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Just in case you have a little time on your hands and want to escape the crush of relatives this weekend, or live in the Midwest or Europe and need a respite from the snow storms, here are a few stories that caught my eye this week that I think you will find interesting:

Okay, the headline is a bit misleading - Boise State didn't officially rejoin the WAC, but with Hawai'i now joining the Mountain West for football only that makes four schools that have left the WAC for the Mountain West.  With Utah, BYU and TCU leaving the MWC, the reputation of the conference in the eyes of the football world now rests on Boise State and Nevada, just like the WAC did before the four schools decamped.  I know this is not the conference they all had in mind when they left. 

As the NHL Board of Governors gathers for its winter meetings, the sale of three clubs tops the agenda.  The sale by the league of the Phoenix Coyotes is the most urgent since should a sale not close by the end of this month, the Commissioner Gary Bettman has said that the club is free to leave Arizona.  Florida businessman Matt Hulsizer has been approved as a potential owner but he still needs a lease. There is no deal in place with the City of Glendale on a lease for the use of Jobbing.com Arena, which has been the major sticking point in the sale.  Winnipeg, the 'yotes former home, is standing by with bated breath for New Years Day to arrive without Glendale's approval of a deal.

The NBA is buying the New Orleans Hornets from George Shinn and Gary Chouest, as Shinn was unable to complete a deal with minority owner Chouest.  It's likely that the combination of financing difficulties and the uncertainties surrounding the Hornets lease at the New Orleans Arena made the deal untenable for Chouest.

I know it's been quite a while since I posted anything but a combination of family matters and personal health issues has kept me away from the keyboard.  Hopefully, that's behind me now and posting will resume on a more regular basis, if not quite as frequent as in the past.

The NCAA just has a knack for finding itself in court.  I think it may because it is an academic organization composed of college presidents who, for the most part, have never been outside of academia and as a result don't always think through the practical ramifications of the policies that they decide to put into place.  A good example of that is the cause of this latest piece of litigation: the one year scholarship rule.  Currently, all athletic scholarships are one year, renewable scholarships, which are renewable solely at the discretion of the university.  The NCAA has in place a provision prohibiting a member school from granting a scholarship for a period that exceeds one year.

Joseph Agnew, a former Rice University football player has filed suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking to overturn the NCAA's rule on one year scholarship limits as well as the NCAA's limits on total number of scholarships that a school may extend in any given sport. In addition, Agnew claims that the limits constitute an unfair price-fixing scheme under federal anti-trust laws.  The plaintiff's attorneys seek certification as a class spo representing all athletes whose scholarships were not renewed. 

This is one more legal action for the embattled NCAA which paid out more than $84 million in legal fees last year. The group is battling Congress over its tax exempt status and it faces a class action suit from former students concerning over the appropriation of the players' likenesses.  On top of litigation, its members face rising costs from the arms race that has been sweeping Division I athletics as well as the costs associated with Title IX compliance and coping with the Great Recession, all of which combined to result in numerous schools having to go the route taken by Cal, Berkeley, which recently announced it was dropping five varsity sports.

You didn't think the NBA was going to let the NHL have the entire comics stand to itself did you?  Of course not.  The NBA, in conjunction with broadcast and digital partner ESPN and its corporate parent Disney, which now owns Marvel, has brought to the basketball and comics fans in all of us the Marvel inspired variant covers for each NBA team for its NBA preview edition of ESPN The Magazine.  Check it out here.


It's not exactly the same thing as creating superheroes for each city and building cartoons and comics around them as Marvel will be doing for the NHL, but, hey, everybody has to start somewhere.

The NBA has long banned performance enhancing drugs and now it has, for the first time in league history, banned a performance enhancing shoe.  The new Concept 1 shoe by Athletic Propulsion Labs, a $300 basketball shoe containing a spring-based system said to enhance a wearer's vertical leap by as much as 31/2 inches.  The NBA said in a statement: "Under league rules, players may not wear any shoe during a game that creates an undue competitive advantage."

Can there be a better marketing hook for a basketball shoe than "Banned by the NBA"?  Athletic Propulsion Labs certainly doesn't think so.  A visit to their home page greets you with the image of stamp with that label covering most of the home page.  It's perhaps the ultimate slogan for a basketball shoe and despite the $300 price tag I expect these shoes will fly out of APL's warehouse.

You have to hand it to Gary Bettman when he comes up with a good marketing idea and this one should be an excellent entree to young boys who may now not be tuned into hockey.  The NHL in conjunction with Stan Lee are going to be rolling out a series of 30 superheroes called the Guardians, one in each NHL city, as part of the Guardian Project. While the Guardians will not be particularly set in hockey, each Guardian will have superpowers that are representative of each team and each city.

The Guardians will be unveiled for the first time at the 2011 NHL All Star Game to be held in Raleigh, North Carolina on January 30, 2011 and televised on Versus.

Keeneland opens its Fall Meet today in a weekend whirlwind of nine graded stakes featuring five Grade I stakes, with eight of the nine races being "Win and You're In" Breeder's Cup specials.  The strong weekend of stakes masks a continuation of the downturn in Kentucky racing and breeding that has been evident since the Churchill Downs spring meet, continuing through the just concluded Turfway meet and Keeneland's September yearling sale.

For the first time in memory, Keeneland has cut purses. For this three week meet which concludes on October 30, total purse money has been cut by about $1 million and two stake races have been eliminated.  Traditionally, Keeneland has been able to weather downturns in attendance and handle because its sale revenue has served to prop up its racing revenue.  However, in the last couple of years, with sale revenue falling annually and with race revenue down, it has been unable to support its purse structure.

The picture at Turfway, which Keeneland co-owns with Harrah's, has been even bleaker.  Turfway's traditionally smaller purses have been unable to keep pace with racing in neighboring Indiana and West Virginia, both of whose tracks are supplemented by casino revenue.  In a scenario never before contemplated, Kentucky owners and trainers are forsaking the state and setting up shop at Indiana Downs and Hoosier Park, relatively new venues which had traditionally been considered no higher than the A League of racing.  However, this year, Indian even saw a Triple Crown winner run in the state for the first time as Lookin at Lucky won the Indiana Derby at Hoosier Park.

Keeneland is trying something new this weekend.  Tomorrow, for the first time, there will be an Arabian race which will be the first time in memory that Arabian horses will be running in sanctioned competition in Kentucky.  Should be interesting as Arabian were the foundation sires of all thoroughbreds.

Kentucky is even losing stallions to other states that have higher breeding incentives fueled in many cases by casino or slots revenue. While a certain number of stallions leave Kentucky every year, and a portion of those leave for overseas, it appears to many Kentucky breeders that more stallions, and more highly regarded ones, are leaving for other states in response to breeding incentive programs that Kentucky is not able to afford to match.

All of this is empirical evidence to demonstrate the need for Kentucky to act quickly if it expects to keep its place as the primary locale for its signature industry.  The Kentucky General Assembly in its session beginning in January, 2011 must pass some form of casino gaming or slots authorization legislation, everv if its no better than to place a constitutional amendment before the voters.  Since the Republicans in the State Senate refuse to contemplate casino gaming or slots in any form and refuse to allow any amendment to be placed before the voters, I would urge any Kentuckians who read this blog to vote against any Republican state senate candidate in their district who is not firmly committed to approve some form of gaming legislation.  With Senate President David Williams now campaigning for Governor, it will be even more difficult to pass legislation without a Democratic majority in the Senate or the votes of several Republican senators willing to cross their leader.  Please take this into account when you head to the voting booth.

This end your political announcement for the day.  No animals were harmed in the making of this commercial.

The calendar has not been turned back several months and today is not April 1.  The owner of the Boston Red Sox, New England Sports Ventures, has apparently won a bid to purchase Liverpool FC despite opposition from the current owners Tom Hicks and George  Gillett.  Hicks and Gillett are in default on some 200 million pounds to the Royal Bank of Scotland and have been unable to refinance the debt.  

Okay, I can read a calendar but it's a little hectic around here right now (political campaigns we're working on are heading to the wire) so you get some reading links early:

International Sporting Spectacles on the scale of the World Cup or the Olympics, and to a lesser extent, the Asian Games, the Pan American Games and the Commonwealth Games have been used for decades to announce a country's entrance to the world of civilized nations.  They have been a sort of debutantes ball if you will as countries from Korea to China to South Africa have been able to tout their economic might and the ability of their country to "work", to deliver on something as complicated and massive as an international sporting spectacle.

Upper Deck is bringing out a new line of trading cards which will, for the first time, feature more than 30 active college basketball coaches, including Bill Self, Tom Izzo, Jim Boeheim, Tubby Smith, Bobby Huggins and Jim Calhoun. The coaches cards will be part of a 400 card set covering multiple sports and featuring autographs and memorabilia inserted in the packs. Other stars featured in the set range include Tiger Woods, Landon Donovan, Dara Torres, Amanda Beard (no word on whether the card features her Playboy shoot), Sidney Crosby, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan in his UNC days, Sasha Cohen and inexplicably Jose Conseco representing baseball.

In the most jarring example yet of the pressures being felt by athletic departments across the country caused by the Great Recession and the college sports arms race, University of California Berkeley announced it was dropping baseball, a sport which it had fielded a team since 1892. In addition, it is also dropping men's and women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse and is reducing men's hockey to club status, all as of the close of the 2011 academic year.

The athletic program has been receiving millions in subsidies from the school; in fact, last year the university provided athletics with $12 million in support.  With budgets tight across the entire university, the administration decided it could no longer justify support at that level.  These reductions will supposedly reduce the need for support down to a more manageable level of $5 million.

You have to wonder if cutting baseball was the most appropriate response.  Berkeley is not exactly a hockey hotbed and travel to other D-I hockey playing schools is expensive as they are few that are close.  The same is true for lacrosse, so cutting those programs makes sense.  However, baseball is a Pac-10(12) sport with a more than 100 year tradition at Cal and it's hard to picture a BCS school, particularly one that fancies itself as a major athletic institution without a baseball team.  Cutting baseball has also not gone down well with certain vocal and well-heeled alumni, including current major league ballplayers, which may lead to significant fund raising losses.

One of thoroughbred racing's most illustrious fillies has been retired from racing.  Reigning Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra has been sent to the breeding shed by her owner Jess Jackson before the end of her four year old year, with no explanation other than a reference to her less than stellar 2010 racing performance.  Her retirement ensures that there will be no match-up between her and the undefeated champion older filly or mare Zenyatta, winner of last year's Breeders Cup Classic. 
 

Is there any team in the NBA, other than possibly the Knicks, that faced a tougher marketing issue heading into this season than the Washington Wizards.  Last season was a disaster with their star player lost to a 50 game suspension and then the balance of the season in a halfway house for pulling a gun in the locker room.  The team had built its entire marketing plan around Gilbert Arenas and Agent Zero really proved to be less than zero when it came to his effect on marketing the club as it did all it could to recover from the hit it took from his bone-headed action; this on the team whose owner changed its name from Bullets because of the implications of that nickname on the youth of DC.

Here are a few links for your weekend reading pleasure:

The New York Daily News is reporting that Carmelo Anthony has signed off on a deal that will send him to the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets in the latest of the string of off-season deals reshaping the NBA landscape.  The deal is said to involve four teams and will send Derrick Favors to the Nuggets with Andrei Kirilenko from Utah along with draft picks.  Devin Harris would go to Charlotte with Boris Diaw going from Charlotte to Utah.  Got all that?  There may be some other role players or draft picks involved. The Daily News says the deal may be announced as early as Saturday. 

Should this deal come to pass it will certainly be a good back-up shot for the Nets having failed to land LeBron earlier this summer.  Landing Melo will give the Nets not only a go-to scorer to build a team around but a star to market the team as it moves into its new Brooklyn home in 2012.   The only people more unhappy with this deal than Nuggets fans are the management of the Knicks, who now must face marketing the train wreck that masquerades as a NBA team playing in the Garden against a real, bonafide, Redeem Team star just across the bridge in Brooklyn.  Good luck with that.

Here are a few of the things I have been reading:

Corked baseball bats don't help power hitters (Scientific American via Abnormal Returns)

NFL now caught between its twin monsters: TV ratings and ticket sales (WaPo)

Penn State receives $88 million to fund arena and men's and women's hockey teams (PSU); will Big Ten hockey soon follow (Star-Tribune)

Muni Bond Watch turns eye on minor league stadium bonds and picture isn't pretty (WSJ via Sports Economist)

The next boom in sports television: high school football (Dallas News)

What have you been reading?

The Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, the olympics for the horse set, open this week in Lexington. It will be the first time the Games have ever been held in North America and Lexington, a rather sleepy town of 250,000 nestled in the Bluegrass of Kentucky is preparing for a worldwide invasion of 800,000 people over the next two weeks. Competition will take place in eight different disciplines, which , unless you are involved in the horse business in some way, breeder, rider, relative of the foregoing or a really devoted fan, you will not be familiar with most of them.  I know that I wasn't and I used to be heavily involved in the thoroughbred racing and breeding industry.

Have you ever heard of Alltech?  I thought not.  The title sponsor of the Games is a Central Kentucky based company that is a world leader in animal health and nutrition, including  horse feed supplements and beer, algae and to be introduced at the World Equestrian Games, coffee.  Alltech originally committed $10 million to become the title sponsor of the Games.  As the planning for the Games continued, Alltech realized an opportunity to strengthen its brand recognition and the ability of Lexington to put on a successful Games if it committed additional money and manpower to the organizing committee.  To date, Alltech has spent about $30 million and, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, "the line between  the Games organization and Alltech has seemed increasingly blurred."  Alltech pllans to use the Games to roll out several new products and to build relationships with 67 customer companies. 

There is no doubt that Alltech's involvement in the planning and marketing of the Games has been unusal.  Jim Host, former CEO of Host Communications and a ground breaker in the field of sports marketing said of Alltech: "I don't think we'll see anything like this again. I've never seen anybody execute better what's been done by Alltech. And it's helped the games."

I thought I would put up a few links to articles I had been reading lately since it's been a bit hectic around here these last couple of days. Hope you enjoy:

Origin of NFL nicknames (CNN), 
Remember last year's AFL throwback uniforms, you know, the Bronco's vertical stripe brown socks, well here's the story on where they came from (Mental Floss),
Reggie Bush returns Heisman Trophy, now what (LATimes)
Taxpayers still on hook after stadiums abandoned (NYT)
It's matches like last week's Spain v. Argentina that fuels clubs anger with FIFA over calendar (NYT)
NFL's highest paid players: inappropriately skewed towards rookies and unproven players (Forbes)
Did you know that Coach K and Team USA won the World Basketball Championship with the Redeem Team left at home? (SI)

The NFL Players Association is circulating cards among players permitting the union to decertify in the face of a lockout by the owners at the end of the current collective bargaining agreement in 2011.  The NFLPA is not leveling decertification as a threat but wants to maintain the option in order to strengthen its hand in negotiations for a new CBA.

Should the union decertify, it would enable the players to sue the owners for violation of antitrust laws by conducting a group boycott in locking out the players. Maintaining itself as a union would not allow the union to sue because of the labor exemption under the antitrust laws.


The circulation of these cards is just one indication that the new CBA is going to be one difficult negotiation and will take at least as long as there is time remaining on the clock before the current one expires.  As is generally the case with collective bargaining, there is little incentive for the parties to compromise until midnight hour and the option of decertification gives the union an arrow that is at least as dangerous to the owners as a lockout may seem to the players, thus equalizing the playing field and increasing the likelihood of an eventual settlement.

The surest indication of the continuing effects of the Great Recession is that it has even affected the golden league, the NFL.  Up until the Recession first hit in 2008, it was unheard of for the NFL to suffer league-wide drop in ticket sales.  Then came the Recession and ticket sales have dropped in each of the last three years.

The drop-off this year has been so bad that as many as 11 teams may be subject to blackout when their home season opens. To be fair, the economy is no  solely to blame.  The quality of HD broadcasts and home theater AV systems has made the home viewing experience the equal of the stadium experience in many ways - especially for those fans whose seats would have been in the upper reaches of the stadium where they would have been watching the game on the stadium's big screens anyway.  In addition, the troubles of some of the 11 teams on the field surely has contributed to the drop in ticket sales.  Nevertheless, the major reason would still seem to be the economy and unless teams decide to buy up the unsold tickets for distribution to servicemen and women or underprivileged kids, the league will be seeing (or not seeing, to be more accurate) more blackouts in quite some time.

Madison Square Garden is about to undergo a massive $800 million phased renovation that will not be completed until 2013, but when finished will create an essentially new MSG.  If a recent story by Sports Business Journal is correct, then a significant portion of the financing for the project has been secured in the largest ever sponsor/arena rights deal, as JP Morgan Chase is paying $300 million for a ten year deal to become the marquee sponsor of the new MSG.  It is important to note, that the Garden has not sold the naming rights to the building, which will continue to be named Madison Square Garden, but that JP Morgan Chase will have naming rights inside the building, including the old Felt Forum, will have extensive media rights, and will have media and ticketing rights that extend to all MSG properties, which include Radio City Music Hall, the Chicago Theater and the Beacon Theater. 

Interestingly, the three largest naming rights deals in North America have all involved financial institutions, and, not surprisingly, have been in New York City.  This deal eclipses the $20 million per year that Barclays is paying to put its name on the arena under construction in Brooklyn that will be the new home of the Nets and the $20 million per year that Citibank is paying the Mets for the rights to Citi Field.  Each of those deals, however, run for 20 years.

American Ryder Cup team captain Corey Pavin announced his captain's selections for the Ryder Cup team which will take on Europe at Celtic Manor in Wales.  To no one's surprise, Tiger Woods was selected despite his less than stellar play of late.  Joining him as a captain's pick are Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink and Rickie Fowler.  Johnson won the Colonial, Cink last year's Open Championship and Fowler has five top 10 finishes this year. although the last one came when he finished second at the Memorial back on June 6. 

Of the four selections, Fowler will definitely be the most controversial, as it is not evident to most, including me, why he was selected, at least based on his performance on the Tour this year.  He is only 21 years old, is 25th on the earnings list and while he did finish 14th at the Open Championship at St. Andrews (which could well be the reason Pavin picked him) he missed the cut in the two tournaments before that and didn't finish higher than 33 in the four he played following the Open.

The oft troubled Derrick Caracter, formerly of the University of Louisville and most recently a post player from the University of Texas El Paso, showed enough promise in the NBA Summer League the champion Lakers gave their second round pick a two year contract, with  at least the first year, or a portion of it, guaranteed. While not typical for second round pick (only first round draft picks are assured guaranteed contracts) it is certainly not unheard of and Caracter is certainly not the only second round pick to earn a roster spot this summer. 

What makes his contract different is how the Lakers baked in an incentive for him to commit to handle the one area that caused the club the most concern.  Going into the draft, the knock on Caracter was his work ethic, desire and commitment to conditioning, all of which combined to get him shipped out of Louisville by Rick Pitino.  The Lakers signed Caracter to a $473,000 contract for this year, but if he weighs 275 pounds or less on September 10, the whole contract becomes guaranteed.  If Derrick is not willing to do the work and get in shape for the money, no amount of coaching magic by the Zen master will do the trick.  Here's hoping Derrick's been using Nutrisystem; he was always a fan favorite in the Derby City and deserves to have some good things happen for him.  HT.: JSK

You know you want it.  You know you missed; your Friday nights just haven't been the same.  Well, your wait is finally over.  Friday night lights have gotten brighter as the Lingerie Football League returns to a television near you this Friday, September 10 at 11PM ET on MTV2.  It's full tackle, 7-on-7 football, unlike any other - the LFL, the real fantasy football league. 

In case you have forgotten what it's like (really, how could you?), here's the trailer for the new season:

It's often said about departmental politics in colleges and universities that the politics is so brutal because the stakes are so small.  Maybe that's why the conference realignment game being played out among the Mountain West, WAC and West  Conference Conference seems to be on a whole other plain of duplicity and hard feelings than even the infamous ACC midnight raid on the Big  East.  At least in that raid, with the exception of the Boston College, there were no expressions of fealty to the league being abandoned before the jump was made.


The realignment dance out west began when the Pac-10(12) decided to explore expansion.  Shortly after the expansion discussions began, it became evident to BYU that it would not become a member of the PAC-10(12) and that Utah likely would.  At that point, it became clear to the leadership of the WAC that an opportunity was presenting itself to elevate the league's status to becoming the top non automatic qualifying conference in the land, by providing BYU with a spot for all of its teams other than football and working out an arrangement that would allow BYU to go independent in football, which is something that BYU had been exploring for years.  To that end, the WAC asked each member for a five year commitment to the league and each member agreed, whether that agreement was in writing and the nature of the agreement is going to be something that a court will likely decide but I'm getting ahead of myself.  


The Mountain West, now fearful of losing its two best programs, went searching for new members, other than Boise State who had jumped from the WAC before the discussions described above took place.  The league asked Utah State but the Aggies declined in solidarity with its WAC brethren and in reliance on its agreement with the other members.  It might end up paying a very heavy price for that choice.  The WAC then asked both Fresno State and Nevada, who each thought about their commitment to the WAC for about five seconds and jumped to the MWC, probably believing BYU was staying.  Now, Utah State, having been totally deceived by Fresno State and Nevada, wants a mulligan on the MWC decision and supposedly they are in discussions. 


Yesterday, BYU announced it is leaving the MWC to go independent and will affiliate with the West Coast Conference in other sports.  If that doesn't ring a bell, it is the wholly owned subsidiary of Gonzaga basketball.  BYU also announced an eight year agreement with ESPN for broadcast of its games across the ESPN family which justifies its decision.  In fact, it even has Southern Call at least thinking about taking the same route.  Who knows maybe Texas will take its Longhorn Network and go independent as well, although they have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages so I guess it wouldn't make much sense for them to leave the Big XII (X).

The WAC meanwhile is now scrambling to see if they can keep a league together.  The biggest loser in all of this may be Hawai'i who desperately needs a conference to ensure enough games for all of its athletes.  It's bad enough trying to schedule football when the visitor receives and extra game to make up the travel costs, but the Olympic sports have similar travel costs (admittedly the teams are smaller) but no way to make up the additional expense.  If Hawai'i can't count on a conference to fill out its schedule its participation in Division I could be in jeopardy.  The second biggest loser could be the only school that acted honorably in the whole mess, Utah State.  If the MWC doesn't extend membership to the Aggies and they are left with the other WAC schools trying to pull together a makeshift conference, they may just have to return to the Big West.


We would like to think of our institutions of higher education as places where our children go to learn the values that help govern our free society.  Based on the manner in which these schools conduct their business, the values that are being taught to out kids are the very values that embody the Wall Street mentality that put us in the Great Recession.  A college or university athletic department is first and foremost a reflection of, introduction to and manifestation of that particular college or university.  If this is the way that these universities wish to portray themselves to the general public, they should not cry too much when legislators cut the budgets of public schools and when public and private schools have a tougher time attracting donations.  Few people like to be associated with greed, duplicity and the callous disregard for general ethics.  College athletics in particular should be above this.

When you're on a roll, the rule is to ride the hot dice and MLS is certainly doing that.  Coming on the heels of a very successful men's World Cup with never before seen fan interest in the US, a successful expansion franchise launch in Philadelphia this year and the opening of new stadia in New York and Philadelphia, MLS could rightly consider itself as well on the way to firmly establishing itself in the nation's sporting firmament. Expect the roll to continue as the league will be expanding by three more in 2011 and 2012 with franchises in Portland, Vancouver and Montreal coming on board.


Adidas has recognized the new reality voluntarily opening its ten year sponsorship agreement with the league and extending it until 2018, from its original expiration date of 2014.  In addition, the agreement is now worth more than $200 million, according to Sports Business Journal, making it one of Adidas largest investment in the sport.  That's a raise from the $150 million, 10 year deal, which the parties signed in 2004.  Of course, the league is certainly different than it was then, as I only highlighted above. There are seven new soccer specific stadiums, one football stadium filled with soccer crazed fans (Seattle, where no soccer specific stadium is necessary) and new deals with both ESPN and Univision.   Another soccer specific stadium is on the way in Kansas City.  Attendance is up, sponsorship is up, viewership is up and the league is clearly headed in the right direction.


All is not completely rosy, however.  There is still competition issues, most evident in CONCACAF Champions League games, even if nobody really cares about the results. MLS teams still have trouble competing with Mexican league teams, not to mention teams from South America.  It would be great if MLS could work with the South Americans to figure out a way to integrate MLS into the Copa Libertadores competition.  It would be great for the level of play in MLS and it would help the US Men's team.  Until then, I guess the CCL is all we have, so we'll have to make the best of it.

How bad is the economy? Bad enough for even NFL teams to go down in value (Forbes)

Financial Statements of five major league teams were leaked last week:  Pittsburgh Pirates,
Tampa Bay Rays, Florida Marlins, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Seattle Mariners,
Texas Rangers (Deadspin)

It takes cojones; Sosa fumes because Cubs haven't retired his number (Hardball Times)

Here's a first, NBC adjust ad breaks to Notre Dame's no-huddle offense (USA Today)

Is live streaming the wave of the future in youth recreational leagues? (NYT)

Will there be NHL players in the 2014 Olympics: players want it but as usual the owners
led by Bettman are reluctant at best. (NYT)

Eight of the schools that will be remaining in the Big XII next year recently held a meeting with Learfield Sports, a multimedia rights management company which holds contracts with about 50 university athletic departments.  They met to discuss the viability of a Big XII network.  The results of the meeting are unknown although all involved have characterized it as just preliminary.


There are many hurdles to forming a conference network, one of the most significant is ensuring that the network will have an attractive inventory of football and men's and women's basketball games  In Big XII country I would add baseball to that list.  The problem faced by the remaining members of the conference is only partly the negotiations that will take place in 2011, about the existing contracts with Fox and ESPN which are expiring.  The biggest problem will be with Texas, which wants to form its own network and will want to keep as many of its games off the Big XII network and reserved for the Longhorn Network as possible.  The removal of Texas games significantly decreases the worth of the package to any prospective partner and national advertiser.  How the conference handles its Texas problem will be the key to whether it is able to proceed with a network of it own and deliver on the $20 million in television revenue it promised to the six schools which it induced to stay rather than jump to the Pac-10(12). Good luck with that network Mr. Beebe and lots of luck dealing with the Longhorn Monster you helped create.

Loyalty is often a strange thing in professional sports. It's often dictated by what have you done for me in the last five minutes especially when you're talking about the relationship between an athlete and a company whose product that athlete endorses.

Usain Bolt just re-upped with Puma, a company he has been with since he first started running. The contract, whose terms were not disclosed, is believed to be in the neighborhood of $15 million a year and runs until 2013. That covers the 2012 London Olympics and two world championships. A Puma representative indicated that "by far the largest ever given to a track and field athlete, positioning Bolt as a top earner in the world of sport.�

Clearly, money had something to do with the renewal of the relationship, but it was Bolt's comments that interested me the most. He said: �Puma�s been by my side since the beginning, before anyone knew what I was capable of achieving. They saw potential in me and they took a chance, supporting me all the way, especially when things weren�t easy for me due to injuries I suffered in my teens.� It's a refreshing attitude that all professional sports need more of not just track and field, but then Bolt is a special character as well as the world's fastest human.

Utah State found itself in a terrible position last week after it made what it considered to be a principled stand in turning down a bid from the Mountain West Conference to honor an agreement among all of the then current WAC members to stay in the WAC.  It was promptly stabbed in the back when Fresno State and Nevada leaped over each over in their hurry to accept MWC bids when offered, conveniently forgetting that solidarity pledge they had made only days before.  Shades of the Big East/ACC battles of several years ago, although the stakes involved are much smaller.

It's a slow Sunday here in the Bluegrass as not even yesterday's storms have been any help in relieving the oppressive 90+ temps and corresponding 85+ humidity, which has been with us seemingly every day this summer, as my latest electric bill shows.

Brigham Young has not been a very happy member of the Mountain West Conference for a number of years now.  It has complained bitterly since the conference left ESPN and formed its own money losing network with its small reach and the resulting movement of the conference's football games to Versus and the CBS College Network, not exactly America's first, second or third choices to get its college football fix.

The rumors of the death of the career of Stephon Marbury and with it the demise of his Starbury shoes have proven to be just a bit premature.  Last season found Marbury a free agent searching in vain for a NBA team willing to sign him to even a one year contract at anything approaching what he thought he was worth, or as the season went on, to what the teams thought he might be worth.  As a result, last January he packed his bags and headed off to China to play for to join Shanxi Zhongyu of the Chinese Basketball Association.  A rather surprising move since salaries for foreign players in the CBA are capped at $60,000 per month.

There are many reasons that the New York Knicks have been as bad as they were before Mike D'Antoni showed up last season, but surely Isiah Thomas was one of the main reasons, so that makes the recent announcement that Thomas is being hired by the Knicks as a consultant all the more curious.  Adding to the intrigue, it appears that D'Antoni was not consulted on the decision.  Moreover, Knicks vice president and general manager Donnie Walsh opposed the hiring and was said to be livid that Knicks Chairman James Dolan went ahead and hired Thomas over Walsh's objections.


Aside from the questions that the hiring raises for the Knicks, the fact that Thomas will keep his day job as head coach at Florida International raises conflict of interest issues for both the NCAA and the NBA.  The NBA has not yet approved the contract and there is a chance that David Stern may reject it.  Several owners are said to be very upset and very much opposed to the hiring of Thomas, which must clearly be a stand they are taking on the potential conflict of interest issue and not on the effect Thomas will have on the immediate on court prospects of the Knicks. 


The NCAA should step in and put a stop to this arrangement and if there is no current rule that prohibits a coach from moonlighting for a professional team (hard to believe that one doesn't exist in that 500 page rule book, but who knows) then the NCAA Executive Committee ought to quickly pass one.  The opportunities for recruiting abuse that this example may afford are too numerous to mention and just because Thomas happens to be at FIU and not Florida or Kentucky doesn't make it any less of a conflict of interest or make the potential for abuse any less a real. 

The coaches who regularly put kids in the NBA are now selling their ability to get kids ready to be drafted, and academics and education be damned.  Imagine how much more powerful that message is if those same coaches are now employed as consultants to individual NBA teams.  Think Calipari at Kentucky would ever lose out on a top 5 recruit if he was also a consultant to the Nets?  How about Coach K and the Bulls?  Think this situation would be a good one for the other teams in their conference whose coaches don't have consulting agreements?  Think the gulf between the high majors and mid-majors would widen much in that scenario?

We all know how tough it's become to finance a college education and getting an athletic scholarship is harder than ever, what with the economy and, at the major college level, the out of control football and basketball arms race, forcing athletic directors to cut programs left and right.  Well, here is one scholarship I bet you never thought of: a bass fishing scholarship.  Bethel University, an NAIA member school in McKenzie Tennessee, offers bass fishing scholarships just the same way they do in all of the 19 intercollegiate sports in which the Wildcats compete.  One bass fishing scholarship was awarded in a rather unique way, to the winner of the high school fishing world finals, held at Lake Dardanelle, Russellville, Arkansas:

The tortuous path to full ownership of the St. Louis Rams by Stan Kroenke should come to a conclusion by August 25.  A special meeting of the NFL owners has been called for that date to vote on his proposed purchase of the team pursuant to the exercise of his option to purchase the sixty percent of the club he didn't own once that was put up for sale.  Chances are good that he will be approved at that meeting since it was called especially for the vote.  "Everybody wants him as an owner, I can tell you," New Orleans owner Tom Benson said.  Benson is chairman of the finance committee which first must approve his application.

Ending a decade long quest, it appears that Kentucky Speedway will finally get a Sprint Cup race beginning in 2011.  Formal announcement of the award of the race to the track is likely to be made at a press conference scheduled for Tuesday by the track's owner, Speedway Motorsports, Inc.'s (TRK) Chairman O. Bruton Smith.

A few inks to get Tuesday off to a good start:

A Chinese businessman, Kenneth Huang Chairman of Hong Kong based QSL Sports Group and backed by an investment fund said to be one of the largest in the Far East, has reportedly made a bid for Liverpool in the range of  237 million pounds.  He has been talking to the club's bankers and would purchase the club's debt from them as his vehicle to buy the club.  That avenue would leave the club's two North American owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks with no profit from their purchase of the club in February, 2007.

Gillett has countered by telling the banks he is negotitating with Syrian businessman Yahya Kirdi, a former international soccer player.  By the terms of their loan agreement, Gillett and Hicks have the first right to sell the club and the banks have to consider any plan and prospective owners they present prior to any others, i.e. Huang.  With Huang reportedly having already held talks with most of the team's on field executives, and Fernando Torres, its start striker, Gillett and Hicks better hope that this Syrian businessman is the real thing because otherwise they should wake up next week with no European assets.

Earlier this week, HR 2267, the bill which will repeal UIEGA, the Unlawful Interstate Enforcement Gambling Act and permit, regulate and tax online gaming.  The gaming allowed is primarily poker - sports betting is specifically excluded thanks to the lobbying efforts of the NCAA, NFL  and the major professional leagues. 

One should not get too excited about this milestone, however, as there is still a long road to passage through the whole Congress.  Even should it manage to get through the House, there is still the Senate to contend with and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is from Nevada, particularly susceptible to the entreaties of the lobbyists of Las Vegas' casinos.  So far those casinos have lined up in opposition to the bill, which I believe is the wrong approach.  They should be actively encouraging the passage of the bill with a tought regulatory scheme written to favor licenses going to existing land based casinos rather than existing online gaming operations. 

As it exists in its current form, should it become law, the winners will be the online gaming sites and the shakeout in that space has already begun.  Party Gaming announced an agreement to merge with Bwin and form a $3.3 billion company.