Elbow Gate

For the last 2 to 3 years Lebron James has been the poster boy for the NBA. With corporate sponsorship rivaling His Airness, Lebron has been a media machine since he was still in high school. ESPN even broadcasted a couple of his high school games, something that had never been done before. Looking at a stat sheet can show any casual basketball fan that Lebron dominates many of the statistical categories in the NBA. Accomplishing this has allowed him to become the league's Most Valuable Player for the second straight season, placing him in a select group of basketball legends. Clearly his achievements have made him the subject of intense media scrutiny. Everyone always has to know what Lebron is doing. Unfortunately for the rest of the league, the media has chosen to protect The King, even in the face of adversity.

According to James himself, he "hurt" his elbow about two months ago during practice. I choose to use quotes around "hurt" because 3 MRIs have revealed no damage to the elbow. Basically what happened was Lebron felt a tingle in his right elbow, a slight scratch in his armor, and decided to make a huge deal out of it.

News of the elbow came to light when Lebron walked back to the Cavs locker room stretching his elbow during his regular in-game break. Note that this occurred during his regular in-game break. Lebron returned to the game apparently feeling fine as he notched a triple-double and dominated the Bulls down the stretch to lead Cleveland to victory. However, the talk of the phantom elbow didn't escape Lebron.

In what to me seems like the most bizarre and unnecessary play in NBA Playoff history, Lebron James shot a free throw with the game on the line against the Chicago Bulls left-handed. No surprise, it was a brick. What's weird about this whole situation is how quickly the media hopped on the Lebron's elbow train. First of all, James made the first of 2 foul shot attempts before attempting the left-hander. In a post game interview Lebron said that he "made the one that counted" with his right hand, and then had to use his left because he couldn't feel it anymore. Really, Lebron? The one that counted? It was a 4-point game with 6 seconds left, I think both of them counted. What really happened here was Lebron thought the game was secure so he tried to show off my making a left-handed free throw at the end so it would look like he lead his team to victory on a bad arm. Failed attempt, Lebron. But this didn't stop the media from riding the elbow train, giving Lebron even more of an excuse for his poor decision making and, well, selfishness.

"Elbow gate", as it has become known, is destroying the NBA playoffs. In Game 1 of their 2nd round matchup with the Boston Celtics, the Cavs followed a spirited effort by Lebron to come from behind and win. In Game 2 Lebron played average - not like his usually spectacular self - and the commentators were talking about the elbow all game. Nevermind that Boston overcame huge foul discrepancies to win by almost 20 points. Never mind that Boston shot, rebounded, and played better defense than Cleveland. No, something must have been wrong with Lebron's elbow!

Now, I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, but this whole elbow phenomenon has seemed pretty bizarre. It seems like literally from game to game, Lebron's phantom elbow comes back to haunt him. Forget the fact that modern science has shown there is nothing wrong with the elbow. No, this is The King we're talking about! It can't be that Lebron is just an inconsistent player...that's absurd! Clearly the issue is a phantom elbow injury that modern scientific devices cannot detect. Lebron defies nature!

No. The fact is we're seeing the same thing we see every year with Lebron - excuses. For the past several years the excuse has been, "Lebron doesn't have help!" Now that they have built a team of all-stars around him, the excuse when he inevitably loses will be "Well, he had a hurt elbow!" It's absolutely sickening. Let's all just ignore the fact that Kobe Bryant has been playing for the last 4 months with a finger that's actually broken. You know how we can tell it's broken? Because x-rays showed broken bones, and he is wearing a huge splint on the index finger of his shooting hand! There it is folks, scientific proof. Something Lebron clearly has failed to understand since he skipped college and came to the NBA. Or how about last night when Steve Nash led his team to a win on the road with a swollen left eye. No, saying the eye was swollen is an understatement. This eye was completely sealed up due to swelling. Never mind the amount of pain Nash was in, as a point guard one would imagine this would adversely affect his passing and shooting performance. No, Nash rose to the occasion. This is what MVPs do. MVPs do not make excuses.

Of course Lebron came back from his relatively poor performance in Game 2 of the Celtics series and dominated Boston while leading Cleveland to a big win in Game 3 on the road. This prompted the media to say that all talks of Lebron's elbow should be dismissed. On cue, James performed below his normal level in Game 4 and Boston won. I'm anxiously awaiting Lebron's next excuse.

Professional Cheating

Cheating, whether or not we’d like to admit it, affects the lives of everyone on a daily basis. Whether it’s copying another person’s answers on an exam, taking a candy bar from the drug store, or committing insider trading on Wall Street, it seems like most people will do anything and everything to get ahead in life…even at risk of being disgraced by their whole country.

But how can cheating be proven? Unless there is exact evidence of the crime being committed, how can we say for sure that there was something fishy going on? Cheating has happened in the past…doesn’t history tend to repeat itself? In 1919 the Chicago White Socks were found to be throwing games as part of a deal with the mafia. Sumo wrestlers in Japan have been discovered to have ties to the Yakuza, and have been mysteriously killed before they planned to reveal their secrets. Boxers have been known to throw fights and make some money on the side. Even at the Olympics, the pinnacle of all sporting events, judges have been caught exchanging votes so that both of their countries would medal. Even Marlon Brando could have been a contender if it wasn’t for cheating.

Recently I have been reading a great book called “Freakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. In the first chapter they discuss cheating in sumo wrestling matches in Japan. In Japan, sumo wrestling is a BIG deal (pun intended). People all over the country go crazy for the sport and sumo wrestlers gain celebrity statuses depending on how well they do. Their status is measured by their performance in several 15-day tournaments in which they compete once each day. At the end of the tournament, if their record has more wins than losses, then they move up in the ranks. From this it is plain to see that someone entering the 15^th day of the tournament with a record of 7-7 has a lot more to gain than someone who is 9-5 or 8-6.

Through some intense analysis, a 7-7 wrestler had about a 48% chance of winning the final fight against an 8-6 based on data from previous fights between the 2 competitors. This makes sense intuitively because someone who is 7-7 should be slightly worse than someone who is 8-6. However, during the actual fights, the wrestler who was 7-7 won about 79% of the final day fights. Now, you might say that this number is high because the wrestlers who were 7-7 tried harder and wanted to win more. However, in their next meeting, the winning percentage of the 7-7 wrestler falls to 20% against the same competitor he beat. Combine all of this data with the fact that anytime the media questions wrestlers suspected of cheating, their winning percentage returns down to about 50% the next time they compete and you have pretty substantial proof of cheating.

It is very tedious, but besides being caught in the act, this may be the only somewhat reliable evidence of cheating in sports. If sumo wrestlers in Japan are willing to put their honor and careers on the line to cheat in the nation’s biggest sport, then why would it be so much of a stretch to believe that other sports have similar forms of dishonesty. When you’re dealing with multi-billion dollar corporations, you have to believe that they are aware of what maximizes profits. Hopefully one day it will be possible to perform this kind of analysis on American sports.

Integrity and Entertainment

It’s a Monday night and Staples Center is alive. The crowd is going nuts. The athletes are giving it all. The lights illuminate the spectacle. Time is winding down. Anticipation is building…who will come out on top? Some might say their fate is inevitable. I would have to agree. But who has decided it?

Where can we draw a line between entertainment/business and integrity? Sports are supposed to be played for the spirit of competition and honor. However, it is important to remember that every major sports league is a business, not a charity. Is it THAT much of a stretch to believe that certain elements of this supposedly fair competition are manipulated? Don’t be scared off by these claims. I am not trying to suggest that a group of men in black suits sit in a dark, windowless room and script every sporting event. What I am saying, however, is that sometimes actions may be taken that favor profits over integrity.

If you follow the NBA, then you know that the league has been marred by scandal involving disgraced ref Tim Donaghy. Donaghy was found by a FBI investigation to be gambling on, and providing gambling tips to people on games he was and was not involved in. Supposedly he did this by knowing the “tendencies” of certain refs. Donaghy provides specific examples of this in his book, Personal Foul.

Because of the matchup that night, I had some notion of who might win the game, but that's not why I was confident enough to pull the trigger and pick the other team. The real reason I picked the losing team was that I was just about certain they would cover the spread, no matter how badly they played. That is where Dick Bavetta comes into the picture. From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close, and that when a team gets down by double-digit points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team that's having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That's the way Dick Bavetta referees a game — and everyone in the league knew it.

Here is the first question that should be buzzing in your mind. Why did it take a FBI investigation to figure out what was going on? The NBA claims that they review tapes of all games and that their refs have no biases. Supposedly they take every measure possible to ensure the integrity of the games. Are you telling me that through all of their analysis of the way referees perform, they never noticed that something was off? Look at this from the NBA’s perspective. If the games are kept closer then people will stay around longer. They are more likely to buy more concessions and to get emotionally involved in the game. Thus, they are more likely to come back for another game. Similarly, viewers on television will stop watching if a game becomes a blowout. Less people watching means lower ratings and a lower amount to charge for commercial time. If Donaghy is telling the truth, then the NBA has clearly compromised integrity for profits.

Now for the second question that should have you extremely confused. Dick Bavetta is a NBA referee. He is 70 years old. This fact should alarm you. Does David Stern honestly expect us to believe that Dick Bavetta, at the ripe age of 70 years old, has better reflexes, stamina, and even vision to officiate a professional level basketball game than literally ANYONE else? Is it going too far for me to believe that there are some other reasons that Bavetta hasn’t been forced to retire? I understand that experience is important. But at a certain point it just becomes ridiculous.

The biggest problem with this scandal was that NBA Commissioner David Stern swept all notions of this being anything other than a rogue ref under the rug. He has made no effort to try to reform the referee program in the NBA, which has had its history of conspiracy. Derek Hanson, ESPN radio personality and blogger, notes:

So are we really shocked about the accusations of former NBA Ref Tim Donaghy, that some playoff games in the past, were, well for the lack of a better term “fixed?”  How many time have we said that on my shows over the past 11 years that the officiating in the NBA stinks, and almost looks like the games are rigged.  It is really hard to know who to believe here, is Donaghy just bitter and trying to lessen is sentence?  Or is what we have seen with our own eyes true, the calls aren’t just going to favor the superstars, but can determine the outcome of games.

The NBA has a history of conspiracy rumors, and yet David Stern seems to be taking no measures to give fans any reason to not doubt him.

How different is the NBA and even other professional sports leagues from the WWE? The WWE is actually scripted, but if the outcome is known already isn’t it all the same? An outline is almost like a script. Perhaps the WWE is just a more straightforward version of the other sports leagues. They make it known that their only goal is to entertain. Maybe it’s time for the NBA to be more up-front about their intentions.

Social Bookmarking Soulmate

I blog about sports. However, chances are I won't be regurgitating information from ESPN or your favorite sports media outlet. I write about the business side of sports. I write about the ethical questions that come up in sports. Basically, I write about things that no one seems to care about despite their impact in our everyday lives. Due to the specificity of my topic I really don't expect other people to be particularly interested in what I have to say. However, last week I discovered a social bookmarking website called Delicious. I consider myself a pretty educated internet user, but I had never even heard of "social bookmarking" until I found Delicious. The basic idea is that people share their bookmarks with other users. The potential here is obvious - if I could search for keywords that are related to my blog topic, then I would be able to connect with other users with similar interests.


After some extensive cyber-stalking (innocent, I swear...it was all in the name of research!), I was actually able to find someone with similar interests to me. This came as a huge surprise to me. There are actually people out there who are not only interested in sports business, but also willing to share those interests with the world? I had to investigate further. The user, Maristonian52, is actually more similar to me than I initially thought. Of his top 10 tags,  5 are directly related to my blogging interests. The name Maristonian kind of caught me off guard given this users tagging choices. "Marist" is derived from Mary, mother of Jesus Christ. I would think that someone who would be so religious as to make their username "Maristonian" would have other bookmarking interests. But that's besides the point. The fact is, Maristonian seems to be just as interested in sports business as I am.


From Maristonian's bookmarks, I have found myself exposed to an even wider array of sports business websites. I had no idea that there could be that many people out there that similar interests to me. However, I think I have learned even more about sponsorships and business in general from Maristonian's bookmarked sites. The impact that these seemingly meaningless business decisions have on us on a daily basis is unreal. I will definitely be referencing some of these sites in the future. 


Thanks to Delicious.com I was able to find someone out there that actually had similar interests to me. Maristonian, I don't know who you are, but thank you for your bookmarks.

Trifecta

Hello, world (1)

Hello, world!

This being my first entry on this site, I suppose I should explain what I intend to write about, and a bit regarding who I am. On this blog, I plan to break down the business, ethical and sociocultural issues surrounding the world of sports. I want to talk about the impact of sports that stretches beyond the box score. Basically, I will dive into the magical world behind the bleachers – the one we usually don’t hear about.

To me, describing sports as a “world” of it’s own is very meaningful. Athletes are revered cross-culturally, and they seem to be held to different standards than the rest of us – though not always in their best interest. We generally see these athletes on the field (or the court), and forget that they are still people – albeit people with freakish physical ability – that must try to live otherwise normal lives. Similarly, we too often overlook the fact that professional sports leagues are businesses that are also run by people. They are human beings, like you and I, just trying to make some money. Is winning everything for these people involved in sports? Well, I guess that depends on your definition of “winning”. To some, success isn’t measured in wins and losses. It’s all business, right?

Sports business has fascinated me my whole life. It began when I was a kid, asking myself questions like “Why can’t this player be traded to that team?” or “How did this owner just sign this coach and those players?” I researched the intricacies of the Collective Bargaining Agreements, and I was hooked. Around the age of 10, sports talk shows overthrew the classroom as my primary education source. I was taught about all aspects of sports, and my teachers were Chick Hearn, Vin Scully and Bob Costas (to name a few). It was also around this time that I realized I had to dumb down my sports-talk when talking to friends. At some point I crossed the line separating the casual fan and the sports guru. But that didn’t stop me…I was hooked.

Business is just one aspect of the complex sports world that has kept me so obsessed. I also feel that ethical issues in sports are very intriguing topics because ethics are constantly being challenged and violated - sometimes with little media attention, sometimes with too much. These issues are always hot topics. As I type these words, athletes are exploiting their fame, sponsors are exploiting their athletes, and sports media outlets are exploiting their…well, probably everyone including you and me. It seems like every major sports league is constantly experiencing some sort of controversy surrounding the integrity of their respective games. An example of the type of issues I hope to discuss is Mark McGwire’s return to baseball, which has been overshadowed by his confession regarding his use of performance-enhancing drugs. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has used this event in support of his claims that the steroid age is over in professional baseball. Where have I heard that before? Talk about demeaning the integrity of the game. The steroid age will be over when you’re gone, Bud.

Once again, I will try my best to make sure that this blog does not digress into a conspiracy theorist's sounding board. I do, however, wish to discuss topics that I feel do not get enough attention. Why does the media seem to avoid certain issues? Can we blame them? From a financial standpoint, the sports media market would be dead without exciting sports to cover. ESPN and Fox Sports base their entire business plan on the success and popularity of the major sports leagues. You can’t bite the hand that feeds you…just some food for thought.

Blog Education (2)

Looking for education on some of the most influential sports business decisions made each day? Well, a very well thought-out and interesting sports blog that I have been reading recently is Sportsbiz – The Business of Sports Illuminated. Sportsbiz discusses many of the financial implications of everyday sports news, and, as described by the blogger himself, the intention of the site is: 

To bring a bit of a practical angle to some of the questions we see on the sports pages and Sportscenter everyday that take away from our enjoyment of the games. 

The blogger, whose name is posted simply as “Mark”, is an attorney working in private practice. He spends most of his time dealing with sports related matters. Mark began work on this blog on January 11th 2005 and has posted about 3-4 times per week since then. His style involves using mostly short, but very information-heavy posts. Some of his posts are simply links to articles related to sports business that he found interesting, but didn’t have time to discuss. The assumption seems to be that if you’re reading this blog, then you must have some idea about the topics that he presents. Although Mark notes that his expertise is in collegiate athletics (due to the nature of his work), he presents topics from both the collegiate and professional level. Mark enjoys a decent amount of traffic to his site, and Technorati.com lists his blog as 13,422 out of 1,179,313. I do not know if Technorati has filtered out inactive blogs, but I do know that Mark doesn’t get as many comments as he deserves. He averages about 2-3 comments per week…more people NEED to read this blog.

Often times, Mark will blog about sports business topics that are more fun than analytical. In a relatively recent post titled  “Texas Stadium Goes Better with Macaroni and Cheese”, Mark discusses the recent agreement that the city of Irving, Texas made with Kraft Foods. In short, this post talks about Kraft Foods paying Irving to call the demolition of Texas Stadium a “Cheddar Explosion.” Of all the sports business topics of the day, Mark chose to cover the “Cheddar Explosion” in Texas for this post. Although I enjoy a good demolition named after cheese as much as any other person, this definitely wouldn’t be my first thought as a conversation topic for scholars in the field of sports business. However, I think this is what makes Mark unique. He is generally very professional but every once in a while he will write about something a little more…well…fun. I will definitely attempt to emulate Mark’s ability to make sports business topics interesting and relevant.

One thing that I really appreciate about this blog is that it does not try to be anything other than what it is. Mark knows that there probably isn’t an overwhelming population that is interested in sports business, but he sticks to his content. He doesn’t always write about popular, media-friendly sports. He is not scared to go down all the way to the high school level. In his post titled  “Profiting From the Army All-American Game”, Mark explains how two former New Jersey politicians created a high school football game that has become a money-making machine. In a stark contrast to his other post, Mark gets down to nitty gritty in this entry - the numbers and ethics behind this issue are all laid out. He is extremely academic in his tone and he gets into the details that anyone interested in sports business would appreciate. At the same time, Mark raises ethical issues:

The two are doing fairly well for themselves I would say - just another pair of guys profiting mightily on the dreams of high schoolers for an athletic scholarship to college...I can't fault Berman and McGuinness for seeing an opportunity and capitalizing on it. It's the system that disturbs me, but I'm not sure there is a good solution to the problem.

Why are a couple of guys making a ton of money off a game that the players involved in see no profit from? College athletes don’t get paid either (yes, even the ones at USC), but at least they receive scholarships for their play. While the tone of this post is more serious, Mark is still able to keep his personality and have it stand out on the page.

With Sportsbiz, Mark has created an intellectual forum for the discussion of interesting and often ignored sports business issues. Despite the specificity of this topic, it still enjoys a decent following, and does not try to change itself to appeal to a wider audience. The world of sports business is intriguing because not only each is each organization or league are affected by business decisions, the finances of even a whole state can be influenced by the popularity of sports. I am hopeful that I can emulate Mark’s professionalism in my blog.

Blogology (3)

I’ve found myself struggling with how to present my sports knowledge and opinions in a way that is expressive, yet informative. Most people are fans of sports, or will at least watch a sporting event once in while. There are, however, varying levels of sports obsession. Good sports blogs will be able to appeal to both hardcore and casual fans alike, but a delicate balance is in play here. How can a blog appeal to both the Schwab and the casual fan?

Recently, I came across a blog written by Joe Posnanski. Joe, a former writer for Sports Illustrated, updates his blog nearly every day and enjoys quite a large following.  What struck me most about this blog is that it discusses sports at a deeper level than most Cameron Crazies or Hogettes would consider. While his posts are clearly written by an educated and experienced writer, they won’t leave the casual fan heading for the exits. Joe uses his sense of humor (it is really hard not to chuckle at his quick, witty comments) to keep his readers engaged. Obviously, the assumption is that people reading this blog have some interest in sports, but Joe excels at speaking a language that sports-illiterates can follow.

Joe’s sense of humor really shines in his post, Nike: Greek Goddess of Confiscating Tapes. The title makes reference to both the Greek goddess Nike (the goddess of victory), from which the popular company took its name, and the same company’s tape confiscation scandal. From the title alone, we know that Joe is going to be poking fun at this situation, which involved Nike-endorsed NBA superstar Lebron James getting posterized by another basketball player – wait…a college basketball player?! As Joe notes, it must have gone down like this:

Crawford took the ball at James, they both jumped, Crawford did a 360, then another 360, then he took off one of his shoes and bonked James in the head with it, put the shoe back on, pulled out a shaving cream pie and shoved that in James face, took out a bottle of seltzer water and sprayed James, then he poked James in the eye Three Stooges style, then he came up with a quick hip hop song called “Be Gone Lebron,” then he pinched James’ cheek, beat James at thumb wrestling, gave James a wedgie and, finally, dunked the ball, two-handed, rattling the rim, while James cried like a child lost at the mall.

Posnanski uses extreme sarcasm to express how he feels about the whole scandal. Rather than simply saying, “I feel this way about it”, Joe makes an extremely exaggerated remark about what must have been on that tape to make Nike confiscate it. He includes various humorous references that have nothing to do with basketball but are so intricately woven in to his description that the reader doesn’t mind. His message is clear – unless all the things he listed happened on that tape, what was the point of taking it away from its owner? What was the big deal?

What really makes the humor come out in this section of the post is his use of actual basketball terms. He starts off describing an actual basketball play:

Crawford took at the ball at James, they both jumped, Crawford did a 360

But he keeps going on and on, reading off a laundry list of activities that Crawford accomplished in the air before dunking on Lebron James. According to Joe, Lebron didn’t take too kindly to this.

LeBron called over a Nike official named Lynn. The two had a brief conversation. And then the Nike official called out his Nike storm troopers, who promptly ran around the place shooting lasers and confiscating any and all tapes of the offending dunk

Ah, doesn't everyone love a good Star Wars reference? Joe’s use of imagery here is outstanding. He could have easily stated that Nike officials simply took away the tape. Instead he uses images of men in white space suits and lasers all over the gym to keep the post interesting.  The reality of this situation was that it wasn’t very exciting. Crawford simply caught James out of position and dunked on him in an exhibition game. Big deal. Posnanski, however, makes a big deal out of the Nike confiscation scandal that followed this seemingly trivial event by using sarcasm to take a jab at the image-sensitive company. Sports fans all knew about this incident by the time Joe wrote about it, but they came to his site to see his unique take on the situation.

Joe’s writing is great because he can keep his voice while changing his tone. In an entry about Mark McGwire’s admittance of steroid use, Joe takes a firm stance, though he knows it is the minority stance. He simply posts a list of reasons why Mark McGwire may have used performance-enhancing drugs. He is very passionate about his list and urges his readers to see his argument:

I don’t know. Pick any two of those reasons. Or any eight. Or all of them. Or come up with a baker’s dozen of your own. I couldn’t tell you what is going on inside Mark McGwire. But man, it doesn’t seem like it takes too much imagination to come up with a scenario in which McGwire believes that when healthy he was one hell of a historic home run hitter AND ALSO that he’s really sorry he took steroids

Here we see Joe using extremely short sentences to get his point across. It’s almost as if he is making quick statements, immediately followed by one another, before the reader can get a word in. This style of writing is very aggressive. While Joe isn’t using extreme exaggeration, he still uses sarcasm and shows his readers that there can be any number of explanations for the timing of McGwire’s admittance. Why should they believe only one of those explanations? The message he gets across is that no one knows for sure what transpired, and they shouldn’t act like they do. His use of all capital letters at the end of the quoted section also demonstrates the passion and aggression that this post was crafted with.

Joe Posnanski’s blog really speaks directly to its readers. He is an engaging writer with a great deal of sports knowledge and a ton of experience writing about sports. What he really excels at, however, is making his words as exciting as the events he describes. He uses extremely descriptive imagery and keeps tired sports clichés at a minimum. For those that haven’t checked it out, Joe’s blog is definitely a slam dunk home run knock out…you get the idea.

Blogology

I’ve found myself struggling with how to present my sports knowledge and opinions in a way that is expressive, yet informative. Most people are fans of sports, or will at least watch a sporting event once in while. There are, however, varying levels of sports obsession. Good sports blogs will be able to appeal to both hardcore and casual fans alike, but a delicate balance is in play here. How can a blog appeal to both the Schwab and the casual fan?

Recently, I came across a blog written by Joe Posnanski. Joe, a former writer for Sports Illustrated, updates his blog nearly every day and enjoys quite a large following.  What struck me most about this blog is that it discusses sports at a deeper level than most Cameron Crazies or Hogettes would consider. While his posts are clearly written by an educated and experienced writer, they won’t leave the casual fan heading for the exits. Joe uses his sense of humor (it’s hard not to chuckle at his quick, witty comments) to keep his readers engaged. Obviously, the assumption is that people reading this blog have some interest in sports, but Joe excels at speaking a language that sports-illiterates can follow.

Joe’s sense of humor really shines in his post, Nike: Greek Goddess of Confiscating Tapes. The title makes reference to both the Greek goddess Nike (the goddess of victory), from which the popular company took its name, and the same company’s tape confiscation scandal. From the title alone, we know that Joe is going to be poking fun at this situation, which involved Nike-endorsed NBA superstar Lebron James getting posterized by a random college basketball player. As Joe notes, it must have gone down like this:

Crawford took the ball at James, they both jumped, Crawford did a 360, then another 360, then he took off one of his shoes and bonked James in the head with it, put the shoe back on, pulled out a shaving cream pie and shoved that in James face, took out a bottle of seltzer water and sprayed James, then he poked James in the eye Three Stooges style, then he came up with a quick hip hop song called “Be Gone Lebron,” then he pinched James’ cheek, beat James at thumb wrestling, gave James a wedgie and, finally, dunked the ball, two-handed, rattling the rim, while James cried like a child lost at the mall.

Posnanski uses extreme sarcasm to express how he felt about the whole scandal. Rather than simply saying, “I feel this way about it”, Joe makes an extremely exaggerated remark about what must have been on that tape to make Nike confiscate it. He includes various humorous references that have nothing to do with basketball but are so intricately woven in to his description that the reader doesn’t mind. His message is clear – unless all the things he listed happened on that tape, what was the point of taking it away? What was the big deal? The thing that really makes the humor come out in this section is his use of actual basketball terms. He starts off describing an actual basketball play:

Crawford took at the ball at James, they both jumped, Crawford did a 360

But he keeps going on and on, reading off a laundry list of activities that Crawford accomplished in the air before dunking on Lebron James. The reality of this situation was that it wasn’t very exciting. Crawford simply caught James out of position and dunked on him in an exhibition game. Big deal. Posnanski, however, makes a big deal out of the Nike confiscation scandal that followed this seemingly trivial event by using sarcasm to take a jab at the image-sensitive company.

Joe’s writing is great because he can keep his voice while changing his tone. The Nike article was a lighter subject than his article about Mark McGwire’s admittance of steroid use. Joe takes a firm stance, though he knows it is the minority stance, and simply posts a list of reasons why Mark McGwire may have used performance-enhancing drugs. He is very passionate about his list and urges his readers to see his argument:

I don’t know. Pick any two of those reasons. Or any eight. Or all of them. Or come up with a baker’s dozen of your own. I couldn’t tell you what is going on inside Mark McGwire. But man, it doesn’t seem like it takes too much imagination to come up with a scenario in which McGwire believes that when healthy he was one hell of a historic home run hitter AND ALSO that he’s really sorry he took steroids

Here we see Joe using extremely short sentences to get his point across. It’s almost as if he is making a statement, and then immediately following it with another before the reader can get a word in. This style of writing is very aggressive. While Joe isn’t using extreme exaggeration, he still uses sarcasm and shows his readers that there can be any number of explanations for the timing of McGwire’s admittance. Why should they believe only one of those explanations? The message he gets across is that no one knows for sure what transpired, and they shouldn’t act like they do. His use of all capital letters at the end of the quoted section also demonstrate the passion and aggression that this post was made with.

Joe Posnanski’s blog really speaks directly to its readers. He is an engaging writer with a great deal of sports knowledge and a ton of experience writing about sports. What he really excels at, however, is making his words as exciting as the events he describes. This blog is definitely a slam dunk…check it out!

Blog Education

A very well thought-out and interesting blog that I have been reading recently is Sportsbiz – The Business of Sports Illuminated. Sportsbiz discusses many of the financial implications of everyday sports news. As described by the blogger himself, the intention of the site is:

To bring a bit of a practical angle to some of the questions we see on the sports pages and Sportscenter everyday that take away from our enjoyment of the games.

The blogger, whose name is posted simply as “Mark”, is an attorney working in private practice. He spends most of his time dealing with sports related matters. Mark began work on this blog on January 11th 2005 and has posted about 3-4 times per week since then. His style involves using mostly short, but very information-heavy posts. Some of his posts are simply links to articles related to sports business that he found interesting, but didn’t have time to discuss. The assumption seems to be that if you’re reading this blog, then you must have some idea about the topics that he presents. Although Mark notes that his expertise is in collegiate athletics (due to the nature of his work), he presents topics from both the collegiate and professional level. Technorati.com lists his blog as 13,422 out of 1,179,313 total blogs. I do not know if Technorati has filtered out inactive blogs, but I do know that Mark doesn’t get as many comments as he deserves. He averages about 2-3 comments per week…more people NEED to read this blog.

Often times, Mark will talk about sports business topics that are more fun than analytical. In a recent post titled “Texas Stadium Goes Better with Macaroni and Cheese”, Mark discusses the recent agreement that the city of Irving, Texas made with Kraft Foods. Texas Stadium, the former home of the Dallas Cowboys, is now useless to the city of Irving. The team has moved to the new (and very expensive) Cowboys Stadium, located in Arlington. The city is going to demolish this building, and because the Cowboys are the most profitable team in the NFL, Kraft Foods decided that there would be a good amount of media attention to this event. This made for a good time to plug their brand. Kraft agreed to pay $75,000 to the city of Irving, and they will make a donation of $75,000 worth of Kraft products to a charity of the city’s choosing in exchange for naming the demolition of Texas Stadium a “Cheddar Explosion.” This agreement will likely pay off for Kraft Foods after the media coverage when Texas Stadium is demolished. The city also gets paid for something they were going to do anyway. Seems like a win-win situation to me.

One thing I really appreciate about this blog is that it does not try to be anything other than what it is. Mark knows that there probably isn’t an overwhelming population that is interested in sports business, but he sticks to his content. He doesn’t always write about only popular, media-friendly sports. He even gets down to the high school level. In his post titled “Profiting From the Army All-American Game”, Mark explains the financial aspects of this high school football “all-star” game. As many of us know, the NCAA, among its other regulations, does not allow collegiate athletes to get paid for their play. There are less standard rules regarding high school athletes. While high school athletes are still protected from exploitation an extent, a couple of former New Jersey politicians devised a moneymaking machine that is now known as the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. The producers of this event began holding very expensive camps several weekends a year for kids aged twelve and older. The idea is that exposure at these camps will give the kids a better chance for a college scholarship. They then choose from these camps two teams to compete in a game that draws over thirty thousand fans annually and is televised by NBC. However this is all icing on the cake that is the sponsorships. The U.S. Army pays over two million dollars annually to the event, and that is just one of over a dozen sponsors. Technically the two ex-politicians are not making money directly off the players, so can you really blame them for taking advantage of a profitable situation?

Sportsbiz provides an intellectual forum for the discussion of interesting and often ignored sports business issues. Despite the specificity of this topic, it still enjoys a decent following, and does not try to change itself to appeal to a wider audience. The world of sports business is intriguing because the finances of not only each organization or league are affected by business decisions, but the finances of even a whole state can be influenced by the popularity of sports. I am hopeful that I can emulate Mark’s professionalism!

Winning Isn't Everything

Hello, world!

This being my first entry on this blog, I suppose I should explain what I intend to blog about, and a bit about who I am. In the next several months, I intend to write about the business, ethical, and sociocultural issues surrounding the world of sports.
To me, describing sports as a “world” of it’s own is very meaningful. Athletes are revered cross-culturally, and they seem to be held to different standards than the rest of us – though not always in their best interest. In many cases, we see these athletes only in their respective domains, and forget that they are not immune to the stress and hassles that affect everyone. Similarly, we too often overlook the fact that professional sports leagues are businesses run by human beings, and are therefore subject to any corruption that plagues other large corporations. While I hope that this blog will not simply digress into my own personal rants about possible conspiracy theories, I do hope to address some controversial issues that are reported but not well known.

The world of sports business has fascinated me my whole life. It began when I was a kid, asking myself questions like “Why can’t this player be traded to that team?” or “How did this owner just sign this coach and those players?” I researched the intricacies of the Collective Bargaining Agreements, and I was hooked. After college I want to do something related to sports business and I hope that this blog will help me keep up with the side of sports that is not typically discussed on Sportscenter.

I feel that ethics in sports is a very intriguing topic because they are constantly being challenged and violated, often times without much media attention. These issues could not be more topical than they are now. It seems like every major sports league is experiencing some sort of controversy surrounding the integrity of their respective games. In Major League Baseball, Mark McGwire’s return to the game has been overshadowed by his admittance of the use of performance-enhancing drugs. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has used this event in support of his claims that the steroid age is over in professional baseball. Skeptics, however, have been calling for Selig's resignation for the performance-enhancing era to officially be over.

In the National Basketball Association, recent scandals involving referees gambling on games have been among the biggest topics surrounding the league, despite Commissioner David Stern’s attempts to sweep those issues under the rug. Almost a year ago, the FBI launched an investigation on NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who was found to be providing gambling tips to people with mob ties, and gambling on games himself. Donaghy then went on to expose a supposedly intricate scheme created by the NBA to control the outcomes of certain games. For anyone that watches the NBA, it has, by quite a large margin, the most influence from referees than any other professional sport. It is hard to hear about something that could potentially bring down the entire corporation, and yet the media, as well as the league under fire, almost completely ignores it. David Stern continues to claim that Donaghy was a “disgraced ref” and was trying to burn the league down on his way out. However, just because most of the smoke is coming from this “disgraced ref” doesn’t mean that the league hasn’t started the fire.

Once again, I do not wish for this blog to digress into a conspiracy theorist's sounding board, but I do wish to discuss topics that I feel do not get enough attention. Why does the media seem to avoid certain issues? Can we blame them? ESPN and Fox Sports base their entire business plan on the success and popularity of the major sports leagues. You can’t bite the hand that feeds you.