guncurug: September 2010

New Upper Deck Trading Cards Include College Basketball Coaches, Olympians

17.28

ARTICLEURL 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....

Cal Cuts Baseball Team and Four Other Sports

05.42

ARTICLEURL 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...

Rachel Alexandra Retired From Racing

06.00

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...

Marketing the Wizards

16.03

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...

Weekend Reading

07.02

Here are a few links for your weekend reading pleasure:ARTICLEURL NCAA discussing the possibility of losing teams going to bowl games (San Diego Union Tribune)Just how low does the WAC have to reach to replace the schools departing for the Mountain West (Idaho Statesman)Turner gets 14 year deal for digital rights to NCAA championships and management of NCAA.com (AP)Madison Square Garden and JP...

Carmelo to the Nets

19.04

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....

Tuesday Tidbits

22.31

ARTICLEURL 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...

sports marketing

World Equestrian Games: What Does Being Title Sponsor Mean?

06.33

ARTICLEURL 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...

Tuesday Tidbits

21.54

ARTICLEURL 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...

NFL Players Association Seeks Right to Decertify if Owners Lockout

18.29

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...

Blackouts Loom Large as a New NFL Season Begins

20.30

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...

Madison Square Garden

JP Morgan Chase, Madison Square Garden Said to be in Largest Ever Naming Rights Deal

10.32

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...

Woods, Z. Johnson on Ryder Cup Team

08.03

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...

Derrick Caracter's, uhm, Light Laker Contract

20.06

ARTICLEURL 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...

Friday Night Lights: Lingerie Football League Returns to TV

19.52

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...

ACC

Conference Realignment Western Style: Blood Flows Into the Great Salt Lake

11.34

ARTICLEURL 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...