One of my favorite minor league baseball teams, the Lake Elsinore Storm, is having a great promotional night tonight - a salute to Tom Cruise. The fans will receive a Tom Cruise bobblehead in Oprah couch-jumping mode and a variety of other Cruise related events will take place throughout the game. Those events will include a silent inning in tribute to the silent birth of baby TomKat, a couch jumping contest a Scientology sign-up booth (not so sure about that one) and a retrospective on his movie career. You just got to love minor league promotions.
It's my sad duty to report that Northwestern's football coach Randy Walker died suddenly last night of an apparent heart attack. Walker, who was 52, was set to begin his eight season as head coach of the Wildcats. He was the first coach in school history to take the Cats to three bowls and won a share of the Big Ten crown in 2000, when the Wildcats won a trip to the Alamo Bowl. Walker is survived by his wife Tammy and two children. He was a valued member of the Northwestern community who will be missed. Our hearts go out to Tammy. May his memory be for a blessing.
The PGA Tour formally announced the new Fed-Ex Cup tour structure that has been rumored and discussed for months. There will now be a points system spread across the season of 33 events culminating in a four tournament championship playoff, similar in concept to the NASCAR Chase for the Cup.
While I applaud the Tour's concept, it's the execution I have some issues with. The idea of a season long points chase for a spot in the playoffs is a good one and one that is likely to increase interest in tournaments all season long. However, how many golfers do you think qualify for the season ending Playoffs? 50? 100? No, 144. Now, how many golfers do you think qualify for Tour season exemptions allowing them to play in tournaments all season long? Only 125 - that's right, there are more golfers in the Playoffs then on the points chase leading up to them. It's rather like allowing the every NFL team in the playoffs, plus every NFL Europe team, a few from the CFL and the BCS qualifiers. Get real, Finchem. The idea is to build fan interest by eliminating golfers, not by letting everybody and their brother play. If every one gets in, why watch during the season. That's the same problem the NBA faces.
What the Tour should do is limit the Playoff contenders to the top 100 finishers and with each of the first three Playoff tournaments, eliminate 20 golfers. Then, for the Tour Championship, there is a field of 20 with everyone starting even, playing for a winner's share of $10 million. That will draw a TV audience, guaranteed. Are you listening Tim?
Last night's NBA Draft once again showed the rise of European basketball. For the first time ever, a European player who never attended high school or college in the US was chosen with the first pick overall, Andrea Bargnani from Benetton Treviso in Italy's Liga A. A total of six players from the EuroLeague were chosen in the first round, with an additional three European players among the ten international players chosen in the second round. Notable among the second round selections were the first two players from Israel ever selected to play in the NBA, Lior Eliyahu, from Hapoel Galil Elyon, picked 44 by Orlando but traded to Houston and Yotam Halperin, from Union Olimpija in Slovenia, picked 53 by Seattle.
With all of this European developed talent coming into the NBA and thriving - see Dallas, San Antonio - why do we not have an opportunity to see EuroLeague games on TV other than a couple of meaningless preseason exhibition games. It seems to me that the Worldwide Leader is missing a golden opportunity here. After all, the rights fees for these games to be broadcast back to the States can't be too much. With the dozen or so ESPN channels that now need programming, it would seem like a natural fit . So listen up Bristol suits, we want our EuroLeague and we want it now. This season. No more Knick games They're much too painful to watch. Give us Benneton and Maccabi Tel Aviv and give it to us this year.
The University of North Dakota has recently announced that it is going to join its sister state institution and jump to Division I. Following a university wide study, the school has concluded that continued participation in Division II, while financially cheaper in the short term, was no longer consistent with the university's goals. As the school looked around at its peer institutions, or at least those regional state institutions that it would like to emulate, they were all Division I schools.
The university panel has estimated that it will cost at least an additional $2 million to fund the move. The Fighting Sioux intend to move all of its teams to Division I following a five year probation period beginning in 2007-08. Currently, the men's hockey team is already a Division I power.
As a sidenote, the university intends to carry through with its lawsuit against the NCAA despite the suit being rendered essentially moot by this move. The NCAA will not allow UND to host any championships or allow UND to show its mascot or use its nickname during a championship but, in any sport other than hockey, this move will render the Sioux ineligible for championship participation in Division I until 2012.
The next item on UND's agenda will be to locate a conference to join. Neither North Dakota State nor South Dakota State, both of whom have recently made the jump have found conference homes as of yet. Both of those were conference mates of UND when they were in Division II and it would be a natural for all three to join a conference together. The Big Sky and the Mid-Continent are both interested in expansion but would present expensive travel issues for this group unless they created a plains division, perhaps with Northern Colorado and Southern Utah.
What lures all of these schools to Division I is a share of the basketball gold that is the CBS television contract. None of them expect to play D-IA football or make any money doing so and none of them will make any money playing any other sport except that UND most likely makes money on hockey. It is the money that can be obtained from basketball that makes the jump appear to be worthwhile. However, as we have discussed in this space before, merely joining Division I, or even joining a low major D-I conference, is no guarantee of riches. Jumping to D-I expecting it to solve financial problems in the athletic department is a fool's errand.
I also question the premise that D-I is a requirement for a major public research university as UND President Charles Kupchella seems to believe. True, most state flagship universities are D-I schools, but then again, most of them are also IA football powers and if you're not going to commit the resources to become one of those, then I think you may just be better off committing the resources entirely to research and academics and become a D-III school. I readily admit that D-II schools do not, for the most part, look like UND , as President Kupchella put it. That's why I suggest that research institutions look seriously at the D-III model. Why do you have to become a money losing and resource draining D-I institution? What academic purpose is that serving? Who will really benefit the most from this decision by UND? I'm not certain its the UND students.
Did you hear that thump? That was the sound of the other shoe dropping at Madison Square Garden as James Dolan decided to eat that expensive contract and fire Larry Brown. Inexplicably, he named Isiah Thomas as the new head coach, insuring the Knicks continued turmoil and presence in the bottom of the NBA. There is nothing in Isiah's past to indicate that he can do both the jobs of president and coach any better than he could do the job of just president.
UPDATE: When Brown entered the morning meeting with Dolan and Thomas, not only did he expect to keep his job, Dolan planned on retaining him as a coach, at least according to ESPN's Chris Sheridan. However, as the meeting went on, the Dolan did not receive the assurances he wanted from Brown that he would change his ways in the upcoming season. Without those changes, the situation was untenable and Brown was the odd man out. In fact, according to the New York Times, Dolan terminated Brown for cause and indicated that the team will not pay him the balance due on his more than $40 million contract. Rest assured that decision will be the subject of much discussion in the coming days and an interesting, and somewhat unusual, clause in Brown's contract will leave the final determination about that decision in the hands of NBA Commissioner David Stern.
Dolan looked over Brown's year with the Knicks and found a team in turmoil, winning just 23 games with a league high payroll. Brown alienated his players and embarked on a public feud with star point guard (for better or worse). He stands accused of having undermined his boss by interfering with his personnel moves, both publicly and privately. Clearly, the situation had so deteriorated that something radical had to be done and Dolan decided that it was Brown that had to go. That means that Thomas has the spotlight and one last chance to turn things around. It is clearly on him now and maybe only one season in which to make it work. With that payroll, his options for reshaping the team are limited and with a lineup that only won 23 games, I hope Isiah's resume is up to date.
The Big Ten Conference has taken the next logical step in college athletics by creating its own television network, in partnership with Fox Cable Sports. The twenty year agreement begins in 2007 and calls for a wide variety of Big Ten sports and academic programming to be broadcast on a 24 hour channel dedicated solely to the 11 member schools. At the same time, the Conference renewed its contract with ESPN/ABC for another 10 years, placing its key football and basketball games on those networks while improving the placement of its games and removing its programming from ESPN syndication and taking it to its own network. Basically, the football and basketball games that were previously on ABC/ESPN will still be there and the games that were syndicated will be on the Big Ten Channel. The Big Ten Channel will also provide extensive coverage of the Olympic sports.
This is perhaps the most important set of contracts yet signed by a college conference. Oh, the Mountain West was the first to create its own network. However, it did so with CSTV and nobody watches it anyway. No, these deals are landmark deals in several respects. The ESPN/ABC deal is worth a reported $50 million per year, which is certainly not chump change. More importantly , however, the Big Ten channel is being placed on the basic tier of Direct TV and is being offered to cable systems for the basic tier, which means at no additional charge to the customer. That is highly significant because it greatly enhances the probability of customer demand for the new channel and the likelihood that cable systems will sign up. The Big Ten will own a majority interest in the channel with Fox holding a minority.
The Big Ten has always insisted that it has an academic mission as well as an athletic one and the Big Ten Channel is no exception. The programming will include 60 hours of original programming from each member institution that the conference intends to be used by students and to highlight academic programs by each member institution. It is a unique resource and should provide for some interesting programming.
The latest edition of Blawg Review is now up at New World Man. This is a weekly (more or less) compendium of the best law related blog posts and worth your time.
Well, Fox has finally sold the naming rights to the new BCS Championship Game. The first one to be held on the new double-hosting arrangement which this year will be held on January 8, 2007 at the brand new Arizona Cardinals stadium in Glendale Arizona. The name will be a familiar one to Valley of the Sun football fans as Fox brought in the current Fiesta Bowl sponsor, so the game will officially be known as the Tostitos BCS Championship Game. Tostitos will hold naming rights to the Championship game at least until 2010 and will retain naming rights to the Fiesta Bowl. No financial terms have been disclosed.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been fined again by NBA Commissioner David Stern for a collection of activities involving the officials following Game 5 in the NBA finals. This time he was fined $250,000. Stern has gone on the airwaves to explain his actions, telling ESPN Radio that Cuban is hurting his team. Later, on Fox Sports Net:
"I think it's sad for his players that he's decided to become the story of the Finals," Stern said. "We'll look into it because that's our job. Â I just don't think it's fair to the effort that's being put out in Miami and Dallas to make it about Mark Cuban's interpretation of the rules."
Of course, Mark Cuban's interpretation of the rules is probably in line with almost any unbiased spectator of the Finals as the Mavs have been the victims of several strange calls both on the floor and in the league office. The phantom time out and phantom foul on Dwayne Wade at the end of the last game should have enraged anyone who wasn't a Heat fan. The still inexplicable suspension of Jerry Stackhouse only set Cuban up for the tirade he had in Miami at the end of game 5. It should make for great theatre for the last two games, if there are two and for that i suppose we should thank Stern. Perhaps he should thank Cuban instead of fining him for having an owner who cares enough about the performance of his team to actually argue a call.
As 2006 dawned, it appeared that the LPGA tour was embarking on a new era of prosperity with a group of young stars set to attract fans and media to the tour in unprecedented numbers. However, as the year as gone forward, the news from tournament after tournament has been focused as much on the goings on in the executive office as the action on the fairways and greens.
The LPGA is in danger of kicking away a golden opportunity if it can't settle matters in the commissioner's office. On the eve of the tour's premier event, the McDonald's LPGA Championship, three top tour executives resigned on the same day in a coordinated response to issues with Commissioner Carolyn Bivens. That brought the number of staff leaving to 13 since Bivens had taken office in September. The tour only has a total of about 60 employees.
Bivens has also angered the owners and operators of the tournaments, in part by simply not communicating with them. More importantly perhaps she has tried to shift costs to them without a collaborative effort, raising the licensing fee by $100,000 or more per tournament.
While Bivens has only been commissioner since September, 2005, she has clearly alienated most of the senior staff, a large core of players and the tournament owners. That pretty well sums up the entire LPGA constituency. If she doesn't get her act together real soon and make up with these groups, the LPGA tour will quickly revert to the status of the Nationwide Tour. A year of promise with promising young stars like Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel, not to mention the phenomenon that is Michelle Wie, have attracted media attention and fans will not be the momentum it should become if the front office situation is allowed to fester. Strong action is needed and it is needed quickly. If the Board of the LPGA tour decides to keep Bivens, then strong senior management must be recruited and given the ability to make decisions and implement them without inteference. The future of the tour is precarious and time is short.
If you didn't read it, you wouldn't believe it. The Schaumburg Flyers, a minor league baseball team in suburban Chicago has decided to let the wisdom of crowds determine its fate for the second half of the season. It will turn over to the fans decisions such as the lineup, fielding positions and pitching roster, in a project called Fan Club: Reality Baseball.
The team, which plays in the independent Northern League, will will be embarking on the project with an alliance between the production company LivePlanet and Microsoft's MSN web site. The idea is not entirely new to baseball either, as Bill Veeck, promoter extraordinaier and the owner of the White Sox, the Browns and the Indians at times in his career once had fans vote during Grandstand Managers Day at a St.Louis Browns game. The fans voted on the lineup and every major decision in the game. The Browns won too, one of their only 52 wins that year.
This endeavor should be a great experiment in the wisdom of the crowd approach to management. We'll be able to see how well the crowd manages and whether the opportunity to actually participate in decision-making attracts fans to the park. The scorecard will not be reflected in just wins and losses but also in crowd participation and attendance receipts. I expect this project to be a winning experiment on all counts and we'll follow it for the rest of the season.
Following through on the threat it made when the decision was handed down, the University of North Dakota has decided to file suit against the NCAA over the designation of its Fighting Sioux nickname as "hostile and abusive". UND President Charles Kupchella explained the university's actions in a letter to the NCAA released last week.
The crux of UND's claim is that the NCAA failed to follow its own internal procedures in passing the legislation that led to the ban. The rule was passed by the NCAA Executive Committee rather than being taken through the committee process and decided upon by the membership. It is UND's contention that the Executive Committee does not have the authority to impose those rules without the concurrence of the membership.
In addition, the university contends that the NCAA has been anything but consistent in its application of the rule, approving exemptions in an arbitrary manner. Taking a look at what exemptions have been approved, it is hard to argue with this contention. What is so different from Florida State, Utah and UND? North Dakota presented evidence to the NCAA that it had the support of one of the Lakota tribes to keep its nickname. The NCAA chose to ignore that evidence and chose instead to seize upon a letter from a self-proclaimed tribal leader from a different tribal council who expressed opposition. On what basis did that decision make sense? On what basis was that decision consistent with the decisions made in the Utah, Florida State or Central Michigan cases?
Needless to say, I think the NCAA will have a very difficult time in this case. It has been a comedy of errors ever since the rule was first adopted and the very adoption is now being called into question. If UND can demonstrate that the NCAA failed to follow its internal procedures when the rule was adopted, it's hard for me to see how any court could uphold the rule.
The television party in the highest ranks of European football continues as European Champion Barcelona announced that it has sold its broadcast rights to production company Grupo Mediapro, the current holder, in a deal worth more than 1 billion euros ($1.27 billion) over the next seven years. The contract is for the so-called national rights and the exploitation of the international rights of the club. It includes a provision requiring the continued broadcast of the games in Catalan, the language of Barcelona's home region. The value of the rights has doubled since the last contract, reflecting in part the rise in rights in European football in general and representing also the value of Barca on the world stage with world football player of the year Ronaldinho on the team, among other stars.
Jordan is going into business with Bob Johnson, the founder of BET and the majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. His Airness will become a partner of Johnson's in a number of businesses including the Bobcats. He will become the second largest owner of the Bobcats and, according to Bloomberg, will become the Managing Member for Basketball Operations. Jordan has long expressed the desire to own and operate an NBA team and the Bobcats are the natural franchise as Jordan is from North Carolina. For the sake of Bobcat fans everywhere (assuming there any) let's hope he does a better job in this stint running a club than he did running the Wizards.
Juan Palacios, a candidate for president of Real Madrid has made the sponsorship of Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso's car a centerpiece of his campaign for to run the Spanish club. Alonso, a long-time friend of Palacios and a Real fan would act as an ambassador for the club. Palacios' opponent in the race criticized the move, saying that Real should be receiving sponsorships not paying it out. It would be, to say the least, unusual for a club of the stature of Real Madrid to start paying for the sponsorship of anything, much less a F1 car.
For weeks now the Tribune Company has been denying that the Chicago Cubs are for sale and for weeks the rumors keep circulating. The company recently announced a stock buyback plan where it would purchase up to 25% of it outstanding stock in an effort to boost its lagging stock price. The price of Trib stock has lost almost half its value in the past two years. However, the stock buy-back plan has run into opposition from major shareholders, including the company's second largest shareholder the Chandler Family trusts that formerly owned the Times Mirror Co. which was sold to the Tribune in 2000.
Opposition to the buyback seems to center on the $2 billion in debt the company would have to take on to finance it as well as the idea that there are probably better ways to boost the value of the stock, such as the sale of other non-core assets. Such other assets would include the Cubs, whose value would be at least $500 million in today's market and probably higher, given its "trophy value". Former Cub great Ernie Banks has been approached by two groups to join with them to purchase the team . One group was led by former New York mayor and Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani and the other group is Los Angeles based buyout firm Comstock Partners LLC.
Giuliani has issued a statementdenying any involvement in an attempt to buy the Cubs and proclaiming his continued loyalty to the Yankees. If that statement is read in the light of the usual baseball statements of support for managers by owners, we should expect a sale to him any day. Seriously, we should probably take him at his word and think that Comstock is the more serious buyer. However, Comstock is a western focused private equity firm so Chicago would be outside its typical market. It does, however, have experience in the entertainment and media business, so a professional sports franchise would not be too big a stretch.
The World Cup is not only the world's biggest sporting event but it also the largest consumer marketing extravaganza in history. With a global audience estimated at a cumulative 32 billion viewers , the 2006 World Cup could be the largest marketing opportunity ever presented. As such, FIFA has attracted as sponsor partners multinational companies that are household brand names, such as Adidas, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Yahoo!, Mastercard and Budweiser.
It is Budweiser that presents an interesting case study. Bud will be the only branded beer available in World Cup stadiums. Now, in a country for whom beer is the national drink and in which there are 1,270 breweries, you might think that serving Bud would not be well received. You would be correct. In fact, prior to the World Cup, Anheuser-Busch was not even allowed to sell Budweiser under that name in Germany as it is too similar to the local Bitburger brand, which will be the only other brand sold in World Cup venues, albeit in unmarked cups. That was the deal Anheuser-Busch had to cut to get the Bud brand into the stadiums.
The German press and people are not too fond of Budweiser, with good reason. They are furious that it is the almost the only beer available in the stadium and are going out of their way to denigrate the beer and the company. In fact, one English newspaper was quoted as reporting that Budweiser is: "brown-gold and alcoholic-but then, in the scathing verdict of German beer fans, so it paint thinner." That was one of the kinder comments.
Despite the local reaction, it is not the German market that Anheueser-Busch is really attempting to convert. By being the exclusive beer presence in the stadium, the company hopes to introduce the Bud brand to new consumers around the world. The World Cup provides a unique opportunity to provide taste tests of your brand to consumers from the world over for a solid month.
In addition, stadium signage will be seen by that audience of 32 billion. For a company whose sales outside the US are still less than 20% of its total sales, the global stage of the World Cup opportunity outweighs the negatives from the bad press it will receive from the Germans. Is it a risk? Sure, but all new ventures are risky and if Bud is ever to expand greatly beyond the US it will have to overcome the perception that it the Germans will attempt to foster during the World Cup. What better way to overcome it than by providing the product to soccer fans from throughout the world.
Whenever the world gathers for a sporting event, there is always more going on then just the competition on the field and the World Cup is no exception. In fact, the World Cup is probably unique among sporting events as the most highly anticipated event in the world, certainly the most watched sporting event in the world and probably the most commercial event in the world - with apologies to the NFL.
In the midst of all of this, there is another competition lurking. This one is just as intense as the one on the field, involves almost as many competitors and requires almost as much preparation. What is this competition you ask? Well, it doesn't really have a name or a true trophy or title - so we'll just call it the unofficial champion "trophy wife of world soccer", a position now held by the inimitable former Posh Spice, aka Victoria Beckham.
The wives and girlfriends of the players in the World Cup have been primping and costuming for months to make their appearances on the German stage. This is the first World Cup of the new age of soccer salaries. The average salary in the English Premier League has increased 65% since 2000 and all those millions has allowed players to significantly upgrade their choice of mates not to mention the shopping sprees those mates enjoy. As a result, the comings and goings of soccer wives and girlfriends are chronicled in gossip tabloids like never before and with individuals like those in this slide show, we can see why.
The likelihood of the Portland Trail Blazers remaining in Portland increased dramatically this week, as the Blazers owner Paul Allen and the owners of the Rose Garden, the Blazers' home arena, agreed to put them on the sale block together. The team has been suffering both at the gate and on the scoreboard during the last few seasons as it has struggled through public relations disasters and poor play. Allen finally tired of throwing in millions of dollars to cover the team's losses and had announced that he would sell the team. He had lost control of the arena several years ago when he defaulted on the loans taken out to build it. It is now controlled by the financial institutions that were the original lenders. After protracted discussions, they have agreed to put the team and the arena on sale together, which should greatly enhance the prospects of the team staying in Portland. Without the ability to generate money from the arena, it is likely that any buyer of the team would have relocated the team to either Anaheim or Kansas City. That looks unnecessary now and it will be far cheaper to keep the Blazers in Portland.
This is the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Big XII Conference and the Kansas City Star takes a comprehensive look at the founding of the conference and the state of the conference today. In looking back ten years, we see the beginnings of the arms race we now know to be in full swing. Ten years ago, the conference realignments that ultimately resulted in the ACC raid on the Big East three years ago were just beginning.
So, now that it's ten years on, how is the Big XII faring. In financial terms, no one can argue with its success. This year, the conference distributed $102.5 million to its members, although that was down from last year's $105 million. All is not rosy, however, as several teams face NCAA investigations or probation, 5 lost scholarships under the new APR regulations and major scandals were faced by Baylor, Colorado and Missouri.
In another article today, a different version of the high finances associated with college athletics was on display - this time in the SEC. The University of Tennessee is evaluating responses to its request for proposals to handle its marketing for the next 10 years and the value of the contract is expected to reach $80 million, in the same ballpark as similar contracts recently granted by Texas and Kentucky. Clearly, running collegiate athletic departments these days is no longer the purview of the retired football coach.
After four years playing at the Coliseum, a stadium that had lost its name in the bankruptcy of cable operator Adelphia, the Tennessee Titans have finally landed a namng rights deal for their home stadium. For the next 10 years, the stadium will be know as LP Field after the Titans and the building products company Louisiana-Pacific Company entered into a $30 million 10 year naming rights deal. In addition to the title sponsorship, and in an interesting and unusual twist, the company will agree to contribute sufficient building products to build a house for Habitat for Humanity in every city in which the Titans play an away game this season.
The deal is probably a bit on the cheap side by current standards. The most recent comparable deal is Indianapolis which is a city about the size of Nashville and also has only one other major league team - in Indy's case it's the NBA Pacers, while in Nashville's case it's the NHL Predators - and the Lucas Oil Stadium deal is a 20 year deal for $6 million per year. I guess being on the market for as long as this one has resulted in a stale product and a lower price. Anyway, this has produced a good value for L-P which has recently moved its headquarters to Nashville and wants to raise its local profile.
As Barbaro continues to recover from the life threatening injuries he suffered during the Preakness Stakes, MSNBC is now out with a report that his injuries may actually have been caused by another horse in the race. After an exhaustive examination of the videotape, the Pimlico stewards believe that Brother Derek made contact with Barbaro just before his injury and that contact is what caused the injury. Brother Derek's jockey, Alex Solis, denies ever coming into contact with Barbaro, saying that he surely would have felt it and didn't feel a thing. At this point, it really doesn't matter how the injury was caused. It is just one of those vagaries of racing that everyone in the thoroughbred industry learns to live with it. Barbaro has endeared himself to fans across the country as evidenced by the thousands of cards, letters, emails and gifts that have poured into the New Bolton Equine Center, where he recovers from surgery. However he was injured, let's just be glad he appears well on the road to recovery.
Now it's on to the Finals. I don't know what it is in the water in the women's training facilities in Evanston, but I hope the girls can bottle it and pass it on to the boys for this fall.
In another dramatic win, the Wildcat softball team, on the strength of back to back eighth inning home runs by Tammy Williams and Garland Cooper and tremendous pitching by Eileen Canney, beat UCLA 3-1 to claim their first ever spot in the championship series. The Cats remain undefeated in the World Series and are the second straight team from the Big Ten to make the finals, following last year's national champions Michigan, who beat UCLA in the finals. The Cats will play the winner of tonight's elimination game between Tennessee and Arizona.
Should Northwestern win, it will mark the school's third national championship won by one of its women's team in the last two weeks, following the lacrosse team and the doubles tennis team. In addition, earlier this past week, Kristin Kjellman, a junior midfielder, was named the winner of the Tewaaraton Award as the nation's best lacrosse player. Better late than never Kristin and congratulations to you. You deserved the award this year without a doubt. It's been a great couple of weeks for the Cats and the ride isn't over yet.
The Mavericks and the Heat are each in the Finals for the first time in franchise history. That marks the first time the Finals have featured rookie finalists since the Milwaukee Bucks met the then Baltimore Bullets in 1971. There are any number of interesting stories surrounding this Finals series, but there is one unique aspect of the series that transcends mere basketball, and I'm not referring to the fact that this has to be the first Finals in professional sports history in America to feature an owner who maintains a blog.
No, I am referring to the fact that this is a battle between American Airlines and American Airlines. Yup, American can't lose. You see, the Heat play in the American Airlines Arena and the Mavs play in the American Airlines Center. I believe this is the first time that any championship round has ever been contested between teams playing in buildings whose naming rights have been held by the same company. Officials at American Airlines must be ecstatic. They could never even have dreamed of this possibility.
The latest rumor involving the future of the Portland Trail Blazers is that new St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts is interested in buying the team and relocating it to St. Louis to play in the Savvis Center. Checketts acquired the operating rights to the arena when he bought the Blues.
In five days and 17 hours, the attention of the world will be focused on Germany for a month. Well, most of the world anyway, all but the United States. Despite the now archetypical "soccer mom" ferrying kids to soccer practice and games in cities and suburbs throughout America and the millions of kids now playing soccer, the games has yet to grab hold of the hearts and minds of sports fans in America. No, most Americans won't pause to take much stock of the World Cup unless the US team makes a surprising run to the quarterfinals or beyond.
The rest of the world however will stop what it's doing for a month and focus on little else. In Germany, however, another contest is taking place, one that has the future fortunes of two companies (and perhaps a third) at stake. That second contest is a marketing battle between Nike and Adidas the likes of which will far surpass anything the sports world has seen to date. We have discussed the battle between these companies here before, mostly in the context of Adidas' acquisition of Reebok. This time, the battle lines are clearer and the stakes, for Adidas at least, may be higher.
Adidas starts this battle with certain advantages. It is, after all. on its home turf and it is the official sponsor of the World Cup. The company was built on soccer and has long dominated the sport. Nike is late to soccer, first turning its attention to the sport following the 1994 World Cup held in the US.
As an example of the importance that Adidas has placed on this year’s World Cup, it has had 100 people employed in a separate building working only the World Cup for two years and budgets about $140 million for advertising, while Nike spends half that. Adidas has already exceeded its original soccer sales target for this year, but its real target isn't sales - it's Nike. Adidas, in conjunction with FIFA since it the official sponsor of the World Cup, has been aggressive in making sure that no guerilla marketing opportunities, something in which Nike has excelled in the past, would be available.
For its part, Nike, since it is not the FIFA approved sponsor, has had to rely on its relationships with individual teams to put its swoosh and name before the public. Here, it can justly rely on its foresight. Nike is the official sponsor of Brazil and USA to name just two, the favorite and the Nike’s home team. Equally important to Nike are its individual endorsers including two-time world player of the year Ronaldinho. Here too, the power of the internet has come to Nike’s aid, as Nike’s Ronaldinho ad seen here has spread all across the world. However, there is also concern that much of Nike's good work may be undone by the injury to England star Wayne Rooney, allegedly caused by his Nike shoes.
Oh, and what about Puma? Puma has deals with the most teams in the field, 12, and rumors are rampant that Nike is considering a purchase of Puma to ramp up its soccer offerings. In a twist that would be very appealing to Nike CEO Phil Knight, Puma and Adidas happen to be located in the same small German town and were founded by the feuding Dassler brothers.
So, in the end, what are we to make of the rivalry? Like all good corporate rivalries, this one provides great theater and perhaps consumer benefits in the form of superior products, as is each company attempts to outdo the other. As to the winner of this extreme deathcage match, we really won’t know until the end of the World Cup. It may depend as much on the winning team as it does on Adidas’ ability to keep Nike out of the World Cup celebrations. If Brazil wins as expected behind the unequalled play of Ronaldinho, Nike may well walk away from the World Cup as the new king of soccer, no matter how many Euros Adidas spends on marketing.
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