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.