My condolences to the Paterno family on the passing of Joe Paterno.

While there is no arguing his accomplishments as a football coach, may his final legacy be allowing the world to learn from his mistakes and the mistakes of others involved so that the situation at Penn State never happens again.

When I talk about my various non-sports experience, people tend to laugh when I tell them that my time working at McDonald’s as a teenager was one of the most positive experiences I’ve ever had. I learned so much from that position that applies to any business, so it seems only fitting to share some of those key lessons here in the context of sports business.

1.  No one knows the customer better than your front-line staff.

This is rule number one because I don’t think enough organizations realize the power that their customer-facing staff truly has. Our McDonald’s was a particularly busy location, so our cashiers and floor staff engaged with thousands of customers every week. Through these interactions, we knew what items people wanted, how long they were willing to wait, how much prices mattered, and the general sentiment of our store’s patrons. This information was used each day by managers and staff alike to make sure we were running efficiently and reacting to the needs and preferences of our particular customers.

In sports, the front-line staff includes a wide range of roles, such as sales reps, service reps, box office, concessionaires, ushers, receptionists, gameday interns, guest relations, security, merchandise sales, custodians and more. These are the employees that interact directly with your fans and customers every single day. They know what the fans are saying and feeling. As such, these staff members have very well-educated opinions that can be used to help shape important decisions. Senior management has to set ticket prices, decide on gameday entertainment, select food and merchandise options and build communication strategies. While market research can be used to help influence these decisions, I feel strongly that asking your front-line staff about what the fans want is an important resource that can be just as, if not more valuable that survey results.

2.  Discounts help in the short-term, but value wins in the long-term.

I remember when McDonald’s first came out with the “Dollar Menu” and it was huge!  How can you beat a $1 cheeseburger or $1 french fries? But then Burger King released a “Value Menu”, and then Wendy’s, then Taco Bell. It didn’t take long for everyone to try this approach. This strategy was easily duplicated and in turn, it moved the focus from the product to the price. The same problem exists with coupons and other discount programs. These tactics focus on a quick, immediate transaction – get them in the door and then hope they decide to stay. The problem is that the quality of the product and the product’s value relative to the price have much more of an impact on long-term success.

This concept is very important when it comes to all prices, from tickets to hot dogs. Offering discounts, whether its direct from the team or via a site like Groupon can definitely generate a quick spike in sales, but that revenue is not sustainable. A better approach would be to take a more sophisticated look at your prices to make sure the value proposition is there for the customers, perhaps through variable or dynamic pricing. In addition, we know that customers are very sensitive to food prices in the stadium, but most of the time, it’s actually the combination of price AND quality that they are upset about. Dropping the price of a hot dog won’t help if the hot dog isn’t hot or tasty. Just like the actual tickets, concession items need to have value for the consumer, and that comes from quality as much as, if not more than price.

3.  Don’t underestimate the value of a clean bathroom.

Hopefully you just laughed a little, but when you stop to think about it, this statement is very true. Cleanliness in general is a very important factor when it comes to feeling comfortable and welcome in any venue, and the location where people tend to notice this most is the bathroom. At our McDonald’s, we cleaned the bathroom at least once an hour, and usually even more often than that. Even if we were in the middle of dinner rush, we never skipped this task because we wanted the entire dining experience (which often involves a trip to the restroom) to be a positive one.

No one likes a dirty bathroom, whether it’s at a restaurant or at a stadium. That feeling of being disgusted by something can be a surprisingly “sticky” memory, even if the rest of the game experience is quite positive. Meanwhile, fans have come to expect dirty bathrooms and port-a-johns at sporting event, that when you enter one that’s clean, it can create a surprisingly positive reaction (or at least avoids creating a negative one). Keeping stadium bathrooms clean on a gameday is quite challenging, but even if it means a few extra workers on gameday, I would argue it’s well worth it.

4.  Failures can be your best opportunities.

Who hasn’t had a negative experience at a fast food restaurant at some point, whether it’s receiving the wrong order, sitting at a dirty table or finding a hair in your food? The most important thing to do at this point is to listen first, apologize, fix the issue as quickly as possible and try to replace the bad feeling with a good experience. A single service recovery opportunity can have even more impact on long-term customer satisfaction than hundreds of regular, uneventful visits. As a McDonald’s employee, I was taught to go out of my way to make a situation right whenever a customer has a problem, and 99% of the time, I was able to turn that negative situation into a positive touchpoint with our restaurant.

As much as we try to prepare for every situation, we are faced with failures and mistakes all the time in sports – it is the nature of any service-based industry. The tickets get lost in the mail, the hot chocolate isn’t hot, the shirt is the wrong size, a fan slips on a spilled drink – there are thousand of things that can go wrong. In fact, many times the “failure” isn’t even our fault, such as when a customer loses their tickets or mistakenly purchases counterfeit tickets. Heck, we also get blamed for bad weather or poor team performance! Whenever these situations arise, rather than get frustrated, we need to remember that we are being presented with opportunities to build a better relationship with the fans. We must listen to what they’re saying, even if they just want to vent about the team. We should make sure problems are resolved, maybe even with a refund or complimentary tickets. You might be interacting with the most passionate fan who only comes to one game a year, and if that fan walks away unhappy, it could be the last game they ever come to.

5.  Reward loyalty.

I still remember several of the “regulars” that came to my McDonald’s, and I haven’t worked there in almost 15 years. These customers were regulars because of how we made them feel when they came to our store. We knew their names, how often they came in, and what they always ordered. In fact, when we saw them come in the front door, we started making their meal before they placed their order. If they decided to treat themselves to an additional dessert, we just gave it to them without thinking about the extra $1-2 we could have made. Around the holidays, we gave them a thank you card. and above all, we talked to them and listened to them. As this happened, we started realizing that other customers saw how we treated them, and sure enough, these customers often became regulars themselves. We loved our loyal customers, and did everything we could to make them happy.

In sports, we have an amazing luxury in that our customers are fans of our brand and product, something that many industries don’t experience. But unfortunately, this fact is often taken for granted, when it clearly shouldn’t be. The most time, effort and money should be dedicated to those fans and customers that have shown their loyalty over the years as season ticket holders, suite buyers and corporate partners. These are the audiences that you want to reward with the best value, the best experiences and the best level of service. Some teams try to do this with loyalty or rewards programs, and while those programs can succeed, they aren’t necessary to truly reward loyalty. Visit your best customer in the stands and bring them a small gift or upgrade their tickets. Send out thank you card or birthday emails. Call them to ask how the game was, even if you don’t have anything to sell them. These are all simple ways to reward loyal fans that will have a lasting impact on their relationship with the team.

The latest issue of The Sports Business Exchange from Joshua Duboff was released today and features several great articles, including:

• Perspective From 35,000 Feet Above: Why Steve Jobs was Important to Young Entrepreneurs by Joshua Duboff
• KAEO Startups: Crowd Seats - Daily deals website for tickets to sporting events
• KAEO Startups: Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund - Non-profit to support the education of children who lost a parent in Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom
• Making a Marketing Paradigm Shift Within Your Athletic Department by Adam Schemm
• Cheerleading May Not Be Ready For Sport Status, But It Is Big Business by Daniel Scott Benjamin
• The Relationship of Fantasy Football Participation with NFL Television Ratings by John A. Fortunato, Fordham University (a special article from the JSAS Online)

Today’s post is from guest blogger Brian Gainor, founder of Partnership Activation, a leading resource in sports business that showcases sports marketing and sponsorship trends, best practices, and creative activation tactics. Brian has also been featured as a guest writer for Darren Rovell’s CNBC SportsBiz column.

Sports leagues and organizations are turning to Facebook to offer fans more content, access, and interactivity than ever before. As sports entities begin to fully understand the value of social media, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become critical channels in the marketing mix to promote messaging, drive participation and interest, and engage fans on a 24/7, 365 basis.

Teams can no longer rely on Wall posts, photos, and shareable videos to drive consumers to frequently visit their Facebook pages and stay for awhile. As a result, it’s important that teams identify and share best practices in the social media space both internally and externally.

Here are 50 creative ways that teams are engaging fans on Facebook outside the traditional elements:

1. Fans Map – FC Barcelona (Find FC Barcelona fans across the world)

2. Real Madrid Avatars – Real Madrid (Fans can create their own virtual avatar)

3. Arsenal “Like the Players” – Arsenal FC (Fans can easily like all the players on the team)

4. Spread the Word - Manchester United (Fans can easily invite their friends to join the Manchester United Facebook Page

5. Fountain Tire Shootout – Vancouver Canucks (Fans can play a virtual hockey game to win prizes and coupon vouchers)

6. 3-Point Play – Boston Celtics (Fans can compete in an interactive stats-related game to earn points)

7. Summer Salute – Team Lowe’s Racing (Fans can post a military salute or message to troops overseas)

8. Polls / Quizzes – NASCAR (Fans can test their NASCAR IQ via a number of quizzes and polls)

9. NBA Ball of Fame – NBA (Fans can click on basketballs to relive famous moments from the NBA Finals)

10. NBA Turnstile - NBA (Fans can “check-in” to NBA games on Facebook to chat with fans, win tickets and merchandise, and earn badges)

11. Support Your Team on Facebook! – NFL (Fans can scroll through an interactive tab to see where their favorite team ranks in popularity and intensity amongst all teams and within conference/division).

12. Shopping – Liverpool FC (Fans can quickly scroll through ultimate shopping ideas and can get easy access to the team’s mobile application)

13. JetBlue FaceOff – Boston Bruins (Fans can access game information, play games, win prizes, and more)

14. Mavs Spirit Photo Upload – Dallas Mavericks (Fans can submit their best photo wearing Mavericks gear for the chance to have it featured on the team’s Facebook page)

15. Fan Zone - New England Patriots (Fans can interact with polls, listen to live broadcasts, post comments, share virtual gifts, play trivia, and more)

16. Share Your Story – San Francisco 49ers (Fans can share why they are a Faithful Fan for the chance to be featured on 2011 season tickets or in a team commercial)

17. Tickets & Promotions – Philadelphia 76ers (Fans can closely follow current ticket specials and promotions using a tab integrated into the team Facebook page)

18. A Date with SFC – Seattle Sounders (Fans can watch video dating profiles of different players on Seattle Sounders FC and partake in a date auction via Ebay.

19. Guess the Kit – Tottenham Hotspur (Fans have to correctly guess what the team’s new kit (uniform) will look like)

20. Broadcast Schedule – Portland Timbers (Fans can easily see which networks will be carrying the team’s upcoming soccer matches)

21. Locker Room – Los Angeles Lakers (Fans can take a virtual tour of the Lakers locker room)

22. Flickr - Milwaukee Bucks (Fans can scroll through photos of the Bucks’ gameday experience posted on their Official Flickr page)

23. U-Stream – Golden State Warriors (Fans can watch a live webcast with a Warriors player each day during Training Camp

24. Trailblazers.tv – Portland Trail Blazers (Fans can watch exclusive interviews, shows, highlights, pre- and post-game shows, and more)

25. AC Milan Jersey – A.C. Milan (Fans can create their own virtual A.C. Milan Jersey (with a custom name and number) and share it on their Facebook wall)

26. Fantasy Manager – A.C. Milan (Fans can create and manage a virtual team of players and compete against friends for the chance to win team prizes)

27. Ice Dancers – Florida Panthers (Fans could vote on their favorite Ice Dancers in a bracket competition that gave away a free cruise!)

28. Stars Text Alerts – Dallas Stars (Fans can easily sign up to receive basic text alerts or student rush text alerts)

29. Leafs on YouTube – Toronto Maple Leafs (Fans can watch a series of YouTube clips directly within a tab on the team’s Facebook page

30. Photo Pick-Up – Phoenix Suns (Fans can have their picture taken by Suns personnel at a game and retrieve it for free on the team’s Facebook page)

31. Match of the Week – Sporting KC (Fans can receive in-depth information about a premier MLS game each week)

32. Meet the Team – Denver Nuggets (Fans can vote for their favorite players on the Nuggets by “liking” them on the interactive Facebook tab)

33. Letter to Fans – Buffalo Sabres (Fans can read a letter sent from the team’s owner Terrence M. Pegula thanking them for their support)

34. Which Cap Are You Like? – Washington Capitals (Fans can take a quiz to see what Washington Capitals player they are the most like and win an autographed jersey)

35. Foursquare – Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Fans can view the team’s Foursquare profile and access tips and insights on whose checked-in at Raymond James Stadium)

36. Draft Party Sweepstakes – Charlotte Bobcats (Fans can sign up on Facebook to win a VIP experience at the Bobcats Draft Party courtesy of Donatos Pizza)

37. Fan Forum – Dallas Cowboys (Fans can participate in an interactive forum where they can participate in a live discussion board)

38. Showcase – Sacramento Kings (Fans can scroll through to see all of the Kings’ hottest merchandise in their online team store up close)

39. Host UpClose Contest – Indianapolis Colts (Fans can upload a video of themselves hosting a sports segment for the chance to fly to Indianapolis and host a segment on Colts UpClose)

40. Scarf Yourself! – New York Red Bulls (Fans can add an official New York Red Bulls scarf to their profile picture and feature it on the team Facebook page)

41. Support – Atlanta Falcons (Fans can post questions/ideas/problems that they have and a Falcons customer representative addresses them for all fans to see on a live discussion board)

42. Give Your All – All Blacks (Fans can watch a series of vignettes where the All Blacks players talk about giving everything they’ve got when they enter the pitch)

43. Fan of the Week – Chicago Bears (Fans can submit a message/photo detailing why they are the biggest fan for the chance to be featured online)

44. A’s Kids Club – Oakland A’s (Fans can sign up for an Oakland A’s Kids Club Membership directly through the team’s Facebook page)

45. WTA Extra – WTA (Fans can easily scroll through high-res images of the top WTA players and also see information about their world ranking and Twitter feed)

46. Giving – Tampa Bay Rays (Fans can read about the Rays Baseball Foundation and make a donation)

47. Fanographies – Cleveland Browns (Fans can submit their Browns story for the chance to win 2011 season tickets)

48. Bulldog Club – University of Georgia Athletics (Fans can read about the Bulldog Club, make donations, invest in educational opportunities, and more)

49. Charity – PGA (Fans can read about the PGA’s new partnership with Darius Rucker and download a song which benefits PGA Tour Charities, Inc.)

50. UStream Live – Colorado Avalanche (Fans can watch broadcasts throughout the season and sign up to receive email alerts every time they take place)

After much tough deliberation and discussions with other trusted peers, I’m excited to announce the winners for the 2nd annual The Business of Sports Awards!

Best Sports Business Blog

• Winner:  Partnership Activation – Another year of tremendous work by Brian Gainor, who consistently seeks out and shares the best practices in sports sponsorship, activation and marketing tactics. In particular, Brian does an excellent job seeking out emerging trends and new ideas, giving his readers the change to stay ahead of the curve. His site is a must-read for any sports marketer.
• Runner-Up:  Sports Marketing and PR Roundup – Joe Favorito was one of the first to get into the sports business blogging world and he continues to produce incredibly valuable content across a wide range of industry topics. Whether the topic is PR, marketing, sponsorships, ticket sales or more, Joe uses his wealth of experience to keep us all informed.

Best Sports Business Twitter Account

• Winner:  J.W. Cannon (@cannonjw) – Beyond being a go-to sports business expert on Twitter, J.W. is one of the most honest and direct professionals out there, always willing to share new ideas and personal opinions. You can learn a lot from his tweets!
• Runner-up:  Liz Mullen (@sbjlizmullen) – Of all the individual SBJ contributors, Liz has the most followers and that can be attributed to the incredible amount of interaction she offers. She has a wonderful talent for mixing personality and enthusiasm with valuable sports business content.

Best Sports Business Content – Company

• Winner:  CNBC – Darren Rovell continues to be arguably the most prominent sports business contributor, and in turn, making CNBC into a top industry news resource. Whether it’s his regular blog posts, video segments or his steady stream of tweets (steady may be an understatement), you will always stay up to date on sports business news through Rovell and CNBC.
• Runner-up:  IEG – Runner-up in this category last year as well,  IEG continues to share their industry insights across multiple channels. Their bloggers at Sponsorship.com provide a wide-range of perspectives and in-depth expertise and their line-up of active Twitter users is always engaging with the online community on almost any sponsorship-related topic.

Best Sports Business Up and Comer

• Winner:  Tariq Ahmad - In a short time, Tariq has made his name known as a top sports and social media expert, highlighed by his session at SXSW on social media and the NBA. Tariq is a very active participant on Twitter, both in sharing his own views and in seeking out other valuable resources that we can all learn from.
• Runner-up:  Joshua Boren – Also featured as a Rising Star by Partnership Activation, Joshua has accomplished a lot in a very short time in the field of venue design and fan experience and his contributions in the digital sports business conversation cover a wide range of topics. I know that he will be a valuable resource for a long time.

Best Alternative Sports Business Content

• Winner:  #SBChat – The creation of Lou Imbriano and J.W. Cannon, #SBChat has become a wonderful way for industry professionals of all backgrounds to come together. Whether the topic is current best practices in sponsorship activation or advice on building a career in sports, this weekly Twitter chat provides quality insights for all participants.
• Runner-up:  The Row Show – Runner-up now in back to back years, the Row Show is a fun, creative and entertaining way to learn about the latest trends in sports and technology. Their show provides a great balance of discussing current events and sharing best practices and useful tips.

Best International Sports Business Contributor

• Winner:  Daniel McLaren – Daniel is the man behind TheUKSportsNetwork.com, a great resource covering a variety of sports business and digital marketing topics from the United Kingdom. Beyond the UK and Euro-specific content, the insights that Daniel provides, particularly when it comes to fan engagement and social media, apply to any sports organization across the globe.
• Runner-up:  Cedric Grundler – Cedric is the created of LeMarketingSportif.com, a French sports business blog covering global sports marketing, sponsorship and communications. While you may need Google Translate for this one, it’s definitely worth it. And for those who are fluent in French, he’s recently started an in-depth podcast interview series (wish I could enjoy those too!)

Best Sports Business Email Newsletter

• Winners:  Sports Business Daily (Paid Subscription) / Sports Marketing and PR Pros (Free) – For this category, we ultimately decided to have two winners, recognizing the best paid and free newsletters available. Every day, in fact multiple time per day, Sports Business Daily keeps their subscribers up to date on every piece of breaking sports business news available, making them a must-purchase subscription for anyone in sports. Meanwhile, Joe Favorito has built up his free weekly newsletter to over 22,000 members. Every Sunday, he shares links to valuable news stories, books, networking events, brands looking to connect and job openings, providing a valuable service to all his subscribers
• Runner-up:  Partnership Activation 2.0 – Every month, Brian Gainor manages to put together a detailed and engaging list of best practices, emerging trends, case studies and rising professionals. While the main focus is around corporate sponsorships, he also includes information on ticketing, social media, brand management and communications. Every example is supported with links and vivid photos to really drive home the value of each tip and tactic.

Best Sports Business Book

• Winner:  Moneyball by Michael Lewis – Not surprising to see this book as the top choice. Moneyball is a rare book that covers both the on-field and off-field aspects of sports business in way that is intriguing and education for fans and industry professionals alike. I don’t think any other sports book of the past 20 years has shifted the landscape of the industry the way Moneyball has.
• Runner-up:  Veeck as in Wreck by Bill Veeck and Ed Linn – While this might not be a sports business book by definition, you can learn a great deal about the industry through the life of Bill Veeck. Veeck was always willing to push the envelope in a constant effort to create a memorable fan experience, an admirable goal that we all should share.

People’s Choice – Sports Business Social Media Contributor of the Year

• Winner:  Darren Rovell - The people have spoken (819 total voters) and with 48% of the vote (394 votes), Darren Rovell is the winner of the 2011 People’s Choice – Sports Business Social Media Contributor of the Year. There is little doubt that Darren has the most extensive reach in creating and sharing sports business content, as demonstrated by his 83,000+ Twitter followers and who-knows how many blog readers. When you combine the quality of his insights, the quantity of posts/tweets/etc, his industry knowledge and his tremendous reach, it’s clear that Darren has created quite an impressive brand for himself in the sports and social media landscape.
• Runner-up:  Brian Gainor – This year’s winner for Best Sports Business Blog and runner-up for Best Newsletter, Brian consistently uses multiple social media channels (his blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more) to share his industry knowledge with all of us. Brian came in 2nd with 20% of the vote (164 votes), and it’s clear from the response and my conversations with others that he’s a respected and appreciated voice when it comes to educating and engaging with those working in sports.

Thank you to everyone who sent in nominations and voted in the People’s Choice poll. This process is very challenging with so many great sports business contributors out there. And of course, congratulations to all of our winners. Make sure you continue to follow them and all of this year’s nominees to learn from their wonderful industry resources.

I’m excited to announce the nominees for the 2011 The Business of Sports Awards! Every spring, we will take a look back to reward the best content and contributors from the sports business community over the past year.

Unlike other sports business awards that recognize the people working within specific organizations, the goal for these awards is to recognize those individuals, companies and websites that create and share the best sports business content and provide the most benefit for the rest of the sports industry. Also, in an attempt to spread the recognition a bit, last year’s winner in each category cannot win again this year.

With all that said, the nominees are…

Best Sports Business Blog: Last year’s winner was SportsBiz with Darren Rovell. This year’s nominees are…

• Athletics Development Frontier
• The Biz of Baseball
• Partnership Activation
• Relationship Architecture
• SponsorPitch Blog
• Sports Agent Blog
• Sports Info 101
• Sports Marketing and PR Roundup

Best Sports Business Twitter Account: Last year’s winner was Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert). This year’s nominees are…

• Brian Gainor (@briangainor)
• J.W. Cannon (@cannonjw)
• Kristi Dosh (@sportsbizmiss)
• Liz Mullen (@sbjlizmullen)
• Lou Imbriano (@louimbriano)
• Maury Brown (@bizballmaury)
• Michele Steele (@michelesteele)
• Paul Hemingway (@paulhemingway)
• Rob Katz (@robkatz)

Best Sports Business Content – Company: Last year’s winner was Sports Business Journal. This year’s nominees are…

• Activ8Social (Website, blog and Twitter accounts)
• Coyle Media (Sports Marketing 2.0, Sports Fan Graph, @sports20, Digital Fan Marketing Summits)
• CNBC (Darren Rovell’s blog, Twitter and video content)
• Forbes (SportsMoney website and blog)
• IEG (Sponsorship.com blog and individual Twitter contributors)
• GMR Marketing (Industry blog and multiple Twitter accounts)

Best Sports Business Up and Comer: Last year’s winner was Peter Amador. This year’s nominees are…

• Brittany Gilman
• Deandra Duggans
• Jared Casden
• Jonathan Norman
• Joshua Boren
• Sean O’Hara
• Tariq Ahmad
• Tim McGarry

Best Alternative Sports Business Content: Last year’s winner was Sports Business Radio. This year’s nominees are…

• #SBChat (Weekly Twitter-based sports business chat)
• #SportsPRChat (Weekly Twitter-based sports PR chat)
• Be Your Own Fan TV by the Goldklang Group (Bi-weekly web video)
• The Migala Report (Monthly web publication)
• The Row Show (Weekly web video broadcast)
• The Sports Business Exchange (Quarterly online journal)

Best International Sports Business Contributor (New Category):

• Ash Read
• Anthony Alsop
• Cedric Grunder
• Daniel McLaren
• Hubert Munyazikwiye
• Jonathan Müller
• Lourdes Turconi
• Shane Harmon

Best Sports Business Email Newsletter (New Category):

• Brian Gainor’s Partnershp Activation 2.0 Monthly Newsletter
• Howard Bloom’s SBN Daily Dose
• Joe Favorito’s Sports Marketing and PR Pros Newsletter
  
• National Sports Forum’s “Selling It” Bi-Monthly Newsletter
• Street and Smith’s Sports Business Daily
• Sponsorship Insights Monthly Newsletter

Best Sports Business Book (New Category):

• Ice to the Eskimos by Jon Spoelstra
• Moneyball by Michael Lewis
• Sports, Inc. by Phil Schaaf
• The Business of Sports by Scott Rosner and Kenneth Shropshire
• The Elusive Fan by Irving Rein, Philip Kotler and Ben Shields
• Veeck as in Wreck by Bill Veeck and Ed Linn

People’s Choice – Sports Business Social Media Contributor of the Year:

• Brian Gainor
• Darren Heitner
• Darren Rovell
• Joe Favorito
• Kristi Dosh
• Lou Imbriano
• Maury Brown
• Pat Coyle

The voting for the People’s Choice award (on the top right of the page) will run through May 15. All of the winners will be announced the following week.

Please Note: The only award that you can currently vote on is the People’s Choice award. However, I encourage you all to leave comments about who you think should win in the other categories. These comments will be considered when deciding on the winners. Thanks!

Over the past eight years, there has been a tremendous growth in popularity of poker as a form of “sports entertainment.” While the game itself is not a sport, it’s coverage on television and across the web has created a deep connection between poker and the sports world. However, as of Friday, the relationship between the sports world and poker took a dramatic turn.

For those that aren’t familiar with what happened, I’ll try to summarize quickly. The FBI and Southern District of New York announced that they were arresting the top executives from the big-three online poker sites (PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker/UltimateBet) and they seized the related “.com” domain names. Those arrested are facing charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and violation of UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act).

Ever since the UIGEA was passed in 2006, there has been a question as to the legality of online poker in the U.S.  The language of the bill focused on financial transactions related to online gambling, but the big service providers mentioned above believed that poker is a game of skill, not gambling, and continued to operate very successfully in the U.S. In fact, the poker industry continued to boom over the past 4-5 years, as you can see from the amount of media coverage it received and the sponsorships involved. Both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars sponsored poker television coverage on ESPN (World Series of Poker and the North American Poker Tour), NBC (NBC Heads-Up and Poker After Dark) and Fox (PokerStars The Big Game). ESPN.com also had PokerStars sponsored coverage through a web-video show called the Inside Deal. PokerStars was even an NHL sponsor, with prominent exposure at their annual awards show.

Poker also created lots of new “sports” celebrities, people like Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth and many more. Not only were these top  players sponsored by online poker sites, they were popular enough to receive endorsements outside of poker. In looking at the “sport,” there were definitely similarity to NASCAR in terms of individual endorsement potential. You could often see these players wearing logos of their partner companies, and the better they performed at the table, the greater the partner exposure.

In the immediate aftermath of “Black Friday,” the following events have occurred:

• ESPN and ESPN.com have removed all associated with PokerStars, canceled their North American Poker Tour coverage and even stopped showing reruns of older WSOP broadcasts.
• The Big Game on Fox has been canceled, at least temporarily
• Wynn Entertainment and other U.S.-based casinos have ended most of their relationships with online sites
• All three sites have stopped serving U.S. players for real money games
• Top officials that have yet to be arrested could be extradited, depending on their current location (officials for these sites usually live outside the country)
• Funds for U.S. players are temporarily frozen, and there’s a chance this money could be lost altogether.

The big question is, what happens now? The World Series of Poker, which has become a top sports-related brand will probably see a significant drop in participation and television coverage. Top players that rely on online poker for their income may be forced to leave the country, or even worse, could be looking at criminal charges depending on their relationship with the online sites. Poker television as we know it could be over, along with any poker-related sponsorships of U.S. teams or leagues. Meanwhile, the Poker Players Alliance, a lobbying group on behalf of poker players, is trying to rally players to push for legislation to legalize and regulate online poker. Bills on this topic have been discussed in Congress on and off for the past two years, and some people even feel that these recent events could speed up the process of U.S. regulation.

It’s too early to predict what the ultimate results from these charges will be, but there’s little doubt that the landscape of the poker industry has been permanently changed by “Black Friday.” For more coverage of this story, check out Darren Rovell’s coverage or visit www.pokernews.com.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Emily Huddell from Turnkey Sports & Entertainment.

The inaugural Wharton Sports Innovation Conference (SIC) was held last Friday, April 8, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.  Initiated and organized by the Wharton Sports Business Club, the event was conceived as a forum for high-level discussion on “what’s next” in the world of sports business, attracted approximately 250 attendees, and (full disclosure) was sponsored by Turnkey Sports & Entertainment.

The event began with a welcome address by Kenneth Shropshire, Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics and Director of Wharton’s Sports Business Initiative. Then, attendees split into sub-groups to attend panels including “Developing Story: Shifts in Sports Media Coverage,” “If You Build It, Will They Come?: Innovations in Stadium Land Use and Surrounding Real Estate,” and “The Social Impact of Sports.”

In one of the day’s first sessions, Barry Blyn (VP of Consumer Insights, ESPN) engaged attendees in a discussion centered on ESPN’s “brand health narrative.” According to Blyn, ESPN’s core focus is the die-hard sports fan (i.e., the individual who identifies as at an 8, 9 or 10 on a 1-10 avidity scale). In their quest to “relentlessly monitor brand health” by understanding the perceptions of this group, Blyn’s team employs many non-traditional means, including father/son BBQs (at which fans’ perceptions and needs are discussed), “ESPN deprivation” experiences, conflict groups, and projects like eulogy creation (in which fans are asked to pretend that the brand has “died” and reflect on its cause of death).

Moving forward, Blyn’s group is focused on determining how SportsCenter should adapt/react to the growth of mobile to retain its appeal. Other goals including developing a true social media strategy, and continuing to create a sense of community with fans with innovations like the World Cup Match Truck.

In one of the morning’s second panels, titled “To the Cloud!”, a stacked panel comprised of Dave Butler (CEO, Paciolan), Sean Morgan (Founder & CEO, Critical Media), Brian Perez (SVP & GM, NBA Digital), Matt Higgins (EVP Business Operations, NY Jets), and Brad Goldberg (CEO, Peak6 Online) and moderated by Len Perna (President & CEO, Turnkey Sports & Entertainment), engaged in a lively conversation about the impact of cloud computing on the sports industry. The panel agreed that though fans may not understand the concept of the cloud, they directly benefit from it in the form of customized and improved in-stadium service.

Other hot button issues tackled by this group included:

• The interplay of broadcast rights and mobile/digital
• The lack of mobile bandwidth in areas/facilities (Perez called it the “single biggest issue” in sports)
• The potential nationalization of team brands via mobile technology/mobile’s effect on the ~75 mile marketing boundaries currently in place
• The role of in-stadium replay
• The development of platforms enabling fans to invite friends to games via social media

The panel’s consensus was that the sports industry must do a better job of implementing initiatives like the NBA’s Fan Night, which allows fans to determine which game airs on NBA TV each Tuesday. According to this group, increased adaptation stemming from going where the fans are and giving them what they want will be crucial as the sports industry strives to remain relevant.

Perhaps the day’s most compelling event was Ted Leonsis’ Keynote Speech. Leonsis, the Founder and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, spoke about teams’ effect on the metro areas they call home, and their responsibilities as the “caretakers of the emotional well-being” of those cities. He discussed how the Verizon Center has played a crucial role in the revitalization of DC’s Chinatown, changing the arc of the narrative of the city, and turning the area surrounding the arena into a hub of commerce with an annual economic impact of $300 million.

As one who has worked in multiple industries and created and managed companies of varied sizes and types, Leonsis was the perfect person to give the SIC Keynote Speech. The themes of innovation, forward-thinking, creating value for consumers, and keeping philanthropy front-of-mind remained as Leonsis detailed his career with AOL, his roles as a founder of SnagFilms, and his experiences as a member of the Groupon Board of Directors.

Leonsis’ recommendation to students looking to break into the sports industry was, as he put it, “M&M” – math and Mandarin. On the math side, teams’ evolution into “gigantic data factories” means that mastery of statistics and numbers will become a crucial skill set. With regard to the second “m”, Mandarin has more native speakers than any other language, and is the language spoken in Beijing, the political and cultural center of China.

Following Leonsis’ presentation, Chuck Greenberg (Former CEO & Managing Partner, Texas Rangers), Nick Sakiewicz (CEO & Operating Partner, Philadelphia Union), and Stu Siegel (Partner, Sunrise Sports & Entertainment) took the floor as participants in the “Owner’s Roundtable.”

Sakiewicz, possessing the unique perspective of a person who literally created a franchise and a brand from “a blank sheet of paper,” emphasized the importance of the role of data mining as it pertains to improving the in-game experience and building connections with the fans outside of stadium via social media.

Greenberg, meanwhile, was tasked with rehabilitating a storied brand’s image when his group purchased the franchise in 2010. Interestingly, Greenberg noted that, prior to his group’s purchase of the club, the Texas Rangers were perceived as a small- to mid-market franchise… despite the fact that their stadium is literally across the street from Cowboy’s Stadium, capacity ~110,000 and home of “America’s Team.”

In his role as CEO of the club, Greenberg focused on rebuilding trust with Rangers fans and enhancing a sense of community. Said Greenberg, “Sports franchises may be the last great town hall of modern society,” in that they have the ability to connect unrelated individuals from different backgrounds and with varied interests.

Following the “Owner’s Roundtable,” SIC attendees grabbed bag lunches and then attend two more waves of roundtables about the future of international expansion in sports, the impact of social media on sports brands, and innovations in sports analytics.

In “Growing the Gate,” a roundtable focused on innovations in ticketing, participants agreed that teams’ current challenge is creating true communities and a “membership” feel among season ticket holders. Ben Gumpert (Sr. Director, Team Marketing & Business Operations, NBA) noted that the Charlotte Bobcats have already taken steps in this direction by offering season ticket holders access to movie nights and cooking classes with the team’s Executive Chef.

Personalizing the stadium experience for each fan was also a popular concept the group expects to see more of in future years.

When asked how his side of the business has changed as technology has evolved, Dave Butler (CEO, Paciolan) made the point that his business is no longer just about ticket transactions. Instead, Paciolan now considers helping teams better understand their fans, build relationships with them, and figure out how to give them what they need to be their primary responsibility. “The fan teaches us what’s right and what clicks and what doesn’t,” said Butler, adding that Paciolan looks to other industries for innovative ideas but ultimately takes their cue from ticket buying fans.

In the day’s final session, a presentation featuring Joe Banner (President, Philadelphia Eagles), Stan Kasten (Former President, Washington Nationals), Tim Purpura (EVP & COO, MiLB), and Jason Levian (President & Founder, LSRI) titled “The Bottom Line,” panelists discussed the balance of on-field success and success on the books. Kasten summed up the concept mid-way through the session, explaining that “smart’s going to beat rich, but when you’re rich and smart, that’s tough to beat.”

Overall, this event provided insightful and interesting content appropriate for professionals and students alike. Students benefited from sessions geared specifically towards them (“Paying Your Dues: Breaking Into The Sports Business”, etc.), and comments from panelists like the NHL’s Jeff Morander, who noted that teams’ increasing sophistication with regard to technology and analytics opens doors to students looking for jobs in sports with who are comfortable working with data and tech-savvy. Industry professionals, meanwhile, had the opportunity to network with dozens of top-level executives, discuss the future, and openly brainstorm about new concepts and ideas. Given the convenient location (blocks from Philadelphia’s Amtrak station), reasonable cost for attendee badges, and stacked lineup of panelists and speakers, this event is a must-attend for anyone with an eye on the future in 2012.

Today’s guest post is from Emily M. Huddell. Emily serves as the SVP of Client Sales & Service at Turnkey Sports & Entertainment. At Turnkey, she oversees two of the company’s core products, Activator and Prospector.

With the NHL Playoffs starting today, it’s a great time to look at how the NHL differs from other major American sports leagues in crowning their champion.

National Football League (NFL)

Only 12 of 32 NFL teams make the playoffs each year. At 37.5%, the NFL has one of the lowest percentages of teams allowed into the postseason. Four division winners from each conference automatically qualify, plus two Wild Card teams (non-division winners with the best record). At times, this can make for interesting seeding. In 2011, for example, the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West with a 7-9 record. They were slated to host the first round matchup against the 11-5 New Orleans Saints, the non-division winner Wild Card out of the NFC South. There was quite an uproar about whether Seattle deserved to host that game, but they quieted  (most of) the critics when they pulled out a 41-36 win.

National Basketball Association (NBA)

In the NBA, 16 out of 30 teams (a whopping 53.3%), make the playoffs. Once those 16 teams are seeded, the bracket will never change, regardless of any upsets that occur.

Major League Baseball (MLB)

MLB doesn’t refer to their tournament as the ‘playoffs.’ For baseball, it’s the ‘postseason’ that determines the champion. Only 8 of the 30 MLB teams (the lowest of all major American sports leagues at 26.7%), make the postseason, often coming down to the very last game, and occasionally needing an extra game as a tiebreaker.

Major League Soccer (MLS)

The youngest of the major American leagues, MLS advances 10 of their current 18 teams (55.5%) to the playoffs. Five teams from each conference are seeded, and while the first three seeds get byes, the #4 and #5 seeds play each other for the right to face the #1 seed. Once the bracket is set, no changes are made to account for upsets.

National Hockey League (NHL)

The NHL may just be the most fair when it comes to their playoff system. While they do allow a large percentage of their teams in (16 out of 30 – 53.3%), teams are re-seeded after each round. What this takes into account, that no other major American league does, is the regular season. A lower-seeded team that didn’t perform as well over the course of the 82-game season, doesn’t get an easier path to the Stanley Cup Finals just because they upset the higher seed. Kudos to the NHL for keeping the regular season more relevant than the other four leagues.

What is your favorite playoff system? Do any of these five leagues get it right? Should MLS consider going to the European-style of crowning the regular-season champion and forgoing any regular season?

Image courtesy of NHL.com

It’s time for the 2nd annual The Business of Sports Awards! Every spring, we take a look back to reward the best content and contributors from the sports business community over the past year. Unlike other sports business awards that recognize the people working within specific organizations, the goal for these awards is to recognize those individuals, companies and websites that create and share the best sports business content and provide the most benefit for the rest of the sports industry.

For this year’s awards, we have NINE categories, including three new ones!

• Best Sports Business Blog – The overall best sports business blog
• Best Individual Sports Business Twitter Account - The best individual use of Twitter to help the sports business community
• Best Sports Business Content by a Company – The company that best uses social media platforms across their organization to create and share sports business content
• Best Alternative Sports Business Content - The best sports business content distributed via an alternative, non-blog format
• Best Up-and-Coming Sports Business Contributor – The best new contributor of sports business content (must have just started within the past 12 months)
• NEW: Best International Sports Business Contributor – The best non-U.S. based, global sports business contributor via blog, twitter, etc.
• NEW: Best Sports Business Email Newsletter – The most valuable, insightful sports business email newsletter
• NEW: Best Sports Business Book – For this year only, this can be ANY sports business book, not just those written in the past year.

The winners in these five categories will be selected by The Business of Sports with advice and feedback from other trusted members of the sports business community. The final award will be voted on by The Business of Sports readers…

• People’s Choice – Sports Business Contributor of the Year – Recognizing the individual that has made the greatest contribution to the sports business community through any and all communication channels (web, email, social media, etc).

Now, I need your help with the nominations process!

Please click here now to send in your nominations for any or all of the nine categories!

I will accept nominations until Friday, April 15 and will then announce the finalists (up to 5 per category) the following week. Those individuals that won an award last year are not eligible to win again this year. Thank you for your help!

Today is the official third birthday for The Business of Sports!!!

I started this website while finishing up my last trimester of my MBA at Arizona State. At the time, I thought this could be a fun way to start communicating with the sports business community and get my name out there. I was just starting to explore the world of social media, and I felt that a blog would be an effective tool in building my personal brand and giving back to an industry that I love.

Now, looking back at the past three years, I couldn’t be happier with how far it has come. Every month, the number of readers continues to grow.  I’ve extended from simple blog posts to videos, email newsletters, networking events and more. So many wonderful professionals have shared their own insights through interviews and guest posts. Most importantly, I’ve had so many great conversations and made countless valuable connections that will impact my career for decades to come.

I feel so for fortunate for the success I’ve had over the past three years, and its because of all of you who continue to read these posts and share your feedback. Thank you so much for your incredible support. I’m excited for how much more this can grow over the next three years and beyond.

I tried to capture parts of yesterday’s panels to share with all of you. Enjoy the videos!

Opening Remarks from Sergey Bubka:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSSkwGzp1-Q

Final Thoughts from the Women in Sport panel:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rijO0dSy8Vk

Oscar Pistorius (the “Blade Runner”) showing his racing prosthetics:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpeLd-u1PSk

Oscar Pistorius on his post-Olympic aspirations (my question from the session):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS6om_HObg0

Media Rights: TV vs. Web:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGxWRqYwYg4

Sochi 2014 Volunteer Program:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EcPltWxN9A

Today’s conference recap post is courtesy of guest blogger Dave Cutler.

This past weekend I attended the 5th Annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (#SSAC to the Twitterverse). Dubbed “Dorkapalooza” by ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons, the conference is perhaps the largest single gathering of statheads, sabermetricians and other likeminded folks fascinated by statistical analysis in sports. It has also become a premier networking opportunity for students with an eye towards a career in sports as well as those already established within the industry.

Unfortunately, with four overlapping sessions running simultaneously during each time block, it is impossible not to miss a significant portion of the conference. The following is a recap of a few of the most compelling takeaways and themes from those panels which I attended:

SOCIAL: Social is not often a word associated with a collection of self-proclaimed stat geeks, but it should come as no surprise that social media was a recurring theme throughout the conference.

• Sarah Robb O’Hagan, CMO at Gatorade, talked about the company’s “Mission Control,” their social media command center dedicated to tracking all discussion of their brand occurring on social media sites. She made a point of noting that Gatorade makes a distinction between the values of different tweets, assigning greater importance to one that is read by teenage athletes, for instance.
• Bob Bowman, President and CEO of MLB Advanced Media, warned of the perils of businesses not using social media to engage with their customers, saying that “no matter what your business is, if you’re not following Twitter, you’re missing what your customers are saying.”
• Celtics Co-Owner Steve Pagliuca said that while he and other team personnel discuss the potential risks for players engaging with the public through social media (i.e. harming endorsement potential) the team doesn’t take any measures to regulate their messaging. He also stated that he believed Celtics players are fundamentally good people and just needed to avoid making damaging early mistakes with social media.
• There seemed to be a consensus across all panels that fan input is more impactful than ever, especially with the advent of Twitter as a real-time reaction tool.

Authenticity was a prevailing theme in the discussion of social media. Multiple speakers mentioned the fans’ ability to detect the difference between a Facebook page or Twitter account managed by an athlete’s marketing representative versus one in which the player provides personal thoughts.

• Both O’Hagan and Lawrence Norman, Vice President of Global Basketball for Adidas, cited Dwight Howard as a great partner/endorser because of his willingness to actively engage with the fans through social media.
• Nick Grudin, Manager of Strategic Partnership Development at Facebook, gave a lunchtime talk entitled, “Social Sports: Facebook, and the Fan-Centric Experience.” He singled out Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics as someone who successfully parlayed genuine fan interaction such as Facebook chats into a disproportionate following. Rondo’s 2 million fans on Facebook ranks an impressive 3rd among NBA players behind only Kobe Bryant (6.8 million) and LeBron James (5.3 million).

CUBAN MISSILES: Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban, whose “Talk Nerdy to Me” T-shirt was a hit with the attendees, launched countless off-the-cuff barbs in the direction of fellow panelists that left the audience laughing. He displayed the quick-thinking business savvy behind his success, interjecting significant insight into the discussions and demonstrating impressive foresight.

• Dallas Cowboys COO Stephen Jones speculated that the enormous HD video boards in the team’s stadium could soon become outdated, rendering them useless and requiring the team to replace them at an enormous expense. Cuban immediately chimed in that some enterprising individual would have the ingenuity to re-purpose the screens, using them as the main attraction at a drive-in movie theater.
• Always with an eye towards the future, Cuban scoffed at the continuous mention of social media in discussing innovations that will impact the fan experience in 10 years, making the following two statements: “Twitter is a great broadcast opportunity, but that’s living life in the past lane” and “If 500 million people are on Facebook, how can it be new and exciting?”
• Cuban, seemingly serious, responded to conjecture that he would be providing lively commentary during the panel on Referee Analytics by informing the audience that he had received an e-mail from the NBA league office reminding him that the conference was a public forum and he would be held accountable for any statements made in regards to NBA officiating.

THE FUTURE OF THE GAME DAY EXPERIENCE: HDTV VS. LIVE EVENTS: The closing panel was chock full of informative discussion and interesting insights. There was significant focus on the issue of making technological innovations to improve the in-game experience for fans in attendance. The panelists lamented the limitations created by insufficient Wi-Fi bandwidth.

• New England Patriots COO, Jonathan Kraft, shared that the Patriots provided devices and an application to a segment of the fans in attendance as a trial-run with the goal of making it available to the entire stadium in the future. The app offered a stream of the TV feed as well as the option of four other angles from cameras placed throughout the stadium along with real-time fantasy updates. Kraft envisions this app eventually allowing the fan to stream the Red Zone channel and perhaps select an audio feed from a number of mic’d-up players, but cautioned that this would not be feasible without significantly improving the Wi-Fi capabilities of the stadium.

The speakers were in agreement that they needed to put an emphasis on addressing and improving all aspects of attending the game in order to provide fans with the best possible game day experience.

• Cuban noted the importance of working with the local transportation authority to ensure that travel to and from the arena is as easy possible. Kraft agreed and said that in addition to working with public officials to improve transportation options such as a commuter rail to the stadium, the team had spent $70 Million improving the existing road infrastructure around the stadium.

ODDS & ENDS: Other notable tidbits include…

• During Grudin’s Facebook presentation, one stat illustrated a surprising disparity between Major League Baseball and the other three major sports leagues. MLB ranked a distant 4th in “Likes” with a mere 280,000 trailing well behind the NBA (7.6 million), NFL (2.6 Million), and NHL (2.4 million). This stood out on the heels of the announcement that MLB.com At Bat 2010 for iPhone and iPod touch was named the highest grossing application on iTunes.
• While there is an enormous amount of secrecy amongst ownership and management within a given sport, a few panelists mentioned the conference as an opportunity to learn from their counterparts in other sports and share best practices. Stephen Jones also confessed to learning a great deal from what Cuban and the Mavericks do at American Airlines and replicating some of it in Cowboys Stadium.
• Eric Mangini handled what could have been an uncomfortable and contentious moment with grace and good humor. ESPN The Magazine Editor Gary Belsky, responding to a panelist’s mention of nearly being fired by saying that having been fired wouldn’t disqualify him from appearing on the panel before turning to Eric Mangini, realizing his faux pas and saying, “Oops…sorry” as the audience laughed.

WIT & WISDOM: In addition to sharing tremendously valuable insight and lessons, panelists used the informal and lighthearted nature of the sessions as an opportunity to showcase their comedic talents. Many proved to be incredibly witty and it was evident that a number of the speakers had an established rapport with each other, leading to some very entertaining, albeit good natured ribbing. For a look at 5 of the most entertaining and informative personalities from the conference, you can read my guest blog post here.

Dave Cutler is an experienced sports marketer who has held positions with the New Jersey Nets, NBA, and Sports Illustrated. He was previously featured on this site as the Free Agent of the Week. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, read his blog, or reach him via email at CutlerDave@gmail.com.

I have a couple of quick announcements to share with everyone today!

I am very excited to announce that I’ve been selected to be an official blogger for next week’s Global Sports Forum in Barcelona, Spain! This conference has a tremendous lineup of international speakers from UEFA, Rio Olympics, Sochi Olympics, FC Barcelona, Havas, IOC, adidas, Li Ning, IMG, EuroSport and more. Over the three days of the conference, I will be posting updates here and on the GSFB blog. You will also be able to follow the conference on Twitter via the hashtag #GSFB.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJvBMPLADOI

If you are interested in attending the conference, they are running a last-minute, 30% off special offer. Visit www.globalsportsforum.org for the details. And if you are going to be there, let me know so we can have an informal, international networking event!

Speaking of networking events, we have added two new events to the schedule!

The Business of Sports – Philadelphia Networking Event

• Monday, March 28 at the Field House
• Open networking from 6:30 to 9:30PM
• Free to attend, all backgrounds welcome (No resumes please!)
• Details and RSVP here!
• Special thanks to Haynes Hendrickson (Turnkey) and Caleb Mezzy!

The Business of Sports – Los Angeles Networking Event

• Saturday, April 2 at Big League Dreams in West Covina
• Food and drinks, networking and softball from 11:30AM to 3:30PM
• Free to attend, all backgrounds welcome (No resumes please!)
• Details and RSVP here!
• Special thanks to Joshua Boren (Populous) and Ara Messerlian (Par 5 Events)

I’m also hoping to have information on New York, Phoenix, Dallas and Boston events very soon. Stay tuned!

It’s always fun when you get to promote the success of talented professionals, so I’m happy to take a moment to share information about this year’s Women in Sports & Events (WISE) Women of the Year Award winners:

• Stacey Allaster, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Women’s Tennis Association (WTA)
• Lisa Baird, Chief Marketing Officer, United States Olympic Committee (USOC)
• Wendy Lewis, Senior Vice President of Diversity & Strategic Alliances, Major League Baseball (MLB)

WISE, which was founded back in 1993, is a top resource for female sports business professionals, organizing meeting, events and mentoring programs designed to support the career development of their members.

“As WISE celebrates its 17^th year of honoring influential women in sports and events, the group of women in power positions is increasingly making the selection process much more exciting,” said Sue Rodin, founder and national president of WISE.  “This year’s honorees have made lasting contributions to their respective organizations, and the overall sports landscape, and we applaud them for their efforts, dedication and commitment to serving as an inspiration to other aspiring women.”

Here is some more detailed information about this year’s honorees, courtesy of the Women in Sports and Events website:

Stacey Allaster - Named by Forbes magazine as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Sports”, Allaster began her tenure as Chairman & CEO of the WTA in mid-2009 but her impact on the organization began while a member of the WTA’s Tournament Council in 2001.  As president of the WTA, Allastar brought innovation to women’s tennis by allowing for on-court coaching, electronic line calling, revised doubles scoring format.  She also was a champion of the Roadmap, the WTA’s long term strategic plan aimed at streamlining the calendar to enhance the overall health and well-being of the athletes and delivering top players on a more consistent basis to tournaments and fans.

Allaster was instrumental in the WTA’s longstanding quest to achieve equal prize money for women tennis players at all four Grand Slams, a feat finally completed in 2007 when Wimbledon and Roland Garros committed to offering equal prize money to male and female tennis players.  Moreover, Allaster helped secure equal and record prize money at the year-end Championships, adding to a total of ten equal prize money events.  Allastar’s tenure as Chairman & CEO has been marked by maximizing the WTA experience for fans, increasing sponsorship revenues, and enhancing the health and well-being of the athletes. Prior to joining the WTA, Allaster was President of Tennis Canada, where under her leadership, the Canadian Open (currently the Rogers Cup) witnessed the highest tournament revenues and attendance figures on the Tour.  Allaster holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Physical Education from the University of Western Ontario, and an MBA from the Ivey School of Business.

Lisa Baird - Since becoming CMO of the USOC in January 2009, Baird has signed nine new corporate partners and renewed seven others in one of the most challenging marketplaces in recent years. She launched a number of innovative new marketing platforms, including a national fundraising campaign – America Supports Team USA – and a program which enabled fans to follow the making of the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team – The Making of Team USA – Vancouver Bound.  Baird also refreshed the USOC brand and recently re-launched the licensing business under the Team USA brand mark. In addition, Baird has been a public proponent of strengthening anti-ambush measures for the sports industry and sponsored a proposition to prevent unfair advertising targeting Olympic sponsors, which was unanimously approved by the National Governing Body Council.

Prior to the USOC, Baird served as senior vice president of marketing and consumer products for the NFL where she directed the league’s consumer products, direct marketing, e-commerce, entertainment marketing and advertising programs.  Baird also worked at IBM, first as vice president of advertising and then as senior vice president of worldwide marketing communications where she led IBM’s global marketing communications initiatives, including advertising, sports marketing, direct marketing, events and digital marketing in more than 70 countries. Additionally, Baird was responsible for the IBM e-business campaign, which won the 2006 Grand Effie award.  She also held a series of marketing positions at General Motors, including a stint as chief creative officer of e-gm.  Baird is a graduate of Penn State University where she received a bachelor’s degree and MBA.

Wendy Lewis – A highly recognized executive for her pioneering career in creating opportunities for minorities and women, Lewis began her tenure at Major League Baseball in 1987 with the Chicago Cubs and joined MLB’s Central Office in 1995. As Senior Vice President of Diversity and Strategic Alliances for Major League Baseball, she implements MLB’s Diversity Economic Impact Engagement initiative (DEIE).  The DEIE is one of MLB’s newest initiatives to advance the level of MLB’s current workforce and supplier diversity efforts as well as create methodologies for cultural assessments, diversity economic platforms and industry-wide diversity training. She has developed an internal consultant model that is currently underway and will be utilized throughout MLB.  Lewis also established the team that developed MLB’s uniquely strategic talent pipeline, The Executive Development Program (EDP), a two-year rotational career development program whose goal is to add to MLB’s high-potential talent pool for MLB Clubs and the Central Office.  One of her most notable roles is managing the leadership of MLB’s Diverse Business Partners’ Program, the leading supplier diversity program in sports. This major league procurement initiative has produced significant economic opportunity for MLB, its franchises and local communities. Under Lewis’ leadership, a greater number of diverse businesses have had an opportunity to participate in the procurement process for MLB’s desired goods and services.  Her strategic implementation of the “DBP” Program has resulted in over $800 million dollars being spent with thousands of minority and women-owned businesses.

Prior to her current role at MLB, Lewis served as Vice President of Strategic Planning for Recruitment and Diversity following her position of Vice President of Human Resources and Office Operations. In these capacities, Lewis directed the recruitment, compensation, benefits, performance planning, training and development for MLB’s Central Office in New York and its satellite offices. Lewis has a BS in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Additional information about WISE’s Women of the Year Luncheon, including purchasing of tickets and/or sponsorship can be found at www.WISEworks.org. Thanks to Rachel Gary for providing the information used in this post.

Last week we stopped to look back on the top sports business stories of 2010. Now that it’s officially 2011, it only seems natural to start thinking about what stories we’re going to follow in the new year.

- Collective Bargaining:  This is the big one. Both the NFL and NBA collective bargaining agreements expire in 2011, and nothing is more crucial for the long-term success of a sports league as the stability of the relationship between the owners and the players. Everyone is going to be paying very close attention to the negotiations for both leagues, know that the potential for work stoppages is lingering in the air. And technically, MLB’s agreement expires in December of 2011. Right now, no one seems to expect an issue with baseball, but you never really know.

- Social Media and Technology: If you’re reading this site, you’re probably also interested in how social media and other emerging technologies are impacting the industry.  Over the past year, we’ve started to get a better feel for this topic, but as soon as you think you understand it, new technology appears and you have to start learning again.  For some great insight on sports and social media predictions for 2011, check out this great e-book by Jason Peck (and thanks to Jason for letting me contribute again this year).

- The Rugby World Cup: We might not have an Olympics or soccer World Cup this year, but we do have the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand starting in September.  While the sport might not be that popular in the United States, this is a very significant event on the global sports scene. In addition, there are still some questions about whether the facilities in New Zealand will be ready in time and there’s a rumor of a hospitality worker strike being timed for the event.

- MLS Expansion: Two new MLS clubs start playing in 2011, the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps FC.  Considering that the league expanded to Seattle in 2009, they are building quite a footprint in the pacific northwest. The league seems to be expanding in a very productive way, selecting markets where professional soccer can thrive both on a local level and expanding their national media presence. In addition, Sporting KC will start playing in a new soccer-only stadium in Kansas City this summer, following up on the opening of Red Bull Arena in 2010 (thanks @JoshuaABoren).

Some other questions for 2011 include:

• How will the first-ever NBA regular season games in Europe do (At the O2 in London in March, thanks @yandreopoulos).
• Will Tiger Woods start playing like Tiger Woods again, and what impact will he have on the sport of golf?
• What will we learn during this year’s Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens trials?
• How will new mobile devices, including phones and tablets, impact marketing and fan engagement? (thanks @anothersamchan)
• Will NASCAR ratings continue to trend downward, or can they rebound?
• How will 3D television impact sports broadcasting?

What stories are you most interested in for 2011?

Finally, I hope all of you can attend one of our free networking events this year. We have three on the calendar for January in New York, Los Angeles and Phoenix. We also have interest lists building for Boston, Baltimore/DC and Dallas. Click here for the full event calendar!

With less than a week left in 2010, it’s time to look back on the top sports business stories of the year. You can share your opinion on this year’s top story in our new poll. Meanwhile, here’s my take on the biggest stories of 2010:

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

• Collective bargaining stalemates in the NBA and NFL
• The passing of George Steinbrenner
• Brett Favre’s various sagas
• Continuation of the Tiger Woods story, on and off the course
• Development of 3D television and broadcasting sporting events in 3D
• Nike’s advertising campaigns (Earl/Tiger Woods, Write the Future, Boom, Rise)
• Untelevised World Series games due to the Cablevision/Fox negotiations
• NCAA Compliance controversies with Reggie Bush, Cam Newton, and others
• The increasing impact of concussions on amateur and professional sports

Top Five Stories of 2010 (in reverse order):

#5 – New Facilities – The economy is still struggling to recover from the recent recession, but that didn’t stop several teams and cities from opening and renovating some incredible new facilities in 2010, including:

• Football:  New Meadowlands Stadium (New York Giants and Jets) and Arrowhead Stadium (Kansas City Chiefs, renovations)
• Basketball:  Amway Center (Orlando Magic)
• Hockey:  Consol Energy Center (Pittsburgh Penguins)
• Baseball:  Target Field (Minnesota Twins)
• Soccer:  Red Bull Arena (Red Bull New York)
• Collegiate:  KFC Yum! Center (Louisville), Auburn Arena (Auburn), and The Big House (Michigan, renovations)

#4 – Announcement of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup locations - England and the United States might have been the popular favorites, but FIFA surprised many of us by selecting Russia and Qatar as the 2018 and 2022 World Cup host locations. After the success of this year’s Cup in South Africa (see top story #2), it seems like FIFA is pretty committed to using the impact of the World Cup to grow the game of soccer in other less-developed countries. There’s little doubt that England and the U.S. would generate a larger financial impact, but FIFA decided that some things were more important than money.

#3 – The College Football Conference Shuffle – Round and round they went, and when it was all over, we ended up with:

• The Pac-10 adding Colorado and Utah after having also pursued Texas and other Big 12 teams
• The Big Ten adding Nebraska as their 12th member
• The Big East adding TCU (all sports) and Villanova football
• The Big 12 losing Nebraska and Colorado, dropping them to just ten member schools
• The Mountain West adding Boise State, Nevada, Fresno State and Hawaii, but losing TCU

#2 – Global Events: The Winter Olympics and World Cup – OK, I might be cheating a bit by combining these into one story, but having two major international events like the World Cup and Winter Olympics definitely dominates the sports business landscape.  The Vancouver games had to overcome the death of a competing athlete, but still hosted a very successful winter games, capped by an incredible hockey finale between the U.S. and Canada. Then on the other half of the globe, the South Africa treated us all to another incredible World Cup. The expected problems with new venues and local crime never manifested, and of course, we’ll all remember the sound of those vuvuzelas for a long time.

#1 – LeBron’s “Decision” – Everyone knew that the 2010 NBA free agency period was going to be memorable, with so many top-tier players on the market at the same time and teams clearing cap space left and right. However, when it was all over, the one memory we’ll all have is LeBron James sitting on stage on television to announce his “decision” to “take his talents to South Beach.”

Creating his own one-hour TV special was widely criticized as a self-indulgent, brand-damaging move, even with the money he raised for the Boys and Girls Club of America. He’s already tried to repair some of the damage with some creative advertising with Nike, but it will take more than a commercial to fix things. In addition, we all need to wonder how much the power has shifted from the teams to the players when it comes to personnel decision. Will we see similar future decisions among star players to all sign with the same team? The impact of the “decision” could last for quite a while.

One of the great things about the sports industry is how much everyone embraces the community and supports so many wonderful, charitable organizations. I want to take a second to help promote one of them.

If you visit ESPN.com, you will see that it is Jimmy V Week. I’m sure most of you know the story of Jim Valvano, his fight against cancer and his emotional speech at the 1993 ESPYs – “Don’t give up…don’t ever give up.” When times are tough financially, charities tend to suffer, but every dollar can help.

If you have a chance, I’d encourage you to contribute by clicking here, even if its only a couple of dollars. It is a great organization with a great focus to support cancer research. If you need some motivation, take a few minutes and watch Jimmy’s speech. It is incredibly moving and inspirational. All of us have had friends or family touched by cancer, so let’s try to help do something about it together. Thanks.

I want to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving today.  Enjoy plenty of turkey, time with friends and family, and of course, some Thanksgiving football! Personally, I am thankful for my wife, my family, my friends and getting to work in an industry that I am so passionate about. As they say, when you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.  I hope all of you have plenty to be thankful for as well.

In particular, I’d like to send a special thank you to all the networking event organizers and guest blog contributors from 2010. Here are links to all of their incredible work from this past year.

Networking Event Organizers:

• Joshua Duboff – New York
• J.W. Cannon, Aldo Kafie and Jenny Schmitt – Atlanta
• Amanda Miller and Mark Tudi – Phoenix
• Walker Simmons – Dallas
• Haynes Hendrickson and Caleb Mezzy – Philadelphia

Guest Bloggers and Contributors (in attempted chronological order):

• Amanda Miller – Too many posts to count (click for all of them!)
• Amanda Rykoff – Game Changer: Sports and Social Media
• Darren Heitner and Drew Cloud – All-Star Saturday Live Chat
• Matt Weinberger – Get Into the Sports Industry
• Mike Mahoney – IEG Sponsorship Conference Recap and Panthers Purrsuit Social Media Adventure
• Jared Frank – Sustaining the Sports Facility Marketplace and The Sociology of Premium Seating and Venue Development
• Deandra Duggans – Who’s Presenting Your NBA Playoffs
• Jude Russo Caserta – A New Look at Title IX: Survey Says
• Jenny Schmitt – Video Matters: Coca-Cola, the World Cup and the Fan Experience
• Joshua Boren – FIFA World Cup 2010 – More Exciting: The Games or the Venues?
• Don Sandusky – Unintended Consequences of the Adidas World Cup Ball
• Tariq Ahmad – UFC: Where is the Money Going? and UFC: How Fighters Make Money
• Brian Gainor – An Ultimate Fan Experience and Airline Sponsorships Take Off with Creative Activation
• Jamie Acks – Winning’s Effect on Attendee Satisfaction
• Christopher Lamberth – MLS Uses Stadiums to Spur Growth
• Jon Kander – Performance-Based Sponsorship
• Kristi Dosh – Grading the Leagues: MLB

Thank you so much and I hope you all can continue to share great content with our readers in the future!

I always wish I had more time to write than I do, but I don’t want to leave you all without some new, interesting stuff to think about. So here are a few quick thoughts, links and news items to enjoy!

- The Dallas Cowboys briefly lost their website when they forgot to renew their domain name. This seems to happen to some professional team every couple of years, so now would be a great time for your organization to double check your renewals!

- The Dallas Stars are the first professional team to release their media guide in iPad format.  If you have an iPad, hop over to the App Store and take a look! I expect this type of media guide delivery to expand quickly, and I’m sure team yearbooks and gameday programs are right around the corner.

- Tom Brady signed a multi-year endorsement deal with Under Armour. Brady is probably the highest profile athlete that UA has signed. What’s particularly interesting here is that Brady is receiving some equity stake in the company over the next four years as part of the deal. I don’t believe any more details are available. Could this be a developing trend for athlete endorsements? You can easily argue that this shows a deeper commitment to the brand by the athlete, which could in turn be more convincing to consumers.

- I love how popular sports business has become as a topic. It’s so popular that PBS is launched a new weekly segment called “Beyond the $coreboard” as part of their Nightly Business Report (NBR) program. The first segment aired yesterday, and you can watch a clip below (skip to the 18:10 mark):

Watch the full episode. See more Nightly Business Report.

The following article was submitted by guest contributor Jamie Acks. Jamie, a student in the Ohio University MBA/MSA program, spent this past summer interning at Turnkey Sports and Entertainment. Her primary responsibility was executing the following study, which attempted to identify what, if any, relationship truly exists between game attendees’ at-event satisfaction and teams’ performance on the field.

Winning’s Effect on Attendee Satisfaction: A data-driven look inside the relationship between fan satisfaction and teams’ on-field performance

We’ve all heard the phrase “Hot dogs taste better when you win”, but to what extent does a team’s on-field performance truly affect fan satisfaction? This study was executed to delve into the relationship between winning and attendee satisfaction, and what we found may surprise you.

Key Findings:

- Winning has sizeable impact on satisfaction, but the relationship is less significant than was initially expected. Across all leagues, as winning percentage increased, a positive relationship emerged between both winning and season ticket holder experience satisfaction and winning and gameday experience satisfaction. Winning percentage accounted for 29% of the variation in season ticket holder experience satisfaction; however, it accounted for just 18% of the variance in overall gameday satisfaction among single game buyers and 4% of variation in overall gameday satisfaction among season ticket holders

- Overall, single game buyers from all leagues expect MLS were more satisfied with the gameday experience than season ticket holders.

- Gameday satisfaction was high across the board, coming in at an average of 3.92 on a 5-point likert scale (5 being “Extremely Satisfied”; 1 being “Extremely Dissatisfied”).

- A positive linear relationship between wins and satisfaction existed in the NFL and MLB.

- Fan satisfaction was seemingly unrelated to the number of games played.

- There existed a steady decline in satisfaction levels among all attendee groups beginning in 2006, implying that the economy may have had an impact on gameday satisfaction.

After completing this study, it was clear that a relationship between a team’s record and game attendee satisfaction does exist. However, other elements contribute significantly to attendee satisfaction as well, including the economy, ticket holder tenure, usage of tickets, team history, players, facility, weather, and more.

To view the full report associated with this study, please click here.

For more information, please contact Jamie Acks at jamieacks@gmail.com or via twitter (@jdacks), or email Emily Huddell at EmilyHuddell@turnkeyse.com.

I’m happy to announce that we’ve scheduled our next The Business Of Sports – New York Networking event! It is taking place on Wednesday, August 18 from 6:30 to 9:30PM at Slattery’s Midtown Pub (8 East 36th St). As always, the event is completely free to attend.  You can click here to complete the RSVP form.

Here is what some previous attendees had to say about our events:`

• From @Isatten – “Every event has high-caliber representation from across the sports industry. I always walkaway having made new, meaningful connections.”
• From @gosam – “Russell’s events provide the best opportunity for NYC sports industry professionals to step away from the computer & network face-to-face.”
• From @JCingari – “The events are a great way to connect with people from all sides of the sports business industry. The best part: the ‘no resumes’ rule.”
• From @CMarzi84 – “SportsBiz NYC events – definitely worth checking out, fun event full of sports pros from great organizations.”
• From @SponsorPitch – “Great way to network with other sports biz pros in a relaxed atmosphere. I always come away with at least one new connection.”
• From @peteraiello – “An NYC Sportsbiz Networking Event is THE place to go to make real sports industry contacts.”

Please pass this along to any friends and colleagues who would also be interested in attending. Each event has been bigger and more successful than the last, and we want to keep it going!

In addition, we are always looking for opportunities to launch networking events in new areas. Below you will find a list of spots that we’re either working on, or hope to get to soon. If you see a city near you and you can assist with local event logistics, please leave a comment:

• Phoenix – Working on the details for our 2nd event
• Atlanta – Hope to have a 4th event announced soon
• Philadelphia – Had one there before, but need some local help
• Boston – Also had one there before, but need some local help
• Charlotte – Wishlist city, looking for volunteers
• Los Angeles -  Wishlist city, looking for volunteers
• San Francisco/Northern CA – Wishlist city, looking for volunteers
• Miami – Wishlist city, looking for volunteers
• Chicago – Wishlist city, looking for volunteers (also check out the Painless Networking group here)
• Baltimore/DC – Wishlist city, looking for volunteers

Thanks for your support and I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in New York on the 18th!

(Special thanks to Joshua Duboff from The Sports Business Exchange. These events wouldn’t happen without all of his hard work.)

Last week, LeBron James filled us in on “The Decision.” Well today, I’m filling you in on “My Decision.” Before I reveal “My Decision” let me tell you about the remarkable parallels in our stories:

• Young boy/girl growing up in a challenging, snowy climate (LBJ: Akron, Ohio, Me: Rochester, NY)
• Athletic talent obvious from an early age (LBJ: averaged 21ppg/6rpg in his freshman year of high school basketball. Me: was told by my coach as a junior ‘You can be on the varsity volleyball team, but you’ll never play.’ Decided to stick it out. Never played. [Note: please excuse the horrible eyebrows and braces in the picture at right])
• Made a ton of money soon after graduating from high school (LBJ: millions in the NBA. Me: waitress at Cracker Barrel during the ’96 Summer Olympics = an average tip of $1 per person PER TABLE!)
• Finding themselves at a crossroads in the summer of 2010 (LBJ: which team do I sign for? Me: which industry do I work in?)

Which brings us to “My Decision.” Well, we’ve got a few minutes here, so let me hold off on that and revisit LeBron’s decision. Did he handle the revealing of that decision well? In a word, no. LeBron was one of the few athletes who had escaped (until now) the stereotype of being snobby, pretentious, and an overcoddled baby. He had a great smile, and people looked at him as a friendly teddy bear, albeit one with a paycheck that had three more zeros than the average Joe.

But in one fell swoop, LeBron showed us he is just like 99% of other athletes… it’s all about him. It wasn’t enough to issue a press release and say ‘I’m going to play for the Miami Heat.’ It wasn’t enough even to have a press conference that would have been held live across the country to announce his new team. No, LeBron had to have a one-hour long special dedicated to he, himself and his majesty. It took him approximately five seconds to utter the words “This fall…I’m going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat” so it seems the other 59 minutes and 55 seconds were just a glorified ego boost.

It will take awhile to assess the damage he has done to his reputation and brand. He dragged his former team and home town through unspeakable torture, making his announcement in Ohio even though he was heading to Florida. Last night at the ESPYs, the crowd boo’ed every time his name was mentioned. His best bet to clean up his tarnished image? Win a championship for the Heat. Better yet, win two or three. With LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh essentially playing 3-on-5, it may be more difficult than it seems.

So finally, we’ve come to “My Decision.” My crossroads was not a choice between taking $20.83 million to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. $19 million to play for someone else. It was a choice between almost ‘starting over’ again in the sports industry or advancing my career in another industry. You can quote me here… “This summer… I have chosen to take my talents to Tempe, Arizona, and join the staff of Arizona State University.” Ok, maybe not as dramatic, but it’s big news in my world!

I am leaving the sports industry for several reasons. To get to where I want to be, I need more traditional marketing experience, I need more managerial experience, and I want to feel respected and appreciated. ASU is giving me the opportunity to do all three of those things. Don’t worry TheBusinessOfSports.com fans, I’ll be back from time-to-time, but for for the foreseeable future, that will be as a ‘guest poster.’ I’ve appreciated all your encouragement over the last 1+ years. I’ll leave you with a quote, and wish you many happy ‘accidents.’

All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen.  ~Sidney Lumet

Editor’s note: I want to take a moment to thank Amanda for all of her valuable contributions to this website over the past few months. Her knowledge, opinions and expertise have been a tremendous asset for all of the readers, including myself. I wish her nothing but the best in her career, both in and out of sports. Thanks again!  ~RS

If you feel a little extra gloomy or tired today, there’s a good reason for it. Today is historically the most boring days of the sports year (in the U.S. at least). It’s the last day of the all-star break, so no baseball games. Hockey, basketball and football are out of season. Normally there aren’t even any soccer games, although there is one lone MLS game tonight. There’s technically a tennis tournament going on, but most top players take this month off.

Recognizing that there’s nothing on the schedule today, this means there is an opportunity for some sports-entity to step forward and get attention that they might not be able to get on another day of the year. There are so many sports-crazed consumers in this country, that it almost doesn’t matter what sport is involved. With no other options available, there will be interest.

Here are a couple of off-the-cuff ideas:

• A non-PPV UFC or other MMA event with a couple of top-tier fighters involved
• A made-for-TV, one-day action sports competition
• A soccer “friendly” featuring the U.S. national team (tough in World Cup years)
• The debut of this year’s 2010 World Series of Poker TV coverage (currently finishing up in Las Vegas)
• A one-hour special featuring a top free agent’s contract decision (relax, I’m kidding!)

The point is, there is this wide-open day on the calendar for some entity to get a lot of unhindered attention. Who’s going to step up and fill our empty sports day? If you have an idea, leave a comment below!

Thanks to Sean O’Hara for reminding me of this opportunity in his LinkedIn update from this morning (“ Special day in sports today as it comes and goes so quickly each year. Surprised no brand/sport has tried to capitalize on it.”)

According to Wikipedia, ‘Ambush marketing’ is defined as ‘a marketing campaign that takes place around an event but does not involve payment of a sponsorship fee to this event.’ In South Africa, ambush marketing is a crime. Or more specifically one can violate the ‘Contravention of Merchandise Marks Act.’

On Monday, Denmark and the Netherlands squared off in the World Cup, with the Dutch taking a 2-0 win. Prior to the game, a group of 30+ women entered the game with red and white outfits… skirts, sweaters and scarves. Not long after getting to their seats, they started disrobing, until all 30+ ended up with the same orange dress on, bearing the name of a Dutch brewery – Bavaria. All the women were rounded up and questioned, with two being charged and arrested.

Budweiser is the official FIFA sponsor, but in protecting its marks, did they just draw MORE attention to this marketing stunt? My initial thought was that this was an independent group of women that just wanted to show their bodies team loyalty, but when I saw the video of what they wore into the game, I started to become suspicious that they knew they might not have gotten if they were just wearing the orange dresses. Bavaria is said to be helping the women, insisting that these were promotional items that many other women wore that day.

Ambush marketing is a continuing concern for many large sports events. We heard much about the USOCs many rules for athletes and their non-Olympic sponsors. FIFA is no different. They alledgedly sent out hundreds of letters to Federations, governmental organizations and companies warning them about infringing on the rights of official sponsors of the World Cup. Whether or not Bavaria knowingly infringed on those rights, the fact remains that had FIFA not rounded up all the women, and had South African authorities not pressed charges, this would be a non-story.

Which brings me to my question. What is the best way for organizations to handle ambush marketing? Filing lawsuits and in this case removing ticket-holding fans from the game seems to be counter-productive. The offending brand has gotten more publicity than they would have gotten from 30+ orange-dress wearing fans. My guess is that less than 1,000 people would have seen the group, seen the logo on the dresses, AND remembered what the brand was. Now it is an international story.

My suggestion would be to gather information and evidence, but wait to file any lawsuits until well after the tournament is over. Right now, there is an enormous amount of media attention focused on South Africa. Little will go unnoticed there, so why not wait until after the Final, when journalists have returned to their home countries, the thousands of tourists have dispersed, and it’s possible that getting restitution would not become an international story.

What do you think? Did FIFA/South Africa handle this situation well? Was there anything they should have done differently? How should sporting events handle these issues in the future so as not to bring even more attention to suspected brands?

A few weeks ago, we gave away an advance copy of “Delivering Happiness,” a book by the CEO of Zappos.com, Tony Hsieh (Congratulations Alan Cassinelli!). Today, the book officially goes on sale. If you’re anything like me, you appreciate finding out a little about a book before you buy it. Will it be worth your time to read? Will you be inspired by reading it? I hope these next few paragraphs answer those questions for you. (Note: all quotes are directly from the book unless otherwise noted)

DH is a book of stories. As it says on the back of the book jacket: “Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more.” This book will be useful to a person working in any industry and at any level of an organization. It will especially speak to entrepreneurs and those who already seek to positively benefit others through their choice of profession. It is a quick read (one afternoon by the pool, on the treadmill or in an airplane and you’ll have it finished) and packed full of snippets you’ll want to highlight and return to.

By all accounts, Hsieh has been a successful business man. He sold his first company for over $256 million to Yahoo! and his second (Zappos) for over $1 billion to Amazon. But the benefit of his wisdom is not in how to create traditional value in company by going public or raising capital. The entirety of DH is in how to be successful while also working towards a higher purpose than just making more money. At one point, Hsieh realizes “… experiences were much more important to me than material things.” (pg. 76) What a great point to remember when dealing with our customers, vendors and clients, especially in the sports industry where there can be so much passion among all of those audiences. While you may end up with the sales numbers or contract terms that you wanted, what usually sticks with you over the months and years is the overall experience you had dealing with the other party.

Another very interesting part of the book is how Hsieh uses lessons learned in poker and applies them to the business world. Everything from selecting the right table (industry) to bluffing to thinking long-term. Those are just a few, and the list of parallels is surprisingly long and relevant.

The overall gist, as the title suggests, is how delivering happiness to those around you, not just customers, but employees and vendors as well, is a recipe for success. An organization can actually increase their level of success using ‘delivering happiness’ as a strategy. Obviously, this isn’t a change that can happen overnight in most organizations, and for Zappos, the movement was very organic, but there are plenty of useful suggestions and interesting examples to ensure the time spent reading the book will be worthwhile. My guess is you’ll read it more than once, and keep it within arms reach going forward.

What do you think? Is ‘delivering happiness’ a strategy that can work in sports? In my last post, several readers shared their own sports-related examples that demonstrate this idea quite well. Have you read the book? If so, what part had the biggest impact on you?

In light of the “Non-Perfect Game” controversy from last night’s Detroit Tigers game (game recap here), I went back to the vault for this post on technology and instant replay that I wrote last November. I felt strongly about increasing the use of replay then, and it will be interesting to see if the fans’ reaction to last night’s events leads to any new action by MLB. I know that fans will continue to disagree about whether replay is “good for the game”, but how do you think those 17,000+ fans feel about being denied their chance to witness history? How does this impact their decision to attend future games? What about the fans that watched on television? Is their fan experience “good for the game?”

Putting aside the fan elements, my post below primarily focuses on how the business of sports really needs to be the influencing factor in how leagues increase their use of replay and technology in general.

—————

Normally, I don’t like talking about events that take place on the field, but today I’m going to make an exception. On Wednesday night, a World Cup qualifying soccer match was decided by one person who made a mistake that was easily identifiable by a simple video replay. However, because the sport was dependent on an archaic system of in-game governance that was developed decades if not centuries ago, the result of the game and any number of future events has been permanently altered.

This same situation has happened in multiple major sporting events over the past few months, including several prominent errors in the MLB playoffs, but for the most part, the governing bodies for these organizations prefer to stand by and depend on their “traditional” means for making all in-game decisions. This system may have made sense was professional sports was more of a casual pastime, but now it is a multi-billion dollar global industry, and each one of these incorrect decisions can have serious repercussions. A team that misses the next round of playoffs because of a bad call loses out on millions in ticket revenue. A player that is invalidly judged by an official’s decision can lose the chance at significant endorsement money. An entire league can suffer (or benefit) because of an officiating decision that impacts what teams are playing and the television ratings that come with those teams.

Meanwhile, sports organizations have embraced technology in almost every other form, from evaluating the players statistically to refining their business processes. Clearly everyone recognizes the importance of technology as sports have evolved, but yet for some reason, they refuse to let the technology onto the field in the form of instant replay. Would any other industry operate in this manner? Can you imagine if Walmart decided that they needed to use a more “traditional” way to run their checkout lines and made the staff type in each number, because “that’s how they’ve always done it.” The errors that would occur would ultimately have a significant impact on their business, ruining their other technological advantages that they’ve developed in their inventory management processes.

I understand that trying to add instant replay into sports is a complicated process with many potential pitfalls. This is why I give a lot of credit to the NFL for their work in this area. They acknowledged the problem, created a replay system, and constantly work to refine it based on the needs of the sport. I would hope that more sports, like soccer and baseball for example, eventually decide to follow the NFL’s lead and develop their own comparable systems. Putting aside the game for a moment, there is simply too much money riding on what happens on the field for everyone to overlook these issues.

I wanted to take a moment today to congratulate Brian Berger and the folks over at Sports Business Radio, who just broadcast their 500th episode this weekend.

Earlier this month, Sports Business Radio was selected for the Best Alternative Content award on this site for their excellent podcasts that provide and in-depth look at the business side of the industry. They have been hosting their show since April of 2004, well before this blog (and several other recent sports business sites) began their efforts to cover the industry. I’m happy to see the success that they’ve had, and only hope that six years from now, I’m still going as strong as they are…by that time, I’ll be congratulating them for the 1000th episode!

Again, congratulations!

After much tough deliberation and discussions with other trusted peers, I’m excited to announce the winners for the inaugural The Business of Sports Awards.

Best Sports Business Blog

• Winner: SportsBiz with Darren Rovell – I think it goes without saying that Darren’s in-depth coverage and insight into the sports industry is an invaluable resource for all of us. A steady stream of information with a great balance of news, opinions and strategy across a wide range of sports business topics.
• Runner-up: Partnership Activation – Tremendous work by Brian Gainor in consistently seeking out and sharing the best practices in sports sponsorship, activation and marketing tactics. His site is a must-read for any sports marketer.

Best Sports Business Twitter Account

• Winner: Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert) – Kathleen consistently shares great ideas and valuable perspective with her use of Twitter, with a special focus on the social media side of the business. Her coverage of multiple conferences throughout the year allows us all to learn from those events as if we were there with her.
• Runner-up: Maury Brown (@bizballmaury) – Maury was one of the first to start sharing sports business content via social channels, specifically his blog network, and his Twitter account is a great extension of that, blending his personality with valuable sports business content, especially on the baseball side of the industry.

Best Sports Business Content – Company

• Winner: Sports Business Journal – Sports business is their business, and they do a great job of it. I love that they’ve expanded a lot into the social media space over the past year as a way to complement their pay product (the magazine and daily). Hopefully they will extend to more free content in the future.
• Runner-up: IEG – Their sponsorship blog always provides great perspective and in-depth expertise on that aspect of the industry, and their Twitter line-up is constantly contributing to and interacting with the online community.

Best Sports Business Up and Comer

• Winner: Peter V. Amador – I only discovered Peter’s work recently, but it’s clear he’s headed for great things. As a current sport management grad student, his blog is already providing tremendous perspective and insight. Definitely someone to keep an eye on!
• Runner-up: Ash Read – Also featured as a Rising Star by Partnership Activation, Ash regularly contributes great content on social media and fan interaction on multiple sites. Already a co-founder of a grassroots sports marketing company, Ash has a great road ahead of him.

Best Alternative Sports Business Content

• Winner: Sports Business Radio – Their weekly radio show and podcast consistently provides entertaining and educational content about a wide range of sports business topics. In particular, they bring in a steady stream of top-level executives as guests, giving us the opportunity to hear from people that know the industry the best.
• Runner-up: The Row Show – They’ve only been around for a year, but their content is outstanding, in both the content and production value. They are on top of the latest trends in how technology can be used for sales and marketing in the sports world, and they provide a great balance of discussing current events and sharing best practices and useful tips.

People’s Choice – Sports Business Social Media Contributor of the Year

• Winner: Lewis Howes – The people have spoken (433 total voters) and with 43% of the vote (185 votes), Lewis Howes is the winner of the People’s Choice – Sports Business Social Media Contributor of the Year. I can’t say I’m surprised – Lewis does a great job across several social media channels, particularly through his Sports Networker blog, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Runner-up: Brian Gainor – Also runner-up for Best Sports Business Blog, Brian consistently uses multiple social media channels (blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more) to share his industry knowledge with all of us. Brian came in 2nd with 28% of the vote (120 votes).

Thank you to everyone who sent in nominations and voted in the People’s Choice poll. This process was a lot tougher than I imagined it would be with so many great sports business contributors out there. And of course, congratulations to all of our winners. I will figure out some type of prize/certificate/something to send to all of you that you can keep and cherish forever!

Today’s blog post will be a little different than most. For one, it includes a giveaway! As a blogger, I was privileged to receive an advanced copy of Tony Hsieh’s ‘Delivering Happiness‘ which won’t officially be released until June 7. To my surprise, when I got the package, it also included an extra book for me to give away. While I was reading it (in two days flat), I ran across many nuggets that would be relevant to sports franchises, brands and sponsors.

Tony is the CEO of Zappos.com, a company well-known for its ability to surprise and delight their customers. While I won’t give my full book report now (that will come the first week in June), I wanted to give all of TBOS’ faithful readers a chance to win the book. So, between now and Tuesday, May 4, post a comment to this blog entry and let us know how you currently deliver happiness to your fans/customers/readers/friends, or how you think you could do so in the future. We’ll pick the best entry and mail the book out to you!

The book has two main focuses: how to treat your employees, and how to treat your customers. I worked for a company once that openly stated they expected new employees to work there for two years, grow a little bit, then leave, because they wouldn’t be paid what they were worth. Now, that company is still in business, but I don’t know a single person who works there that isn’t miserable and counting down the days to their next job. You’d have to imagine that that attitude is in some way passed on to their customers. Zappos, on the other hand, fosters a culture that celebrates each person for who they are, and openly creates a pipeline of talent so that if someone does leave, they know that they have another skilled individual waiting in the wings. If you worked for Zappos, how amazing would it be to know that they not only wanted you to learn and grow, they expected it of you, AND they made resources available to you to get it done?!

On the other hand, Zappos actively tries to surprise their customers with exceptional service. This is relevant to sports teams and their fans in so many ways. It can take just one minute for a player to record a video and for it to be uploaded to Twitter or the team’s site. A sincere thank you email takes even less time to compose and send. This book will inspire you in so many ways, regardless of whether your customers are fans, vendors or teams.

Now, one word of warning, when you get done reading this book, you may very well want to quit your job, move to Las Vegas, and start working for Tony Hsieh. Neither myself nor TheBusinessOfSports.com can be held responsible for that phenomenon. Make sure you include your email address in your comments below so that we can contact the winner.

I wanted to remind everyone that the next The Business Of Sports – New York Networking event is just one week away, on Wednesday, May 5 from 6:30 to 9:30PM at Slattery’s Midtown Pub (8 East 36th St). As always, the event is completely free to attend. Our last event had over 150 attendees, and I’d love to see even more of you this time.

I’m excited to announce the nominees for the 2010 The Business of Sports Awards! Every spring, we will take a look back to reward the best content and contributors from the sports business community over the past year. Unlike other sports business awards that recognize the people working within specific organizations, the goal for these awards is to recognize those individuals, companies and websites that create and share the best sports business content and provide the most benefit for the rest of the sports industry.

With that said, the nominees are…

Best Sports Business Blog

• Partnership Activation
• Power Sponsorship Blog
• SportsBiz with Darren Rovell
• Sports Agent Blog
• Sports Marketing and PR Roundup
• Sports Networker

Best Sports Business Twitter Account

• Gail Sideman (@PUBLISIDE)
• Jason Peck (@jasonpeck)
• J.W. Cannon (@khuda1)
• Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert)
• Maury Brown (@bizballmaury)
• Mike Mahoney (@mmahoney13)
• Sponsor Park (@SponsorPark)
• Sports in 140 (@Sportsin140)

Best Sports Business Content – Company

• Dynasty Athlete Representation (SportsAgentBlog.com and Twitter with Darren Heitner and Jason Belzer)
• IEG (Sponsorship.com Blog and multiple Twitter contributors)
• SponsorPitch (Blog, LinkedIn group and Twitter account)
• Sponsorship Insights Group (Blog, LinkedIn Group, and newsletter)
• Sports Business Journal (Multiple Twitter accounts, both @SBJSBD and individual contributors, and LinkedIn group)

Best Sports Business Up and Comer (Note: I adjusted the time constraints on this category a bit. In future years, this will be the Best Newcomer, someone who only started contributing since the last year’s awards)

• Ash Read
• Christopher Lee
• Jon Kander
• Josh Feinberg
• Joshua Duboff
• Peter V. Amador
• Amanda Miller (nominated, but ineligible to win because of her work on this blog – sorry Amanda!)

Best Alternative Sports Business Content

• Sports Business Radio (Podcast)
• The Row Show (Weekly web video broadcast)
• Sports Marketing 2.0 (Social network)
• The Sports Business Exchange (Quarterly online journal)
• Power Sponsorship / Kim Skildum-Reid (Webinars, white papers, and tutorials)
• Be Your Own Fan TV / Goldklang Group (Bi-weekly web video)

People’s Choice – Sports Business Social Media Contributor of the Year

• Amy Martin
• Brian Gainor
• Dan Beeman
• Darren Rovell
• Kathleen Hessert
• Lewis Howes

The voting for the People’s Choice award (on the top right of the page) will run through the end of April. All of the winners will be announced at the beginning on May.

Update: I’ve had a few questions about how people can vote on these awards. For this year, the only award that you can vote on is the People’s Choice award. However, I encourage you all to leave comments about who you think should win in the other categories. These comments will be considered when deciding on the winners. Thanks!

Our next SportsBiz Live Chat is scheduled for today, Friday, April 16 at 1:00pm EDT (10:00am PDT). Jump into the live chat below!

View our archive of previous live chats below:

• Friday, February 26, 2010 – #SportsBiz Friday Chat
  
• Saturday, February 13, 2010 – NBA All-Star Saturday SportsBiz Chat
• Wednesday, February 10, 2010 – Snow Day #SportsBiz Chat

I have a few quick announcements to share with our readers.

- Our next New York sports business networking event is scheduled for Wednesday, May 5 from 6:30 to 9:30 PM. As always, the event is free to attend. Our only rule is no resumes – bring plenty of business cards and good conversation. We had over 150 attendees at our last event, so you don’t want to miss it if you’re in the area. You can click here for all of the event details and to complete the RSVP form. Please share this with any friends or colleagues that would be interested in attending. We are still working on the final details for a Phoenix networking event and I’ll announce that here once it is all settled.

- We will bring back our SportsBiz Live Chat this Friday at 1PM EST (10AM PST). The chat will be right on the front page of the blog, so you can’t miss it! Thank you to Amanda Miller for her help in organizing and moderating this Friday’s chat.

- Nominations for the Inaugural “The Business of Sports” awards end on Thursday and the finalists will be announced on Friday. You can click here for the full list of categories and a link to the nomination form.

- I am still hoping to launch a weekly (or bi-weekly) email newsletter in the near future. Click here to make sure you’re on the list!

- Finally, I am in need of 1-2 virtual interns to help with some of the various marketing and social media initiatives that help keep the site going and growing. If you know someone that’s interested, please tell them to visit www.thebusinessofsports.com/extras/internships/ for all of the details.

Thank you for your continued support of the blog.

I’m excited to announce the inaugural The Business of Sports Awards! Every spring, we will take a look back to reward the best content and contributors from the sports business community over the past year. Unlike other sports business awards that recognize the  people working within specific organizations, the goal for these awards is to recognize those individuals, companies and websites that create and share the best sports business content and provide the most benefit for the rest of the sports industry.

For the first year’s awards, we have six main categories:

• Best Sports Business Blog – The overall best sports business blog
• Best Individual Sports Business Twitter Account - The best individual use of Twitter to help the sports business community
• Best Sports Business Content by a Company – The company that best uses social media platforms across their organization to create and share sports business content
• Best Alternative Sports Business Content - The best sports business content distributed via an alternative, non-blog format
• Best Up-and-Coming Sports Business Contributor – The best new contributor of sports business content (must have just started within the past 12 months)

The winners in these five categories will be selected by The Business of Sports with advice and feedback from other trusted members of the sports business community. The final award will be voted on by The Business of Sports readers…

• People’s Choice – Sports Business Contributor of the Year – Recognizing the individual that has made the greatest contribution to the sports business community through any and all communication channels (web, email, social media, etc).

Now, I need your help with the nominations process! I already have several ideas in mind for each of these categories, but your suggestions will help make sure that I do not accidentally overlook any of the many valuable sports business contributors out there.

Please click here now to send in your nominations for each of the six categories!

My goal is to announce the finalists (up to 5 per category) by the end of next week. Thank you for your help!

UPDATE: While I appreciate the sentiment from some of the recent nominations received, in order to keep things open and fair, neither myself nor thebusinessofsports.com is eligible for the awards. Thank you.

(NOTE: This was written prior to the airing of Monday evening’s “Dancing With the Stars” and therefore contains NO spoilers)

We all know Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco can make some serious moves on the football field. Tonight we’ll find out what he can do on the dance floor when he and partner Cheryl Burke perform the Cha Cha and Viennese Waltz on ‘Dancing With the Stars.’

He’s not the first athlete to trade in cleats for dancing shoes… five of the last seven DWTS winners are recognizable for their athletic achievements, and three more have been runners-up. Winners include the first athlete to take the crown, Emmitt Smith (NFL, season 3), followed in quick succession by Apolo Anton Ohno (Speedskating, season 4), Helio Castroneves (IndyCar, season 5), Kristi Yamaguchi (Figure skating, season 6), and Shawn Johnson (Gymnastics, season 8).

Does that mean Ochocinco has a leg up on the other 10 competitors? If his post-touchdown celebrations are any indication, he can definitely learn new steps on a week-to-week basis. He can improvise when needed, and has a sense of humor. Evan Lysacek, the gold-medal winning Olympic figure skater, may be Ochocinco’s toughest competition. He’s certainly got the dance background and the sense of balance. Let’s see how he does when he has to share the spotlight.

Back to Ochocinco: what remains to be seen is whether he’ll be able to keep his cool when he receives criticism from the judges and what this experience will mean to his personal brand. Ochocinco has over 800,000 twitter followers, and seems to be one of the most  transparent athletes out there when it comes to his use of social media (see also: Shaq, The Real).

So for a man that has spent so much time tweeting, live-streaming and updating his website (the OchoCinco News Network, or OCNN), tonight’s episode will give him a far larger audience than he ever sees on Sundays. His actions and reactions can go a long way towards earning him new fans. I doubt he could turn fans off unless he does something really over the top. Those that follow him regularly know that he pulls no punches (for example: telling Tiger Woods jokes) and is unashamedly honest about who he is.

The draw for someone who is a public figure, as athletes are, is the opportunity to both build their brand and stay ‘relevant’ in the public eye. This is a great complement to what Ochocinco is already doing with his online endeavors. He has been successful at gaining a large Twitter following and through DWTS will have the opportunity to garner new fans who may not have already found him online. Since he has merchandise available on his web site, his participation may end up making him money from the sale of such t-shirts as the ‘Girl/Boy You Trippin’ line. I wouldn’t be surprised if he found a way to slip in a little self-promotion at some point. This season, we’ll find out if dancing is one of his hidden talents.

Other reality shows that have featured athletes:
‘Shaq vs.’ – Enough said
‘Pros vs. Joes’ – Michael Irvin, Bo Jackson, Jose Canseco, Kordell Stewart, etc. show those every day wannabe pro athletes what its really like out there on the field.
‘The Surreal Life 5′ – Jose Canseco came out as one of the most level-headed people in the house on this particular season
‘Age of Love’ – Mark Philippoussis (tennis) attempts to find love, ‘The Bachelor’-style

For those that were unable to attend the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (and that includes me!), here is a video of the keynote address, featuring:

• Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Blind Side
• Mark Cuban, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks
• Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy on ESPN
• Daryl Morey, General Manager of the Houston Rockets
• Bill Polian, President of the Indianapolis Colts president
• Jonathan Kraft, President of the New England Patriots

Enjoy the video!

Last Thursday, I has the chance to be a live guest on episode 20 of The Row Show.  We discussed several current sports business news topics, including:

• Verizon’s live “Red Zone” streaming deal with the NFL
• The announcement of the inaugural Pinstripe Bowl
• Snuggie Night with the Cleveland Cavaliers
• Collective bargaining in MLS
• New York Knicks advanced ticket sales
• Several current social media campaigns and tactics (Facebook, Nike, Cricket, Twackle)

Check out the video below or over at www.rowshow.com.

Just wanted to post a quick thank you to everyone that helped with this week’s networking events!

• Atlanta: Thanks to our organizers J.W. Cannon (ING), Aldo Kafie (Octagon) and Jenny Schmitt (CloudSpark). Also, thank you to Becky Rentz who took some great pictures during the event. Click here to view them.
• Dallas: Thanks to our organizer Walker Simmons (Learfield Sports).

From the feedback I’ve heard, both events were quite successful. For our 2nd time in Atlanta, we had around 75 attendees and for our first get together in Dallas we had almost 50. Thank you to everyone who attended, and if you enjoyed the events, make sure to pass the word around to others!

I wanted to remind everyone that there are two sports business networking events scheduled for this week.

Our 2nd Atlanta event is tomorrow, Wednesday, March 10 from 5:30 to 8:00 PM at Meehan’s Public House in Sandy Springs. Click here for full details and to RSVP. We already have over 75 responses, so this should be a great follow-up to our first Atlanta event from late last year. Special thanks to J.W. Cannon, Aldo Kafie and Jenny Schmitt for all of their help in making this happen!

Our first ever Dallas/Fort Worth event is this Thursday, March 11 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at The Londoner Pub in Addison. We will have a private room upstairs and this should be a convenient location for people working around the DFW area. Click here for full details and to RSVP. We’re up to 50 responses now, so this should be a great start to building a series of regular networking events in this area.  Special thanks to Walker Simmons for his help in getting this going!

Please pass these links along to any friends or colleagues that would also be interested in attending. The more people we can bring together, the better networking opportunities we can create for everyone.

Remember to keep an eye on the Event Calendar page for future networking events.

It’s been a while since I published the results of the various polls that I run on this site, so now seems like a good time to do that.

This poll ran back in October, when there was some controversy surrounding the size and location of the enormous screen in Cowboys Stadium. It’s funny to see such a distinct and even split between those who love it and those who clearly do not.

This poll ran for the first couple of weeks after the Tiger Woods controversy became public. It’s funny to see how many people thought that the sponsors would stick by him, but as the trouble kept on piling up, it became too much for most of them. That’s when those votes really started shifting to the 50%+ option!

It seems like there are some differing opinions on what the top sports business story of 2010. The World Cup got about 1/4 of the votes, more than the other major global event of the year, the Winter Olympics. Many people recognize how big the collective bargaining issues are going to be to the sports landscape this year. And of course, there’s still Tiger.

If you have an idea for a new poll, please use the Contact Us link at the top of the page to send me your suggestion!

Here is a reply of this week’s sports business chat. We talked about Tiger’s press conference, the Winter Olympics and advice for job seekers. In total, we had over 30 people participate in the chat, so our tentative plan is to host a new chat every friday afternoon. Keep an eye on the Live Chat page for all upcoming chats!

In case you’ve been mesmerized by NBC’s coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics, I felt it was my duty to let you know what has been going on in other sports news since February 13.

February 13 - Danica Patrick finishes 35th in her Nationwide debut at Daytona International Speedway, and Jamie McMurray gets the Daytona 500 win the next day.

February 14 - The NBA’s All-Star game sets an attendance record for basketball when over 108,000 pack Cowboys Stadium to see the Eastern Conference squad defeat the Western Conference squad 141-139.

February 19 - Tiger Woods makes his first public appearance since his now-famous car accident in November (see Russell’s previous post for the public reaction). He returns to rehab soon after to complete his treatment.

February 20 - UFC 111 heads to Australia after selling out their venue in four hours

February 22 - Papa John’s signs on as presenting sponsor of the NBA D-League on Versus
- ESPN suspends Tony Kornheiser over comments made about Hannah Storm
- Coca-Cola extends their agreement with UEFA, meaning they will be a global partner for the next two UEFA championships.

February 24 - MLS’ Philadelphia Union announce that a naming rights deal has been signed for their new soccer-specific stadium with PPL Corp.
- Mike & Mike in the Morning celebrate their 10th anniversary by broadcasting from Disney World.

All week - With some stops and starts due to weather, Major League Soccer and the players’ union continue discussions about a new labor deal. The deadline was pushed back from January 31 to February 25.

Needless to say though, the Olympics have dominated the headline for the last 12 days. Lindsay Vonn’s bruised shin, a surprise U.S. hockey win over Canada, the untimely and tragic death of a luger, curling’s fashion faux pas, Bode Miller’s redemption and the lack of winter weather in Vancouver are just a few of the storylines. So, what has caught your attention over the last couple weeks? Do the Olympics crowd out everything else going on? If not, what sports story do you think was missed in all the international, patriotic hoopla?

Have you been keeping an eye on The Business of Sports Event Calendar? If not, you should be. I’m going to start opening up the event calendar to include events beyond just our own networking event (of course, we happen to have two of those scheduled as well). Currently, we have four great events listed over the next four weeks:

• Feb 24, 2010 – 2010 Phoenix Suns Sales & Service Symposium (Phoenix, AZ)
• Mar 1, 2010 – Philadelphia 76ers Career Fair (Philadelphia, PA)
• Mar 10, 2010 – The Business of Sports – Atlanta Networking Event (Sandy Springs, GA)
• Mar 11, 2010 – The Business of Sports – Dallas Networking Event (Addison, TX)

The first two events listed are great opportunities for those looking to break into the sports industry. At the Phoenix Suns Sales & Service Symposium, attendees will have the chance to learn from Suns leadership and build their sales/service skill sets. They will also be interviewing for sales positions at the event. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia 76ers have put together a great lineup of local sports organizations that will be accepting resumes and interviewing candidates at their career fair.

The second two events are the next installments of The Business of Sports regional networking events. We just scheduled our 2nd Atlanta event for Wednesday, March 10 at 5:30PM, and our first Dallas event will take place the next day on Thursday, March 11 at 6:30PM. We’ve gotten anywhere from 50 to 150 attendees at our different locations, so these networking nights provide a great way to connect with other industry professionals in your region. You can click on the links above for full details and to RSVP.

Keep checking the Event Calendar page to see if there are any sports business events coming up in your area, and if you have an event you’d like to see added to the event calendar, please let me know through the Contact Us page.

Update: Last minute addition to the event calendar. This Saturday, February 27 – New York Knicks Tweetup and Social Media Panel. Click the link for full details.

On Saturday night, I hosted a live sports business chat during NBA All-Star Saturday with two special guests joining us to take your questions. Darren Heitner, CEO of Dynasty Athlete Representation was with us for the first hour and Drew Cloud, Vice President of Sales and Service for the New York Knicks took questions during the 2nd hour. You can see a full replay of the chat below.

Our sports business networking events are so popular that we’re expanding again to a new location. I am excited to announce that we’ve scheduled our first Dallas networking event. It will take place on Thursday, March 11 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at the Londoner Pub in Addison. We will have a private room upstairs and this should be a convenient location for people working around the Dallas metro area.

If you are interested in attending, please click here to RSVP! Pass this link along to any friends or colleagues that would also be interested in attending. The more people we can bring together, the better networking opportunities we can create for everyone.

Special thanks to Walker Simmons for his help in making this event happen!

Remember to keep an eye on the Event Calendar page for future networking events. I’m hoping to have dates set soon for Phoenix, Atlanta and New York!

In the midst of yesterday’s snowstorm, I tried out a new feature for the site – a live, moderate sports business chat through a product called CoverItLive. Even though I only announced the chat about 30 minutes in advance, it lasted for almost 90 minutes and we had some very lively conversation about several topics, from Super Bowl advertisements to the Winter Olympics. Thank you to everyone who participated!

You can view a reply of the discussion below. In general, all future live chats will be run through our new Live Chat page, and we will also include links to all archived chats. I don’t have an official date/time for the next chat yet, but my goal is to run one in conjunction with some of this weekend’s NBA All-Star game coverage, so keep an eye out here and on Twitter for the details.

There has been some buzz this week surrounding BusinessWeek’s release of their sports Power 100 list. In this case, power is referring primarily to earning power, for the athletes and those that work with them. It is a little controversial to still see Tiger Woods on the top of the list, but when you consider how much revenue he generated before any of his personal issues came to light, it does make sense.

The rest of the top five were LeBron James, Phil Mickelson, Albert Pujols and Peyton Manning. LeBron at #2 makes a lot of sense, but I thought that Manning (the NFL’s most marketable player) would be a shoe-in for #3. Instead, another golfer slides in at #3 and the most dangerous hitter in baseball landed at #4, even though he’s seems to slide under the radar in the public spotlight (probably because he plays in St. Louis). Here are some other quick “surprises” in my opinion:

• Brett Favre at #15 – Seems low considering his immense impact of the NFL’s ratings and merchandise sales
• Joe Mauer at #19 – Seems high since he still has a reasonably low contract number and plays in a small market
• David Beckham at #35 – Seems low – he’s still arguably the most iconic soccer player in the world
• Alex Ovechkin/Sidney Crosby at #37/39 – Seems low, since they are the current identity of the NHL
• Hines Ward at #40 – Seems high for a aging WR who doesn’t get nearly the attention that other NFL wide receivers receive
• Danica Patrick at #88 – Seems low – with her move to the Nationwide Series, her marketing and earning potential keeps growing

BusinessWeek does a nice job is breaking down the methodology of their list, providing additional analysis on why some did (and didn’t) make the cut, and other looks at the top sports business stories of the year. Click here to read more about their Power 100 list. If you want a quick look at this list yourself, you can see it right here behind the break.

           POWER 100 LIST
==========================================
     Athlete             Sport
==========================================
  1. Tiger Woods         Golf
  2. LeBron James        Basketball
  3. Phil Mickelson      Golf
  4. Albert Pujols       Baseball
  5. Peyton Manning      Football
  6. Dwyane Wade         Basketball
  7. Michael Phelps      Swimming
  8. Adrian Peterson     Football
  9. Shaquille O’Neal    Basketball
 10. Lance Armstrong     Cycling
 11. Rafael Nadal        Tennis
 12. Kobe Bryant         Basketball
 13. Larry Fitzgerald    Football
 14. Ryan Howard         Baseball
 15. Brett Favre         Football
 16. Serena Williams     Tennis
 17. Roger Federer       Tennis
 18. Eli Manning         Football
 19. Joe Mauer           Baseball
 20. Tim Duncan          Basketball
 21. Jimmie Johnson      Auto Racing
 22. Kevin Garnett       Basketball
 23. Chris Johnson       Football
 24. Randy Moss          Football
 25. Drew Brees          Football
 26. Kurt Warner         Football
 27. Usain Bolt          Track & Field
 28. Jeff Gordon         Auto Racing
 29. Dirk Nowitzki       Basketball
 30. Tom Brady           Football
 31. Kevin Durant        Basketball
 32. CC Sabathia         Baseball
 33. Derek Jeter         Baseball
 34. Prince Fielder      Baseball
 35. David Beckham       Soccer
 36. Dwight Howard       Basketball
 37. Alex Ovechkin       Hockey
 38. Andre Johnson       Football
 39. Sidney Crosby       Hockey
 40. Hines Ward          Football
 41. Mark Martin         Auto Racing
 42. Venus Williams      Tennis
 43. Donovan McNabb      Football
 44. Chris Paul          Basketball
 45. Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Auto Racing
 46. Mark Teixeira       Baseball
 47. LaDainian Tomlinson Football
 48. Tony Stewart        Auto Racing
 49. Chase Utley         Baseball
 50. Jim Furyk           Golf
 51. Shaun White         Snowboarding
 52. David Wright        Baseball
 53. Ilya Kovalchuk      Hockey
 54. Ben Roethlisberger  Football
 55. Steve Nash          Basketball
 56. Lorena Ochoa        Golf
 57. Evan Longoria       Baseball
 58. Deron Williams      Basketball
 59. Paul Pierce         Basketball
 60. Carmelo Anthony     Basketball
 61. Alex Rodriguez      Baseball
 62. Johan Santana       Baseball
 63. Tim Lincecum        Baseball
 64. Apolo Anton Ohno    Speedskating
 65. Stewart Cink        Golf
 66. Ray Allen           Basketball
 67. Carl Edwards        Auto Racing
 68. Yao Ming            Basketball
 69. Troy Polamalu       Football
 70. Kyle Busch          Auto Racing
 71. Landon Donovan      Soccer
 72. Manny Pacquiao      Boxing
 73. Padraig Harrington  Golfer
 74. Vince Carter        Basketball
 75. Tony Romo           Football
 76. Dustin Pedroia      Baseball
 77. Ichiro Suzuki       Baseball
 78. Ray Lewis           Football
 79. Andy Roddick        Tennis
 80. Maria Sharapova     Tennis
 81. Sergio Garcia       Golf
 82. Fedor Emelianenko   Mixed Martial Arts
 83. Derrick Rose        Basketball
 84. Vijay Singh         Golf
 85. Steven Jackson      Football
 86. Andy Murray         Tennis
 87. Allen Iverson       Basketball
 88. Danica Patrick      Auto Racing
 89. Brandon Roy         Basketball
 90. Manny Ramirez       Baseball
 91. Floyd Mayweather    Boxing
 92. Candace Parker      Basketball
 93. Shane Mosley        Boxing
 94. Diana Taurasi       Basketball
 95. Misty May-Treanor   Volleyball
 96. Brock Lesnar        Mixed Martial Arts
 97. Patrick Kane        Hockey
 98. Chad Ochocinco      Football
 99. Matt Ryan           Football
100. Ryan Sheckler       Skateboarding

The National Sports Forum starts this Sunday and runs until Wednesday, February 3. Representatives from almost every major team and league will be in attendance for three packed days of breakout sessions, networking activities and presentations. In preparation, I’ve put together a list of which sessions I’m most looking forward to and why. If any of you are attending, please send me an email, or a DM on Twitter, as I’d love to meet as many TBOS readers as possible!

Sunday, January 31 - Case Cup competition: Some of you may not know, but I am a member of the final (for now) Sports Business MBA class from Arizona State University. Four of my classmates will be participating in the annual Case Cup competition. I am excited to cheer them on (silently) and hopefully go out on a winning note!

Monday, February 1 – Morning: After the General Session and Super Panel, the first round of Breakout Sessions start. The one I’m planning on attending is: ‘New Media = New Opportunities: Using the Latest Communication Technologies to Generate Revenue.’ It is a panel, and considering my current fellowship at Digital Royalty, I’m very interested in how the sports industry responds to and takes advantage of new media. You’ll notice this as a theme throughout the week.

Monday – Afternoon: This session will be spent at ‘The 3 Social Media Musts.’ I see a lot of Top 10 lists, or articles about ’20 things to do to improve your personal brand,’ but three is a number I can handle. I still consider myself somewhat new to Twitter, and a total rookie when it comes to LinkedIn, so I think this session will be a good litmus test for my social media savvy.

Monday – Evening: One of the events I’m most anticipating is on Monday night. Digital Royalty is hosting a ‘meet-up’ at the ESPN Zone in Inner Harbor. We’ve put the word out through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as inviting our friends and colleagues. Anyone who will be in Baltimore is invited. Come out, have a drink, get an ESPN game card, and meet some of the dR crew (ie Amy and me).

Tuesday – Super Panel: Tuesday’s Super Panel looks really interesting. Cal Ripken, Jr. and Kevin Plank from Under Armour are two of the guests. I’m excited to hear what Mr. “Iron Man” Ripken has to say. He seemed to play the game with such joy and passion, and was looked to as the penultimate leader. Kevin Plank has led Under Armour to amazing growth in a market that must have been intimidating considering how dominated it was by Nike and Adidas.

Tuesday – Morning Breakout: For this session, I’ll be front row (if not backstage) for Amy’s presentation on ‘Social Media: The Bottom Line.’ In the short time I’ve been with Digital Royalty, I’ve been really impressed by the amount of metrics and data that go into their social media campaigns and presentations. For anyone who works for a company that is trying to monetize social media, or who needs to justify to the ‘higher-ups’ the time commitment to do social media correctly, I think this is a must-see.

Tuesday – Lunch: Wow. Ari Fleischer. I’m really interested to see how many times the BCS comes up during his keynote speech. I have followed InsideTheBCS for awhile on Twitter, and feel a little like I’m getting sent propaganda, but regardless, this is an absolute lion in the Public Relations realm. I’m pretty sure there will be some worthwhile takeaways.

Tuesday – Afternoon: I’ll be attending ’7 Touches.’ Besides Sports Business, I am also specializing in Strategic Marketing and Services Leadership at ASU. Ever since my first services marketing class, I have been hyper-sensitive to customer service, and how each and every interaction with a brand shapes the way you feel about that brand. Knowing that, I think customer service for teams and leagues right now should be a huge focus.

Wednesday: I’ll be attending the “What Keeps You Up At Night” Super Panel. I especially want to hear what Kevin Payne, the President & CEO of DC United, has to say. I know they have had some on-going stadium proposal issues, and are facing ever-increasing pressure from new MLS teams. My ears will be tuned for his comments in particular.

Wow, just writing this has been a little exhausting, so I can only imagine what the actual four days will be like! I hope to see some of you there, and would love to hear what sessions you’re most interested in attending…

Yesterday was a long day, but for a very good reason. Our latest New York Sports Business Networking event was a big success. This was easily our biggest turnout, and we had a ton of great feedback (even saw a little buzz among friends in the Twitter world).  Thank you to everyone who came out – we organize these events because we feel like there is a need to help others in the industry connect with one another, and as long as that need exists, we’re here to help!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of time to write today, but I want you to have your sports business fix, so here are some good articles I’ve seen over the past couple of days. Enjoy!

• Antitrust Case Has Implications Far Beyond NFL – New York Times, 1/6/2010 (also check out the followup editorial piece fron 1/12, Football and Antitrust)
• Sony To Be The Official Sponsor Of ESPN 3D Network – Eye On Sports Media, 1/7/2010
• Soccer Looks To Philly For A Dose Of Brotherly (and Sisterly) Branding Love – Sports Marketing and PR Roundup (Joe Favorit0), 1/8/2010
• McDonald’s to be presenting sponsor of 2010 Pro Bowl – NFL.com, 1/11/2010
• Jazz ticket holders get transfer-fee rights – Salt Lake Tribune, 1/11/2010
• NY Mets Beaned By Ads, Sues SpongeTech – New York Post, 1/14/2010

Also, don’t forget to vote in our “Top Sports Business Story of 2010″ poll to the right!

Now that we’ve already review the top sports business stories of 2009 and taken a fun look at “predicting” what may happen in 2010 (thanks Amanda!), let’s build a list of the sports business stories that everyone will be talking about in 2010:

• Tiger Woods: The top story of 2009 will continue to dominate headlines through this year. We’ve probably seen most of the sponsor fallout already (a few more may bail out later on), but the biggest stories will be his impact on the PGA Tour as a whole, his attempt to rebuild his image, and what sponsors may decide to support him again once he returns to action.
• Collective Bargaining: Three of the four major U.S. sports leagues (4 of 5 if you include MLS) have labor deals that expire in 2010 and will need to be negotiated. Most of the talk has focused on the NFL labor deal, since their lack of a renewal is leading to an uncapped year for player salaries in 2010, but the impending negotiations for MLB and NHL are also worth watching. These leagues have each suffered from work stoppages in the recent past, so I expect all measure to be taken to prevent another now.
• The Winter Olympics: Just around the corner from now, the Olympic Games are always a top story when they take place. So many important elements to watch, including athletes that make the leap into public awareness (making them marketable in the future), television ratings and media coverage (seems to be quiet headed into the games), and how sponsors are able to leverage their Olympic partnership leading up to, during and after the Games.
• The World Cup: The other major international sporting event of the year takes place this spring in South Africa. Like the Olympics, media coverage and ratings is an important story, especially since the World Cup seems to be the one soccer story that generates public interest in the U.S.  This is also the first time that the World Cup will take place in Africa, and with that comes a massive economic impact to the region, along with concerns about the local infrastructure supporting the event.
• NBA Free-Agent-Palooza: This summer will without a doubt be the highest profile free agent season that the NBA has ever experienced. The biggest story is clearly LeBron James, but throw in the likes of Wade, Bosh, Nowitzki, Ming, Stoudamire, McGrady, Ginobli and Shaq among others, and the market is going to explode. Of course, the timing is also interesting because of attendance and revenue problems that most NBA teams are currently suffering with, which will lead to a smaller cap and luxury tax threshold next season.

There are several other stories beyond these, such as the proposed law against the BCS being a “national championship” game, Danica Patrick’s move to NASCAR, the NBC-Comcast merger, and the NFL vs. American Needle lawsuit (which attacks the antitrust protection that sports leagues currently have). What stories are you going to follow in 2010? Don’t forget to vote in our new poll on the top right of the page!

Anyone can write a year in a review about events that have already happened. I wanted a little more of a challenge, so to start off the year with a little fun, I present to you the 2010 year in (p)review.

January 7 – Bill Cowher accepts the head coaching position for the Buffalo Bills (this will be important later in the year).

January 18 – Brett Favre retires (again) after the Vikings are knocked out in the Divisional round by the Arizona Cardinals.

February 13 – The US Speedskating team takes Gold-Silver-Bronze in the Men’s 5000 meter race, and Stephen Colbert is hailed as a hero. Skin-tight speedskating suits with ‘Colbert Nation’ imprinted on the thigh become the highest-selling Olympic merchandise in the U.S.

March 29 – Tiger Woods makes his first appearance on a golf course since the infamous one-car accident in a final tune-up to The Masters. He is peppered with questions but continues to maintain his silence about all personal matters. The next week he takes out his pent-up frustration out on Augusta National, winning the Masters in 1997-like fashion by 10 over former good buddy, recently-rejuvenated Jesper Parnevik. The southern gentlemen in Georgia take it easy on Tiger, but he really hears it from the fans as he wins the  U.S. Open in Pebble Beach in June.

May 31 – Roger Federer shows he isn’t content just to hold the record for Grand Slam victories, he wants to put some distance between himself and Pete Sampras. He adds to his total by winning the French Open at Roland Garros, defeating Andy Roddick in four sets.

June – The United States Men’s Soccer Team makes good on the U.S. Soccer Federations Project 2010 when they make a spectacular run through Group C, tying England 1-1 and defeating Algeria and Slovenia by matching 2-1 scores. They advance on penalty kicks after a 2-2 tie in the quarterfinals, then see a rematch of the 2002 quarter-finals when they face Germany. This time, though, the U.S. emerges victorious by a 2-0 score. Finally, the Yanks face Brazil in the finals, and set off a national frenzy when they sneak by the yellow, blue and green 1-0.

July 30 - Reminiscent of Kevin Costner in ‘For Love of the Game’, Pedro Martinez pitches a perfect game against his former team, the Boston Red Sox, in Fenway Park, after being picked up by the Detroit Tigers as a free agent during the off-season.

August 23 – Brett Favre comes out of retirement for a third time after being signed by the Detroit Lions. Matthew Stafford is injured in pre-season training camp, paving the way for Favre to be signed. At the ensuing press conference, Favre states that he’s had a long-standing desire to play for every team in the NFC North, basically telling Kyle Orton to watch his back in 2011.

September 4 – In a total reversal from his December press conference, Urban Meyer is on the sidelines as the head coach for the University of Florida’s football game against Miami of Ohio. After the game, he says he got plenty of family time in the three weeks he took off after the Gators’ Sugar Bowl win over Cincinnati.

November 21 – Dale Earnhardt, Jr. wins his first NASCAR Sprint Cup championship in the last race of the season, edging out four-time winner Jimmie Johnson by a nose.

December 26 – The Buffalo Bills, led by Cowher, defeat the New England Patriots to finish 2010 with a 15-0 record. Only a game against the New York Jets stand between them and a perfect regular-season record.

So there you have it. 2010 is going to be an amazing year in sports, so invest in that satellite sports package, make sure your DVR has plenty of room on it, and get ready for another entertaining ride!

Wow, I can’t believe 2009 is already over. This was the first full calendar year that the blog has been running, and it has just flown by. I’m so happy that you’ve all continued to read and support the website, and I am committed to putting out more quality content in 2010 and hopefully for years to come.

I also want to thank some of our great contributors from the past year. Their guest posts have added more insights and value to the site that I could possibly have done by myself. Here they all are…I hope I didn’t miss anyone!

• Amanda Miller – our first official regular contributor
• Dino Gomez – our first official intern
• Amanda Rykoff
• Donald Dell
• Christopher Byrne
• Rob Campbell
• Steve Koss
• Tyler Tumminia
• Tim Newman
• Bob Burris
• Kris Mathis
• Ron Contorno
• Joshua Duboff
• Dave Fogelson
• Brendan Wilhide
• AJ Maestas
• Dan Beeman
• Paulo da Silva
• Jackie Adkins
• Gail Sideman
• Adam Sherlip

Thanks again, and I wish all of you a happy and successful new year in 2010! And if you live in the New York area, don’t forget to RSVP for our first networking event of the year on January 13. Click here for all the details.

With 2009 quickly coming to a close, it’s time to look back on the top five sports business stories of the year.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

• New stadium openings for the Yankees, Mets and Cowboys
• 2016 Olympics awarded to Rio
• The passing of Myles Brand
• Michael Phelps’ image issues
• ESPN’s regional expansion efforts
• Soccer making noise in the U.S.  (MLS expansion to Seattle and interest in U.S. National Team)
• The NBC – Comcast merger
• The tribulations of college head coaches (Mangino, Leach, Weis, Calipari, Meyer and more)

Top Five Stories of 2009 (in reverse order):

#5 – Performance Enhancing Drugs – These stories continued in 2009 with some very high-profile additions, most notably Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. A-Rod and Big Papi were connected to previous failed tests (A-Rod admitted his guilt, while Ortiz denied it). Meanwhile, Manny become the most prolific player to fail a test during a season, leading to his 50 game suspension. While the initial response to these failed tests was very negative, especially in Rodriguez’s case, it seems like much of the negativity has subsided. In fact, Manny Ramirez seemed to suffer no public repercussions outside of his lost salary during the suspension. Maybe baseball is finally starting to get past the PED issue.

#4 – Famous Athlete Returns - Michael Vick and Brett Favre both “returned” to the NFL under slightly different circumstances, but both became major stories. Vick’s return really created a divide among sports fans, with some feeling that he should never be allowed back in the NFL while others felt he deserved a second change. Ultimately the Eagles gave him that chance, and Vick became a polarizing figure in Philadelphia. On the other end, Favre’s back and forth about un-retiring and ultimate decision to sign with the Minnesota Vikings was a national obsession by the sports media and arguably the biggest story of the 2009 NFL season. The Monday Night game between the Vikings and Packers set a viewership record, and his impact on ticket and merchandise sales has been tremendous. And I almost forgot about Lance Armstrong’s return to compete in the Tour De France, making cycling relevant again in the U.S.

#3 – The Twitter Explosion – Who knew that you could make such an impact in 140 characters or less? Twitter has become a must for all levels of sports communications. We saw everything from players leaking news (Kevin Love’s tweet about McHale leaving), inappropriate messages leading to suspensions (Texas A&M and Larry Johnson scandals), social media policies from almost every league and news outlet, multiple companies attempting to aggregate and monetize content, and much more. Twitter has arguably created the most direct way for leagues, team and athletes themselves to connect with and communicate with their fans.

#2 – The Phoenix Coyotes Saga – Between all the moving parts (NHL, Gary Bettman, Jim Balsille, Ontario, Glendale, Jobing.com Arena, Jerry Reinsdorf), this was quite the story. Hockey has clearly not done well in the desert, particularly after the move from Phoenix to Glendale. The team filed for bankruptcy, and Balsille was ready to step in and save the team…as long as he could move them to Hamilton, Ontario. The NHL refused, the league and Balsille went to court, Reinsdorf wanted to but the team but changed his mind. This story is still not resolved, but something has to be done soon to save this franchise.

#1 – Tiger Woods – Do I really need to expound on this one? I would say that the sports business year closed with a bang, but that pun is borderline inappropriate. In the last couple of weeks, this has become the overwhelming top story of 2009, and it could easily be the top story for 2010 as we witness the complete fallout, from lost endorsements to his overall impact on the PGA Tour. What a story, and what a year!

Last week, the Sports Business Journal released its annual ’50 Most Influential’ list, naming the top 50+ influential people in the sports industry. While there was a bit of an international bend to the list (Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, claimed the top spot), it was dominated by figures that most Americans will recognize. And in the spirit of giving, I present to you the top five ways to make the SBJ’s most influential list:

1. Become the commissioner of a professional sports league: Roger Goodell (2, NFL), David Stern (4, NBA), Bud Selig (7, MLB), Gary Bettman (12, NHL), Tim Finchem (18, PGA), and Don Garber (33, MLS) all made the list by being their sports’ head honcho. While I bet it feels good to be king, all of these men have taken shots for their decisions over the course of 2009, and some are feeling the heat for the decisions of others (Mr. Finchem, I’m referring to you). Regardless, becoming the Commish is a pretty good way to gain influence (but we can’t guarantee that people will like you).

2.  Head up a major television conglomerate:  George Bodenheimer (3, ESPN/ABC Sports), Brian Roberts & Steve Burke (5, Comcast), Dick Ebersol (6, NBC Universal), Chase Carey & David Hill (8, Fox/News Corp.), Sean McManus (10, CBS Sports), John Skipper & Sean Bratches (19, ESPN), David Levy (21, TBS), Jeff Shell (29, Comcast), Steve Bornstein (31, NFL Network), and Tracy Dolgin (50, YES Network) all saw their name in print because, as we’ve been reminded of many times in the past 12 months, television is big business for sports. Rights fees, retrans fees, carriage fees… it’s harder to grasp than the legalese on that credit card application, but for those who are schooled in the language of TV contracts, chances are good that they’ll hold some sway over the sports industry.

3.  Work your way up at an agency (or start your own):  George Pyne (26, IMG), Casey Wasserman (32, Wasserman Media Group), Michael Levine & Howard Nuchow (37, CAA Sports), Scott Boras (38, The Scott Boras Group), Tom Condon & Ben Dogra (44, CAA Football), Phil de Picciotto & Rick Dudley (47, Octagon). Whether you’re representing the athletes in major sponsorship deals or representing major companies in their deals with sports properties, heading up an agency guarantees people will pick up the phone when you call.

4.  Own an NFL team:  Jerry Jones (9, Dallas Cowboys), Robert Kraft (13, New England Patriots), Pat Bowlen (35, Denver Broncos). Some joke that Kraft has as much power as Goodell. Regardless, these men have a strong voice when it comes to decisions that swing millions of dollars… from players to owners, from small-market teams to large-market teams (or vice-versa).

This might not be a road map for your career, but it does give you an idea where to concentrate your energies if you want to become one of the 50 most influential people in sports business. Oh, one final note:

5.  Be a man:  Only one person on the list of 50+ can wear a skirt to work without getting sidelong glances. Katie Bayne (46, Coca-Cola) was the sole female on the list this year. Hopefully, this is a trend we’ll see changing over the next few years as more women advance to senior positions in the industry.

This has been a great week for the release of new digital sports business content. Earlier this week, Jason Peck released his “Sports and Social Media Predictions 2010″ e-book, and now today, Joshua Duboff released the Fall 2009 edition of The Sports Business Exchange, which is a digital trade journal featuring content from young sports business professionals. This edition includes articles on the current top-tier of sports business executives, how NCAA athletics impacts school admissions, insight on social media’s impact on fans, and financial strategy for professional athletes.

I feel very fortunate that I’ve gotten to know Josh, and he’s put a lot of time and effort into developing The Sports Business Exchange into a valuable industry resource.  He’s also been instrumental in the success we’ve had with The Business of Sports networking events, which we organize together. We’ve actually just announce the date for our next New York event, which will take place on Wednesday, January 13 (location TBD). You can RSVP for the event here – Josh and I hope to see you there!

I’ve included a copy of the latest TSBX issue below, or you can click download to get a PDF version. Enjoy!

The Sports Business Exchange – Fall 2009 Issue

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Amanda Rykoff. You can read her personal blog at www.amandarykoff.com or follow her on Twitter as @amandarykoff.

A key component of my post-ESPN journey involves attending as many conferences and networking events as possible. And last week was no exception, as I attended the annual Princeton Sports Symposium, which took place this past Friday. Now in its fourth year, the symposium provides an interactive and informative forum for sports executives, professionals and students to learn more about the sports industry. I won’t provide a detailed play by play summary, but wanted to share some of the highlights and most interesting insights.

Roland Hemond Leads Off with a Home Run

My favorite speaker of the day was also the first: the legendary Roland Hemond. If you don’t know who he is, Google him to find out what an amazing career he’s had in baseball. At the age of 80 years young, he’s currently serving as the Special Assistant to the President of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Hemond spoke to the audience in an anecdotal, folksy and very unaffected way. He was so pleased to see so many young people in the crowd and so eager to help that he actually provided the audience with his cell phone number. No joke. He also encouraged anybody interested in getting into the sports business to take whatever job they could, wherever and regardless of salary. Here are a few of the most helpful nuggets that Hemond shared with us:

• “During my 1st 8 years, I did a lot of listening and not a lot of talking. Absorb.”
• “Respect everybody in your organization, at every level. Including janitor and grounds crew.”
• “Enjoy every moment. Particularly when it involves beating the Yankees.”

I had the pleasure of speaking with Hemond on a one-on-one basis during lunch. He is truly one of a kind and a legend in the game. I look forward to seeing him again when I go to Phoenix next June for the Yankees-Diamondbacks series during inter-league play. As I summed up on Twitter: “Roland Hemond is awesome. That is all.”

Tony Ponturo:  Keynote Speaker

Next up was the keynote speaker, Tony Ponturo, who was introduced by Ben Sturner, CEO of the Symposium’s main sponsor, Leverage Agency. Ponturo is now with Ponturo Management Group after serving as President and CEO of Busch Media Group and the VP of global media, sports and entertainment marketing of Anheuser-Busch, Inc.

Ponturo presented a pretty powerpoint presentation on how the sports marketplace has changed over the years. It was helpful and informative. But he said one thing that really struck me: “Regardless of fancy titles, we’re all either buyers or sellers in the sports marketplace.”

Building Your Brand with Social Media

This panel appeared to be the most popular one of the day, as it was standing room only. And why not? Social media is THE hot topic of the moment in all businesses, and sports is no exception. Sports media consultant and blogger extraordinaire Dan Shanoff served as moderator for a panel that featured:

• Peter Robert Casey, the St. John’s basketball twitterer (Peter is the first person to receive media credentials for using Twitter during a sporting event)
• Christopher Lencheski, Managing Member and Team Owner, Quad City Mallards
• Lewis Howes, Founder, SportsNetworker.com
• Amy Martin from Digital Royalty

The panel covered a lot of material in a short period of time, including how social media supports an overall branding strategy, the importance of listening and responding, and adding value through social media. Overall, I took three basic messages away from this session. First, don’t forget that social media is social. So, be social. Create original editorial. Second, listening and responding is critical. Third, ask yourself what’s the value to follow you? Give people a reason, whether it’s discounts or additional behind the scenes info.

Digital Media and Technology I

Next up with the creatively titled “Digital Media and Technology I” panel moderated by Troy Ewanchynia, Senior Director, Comcast SportsNet Digital Media. The featured panelists were:

• David Birnbaum – Senior Advisor, Strategy and Acquisitions, Alloy Media + Marketing
• Anthony Caponiti– Partner, Activ8Social
• Robert E. Freeman, Partner, Proskauer Rose LLP
• Derrick Heggans – Principal, HACE Sports Media Consulting
• Greg Shaheen – Senior VP, Basketball and Business Strategies, NCAA

This panel was supposed to be a roundtable discussion of the implications of digital media on the sports industry. Though each of the panelists was extremely knowledgeable and qualified, we unfortunately didn’t get to much of the substance of the discussion beyond their biographies. However, there were a few nuggets that stood out. Derrick Heggans reminded everybody in the room that there is no substitute for hard work and your integrity. Always aim to underpromise and overdeliver. And don’t point it out to anybody.

Greg Shaheen, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the NCAA, won the panel (and probably the day) with one of the best lines I’ve ever heard. He’s had an interesting and varied career that started with one day of law school. He told us that after his first day, he decided to leave, telling his contracts classmates: “I’m going to leave here now and I’m going to make enough money to hire a******s like you to handle s**t like this.”

Teams (What’s Going on with the Nets, Redskins and Vikings)?

The final panel of the day, moderated by Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead, focused on developments in the sports business from the team perspective. The featured panelists were:

• Jeff Gewirtz, SVP and General Counsel, Nets Basketball and Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment
• Michael Rowe, President & CEO, Positive Impact Management Group
• Shripal Shah, VP, E-Commerce and Web Strategy, Washington Redskins
• Mark Wilf, Owner & President, Minnesota Vikings

I really enjoyed this panel, and thought it was one of the most interesting, informative and insightful of the day. Each participant was candid, and McIntyre kept it moving at a good pace.

Shah of the Redskins provided an impressive overview of the team’s digital endeavors, which appear to be far and away the most aggressive and ambitious in all of professional sports. The team has embraced digital and social media via significant investments in Redskins.com, Twitter (via Redskins Twackle) and Facebook to engage fans, while also staying within the bounds of the NFL’s stringent content rules. Shah also discussed the importance of digital media in sponsor packages, citing the Redskins Powerboard as a specific example of how the team has taken digital assets and moved them back into a core sponsor (in this case, Audi). According to Shah, Redskins sponsors want 25-50% of their packages in digital content. That’s impressive.

Mark Wilf, Owner and President of the Minnesota Vikings, managed to avoid mentioning He Who Shall Not Be Named as he presented the team’s three main goals: 1) Bring a Super Bowl championship (or championships) to Minnesota, 2) Focus on community involvement and grow the connection between the team and the community, and 3) Secure a new $900 million stadium with a retractable roof. The connection with the team certainly appears to be paying off, as Vikings games regularly achieve a 70 share of the television viewing audience in Minnesota. Wilf also demonstrated candor and a good sense of humor. When asked about the NFL’s international appeal, Wilf quipped, “The Vikings are very proud of their Norwegian fan base.”

Wrapping Up

Overall, I enjoyed the symposium and found it to be a great way to connect (and reconnect), engage, network and learn from people from all facets of the business. I only wish I didn’t have to choose between panels and could have attended all of them. Look forward to attending again next year.

The 4th annual Princeton Sports Symposium takes place this Friday, December 4 at Princeton University. I attended this event last year, and really enjoyed all of the panels as well as the opportunity to network with the presenters and other attendees.  You can click here to read some of my recaps from last year’s symposium.

This year, the agenda (PDF) features over 60 speakers across 11 different panel discussions. Visit www.sportssymposium.org for more information. I will be in attendance again this year, so please make sure to say hello if you’re there. Looking forward to meeting some of you on Friday!

——————–

2009 Princeton Sports Symposium sponsored by Leverage Agency
Friday, December 4 from 10am-6pm
Friend Center, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

You can register at www.sportssymposium.org. Space is limited. The registration fee for non-students is $50, and includes continental breakfast, lunch and reception. Please email info@sportssymposium.org with any questions you may have. You can also connect with the symposium on Twitter (twitter.com/sportssymposium) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/sportssymposium).

Here are the three winners from last week’s book giveaway contest!

• From the Twitter Re-tweets: Forechecker
• From the Blog Comments: Ilana
• From the Facebook Fan Page: Laura High

Congratulations to each of our winners. Please use the Contact Us page to send me your mailing address so I can send you each a copy of Donald Dell’s latest book, “Never Make the First Offer (Unless You Have To).” In total, we had thirty entries across the three different entry methods. Thank you to everyone that participated, and if you didn’t win, you can still pick up a copy of the book at www.donalddell.com.

Meanwhile, if you have a product to promote and you are interested in sharing something with our readers, please use the Contact Us form to send me your information, and hopefully we can put together something that everyone will enjoy.

Normally, I don’t like talking about events that take place on the field, but today I’m going to make an exception. On Wednesday night, a World Cup qualifying soccer match was decided by one person who made a mistake that was easily identifiable by a simple video replay. However, because the sport was dependent on an archaic system of in-game governance that was developed decades if not centuries ago, the result of the game and any number of future events has been permanently altered.

This same situation has happened in multiple major sporting events over the past few months, including several prominent errors in the MLB playoffs, but for the most part, the governing bodies for these organizations prefer to stand by and depend on their “traditional” means for making all in-game decisions. This system may have made sense was professional sports was more of a casual pastime, but now it is a multi-billion dollar global industry, and each one of these incorrect decisions can have serious repercussions. A team that misses the next round of playoffs because of a bad call loses out on millions in ticket revenue. A player that is invalidly judged by an official’s decision can lose the chance at significant endorsement money. An entire league can suffer (or benefit) because of an officiating decision that impacts what teams are playing and the television ratings that come with those teams.

Meanwhile, sports organizations have embraced technology in almost every other form, from evaluating the players statistically to refining their business processes. Clearly everyone recognizes the importance of technology as sports have evolved, but yet for some reason, they refuse to let the technology onto the field in the form of instant replay. Would any other industry operate in this manner? Can you imagine if Walmart decided that they needed to use a more “traditional” way to run their checkout lines and made the staff type in each number, because “that’s how they’ve always done it.” The errors that would occur would ultimately have a significant impact on their business, ruining their other technological advantages that they’ve developed in their inventory management processes.

I understand that trying to add instant replay into sports is a complicated process with many potential pitfalls. This is why I give a lot of credit to the NFL for their work in this area. They acknowledged the problem, created a replay system, and constantly work to refine it based on the needs of the sport. I would hope that more sports, like soccer and baseball for example, eventually decide to follow the NFL’s lead and develop their own comparable systems. Putting aside the game for a moment, there is simply too much money riding on what happens on the field for everyone to overlook these issues.

Today we have a special guest post and contest for everyone. Donald Dell, Founder of ProServ and President of Blue Entertainment Sports Television (BEST) recently released his new book, “Never Make the First Offer (Except When You Should) – Wisdom from a Master Dealmaker.” You can learn more about the book and watch video clips of interviews with Donald by visiting www.donalddell.com.

Donald has graciously provided an excerpt from the book below, and we’ve put together a contest to celebrate the book release. We are giving away three copies of his book, and there are three different ways to win. You can…

• Add a comment on this post (and make it relevant – unrelated comments will be deleted)
• Tweet this post clicking the “retweet” button at the top left
• Leave a comment on The Business of Sports Facebook Fan Page regarding this post

One lucky winner will be randomly chosen from each of the three different audiences, and you can enter via all three methods (only one entry per person will count for each method of entry). The contest will run from now until Sunday at 12pm EST. Good luck, and enjoy the book excerpt!

Look at the Big Picture

The biggest problem with accurately reading situations is to understand that you are part of the problem. In other words, since you are inside the situation yourself, it is hard to look at it purely objectively. Sometimes it can be really helpful to take a moment to step back and look at the big picture. How are you progressing in terms of reaching your objectives? What is standing in the way? What is your part in it? What can you do about it?

Even though this anecdote isn’t strictly about business, I want to tell a story that illustrates this point of looking past the minutiae at the larger picture. In fact, I want to tell it because, first, many of the lessons in this book can and should be applied to personal as well as professional matters, and, second, it has never been told before. Had it come out when it took place, twenty-five years ago, it would have made front-page headlines all over the world and probably gotten Bill Talbert and me ostracized from tennis. It is the story of how I helped to salvage the finals of the 1983 U.S. Open in a match between Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors.

During practice on the day before the finals, Connors ended up with a giant blood blister between two of his toes. It was like a stone bruise – really big and really painful. On the morning of the match Jimmy tried to practice, but not only couldn’t he run, he could barely walk. Shortly thereafter I got a call from Jimmy’s mother, Gloria, who said, “Jimbo can’t play. Default him. He’s out.”

When I heard this, I thought: “Jimmy’s thirty-two years old. He may never get this opportunity again. CBS and the USTA are going to go ballistic (not to mention the tennis public) if the U.S. Open finals doesn’t happen.” The growth of tennis had started to plateau, and I could see this non-final really hurting the game. Once I stepped back and considered all the options, I felt I had to do something.

Through a friend I got in touch with the New York Jets’ team trainer, told him the situation, and asked him if there was anything he could do to relieve the pain. “Sure,” he said. “I could shoot him up with Xylocaine,” which is like a souped-up version of novocaine. This would mean Jimmy wouldn’t be able to feel the toes that were in pain.

So I asked my Jets trainer friend, “How would you like to attend the finals of the U.S. Open?”

Now I had to persuade Jimmy to go along with the plan. I walked into the locker room. There were about five people surrounding Jimmy – including his wife, Patti, his bodyguard, and one of our agents – but fortunately, not his mother. I said, “Give me a few minutes alone with Jimmy.”

Once we were alone, I said, “What’s the story?”

“I can’t play,” he said. “I’ve got to default. Even if I could limp around, I’d rather not play than have Lendl beat me.”

“What if we could fix your foot so you could play?” I said, and then I told him about the trainer for the Jets.

He was still unsure, so I said, “Let’s be honest here, Jimmy. You’re thirty-two years old, and you have a shot at winning your fifth Open. I know you think you’ll be back, but we both know there’s a good chance you may never get to the finals again.”

He said, “Well . . . if you handle my mother . . . ”

I said, “I’ll get the trainer.”

The trainer told us the shot would last about an hour and a half, so I thought, “Damn. I’m going to have to find some way to pull Jimmy off the court in the middle of the match so the doctor can shoot his foot up again.”

I then went to the tournament chairman, Bill Talbert, and told him what was going on. “I can’t authorize that,” he said.

I said, “Well, you have two choices. You can let me fix his foot, or he’ll default and you’ll have no tournament final.”

Talbert said, “I never heard about this.”

Under the tournament rules, each player can leave the court once at any time for a bathroom break, so I went to the tournament supervisor and told him, “I’m going to take Connors off the court at some point for a bathroom break. I don’t want any interference. I don’t want anyone bothering him. I also want the biggest policeman you can find sitting in a chair right out front of that bathroom door. And when Jimmy goes in, I want that cop to block the door so no one can get in there.”

He wasn’t too happy about this, but Talbert was standing right there, so he nodded.

This was in the old stadium, the Louis Armstrong. One of the bathrooms is located directly across the court, slightly to the left. I told the trainer I’d give him a hand signal when it was time for him to go into the bathroom . . . and hide.

Finally the match started, and I began to wonder, “If this goes more than three hours, we’re dead.” Jimmy won the first set 6–3 but promptly lost the second set 6–7.

Now the score was 2–1 in the third, and Jimmy had started to limp noticeably. I signaled the trainer.

Jimmy called for a bathroom break and started to walk across the court. Meanwhile, Ivan Lendl, who is very smart and very cagey, was the only one in the stadium who figured it out. He started screaming to the tournament supervisor, “Watch his foot! Don’t let anyone touch his foot! Don’t let him out of your sight!” But no one paid any attention— or, more likely, the officials decided to ignore him. If they chose somebody to accompany Jimmy into the bathroom, we’d be out of luck.

Connors came back to win the third set and the fourth, and made tennis history by becoming the only man at that time to have won the U.S. Open five times. (Pete Sampras would later repeat the feat.)

Afterward the official doctor for the Open, Dr. Irving Glick, came up to me and said, “Donald, I don’t know what you did, and I don’t want to know.”

I said, “If that’s the way you feel, fine. But I can live with what I did.”

At the press conference later, the first question to Jimmy was, “Why did you have to leave the court?”

“I had a horrible attack of diarrhea,” Jimmy said, and that became the official story that appeared the next day in the New York Times and the Washington Post and was told on The Late Show with David Letterman.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Tyler Tumminia, Vice President of Marketing and Operations for The Goldklang Group.

I was only able to get away for one day to attend the 7th annual Sports Business Journal Relay Worldwide Sports Sponsorship Symposium. It was worth just being there for the day to witness Mike Principe of BEST announce to us that we were being fed an exclusive and Nike was partnering with Michael Vick (the room went completely silent) only to find out the next morning that was not the case (he must have forgotten that Darren Rovell of CNBC and other countless reporters were in attendance). However, let that not overshadow the wonderful speakers of the event and wide range of topics discussed.

Of course we all expected to hear about the economic recession and the increased pressure to quantify ROI, but it was music to my ears to hear how major brands are focusing their attention to digital and social media. Dan McHugh, Vice President of Media Sponsorship for Anheuser-Busch talked about how digital media is playing a much bigger role in sponsorship and marketing and now more than ever, they are focusing how they can increase beer sales. He mentioned that they have decreased their exclusivities in team-based partnerships from 84% to 54%.

The audience was polled during a panel discussion on what our marketing budgets look like for next year and although I would refrain from sending in the clowns just yet- the survey showed 34% of attendees (major sports brands in the room) were anticipating slightly increased marketing budgets for ’10. Flat budgets represented the second place response, and slightly down came in third.

Sarah Robb O’Hagan, CMO of Gatorade, gave a interactive and fun presentation of their new “G” campaign. She was very engaging and described their thought process on expanding their market base to include non-traditional athletes and how the G campaign was intentionally aimed at confusing the consumer first, to get them to engage with their company, and to find out what the message of their campaign was about. As a result, they experienced an unprecedented amount of attention and website traffic. As Sarah mentioned, they were successful in making younger consumers feel that it’s cool again to drink Gatorade and that it’s no longer your “grandfathers drink.” She also shared with us that Gatorade has shifted their focus on where they are spending marketing dollars, with 16% of the pie going to digital media this year, echoing the emphasis on digital media as a tool to market in 2010.

In general, the panel discussion emphasized that in the coming year marketing budgets need to engage the fan, and the experts feel the way to do that is through using digital media to seek more efficiency and direct communication with your fan base and consumers. The conference was helpful to marketers who perhaps are confronted with internal resistance from companies they represent. It armed us with assurance that digital media is not going away anytime soon, that apprehension to new avenues of communicating your brand message will only leave you scrambling when others are capitalizing. I would be more than happy to share other insights and observations regarding the conference. Feel free to connect with me anytime.

On a personal note, I got a chance to meet Walt “Clyde” Frazier. I asked to take a photo with him and commented on his sky blue suit and matching cowboy boots. I also mentioned that he had the best line of the conference thus far when he said in his speech that he dresses this way because he has “disdain for the mundane.” Believe it!

Tonight we will have a special edition of The Business of Sports Live, direct from our New York networking event.  The broadcast will start around 6:30 and will run throughout the night.  You can watch the live stream right here, or you can visit our Ustream channel.

I’ll try to bring multiple guests over to introduce themselves and ask a few questions, so keep the stream open – you never know who will pop in next! Afterwards, I’ll take the recorded clips from all of our guests and make them available for viewing.

Update: Unfortunately, the lighting and sound did not work out well for my attempted broadcast. Hopefully I’ll have a new episode ready to go for next week.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to the event last night. It was definitely our best turnout so far, and we hope its keeps growing!

We have three upcoming Business of Sports events on the schedule that I wanted to remind everyone about:

1.  The 2nd episode of The Business of Sports Live on Ustream – Tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7:30PM EST (4:30PM PST).  The topic of the day will be sports marketing for a female audience, and I’ll be talking with special guest Erica Boeke of GoGameFace.com who is an expert on the subject. We will be taking your questions live through the Ustream chat and through Twitter, so check out the show tomorrow night!

2.  The Business of Sports Networking in Atlanta – Wednesday, September 23 at 5:30PM.  This is our first networking event in Atlanta, and it is exciting to add another city to our list of successful networking events. Click here for all the details and to RSVP.

3.  The Business of Sports Networking in New York – Tuesday, September 29 at 6:30PM.  This will be our 3rd New York event, and we expect an even better crowd that we had at our first two events, each of which drew over 100 people.  It is taking place the night before the Relay Sports Sponsorship Symposium starts, so if you’ll be in town for the conference, make sure to come network with us first.  Click here for all the details and to RSVP.

As always, you can keep an eye on the Event Calendar page for a complete list of upcoming events.

I have two special announcements to share with you today!

1.  We’ve scheduled our next Business of Sports New York Networking Event! It will take place on Tuesday, September 29 from 6:30pm to 9:30pm at a location to be determined (somewhere within walking distance of Penn Station).  This is the evening before the Relay Sports Sponsorship Symposium starts, so if you’re coming into town for that conference, make sure to spend some time with us first!  Click here for the event details and to RSVP.

2.  Tomorrow (Tuesday), September 1 at 7:30pm EST (4:30PST) , I will be holding my first official live Ustream broadcast, affectionately dubbed “The Business of Sports Live!” The show will run for 30 minutes and should feature a special guest call-in to help me discuss some current events in social media and sports (I’ll update this post once the guest details are confirmed). We will be taking questions live through the Ustream chat and Twitter, so please visit my new Ustream channel tomorrow at 7:30pm EST (or go there now and RSVP). And if you can’t attend live, I’ll make sure to have video and audio recording available soon afterwards.

Update: It’s been confirmed. My guest for tomorrow’s first live broadcast will be Peter Robert Casey (twitter.com/Peter_R_Casey).  Peter was recently featured on ESPN.com when the news came out that he received a credential and press row access to live tweet St. John’s basketball games this year. We’ll talk about this story along with more on his background, sports social media policies and of course, your questions!

This week has been flying by, and unfortunately I haven’t has as much time to write as I like.  But luckily, others have been writing so why not promote some of their hard work right here.  Check out some of these great sports business links of the week.

• 3rd Circuit Sacks Del. Sports Lottery - You have to give Delaware credit for trying, but ultimately, their attempts to create a legal sports betting-based lottery in their three state racetrack/casinos was shot down by the appellate court.  Anyone who wants to bet on sports legally must make their plans to visit Las Vegas.
• SEC Caught in PR Firestorm Over Social Media Policy - There’s been a lot of noise over the past two weeks regarding the original and then-amended ticket usage policy from the Southeastern Conference that would have originally prevented fans from using Twitter during games. Gail Sideman does a great job reviewing what happened and how the SEC handled the situation.
• Anheuser-Busch pulls ‘Fan Cans’ at some colleges- Anheuser-Busch tried to capture the interest of college sports fans by releasing specially branded cans in those regions. However, several colleges complained that the campaign encouraged underage drinking among students at those institutions. I don’t believe that there was any intent by A-B to intentionally market to this audience. After all, in each of these locations, there is still a massive over-21 audience that is passionate about local college sports that this campaign would be perfect for. (Update: Here’s another take on the Fan Cans story, courtesy of SportsInfo101.com)
• Partnership Activation 2.0 – August Newsletter- I’ve linked to these newsletters before, and for good reason. Brian Gainor always puts out some great content geared around the latest trends in corporate sponsorships and activation, making his newsletter a must-read.

I wanted to remind everyone that our next sports business networking event is this Thursday, August 13 from 6:30 to 9:30PM at Slattery’s Midtown Pub (8 East 36th St).  Our first New York event drew over 100 people and we expect to have the same type of turnout this time around.  If you are interested in attending, you can click here to RSVP.

Please pass this along to any friends or colleagues that would also be interested in attending. And keep an eye on the Event Calendar page for future networking events in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and more!

Thanks as always to Joshua Duboff from The Sports Business Exchange for his continued help in organizing this event!

Since I’ve already extended into the realms of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, a sports business photo gallery on Flickr seemed like the next natural option!  My goal is to load The Business of Sports Photo Gallery on Flickr with lots of valuable sports business photos, such as examples of great advertisements, sponsor activation, promotions, events and anything else that ties back into the industry. Our first two galleries were supplied by the Carolina Panthers and Watkins Glen International, and feature some great examples of sponsor signage and activation.

I need help from all of you to make this photo gallery as valuable as possible.  If you have some great sports business photos that you can share, please email them to me at russell@thebusinessofsports.com, and I will add upload them to Flickr to share with all of our readers.  Thank you for your help!

In case you didn’t see it yet, I wanted to let you all know that the July 2009 issue of The Sports Business Exchange was just released this week. The Sports Business Exchange (TSBX) is a collection of insightful articles written by young sports business professionals, with new issues released throughout the year.  The content is excellent and almost always provides a unique view at relevant topics in sports business.

For more information on TSBX including details on how you can contribute to the next issue, visit www.TheSportsBusinessExchange.com.

I didn’t have time to put together a full post for you today, but here are a couple of quick sports business links that you should definitely take a look at:

• The June 2009 Partnership Activation Newsletter: Brian Gainor from PartnershipActivation.com puts out a great monthly newsletter that covers many important topics and best practices in sports marketing, sponsorships and activation.  It’s a great supplement to all of the other valuable content he provides  regularly on his blog.
• A Look Back at NACDA 2009: Joshua Duboff recently attended the NACDA/NACMA Conference (collegiate athletics and marketing)  in Orlando, and put together a recap of the conference on his blog. He covers topics such as social media, the economy, media rights, licensing and professional growth.
• Reinsdorf to submit rival bid for Coyotes: More drama in Phoenix, as two dates have been set to auction the team. The date of the first auction is for bidders that plan on keeping the team in Arizona, but if that auction doesn’t produce a viable bid, then a second auction will take place that does not have the same geographic requirement. It seems that Jerry Reinsdorf will make a bid during the first auction, as he is willing to keep the team in Arizona.
• Coyotes look to defrost season ticket sales: It’s hard enough to sell season tickets right now, let alone selling them for a team that almost just relocated to another city. With the recent court ruling making it likely that the team will stay in Arizona, the Coyotes are kicking off a new campaign to try and sell tickets. I wish their sales staff a lot of luck – it will definitely be a challenge for them with the team ownership still in limbo.
• Benched: It looks like the proposed movie based on Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball has been put on hold right before shooting was supposed to start. I was never quite sure how that book was going to translate to the big screen, but up until this week, they had full studio support, a script, a cast and a crew. There’s no real indication right now as to how this will be resolved, but in the meantime, I think I’ll go back and give the book another read.

Today (Saturday, June 13) I will be attending the “Blogs With Balls” one-day conference in New York City. The event will feature speakers and panelists dealing with topics related to sports blogging and social media.  You can learn more about the event at www.blogswithballs.com.

Thanks to a friend of mine who lent me his iPhone, I will be live tweeting during the event, sharing some of the best comments and thoughts from presenters and attendees alike.  You can view the tweets by visiting my Twitter page (twitter.com/rscibetti).  Better yet, if you want to view the tweets from all of the people who are attending the event, you can go to search.twitter.com and search for #bwb or #blogswithballs (both hashtags are being used on Twitter).

I wanted to remind everyone that the next Business of Sports Networking event is in Philadelphia next Tuesday, June 16 at 6:30PM.  The first event in New York had a great turnout, and I’m hoping we can do just as well in Philly!  You can still RSVP for the event by clicking this link and filling out the RSVP form.  Please pass this along to  your friends and colleagues.  If everyone brings 1 or 2 extra people with them, the evening will be an even bigger success.

Thanks again to Julie Lanzillo for her help in planning and promoting this event and to Joshua Duboff for his help with all of the Business of Sports Networking events.

Keep an eye on the Event Calendar page for a full list of upcoming networking events in all areas.  We’ll be back in New York near the end of July and we’re working on the details for events in Atlanta and Boston in the coming months!

So the first official “TheBusinessOfSports.com Networking Event” has come and gone, and I couldn’t be happier with how it went.  We had over 100 people show up, and everyone seemed to be in the right spirit.  Everyone was talking and connecting with new people, trading stories and business cards.  We had people from a wide range of companies (ESPN, NBA, MLS, NY Giants, NJ Devils and SBJ among others) and backgrounds (students, agents, salespeople, marketers, entrepreneurs, VPs and more).

I’ve received a few tweets and emails afterwards, and everyone seemed to agree that the event worked and that there’s a need for these types of get-togethers, so we’re going to keep moving forward with scheduling them.  The next event is going to be in Philadelphia on June 16th, and we’ll probably have the next New York event sometime in July.  Keep an eye on the Event Calendar page for a full list of events.

Thanks again to everyone who came out last night, and a special thanks to my co-host, Joshua Duboff (www.thesportsbusinessexchange.com). If you have any feedback on the event or ideas on how we can make it even better, please let us know.

I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I always have a poll running on the right side of the page. If you don’t already, please vote! I try to change the poll every 1-2 weeks and the results can be quite interesting. On that note, here are the results from some of the recent polls, which I will continue to post semi-regularly. Remember, the more people participate, the more valuable the results will be, so please vote!

This poll went along with my series of Twitter-related blog posts from early March.  This was right around the time when Twitter started exploding in the sports arena, so I wanted to see how many people were already using Twitter to consume sports-related content.  As you can see, about 2/3 of the participants said that they did use Twitter for this purpose.  I realize that my “sample” is probably not representative of the entire sports fan population, since most of my readers are connected to the business side and may have learned about Twitter before the rest of the mainstream public. However, I bet that if I ran this poll again just a couple of months later, that the Yes vote would be closer to 75 or 80%. 

Don’t Forget!  Tonight is The Business of Sports Networking Event in NYC! You can see all the details here, and we can still accept last minute RSVPs. Hope to meet some of you tonight!

I thought that with it being a holiday weekend, I’d share something funny with all of you.  Have a great weekend, and my thanks go out to all of the current and former members of the armed forces for doing what they do in keeping us all safe.