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January 25, 2008
Sports Business: The Future of Tickets
An article in today's Arizona Republic refreshed my memory about a cool start-up I heard about last year that hosts an online exchange of futures-like contracts for major sporting events.
The site, yoonew.com, allows sports fans to purchase a contract associated with a specific team that translates into a ticket to a championship such as the Super Bowl or Final Four if that team reaches the game.
Posted by Jason Del Rey at 4:00 PM
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January 18, 2008
Sports Business: The New Yankees Boss
Over the past two decades, Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner has ceded more and more of his role as team spokesman to his PR consigliere Howard Rubenstein. More recently, as speculation on his deteriorating health has mounted, the Boss is rarely quoted directly, only occasionally exhibiting flashes of the confrontational, meddling owner that the rest of the league has long loved to loathe.
But a funny thing has happened over the past few months: George's eldest son, Hank, the team's senior vice president, has stepped forward as the new mouthpiece for the team -- which, I think,could have a profound effect on how the organization conducts business going forward and even a greater impact on the business, period.
Posted by Jason Del Rey at 4:20 PM
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January 10, 2008
Sports Business: College Football Fans Vote With Their Eyes
College football is dead to me. And, apparently, if TV ratings are any type of accurate gauge, more and more sports fans share that sentiment.
The average ratings for Fox's four Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games fell 13 percent from last year. ABC's lone BCS game, the Rose Bowl, dropped 20 percent.
Posted by Jason Del Rey at 2:21 PM
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November 8, 2007
Sports: Red Sox, Yankees No Match For…the Buffalo Sabres?
There has been some buzz this week about a new study conducted by Turnkey Sports and Entertainment. The 2007 Turnkey Team Brand Index ranks the local brand strength of every team, from 1-122, in the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL.
The key word -- and the stumbling point for some confused bloggers -- is local, as the purpose of the study was to evaluate team brands in their respective markets. That explains why the Yankees, clearly one of the most dominant sports brands in the world, come in at number 29. With competition from the Mets (43) and so many people moving to New York, it would be impossible for the Yankees to hold the same local sway as, say, the Cleveland Indians.
Of course, the study's limited focus also explains why the folks over at Deadspin filed the study under the heading "Useless Rankings." If we take a look at the results, what do they actually tell us?
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 1:17 PM
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October 25, 2007
Inside Baseball: The Man who Puts the Socks on Fenway
If you're watching the World Series tonight, as I am at the moment, you've seen that cool Red Sox logo on the infield grass. Let me introduce you to the man responsible for that creative touch, Dave Mellor, director of the grounds at Fenway Park. He appeared in Fast Company a few years ago and explained how he came to be an artist on the baseball diamond:
"Baseball runs in the family. My grandfather played in the majors in 1902 for Baltimore, and when I pitched in high school, I hoped to play in the majors one day. Then a month after graduation, I got hit by a car. My baseball career was over. But during physical therapy, I thought about how I loved being outside, how I grew up taking care of people's lawns, and how I loved baseball. I decided to study land horticulture and agronomy in college and become a groundskeeper."
The designs on the field? They started as a fluke.
Continue reading "Inside Baseball: The Man who Puts the Socks on Fenway"
Posted by Chuck Salter at 10:56 PM
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Sports: Blacklist the Patriots!
Before the start of the NFL season, Eric Gillin, editor of Esquire.com, compared this year's New England Patriots to Communist China. At the time, he focused mainly on positives, including the team's enormous potential and the "for the greater good" mentality of its players, as the basis for the comparison. So it was only appropriate when Chairman Belichick and the Patriots, adding an ironic twist to the analogy, were caught spying on their opponents. But now, with the team squashing the capitalistic impulses of fans everywhere, it's getting downright scary.
As reported last week, "The New England Patriots have won a bid to get the names of all the fans who bought or sold -- or tried to buy or sell -- tickets to home games through online ticket reseller StubHub."
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 11:54 AM
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October 10, 2007
Sports: Is A-Rod Worth $1 Billion? It Might Not Be As Crazy As It Sounds
Well, that didn't take long. When the New York Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs Monday night, the baseball season, for all intents and purposes, ended.
Forget the battle between Arizona and Colorado, in an NLCS that promises to draw about twelve viewers east of the Rockies. Not to mention those upstart Indians -- who took down the Yanks -- or a Red Sox team that seems the clear favorite to win its second World Series in four seasons.
No, the story in baseball is now all about one man. One agent, to be exact, who seems to believe he is the first in history to represent a deity.
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 9:13 PM
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October 4, 2007
Sports: Isaiah Thomas Is A Jerk, But Why Does That Really Matter?
In the wake of the Isaiah Thomas sexual harassment case, I've been thinking about character issues in sports. I know, I know. It's a stale topic of discussion. But this particular case has me thinking differently for one simple reason: Thomas isn't a player anymore -- he's the coach. Plenty of bad guys, Thomas among them, have led teams to championships as players. But how does it affect an organization when the one acting up is the person in charge?
Thomas may have been a great player, but it's no secret that he's been a bust as a boss. In 1998, he purchased the Continental Basketball Association and took just two years to run the league into the ground. Since then, he has underachieved with a very talented Indiana Pacers team and turned the New York Knicks into a laughingstock.
So are Thomas's failures a direct result of his character? Maybe, maybe not. But I would argue that his character definitely limits his potential as a coach.
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 4:10 PM
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September 27, 2007
Sports: Is This New Football Startup Made to Stick?
If you knew who Marcus Katz was, you would probably think he's crazy. Katz is a San Diego entrepreneur who made his money in private school loans. And now he's committed $75 million to start a new professional football league.
We've seen this before. From the USFL to the XFL, startup football leagues invariably fail -- quickly. In 2001, the first televised broadcast of the XFL on NBC was seen by an estimated 14 million viewers. By the end of its inaugural season, fan interest was so low that the league was forced to shut down. Since the AFL-NFL merger in the late sixties, no league has had what it takes to last.
Enter the All-American Football League, set to begin play next spring. Crazy, you say? I assure you, Katz is not.
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 12:24 PM
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September 21, 2007
Sports: The Owners Club
An article in The Chicago Tribune earlier this week speculated that local businessman John A. Canning Jr. may be the leading candidate to purchase the Cubs when the season ends, even if he is not the highest bidder.
His competition? Well, most notably there’s Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. Cuban is considered a controversial bidder, having been fined well over $1 million by the NBA since taking over the Mavs -- mainly for publicly criticizing the referees and other league policies.
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 11:47 AM
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September 13, 2007
Sports: Goodell Faces Tough Decision On Patriots
In my last post, I praised the NFL for providing fans with the best possible product. One week later, it seems that I may need to revise that statement. If the New England Patriots really cheated, the fallout might be worse than you think.
As ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported yesterday, “NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has determined that the New England Patriots violated league rules Sunday when they videotaped defensive signals by the New York Jets’ coaches.”
While league officials deny that a decision has been made, expect Mortensen’s reports to be confirmed, as he is extremely credible. New England head coach Bill Belichick issued a vague apology yesterday, suggesting an admission of guilt. Sports Business Daily is now reporting that the league will announce its ruling by this Sunday.
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 12:08 PM
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September 6, 2007
Sports: A Season to Sling?
The 2007 NFL season kicks off tonight, as Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts take the field against Reggie Bush and the New Orleans Saints. While fans across the country are rightfully eager for their own teams to begin play this weekend, there is plenty to watch for off the field as well.
There have been reports of an imminent deal between the NFL and Sling Media, makers of the controversial Slingbox (Major League Baseball has publicly challenged the product's legality). The Slingbox allows anyone with an Internet connection to broadcast programming from a "home" TV to a single screen anywhere in the world. Therefore, a businessman from New York can watch a game on his laptop in Omaha. Or, if you've moved from your favorite team's city, you can put a Slingbox in your parents' house.
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 5:00 PM
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June 14, 2007
The NCAA is not a Fan of the Blogosphere
Or at least the ones who don't have express written consent to reproduce or retransmit any accounts of the game or descriptions thereof...For those of you who don't know, Brian Bennett, a writer for the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, was ejected from the press booth during the fifth inning of the College World Series on Sunday for live-blogging the game between the University of Louisiana and Oklahoma State.
Here's the Courier-Journal's story, and here is Bennett's blog retelling the event. Naturally, bloggers, especially ones covering sports, are up in arms about this, including the official blogger for the NCAA. A good look at the legal precedents of the issue can be found at the Sports Law Blog, which was featured in last October's Best Blogs column, and may be come more important as the newspaper is considering taking legal action.
Although there have been numerous other live blogs of other sports events, apparently the NCAA decided to start clamping down. It's an extremely myopic position to take, especially in light of all the new opportunities technology has created for disseminating live events, drawing more attention to them, and opening up new sources of revenue. In their infinite wisdom, the NCAA probably realized that there are millions of people out there who would pass up watching a game on TV or the Internet in order to risk carpal tunnel syndrome by constantly hitting the "refresh" button on their browsers. Why watch when you can read snark?
Even the New York Islanders, not exactly known as the most progressive of NHL teams (case in point: Nassau Coliseum), will even have a dedicated area for bloggers starting next season. While it looks like it's a bit of a publicity stunt, and remains to be seen if they'll let them live-blog games, it's at least an acknowledgement that there's new ways to reach the kagillion or so sports fans out there (less so for the Isles), and even some of us mainstream media types are trying to use new techniques to engage them (such as Rob Curley, who was profiled by senior writer Chuck Salter last year). Check out Deadspin's amusing interview with their PR rep.
So listen up, NCAA: I don't think letting bloggers do play-by-play in the press booth (which, by the way, is done all the time by people watching games on TV--Just ask Bill Simmons) is going to diminish the rights of those broadcasting the game. If anything, it's going to enhance fans' experience, by giving them another, unique voice providing commentary. Unless you like listening to Tim McCarver.
Or would you rather the bloggers take a page from Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam? "In Saigon today, according to official sources, nothing actually happened. One thing that didn't officially happen was a bomb didn't officially explode unofficially destroying Jimmy Wah's Cafe. Three men were unofficially wounded, and two men whose identities are still not known at this time are unofficially dead, although the police, ambulance and fire department responded to what's believed to be unofficial at this present moment."
Posted by Michael Prospero at 12:03 PM
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April 6, 2007
Agents to the All-Stars
It's not uncommon to draw parallels between the worlds of professional sports and business. Business leaders, like athletes, work with coaches. Statistics can make or break an organization.
And now... athletes are making their way into the world of entertainment. It's nothing new that athletes are endorsing products and services. (George Forman, anyone?) And it's no big deal that athletes work with agents.
But it's interesting to note that athletes are beginning to align themselves with the kinds of agents who work with Hollywood superstars and other celebrities. The Creative Artists Agency has built a once-boutique side business -- CAA Sports -- into an entertainment industry heavyweight.
What do you think that means for the world of sports? The world of entertainment? Soon, every athlete might be able to spend it like Beckham.
Posted by Heath Row at 2:42 PM
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February 13, 2007
Footballers' Billionaires
Will soccer--henceforth to be referred to as football in this post--ever be a profitable business in America?
A bevy of Colorado billionaires seem to think so.
Last Friday, Wal-Mart developer turned sports mogul Stan Kroenke announced a collaboration between his Major League Soccer club, Colorado Rapids, and England Premier League's famed Arsenal club.
The agreement includes the creation of the Arsenal Center of Excellence, a football skills training center, and the launch of the Arsenal Cup, a club tournament that will be open to American teams, reports the Denver Post.
Both will take place at Kroenke's Dick's Sporting Goods Park east of Denver, "the largest and most state of the art football complex on earth." The facility--set to open April 7--includes an 18,000-seat outdoor stadium for the Rapids and 24 full-sized outdoor fields for the state's prolific youth football programs. Through either an ironic stroke of luck or a brilliant marketing ploy, the property abuts the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge--A World War II-era chemical weapons plant (think mustard gas, Lewisite and chlorine gas) turned nature preserve--and will include the refuge's new visitors center.
The Rapids will help promote the Arsenal brand in the U.S., while Arsenal will help train promising Rapids players, according to the Post. The deal doesn't give Kroenke an equity stake in Arsenal, however.
The Rapid-Arsenal partnership follows the purchase of the Premiership's Liverpool club for $430.8 million by George Gillett Jr., former owner of the Vail ski area, current owner of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team and chairman of the Greeley, Colorado-based Swift & Co., the America's third-largest beef processor.
You can bet a Kroenke-style Liverpool-MLS club partnership is in the works.
Last month Denver-based billionaire Philip Anschutz's Los Angeles Galaxy MLS club made international headlines when they signed English football star David Beckham to a five-year contract worth $250 million in salary and endorsements.
Why the sudden surge in American interest and investment in English football?
Continue reading "Footballers' Billionaires"
Posted by Alex Pasquariello at 2:45 PM
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December 21, 2006
Vote for Rory
Rory Fitzpatrick, a hockey player for the Vancouver Canucks, is the prototypical NHL journeyman. During his 11-year career, he's played in 226 games for five different teams, scored nine goals, and has 18 assists. And he may be on the starting line for the NHL All Star game.
Why? Because Steve Schmid, a Buffalo Sabres (and Fitzpatrick) fan started VoteForRory.com, a web site dedicated to, you guessed it, getting Fitzpatrick into the All Star game. And it's worked. As of this writing, people have voted for Rory some 428,832 times, vaulting him to second place in the balloting, behind Scott Niedermayer (14 seasons, 131 goals, 438 assists) by about 19,000 votes.
Even though the players, including Fitzpatrick, are amused, but a little wary of the whole thing--If Rory gets on the team, it means another player perhaps better deserving has been left off--as Schmid says in this story, his campaign has got others interested in hockey who wouldn't otherwise follow the sport. While this is one of those using-the-power-of-the-Internet-to-do-funny-things kinds of stories, it's one that the NHL should heed, because they need all the fans they can get.
(photo courtesy CNN/Sports Illustrated)
Posted by Michael Prospero at 12:03 PM
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December 19, 2006
The New Fight Club
Imagine being at the office with one minute and 15 seconds left in the day. Then imagine shoving one of your coworkers, and punching another in the face.
What would your boss say? What would management do? I would probably be fired, if not arrested. But I work for a magazine, not a basketball team.
The first rule of the NBA is you do not talk about the NBA.
In 2004, Indiana forward, Ron Artest, jumped into the stands and attacked a spectator that he thought threw a drink at him. Last season, San Antonio's Bruce Bowen kicked Seattle's Ray Allen in the back. On Saturday, Denver forward Carmelo Anthony shoved Nate Robinson and punched Mardy Collins in the face during a tense game with the New York Knicks.
To history buffs, this might seem like a return to the '77-'78 season when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar punched Milwaukee's Kent Benson in the face, and a few months later Los Angeles forward Kermit Washington gave Rudy Tomjanovich a near fatal blow.
To a purist, this must seem embarrassing for basketball. It's not boxing. It's not wresting. It's not even hockey. And there's no place for violence on a basketball court.
To a businessperson, however, this must seem absurd. At some level, NBA teams are corporations like any other. At some level, they are simply trying to bring in profit. (The Boston Celtics used to be a publicly traded company.) And at some level, the players are employees, the management is responsible, and all of them need to start acting like they are part of a professional organization.
The only one who seems to understand that is NBA Commisioner, David Stern, who issued suspensions to seven players and fined each team $500,000.
But even his penalties seem lenient compared to what would happen if the incident had occurred in another environment. The longest suspension was 15 games and no fines were levied on the coaches. (The scuffle was prompted by a hard foul that may or may not have been ordered by New York coach, Isiah Thomas.)
Violence in the workplace is not tolerated, so why is it tolerated on a basketball court?
Posted by Peter Hoy at 12:59 PM
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October 31, 2006
Play Ball - Basketbawl
As the NBA season tips off tonight, I'd love to say I'm caught up in the usual anticipation. Will Shaq's health hold up so the Heat can repeat? Can Detroit win without Ben Wallace? Can the Bulls lose with Wallace? Who will win the next NBA lottery, my hometown Hawks or the Knicks?
For now, though, I'm distracted by a far more intriguing question: How long will the new ball last? The NBA is introducing a new ball this year, the first such change in 35 years, and the players are embracing it with an enthusiasm not seen since New Coke dribbled out of the soda tap. Spalding says the microfiber material is superior to good old leather. It stays dry when sweaty, has a more consistent feel, a better bounce. It's a slam dunk.
To which the players - and Shaq, in particular - say, sorry, it's an air ball (and given the big guy's free-throw difficulties, he should know). The synthetic surface becomes too slippery or too sticky. It's also too bouncy. Worse, it lacks the great touch of a worn-in ball that shooters count on (Mavs owner Mark Cuban even waxed about the old leather ball recently).
Spalding says it tested the ball thoroughly. But given the huge outcry from the players, it certainly doesn't sound like the players were consulted enough. And that's a terrible game plan, by Spalding and the NBA. Earlier this month, league commissioner David Stern back-tracked and said the ball could be replaced if further testing reveals that it does, in fact, become slippery when wet. If stars like Steve Nash and Tracy McGrady continue to complain, my prediction is the new ball becomes the old ball by mid-season, and the latest example of a high-profile product failure.
Posted by Chuck Salter at 6:26 PM
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October 18, 2006
Take Me Out to the...Cable TV Network?!
What to do about sagging network television ratings? Why of course! Move the programming to cable, where even fewer people will see it.
At least that’s Major League Baseball’s plan. Since the lead-up to the Fall Classic isn’t what it once was, baseball is wearing its proverbial rally cap. Its new deal with Turner Broadcasting, seven years at an estimated $45 million per, will move one League Championship Series a year from FOX to TBS. As MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said, "The economics were what we wanted."
TBS will produce more ad revenue for the broadcaster but perhaps even lower-rated playoffs. Moving programming with a fragile viewer base to cable has the potential to wreck baseball’s recent post-steroid progress. Attendance and local viewership is up, but short divisional playoff series full of small-market teams already can’t compete with America’s new favorite game.
Posted by Josie Swindler at 12:19 PM
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September 7, 2006
Crowded Wisdom
How's this for "The Wisdom of Crowds" in practice: LivePlanet and Microsoft MSN cooked up a deal with the Schaumburg Flyers, a minor-league baseball team in Illinois, to have the fans act as the manager for the second half of the season. Before each game, fans can go online and vote on what players from the Flyers' roster should play in each position, and where they should be in the batting order. Rather than an exercise in the theory of two-heads-are-better-than-one, it's more of an exercise in self-promotion.
As this article in the LA Times and this column by Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly (registration req'd) point out, some things are best left to the experts. Before this promotion started, the team was 31-17, leading their division. Since then? 15-33, and in last place.
I feel sorry for manager Andy McCauley, who's had the indignity of having to play his center fielder at first base, a backup catcher at third, and benching one of his better players. Managing partner and team president Rich Ehrenreich may think he's channelling Bill Veeck but he's looking more like Bill Buckner.
Where else does the wisdom of crowds fail? When is it best used?
Posted by Michael Prospero at 10:27 AM
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August 11, 2006
Baseball's Fantasy World Meets Reality
It turns out that Major League Baseball doesn't have a monopoly on everything.
A federal court judge yesterday ruled that companies who run fantasy leagues don't have to pay MLB to use players' names and statistics.
Earlier this year, St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc., a company that runs a fantasy sports league, sued MLB, arguing that the names of players and their statistics--like runs, hits, and errors--should be available for free. MLB, which has made a pretty penny licensing those stats to companies like ESPN and Yahoo, who run their own fantasy sports leagues, argued that those stats are the "product," of baseball, and owns the rights to distribute them as they see fit.
The judgment, which MLB said it would appeal, has a potentially huge impact on the fantasy sports industry, which one oft-quoted estimate from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association puts at 15 million players and $1.5 billion annually.
(Have a lot of free time on your hands? Here's the official decision.)
Of course, this issue only came up when MLB's Internet arm bought the rights to use the statistics, and then took its proverbial ball and went home, reducing the number of licenses to 7 from 19 last year, effectively keeping other, smaller fantasy leagues from playing (like CBC).
If this ruling stands, though, what had been making money for MLB (which, if you read the highly entertaining "Spalding's World Tour" by Mark Lamster or the somewhat drier, but equally interesting National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer" by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist you'll see how they try to squeeze money wherever possible) could come to an end, because why should the Yahoos or the world pay when the CBC's don't? It once again shows that, if you get too greedy, you just might end up losing everything.
Posted by Michael Prospero at 11:52 AM
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June 28, 2006
Adidas Claims World Cup Victory
With eight teams still in contention for the World Cup, adidas has claimed sponsorship supremacy via a June 28th press release. Sponsor of quarterfinalists Argentina, France and Germany, adidas announced record sales of more than 1.2 billion euros worth of soccer merchandise. The highlights: 15 million "Teamgeist" soccer balls, and 1.5 million German national team jerseys. (There's nothing better than sponsoring the host country's team!)
Nike sponsors two quarterfinalists, Portugal, and perennial favorite Brazil. However, Marketwatch reports investor pessimism over Nike's huge World Cup marketing outlay. Three smaller firms also still have a shot at the cup:
Puma (Italy)
Umbro (England)
Lotto (Ukraine)
Posted by Greg Spotts at 11:24 PM
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March 22, 2006
Go Shockers!
I've emerged, bleary-eyed but happy, from last weekend's NCAA men's basketball marathon with a new favorite team. Wichita State. I really, really want the Shockers to go to the Final Four. Really.
I'm fired up because Saturday night, I discovered a joint called The Ticket Reserve, basically a futures market for hard-to-get tickets to sporting events. You can buy a contract to buy, at face value, tickets to (say) the Final Four if (say) Wichita State makes it that far. The value of the contract is determined by supply and demand--a function of the perceived likelihood at any moment that a given team will, in fact, win enough games to get to Indianapolis. If your team gets knocked out of the tournament, your contract instantly becomes worthless.
So, after the Shockers upset Tennessee in the second round on Saturday, I laid out $24 (plus a $5 commission) for a two-ticket (lower level!) Wichita State contract. Plus another $5 (and another $5 commission) for a contract that'll get me a $99-a-night room at a Comfort Inn six miles from the RCA Dome in Indy. (You try finding a hotel room otherwise.) I like Connecticut, too--but so does everyone else, and a Huskies contract was upwards of $200 per seat.
The next day, George Mason University toppled the University of North Carolina. Very good news, since it meant Wichita State now would face a #10 seed in the regional semis instead of the #2. Suddenly, Shockers contracts were up to $70, so on paper, I'm $111 wealthier. (UConn also gained with the elimination of its toughest potential rival. It's up to $500 per.)
Now, here's the question: Is this legal? The Securities and Exchange Commission wrote in 2003 that it's all cool--that I'm not trading securities. But The Ticket Reserve clearly promotes the notion of the "game within the game"--basically an invitation to buy and sell contracts for profit. Which is my intent, more or less.
I dunno. It feels vaguely...wrong, even if the NCAA itself does condone it. But that won't stop me from rooting big for the Shockers Friday night.
Posted by Keith Hammonds at 10:21 AM
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