009To many people outside the great Commonwealth, Kentucky is known either for Fried Chicken or the three sins of bourbon, thoroughbreds and tobacco (or hemp, depending on your age and smoking preference). You can throw Muhammad Ali and basketball in there too but those two aren't really business related although the University of Kentucky treats basketball as both a business and a religion, with a extraordinarily well paid head minister in Coach Cal...
Lingerie Football League Looking for Interns
Posted on May 21, 2009If you are looking for a way to break into the sports industry and you're a fan of lingerie, this may be just the thing, The Lingerie Football League is looking for interns for all ten teams. Interns will gain exposure to all aspects of sports business involved in running a franchise...
If Man U Loses Saturday, They Could Get Sued
Posted on May 20, 2009Manchester United has won the Premier League championship so its game on Saturday against Hull City is like one of those late September contests in the late 1950s in the American League and the Yankees had won the pennant back in August. You know the kind, the ones that just don't mean anything...
NFL Settles with Comcast; Extends Deals With Fox, CBS
Posted on May 20, 2009The spring owners meeting of the NFL has certainly been busy this year. So far, in two days, the owners have approved and announced an carriage agreement with Comcast for the NFL Network, finally ending a contentious and interminable negotiation and legal battle, and extensions of television deals with Fox and CBS for an additional two years...
It's Open Season on Bowl Affiliations
Posted on May 19, 2009The BCS Conferences are all conducting their spring meetings in the next couple of weeks at various luxury golf resorts around the country. Topic number one on the agenda of each conference meeting will be the league's bowl affiliations as most bowl contracts, other than the BCS bowls and a couple of others, will all be up at the end of the upcoming season...
Rachel's Day At the Preakness Before Smaller, Subdued Crowd
Posted on May 18, 2009Calvin Borel is not just the best big race jockey working in America right now, he is also likely the best handicapper. Continuing the best May of his life, Calvin booted home the wondrous filly Rachel Alexandra in Saturday's Preakness, finishing a length ahead of the fast closing Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird...
Why Does Gary Bettman Hate Canada?
Posted on May 16, 2009Okay, maybe he doesn't really hate Canada, but he sure doesn't like it very much. In his sixteen years as commissioner of the NHL he has done everything he possibly can to grow the game in the US at the expense of Canada. Since he took over, all expansion franchises and relocated franchises have been placed in American cities, sometimes - Jets and Nordiques - at the expense of Canadian cities...
Pac-10 Starting Its Own Network?
Posted on May 14, 2009Of the six BCS conferences, the Pac-10 has long been saddled with the worst television contracts. Not only is the money not particularly good, but the coverage, in terms of national audience reach, is terrible. Having most of your games on Fox Sports Net not only leaves you at the mercy of the local FSN or Comcast affiliate but the audience for FSN is significantly smaller than that of the ESPN family...
Cable Network Recasts Itself as Sports Network
Posted on May 14, 2009An item caught my eye in MediaWeek the other day from the headline alone. The headline read: "America One Redrafts Prime Time with Sports Themes." This network plans to give over each night of the week to one sport up to the 10:00 hour and devote the 10:00 hour to action sports...
Team Sponsorship May Not Be as Effective as Thought
Posted on May 11, 2009This morning's post on team branding got me thinking more about marketing. Over lunch something I was reading caught my eye and I went back and read the Turnkey Sports poll for March, 2009. This poll was difference than most Turnkey polls as it polled both industry members and the general public and was therefore able to compare the results of the two...
Philly Soccer Union
Posted on May 10, 2009I know that most of you soccer fans have probably seen this already but the logo and name of the new Philadelphia Major League Soccer franchise has been leaked and circulating around the net for a couple of weeks. In case you haven't seen it, here is the crest of the new Philadelphia Union:The team will begin play next season in a new soccer stadium being built in suburban Chester, Pennsylvania...
How Fast Did Your Team Brand Grow?
Posted on May 10, 2009Forbes just released a study of the fastest growing team brands in the four major North American sports, excluding Major League Soccer, which sticks to its single entity concept and really doesn't have individual team brands in the truest sense. There are certain patterns common to the ranking of the top five within each sport but those patterns do not necessarily cross over from sport to sport...
Rachel Alexandra Sold to Curlin's Owner
Posted on May 08, 2009Back from Chitown for what was a wonderful few days. The weather was great, food was good and the conference was interesting. What more could you ask for? One question for you Chicagoland residents out there - when did the Trib become a tabloid? Not a good move at all for a once great newspaper...
Saints Strike Deal to Stay in Superdome Until 2025
Posted on May 01, 2009It only took a year of tough negotiating and a change in the resident of the Governor's mansion, but the New Orleans Saints and the State of Louisiana have struck a tentative deal to keep the Saints in New Orleans until 2025. The State will spend $85 million to renovate the Superdome, obviating the need for the construction of the new stadium Saints' owner Tom Benson had been demanding...
On the Road
Posted on May 01, 2009Posting will be likely non-existent until the middle of next week as I'm off to a conference sans laptop. Should be back in front of the trusty Macbook by Wednesday. Hopefully, you can mudddle along without me.ARTICLEURL
Bengals to Appear on Hard Knocks
Posted on April 30, 2009It could be the entertainment event of the summer. The Cincinnati Bengals, the closest actual team the NFL has to the one quarterbacked by first Burt Reynolds and then Adam Sandler in The Longest Yard (one and two), is under consideration to be the featured team on HBO's training camp series Hard Knocks...
Mazel Tov to the Hall of Fame Inductees
Posted on April 28, 2009The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame held an induction ceremony over the weekend, inducting seven new honorees, whose exploits ranged from the broadcast desk at SportsCenter to Olympic gold and even to the courtroom. Yes, it was a mighty diverse lot...
Carnivals, We Have Carnivals
Posted on April 28, 2009This week featured two blog carnivals that I wanted to bring to your attention. Yes folks, even in this new age of Twitter there are still blog carnivals out there worthy of your time and attention and not just because they include my posts. The first is the venerable Haveil Havalim, carnival of Jewish blogs, now featuring edition #214...
Boris Becker Cashes in at Poker Tournament
Posted on April 26, 2009Three-time Wimbledon-champion Boris Becker has found a new career, as a poker player. ?Boom Boom? made it deep in one of the most prestigious poker tournaments in the world ? the World Poker Tour Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. He finished in 37th place out of 338 entrants, outlasting some of the best players in the world, while taking home a $40,855 prize check...
Sunday Reading
Posted on April 26, 2009Here are a few links for your Sunday reading pleasure:75-year old owner-trainer's one horse stable Kentucky Derby contender (Courier-Journal)1970's fashion is back, at least on the golf course (wsj)Will the falling pound and Britain's new tax rate be the end of the dominance of the English Premier League (Times)The ten all-time best ballpark promotions (Love of Sports)Derby hopefuls, why they can and why they can't (Courier-Journal)It was a really bad week for Rick Pitino, profile of the high school kid who had committed to Louisville and now may skip his senior year to go pro in Eurpoe (NYT)ARTICLEURL
Keeneland Handle a Sign of the Times
Posted on April 25, 2009Churchill Downs opens its Spring Meet today marking the official start of Derby Week. It also means that the Spring Meet at Keeneland, that historic and tradition bound track in the little city to the west of here has ended. It's an appropriate time then to take a look at the meet's handle and attendance to see what effect the economy has had...
If you're looking to find the Twitter feeds of athletes and coaches, a speoial area has been set up to make that easier for you. You can just go here and find them all in one place.While we're on the subject, SportsBiz has joined Twitter. You can catch the SportsBiz Twitter feed by going here...
Baseball's Rich Get Richer
Posted on April 23, 2009If you listen to Bud Selig, you would believe that this is the golden age of baseball. Attendance has never been higher. Parity, in his mind, has come to the game, as the participants in the World Series have been changing every year. Television deals have been signed at ever higher numbers, notwithstanding the ever shrinking ratings and new stadiums are coming on line almost every year...
Wimbledon Ups Prize Money; Unveils Centre Court Roof
Posted on April 22, 2009The stodgiest of the four tennis majors, Wimbledon joined the 21st century this week as the All England Club unveiled a new folding roof for Centre Court. Gone will be those interminable rain delays that played havoc with the draw and caused more than a few people the opportunity to use the tickets that had cost them about a month's income to buy...
Lions Try New Branding
Posted on April 20, 2009What do you do when you lose all your games? Well, besides firing everybody you can find (and that means you Matt Millen) you change your branding of course. Today, the Detroit Lions unveiled new uniforms and a new Lion logo and even a new font for the Lions typeface...
Jake and the Iditarod
Posted on April 19, 2009or what's a nice Jewish boy doing all the way up in here in the cold with a team of dogs going nowhere? What am I supposed to say, my son the musher? Jake Berkowitz, a 22 year old dog sled racer, originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, just completed in his second Iditarod, placing 31st out of 67 and the only one who finished with all 18 of his dogs...
Your Name Here Stadium
Posted on April 17, 2009Ever want to have a stadium named after you but didn't have a spare $40-$400 million dollars to throw around, especially now that your portfolio has taken such a hit. Well, I have such the solution for you. In Rochester, New York, the Rhinos, one of the country's most successful second division (USL -1) soccer teams, has been having difficulty finding a buyer for the naming rights to their relatively new downtown stadium so they have decided to put the naming rights up for sale for $1,000...
Impact of the Recession Cont'd - LPGA
Posted on April 15, 2009If you want to see Natalie Gulbis or any of these other LPGA golfers play this year, I hope you have cable or satellite. There will only be a handful of LPGA tournaments broadcast on network television this year and one of them was last week - the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first of the LPGA's four majors...
Pepsi Drops Maria Sharapova
Posted on April 15, 2009What's the price of a shoulder injury to a tennis star? In Maria Sharapova's case, it turns out to be at least a couple of million dollars. Pepsi announced today, or rather its spokesman gave the news in an interview, that its contract with the Russian tennis star and part-time model would not be renewed...
Perry Shows World How to Lose With Class
Posted on April 13, 2009This one really had to hurt. After leading the Masters for 70 holes, two bogeys cost Kenny Perry the chance, at 48, to be the oldest golfer ever to win a green jacket. Those bogeys on 17 and 18 forced him into that now infamous three way playoff that he lost on the second playoff hole to Angel Cabrera, the Argentine now holder of perhaps the largest green jacket ever awarded...
Sunday Reading
Posted on April 12, 2009Bluegrass win fuels Derby dream for one horse stable of retired principal (CJ)Can Usain Bolt ever earn 1/10 of what Tiger earns a year? Can any track star? (NYT)Celine Dion's hubby wants to buy the Canadiens; so do the cream of Quebec business community(Montreal Gazette)Global recession and the reality of redevelopment around Washington Nationals Stadium (WaPo)Mike Illitch and the Detroit Tigers contribute to the GM bailout (Bloomberg)Soon to be released; Jewish Major Leaguer baseball cards (JML)ARTICLEURL
MLS Plays the Relocation Card in DC
Posted on April 11, 2009DC United has had a very frustrating search for a new stadium home. Jurisdiction after jurisdiction has voted down a stadium deal in what can only be described as a highly unusual spate of local legislative good sense. Following this week's surprise rejection by the Prince George's County Council, both DC United and league officials were naturally upset...
Mazel Tov Angel
Posted on April 10, 2009It's deja vu all over again for Angel McCoughtry. Fresh off of a wildly successful season leading the University of Louisville Cardinals to their first ever Final Four and national championship game appearance, the All-American small forward set another first yesterday by being selected first in the WNBA draft by the Atlanta Dream...
Man U Still Most Valuable Soccer Club
Posted on April 09, 2009Forbes has released its annual ranking of the world's most valuable soccer clubs and to my great surprise there were no Major League Soccer clubs listed in the top 25. Seriously, though, what is surprising is that even in the face of the worst global economy in nearly 80 years, the value of the 25 top global soccer clubs actually increased about eight percent over last year...
Auburn's Spring Game to Be Sponsored by US Navy
Posted on April 07, 2009It's come to this. Auburn has sold the naming rights, well officially the presenting rights, to its spring game to the Navy. It will be "A Day, Presented by the US Navy". Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge Auburn's attempt to wring money out of its football program, especially in a way that doesn't hit the fans' wallet and really doesn't prostitute the university too much...
Congrats to the Lady Cards
Posted on April 06, 2009Congratulations to the University of Louisville Lady Cards for knocking off Oklahoma last night and making it to their first ever national championship game. Waiting for them there will be the UConn Huskies, who are seeking their date with destiny. The Huskies are undefeated and have won a game this season by less than double digits...
Vote Bing For Mayor of Detroit
Posted on April 06, 2009The latest fad in former NBA guards is to run for mayor. Following in the footsteps of Kevin Johnson, the recently elected mayor of Sacramento, Detroit has its own local hero making his political debut in a mayoral race. Dave Bing, once an all-NBA guard with the Detroit Pistons, and before that, a member of Syracuse University backcourt with Jim Boeheim, is now running hard to be mayor of Detroit...
Curlin Former Owners Convicted on Fraud Charges
Posted on April 04, 2009Remember that mistrial last year in which a jury could not decide whether two lawyers who once owned Curlin were guilty of committing fraud against their clients in the fen=phen diet drug case? Their retrial ended yesterday when a jury convicted William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr...
Weekend Reading
Posted on April 03, 2009A few stories for your weekend:IMG is taking over college athletics and why you should care (USA Today)Economic crisis apparently has skipped Australia, at least where footy is concerned; AFL looking for a A$1 Billion TV rights deal (AFL.com)Economic crisis in full flavor in US; personal seat license prices drop for first time (Bloomberg)Apparently Major League Baseball's aversion to gambling doesn't extend to lotteries, at least where there is a chance for a team to make a few bucks (Boston Herald)Remember the NHL's lockout season - it may turn out to be the very thing that gets the league through the economic crisis relatively unscathed (Orange County Register)Will Twitter eliminate the need for PR agents and the press who are served by them - Shaq announces latest endorsement deal on Twitter (Sportsbiz on CNBC)49ers and Santa Clara closing in on new stadium deal, while Major League Baseball and A's explore stadium deal with San Jose (Silicon Valley Business Journal and here)ARTICLEURL
Hicks Defaults on $525 Million in Loans
Posted on April 03, 2009In case you couldn't guess why Tom Hicks put minority interest in the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars up for sale, the answer came today as Hicks Sports Group defaulted on $525 million in loans by missing interest payments. Those loans are supposedly secured by the interests of Hicks in the Rangers and the Stars but not in Hicks' interest in English Premier League club Liverpool FC, which would account for the uncertainty surrounding its sale status last week...
USA v. Jamaica Track Series Set for 2010
Posted on April 02, 2009If you like speed, you're going to love this. The US Track Federation and the Jamaican Athletics Association announced the start of the USA v. Jamaica Challenge Series, meets that will feature USA and Jamaican track athletes competing against each other in a series of scored competition...
Minor League Promotion of the Week
Posted on April 01, 2009Actually, this may turn out to be the promotion of the month. The Quad Cities River Bandits (Midwest League, Class A) are having a "Van Down by the River" promotion at every home game this season. Each game, eight lucky fans will be chosen to spend the game from an outfield berm, which is located just be the river and his van...
Calipari Goes to Kentucky
Posted on April 01, 2009It just wasn't Rick Pitino's week. First, his Louisville Cardinals picked the most inopportune time to throw their most uninspired game of the year, against Michigan State in the Elite Eight, and lost a chance at the Final Four and his first national championship at Louisville...
Fox Soccer Channel Snags Champions League from ESPN
Posted on April 01, 2009So, it doesn't look like ESPN is quite as committed to soccer as a foundation programming as it was a couple of years ago. Earlier this year, it announced that the MLS game of the week was no longer going to have a fixed time slot on Thursday night but was going to float through the week...
He's Baaaack!
Posted on March 30, 2009Any questions about Tiger's fitness or the return of his golf swing were answered yesterday with his comeback win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Classic. Was anyone who was watching the 18th hole in person or on television ever in doubt as to the outcome of Tiger's putt? While you may want to feel sorry for Sean O'hair, golf is better off when Tiger is playing and on his game...
Innovative Naming Rights
Posted on March 28, 2009Now this is a case of naming rights that not only goes to a worthy cause but actually is desperately needed, as I can attest to firsthand. In what I believe is a first of a kind, KFC is tackling the pothole in Louisville, which is a major problem in a cash strapped city...
Weekend Reading
Posted on March 27, 2009A few Friday links:The Florida Panthers have totally integrated TV, radio, digital and arena marketing which may become the wave of the future (Ad Age)Impact of the economic crisis on Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 (Denver Post)Do investors biased belief in upcoming event affect the stock market's unexpected reactions, a study using publicly traded soccer clubs (SSRN, HT:Abnormal Returns) FIFA upset that English Premier League is too focused on "making a lot of money", like that's a bad thing? (Bloomberg)Elgin Baylor sues the Clippers for age and race discrimination following his firing after 22 years of employment and 22 years of losing (N Y Times)ARTICLEURL
Minority Interest in Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars for Sale
Posted on March 26, 2009Dallas based venture capitalist and sports magnate Tom Hick is trimming his holdings a bit. The owner of the Dallas Stars, 95% of the Texas Rangers, 50% of Liverpool FC and 50% of the American Airlines Center, which is the Stars home, is marketing up to 49% of the Rangers and a similar interest in the Stars...
Villareal's Millionaires Taking Care of Unemployed Fans
Posted on March 25, 2009Unemployment in the Castellon region of eastern Spain where the Villareal soccer team is located is running at a rate of 14.7%, the highest in the European Union, as Spain endures its deepest economic crisis since Franco was in power (and alive). The Yellow Submarine have a Champions League match with Arsenal coming up for a place in the semifinals and the Villareal management has asked its wealthy players, along with team officials and sponsors to donate to a fund to purchase tickets for unemployed fans...
Marlins Clear Last Political Hurdle to New Stadium
Posted on March 25, 2009In a process that has seemingly taken decades, if not centuries, the Florida Marlins have won the last votes of public bodies needed to begin construction of a new baseball stadium on the site of the former Orange Bowl. Both the Miami City Commission and the Dade County Commission have approved the Marlins' financing plan for the construction of a $515 million baseball only, 37,000 seat, retractable roof stadium and $94 in adjacent parking lots...
Want to Buy a Pair of Legends? Canadiens and Liverpool on the Block
Posted on March 24, 2009The latest victim of the global financial financial crisis happens to have financial interests in two of professional sports most legendary professional franchises, neither of which are located in his home country. Colorado businessman George Gillet, Jr...
DirecTV Extends NFL Sunday Ticket Through 2014
Posted on March 24, 2009In a contract extension that was vital to DirecTV's marketing strategy, the satellite TV operator has extended its Sunday Ticket package exclusive of out of market NFL games through the 2014 season. The extension did not come cheap however, as sources have pegged the price to be a staggering $1 billion, yes that's with a "B", starting in 2011...
Illinois House Backs Chocago Olympic Bid With $250 Million
Posted on March 23, 2009The International Olympic Committee will be sending its bid evaluation team to Chicago next month to evaluate that city's bid for the 2016 Summer Games. the Illinois House gave a boost to the city's bid last week, passing a bill to establish a $250 million insurance fund to cover any losses that the city may incur...
March Madness Good to CBS
Posted on March 23, 2009Early returns from March Madness has shown the tournament still has its hold on America. Ticket sales have been down slightly from last year, slightly to significantly to not at all depending on the site. for a total of being off perhaps 5% to 10%. Much of that can be attributable to the economy...
Impact of the Recession/Depression Cont'd
Posted on March 22, 2009We have been discussion the impact of the Great Recession or the Not So Great Depression (your choice) in this space for so time. It's impact has been felt by every major professional sport and, to a lesser extent so far, by collegiate football and basketball...
Twitter and the NBA
Posted on March 22, 2009The Times is full of stories today. Interesting piece on the popularity of Twitter in the NBA, including the now infamous tweet from Charlie Villanueva during halftime of a Bucks game. Coach Scott Skiles was not amused. Shaq has also sent out a halftime tweet, which he announced in advance...
March madness Productivity Loss
Posted on March 19, 2009Tuesday marked the official opening of March Madness with the debut game between Morehead State and Alabama State. It also saw the opening games in the NIT as well as two other tournaments beginning with the letter "C" that I don't know what the initials stand for nor do I particularly care...
Coach K to Obama: Get to Work
Posted on March 19, 2009As most of you have probably heard by now, Andy Katz of ESPN famously scored an hour or less with President Obama who filled out an NCAA bracket much as he has done every year, I'm quite sure. Now, far be it from me to tell the Leader of the Free World what to do with his time and I wouldn't even be bringing this up if he hadn't had second thoughts about his bracket choices, but really, shouldn't he be worried about something more important than the NCAA tournament, like, oh I don't know, maybe the economy...
Reason to Watch the LPGA
Posted on March 18, 2009Do you really need a reason to watch the LPGA? Is the level of golf played by these athletes not up to your standards, you with the 18 handicap? Well, here you are, all the reasons you will ever need. Meet Paula Creamer(who mysteriously is not in pink) and Natalie Gulbis off the course at the HSBC Open...
Naming Rights Gone Bad
Posted on March 18, 2009We've seen numerous examples over the years of stadium and arena naming rights deals sold to corporations that for one reason or another a team wishes had never happened. Who can forget Enron Park (now, the memorable? Minute Maid Park) or the three names that the Baltimore Ravens stadium has had, only to wind up the eminently forgettable M&T Bank Stadium...
Will NCAA Opt Out of March Madness Contract with CBS?
Posted on March 17, 2009Richard Sandomir reported today that the multi billion dollar contract between CBS and the NCAA that has been at the heart of CBS Sports winter programming for years and is the foundation of the NCAA's financial success, contains an option clause allowing the NCAA to opt out of the contract following the 2o10 tournament...
Nets Confirm Move to Brooklyn
Posted on March 16, 2009The global economic crisis has sent shockwaves through the sports world as sponsorships have dried up and ticket sales have slowed. Nowhere has this impact been felt more keenly than metropolitan New York, which this month debuts two new baseball stadiums and where a new football stadium and basketball arena are being constructed...
Barca Looking at Investing in Philly MLS Franchise
Posted on March 16, 2009Having walked away from pursuing an expansion franchise in Miami, it appeared that FC Barcelona's interest in Major League Soccer was going to remain that of an interested observer for a while. However, one doesn't become one of the richest and most powerful clubs in world soccer by just standing on the sidelines...
Friday Quick Links
Posted on March 13, 2009Delaware Governor ready to legalize sports parley gambling to boost state budget ARTICLEURL(ESPN)Is the English Premier League's dominance of the Champions League strictly a monetary issue (IHT)Hornets reach attendance mark, won't need state money (nola...
Portland Gets Serious About MLS Expansion
Posted on March 12, 2009Now that Miami is out of the MLS expansion race, it is probably a good time to take another look at the remaining US candidates. One of the cities that is making a big push for a new franchise is Portland. The man behind the bid is currently the owner of the Portland Beavers AAA baseball franchise and the Portland Timbers USL soccer team...
10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America
Posted on March 10, 2009Not exactly a sports business topic, but indirectly it is and to my mind a very important one. Doug McIntyre of the excellent stock and investing block 24/7 Wall Street recently posted his best guess as to the 10 most endangered newspapers in America...
Mazel Tove to the Israeli Davis Cup Team
Posted on March 09, 2009The Israeli Men's Tennis Davis Cup team advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time since 1987, ousting seven time champion Sweden 3-2, in a stirring five game match. Sweden may have been done in by its craven surrender to political blackmail in its decision to hold the match before a handpicked crowd of only 300 spectators, claiming that closing the arena to spectators was necessary due to threat of violence from anti-Israel groups...
Becks Wants to Play in Milan But Own MLS
Posted on March 09, 2009Italy's long national nightmare is finally over. The Los Angeles Galaxy, AC Milan and David Beckham have reached an agreement that will keep Becks in Milan until the end of the Italian season, when he will head to the City of Angels to join the Galaxy...
Friday Quick Links
Posted on March 06, 2009Here are a few quick links to get you started on the weekend:It's getting rough in the NFL; Jets furlough non-football positions. Are there non-football positions at a professional football team? (Bloomberg)FC Barcelona and Miami pull out of MLS expansion leaving just four cities from which two will be chosen; cites recession, price tag...
A's Bid Fremont Adieu
Posted on February 25, 2009The Oakland A's canceled plans for Cisco Field in Fremont in the face of intense opposition from local residents, retailers and employers. A's owner Lew Wolff was surprised at the opposition his plans encountered and finally decided that it was just too much to overcome...
Bailing Out the Coyotes
Posted on February 25, 2009The financial problems of the Phoenix Coyotes are well known and have been the focus of efforts by the NHL to salvage the franchise for the better part of the season. It now appears that the City of Glendale, owner of the arena in which the Coyotes play, has been bailing out the team for some time by foregoing rent payments...
WTA Fines Dubai $300,000 For Pe'er Ban
Posted on February 21, 2009The WTA levied a $300,000 fine on the organizers of the Dubai Tennis Championships, more than twice as much as the previous record fine, after Shahar Pe'er was denied a visa from Dubai. The WTA also took steps to compensate Pe'er and her doubles partner for lost income and tour points as a result of being banned from the tournament...
IMG Allegedly Steered Stars Money to Stanford for Kickbacks
Posted on February 21, 2009According to the New York Post, disgraced financier R. Allen Stanford's scam could ensnare star athletes represented by Ted Forstman's management firm IMG. Allegedly, IMG and Stanford Financial quietly entered into a quid pro quo agreement whereby IMG would advise its clients, including golfers Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, Sergio Garcia and others to have their money managed by Stanford in return for for a payment in the low to mid seven figures...
Dubai Will Grant Israeli Men's Tennis Player a Visa
Posted on February 19, 2009In the continuing saga of Dubai's blatant discriminatory treatment of Jewish athletes, comes word that the emirate is going to grant a visa to Israeli Andy Ram allowing him to play in next week's ATP Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. Apparently, following US pressure and a realization that perhaps they made a public relations blunder, Dubai officials have changed their mind...
Tennis Channel Won't Televise Dubai Open
Posted on February 18, 2009The Tennis Channel is refusing to televise the Barclays Duabi Tennis Championships this weekend to protest the emirate's refusal to grant a visa to Israeli tennis star Shahar Pe'er to allow her to play in the tournament. According to Ken Solomon, chairman and CEO of the network: "This is an easy decision to come by, based on what is right and wrong...
Dubai Tarnishes Golden Sports Hopes; Denies Israeli Tennis Star Visa
Posted on February 16, 2009The WTA has been gambling since 2001 when it decided to stage a tournament in the United Arab Emirates. This year it came up snake eyes when Dubai barred Israeli tennis star Shahar Pe'er from competing in this week's Barclay's Dubai Tennis Championships...
Curllin's Former Owners Retrial Starts Tomorrow
Posted on February 16, 2009The retrial of the two lawyers Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion, who are the former owners of Horse of the Year Curlin begins tomorrow in US District Court in Frankfort, Kentucky. The two disbarred lawyers are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and eight counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud in charges arising out of their alleged taking of $94...
Are Pacers Positioning to Move?
Posted on February 16, 2009The Pacers are just one of several (many? most?) NBA losing money this season and over the last several seasons. The reported figure is $7 million the last two seasons, although co-owner Herb Simon says it's more.The Pacers lease of the iconic Conseco Fieldhouse is not particularly favorable...
Ralph Kaplowitz, Played in NBA's First Game, Dies
Posted on February 15, 2009My condolences to the family of Ralph Kaplowitz, of blessed memory, who passed away on February 2 at his home in Queens. He was 89. Mr. Kaplowitz, a 6'2" guard out of NYU, when NYU was a college powerhouse, played for the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia Warriors...
Becks to Return to LA
Posted on February 14, 2009With the Galaxy turning down AC Milan's initial offer, the expectation was that Milan would likely up the ante a bit and MLS and the AEG, the owner of the Galaxy, would come to a deal that would allow David Beckham to stay in Milan as he wished. After all, who wants the centerpiece of your marketing campaign to be vocally wanting to be somewhere else...
Ohio Judge Strikes Down NCAA Ban on Lawyers
Posted on February 13, 2009The NCAA bans student athletes from having lawyers present when contracts are discussed with potential professional teams if the athletes wish to retain their eligibility to compete in NCAA competition in the event the negotiations do not result in a contract and the athletes stay in school...
New Football League Launches in Fall
Posted on February 10, 2009Defying all logic, the United Football League will actually launch this fall, according to league founders, but with fewer teams than originally planned and without a certain celebrity owner who needs to be spending his time battling the SEC rather than selling football tickets...
The Ups and Downs of Citi and the Baseball
Posted on February 09, 2009I could talk about A-Rod and steroids but frankly I'm done with steroids. I'm bored with it and suspect that most of you are too. I'll only say this about A-Rod since this is a sports business blog, the revelations about a positive test probably ruined his sponsor relationships forever...
Condi Rice Rejects Pac-10
Posted on February 06, 2009The Pac-10 search for a new commissioner continues. Former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice told the conference that she was not interested in the job and wanted to return to Stanford and teaching. The Pac-10 approached the avid football fan, who once said her dream job was to be Commissioner of the NFL, about their soon to be vacant commissioner's post but now must continue looking...
Phelps Suspended
Posted on February 06, 2009The first ramifications for pot smoking are starting to roll in for gold medal wonder boy Michael Phelps. Yesterday, USA Swimming suspended him for three months, meaning he will not be allowed to participate in any sanctioned meets during that time. He had planned to return to competition in a March Grand Prix meet in Austin but that will have to wait until a May meet in Charlotte...
I'm Back
Posted on February 05, 2009Sorry for the scarcity of posts recently. We suffered a terrible ice storm here in the Bluegrass a little over a week ago and I've been without power for a bit over a week. With thanks to the good folks from Georgia Power who did yeoman's work in sub-freezing weather to get our lines back up, I was finally able to return home on Tuesday night for the first since power was lost last Monday...
Rugby Stars Get Naked for Powerade
Posted on January 26, 2009In a new ad campaign that's not likely to see the light of day in North America for a number of reasons, Powerade has decided that the way to combat Gatorade and promote its sponsorship of British Rugby Union is through women. Three stars of British Rugby Football Union are posing nude in various rugby poses in print and poster ads...
RichRod NCCA Football's Newest $6 Million Man
Posted on January 25, 2009Well, that didn't take long. It seems that Bob Stoops is not college football's only $6 million man after all. Michigan, which finished a sparkling 3-9, paid Rich Rodriguez $4.1 million to cover the cost of buyout of his West Virginia contract and associated taxes, which of course was only achieved after settling rather contentious litigation and the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees...
NHL Players Won't Reopen Collective Bargaining Agreement
Posted on January 24, 2009It's All Star Weekend in the NHL, with the league's All Star Game slated to be played before a capacity crowd in Montreal tomorrow night. Montreal fans made sure that they would have a rooting interest in what is traditionally one of professional sport's least realistic all star games by stuffing the ballot box and electing four Canadiens to the East's starting lineup...
High School Football Coach Indicted in Player's Heat Related Death
Posted on January 23, 2009Last summer, a high school football player in Louisville, Kentucky collapsed during summer football practice and died a short time later from heat stroke after his body temperature reached 107 degrees. It is alleged that the coaches withheld water and continued to run the players at practice despite a heat index that reached 94 degrees...
Cubs Settle On Buyer; Sam Waterston to Pitch Tickets
Posted on January 23, 2009The Tribune Company has settled on a buyer for the Cubs, Wrigley Field and the Cubs' interest in Comcast Chicago. The apparent winning bidder is the Ricketts family. Although the family does not live in Chicago, they do have business interests there and have pursued the Cubs for some time...
Stanford Considers Cutting Sports
Posted on January 21, 2009As the economic recession continues, the effects are being felt throughout collegiate athletics. It is hitting large and small colleges alike. The impact may be greater on smaller schools with limited budgets that are ill equipped to absorb the substantial increases in travel and other costs together with a large decrease in revenue, but large athletic programs at Division I (excuse me, Bowl Subdivision) schools are feeling the pinch as well...
AIG Won't Renew Man U Shirt Deal
Posted on January 21, 2009From the category of too obvious for words, but I feel compelled to report it anyway, AIG has announced that it will not renew its sponsorship deal with Manchester United when it expires in May, 2010. AIG has been essentially nationalized by the US government following hundreds of billions of dollars in losses in the global financial crisis...
Ky Appeals Court Restores Sanity, Blocks Domain Name Seizure
Posted on January 20, 2009Last fall, Franklin County, Kentucky Circuit Court Judge Tom Wingate upheld the seizure of 141 domain names of online gaming sites by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Judge Wingate found that the domain names were gaming devices within the meaning of Kentucky's gambling statutes and, as such, were subject to seizure...
ESPN Boots MLS From Thursday Night Slot
Posted on January 19, 2009The two year experiment with turning Thursday night into soccer night in America is now over. Starting this season, ESPN will show its MLS game of the week on different nights throughout the week, depending on matchups, stadium availability and lead-ins...
Cardinals to Super Bowl; Warner Cashes In
Posted on January 18, 2009Congratulations to the Arizona Cardinals for making their first Super Bowl, especially since I had them beating Philly. My condolences to Donovan McNabb, a genuinely fine QB, whose life will now be a living hell for failing to get the Eagles to the Super Bowl again, despite overachieving to get this far...
T-Mobile Pulls Plug on Wade and Barkley
Posted on January 14, 2009In the wake of Charles Barkley's DUI arrest, T-Mobile has decided to pull the television campaign featuring Sir Charles, which had been considered very successful. Most recently the campaign had been featuring Barkley and Dwyane Wade in T-Mobile's "Fave 5 program," which landed in Time magazine's Top 10 ads of 2008...
NFL Ad Sales Still Super
Posted on January 13, 2009One place the recession has not seemed to hit has been ad sales for the NFL playoffs. Both Fox and CBS report that sales for the Conference Championship games are just about sold out and NBC has reported that 90% of the ads for the Super Bowl have been sold...
Red Sox Find a Bull Market
Posted on January 11, 2009When a group of investors led by futures trader John Henry took over the Boston Red Sox, it didn't take them long to realize that the marketing principles applied to the Sox could easily be applied to other sports. They decided to expand the scope of their interests to other sports related ventures...
Porn Industry Wants Bailout
Posted on January 11, 2009This is a couple of days old but I just saw it and it was too good not to post in case someone missed it. As proof that this recession/depression is like no other, the porn industry is now complaining about hard times. In past downturns, you would see an increase in activity for the movies industry as people flocked to the theater to escape their troubles for a couple of hours...
Cardinalsl Now A Hot Ticket
Posted on January 11, 2009What a difference a game makes! When the Cardinals hosted the Falcons in the first round of the NFL playoffs, they needed an extension from the Commissioner's office in order to sell out University of Phoenix Stadium and avoid a home market television blackout...
MLS Expansion to Philly May Be in Trouble
Posted on January 05, 2009The Philadelphia MLS soccer franchise is slated to begin play in 2010. The franchise owners, Keystone Sports was recently quoted as saying: "I wish we could give you hard commitments today, but we?re not even sure the stadium is going to be built. If the markets tank next month, then we won?t build this thing...
More Proof of the Recession - NFL Style
Posted on January 02, 2009The myth that sports is exempt from the effects of a recession should have been exploded from everyone's minds by now, but just in case you needed to be reminded that either this is no ordinary recession/depression (it's not, see 1929) or that it is hitting sports as hard as any industry save maybe banks and the auto industry, along comes the NFL playoffs...
Move Over Saban, There's a $6 Million Man in Okie Land
Posted on December 31, 2008When Nick Saban was lured away from Miami to resurrect Crimson Tide football, he was lured by a contract that was said to be the richest ever offered to a NCAA football coach. Whether that remained true before this season, I'm not sure, but Saban's guaranteed base salary, before bonuses, of $3,750,000 puts him ahead of Mack Brown, who is the Big XII highest paid coach, when bonuses are not included...
Top 10 Sports Business Stories of 2008
Posted on December 31, 2008It's the end of the year, and although I'm still trying to recover from the pain of last night's Valero Alamo Bowl loss to Missouri (why oh why did you ever punt to Maclin at the end of the first half????), I thought it would an interesting exercise and somewhat obligatory blog post, to come up with a list of the top ten sports business stories of 2008...
Another Baseball Owner in Favor of Salary Cap
Posted on December 30, 2008The response of baseball owners to the Yankees unprecedented free agent spending spree continues as another owner has joined the call for a salary cap. The difference this time is that the owner does not represent a small market club as did most of those who pushed for a cap in the past and as does Mark Anastasio of the Milwaukee Brewers who was the first to call for one this time around...
Pro Bowl Says Aloha to Hawai'i
Posted on December 30, 2008I guess you really can have too much of paradise. The NFL is moving the Pro Bowl to Miami after holding the game in Hawai'i every year since 1980. The game has traditionally been held the week following the Super Bowl but will be moved up to the week before, falling on the Sunday between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl...
NBC Sues Arena Football League
Posted on December 26, 2008As if the Arena Football League didn't have enough problems, what with suspending its season next year, now one of its television broadcast partners has filed suit against it alleging the league owes over $1 million dollars in advertising costs. NBC filed suit in New York State Supreme Court claiming that the AFL owes it $$1,597,320 in revenue sharing from advertising from the 2006 season...
Yankee Madness Cont'd.
Posted on December 26, 2008For another perspective on the madness inherent in allowing the Yankees to buy up baseball while still going to the City of New York on bended knee for subsidies for New Yankee Stadium, please see this commentary.ARTICLEURL
Want to Own a Piece of the Red Sox?
Posted on December 26, 2008The newspaper business has had more than its fair share of problems the last few years and they have only been exacerbated by the recession. No paper has been immune from the falloff in print readership and accompanying decline in advertising, including the venerable New York Times...
Coyotes Seek NHL Bailout
Posted on December 25, 2008NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's grand Sun Belt expansion strategy has been troubled for several years now, as attendance at the Southern US franchises has been, well, less than one would hope in a league where a team's financial success is driven by ticket sales...
Yankees Now Own Baseball: Salary Cap to Follow
Posted on December 23, 2008With the wholly expected signing of Mark Teixeira to an eight year, $180 million deal today, the Yankees now own the four highest active major league contracts. This is only the third big free agent contract the Yanks have signed this off-season, in response to not making the playoffs this past year...
College Football Still a Ratings Boananza
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NASCAR and the Recession - Is This the Beginning of the End for Racing?
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AIG Has a Duke Lacrosse Problem
Posted on December 15, 2008As if AIG didn't have enough problems, what with running through, and now owing 23 Billion of tax dollars, as part of the $150 billion bailout the Fed has arranged, it now has gotten itself ensared in the ugly morass that is the Duke lacrosse case. How can a global giant insurance and financial services company get caught up in a case involving a local lying Durham North Carolina stripper and a bunch of college lacrosee players? Easy, don't pay insurance claims...
Madoff Scandal Hits Sports
Posted on December 13, 2008At least two sports figures lost considerable sums in the Bernie Madoff scandal sweeping Wall Street yesterday. As Darren Rovell reported yesterday, Mets owner Fred Wilpon may have lost as much as $300 million, although the organization released a statement that the Madoff matter would have no effect on the operation of the team or "the long term plans of the Mets organization or the CitiField project...
Maybe This Conference Title Game Wasn't Such A Good Idea After All
Posted on December 10, 2008When the ACC raided the Big East back in 2003, poaching away Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, ACC Commissioner John Swofford, college sports' version of Atilla the Hun, proffered as the main rationale the development of the ACC as a football conference...
Arena League Calling Off 2009 Season
Posted on December 10, 2008The effects of the worldwide recession continue to be felt throughout sports and probably hit minor sports the hardest. The latest evidence of that: the Arena Football League is expected to call off its 2009 season. This decision, which should be made formally in a conference call of the owners sometime later this week, reflects a need for the league to obtain new capital, seek a new business model and develop a new relationship with its players...
Impact of the Recession Cont'd - NFL
Posted on December 10, 2008The NFL is almost universally recognized as the world's best and most well run professional sports league. Only the English Premier League is even close to the NFL in terms of revenue and all around professionalism and maximization of revenue. Yet, even the best are not spared in this economy...
Illinois Gov. Arrested by Feds; Blackmailed Tribune Co.
Posted on December 09, 2008The latest installment of the soap opera As Wrigley Turns, finds Governor Rod being asked by Chairman Zell for help in keeping the Cubs in Wrigley Field. Chairman wants to ease the tax burden on poor, overburdened and debt ridden Tribune Company, so he asks his good friend Rod for help...
Cubs Sale Cont.:Tribune Weighs Bankruptcy
Posted on December 08, 2008The Tribune Company, owner of the Cubs, the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and other media properties is weighing the possibility of filing bankruptcy as early as this week. The company has hired Lazard as an investment advisor and the law firm Sidley Austin to advise it on bankruptcy...
Congrats to the University at Buffalo
Posted on December 07, 2008Congratulations to the University at Buffalo for beating Ball State, winning the MAC championship and securing their first ever trip to a bowl. The Bulls received and accepted a bid to the International Bowl in Toronto immediately following their 42-24 victory last night...
WNBA Folds Comets; A Victim of Recession or the League?
Posted on December 07, 2008The Houston Comets were once the face of the WNBA, the league's first dynasty. Winners of not just the first WNBA championship, the Comets went on to win the next three. They were the sport's first dynasty, the WNBA's Boston Celtics. Not just champions but fun to watch and inspirational to boot...
How to Steal a Hockey Team: Boots and the Preds, a Match Made in Court
Posted on December 06, 2008William Del Biaggio III was a man with a lavish lifestyle, a fixture at NHL events around the country and someone who for years had tried to buy a hockey team. He negotiated a deal to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins with his "friend" Mario Lemiuex back in 2005, but that deal never materialized...
Update 101 on the Cubs Auction
Posted on December 03, 2008So numbered for the nmber of years now and counting since the cubs won the World Series, comes news from the Deal Journal of the bids received by the Tribune Company for the Cubs. Confirmed bids were received from Tom Ricketts, the son of the founder of TD Ameritrade; Hersch Klaff, a Chicago real estate investor; and a partnership of two New York private equity moguls, Marc Utay and Leo Hindery...
Hope for Online Gambling's Future?
Posted on December 02, 2008As many of you no doubt are aware, the US Justice Department has been on a multi-year campaign to demonize and criminalize online gaming by targeting the owners of gaming sites and the owners of the financial intermediaries that handle the money transferred between the bettors and the gambling sites...
Blog Display Fixed (I Hope)
Posted on December 02, 2008After many months of semi-serious attempts at fixing the way the blog displayed, I sat down this morning for some heavy duty coding time. It now appears that it displays properly in both Firefox and Safari, so I presume it also works in Explorer, for you poor folks who still use it...
Will the Mets Ever Play in CitiField?
Posted on November 25, 2008Anyone interested in taking bets on whether the Mets will ever play in CitiField scheduled to open this spring? While the Mets and Citigroup still say that there is no change in their 20 year, $400 million naming rights agreement, the latest federal rescue plan certainly places that commitment in doubt...
NCAA Hammers Sampson; Lets IU Skate
Posted on November 25, 2008The Indiana University/Kelvin Sampson infractions case was resolved today with an announcement by the NCAA infractions committee of the penalties it had decided to hand out to IU, Sampson and former IU assistant coach Rob Senderoff. The NCAA, despite finding IU guilty of failure to monitor Sampson, which is the most significant (or the slightly watered down version) finding it can make against a university, accepted the university self-imposed sanctions...
Impact of the Recession Cont'd - GM
Posted on November 24, 2008In a move that should have surprised no one, Buick and Tiger Woods announced today that they are terminating their longtime endorsement agreement one year early. The agreement was scheduled to expire on December 31, 2009 but will now terminate, by "mutual agreement" this December 31...
100 Blogs That Will Make You Smarter
Posted on November 20, 2008The Online Universities blog has just posted a very interesting and highly informative list of blogs that is titled, if you couldn't tell from the title of this post, 100 blogs that will make you smarter. I am very proud to say that SportsBiz made this list in the sports category together with a very diverse group...
Impact of the Recession Cont'd - Golf
Posted on November 20, 2008Golf has long been considered to be one sport which would be untouched by a recession. Images of freshly cut fairways and well tended greens with rows of electric carts surrounding a beautiful clubhouse just don't give the appearance of a sport that will have problems in an economic downturn, and in past recession that was indeed the case...
SEC Charges Cuban with Insider Tradiing
Posted on November 17, 2008How much money does a multi-billionaire need? Apparently, at least another $750,000. That's the amount the Securities & Exchange Commission believes Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban avoiding losing by dumping all of his Mamma.com stock one day before the company announced it had concluded a successful private offering of its stock...
More on Cuban and the Cubs
Posted on November 16, 2008Interesting column from Harvey Araton in today's Times on Mark Cuban's attempt to buy the Cubs. I don't know how much Cuban wants any other team although he did once make a run at the Pirates. He would probably did a good job at resurrecting that franchise which sorely needs it...
Impact of the Recession Cont'd. - GM
Posted on November 16, 2008Further to my post of the other day on the impact of the recession on Super Bowl advertising, take a look at this article in today's New York Times on GM's pullback from sports advertising and sponsorship. Nice of the Times to finally weigh in.
British Open Moves to ESPN in 2010
Posted on November 14, 2008The transition of major sporting events to cable TV that I wrote about the other day is happening faster than anticipated. ESPN and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews announced that beginning in 2010, all four rounds of the British Open, along with the Senior British Open and the next two Walker Cups will be shown on ESPN...
Impact of the Recession Cont'd. - Super Bowl
Posted on November 13, 2008This is another in our continuing series of the posts on the impact of the global economic crisis on sports. Regular readers may have noticed that I have changed the title of these posts from impact of the credit crisis to impact of the recession. It's not that I think the credit crisis is over, although credit is clearly beginning to loosen up, it's just that there is no longer any doubt that we are in a recession and that it is likely to continue for at least the next three quarters...
Court Orders NFLPA to Pay $28.1 Million to Retired Players
Posted on November 13, 2008The men who made the NFL what it is today, that is those who toiled in the 1950s and 1960s in the era before the giant contracts, seem to have been forgotten by those who have enjoyed the spoils of their labors. Oh sure, the late Gene Upshaw, the former head of the NFL Players Association used to speak warmly of the past generation of players and did make some changes to the retirees disability plan that has had beneficial effects...
BCS Moving to the Worldwide Leader??
Posted on November 12, 2008According to a story in today's Sports Business Daily, the BCS Commissioners are considering a proposal from ESPN/ABC which would see all four of the BCS bowl games now under contract to Fox move to ESPN. The Rose Bowl has a separate contract with ABC, however a clause in that contract provides that if one of the BCS bowls move to cable then ESPN/ABC has the right to move the Rose Bowl to ESPN...
Are You Ready for Bevo TV?
Posted on November 10, 2008First came ESPNU, an all sports network devoted to college athletics. It was followed quickly by what is now called CBS College Sports. Both have wide distribution thanks to the ability of their corporate parents to leverage their popular channels to force cable systems to carry the college sports networks if they wanted to get ESPN or any of Viacom's properties such as Showtime...
Looks Like No Cuban for the Cubs
Posted on November 09, 2008Published reports are that the sale process for the Chicago Cubs is proceeding more slowly than Tribune owner Sam Zell wanted or expected. Even before the credit crisis, Zell had hoped for a quick sale so that the proceeds could be used to pay down some of the crushing debt load he incurred in the Tribune Company buy-out...
Sports and the Ballot Box
Posted on November 05, 2008Aside from the historic nature of last night's election, and that is not something that is easily forgotten or should be something easily set aside, there were several former athletes on ballots across the nation. Most fared well. The most prominent was probably Kevin Johnson, the former All Star point guard of the Phoenix Suns, won election as Sacramento's first African-American mayor by defeating two-term incumbent Heather Fargo in a run-off election...
The Run to a Billion
Posted on November 04, 2008For Tiger Woods, 2008 was a year unlike any other. Oh, in some respects it was the same. He finished the year on top of the world golf rankings and led the US in both Ryder Cup points and Presidents Cup points. He came in second in the money list with $5,775,000, despite not playing after June 15, and oh, yeah, he won another major - this time the US Open at Torrey Pines...
Newark to Devils: Pay Up or Else
Posted on November 04, 2008It's only been a year since the New Jersey Devils moved into their new Newark home at the Prudential Center, but relations between the Devils and its landlord have already gone straight into the toilet. The Newark Housing Authority, the owner of the Pru, has issued a demand letter to the Devils declaring the team in default of its lease of the stadium and demanding immediate payment of $2...
Impact of the Credit Crisis Cont'd.
Posted on November 02, 2008The common wisdom has always been that sports would be immune from most of the gyrations of the American economy. Unless there was a depression on the order of the Great Depression, then the impact of a recession would be fairly minimal. After all, Americans still want their entertainment and watching televised sports is cheap...
Will the NCAA Finally Find Teeth?
Posted on November 02, 2008On Thursday, the NCAA Board of Directors heard recommendations from the Division I Committee on Infractions that would significantly beef up the penalties that the heretofore toothless NCAA would levy against member schools found to be violating the myriad rules in its several inch thick rulebook...
The Making of the OKC Thunder
Posted on October 29, 2008In honor of the opening of the NBA season, be sure to check out the article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine relating the saga of the creation of the Oklahoma City Thunder, or if you prefer, the hijacking of the Seattle Sonics to OKC. It's an interesting take on the story.
Kentucky's Governor Goes All In
Posted on October 29, 2008I've been meaning to write about this amazingly ridiculous and downright scary litigation for some time but for some reason, just haven't gotten around to it. In case you haven't heard about it before now, let me fill you in briefly on what Kentucky's hypocritical Governor has been up to...
Curlin's Co-Owners Disbarred
Posted on October 25, 2008Since today is Breeders Cup Day, I would be remiss in not updating the story of Curlin's minority owners, the lawyers who fraudulently diverted millions of dollars from their clients in the settlement of a class action arising out of the diet drug commonly known as fen-phen...
Rutgers In Search of Naming Rights Sponsor
Posted on October 24, 2008We should be getting a good indicator of the impact of the global credit crisis and the global recession on sports fairly soon. Rutgers is in the process of expanding its football stadium and, in conjunction with the expansion, is seeking to sell the naming rights for "somewhere in the $1...
Moneyball to be a Movie
Posted on October 21, 2008Looks like Billy Beane is slated to become not only a baseball sensation but a Hollywood screen idol. Moneyball, Michael Lewis' popular look at the use of statistics to run a baseball team, specifically the Oakland A's is being made into a movie. According to Variety, Columbia Pictures is putting together a movie focusing on Beane and based on the book as a potential starring role for Brad Pitt...
More on the Impact of Credit Crisis
Posted on October 21, 2008The credit crisis and economic downturn is affecting sports in a myriad of ways. One sign that the impact is deeper than perhaps first believed are reports from the NBA that the league has laid off 80 employees, which amounts to about 9% of its workforce...
Yanks and 'Boys Join Forces
Posted on October 20, 2008From the "What took you so long department", came this announcement from the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys that they had formed a sports business enterprise together with, who else, Goldman Sachs and a private equity company from Dallas CIC Partners...
MLS Expansion Draws Interesting Bids
Posted on October 16, 2008Major League Soccer took expansion bids last night for two franchises expected to begin play in 2011 or 2012. They will be the 17th and 18th teams in the league following the entrance into the league of Seattle next season and Philadelphia the following year...
WKU and the Costs of Big Time Football
Posted on October 13, 2008You almost had to feel sorry for Western Kentucky University. There they were, one of the most successful programs in all of Division I-AA (as it was called then and as I will always continue to refer to it), having won the national championship in 2002, yet they still had trouble drawing more than 12,000 fans a game and received little media coverage outside of Bowling Green...
Credit Crisis Hits NYC Teams
Posted on October 11, 2008Any team building a new stadium and trying to sell sponsorships, luxury suits and personal seat licenses is facing a daunting landscape these days. The global credit crisis now strangling the financial world in a manner not seen in a generation has caused financial institutions to crumble and sponsorship and advertising dollars to disappear in a wisp of smoke and government takeovers...
The Credit Crisis and Sports or What's the Name of that Building Again?
Posted on October 02, 2008Sports is often said to be a microcosm of society and to the extent that is true, we shouldn't be surprised to see that the ongoing global credit crisis is adversely impacting sports in a number of ways. The most visible way perhaps is something that teams and their fans have experience with and that is the ever changing landscape of stadium and arena naming sponsors...
Europe is Lovely This Time of Year
Posted on September 29, 2008I'm back from my continental excursion and other than bringing back a unknown virus, it was a wonderful three weeks. It's good to get away and I should do it more often. Since I missed both an invasion of out of towners into the city as well as a major windstorm (the remnants of Ivan) that left my house without power for about ten days, I sure picked a good time to be gone...
Out of here
Posted on September 04, 2008Posting will be light to non-existent over the next three weeks or so as I'm off on an extended vacation. My access to the internet will be limited at best so the opportunities to post will be few and far between. So, until I return in the last week of September enjoy the beginning of college football and the NFL seasons and the countdown to October in baseball (what little drama there appears to be there).
Sportsbiz Feed
Posted on September 04, 2008For those of you interested in sports business, and why would you be reading this blog if you weren't, here's an interesting resource you should check out, the sportsbiz feed, a collection of the best stories from the sports business blogosphere. It's current and a great resource especially for those of you who don't use rss feed readers.
Carnival of the NBA
Posted on August 25, 2008The 59th edition of the Carnival of the Edition is now up at A Stern Warning. Get over there and check it out, Jokers.
How Much Does Roger Goodell Make?
Posted on August 25, 2008Nonprofit organizations in the US are required to disclose the salaries of their top executives on a form filed annually with the Internal Revenue Service known as the Form 990. The Form 990 is an informational return that applies to both qualified charities recognized under IRS section 501(c)(3), which are the organizations you commonly think of as charities, and trade associations and other nonprofits to which section 501(c)(6) applies, which are member organizations not operated as charities...
ESPN Pays $2.25 Billion for SEC Rights
Posted on August 25, 2008Remember all the talk about a new SEC Network that was in all the papers during the SEC meetings back in the summer? Well, you can forget about that now. ESPN just agreed to pay the SEC a whopping $2.25 billion, yes with a "B" over the next 15 years for the conference's TV rights to football, basketball and baseball for all events not already taken by CBS...
Some Winners and Losers from Beijing
Posted on August 22, 2008There have been many winners and losers during the Beijing Olympics, some obvious and others less so. I'm not really talking about the medal winners here, although some have won medals, but about the business winners - who will take home the gold bars, so to speak, and who has lost that chance...
ESPN Looks to Bid on 2014 and 2016 Olympics
Posted on August 21, 2008NBC is experiencing some of the largest audiences of any Olympics since the Games were held in Atlanta in 1996. Thanks to Michael Phelps and the Golden Girls (beach volleyball's Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh and Nastia Lukin and Shawn Johnson, depending on your sporting preference) these Olympics are on course to be the most watched Summer Olympics in history...
Steve and Barry's May Survive
Posted on August 19, 2008In what is a previously thought to be an unlikely event, it appears that a buyer for most of the assets of Steve and Barry's has been found. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bay Harbor Management LLC, a private investment firm is the leading candidate to purchase the assets out of bankruptcy...
NBA Considers Local Streaming of Games
Posted on August 18, 2008The NBA is considering taking live video streaming of games where no league has gone before. It is currently negotiating a plan to allow live streaming of local games within a local market, so you could watch, say, a Celtics game on Celtics.com or on nesn...
Wanna Own a Piece of May-Treanor and Walsh?
Posted on August 15, 2008Well, not exactly Misty and Kerri, more like the AVP tour itself. You see, almost alone among professional sports in this country the company that owns and operates the pro beach volleyball tour is a publicly traded company, AVP Inc. The company is not the however the financial powerhouse that May-Treanor and Walsh are on the beach...
MLS Expansion Fees League's Biggest Profit Center
Posted on August 12, 2008At the time of the MLS All Star Game in Toronto back in July, Commissioner Don Garber announced the intention of the league to expand into two cities by 2009 and announced eight candidates for those two slots. Those eight markets are: Atlanta, Las Vegas, Montreal, a second team in the New York area, Ottawa, Portland, St...
Olympics Drawing Viewers but Where Are The Spectators?
Posted on August 12, 2008The suits at NBC and parent company General Electric must be dancing in the aisle in offices in Connecticut and at 30 Rock. The ratings for the first couple of days of the Olympics telecast are higher than they could have possibly hoped to see. Opening ceremonies, benefiting from NBC's controversial decision to tape it and show it 12 hours later in prime time, averaged 34...
Self Joins $3 Mil Club
Posted on August 09, 2008What is the price of a missed three pointer? For Kansas a missed three pointer by Jason Richardson meant a successful shot a the national championship and ultimately Bill Self staying home in Lawrence and signing a ten year, $3 million per year contract...
Should the NCAA Ban Beer Advertising?
Posted on August 09, 2008The NCAA is going to be faced with an interesting decision at its next meeting. Letters requesting that the NCAA place beer on its list of products that cannot be advertised during college games has been sent to Myles Brand signed by 60 Division I presidents, 240 athletic directors and 101 football and basketball coaches...
Clubs Can Keep Players from Olympics
Posted on August 07, 2008In a potentially far reaching decision, the Court of Arbitration for Sport handed down a ruling in favor of the clubs in the seemingly never ending battle between clubs and FIFA. This time, it was a battle over the services of Argentinian wunderkind Lionel Messi, whom Barcelona did not want to release to play in the Olympics...
Watching the Olympics
Posted on August 04, 2008The run-up to Beijing has begun and if you haven't been in a cave for the last month, you know that Opening Ceremonies take place on Friday, 08/08/08. Eight being obviously a lucky number in Chinese. For the first time in this Olympiad, there will be several ways to see almost every Olympic event live, despite the sixteen hour time difference from the eastern US...
Dutrow Gets Slap on the Wrist; Congress Not Happy
Posted on July 29, 2008Big Brown won this year's Kentucky Derby in impressive fashion. His win was so impressive in fact that many observers began to think that he was a wonder horse, the inevitable Triple Crown winner and perhaps, just perhaps, that long sought star in racing's firmament that can bring people back to horse racing...
Rutgers Stadium Expansion in Trouble
Posted on July 27, 2008Shortly after Rutgers has a breakthrough football season in 2006, the Rutgers administration and Governor Corzine quickly got together and announced an expansion to the Rutgers football stadium. The expansion, which would raise the seating capacity from its existing 42,000 to 56,000 in two phases, with the first phase of 1,000 premium seats scheduled for construction to commence in August...
Wiil Rush Buy the Rams?
Posted on July 27, 2008With the death of Georgia Frontiere and the possibility of a large estate tax bill, the prospect that the St.Louis Rams may be sold has been bouncing around for the last couple of months. Of course, the fact that new owner Chip Rosenbloom lives in California probably hasn't hurt the talk any...
Cubs Bidders Down to 5 - Cuban In, Canning Out
Posted on July 24, 2008And now there are only 5. The Tribune Company has reportedly narrowed the pool of bidders for the Cubs down to 5, all of whom have bid more than $1 billion. In what can be considered a major upset, the early odds on favorite, Commissioner Bud's bff, John Canning, Jr...
Difficulties of a Basketball Only D-I Athletic Department
Posted on July 23, 2008We have talk a lot in this space about the economics of running a major college athletic department. Most of the time, we are talking about Division I schools and mostly those with big time football programs. We don't spend that much time talking about the difficulties that face those schools without football and believe me, those difficulties are numerous...
Urine Test for HGH Discovered
Posted on July 23, 2008When Major League Baseball finally got around to effective testing for performance enhancing substances, human growth hormones or HGH was excluded from the program because no effective non-invasive (read without drawing blood) had been developed. Commissioner Bud, who had never wanted to take on the union over drugs in the first place, certainly didn't want to do battle over whether players would have to submit to random blood tests...
The Stadium Curse Lives
Posted on July 21, 2008Over the years, many people involved in sports naming rights have come to believe that there is a curse associated with a corporation, particularly a publicly traded corporation, placing its name atop an arena or stadium. For years, the stock of those corporations significantly underperformed the overall market...
Cubs Bids Are In?
Posted on July 19, 2008The deadline for bids for the purchase of the Chicago Cubs was yesterday and seven bids were submitted for the package of the team, Wrigley Field and the team's 25% in ComcastSportsnet Chicago. Unexpectedly, one bid was also received for Wrigley Field alone, which the Tribune Company had been exploring as a standalone sale...
Win a Day With Natalie Gulbis
Posted on July 19, 2008You know you want it. You know you just couldn't pass it up. All you have to do is write a convincing essay. Now, what you did on your summer vacation just won't cut it. You have to be more creative than that. You need to write 200 words on the secret behind your success, be it your wife/husband/partner, your mentor, your team, your assistant or your children...
Minor League Promotion of the Week
Posted on July 18, 2008You have to hand it to minor league baseballs - those teams can dream really up some creative promotions. The recent promotion held by the Grand Prairie AirHogs (don't you just love the name) , was perhaps inevitable given recent publicity concerning a certain baseball star's love life...
MLB Holds Out Hope for Inclusion in 2016 Olympics
Posted on July 17, 2008As you probably know, baseball is scheduled to be bounced from the Olympics following the close of the Beijing Games. The reasons are many, but two stand out as at the top of the IOC list: drug testing and the lack of participation by major league players...
What Are Three National Championships Worth?
Posted on July 15, 2008There are various measures to value sports enterprises but none can effectively be applied to collegiate programs no matter how Forbes may try. Nevertheless, we have been given a rather picture of the relative worth of winning national championships in football and basketball...
10 Worst Sports Announcers
Posted on July 11, 2008Maxim is out with a list of the 10 worst sports announcers on television. First, who knew Maxim actually had articles, but, of course, this is really just a list with pictures and small paragraphs that are little more than a couple of sentences so I guess that doesn't really qualify as an article...
Rodriguez Settles With WVU for $4Mil
Posted on July 09, 2008The long Michigan nightmare is over. New UM football coach Rich Rodriguez has agreed to settle with his former employer West Virginia University, although cave is probably the more accurate term, by agreeing to pay the entire $4 million buyout fee at issue in the suit between them...
Steve and Barry's Update - Bankruptcy Filed
Posted on July 09, 2008Updating my post of last week about Steve and Barry's dire financial straights, the retailer filed for bankruptcy protection today in New York. The company listed $693.5 million in assets and debt of $638 million as of May 31. As often happens when a company gets into financial difficulties, media coverage becomes part of the problem...
Vote for Sale
Posted on July 08, 2008Okay, it's not sports, but it's too funny not to pass along. Apparently, a 19 year old Minnesota boy slept through high school civics class or he would have learned that selling your vote on eBay is not the best way to participate in the civic endeavor we call democracy...
Steelers on the Block?
Posted on July 08, 2008According to an article in this morning's Wall Street Journal, Pittsburgh Steelers CEO Dan Rooney is in talks with his brothers to buy out their interest in the club so that he will become the principal owner. Rooney wants to preserve the family's 75 year ownership of the club and his four brothers do not have the same interest in maintaining ownership of the team as he does...
More Than Just Basketball Shoes
Posted on July 05, 2008When you think of great rivalries, you generally think of sports first: Ohio State - Michigan, Army - Navy, Auburn - Alabama, USC - Notre Dame, Yankees - Red Sox and many others. However, the corporate world has more than its share: Coke - Pepsi, UPS - Fed-Ex, Apple - Microsoft, Visa - Mastercard, well, you get the picture...
Money Flowing in Big Orange Country
Posted on July 03, 2008There must be a money tree somewhere in Mike Hamilton's backyard or maybe he discovered a wreck of a pirate ship laden with gold at the bottom of the Tennessee River just outside Neyland Stadium. How else can you explain the raises he passed out yesterday...
British Horse Racing to Adopt Year Long Series
Posted on July 02, 2008The popularity of season long series like NASCAR's Sprint Cup and the PGA's new Fed-Ex Cup seems to be growing, both among fans and the participants. It is now spreading across the pond based on yesterday's announcement by the British horse racing industry of its new Sovereign Series...
Sonics Now Officially Moving to OKC
Posted on July 02, 2008What's the price of freedom in the NBA? Apparently, the price tag is $75 million, at least if you're a bunch of cowboys. The Clay Bennett ownership group has reached a settlement agreement with the City of Seattle clearing the way for the Sonics move to Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season...
Starbury Not Enough; Steve and Barry's Contemplates Liquidation
Posted on July 01, 2008With its reliance on low cost shoes and clothing, often attached to prominent figures in sports and entertainment, you would think that retailer Steve and Barry's would be perfectly suited for the current economic times. The empire built on cheap tee shirts, Stephon Marbury's Starbury shoes and clothing lines endorsed by the likes of Venus Williams and Sarah Jessica Parker (with nothing costing more than $20) this is a retailer that hit the sweet spot of name brands and low prices...
Strange Court Theories
Posted on June 30, 2008We all know that lawyers can be creative, which can be both positive for their clients and sometimes negative for society. There has been no shortage of shall we say unique theories offered lately in courtrooms around the country. In cases involving sports, we have seen a judge in Kentucky hand down an opinion that there is no college football team in the country worse than the Duke Blue Devils...
As the NHL Turns
Posted on June 23, 2008In the latest installment of the continuing soap opera that is the relationship between Jimmy Dolan and Gary Bettman, the NHL has significantly upped the ante in the antitrust suit filed by Madison Square Garden and the Rangers against the NHL. In a counter-claim filed last week, the NHL seeks the approval of the Court to strip Madison Square Garden of the Rangers, asking the Court to approve internal league disciplinary measures that would lead to a forced sale of the Rangers...
NFL Network and ESPN in Talks
Posted on June 21, 2008In the same week in which Comcast conquered the Big Ten, it appears that it is claiming another trophy, only this one is much bigger by far. In a recognition that the premier professional sports league in the world has been unable to force its way onto cable systems in the US, the NFL Network is currently in talks with ESPN/ABC to form a joint venture to rescue the channel...
This Bud's for the Giants and Jets
Posted on June 19, 2008The new stadium rising up next to Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands doesn't yet have a name, because the Giants and the Jets, who will be the sharing haven't found the title sponsor. However, the two teams have come up with a stadium sponsorship program unique in the NFL and probably in arenas and stadiums in the US...
The Tiger Shutdown and the Tour
Posted on June 19, 2008As most everyone knows by now, Tiger Woods will be having surgery soon to repair his knee and will miss the rest of the current golf season, including the remaining majors, the Fed-Ex Championship and the Ryder Cup. Here in Louisville, where the Ryder Cup will be played this fall, Tiger's absence is being acutely felt...
NBC and Notre Dame Reup Through 2015
Posted on June 19, 2008Anybody who thought that Notre Dame's troubles over the last few years would give NBC pause when it came time to renew the peacock's contract to broadcast the Irish can rest easy now. NBC and Notre Dame announced today that their exclusive contract has been extended through the 2015 season despite the Irish having the lowest ratings since the contract began in 1991...
Michigan Claims Northwestern Stole Signs to Win
Posted on June 18, 2008This story in the Detroit Free Press relates the tale of two student managers/ball boys at the University of Michigan who discovered that Northwestern was "stealing" signs during the Northwestern-Michigan game in 1997. After relaying the information to Lloyd Carr on the sidelines in the third quarter, the Wolverines were able to regroup, and beat Northwestern 26-6 ending a two year losing streak against the Cats...
Big Ten Network and Comcast Call Truce
Posted on June 17, 2008According to the Chicago Tribune, the two year long trench war between Comcast and the Big Ten is about to end. The deal should be announced this week, putting the Big Ten Network into about 55 million homes and doubling the homes within the Big Ten Conference's footprint to 13 million...
If Bud Goes Will the Clydesdales Follow?
Posted on June 14, 2008The King of Beers is apparently subject to the same rules of tribal warfare as other monarchs. InBev, a weirdly named, patched together Belgian/Brazilian beer conglomerate has announced a $46 billion offer to purchase Anheuser-Busch, the parent of Budweiser, Bud Light and, yes, those famous Clydesdales...
Ten Most Powerdul Celebrity Athletes
Posted on June 13, 2008Thanks to Forbes and its penchant for lists, we now have a list of the ten most powerful celebrity athletes. Actually, we have a list of the top 100 most powerful celebrities, but in the interest of time and in keeping with the theme of this blog, I have edited it down to the top ten athletes...
Horse Racing's Latest Hedge Fund
Posted on June 09, 2008The results from thoroughbred racing's most recent highly publicized attempt at a hedge fund has apparently whetted the appetite of investors for a shot at the gold ring or the Triple Crown or just some of that alleged $50 million that is going to be paid for syndication of Big Brown...
Racing's Loss If Big Brown Wins
Posted on June 07, 2008I have never forgotten the thrill of watching Secretariat fly down the home stretch of Belmont Park so far in front of the rest of the field that he was the only horse the TV cameras could include in their wide angle shots of the field. The epic adventures of Affirmed and Alydar are constantly replayed every year that any horse has the opportunity to win the Triple Crown...
How Elections Should Be Settled
Posted on June 04, 2008Since election season is now ready to kick into high gear with the historic nomination of Barack Obama now secured, I thought it is a good time to steer away from sports (sort of) for just a minute to bring you news of the way elections ought to be determined...
Duke Steals Notre Dame's AD
Posted on June 02, 2008Earlier this spring, Duke suddenly found itself, thankfully, in the need of a new athletic director. Joe Alleva, who had presided over the debacle that was the Duke lacrosse case had skipped town to become the new AD at LSU. He's now Les Miles' problem and good riddance...
NFL Arms Race Pressures Smaller Markets
Posted on June 01, 2008We have discussed the arms race in collegiate athletics many times here over the last couple of years, but college is not the only place that the race is taking place. The NFL, the world's most successful professional sports league, is engaged in an arms race of its own and the timing couldn't be worse for some cities...
Big Brown's Owner's Boiler Room Past
Posted on May 30, 2008What is it about horse racing that seems to attract such wonderful role models for our children? The part owners of Curlin, the best horse in training anywhere in the world right now, are currently standing trial in federal court in Kentucky for plundering Kentucky's $200 million fen-phen settlement, effectively stealing millions from their own clients in the process...
Sounders Score with Xbox
Posted on May 28, 2008The Seattle Sounders FC may still be a year away from fielding a team but yesterday announced their most significant milestone yet. The Sounders announced that Microsoft's Xbox 360 Live division will be the Sounders jersey sponsor for a period of five years...
Tuesday Tidbits
Posted on May 28, 2008Welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tidbits as I pass along a few links to interesting stories I have found while frittering away countless hours surfing the web (avoiding real work):1. Is the market in sports betting a bigger insider trading game than the stock market? (NY Times)2...
NCAA and Ticketmaster Hit with Class Action Lawsuit
Posted on May 27, 2008In order to obtain tickets to the Final Four at face value from the NCAA, you have to enter a lottery that begins on the day after the previous year's Final Four ends. The NCAA and its ticketing partner Ticketmaster have just been hit with a class action lawsuit in a California federal court alleging that the ticketing scheme constitutes an illegal lottery...
Cats Win! Cats Win!!
Posted on May 26, 2008Congratulations to the Northwestern women's lacrosse team for a stirring win over Penn in yesterday's NCAA championship game, for their fourth straight championship. The Cats avenged their only loss of the season in beating the Quakers 10-6 in a game that was not nearly as close as the score indicated...
Final Four Weekend
Posted on May 24, 2008Memorial Day weekend is traditionally the weekend of the Final Four in men's and women's collegiate lacrosse. This year, I'm fortunate in having two of my alma maters competing for championships - one in the men's and one in the women's .Last night, the Northwestern women kept their hopes for a fourpeat alive with a stirring win over Syracuse...
Brewers Try Viral Marketing
Posted on May 19, 2008This is the time of year when it is often hard to sell baseball tickets. School is not yet out so kids often can't go to night games. The weather is often uncooperative, especially in northern cities and the pennant races are a just a distant dream of September...
Almost Preakness Day
Posted on May 16, 2008It's Black-Eyed Susan Stakes Day at Pimlico, which means tomorrow is Preakness Day, the most overlooked and overshadowed jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown. The Preakness has the misfortune of being the second race and the shortest and comes too close to the Derby, being only two weeks later...
DC United Gets Shirt Deal
Posted on May 07, 2008DC United became the ninth MLS team to have a jersey sponsor today with the announcement that Volkswagen would sponsor the team's jersey. VW will the club $14 million over 5 seasons making the deal the second richest jersey deal in the league behind the $5 million a year deal that Herbalife has with David Beckham, - oops, I mean the LA Galaxy...
BCS Confirms Big East Membership
Posted on May 07, 2008While the lead story coming from last week's meeting of the BCS Commissioners was that there would be no change in the structure of the BCS Bowl Championship Series, meaning no playoffs and no adoption of the Plus One format, the more important decision for fans of the University of Louisville (and most of you know I am one) was the reaffirmation of the participation of the current six conferences through the end of the 2013 season...
Eight Belles Leaves More Questions Then Answers
Posted on May 06, 2008Before I get into the Eight Belles issues, let me first say a few words about Big Brown. I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong and I was very wrong about this Derby. I didn't think that Big Brown could get a mile and quarter off of only three races and especially when he would have to use up so much energy coming so wide of the field...
Computer Crash
Posted on May 05, 2008My apologies for the intermittent posting over the last few days - it will be like that for the next week or so as well. My computer has probably breathed its last. It crashed last week and the Geek Squad believes it to be beyond repair at a reasonable price...
Three Questions To Answer For Derby 134
Posted on May 01, 2008It's Thursday of Derby Week and here in the River City that means it's Pegasus Parade Day. The Parade goes off around 5:00 tonight and is Louisville's answer to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, only without the bearded guy in the red suit. It's a light day for the horses and no event real events surround the raceYesterday was the post position draw and that brings us to Question number 1 (the questions are in no particular order of importance)...
The American Invasion of Serie A is On
Posted on April 30, 2008Having thoroughly ingratiated itself into the ownership ranks of the English Premier League, American billionaires are looking for new sports horizons to climb. It appears that the Italian Serie A will be the next target now the new Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has given his blessing...
Will It Be An All American Champions League Final?
Posted on April 29, 2008Manchester United defeated Barcelona 1-0 today at Old Trafford securing its place in the Champions League final in Moscow on May 21. With the victory an all England final is assured. Man U's opponent will be determined in tomorrow's semifinal between Chelsea and Liverpool...
Profting From the Army All American Game
Posted on April 25, 2008Ever wonder how the players are chosen for the US Army All American High School All Star football game? Ever wonder where the money goes from all those ticket sales and the television rights that NBC pays to televise the game? Well, wonder no more, for this morning the Wall Street Journal has answered all your questions...
Tuesday Tidbits
Posted on April 22, 2008There have been a number of articles and blog posts worthy of your time and attention in the last couple of days so here are a few of them:Danica Patrick's win at the Japan Indy 300 on Sunday has transformed her from the Anna Kournikova of motor racing - all beauty, no wins - into a champion...
NBA Owners Ignore Lawsuits, Approve Sonics Move to OKC
Posted on April 18, 2008Capping off a week of revelations and threats, the NBA Board of Governors today approved the move of the Sonics to that noted metropolitan area of Oklahoma City despite the continued existence of a lease with the Key Center in Seattle through 2010, and ongoing litigation with the City of Seattle over the terms of that lease...
A NFL Stadium for LA that Works?
Posted on April 17, 2008Real estate developer, billionaire and partner in the Staples Center, the Lakers and the Kings, Ed Roski today unveiled a proposal for a new stadium in the City of Industry, about 20 miles east of downtown LA. The proposed stadium will have 75,000 seats and will cost upwards of $800 million...
Duke's Legal Team Goes 0-2
Posted on April 16, 2008Duke just can't seem to get out of its own way when it comes to the lacrosse case. It seems to always make the wrong choice each and every time. Today, the mighty Blue Devils legal team went 0-2 in court, losing hearings in cases brought by former lacrosse coach Mike Pressler and the 38 non-indicted players on the lacrosse team...
Fantasy Fishing, Yes Fishing, For a $1,000,000
Posted on April 07, 2008As if the Internet didn't already give you enough reasons to waste time, now comes along FLW Outdoors and fantasy fishing. If you can wildly guess which team of 10 fishermen each week will pull the largest number of bass out of the lake in that week's FLW Outdoors tournament you stand a chance of winning $1,000,000...
Final Four Coaches: Who Gains the Most?
Posted on April 04, 2008For Bill Self of Kansas, not only does he shake the extremely large shadow of Roy Williams but he collects a bonus of $200,000. Interestingly, Roy will not collect a bonus for winning his second national title. Of course, since he is already making a base salary of $1...
Experts Say Tigers Win the World Series
Posted on April 02, 2008Since Opening Day was yesterday, notwithstanding that bizarre two day series in Japan a week or so ago and Sunday's night's Nationals Park opener in our nations's capital, I thought I would bring you this chart from Portfolio compiling the so-called experts predictions of the World Series winner this season...
Debt Crisis Could Lead to NFL Labor Unrest
Posted on April 01, 2008Further to last night's post on the impact of the auction rate debt crisis in sports, here comes NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell this morning citing the crisis as a factor in the owner's likelihood of opting out of the collective bargaining agreement this fall...
Credit Crisis Hits NFL
Posted on March 30, 2008The auction rate bond crisis now sweeping through the municipal bond markets has stuck the NFL particularly hard, although it has also taken a toll on stadiums in baseball. At least five states and cities -- Louisiana, Indiana, New Jersey, Washington, D...
Carnival of the NBA
Posted on March 26, 2008The latest edition of the Carnival of the NBA is now up at Daily Basketball. Get over there and check it out.
CBS Sees Explosive Growth in Online NCAA Viewing
Posted on March 22, 2008Opening March Madness On Demand to free viewing for all games has proven to be the correct strategy for CBS, as the network has seen explosive growth in the online viewership of the NCAA tournament's first round games. Viewership of just Thursday's set of first round games exceeded all of last year's online viewers combined, as the expansion of outlets to social networking sites fueled growth in demand...
Will the Credit Crunch Mean No Brooklyn Nets?
Posted on March 22, 2008The ramifications of the continuing credit crunch the nation is enduring are being felt throughout the economy and the sports world is not immune. Earlier, I discussed how it impacted the English Premier League, but it is also being felt a little closer to home, just across the river from Wall Street to be more precise...
Becks to Be MLS Owner?
Posted on March 21, 2008According to a report to be aired on CBS 60 Minutes this coming Sunday, David Beckham has been granted an option to buy a franchise in Major League Soccer, together with with his manager Simon Fuller. The option kicks in at the conclusion of his five year playing contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy...
British Soccer Clubs Sweat Out Credit Crisis
Posted on March 20, 2008While March Madness occupies most American, at least those not preoccupied with either the Presidential race or the latest twists and turns of the credit crisis, Wall Street's issues are drawing close attention across the pond among the executive suites in the clubhouse across the English Premier League...
Olympic Sponsors Face Darfur, Tibet Protests
Posted on March 18, 2008The current funding model for the Olympics requires a substantial investment from the corporate sector in the form of sponsorships, often to the tune of $100 million and up for the foundation sponsors like Coke, McDonalds and Lenovo, and that is true even if the Games are held in a Communist nation like China...
What Are the Cubs Worth?
Posted on March 18, 2008As we all know, the Tribune Company has put the Cubs up for sale. New owner Sam Zell has said that he would like to sell the Cubs and Wrigley Field in separate transactions as he believes that would maximize the return to the company. You can quibble with his logic, but he is a buyout king and a billionaire, and I'm not, so I'll defer to him on this one...
Jewish Jordan Back Home in Baltimore
Posted on March 14, 2008After an extended tour in Israel that last saw him playing in the Israeli second level national league, Tamir Goodman, fated to be forever haunted as the "Jewish Jordan", is back home in Baltimore. He was recently signed to play with the Maryland Nighthawks of the new Premier Basketball League, a recently formed minor league which plans to take on the wild and wacky ABA...
Wrigley Not Likely to Pay Naming Rights for Wrigley Field
Posted on March 12, 2008The new owner of the Chicago Tribune has opened a hornets nest with his suggestion, made a couple of weeks ago, that he may sell naming rights to the cozy confines of the Chicago Cubs currently known as Wrigley Field. Now, most of you probably know that the Wrigley Company once owned the Cubs but the ballpark was actually named in the 1920s, for its then owner William Wrigley...
Does NCAA Online Viewing Account for CBS Rating Decline?
Posted on March 12, 2008We all know that March Madness has become a national sporting icon, second only to the Super Bowl in the pantheon of the American sporting universe. The average 30 second spot in the championship game now sells for about $1.4 million, which is not quite Super Bowl money but it's certainly getting close...
Should the NHL Fear Russia?
Posted on March 02, 2008There was an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about the return of numerous Russian and European hockey players to Russia to play and the concerted efforts being put in by Russian officials to upgrade the Russian Superliga in an attempt to provide a meaningful alternative to the NHL...
How the SEC Got Rich
Posted on March 01, 2008The Birmingham News has done an enormous favor for all college football fans who are interested in just how college football arrived in the sorry state in which it finds itself. In a series of articles on the history of the SEC in commemoration of the conference's 75th anniversary, the paper attempts to explain how the SEC and its counterparts among the Big Six conferences have become the financial powerhouses we know today...
Developer Buys 1/2 of Dolphins
Posted on February 22, 2008Wayne Huizenga decided it was a good time to start cashing out Now, coming off a 1-15 season, one can argue with his timing, but after getting an offer valuing the Dolphins at $1.1 Billion, which would have placed the team fourth on the Forbes list of NFL teams by highest value, a significant upgrade from the $942 million value which Forbes placed on the team, how could he not jump at a deal?Even so, he has made a good deal, leaving him in charge of the team for the foreseeable future, which allows him to both cash out and stay in charge - no mean feat...
Finally! IRL and Champ Announce Open Wheel Racing Merger
Posted on February 22, 2008After 13 years of disastrous competition and weeks, no years, of on again, off again merger talks, officials of Indy Racing League and Champ Car announced the signing of an agreement in principle to unify open wheel racing. Champ Car will fold and Indy Racing will go forward, adding three Champ Car fixtures to the IRL calendar: likely to be Long Beach, CA, Surfer's Paradise in Australia and Edmonton, Alberta...
Philly Gets MLS' 16th Team
Posted on February 22, 2008According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, a deal has been struck to award a MLS expansion franchise to Philadelphia. The team will play in an 18,500 seat, $115 million, soccer only stadium to be constructed in Chester, Pennsylvania. The state will provide $47 million in funding towards construction of the stadium...
Goodell Gets Religion: Churches Get to Show SuperBowls
Posted on February 21, 2008The NFL has finally seen the light and relented from the absolutely absurd policy that prevented churches from holding viewing parties for the Super Bowl. In a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, responding to a letter from Hatch, finally relented from his campaign to force every American who wished to watch the game on a set larger than that available in his house to pay the league for the privilege...
Duke Lacrosse Players Sue the University
Posted on February 21, 2008And now another shoe drops, as the 38 members of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team who were not charged in the now infamous case brought by the Durham District Attorney have filed suit against Duke in US District Court charging the university with inflicting emotional distress and other injuries in their treatment of the students during the case...
New York City to Shutter Off Track Betting
Posted on February 20, 2008Thoroughbred racing in New York is in turmoil and the is only getting more chaotic by the day. Last week, the state legislature and Governor Elliott Spitzer announced a plan to extend the New York Racing Association's exclusive franchise to operate Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga racetracks for an additional 25 years, together with a $105 million subsidy from the state and forgiving $125 million in debt owed by NYRA to the state...
Carnival of the Capitalists
Posted on February 13, 2008This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is at Bizophere. I'm a little late in posting that it's up but that doesn't mean you shouldn't still get over there and check it out.
Premier League Abroad - Not So Fast
Posted on February 12, 2008The English Premier League has proposed playing one match a year outside England in locations to be determined. This proposal was unanimously approved by the EPL owners and was developed following the success that the NFL had with its game in Wembley last fall...
Swoosh! Inside Nike
Posted on February 09, 2008Is it because they got their clock cleaned at the World Cup last year by archrival Adidas? Is it because the world's best marketing opportunity dawns in a few short month's in China, that is, is it because it's an Olympic year? Or is it just because it's All Star Weekend next weekend? Whatever the reason, Nike has embarked on an unprecedented public relations campaign for the notoriously secretive company that has resulted in a cover story in Forbes and an upcoming prime time documentary special on CNBC by my friend Darren Rovell...
Russia Tops Israel; Makes Fed Cup Semis
Posted on February 03, 2008Behind Maria Sharapova, Russia blasted by Israel in the reverse singles to take their quarterfinal Fed Cup match staged in Israel today. Sharapova had little trouble with Israel's number one player, Shahar Pe'er, winning 6-1, 6-1. Pe'er could not muster any comeback against the Aussie Open champion similar to the one she staged yesterday...
Israel, Russia 1-1 in Fed Cup Play
Posted on February 02, 2008Israel and Russia split opening day singles matches in Fed Cup quarterfinal play today at the Ramat Hasharon Tennis Center. Maria Sharapova, playing in her first ever Fed Cup match, overwhelmed Tzipi Obziler 6-0, 6-4, while Shahar Pe'er rallied to defeat Dinara Safina 0-6, 6-2, 6-2...
The NFL Says No to Religion
Posted on February 01, 2008The NFL may have become the nation's secular religion with its meetings every Sunday and its total dominance of the nation's weekend air waves, but when it comes to the real thing, the league is quick to say no. You would think that with the $5 billion television contracts the NFL has in place, that church gatherings to view Sunday's Big Game (not a NFL trademark) would be too small for the NFL to worry about...
NCAA Settles with Student Athletes
Posted on January 31, 2008The NCAA has agreed to settle a class action antitrust case filed by former student athletes in California alleging that the failure of the NCAA to approve scholarships that fully fund student athletes expenses constituted antitrust violations. In agreeing to settle the case, the NCAA has agreed to create a $218 million fund to cover insurance and to which student athletes could apply to receive help to cover additional expenses...
Coyotes to Sponsor PGA Golfer Finney
Posted on January 30, 2008The Phoenix Coyotes are looking to the links for marketing and taking their brand across North America. It what is likely a first for any team in North America, the Coyotes have agreed to a one year sponsorship deal with PGA Tour golfer Jeff Quinney, starting with this week's FBR Open in, drumroll, the Coyotes nearly hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona...
An Historic Weekend in Israeli Sports
Posted on January 27, 2008It was a week in Israeli sports that began like many others. Maccabi Tel Aviv won a EuroLeague game at Nokia Arena and looks to be on its way to a top seed in the round of 16. Half a world away, the pride of Israeli tennis, ShaharPe'er had crashed out of the Australian Open singles competition...
Liverpool Crisis Resolved as Debt Refinanced
Posted on January 25, 2008Liverpool's North American owners closed Friday on a much anticipated 35o million pound loan from Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia Bank putting to rest for the time being any ideas that the club will be sold to Dubai Investment Corporation, the investing of Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai...
Business of Winning
Posted on January 25, 2008Hot on the heels of my recently released Greatest Franchises in Pro Sports, CNBC comes along to confirm my somewhat controversial (at least according to the comments at Armchair GM) choice of the top franchise, the New England Patriots. Sunday night at 10:00 PM Eastern, the business network will feature Touchdown! The Patriots and The Business of Winning, a one hour look inside the franchise and at owner Robert Kraft and at how the Pats have become one of the most profitable teams in pro football...
Carnival of the Capitalists
Posted on January 22, 2008This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is hosted by Mike from PartnerUp, the social network for entrepreneurs. Get over there and check it out as he has some great posts up worthy of your time.
Curlin Horse of the Year; Will Continue Racing
Posted on January 22, 2008The Curlin story gets better and better. Bought as a yearling for $57,000, this time last year he had different owners, a different trainer and had yet to make his first start. Last night he was named Horse of the Year and Three Year Old Male Champion...
NFL Will Play Games in Canada, England in O8
Posted on January 21, 2008The NFL will almost certainly approve the Buffalo Bills plan to play at least one home game in Toronto next season and will return to London for another regular season on the heels on the successful debut this past season. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lead a list of four teams likely to play in the game...
The 10 Greatest Pro Sports Franchises in the World Plus One
Posted on January 20, 2008I was reading an article in the Ottawa Sun the other day that listed the greatest pro sports franchises and thought that this might be a fun exercise. The Sun professed to consider only excellence and money in compiling its list but in truth, it considered history, provincialism and Canada's national game...
Sports Business Carnival
Posted on January 19, 2008The 8th edition of the Sports Business Carnival is now up at Take a Peck. Get over there and check it out.
The Hornets: Coming to a City Near You in 09
Posted on January 18, 2008David Stern is a consummate marketer. He may have been trained as a lawyer and got his job because he used to the NBA general counsel, but he has kept it so long and earned the reputation he now has because he is focused above all on the image of the NBA and its players and marketing them to its sponsors and potential sponsors...
TBS to Operate NBA Digital Assets
Posted on January 17, 2008The NBA has an extensive multimedia operation under the umbrella of NBA Entertainment. It includes the popular website nba.com, the digital cable and satellite network NBA TV (which is having carriage issues similar to the Big Ten Network although the NBA is not demanding that any cable operator carry it on basic cable), League Pass as well as other broadband and wireless operations...
FIFA and European Clubs Sign Peace Deal
Posted on January 16, 2008After years of tension, nasty press conferences, threats and lawsuits, peace has come to European soccer. The big European clubs that comprised G14, the mathematically challenged group that consisted of 18 of Europe's largest and most successful soccer clubs signed a peace agreement with FIFA and UEFA yesterday, reaching agreement to players called up for national team duty and on the two most contentious issues separating them...
ESPN Buys Stake in NBA China
Posted on January 15, 2008Forget all the hype about ESPN being independent journalist covering stories. If there ever was any semblance of journalistic integrity in the operations of ESPN, the recent actions of the corporate parent have blown that idea out of the water. First, the WWWL goes and buys a stake in the Arena Football League in lieu of, or in addition to, broadcast rights, in order to give itself an upside kicker in value produced by televising the no longer upstart minor league football league...
NASCAR Scores Big Win Over Ky Speedway
Posted on January 08, 2008A US District Court judge in Kentucky handed a big win to the Frances family in an antitrust battle with the Kentucky Speedway over the awarding of lucrative Sprint (formerly Nextel) Cup dates. Judge William Bertlesman dismissed the lawsuit brought Kentucky Speedway against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp, saying that Ky Speedway had failed to make a case...
2008: The Webcast Olympics
Posted on January 08, 2008If you are like me, you have grown a bit tired of the tape-delayed Olympics broadcast by NBC over the last several Olympiads. I know all about the time zone factor, but the suits at NBC give the American people no credit for any desire to see live events and persist in packaging everything in a neat and tidy tape delayed four hour event each night...
College Basketball's Most Valuable School - Its' a Tobacco Thing
Posted on January 03, 2008The North Carolina Tar Heels are undefeated and sitting atop both the AP and USA Today polls as the new year dawns and conference play opens in college basketball. The Heels are also atop another ranking of college basketball programs: Forbes list of the most valuable programs...
WVU Sues Rodriguez for $4 Million Buyout
Posted on December 27, 2007Rich Rodriguez began work as Michigan's new football coach today watching the Big Blue practice for their upcoming Capital One Bowl appearance against Florida. Back home in West Virginia, his former employer was busy too. Busy filing suit to collect $4 million which WVU alleges that Rod owes pursuant to the terms of his contract as a buyout to leave West Virginia to take the job at Michigan...
Pats-Giants to Be on NBC, CBS, NFL Network
Posted on December 26, 2007After spending weeks proclaiming that there were no circumstances under which they would cave into pressure, the NFL did just that today and allowed Saturday's potentially historic game between undefeated New England and the New Jersey Giants to be simulcast on both NBC and CBS...
NBC: More Reason for Crewcut to Worry About His Job
Posted on December 25, 2007You know how bad Notre Dame was this past season so there little reason for me to rehash the details. I mean 3-9 just doesn't cut it under the Golden Dome. Now, Domers will tell you that it was to be expected because after all ND was playing all those freshman and sophomores...
Christmas Links
Posted on December 25, 2007Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it today and for those of you who might be looking for something to read to pass the time today here are few links to stories of interest:The New York Times has an article on St. John's basketball player Rob Thomas, whose dyslexia remained undiagnosed until he was 17, when he passed a note to his English teacher that said "I cannot read or write" and "please don't turn your back on me"...
Trouble Brewing
Posted on December 23, 2007I'm going to depart slightly from sports for a minute to touch on a problem close to most every sports fan's heart: beer. If you are like an ever increasing number of discerning drinkers who have chose to drink small craft beers, lately you may have had trouble finding your favorite beer...
Let's Hear It for the Owls
Posted on December 23, 2007As the college bowl season kicks off, we will be subjected to endless discussion about how the BCS has failed to live it up to its purpose and how college football powers that be are depriving the fans of their God given right to see a national championship won on the field in a championship playoff run by the NCAA just like all those other sports nobody watches...
Site Upgrades; Light Posting
Posted on December 18, 2007Posting has been light this past week and will be light over the next week or so as I have been focused on some family matters. This week will be spent on much needed site upgrades looking towards the unveiling of a new and vastly improved site sometime around the first of year...
From TD to Doughnuts
Posted on December 12, 2007When the average NFL player retires. the fans believe that he retires to a life of luxury with no worries about his next meal or what to do with the rest of his life. After all, in the minds of the fans, he has made millions of dollars playing football, has been represented by high priced agents and lawyers, so why would he need to worry?The reality of life after retirement is far different for most players...
Technical Problems
Posted on December 11, 2007The blog seems to be having more than its normal share of technical problems as I'm getting frequent reports of links that don't work and error messages popping up with ever increasing frequency. Blogger seems to be having difficulty keeping the blog active and I'm now being forced to face the very real prospect of moving to a different software and host...
Despite Dolan's and Isiah's Best Efforts, Knicks Still Most Valuable
Posted on December 11, 2007The Forbes report on the value of NBA franchises is out for this year and despite what you have been reading and hearing about the state of the league, the value of the typical franchise actually rose 6%. This in a year in which ratings for the NBA Finals were at an all time low; the league was rocked by a betting scandal involving a referee; Seattle filed suit against the Sonics to prevent the owners from moving the team to Oklahoma City; the Knicks were involved in a sexual harassment suit that exposed the ineptitude of team management for the world to see; and the Kobe Bryant circus continued in Hollywood...
Bowl Schools Show Significant Academic Achievement Gap
Posted on December 07, 2007Every year about this time UCF issues its annual report on the academic performance of the football teams that qualified for bowls that year. This year's teams' performances look remarkably like last year's and that is nothing to brag about. The significant academic achievement gap between white athletes and African-American athletes shows no signs of progress even as the performance of football players as a group continues to outpace the male student body as a whole...
50 Top Academic/Athletic Programs
Posted on December 04, 2007Came across an interesting ranking of the fifty top combined academic-athletic college programs in the country as compiled by Stack magazine. Stack is a publication dedicated to high school athletes and features articles on how to improve their performance...
My Own Hockey Team?
Posted on December 03, 2007It was inevitable following the success of myfootballclub.com, which I have discussed in this space on several occasions, that someone in North America would try and copy the idea. It was logical to think that football was not going to be the sport as outside the Arena League and its own minor league Arena2, there is not a very viable minor league system...
Predators Sale Approved
Posted on December 01, 2007The long, winding road to the end of ownership of the Nashville Predators by Craig Leipold finally appears to be at hand and the winner, for now, is Middle Tennessee. The NHL Board of Governors yesterday approved the sale of the Preds to a group of mostly local businessmen headed by venture capitalist David Freeman for $193 million...
Will USC Join UCLA at the Rose Bowl?
Posted on November 28, 2007USC has played its home football games at the Los Angeles Coliseum, an historic venue hard by the USC campus, for 80 years. However, the Trojans' lease of the Coliseum expires at the end of the season, Saturday, and negotiations for a new lease have not gone well...
Read This Before You Bet on Tennis
Posted on November 24, 2007Now you wouldn't have thought that tennis, the game of the country club elite, strawberries and cream, and mandatory whites on the grass lawns of staid Wimbledon would grow to be the third most popular betting sport in Europe, but at Betfair, one of the world's largest online sports betting exchanges, tennis is now third behind horse racing and soccer...
Carnival of the Capitalists
Posted on November 21, 2007It's Carnivals day here at SportsBiz as we're trying to load you up on reading material to carry you through the holiday. This time, it's the Carnival of the Capitalists and this edition is at SEO ROI. Get over there and check it out - it will be well worth your time...
Carnival of the NBA
Posted on November 21, 2007The much delayed but not to be missed Thanksgiving edition of the Carnival of the NBA is now up at Loy's Place. Get over there and check it out. You'll thank me. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
MLBAM - Digital Divide on the Clock?
Posted on November 19, 2007When the history of Bud Selig's run as Baseball Commissioner is written, there will be few true success stories. Steroids will be writ large and should properly loom over the entirety of his term in such magnitude as to perhaps block out all else that he has accomplished...
Slots Going on Maryland Ballot in '08
Posted on November 19, 2007The future of horse racing in Maryland will be decided by the voters in 2008. The Maryland state Senate approved a bill on Sunday night placing a referendum on the legalization of slot machines on the ballot for approval by the voters next year. The House had approved the measure on Friday...
Technical Problems
Posted on November 18, 2007Please excuse the continuing technical problems. We're working on them but still having difficulty isolating the source of the problem. It's an ongoing issue and I don't know when we'll be able to resolve it. Hopefully, we'll get to it over the holiday...
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