Bowls Keep Coming

Larry Coker will close out his run as the Miami coach on the Blue Turf of Boise, when the Canes take on Nevada in the MPC Computers Bowl, a bowl Boise State avoids by going undefeated and earning a BCS bid, likely to the Fiesta against the winner of the Big XII championship game. The loser of that Big XII title game will be headed to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to face a team from the SEC. The SEC bowl scene is a bit confused at the moment and the top won't be cleared up until after Saturday's championship game. The Gator Bowl has informed the Big XII that it will wait until after Saturday's game between West Virginia and Rutgers to decide if it is taking a Big East team or a Big XII team - it has the option to take either and will likely take West Virginia if that option is open to it and West Virginia beats Rutgers, sending Louisville to the BCS. In that case, Texas will likely go to the Sun Bowl as Texas A&M has accepted a bid to the Holiday Bowl to face Cal. Confusing isn't it - well it's just part of the bowl arrangement between the Gator Bowl, Sun Bowl, Big East and Big XII in which they rotate among the bowls and conferences over a four year period.

More and More Bowl Bids

A slew of bowl bids were accepted tonight and here's the latest run-down. From the Pac-10, Cal returns to the Holiday Bowl for the second time in the last three years, most likely to play Texas A&M. Arizona State will travel to paradise to play Hawai'i in the Hawai'i Bowl, while Oregon will travel to Sin City to take on Mountain West champion BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl. Oregon State will travel to El Paso to take on a yet to be determined opponent in the Sun Bowl, while UCLA will go to the Emerald Bowl to try and hand Bobby Bowden's Florida State Seminoles their first losing season in quite some time.

The MAC handed out their invitations today, sending Northern Illinois to San Diego to take on TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl, Central Michigan will head to the Motor City Bowl to wait on an opponent to be named later, likely to come from either the Big East or the Sun Belt as the Big Ten will be unable to fill their bowl allotment due to Michigan and Ohio State both obtaining BCS bowl slots. In addition, Western Michigan will go to Toronto for the inaugural International Bowl against a representative of the Big East.

Also accepting bids today were Tulsa to the Ft. Worth Bowl where they will play Utah. East Carolina will be going to the inaugural Papjohns.com Bowl in Birmingham to take on a Big East opponent. San Jose State is returning to a bowl for the first time since 1990 accepting a bid to the inaugural New Mexico Bowl where it will face, guess who, New Mexico - just a little home cooking for the Lobos don't you think? Good luck Spartans.

BlogPoll Ballot

Here is this week's BlogPoll ballot. Take your best shot:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Southern Cal	--
3	Michigan	--
4	Louisville	1
5	Florida	1
6	Wisconsin	3
7	LSU	5
8	Rutgers	2
9	Arkansas	5
10	Boise State	1
11	Oklahoma	3
12	Wake Forest	9
13	Notre Dame	5
14	Auburn	2
15	West Virginia	8
16	Virginia Tech	1
17	Brigham Young	2
18	Nebraska	2
19	Texas	6
20	Boston College	2
21	Georgia Tech	6
22	Tennessee	3
23	Texas A&M	3
24	Hawaii	--
25	California	2

Dropped Out: Clemson (#22).

New Orleans Bowl

Rice will be making its first bowl appearance since 1961, accepting a bid to the New Orleans Bowl to face the champion of the Sun Belt Conference. It will be the first bowl game played in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.

Nationals Selling Stadium Name

Has CitiField changed the market dynamics for naming rights in Major League Baseball? The Washington Nationals sure hope so. The Nats are now about to take their new to be built stadium to the marketplace and attempt to sell naming rights and are hoping that the deal that the Mets made with CitiGroup will set the standard for what they can expect.

It's doubtful that the Nats can expect to receive anything approaching the $20 million per year that the Mets will be getting - after all, Washington, for all of its charms just isn't New York. What the Nats can reasonably expect is something more in the range of $5-10 million, which is line with MLB deals that have been recently concluded, such as Cisco Field for the Fremont/Oakland A's and Citizen Bank Park for the Philadelphia Phillies. The Houston Astros sold naming rights to their stadium to Coca Cola, now called Minute Maid Park for about $6 million per year, following the Enron bankruptcy.

DC does have certain attractions that none of these other cities had - it is the nation's capital after all. It is home to a high growth sector, a relatively affluent population and is very hungry for baseball. In fact, the demand was higher than MLB anticipated. How that ultimately plays out for a naming rights auction is difficult to predict. It takes two companies with a burning desire to be widely known by the DC populace - Sprint would be a likely candidate and they have bought rights before.

More Bowl Bids

Two more bowl bids were accepted yesterday as TCU accepted a bid to the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego, while Utah will be traveling to Ft. Worth to play in the Armed Forces Bowl. The Horned Frogs' fans can thank a late season surge by the Frogs for getting a bowl trip, allowing TCU to actually go to a bowl that is played somewhere other than its home stadium. The Frogs will be playing a yet to be determined at large team. Utah will be playing a team from Conference USA in that bowl at TCU's home field.

The bowls may be the country's first chance to see either of these teams play since they belong to the Mountain West Conference, the holder of the unfortunate TV contract with mtn., its own regional network unseen in most of its own area, much less the rest of the country.

Carnival of the Capitalists

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is now up at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Get over there and check it out.

Has ESPN Become a Parody of Itself?

I written several times( here and here) before about my problems with the direction that ESPN has been taken, so it should come as no surprise to long-time readers that I am usually in agreement with the numerous articles written by Phil Mushnick of the New York Post who has made a personal crusade out of taking the boys and girls in Bristol to task. Now, Phil has been joined in the fight by a new and clear voice from the Great Southwest. Enter Rick Taylor of San Antonio in a great column in the San Antonio Express-News. Rick skewers ESPN and correctly observes that Bristol has lost sight of the things that have made ESPN must see TV, sending it on the same road to ruin once trod so sadly by MTV. It has become self-parody: the network of poker, Stuart Scott and Steven A. Smith, which is clearly a network that can no longer be taken seriously. And, if you don't understand the "You're with me Leather, reference, check out Deadspin

Davis and Laettner to Slash Grizz Payroll

Prospective Grizzlies' owners Brian Davis and Christian Laettner have a plan to put the team in the black and still maintain a playoff caliber roster, and they outlined it in the private placement memorandum they circulated to raise the money they need to buy the team. Unfortunately for them, the Memphis Commercial Appeal obtained a copy and published relevant details, like the $29.7 million loss the team suffered last year and their plan to cut the payroll by using their "collective knowledge of the NBA and professional basketball" to attract good players at a lower cost.

Increasing the team's revenue side is an even tougher proposition as the two acknowledge that the corporate sponsorship market is pretty well tapped out. They are banking on Davis' attractiveness as only the second African-American majority owner in the NBA to "resonate with the potential fan base in Memphis." Translation: the African-American community in Memphis have not been attending games in sufficient numbers and Davis and Laettner hope to change that.

If they are banking on attendance to pull the team out of financial difficulty and are conceding that they have tapped out the corporate community, this team is in real trouble. The answer is not in African-American attendance and a modestly lower (the memo speaks to a 15% reduction) payroll. The answer is relocation. Memphis is a market that won't work. Of course, that is what a lot of people told the NBA when Heisley first wanted to move the team there.

BlogPoll Ballot

Before I get to this week's ballot, I just wanted to comment on a basketball item. Some of you may know that although I'm listed on the BlogPoll as affiliated with Northwestern, I also have strong ties to the University of Louisville. With that in mind, I couldn't let this week pass without congratulating the basketball Lady Cards on achieving their first ever national ranking in this week's AP Poll, coming in at number 24. Congrats to coach Tom Collen and the Cards and here's to many more weeks in the rankings. Now, back to football and on to this ballot:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Southern Cal	1
3	Michigan	1
4	Arkansas	1
5	Louisville	2
6	Florida	--
7	West Virginia	1
8	Notre Dame	1
9	Wisconsin	2
10	Rutgers	6
11	Boise State	3
12	LSU	2
13	Texas	--
14	Oklahoma	1
15	Georgia Tech	3
16	Auburn	1
17	Virginia Tech	2
18	Boston College	4
19	Brigham Young	4
20	Nebraska	4
21	Wake Forest	9
22	Clemson	4
23	California	7
24	Hawaii	1
25	Tennessee	4

Dropped Out: Maryland (#20).

Is the NBA Broken?

Broken is a strong word and may be a tad strong to apply to the league as a whole. Certainly, a case can be made that Portland is, if not broken, at least cracking and there are a number of franchises with significant issues, but is the league really in trouble? Depends on who is asking the question. According to eight of the current owners, the NBA is in serious trouble.

Before we get to the owners, let's look at the facts. Competitively, the league has issues. Two teams, the Lakers and the Spurs have won six of the last eight titles. Sure, there is new young talent in the league but that is too much dominance by two teams to be healthy.

Only 17 of the 30 teams were profitable after luxury tax payments last season and some of the losses were staggering. Minnesota could lose $30 million between 2005-06 and this season, the Blazers (remember them) expect to lose $100 million in three years and Utah claims to have lost $25 million the last two years. The Sonics claimed to have lost $60 million in the five years before the recent sale.

So, those eight owners - they wrote David Stern a letter back on September 29, pleading with him to adopt revenue sharing. Oh, you thought the NBA had revenue sharing? No, it has a luxury tax, which is a very different animal. What it needs is a mechanism to share local radio and television money, because that is what separates the rich from the poor. It is that revenue sharing which has made the NFL into the juggernaut it is today. The problem is presented to Stern by the eight pleading owners:

"If appropriately managed teams can't break even, let alone make a profit, we have an economic system that requires correction. The needed correction is serious revenue sharing not just modest revenue assistance and we urge you to address this issue on an urgent basis this year."

In case you're wondering, the eight owners who signed the letter owned the following teams: Blazers, Hornets, Bobcats, Bucks, Jazz, Grizzlies, Pacers and T'wolves.

Stern has refused to address this issue in the past and he ducked it repeatedly when the collective bargaining agreement was being negotiated. I have no reason to believe that he will take it on this time, but with teams going on the auction block on virtually a daily basis, he better act soon or the value of his franchises will start to be seriously affected. Of course, market size can't be the only determining factor. After all, the Spurs are in a relatively small market and the Knicks, with a payroll of what, over $100, with their own cable network and can't compete with their NBDL team. Ultimately, personnel decisions will enter the equation as well, but the small market owners do have a legitimate concern that Stern needs to address and the sooner he does so, the sooner the league will begin to repair the cracks that are gaping ever larger in its fiscal foundation.

Carnival of the Capitalists

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is now up at Gongol.com. Get over there and check it out.

NFL Economics

Interesting article from the American Enterprise Institute discussing the economics of the NFL. While I don't argue with his basic premise that it is better to load up on value in the middle rounds of the draft (3-6) than spend grandly on middling players that are not going to instantly make you a better team or perhaps better said, a playoff contender, the author fails to account for the other aspect of the Dan Snyder factor. The reason the Redskins will always be there and, at least as long as Snyder owns them, always bidding up the market, is that with football mad DC and the Skins ability to milk the market and the revenue streams in Fed-Ex Field, there is a seemingly endless stream of dollars for the Skins to waste. It's not a result of shrewd player management that the Redskins are the most valuable franchise in football. It's a result of the market and the stadium.

NHL Signs with YouTube

The NHL recently signed a contract with YouTube to show video clips the day after games and share revenue with YouTube, supposedly the first pact of its kind with a "major league" professional sports league. Of course, this is yet another example of a lost opportunity for a league that has made one bad move after another ever since it has returned from the lockout.

What Major League Baseball discovered is that Internet video and audio streaming of games to a dedicated and loyal fan base is a goldmine. MLB Advanced Media, the Internet arm of Major League Baseball has been a major source of revenue to the clubs for several years now and has been so profitable, that MLB has considered taking it public.

The one thing the NHL has is dedicated fans who thirst for access to NHL games, especially now that actually watching games on television in the US has become so difficult for so many people. Ever since Commissioner Gary Bettman squandered most of the gains made in the new collective bargaining agreement by signing a television agreement with the cable network now known as Versus, and which nobody can find much less watch, the league has become an afterthought to much of mainstream American sports fans.

However, the dedicated NHL fans would flock to live streaming video and would pay for it. The typical NHL fan is younger, more Internet savvy and earns more than the baseball fan and look what audio and video streaming did for baseball. Here is a chance to make money and reconnect to a fan base that is not only tuning the league but increasing failing to attend games. If that happens, no amount of revenue sharing or payroll cap will save the league. A league whose financial model is built on attendance can't afford to see the kind of attendance drops the NHL is starting to experience. The league better start finding alternate revenue streams and giving away your video to YouTube isn't the way to do that.

Football Coaches Salaries

Myles Brand had plenty to say about the huge dollars generated by and spent on intercollegiate athletics, and college basketball and football in particular, in his response to Congress sent this past week. Also this week, USA Today published its database of college football coaches salaries and the timing, I'm sure, wasn't lost on Congressional observers.

The numbers tell a tale that the Rep. Bill Thomas, the outgoing Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee will use to buttress his case for revoking the tax exemption enjoyed by intercollegiate athletics. Million dollar salaries for football coaches is now the norm, not the exception as the average salary for a D-I coach is $950,000, not counting benefits, incentives, subsidized housing or any of the other perks they routinely receive. At least 42 of the 119 coaches receive $1 million or more.

There are now nine coaches clearing more than $2 million, with Oklahoma's Bob Stoops earning more than $3 million in guaranteed pay and Iowa's Kirk Ferentz likely to earn that much next year. Several others probably exceeded that in single years with incentive payments or special payments, including Texas' Mack Brown and Ohio State's Jim Tressel.

The perks vary from school to school, but almost all include a car, country club memberships and tickets for football and basketball games. Several coaches get a cut of ticket revenue, with Oregon's Mike Belotti earning $631,000 last season as a result.

It is now considered routine for coaches to have incentives for meeting football goals, such as conference championships, bowl games and poll rankings. It is also becoming increasing common for incentives to meet academic goals, such as graduation rates, academic progress rates, or sometimes even just meeting the standard of keeping his players out of jail or in school.

There are also now typical penalty provisions reflected the increased NCAA enforcement provisions, such as termination for NCAA infractions, fines for NCAA penalties and similar provisions.

The salary explosion isn't likely to end anytime soon. The marketplace moves by itself and the collegiate football coaching market is also influenced by the NFL given the movement of coaches back and forth. Within that reality all that the presidents can do is attempt to exercise some degree of restraint and implement controls to bring athletic department budgets and spending practices under institutional control.

The NCAA Responds to Congress

The NCAA sent a 25 page letter to the House Ways and Means Committee in response to a letter it sent asking a series of questions concerning the NCAA and its member colleges tax exemption for collegiate athletics. In the response, NCAA President Myles Brand replied to each of the specific questions posed by outgoing chairman Bill Thomas. The letter broke no new ground but sharply defended its tax exemption and educational value.

"The scale of their popularity and the revenues they generate do not diminish the importance of their educational value. The lessons learned on the football field or men's basketball court or no less in value or importance to those student-athletes than the ones learned on the hockey rink or softball diamond -- nor, for that matter , than those learned in theater, dance, music, journalism, or other nonclassroom environments."

That was the core of the NCAA argument about not only the spending on basketball and football but athletics in general. The NCAA asserts that intercollegiate athletics are no different than other nonprofit activities that engage in activities designed to increase their revenues. Therefore, they should be allowed to build new facilities and pay whatever the market demands to recruit the best employees.

There is little new in the NCAA's arguments. There is little that Brand has not been saying in one forum or another since he took office. In my mind, there is little in the letter that the House Ways and Means Committee will find persuasive either. If Brand and the NCAA thought it would take comfort from the recent election victory by the Democrats and the resulting change at the top of the committee, then perhaps, they should think again. According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Senators Charles Grassley and Max Baucus, the outgoing and incoming chairs of the Senate Finance Committee have announced plans to hold a hearing on December 5 on potential tax abuses by colleges and universities. While not focused on intercollegiate athletics, it will include it.

The Ivies and Football

Interesting article in yesterday's New York Times relating the history of the Ivy League's decision to drop out of I-A football and the desire of some athletic administrators to return. The presidents however, are unanimous in their desire to remain in I-AA and not compete for that division's national championship. The Ivy League remains the only I-AA conference that doesn't participate in the playoffs.

The Grey cup is for Sale?

Is nothing sacred anymore? Apparently not in this anything for a buck sports world we now inhabit. Word comes from north of the border that the CFL's venerable Grey Cup, that 97 year old symbol of everything that's right with our northern neighbor's funkier version of football, may soon carry some run of the mill corporate name and logo. No longer will it carry the name of the Governor General who donated the silverware that actually goes to the winner of the historic game. No, it will soon be another corporate anointed bowl game, indistinguishable from the clutter of collegiate bowls that litter the December and January landscape like so man corporate holiday outings. So, soon we'll have a league with no commissioner, a championship game with no distinguishing name and a league with no good television contract. In sum, a recipe for disaster. The CFL is too good a game to go out so ingloriously and to lose its soul in the process.

Real Madrid to Sign Blockbuster TV Deal

Real Madrid is on the verge of one of the largest television rights deal ever signed by a soccer club, according to club president Ramon Calderon. The deal is worth $1.02 Billion , that's with a "B", over seven years and is to be signed this week. Remember, that revenue is for one club and doesn't have to be shared with anyone unlike the league deals signed in the US. The closest comparable deal in the US would be the Yankees cable television deal with the YES network,which was worth about $500 million when it was originally signed, but that the network is owned in part by the Yankees so a comparison is probably not really fair and that deal is several years old. A more apt comparison might be Real's chief rival, Barcelona, which concluded a new television deal only five months ago for about 150 million Euros a season for seven years, which appears on the surface to be roughly comparable to Real's deal.

Calderon also indicated a desire to resign David Beckham, but that Beckham has suspended talks on a new contract. His contract has expires in June and he is free to talk to other clubs starting in January.

BlogPoll Ballot

Here is this week's BlogPoll Ballot with lots of changes near the top in response to the upheaval last week:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Michigan	--
3	Southern Cal	4
4	Rutgers	7
5	Arkansas	8
6	Florida	--
7	Louisville	4
8	West Virginia	--
9	Notre Dame	1
10	LSU	5
11	Wisconsin	6
12	Wake Forest	2
13	Texas	9
14	Boise State	2
15	Oklahoma	3
16	California	7
17	Auburn	12
18	Georgia Tech	1
19	Virginia Tech	2
20	Maryland	3
21	Tennessee	5
22	Boston College	2
23	Brigham Young	2
24	Nebraska	2
25	Hawaii	1

Dropped Out: Oregon (#20), Texas A&M (#22).

Bball = Duck on a Rock?

What could have been - the game we love could just as easily been known as Duck on a Rock or so it seems. Newly discovered material from basketball's inventor shows that the game's Eureka moment came when James Naismith applied the rules to the Canadian children's game to his newly invented indoor hoops game. Naismith's granddaughter found a treasure trove of his old material in her basement recently and now that historical bounty is headed to auction. Included are the first rules of the game, photos of the first basketball team and court and Naismith's description of the first game ever played.

North Dakota Wins Preliminary Injunction on Nickname

A, surprise, state district court judge has granted the University of North Dakota a preliminary injunction barring the NCAA from banning UND from hosting postseason games because of its Fighting Sioux nickname. The ruling came just hours before UND learned it would be hosting a first round game in the Division II football playoffs. The judge's ruling will allow UND to host the game against Winona State on Saturday, November 18.

All was not completely lost for the NCAA yesterday. Newberry College was taken off the list of banned schools after it caved in to the NCAA and notified the body that it was changing its nickname from "Indians" to a yet to be determined new name. Notification satisfied the NCAA and Newberry was returned to compliance status and will host a first round Division II football playoff game against Albany State, also on Saturday.

Top 10 Naming Rights Deals

When I discussed the Mets new deal for CitiField, I mentioned that it set a new record for naming rights. I have since found this list for the top 10 naming rights deal all time, at least in America. There were no European, Asian or Australian names on the list so I assume that they were not examined. Emirates Stadium, Arsenal's new home in London was a reported 100 million Pound deal, which would have placed it on this list, although no figures were publicly released. It is commonly believed to be the most expensive naming rights deal ever done for a stadium in Europe.

NY Times Looks at Fleeing Sonics

Interesting front page look at Seattle's apathy at the prospect of the Sonics fleeing to OKC, focusing on the voters overwhelming rejection of public funding for a new arena to replace Key Arena.

Carnival of the NBA #37

The Carnival of the NBA #37 is now up at The Rising Suns. Get over there and check it out.

MLS Adopts the Beckham Rule

In their annual meeting, the MLS board of governors approved a number of changes to the league aimed at improving the product on the field and strengthening each club. The changes will allow each club to develop a greater individual identity within the single entity system. The two most significant changes for on field performance were the adoption of the so-called Beckham rule, allowing for each club to exceed the salary cap, using its own funds, to sign two players. The contracts must still be approved by the league and the players will still be signed by MLS, not he clubs but the any salary amount above $400,00 will be paid by the club. This will allow the Red Bulls, for instance, to go out and spend ridiculous sums on signing Rondaldo or the Galaxy to retain Landon Donovan and then go get Beckham. It is a good rule change and a necessary one to begin to allow MLS to compete on the world market. Let's see how it works in practice and it may be that it can be expanded so more players can be encouraged to stay in MLS rather than sold off at the peak of their careers.

The other change was further clarification to the youth development academies announced this summer. Every club will be required to start one and will be granted the rights to one player out of its youth team without subjecting him to the draft. This is very encouraging for the development of youth soccer in the US and I applaud the league for taking this crucial step.

The schedule changes announced by the league to take the addition of Toronto FC into account were less positive, in my view. MLS botched the chance to do the right thing and eliminate the conferences and adopt a single table, as I suspect an overwhelming majority of its fans would prefer. It kept the conferences and the playoff structure intact, making tweaking changes to playoff qualification that for the most part don't really matter. The problem is that when the playoffs occur, the nation's sporting attention is not focused on MLS. It is focused on the NFL, college football, the opening of the NBA season and perhaps, the World Series. MLS gets lost in the shuffle and loses the fight for media attention. I don't believe the new television contracts will change that much. The problem is in the calendar and in the competition structure. Adopt the world's calendar and quit playing the spring, summer and fall schedule. Adopt a single table and forget about playoffs or if you must have playoff, use a single table and let the top 4 or 6 compete in a playoff. This structure just doesn't work and continuing it, is just ducking the problem. That said, a series with Mexican clubs is a great idea no matter how it has to be structured and I congratulate Garber on getting that done.

Mets to Play at CitiField

The New York Mets new stadium will not be named for a lawyer. Instead, it will be named after one of the world's largest financial firms after the team and Citigroup reached the most expensive stadium naming rights deal ever. The new stadium will be named CitiField after Citigroup, Inc. agreed to pay the Mets $20 million a year for 20 years, eclipsing the previous record deal for the Houston Texans' Reliant Stadium, for which Reliant Energy is paying $300 million over 32 years.

The Mets new stadium will be built next to Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows. It is scheduled to open in 2009. The facade of the new stadium, seen here, will resemble the old Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn, the fabled home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Citifield will seat 45,000.

Should Judges Be Art Critics?

We will soon find out what the courts in Alabama think of Daniel Moore's legendary painting "The Sack" . It is revered in Alabama for its depiction of the sack by Cornelius Bennett of Steve Buerlein, preserving Alabama's win over Notre Dame in 1986. It is so beloved in Alabama it holds a place of honor in the Bear Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa.

That, however, has not stopped the University of Alabama's lawyers from dropping a lawsuit on Mr. Moore, claiming he has trampled on the University's intellectual property rights by painting the "famous crimson and white color scheme." The university particularly objects to Moore's attempts to profit from using his paintings of Tide football scenes on coffee mugs and T-shirts.

It seems a stretch to me that the University will be able to prevail. After all, it's not as if Moore has not used his artistic talent to interpret the games. In fact, the university thought so much of his work, he was given sideline passes for years. Just because his painting style is realistic should not mean that he loses first amendment rights.

As noted in the Times article, there is legal support for Woods position. In 2003, a federal appeals court rejected Tiger Woods attempt to stop artist from painting an image of his win at the 1997 Masters and including it in a collection of Masters winners. More well known by lay people, perhaps, Andy Warhol didn't breach Campbell's rights when he painted the soup can, which was reproduced endlessly and in innumerable ways.

I think Bama is really pushing the envelope here in a losing cause. Worse, it's angering its fan base in the process. From a public policy standpoint, the last thing we really need are judges set themselves up as art critics. Let's face it, they're lawyers, which should automatically disqualify them as all that knowledgeable about art.

Vitale Gets Extension

In yet another example of the depths to which ESPN will stoop to deprive its viewers of a real sports experience, I'm saddened to report that the WWLS has extended the contract of that clown of a basketball voice ( Iwon't deign to call him an analyst since he never bothers to actually comment on the game taking place in front of him) Dick Vitale through the 2012-2013 season. God help us all, since Bodenheimer certainly isn't.

New Stadiums for the 49ers and the A's

In a matter of a just a few days the sports landscape of the Bay Area may be dramatically changed. First the Oakland A's announce that they have reached a deal with Cisco to put a new stadium on Cisco owned land in Fremont California, contingent on reaching a deal with the city for approval of the development and its accompanying real estate development. The earliest the A's would likely be in the new stadium, assuming all goes well, would be 2011.

Then, in a much more dramatic bombshell, the 49ers announced that they are moving to a new stadium to be built in Santa Clara, after all negotiations with San Francisco over various options within the city broke down. The Santa Clara site is near the Great America amusement park. The Niners will keep the San Francisco name if they move, much as the Giants and Jets have, even though they both play in New Jersey. The immediate impact of the Niners' announcement is the likely end of San Francisco's bid for the 2016 Olympics which was tied to the development of the proposed stadium for the Niners, which would have been used as the Olympic stadium.

The announcement by the A's likely end their flirtation with San Jose, which was probably doomed by baseball's territorial rights rules anyway. The Giants claimed San Jose as part of their territory and would have demanded compensation. Fremont is in the A's territory.

Both of these announcements are still in the preliminary stage and there are many negotiations and approvals ahead. There is a long and winding road to travel before there is ground broken for either of these stadia, so don't believe that either of these teams need to adopt new identities just yet.
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BIg East's Weekly Game of the Century

Tonight at 7:30 on ESPN, undefeated and 13th ranked Rutgers (hard to get used to isn't it?) takes on visiting undefeated and 3rd ranked Louisville in the weekly Big East Game of the Century as the Mike Tranghese road show of revenge rolls on. This week it visits Piscataway, N.J. and Schianopolis as it introduces America to the phenomenon that is Rutgers football. Enjoy the visit America, after the 'Ville gets through with them, it will be a short visit.

To say that Rutgers has enjoyed this ride to the top of the college football world is an understatement. This is the first time a college in the nation's largest media market has been a player in college football since the days of Blanchard and Davis and the Army teams of the late 1940s. New York is so excited about this even the Empire State Building is going to be lit scarlet tonight - an honor never accorded the Giants or the Jets.

There is always a price to be paid for success however and the price in college football doesn't come cheap. Rutgers has found that out amid great controversy in an era of budget cuts and political wrangling. This article does a nice job of setting out what has gone on and what the Rutgers administration is facing as it decides between football, other sports and, frankly, academics. For three hours tonight, all of that will be forgotten, as the Scarlet Knights try to take the next step and extend their unbeaten season in the biggest college football game Rutgers has player in for 137 years.

Can they upset the Cardinals and take a huge step towards the Big East title and a BCS bowl bid? It says here that despite that defense and the running of Rice and Leonard, the Cards are just too fast, too tough and ultimately it will be too much Brohm. The Cards dream season rolls on towards Glendale and an expected date with Troy Smith and the mighty Buckeyes.

Election Results

Election Day is usually a big day in the sports world and yesterday proved to be no exception. Besides several sports figures who were running for office, whom we will discuss later, there were important ballot measures in Sacramento and Seattle which will affect the future of the Kings and Sonics, respectively. The future of both teams in those cities doesn't look real promising as a result of yesterday's results.

In Sacramento, Meaures R and Q went down to landslide defeats, dooming chances for a new arena for the Kings in the downtown railyard. Measure R, which would have raised the sales tax by a one-quarter percent lost 80%-20%, while Measure Q asking voters to bless the spending of half the money raised by the tax on the downtown arena failed by 72%-28%.

So what now for the Kings? The future looks a lot like Anaheim from here. It seems unlikely that Las Vegas would agree to take NBA games off the betting line and that is a requirement of NBA Commissioner David Stern before he would entertain the relocation of any franchise to Sin City. Anaheim has a NBA ready arena which is ready, willing and able to host an NBA team and one of the country's most economically prosperous areas without a professional basketball team.

In Seattle, voters passed Initiative 91 which would makes it more difficult to build a new arena for the Sonics. Initiative 91, approved by a 3-1 margin, requires the city to receive a "fair value" cash profit in return for services or real estate it provides to professional sports franchises. Effectively, that means the Sonics are probably now headed to Oklahoma City, the hometown of new owner Clay Bennett.

In races involving sports figures, Congressman Jim Ryun of Kansas, a former track great, unexpectedly went down to defeat, losing a close race in his try for a sixth term to Democratic challenger Nancy Boyda. In the Pennsylvania Governor's race, Super Bowl star Lynn Swann could not parlay his Steeler fame into the state house as he was defeated by incumbent Democrat Ed Rendell. Former University of Tennessee star quarterback and Heisman Trophy runner-up Heath Shuler, a Democrat, upset eight term Republican Charles Taylor in the race for a US House seat in western North Carolina.

UPDATE: As a result of the election's conclusion, Governor Rendell is able to return to his true love and passion: Eagles Post Game Live, the Comcast Sportsnet postgame show that airs live following every Philadelphia Eagles game. Rendell gave up his duties on the show during his re-election campaign.

Dick's Wins Naming Rights to Rapids Stadium

Dick's Sporting Goods will be paying good money to put its name on the Colorado Rapids new stadium which is being built outside Denver. The sporting goods retailer will pay a reported $40 million over 20 years, which makes it one of the largest deals in Major League Soccer. Apparently competition for the rights for one of its competitors helped spur the deal and boost the price. In addition, there are likely cross promotion opportunities with Rapids owner-operator Kroenke Sports' owned, regional cable network Altitude Sports that sweetened the deal. The 18,000 seat stadium is surrounded by 24 practice fields. It is the centerpiece of a 917 acre development that includes 1 million square feet of retail and commercial space, including, no doubt, a Dick's Sporting Goods Store.

Bowl Bids Have Been Issued

Believe it or not, the first bowl bids of the season have been issued and accepted. Hawai'i has accepted a bid to the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl where it will face a Pac-10 team. Navy has accepted a bid to the Meineke Car Care Bowl held in Charlotte. It will likely face a team from the ACC.

Azinger New Ryder Cup Captain

Capping off a spectacular sports week for the 'Ville, Paul Azinger was introduced yesterday as the new American Ryder Cup Captain for the team which will take on Europe's best at the Ryder Cup to be held at Vahalla in Louisville in 2008. Azinger is a great choice - a popular, inspirational leader who has never lost a Ryder Cup singles match. He knows what it takes to win and his his influence is already being felt in the changes to the points system for player selection that are even more important than his selection as captain.

The changes in the points system are designed to place more weight on a player's performance in 2008 rather than over the two year period as in the past. They are also more weighted toward performance in majors and to purse winnings. Finally, they give the captain four selections instead of two. The changes will have the effect of giving Azinger a team that is playing better at the team of the Ryder Cup and after all, isn't that the point? With more players playing in tournaments around the world, the extra two Captain's selections will give Azinger the opportunity to select a couple of players who are hot but wouldn't qualify because they have been playing in non-qualifying tournaments.

Overall, the selection of Azinger and the change in the points system will give the Americans a better chance to win the Cup in 2008. For that to happen, however, Azinger will have to deftly manage the first two days of the match, coming up with the right pairings and hoping the Americans for once play up to their abilities and not down to their expectations. Good luck Paul. America, and especially all of us in the 'Ville will be rooting for you.

BlogPoll Ballot

Here is this week's BlogPoll ballot. As always, I solicit your comment before I finalize it.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Michigan	--
3	Louisville	1
4	Texas	1
5	Auburn	2
6	Florida	--
7	Southern Cal	2
8	West Virginia	5
9	California	1
10	Notre Dame	1
11	Rutgers	2
12	Boise State	3
13	Arkansas	1
14	Wake Forest	2
15	LSU	1
16	Tennessee	8
17	Wisconsin	1
18	Oklahoma	4
19	Georgia Tech	--
20	Oregon	6
21	Virginia Tech	4
22	Texas A&M	2
23	Maryland	3
24	Boston College	7
25	Brigham Young	1

Dropped Out: Clemson (#21), Tulsa (#23).

Carnival of the Capitalists

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is now up at Gill Blog . Get over there and check it out.

Philips Limits Commercials during Texas-OSU Tonight

You'll probably see a whole lot more of Bevo tonight if you tune in to TBS' coverage of the Texas entertaining Oklahoma State. Philips Electronics has purchased the entire national ad inventory of the broadcast and intends to give most of it back to TBS to limit the commercial time during the game. What commercials there will be, will show sports themed promotions of Philips products, but Philips intends to let TBS use most of the time for more analysis of the game. Sorry Big XII fans, that means you have to listen to TBS announcers prattle on with inane commentary that much longer.

The New Lebrons

When Nike turned Air Jordan into a global brand, it was the power of television and the worldwide marketing force of the NBA that did the trick for the footwear giant. Today, dependence on television is lessening as can be seen in the new Nike campaign for the Air Zoom LeBron IV. Unlike versions I, II and III, Nike has decided to expand the campaign into a variety of new media.

This time, the campaign is highlighted by a kickoff of cable television advertising, when Nike became the sole advertiser for the first edition of SportsCenter on the first day of November. The campaign also includes the distribution of hundreds of thousands of copies of DVDs, saturation ads on espn.com, and mtv.com, video clips appearing as programs on MTV2 and a billboard near Madison Square Garden that features LeBron dunking continuously. The television ads feature LeBron playing himself as four characters and you have undoubtedly seen many times already.


The saturation digital ads are also appearing on other websites, including, noticeably, bet.com, as well as cbssportsline.com and nba.com. The video ad will also show up, as you might expect, on youtube. So, what to make of Nike's campaign? It is attempting to reach its typical consumer where they live and play. Why restrict your campaign to any one medium, especially the priciest of all? If your consumers spend half of their life online, that's where you need to be. If Nike's campaign succeeds, as I expect that it will, it is likely that it will spur other companies to expand their outlets to non-traditional media. The sooner that older companies get over their reluctance to try non-traditional media, the sooner they will begin to build relationships with younger consumers.

Western Kentucky to Move to D-IA Football (Sort Of)

The Western Kentucky University Board of Regents voted yesterday to upgrade the school's football program from Division I-AA to Division I-A in 2009. Well, sort of, anyway. For reasons known only to the school's athletic department, WKU spurned earlier interest from the Mid-American Conference to cast its football lot with the almost D-IAA Sun Belt. To be fair, Western is already a member of the Sun Belt in most of its other sports and had been receiving "pressure" from Sun Belt officials to join in football in an effort to bolster the conference's admittedly weak football offerings. Right now, the conference is the poster child for the major college programs 12th game "guarantee" game and regularly fills up most of ESPN's Bottom 10 Poll. Good luck Toppers, you're going to need it.