When Is Your Picture Not Yours

Well, if you live in Arkansas and take a picture of your son in this weekend's state championship game, then none of your pictures will be yours by Monday. For that matter none of the video or audio you took will be yours either.

That is what the Arkansas Activities Association (AAA) is claiming. The AAA is the sponsoring organization of championship games for public and private schools in the state of Arkansas. This isn't just happening in Arkansas, similar organizations are making the same claim in Illinois.

For more info check out OffWing Photo where we started tracking this issue several days ago. This issue affects traditional press, online press, spectators, friends, and the families of the participants in state championships.....oh BTW it might be unconstitutional.

Check out the latest photos from OffWing photographers by visiting our Photoshelter gallery.

Also stop by our new sister website OffWing Photo where we focus on photography, especially sports photography.

Interview With Michael McCann

My old friend Michael McCann sat down for an interview recently with SportsAgentBlog.com. Give it a read.

Is Partnering With Pro Athletes Too Risky?

Jon Hickey of Mullen Advertising says maybe so.

Why ESPN Doesn't Matter To The NHL Anymore

In looking at the NHL's relationship with ESPN, Alanah Downie asks an interesting question:

Is ESPN’s influence so great now that they’re stacking the deck against some sports (such as hockey) in favor of others purely for their own financial gain?

You'd think that this would be apparent by now, but I guess it bears repeating: Not only is ESPN willing to stack the deck against certain sports for their own financial gain, they're also more than willing to sacrifice some of their most popular programming in order to appease their most important rights holder.

Am I the only one who remembers Playmakers, the weekly drama about the travails of a fictional pro football team? Playmakers wasn't just successful, it was the most successful piece of original programming that ESPN ever produced. Over its run, it averaged 1.6 million viewers per episode, cresting over 2 million with what turned out to be the series finale.

But the NFL hated it. They really hated it. In fact, they hated it so much, they started making noises about how its continued existence was endangering ESPN's relationship with the league and the cable network soon pulled the plug.

So in the end, dear viewer, you don't matter. It's all about which mix of programming can produce the largest return for the network.

But even if ESPN deigned to allow the NHL to return to its ever growing stable of sports programming, the ultimate success or failure of the NHL simply doesn't lie in the hands of ESPN. Instead, it lies in the hands of folks like us, hockey fans who are just looking somewhere, anywhere, for a dose of hockey.

And in this area, the league is actually doing some smart stuff. NHL Center Ice is simply the lifeline of the dedicated American hockey fan. That it's now available online is all the better.

As I've written before, the league's deals with YouTube and Google Video were simply brilliant. Just take a look at the viewership numbers on many of those individual videos. It's been an incredible success for the league and its fans.

But what folks still want is the ability to see game highlights on their television at home. Sure, when Versus and NBC show highlights, they do a good job, but that's only a couple of hours a week. What I want is a night in and night out summary of what's going on in the NHL and I want to watch it on the 32-inch plus television I spent more than $1,000 for.

Which is why my eyes lit up when I saw the ad that appeared in my email box only a few hours ago:

Wow. I mean, wowy, wow, wow.

You better believe I signed up for this immediately, and I'm already downloading Borat onto my TiVo. It's a good feeling.

Now, how much might I be willing to pay to have a 30 minute all-hockey highlight show downloaded onto to my TiVo every night -- something I could watch in the morning while I get ready for work?

I'm not sure, but I hope somebody in New York or Toronto is thinking about it. All I know is that somebody would probably be one click away from getting some more of my money.

So the bottom line is this: ESPN is a ship that has sailed, a girlfriend that has moved on while we're still thinking about how wonderful she was even though she treated us with the back of her hand.

In short, it's time to find something new. Heck, even though ESPN is something of a sports behemoth, even they can't completely control the agenda on their own pages anymore.

It's a new day. If Keith Olbermann can move on, so can we. And who knows, maybe we might actually find something we like better than what we had before.

UPDATE: Martin Thornell writes:

Eric - listening to ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike (in the morning) today, they were discussing the marketability of different athletes, and compiling lists of the most marketable North American (not American!) athletes in 3 categories: retired, active and up-and-coming. Their retired list includes Lance Armstrong, Ripkin etc., (no Gretzky) The active list includes Tiger, Peyton Manning ...(no NHLers) They asked listeners to suggest up-and-comers, so I wrote and said Sidney Crosby should be on the list. They did discuss Sid the Kid, for about 5 seconds, dismissing him out of hand, simply saying something like, "well, Crosby plays hockey, hockey has problems, so he has no shot..." They then proceeded with a lengthy discussion of whether O.J. Mayo or Kevin Durant should be on the list.... In the big picture this is not terribly important, simply further evidence that ESPN is, as you say, "stacking the deck" against hockey.

Stacking the deck or not, I just don't think it matters anymore.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Andrew Whitacre writes:

About the EPSN post--God, I'd love to see hockey highlights every night again. You know there are teams whose uniforms I can't even picture anymore because I haven't seen them since ESPN stopped covering hockey? I've never seen a Bluejackets highlight. I haven't seen a west coast team play in two years. It's awful!

Andrew also sent along a warning about the Amazon Unbox service. Looks like I might have to think twice about this, if the TOS hasn't changed.

FINAL UPDATE: Christy Hammond wrote about the Devils and their high ticket prices after they announced their move to Newark.

Want To Work For Reebok On NHL And NFL Merchandise?

If so, this might be your shot. Reebok is looking to hire a designer to work at its Canton, Massachusetts location:

Description

The Sports Licensed division of adidas Group is looking for a designer that has the ability to style and design entire product, technically addressing, fit, patterns, fabrics and graphic designs. A designer that has a global outlook towards fashion and lifestyle trends, combined with the ability to translate color, graphics and material to the products; and can effectively interact with a variety of cross functional groups.

Responsibilities:
Provide market research and present future trends based on seasonal concepts.
Research and development of all on-going fabric, construction details and trim research.
Create design boards and manage transfer of information to development and product management teams.
Design category collections within cost, style, performance and consumer objectives integrating freelance design and inspiration.
Maintain all files and transfer of correct information to cross business functional units.
Work in partnership with development team for handoff of all Proto-Requests.
Attend fit and prototype review sessions.
Work parallel with Production management teams.
Strong communication, organizational, and presentation skills.
Able to respond quickly to multiple projects with strong time management skills.
International and domestic travel required.

So, if you're looking to kill that whole pink jersey thing, this might be your shot.

The Fantasy Sports Arbitrator

Meet the Sports Judge:

Are you striving for a higher degree of professionalism for your fantasy sports league? Would you like an impartial and effective method for resolving disputes with other teams? Do you need a comprehensive league constitution? Or, might you be looking for that extra degree of scouting intelligence that can make all the difference during the season?

Professor Marc Edelman's "SportsJudge™" brings an unsurpassed level of experience and expertise to the competitive world of fantasy sports. As a practicing attorney and professor trained in the legalities of professional and virtual sports, Professor Edelman has quickly become recognized as a leading authority and resource by those who take their fantasy sports seriously.

Well, if folks are selling characters from Everquest, I guess this only makes sense too. Thanks to Radley Balko for the pointer.

Versus Extends NHL Contract

"Amid flat national ratings and sliding regional numbers, Comcast will remain in the rink with the National Hockey League into the next decade.

Comcast’s Versus network will televise national NHL games through 2011 after exercising an option to air the 2007-08 season and picking up the rights to three additional campaigns.

“We’ll definitely have the third season, and we’ll have [the NHL] for six years,” said Versus president Gavin Harvey, who declined to discuss deal terms. “We’re looking forward to season three on Versus.”

Sources close to Versus said the 71 million-subscriber network exercised a $72.5 million option for the 2007-08 campaign and then extended its pact for three more seasons at an undisclosed price."

The complete article from the Variety-owned, Multichannel News site can be read here.

Johnstown Chiefs (.com) For Sale

Johnstown Chiefs website.

Talk about incompetent ownership. Not only does Anita McCambridge refuse to sell the Chiefs, but it seems that her web producer has forgotten to renew the team's domain name. Wither Reggie.

Ed. note: Network Solutions is closed for a meeting today. Let the bidding war begin.

Ed. note #2: With apologies to Chiefs' web producer Steve Hanson, the site is now registered and is back up and running.

Ken Berard can be reached at kpberard@gmail.com

The 50 Most Influential People in Sports

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has been named the 11th most influential person in sports according to Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, the industry's leading trade publication.

From the article,

"Sustaining current interest and increasing the popularity of the sport remain Bettman’s biggest challenges. He’s already addressed it in part with steps to improve the quality of the product on the ice, but the league’s future on TV will be critical to propelling long-term growth.

Ultimately, that will determine how history judges Bettman’s place in hockey."

The top ten:
1.George Bodenheimer President, ESPN/ABC Sports
2.David Stern NBA Commissioner
3.Bud Selig MLB Commissioner
4.Dick Ebersol Chairman, NBC Sports
5.Roger Goodell NFL Commissioner
6. David Hill President Direct TV Entertainment Group. Chairman, Fox Sports
7. Tony Ponturo Vice President of Marketing, Anheuser-Busch
8. Brian France President and CEO, NASCAR
9. Phil Knight Chairman, Nike
10. Sean McManus President, CBS Sports

Others of note:
27. Jeff Shell President, Comcast Programming Group
43. Jeremy Jacobs Sr. Owner, Boston Bruins

The entire list can be read here.

Mascot Wanted

Looking at the NHL's job message board, it appears that the Washington Capitals are looking to hire a new mascot. This begs two questions: will the Caps be Slapshot-less against the Flyers Saturday night? And will Jeremy Roenick be applying for the job?

Ken Berard can be reached at kpberard@gmail.com

When Your Ticket Isn't Exactly Your Ticket

Interesting piece from Richard Sandomir from today's New York Times on how teams are starting to revoke season tickets from fans who attempt to re-sell their tickets on services like eBay and StubHub.

As someone who is an NFL season ticket holder, I can't say I'm happy about the development. Once I buy a ticket, I feel like I've got a right to re-sell that ticket to anyone that I like. Then again, as one New York Yankees executive told the Times, if customers don't like the terms of the sale, they don't have to buy the tickets.

While it would be easy to react with knee-jerk anger at the teams, there are a number of different things going on here. With the rise of the Internet, scalping has evolved from a shadowy specialty skill into a broad-based business. Time was you only had two choices when it came to getting tickets to the big game: Call a ticket broker or show up at the stadium and take a chance on a game day scalper -- and that's the case whether you're looking for WNBA tickets or two seats to the Super Bowl.

But first with eBay and now with StubHub and a number of other services -- many of which are proud advertisers here at Off Wing -- anybody can unload seats they either don't want to use or just can't, and do it for a very reasonable service fee.

Teams who have been reluctant for years to dabble in tiered pricing are undestandably concerned that they have no way of capturing additional revenue when demand drives up the after market price of a ticket. They want a piece of that action, and they're looking to set up their own private markets to do it.

While I believe teams are perfectly within their rights to demand this, and may even be able to improve the market for ticket re-sale by competing on price or quality of service, things are sure to run off the rails at some point if fans get the impression that teams want to create a monopoly marketplace where they make money on every transaction, and teams leverage that monopoly to extract a profit that fans percieve to be excessive and unfair.

In that case, we'll simply see a significant portion of the ticket re-sale marketplace driven underground again. It will probably be good news for the game day scalper. If teams attempt to track the identity of online sellers (something the Yankees already do), individual ticket holders will be forced to work with brokers who will either filter tickets to game day scalpers or put processes in place to thwart teams who attempt to determine the identity of season ticket holders participating in the re-sale marketplace.

For example, the Times article revealed that the Yankees regularly question fans who arrive at the game with envelopes bearing the StubHub logo. Something tells me that StubHub will make sure that those envelopes are blank from now on.

Teams are playing a very dangerous game here, which is why you're probably only seeing teams with outsized market power -- like the Yankees -- act in such a heavy handed manner. Season ticket holders are the backbone of many team's revenue streams. They're generally well-off, better educated, and a lot more likely to be able to fight back. Like the music industry, professional sports may eventually discover that playing hardball with your best customers isn't always the right move.

Caps Owner To Cut Back AOL Duties

This morning's edition of the Washington Post reports that Caps owner Ted Leonsis is going to be pulling away from his day-to-day responsibilities at AOL to concentrate on his sports and entertainment projects as well as his outside philanthropical interests:

"I'm still going to come in every day and if I want to leave at 5:30 to watch the drop of the puck, I will do that without guilt," he said. "I think I've earned that right."

The man wants to watch more hockey, and how can anyone argue with that?

My Whole World Is Blue...

I'm with Stupid Evil Bastard, I can't get enough of this Fruit of the Loom commercial satirizing Coldplay.

I've seen bits and snatches of the commercial for a couple of weeks, and was always disappointed that I couldn't listen to the whole song. That was until a few minutes ago, until TiVo delivered a pop-up balloon asking if I wanted to watch the whole video.

Brilliant stuff, from the video itself (very ingenious), to the song, and finally the marketing and advertising. In a way, I feel like I ought to go out and buy a pair of boxers just to call it even.

Here We Go Again...

With another miscretant hijacking my RSS feed. This guy is a little more sly, as the domain name he's using apparently isn't registered to anyone.

Just Quenching Your Thirst...

Or is it something more?

After getting a good chuckle, just know this isn't the first time something like this has happened. But it doesn't make it any less funny.

Something tells me shameless sports marketing shill Darren Rovell (watch him turn press releases into news!) won't take notice.

Thanks to Chris Lynch, who earned a couple of centuries in Purgatory today, for the pointer.

UPDATE: Color me wrong on Rovell.

Life Imitates The Onion

Our favorite online satirists knew what Gillete had to do before they even knew it.

The Gillete Fusion Razor

I just saw that Glenn Reynolds posted a review of the new Gillette Fusion Razor, and I figured I should chime in too.

I've been using Gillete razors since I got out of college and ditched electrics forever. Most recently, I've been using the Gillete Sensor Excel, but only because I left my Mach III handle in a Santa Fe hotel over the Summer. Lucky for me I had a Sensor handle and a stash of blades in reserve. I've been using them ever since.

About a week ago I got a Fusion handle with one catridge in the mail along with a bunch of coupons. This isn't the first time, as I got my Mach III handle the same way a couple of years back.

I've been using the Fusion for about a week now, and I have to concur with Glenn -- the shave is noticably closer than with the old Sensor, and better than I remember it with the Mach III.

However, it was only a few weeks ago listening to Adam Curry's Daily Source Code, that Curry read an email from one of his listeners claiming that razor companies use a higher grade of steel in blades that ship with the handle than the replacement blades. That's something I'll keep in mind over the next few weeks and months.

I've got one other quibble with Gillete: As the surface area of blade catridges has increased, it's gotten tougher to get the blade into some tight spots -- most notably above my lip. Thankfully, Gillete has included a sixth blade for trimming on the reverse of the cartridge. It worked very well at first, but seems to have dulled pretty quickly over the last 2-3 days.

So, a qualified thumbs up for the Fusion. Anybody else?

Budwieser And The SI Swimsuit Issue: Perfect Together

Boy, I may have to start reading Adrants every day:

In a perfect alignment, Budweiser has signed on as exclusive promotional sponsor of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit issue and will also team with SI supermodel Molly Sims who will appear in the brewer's point of sale material.

God bless us, every one.

The Ticket Options Market

Over at the Sports Economist, Brad Humphreys takes a look at an interesting development -- an options market for tickets to high profile sporting events:

After opening an account, members can buy options to purchase tickets to a number of specific championship sporting events - NFL postseason games, BCS bowl games, NCAA Men's basketball Regional Finals and Final Four, etc. - at face value for a given team.

For example, I could currently purchase the option to a ticket to the Final Four to see my alma mater, West Virginia University, for $27. If the Mountaineers make the final four, I would pay the face value of the ticket ($140, according to the web site), plus my $27 option. If the Mountaineers didn't make the Final Four, my option would be worthless and I would be out $27.

The service is called The Ticket Reserve. Currently, they're offering options on both the Conference Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals. To get the price for the option to see the Ottawa Senators play their first home game of the Stanley Cup Finals, click here.

Scalping Goes Legit?

Well, now that America Online is working with resellers StubHub and TicketsNow, it certainly looks that way.

As always, please support Off Wing by patronizing many of our fine advertisers operating in the same marketspace.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Beau Dure for pointing out that USA Today has been doing business with TicketsNow as well.

Davy Crockett Bites The Dust At UT

In favor of another silly animal mascot. What a joke.

Link via Instapundit.

Time To Regulate Scalpers?

Mark Cuban says he doesn't mind scalpers, but more than a few of them have been giving him heartburn lately:

There have been far too many times when I have gotten emails from upset customer who have purchased tickets online or on the phone expecting their “50 dollar tickets” to be 50 dollar tickets. Naive or not, the scalpers have a responsibility to not mislead customers.

I would like to see a requirement that EVERY ticket resale transaction require the disclosure of the face value of the ticket to the customer.

Later, he asks his readers to contact Congress in order to pass a law mandating this. And that's what has me uneasy.

My interest in this isn't academic, as I regularly sell Ravens tickets in online marketplaces (and I'm far from the only one). My product descriptions always include the exact seat location, as well as photo of a view of the field from that section. So far, all of my customers have been pretty happy.

But the problem that Cuban is dealing with could be handled quite easily -- and the solution would be to legalize ticket scalping across the board. Even Cuban concedes that scalpers peroform a legitimate service, and in recognition of that, their business deserves to be legitimate too.

But because scalping is outlawed (and because most teams are chary of insituting creative pricing polcies that recognize that a courtside seat to see the Celtics host the Lakers is worth far more than it would be if the Clippers were in town), you can't really be surprised that the business has manage to attract some folks who are less than scrupulous.

But if you legalize scalping, the good operators could help to drive out the less than savory. Of course, it probably won't ever happen, but we can dream can't we?

Real Men Of Genius, Redux

Back in the beginning of 2004, I pointed to an online archive of Bud Light's Real Men of Genius/Real American Heroes radio ads.

And there was much rejoicing in the land. Unfortunately, those old links have since expired, but thanks to Off Wing reader Terry Kean, I can point to this complete, and recently updated, archive. Enjoy.

So You Couldn't Make It To E-Tech?

Don't worry, my buddy from ESPN.com, Reemer, did, and he blogged about it all week long. Just start at the top and scroll down. Great stuff.

What To Do With Unwanted Gift Cards

Slate's Daniel Gross hates gift cards, but sees a silver lining for those looking to fix something wrong with the people in their lives:

Gift cards are tailor-made for recipients who are irresponsible or deficient in taste and self-awareness—or who are simply prone to feeling that way. Give your teenager $50 and she might blow it on midriff-baring halter tops at Abercrombie & Fitch. But that J. Crew gift card can be spent only on presentable clothing. Dismayed that your boyfriend's recent reading list extends only as far as Maxim? A Border's gift card could send a message.

Now that's exactly the sort of girlfriend that I don't want to have. Luckily, there's a way to short-circuit all this silliness:

Responding to consumers who don’t want to buy themselves another sweater or fancy steak dinner, Internet businesses have sprung up allowing people to sell or swap unwanted gift cards.

“Isn’t it great?” asked Mike Kelly, vice president of SwapAGift.com. “The market will create exactly the mechanism it needs to correct any problem.”

He and his wife, Mary Jane, created the Langhorne, Pa.-based Web business SwapA-Thing Inc. last fall, after realizing they had about a dozen gift cards they weren’t using. They decided to create a place where people could trade in the cards they didn’t want, or receive some cash back for them.

Now go show that controlling girlfriend what for and flip that Borders gift card for something from REI.

¡Los Raiders!

Here's an interesting factoid from a San Francisco Chronicle piece about how American sports franchises are trying to expand their fan bases with non-English Web sites:

Team officials (from the Oakland Raiders) won't release the number of hits the Spanish site and the foreign-language sections have received but say their audience is international. They will say, however, the Spanish site generates the most traffic from NFL-starved Los Angeles, where the Raiders played from 1982-94.

When you look at it that way, the reality for the Raiders is a Spanish-language Website is just a part of doing business -- simply a way to serve existing fans better, rather than actually expanding the fan base like this piece claims.

Thanks to Sportsfilter for the link.

Caveat Emptor

I know Dad loves Montana, but is it real?

To see a great example of how a business can use a blog, check out Blogforsports operated by sports memorabilia company, All Authentic. The company uses the blog to expose fradulent memorabilia sales on eBay, and dispenses plenty of sound information on exactly how to purchase the real stuff.

For example, the above Montana photo was actually Photoshopped into the frame. There are plenty of other useful factoids, including a helpful reminder that most of the biggest stars market autographed items through exclusive agreements with big name partners:

This Joe Montana autograph is as fake as they get. No Montana Hologram, doesn't say where it was signed. I know Joe Montana's agent and it costs way more than $14.95 just for Joe's signature. Even a cheap frame at Costco is around $7-8 bucks. Just look at the sellers other items and you will realize that NO ONE could have that much signed stuff from so many high profile celebrities.

Thanks to the hive mind at Sports Filter for the link.

Blogging For The Masses

Blogging went mainstream a few hours ago, as Microsoft just released the beta version of their MSN Spaces service.

If for defensive purposes only, I've laid claim to a plot at MSN Spaces, complete with a pointer back here. I've only taken a quick look at things, but anyone who has ever used MSN Hotmail will be familiar with the interface, and know right away how simple it is to use.

Because a cookie for Microsoft's passport is on my computer, setting up the bare bones space took only a few seconds (though response time seems very slow today, you can guess that they're probably being swamped), as simple as I'm sure it will be for any and all English-speakers among Hotmail's 187 million user accounts.

Why is this important? Back over the Summer, ESPN and Microsoft parted ways, with Fox Sports taking ESPN's place as the preferred sports partner on MSN:

The newly formed alliance between FOXSports.com and the MSN® network of Internet services contributed to a 265 percent increase in site visitors to FOXSports.com on MSN, according to the latest ratings from Nielsen//NetRatings. During July 2004, the newly relaunched FOXSports.com on MSN was the fastest-growing sports Web site in the United States, with more than 9.4 million unique users.

As a result, Fox Sports is now the second largest sports site on the Web, just behind ESPN. No doubt Microsoft has plans to use their blogs to drive traffic to all of their online properties, and vice-versa. Already, Slate derives a good portion of its traffic from re-directs inside MSN. How easy would it be for MSN to activate a trackback function from Slate articles to blogs that link to them?

Folks, the world of blogging is changing, though we can't be sure how just yet. Back when I left Blogspot for an MT blog, I remember thinking I might have made a mistake after Google acquired it. What would I be missing out on?

I'm asking myself the same question now.

If you're still on Blogspot, you're aligned with Google. Open up an MSN Space, and you're with Microsoft. Over the long run, who do you think will be able to drive more traffic to your blog? Or maybe there's a way to leverage both?

I don't know the answer. But I'll be working hard trying to figure it out. Any suggestions from Off Wing's informal IT team would be welcome.

Thanks to Instapundit, who is already inside the Microsoft tent with his MSNBC blog,glennreynolds.com, for the link.

Vegas or Wall Street: What's The Difference?

Mark Cuban has an interesting proposition.

You Can Do Your Shopping Here!

Got some holiday shopping to do? Why not do it here at Off Wing?

If you like what you read here at Off Wing, the best way to support me is to support my advertisers: buyselltix.com, showmetickets.com, coasttocoasttickets.com, Planet BnB, ticko.com and Pediro. Please consider all of them when you think about holiday gift giving.

As always, tips, whether through Amazon or PayPal are welcome as well.

Also, over the next few weeks, you'll be seeing more advertising from Amazon. I'm a member of their associates program, and buying a product from them through Off Wing means I get a nice commission without it costing you one penny more.

Again, thanks for reading. And over the holidays, please shop with Off Wing.

It Started With A Waffle Iron

In 1962, two men from Oregon got together to create a company called Blue Ribbon Sports. They didn't want to change the world, they just wanted to make a better running shoe -- shoes sold out of a trunk of a car with a sole printed out on a waffle iron.

You don't know Blue Ribbon Sports, but in 1972 Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight changed the name of their company to Nike, and one of the greatest brands in American business was born. And though Nike earned its chops on the feet of track stars and distance runners, 32 years later there doesn't seem to be any segment of the sporting world that hasn't felt its influence at one time or another.

Has the sports world become too over the top and brash because of Nike? Or did Knight and his team of brilliant marketers simply take advantage of something that was already happening in American culture, as the company took the arts of athletic endorsement and sports marketing to an entirely new level?

I only bring this story up now because yesterday Knight stepped down as President and CEO of Nike in favor SC Johnson executive William Perez (though he will remain chairman of the board). Love Nike or hate Nike (and I am one who loves them without reserve or apology), you can't doubt the mark they've left on American sport and American business.

In fact, American sport became a huge American business, and an incredible American export, in part because of Nike. Here's hoping Knight enjoys his retirement. He's earned it, as well as a place in the annals of the intersection between commerce and sport.

A Monster Of A Mistake

From the bad moments in corporate marketing file:

San Francisco renamed its most storied sports stadium "Monster Park" on Tuesday, with a Bay Area electronics cable company agreeing to pay at least $6 million for the naming rights to Candlestick Park.

"It's a only-in-San Francisco-name and San Francisco prides itself on being different and this is just another example of us standing out in a crowd," said Sam Singer, spokesman for the San Francisco 49ers, who play at the stadium.

The name, which becomes effective in time for Sunday's game against the St. Louis Rams, comes from the stadium's new sponsor, Monster Cable Products, a San Francisco-area company that sells audio cables such as those connecting guitars to amplifiers.

Now I'm sure the folks at Monster thought this was a great way to get their product line top of mind with millions of consumers. But I don't think it will work.

The first thing I thought when I read the headline was that the online job site, Monster.com, had purchased the naming rights. Which undoubtedly is what millions of others of unsuspecting individuals will think when they hear the name Monster Park.

You can almost hear the Monster.com marketing cackling in the distance.

Can you say absolute waste of marketing dollars? I knew you could.

Whoever came up with this idea better get ready to upload his/her resume to Monster.com.

Rattling Donald's Cage

Donald Trump found his way into the headlines again, this time in a dispute with ABC News over an unflattering profile of him and his real estate empire that ran last night on the ABC newsmagazine show, Prime Time Live.

The coverage centered around Trump's contention that ABC was running a hit piece authored by Chris Cuomo, son of Mario Cuomo, New York's former governor and an occasional target of Trump's ire. Trump didn't hesitate to add that he felt the piece was a way for ABC to exact a pound of flesh after the network passed on The Apprentice, before Trump got a green light from NBC.

But what was odd, and went unmentioned in the press accounts about the story was the fact that immediately preceding Prime Time Live and its Trump profile (and head to head with The Apprentice was an encore presentation of ABC's new reality series, The Benefactor, starring billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Cuban has been jousting publicly with Trump about their respective efforts in reality television, starting with this post at Cuban's blog back in April, where a Trump remark about The Benefactor being a copycat of The Apprentice was met with a rather scathing review of Trump's business practices:

Where we are 180 degrees different is how we deal with business partners. You talk about how your problem casinos are just 1 pct of your net worth. I would feel like shit if I had a failing business with partners that were going to lose money and would talk about what it meant to my partners net worth, not my own. Heck, I won’t even let friends invest in any of my companies until I’m certain they will make it. How in the world can you pay yourself while shareholders take a beating?*

Then, a little more than a week ago, Trump appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he said he thought The Benefactor would fail -- something that led to another sharp retort from Cuban.

Given the history, it all seemed too much of a coincidence, so I shot Cuban an email and asked the following:

1) Did you suggest this segment to ABC?  After all, it was essentially cribbed from a past Forbes feature on Trump, so all lot of it was old news.

2) Did ABC give you a heads up whether or not it was going to air? 

3) Did you watch the segment?  What did you think?

A little more than 30 minutes later came the response:

1. no.. I didn't know about it. I could have given them all kinds of good info

2. no

3. only part of it. It was stuff that had already been written re the real estate, but seeing the actual number of units and the interview with marla was new info that was interesting.

The part I saw I liked.

I have no axe to grind with Trump. He exaggerates everything. He knows it. Its his "brand" definition.

The one question they didn't ask is "If he has so much money, and is so good at real estate, why is he spending so much time doing everything but real estate ? A board game (which he has failed at before). A magazine. An online university, etc, etc. "

He should watch the Benefactor where he would learn several of my rules for success. Stick to your core competencies and the things you have an advantage in.  And the 2nd is, when you walk into meetings, as he is doing with all these non real estate businesses, you always look for the fool. If you don't see the fool, its you.

In case you're wondering, I liked what I saw on The Benefactor, and have locked it in with a season pass on my TiVo -- a real rarity for somebody who hardly ever watches network TV, with the exception of sports programming.
_______________________________________________________________________________
*For a look at Trump and the continuing troubles with his casino business, click here. In general, Forbes has been the leader on this story.

NCAA Shuts Final Door On Bloom

After a number of years of trying, it looks like the NCAA has slammed the final door on Jeremy Bloom's efforts to accept endorsement income to support his career as a freestyle skier, while still playing football for the University of Colorado.

I've been following Bloom's fight with the NCAA for a a little more than two years, and there simply isn't a better example of the hypocrisy of the NCAA and the corruption endemic in college athletics.

The heart of Bloom's challenge to the NCAA, was an exception the body granted former Iowa wide receiver Tim Dwight, so he could participate in the NCAA Track and Field Championships after he had already spent a season with the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. The NCAA rejected that claim, giving the bogus answer that Dwight was only allowed to compete because he had ceased receiving endorsement income for the period that he was reinstated.

Garbage. The real problem here is that if the NCAA allowed Bloom to accept endorsement income, it would have to cope with a blizzard of waiver requests from other players who would suddenly get popular with local and national advertisers -- a problem considering NCAA schools rake in millions of dollars per year in merchandise sales.

Allow a college athlete to enjoy a revenue stream like that, and in the mind of the NCAA, it would diminish the value of their own sponsorship agreements.

Remember, NCAA rules don't exist to protect student-athletes, they exist to protect institutions from one another.

Think of NCAA rules as sort of an athletic arms control agreement: I won't let boosters pay recruits under the table just to make sure my competitors don't either.

And don't think the presence of Bloom, an athlete potentially receiving endorsement income, in a college locker room could prove potentially dangerous to the NCAA. With Bloom around, it wouldn't take long for other athletes to start asking questions about where all that merchandise income is going, and why they don't get a piece of the pie.

CORRECTION: Looks like Bloom will keep fighting.

French Bikes vs. Free Markets

Washington Post scribe Sarah Kaufman sends a dispatch from the Tour de France and sees, gasp, demon capitalism run wild. All that commerce, she argues, is obscuring the Luddite beauty that is bicycle riding:
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Get past the maddening caravan of commercialism -- garish corporate trucks that toss hats, candy, refrigerator magnets, key chains, sausages and sachets of coffee to the 12 million to 15 million fans who line the route. Ignore the company logos on every uniform, car, bus, truck, motorcycle and crowd-control barricade that accompanies the race.

At the center of this madness is what the Tour is truly about: a celebration of an exquisitely simple, infinitely refined means of transportation.
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Uh, right. Never mind, I suppose, that the companies sponsoring teams is what makes the race possible. And what the hell is wrong with throwing around free candy and sausages? That sounds great. Is there any doubt Ms. Kaufman has a complaint about the Tour podium ladies, too?

I’d argue that the race is much more about competitive athletic endurance than any aesthetic virtue the bicycle may have. And I’m sorry but anyone who thinks that the bike is a superior mode of transportation to the internal combustion engine is a fool. I’m watching because I want to see Lance kick European derriere, not pop a wheelie.

So, by way of rebuttal, I offer the whiskey-honed insights of P.J. O’Rourke, from his essay “A Cool and Logical Analysis of the Bicycle Menace”
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The ungainly geometry and primitive mechanicals of the bicycle are an offense to the eye. The grimy and perspiring riders of the bicycle are an offense to the nose. And the very existence of the bicycle is an offense to reason and wisdom.
Bicycles are good exercise. And so is swinging through trees on your tail. Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.

On Sports And HDTV

The San Diego Padres are doing an interesting promotion with Sony and Cox Communications to try to spur wider adoption of HDTV:

As part of the deal, consumers who buy Sony high-definition sets receive 12 months of free high-definition programming from Cox, San Diego's main cable provider, a $72 savings. The Padres bought 250 Sony high-definition sets, some of them models that can cost more than $10,000, to install in their stadium, Petco Park, to give fans a taste of HDTV.

Cox also bought dozens of Sony sets to give away in raffles during Padres games and to place in restaurants near the stadium. Sony, in turn, has placed ads on Cox's Channel 4, which broadcasts 104 Padres games in high definition, the most for a single team in the country.

The cable and entertainment industries are watching the Cox-Sony-Padres deal closely.

I'll bet they are. The New York Times piece also reports that ratings for Padres games have risen, Cox's HDTV subscriptions have tripled, while Sony says sales of HDTV sets in the San Diego area are rising (though none of the partners seemed to supply solid numbers, and the increase in ratings, and sales of subscriptions and HDTV sets could be attributed to a host of other factors).

In any case, here's hoping Gary Bettman, who talks about HDTV and hockey every chance he gets, is watching.

Somebody Is Going To Lose Their Job

Another entry for the Bad Idea Hall of Fame.

Another Decision For The Man

Through Fanblogs, I found out that the Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled against Colorado football player Jeremy Bloom in his quest to overturn an NCAA rule that bars athletes from accpeting outside endorsement income.

I've written about Bloom before, a wide receiver for the Buffaloes who is also an Olympic freestyle skier. He claims that he needs his endorsement income to help fund his freestyle skiing career. Kevin Donahue at Fanblogs thinks Bloom needs to get his priorities straight:

I think the NCAA is right here. You can't let athletes maintain their eligibility if they're getting paid to endorse Ben Gay. Bloom needs to decide what's most important to him, modeling & skiing or playing for the 'Buffs.

I laid out my reasoning on this issue a long time ago -- the NCAA doesn't have this rule in place to protect amateur standing, it has it in place to protect the economic value of the endorsement contracts it concludes with companies like Nike. Contracts that athletes like Bloom don't enjoy any benefit from. If athletes like Bloom become associated with products that compete with ones their universities endorse, the value of that sponsorship gets diluted.

On a professional level, this happens all the time -- witness Cowboys owner Jerry Jones concluding a sponsorship deal with Adidas, while then-Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith completed a separate deal with Reebok. But thanks to the "amateur" standing of college athletes, universities get to exploit college athletes to the maximum.

Here's another example: Back in 2000, I went to Homecoming at Ohio State University. While there, I purchased an Ohio State jersey with a number 8, the number worn at that time by quarterback Steve Bellisari. But because Bellisari was an "amateur" he didn't get a dime from the sale of that jersey.

Unfair? Absolutely. And it's the kind of exploitation that happens everyday in the name of protecting amateurism in college athletics.

To Legalize Scalping

Colby Cosh talks some sense on ticket scalping.

UPDATE: And Colby has been on a roll with his hockey observations as well.

Trumped!

I know I link to Mark Cuban a lot, but today's open letter to Donald Trump belongs in some sort of bloggers hall of fame:

[I] got a note from you asking to come meet in New York. Sure I thought. Why not.

We had a good meeting, talked about your internet plans for Trump.com and how it would sell and promote all things Trump. Talked about Broadcast.com. You had a sharp guy there with you. We didnt do any business, but we gave it a shot. That wasnt the educational part of the meeting. It was your office. It was covered, literally, every inch of every wall with pictures and magazine covers of you.

I have been in a lot of offices. I have seen pictures with the president, with family, with various famous people, but the over/under was usually 5 pictures, not 100. At that point in my life I was very well off financially, but I had a lot more paper money from stock in my networth than cash. Our encounters proved to be a reality check for me.

After leaving your office, I promised myself that if I ever got liquid and had an obscene amount of money in the bank, I would make a point not to remind myself and everyone else around me of it every minute of every day. Unlike you.

I guess our definition of success is just completely different.

What inspired Cuban to go after Trump like this? Nothing more than a quote from a newspaper interview where Trump claimed that Cuban's upcoming show, The Benefactor was a rip-off of Trump's Apprentice:

For a lot of reasons, I didnt want to write this blog entry. In some ways its not fair to you to just lay into you like this. But the point of my blog is to try to tell the story behind the story that is in the paper. You could have said that you didnt know much about our show and left it at that. You suggested our show was a duplicate of yours. Its not. It wont be. I wanted to make that perfectly clear.

Who needs Forbes or Fortune when you can read stuff like this for free?

Update On Cuban

I've written a number of times about Mark Cuban's blog, and today, Baseball Crank has a post about how Cuban's blogging may have gotten him into trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Interesting stuff.

Meanwhile, Cuban is making a number of cogent points about NBA players participating in the Olympics, and how international Soccer is waking up to the contradictions involved as well:

When the NBA was broadcast on NBC, it was far less of an issue. With NBC as the home of the Olympics and the NBA broadcast partner, there were a ton of cross promotional and selling opportunities. NBC could promote the Olympics in NBA games, and promote the NBA in the Olympics broadcasts. NBC could require advertisers to buy NBA advertising in order to get Olympic advertising,or vice versa. There were untold win - win scenarios by having both the Olympics and the NBA together at NBC.

That obviously is not longer the case. The NBA is now on ESPN/ABC and TNT. They are paying us a lot of money in a deal that has been working well for all invovled. What in the world are we doing helping our partners competition ? Why are we giving our most valuable manpower to a huge business, the Olympics so they can try to take revenue away from the NBA and our partners ?

While Cuban's grammar and syntax might leave something to be desired, the messages he sends are loud and clear. For my money, Blog Maverick consistently provides the best insight into the sports business that you can find.

More From Mark Cuban

In no time at all, Mark Cuban's Blog Maverick has become one of my daily stops on the Web -- and not just for his observations on the NBA:

A byproduct of passion is saying exactly how you feel in a way that you know will get someone’s attention, and listening to exactly how someone else feels when they need to get your attention. All of this is my way of saying that I expect people who work for me to yell at me, and I expect them to know that at times I will do the same. If someone is pissed off, if they think I’m doing something wrong, or the wrong way, and I’m being too pigheaded to see it. Blast me.

I have told just about everyone who has ever partnered or reported directly to me, that I can get so focused or involved that I lose sight of something(s). When that happens, you have done your homework and are confident in your position, and when I don’t listen, raise your voice. Figuratively, literally, I don’t care. I don’t see decibels as a sign of disrespect. I see fear to communicate a needed message to me as a sign of disrespect. If you don’t care enough about our product, customer, company, employee, whatever it may be to step up and let me have it when I’m screwing up, then you don’t care enough to be here.

Want to know why Cuban is a billionaire? He's just given a glimpse as to why.

The Trunk Monkey

Thanks to reader Dave S. of Reston, Virginia for pointing us to. . .

Click here and see for yourself. Looks like one auto dealer has a pretty good ad budget.

A New Era In Naming Rights

The local booster club at George Mason High School in Falls Church, VA, had always wanted to add lights to the school's football field, but could never manage to find the money in a tight athletic budget to make it happen.

That was, until a local car dealership stepped in. The result: what looks like the first stadium naming rights deal to involve a public high school:

The 600-student public school in the City of Falls Church and the Tysons Corner car dealership have struck a five-year, $50,000 naming rights deal, according to officials from the school and dealership.

Selling naming rights to a high school stadium is rare -- there have been few reported instances of schools doing so in other areas around the country. Several local athletic directors said they had never heard of it being done, but at a time when scholastic athletic budgets are strapped, they all agreed they wished their schools could strike such deals.

Here's the original story announcing the deal that appeared in a local Virginia weekly.

Real Men Of Genius

For a couple of years now, I've been a fan of the Bud Light ad campaign, Real Men of Genius -- a send-up of beer commercials that normally salute hard working blue collar folks (including lyrics sung by David Bickler, former lead signer of the 80s band, Survivor):

What makes the spots so appealing is smart writing that "finds sort of a unique individual observation that sits in the back of your head but you don't necessarily think about," said Marc Kempter, managing director of Core, an advertising agency in St. Louis that has done work for rival Miller Brewing Co.

Sort of like the stand-up work of Jerry Seinfeld on one level or another, I guess. In any case, the campaign, which originated on radio, has moved to television recently, where unfortunately it isn't anywhere near as funny.

But thanks to some unknown student at the University of Missouri, you can listen to all the original radio ads by clicking here. My favorite has to be Mr. Pro Sports Heckler Guy. Listen and enjoy.

FDA To Ban Sale Of Ephedra

It's been a little more than 10 months since Steve Bechler, a minor league pitcher in the Baltimore Orioles system collapsed and died in Spring Training. A subsequent report from a Florida coroner concluded that Bechler's death was caused in part by his use of a dietary supplement that contained Ephedra -- an herb that was marketed as a weight loss supplement.

Later today, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services will announce a ban on the sale of products that contain Ephedra.

Some critics will say that the ban comes too late, as it was clear that the marketplace had already spoken when it came to Ephedra. I noted back in August that two major supplement companies that once distributed products with Ephedra, had reformulated some of their supplements, being certain to note that they no longer contained the herbal stimulant.

How Depressed Is Red Sox Nation?

Based in downtown Boston, AMR Research is one of the leading strategic advisory firms in the Information Technology business. Here's how they led off their weekly newsletter that was released this afternoon:

Every spring as Opening Day approaches, we turn to A. Bartlett Giamatti, the late commissioner of Major League Baseball, for his views on the game: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."

It's time to put away all of the good luck Red Sox charms until next year. Again.

On a more uplifting note, we are finally seeing positive signs of life in the enterprise applications market.

Have a great weekend everybody. As for me, I'm off to the University of Maryland to see the 2003-04 version of Midnight Madness, the official kickoff of the college basketball season.

Easterbrook And NFL Sunday Ticket

Gregg Easterbrook isn't happy with the choices network television is giving him when it comes to Sunday football viewing:

And, as Tuesday Morning Quarterback may possibly have mentioned, the solution to the problem of local affiliates airing woofer games -- NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows viewers to pay $209 per season to watch any contest -- continues to be available strictly on a monopoly basis to subscribers of DirecTV, the satellite service. Only about 10 percent of American households subscribe to DirecTV; many millions of American households cannot receive the DirecTV signal for technical reasons, regardless of willingness to pay. (TMQ keeps a running count: Of those people I personally know who have tried to subscribe to DirecTV, three have been able to get the signal and eight found it impossible to sign up, including yours truly.) Bad pairings air on free TV; the best games are often shown only via a monopoly service that 90 percent of Americans can't or don't get.

The Sunday Ticket part seems like total lunacy until you take into account that DirecTV is in the process of being sold to Rupert Murdoch, who thrives on establishing media cartels. Murdoch is paying the league about $400 million a year to maintain this particular monopoly. So the NFL gets many dineros, and Murdoch adds a monopoly to his portfolio. But with all the talk of Congress being opposed to media consolidation, TMQ continues to wonder why Congress doesn't investigate the DirecTV monopoly over Sunday Ticket. The primary effect of the NFL's deal with the DirecTV devil is, after all, to shaft American taxpayers whose tax monies make NFL stadiums and profits possible.

Easterbrook has been over this point a bunch of times, so much so it's getting annoying.

First, DirectTV, while Easterbrook describes its relationship with the NFL as a monopoly, is actually the only competitor to America's massive cable companies -- essentially a nationwide patchwork of local monopolies. For the vast majority of Americans before the advent of DirectTV and other satellite providers, if you wanted ESPN, HBO, Showtime, etc., you had to go to your local cable company. And, because most municipalities only authorized one cable system to come into their towns, they had no choice but to go to their local monopoly provider. Being monopoly service providers, cable companies had essentially no incentive to upgrade their services, pay any attention to customer service, or keep control of prices.

That was, of course, until DirectTV came on the scene. Then, all of a sudden, cable companies had to worry about hanging on to customers who had, GASP, choices in how they obtained pay television programming (how could you miss the cable commercials about how horrible satellite TV is). And one of the most important aspects of competition, is being able to differentiate your product from your competitors. And the most important way DirectTV does this (besides by providing better customer service than local cable companies), is by being the exclusive provider of NFL Sunday Ticket.

As for Easterbrook's non-scientific sample on DirectTV, I have a research project of my own. Out of all the people I know who don't have DirectTV and access to NFL Sunday Ticket (a few hundred folks at last count), every single one of them lives within walking or driving distance of a restaurant or sports bar that can receive the service.

At bottom, Easterbrook's complaint essentially boils down to him asking for government intervention in the marketplace so he doesn't have to rub elbows with local fans at a neighborhood bar. Somehow, I think that might be setting the bar too low. Even worse, the government would be intervening on behalf of an industry that in the recent past Congress felt the need to subject to more exacting regulatory standards.

Now, would I like to have NFL Sunday Ticket available on my local cable system? Of course I would. I just don't think I have a right to request government intervention on behalf of my personal entertainment choices.

D.C. Baseball Update

Eric Fisher at the Washington Times is on the case once more, with a story detailing the complex struggle over financing a Baseball stadium in the District of Columbia. The real problem, as relayed by one D.C. political insider: both the City Council and District May Anthony Williams want to be able to claim primary credit for luring a Baseball club back to Washington. Give it a read.

Busy At The Sewing Machine

Newly acquired third baseman Aaron Boone isn't going to be worth anything to the New York Yankees, that is, if his new uniform isn't ready for him when he finally joins the team. The AP's Kyle Wingfield explains:

The Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants were busy making trades. Workers at Russell Athletic were just as busy keeping up. Workers at the company's manufacturing plant in Alexander City [Alabama] make the uniforms for 15 major league teams, and their business picks up when players are exchanged -- immediately needing new uniforms.

"Our deadline is 12 o'clock tonight. We've got a lot of activity going on," plant manager Temple Coley said Thursday.

The company guarantees delivery within 48 hours, but their turnaround this time of year is usually a little faster.

D.C. Baseball Update

At a rally outside the Arlington County Courthouse, about 200 protesters shouted and stamped their feet in vain trying to convince the County Board to change their mind about building a Baseball stadium for the Montreal Expos somewhere inside the county. Brought along for the protest was the "NIMBY" Chicken, the unofficial mascot of the protest. Its appearance would have been appropriate, but with one important change: the chicken should have arrived with its head cut off. That would have been the perfect symbol for the effort to bring Baseball to Northern Virginia -- plenty of meaningless activity that's going to end to no effect sooner or later.

Is Milicic's Career On Hold?

Something tells me Detroit Pistons head coach Larry Brown is having some serious agita over this development:

Darko Milicic's European team has sued his American agent, seeking at least $10 million in damages for encouraging the Detroit Pistons' draft pick to pursue an NBA career.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in New York, Hemofarm Vrsac says agent Marc Cornstein and Pinnacle Management Corp. interfered with Milicic's European contract. Milicic has played for Hemofarm since 2000, and the club says it has him under contract through 2009.

"Despite their knowledge of Milicic's contract with Hemofarm, (Cornstein and Pinnacle) began advertising Milicic to NBA teams and the public at large as a player available to be selected in the 2003 NBA draft," the lawsuit says.

Hemofarm says it trained Milicic in its youth basketball program, paid for Milicic's room and board, and arranged employment for his mother at pharmaceutical company Hemofarm Group, which sponsors the team. It says Pinnacle ignored those investments in Milicic.

Hemofarm may want $10 million in damages, but the NBA limits the amount teams can spend to buy out the contracts of international players. That limit is $350,000. Of course, as we saw with Yao Ming's contract, there are creative means available when it comes to greasing the right palms in order to get serious Basketball talent to North America.

Tiger Abandons Nike Driver

Thanks to Off Wing reader Peg Brister, who passed along the news that Tiger Woods has dropped his Nike driver in favor of a six-year old model no longer manufactured by Titleist:

"He wants to make a switch," said Mike Kelly, Nike's business director of golf clubs. "We think it's a natural phenomenon for most golfers. Whether you're the best in the world or an average golfer, you go back in the garage and find something you were successful with."

In an era of bigger clubs with thinner faces, Woods is going back in time.

The 975D is not even on the market except in resale bins. Titleist upgraded that version with the 975J in 2001, and the 975K and 975E this year.

For Woods, it's more about control than distance.

He is 128th in driving accuracy on the PGA Tour this year, hitting the fairway 64.5 percent of the time.

While the change might be only temporary, it marks the first time he has gone back to old clubs after switching to Nike. He started playing the Nike Golf ball in May 2000, and switched to the Nike irons last September.

Woods continues to use his 3-wood, wedges and putter -- all Titleist products.

As my regular readers already know, I've been all over Woods the past few months when it comes to his campaign against "hot" drivers. His blanket accusations about competitors cheating under our noses smacked of sour grapes to me, and his $100 million connection to Nike didn't help either. But this change merits observation, especially since it hurts Nike so much in the marketplace. Stay tuned.

Just Who Paid For That Stadium?

In today's Washington Post, Peter Whoriskey writes about an invisible Federal subsidy that sports teams have been enjoying, a loophole that he claims is depriving the Federal Treasury of more than $100 million this year:

The recent wave of sports stadium and arena construction is costing the U.S. Treasury more than $100 million annually because the projects have been financed with tax-exempt bonds, a federally supported method of borrowing money more often used to build roads, schools and other public projects.

The federal tax break for professional sports venues is rarely recognized in the fractious stadium debates across the country.

At least 38 major league sports venues have been built or rebuilt using nearly $7 billion in tax-exempt financing since 1990, according to a Washington Post review of more than 40 professional baseball, football, hockey and basketball projects. The cost to the Treasury was calculated using the same methods employed by Treasury and congressional tax estimators.

The kicker here is two-fold: first, because the bonds are tax-exempt, they carry a lower interest rate, making it easier for municipalities to repay the interest due. And of course, private investors buy up the bonds because the profits they make are exempt from any Federal taxes.

I'm sure plenty of you have heard of "unfunded Federal mandates," instances where Congress passes laws that force states to expend funds to comply, but don't appropriate any Federal assistance in order to pay for them. Instead, think of the use of tax-exempt bonds to build sports stadia as an "invisible Federal liability," an instance where urban sports fans have local stadia subsidized by taxpayers all over the country.

Overall, this is a great story, but I would have liked some additional detail. As it is, we're expected to take the reporter's math on faith. Instead, the Post should have published a detailed spreadsheet in MS Excel or PDF format that independent researchers could have parsed. Further, this would also have allowed the Post to identify the team owners who enjoy the largest subsidies.

On Stadium Architecture

When Camden Yards, the new home of the Baltimore Orioles, opened in 1992, it marked the beginning of a new trend in ballpark design that evoked the golden age of the game. But that trend has run its course, and fans are looking for something new. Christopher Hawthorne in the New York Times explains.

(Mis)Adventures In Sports Marketing

Charles Kuffner notes that U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham is sponsoring a NASCAR team. He's pretty dubious about the potential benefits, and of Graham's chances for winning the nomination.

Back in the shadow of the nation's capitol, Radley Balko is experiencing some agita over the U.S. Postal Serivce's sponsorship of Lance Armstrong's cycling team, as well as a number of the armed services leveraging NASCAR sponsorships to boost recruitment:

Perhaps if we didn't have troops in over 100 countries right now, we wouldn't need to waste taxpayer money to sign up new recruits at sporting events.

Then again, if the responsibilities of the U.S. military didn't extend any further than defending the borders of the great state of Indiana and the one square mile of ground that surrounds the CATO Institute, it would still need to attract new recruits to replace personnel who are constantly mustering out of the services.

All kidding aside, I wonder why anyone worries about the postal service anymore. It's simply a dinosaur dying a slow, painful, and very public death at the hands of a merciless marketplace. While I would love to see the whole shooting match privatized, that's never going to happen, owing to the political pressure that rural constituencies (neighborhoods the postal service would love to drop from their routes as money losers) and the massive influence the Postal union can leverage in Congress.

The best solution for the USPS is this: for consumers to continue to turn to more efficient and cost effective means of delivery whether physical or electronic. Eventually, the USPS will reach the breaking point where something will have to give -- and that's going to be the case no matter how much they raise the cost of a first class stamp.

Increased oversight of the USPS by political appointees certainly isn't the answer. Here's how Ruth Goldway, a U.S. Postal Rate Commissioner, thinks the sponsorships should be re-shuffled:

Rather than criticizing the Postal Service for supporting Lance Armstrong (although perhaps he needs far less money than when he joined the team years ago, before he was a superstar) we should demand that sponsorships reflect the diverse character of postal customers. Why, for instance, does the agency seem so partial to men's sports? Why not sponsor women's soccer or the Dance Theater of Harlem, or the American Film Institute? Why not sponsor graphic art exhibitions that simultaneously promote stamp illustration sales and stamp collecting?

Gee, makes you wonder just how much business ignorance one person could stuff into a paragraph, doesn't it? Essentially, Goldway would rather have the USPS pay more attention to political constituencies that she favors, rather than any advertising/marketing plan that would actually help the USPS.

In terms of sports marketing (on which the USPS spends a relative pittance), there are few deals where a sponsor has gotten better bang for the buck than with Armstrong. If anything, they should spend more money with him, not less.

UPDATE: From the mailbag comes a note from Skip Oliva, a man with whom Off Wing regularly contracts with regarding anti-trust matters:

Last week I drafted CAC's brief in a Supreme Court case involving the Postal Service, and I specifically discussed the cycling sponsorship.  There's a great quote from the USPS inspector general's report where he can't figure out why a domestic mail delivery organization needs to sponsor a cycling team whose biggest event takes place in France. 

The case itself deals with the weighty question of whether USPS is a "person" (i.e. a corporation) under the antitrust laws.  This is actually important, because USPS is not just some dying government monopoly, but a dying monopoly with regulatory power to hurt its competition on the way down.  Another group we're working with, PostalWatch, will file a brief shortly documenting how USPS tries to compete with private businesses outside its postal monopoly.  The results are well-documented: USPS blows lots of cash while private competitors struggle to keep up.

Street Cred

ESPN.com's Darren Rovell actually spends an entire column explaining why having a sexual assault arrest or conviction won't help Kobe Bryant get a bigger sneaker endorsement contract. It's all part of the idea that Bryant can't sell as many shoes to urban kids because he was raised in an upper middle class environment.

Take a moment and think on that for a second. I'll wait.

I'm not really sure what's worse: that Rovell felt that was a legitimate angle for the story, rather than exploring how even the simple allegation might destroy Bryant's viability as a product pitchman; or that he felt it was necessary to explain this possibility to the majority of ESPN.com's audience.

By the way, the link I clicked on to get to the story was slugged, "Shoe boon?"

UPDATE: Some legal experts are questioning the way local law enforcement is handling the Bryant case in Colorado.

Pollin Bashing, Part Deux

Part two of the Washington Post's two-day series on Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin appears this morning, and the overall conclusions are rather ho-hum: that Pollin, while the sweetest guy you would ever want to meet, simply hasn't been able to keep up with the pace of change in today's NBA, and the organization that he runs reflects that fact.

The result: decades of failure, that may have tarred the franchise with the loser tag forever.

To which I say: no kidding! Other than some interesting anecdotes from angry former players, there's not much here that any local Washington sports fan couldn't have told you themselves. In essence, this story has been on the street for years among fans of both the Bullets/Wizards and the Capitals for some time now.

Although, some of those anecdotes are pretty priceless. Such as the story about the Bullets former practice facility at Bowie State University:

"The bottom of the food chain," said former Bullet Jim McIlvaine.

"A dump," [former Bullet Brent] Price said.

"Disgusting," said former Bullet and Wizard Tim Legler.

"A bad place," said former Bullet Rex Chapman. . .

The worst part, players said, was a locker room in which 14 players had to share four showerheads, then three, then finally one working showerhead and its squeaky handle. The drainage was so poor that the water from the shower would fill up around the players' ankles. Because of the shortage of showers, players operated on a seniority system. In the 1987-88 season, for instance, [center Moses] Malone would shower first, forcing the others to wait up to 20 minutes for a chance to clean up.

The problem was solved when the Bullets moved into MCI Center during the 1997-98 NBA season. Then again, there's the story of how the team forced players to pay $10 per week to have their practice uniforms laundered, and how some veterans would wash their game uniforms in hotel sinks and spread them out on radiators in hope they would be dry in time for games on the road.

But despite the fact that much has improved since the opening of MCI Center, the crew running the show has remained the same over the years, with the exception of the recently exiled Michael Jordan. In fact, in a number of cases, improvement in the ways players were treated by the organization were instituted by Jordan without Pollin being consulted.

One of the common complaints of Wizards fans over the years has concerned the role of team president Susan O'Malley, a longtime Pollin associate. A number of folks in sports media around town have suspected that O'Malley, who at times has seemed like a marketing genius in finding ways to fill an arena that housed a horrible team, played an outsize role in personnel decisions. But other than a short story that mentions O'Malley's role in not re-siging center Moses Malone, the series doesn't really dig too deeply into her role with the team.

Also unanswered over the two part series, is the state of Pollin's relationship with his Washington Sports partner and Capitals owner, Ted Leonsis. Ever since Jordan's dismissal at the beginning of May, Leonsis has gone to ground, and the normally high profile owner hasn't had much to say. This, after a Spring where he publicly complained about how he and his partners in the ownership of the Captials were being constantly mistreated by Pollin.

In the end, the Post gives the last word to ex-Bullet Jim McIlvaine:

"[Washington] probably needs some fresh people in there and a new approach," McIlvaine said. "Maybe Abe needs to hand over the keys to somebody else and get a different perspective on it. You have to do something after losing that much for that long."

It's hard to argue with his assesment. If anything, Pollin reminds me a lot of late New York Jets owner Leon Hess. Like Pollin, Hess was intensely loyal to a group of folks who didn't always come through for him. And like Pollin, Hess is remembered for effusively praising a coaching hire who would eventually lead the team to disaster (Gar Heard for Pollin, Rich Kotite for Hess).

Then again, it was Hess that made the hire that may have turned the Jets around forever, when he hired Bill Parcells to run the Jets on the field and in the front office before the 1997 NFL season. Though Parcells is long gone and now coaching in Dallas, his effect on the franchise's direction was pretty dramatic.

In the six seasons after Parcells hiring, the Jets have gone 57-39 with three playoff appearances and two division titles. Unfortunately, Hess died before he was able to see the fruits of his team's resurgence.

To read my comments and wrap-up of Part I of the Post's series, click here.

D.C. Baseball Update

Last week thousands of locals cheered as D.C. City Councilman Jack Evans essentially told Major League Baseball to "put up or shut up," when it came to moving the Expos here.

Looks like Washington's only competition for the team, Portland, Oregon, thinks our new attitude gives them a decided advantage:

More than 2,700 miles west of Washington, however, the folks in Portland, Ore., reacted to it with emotions ranged from bemusement to unabashed glee. Looking for an advantage against the larger and richer Washington area, Portland baseball backers think they found it with the District's newly stated demand for a conditional award of the MLB-owned Montreal Expos. Oregon's contribution toward a $350 million stadium, due for a critical vote by the state senate sometime in July, includes key provisions that would not release the money without a team in hand. But that legislative safety net still does not match the vitriol seen hereabouts. "Oregon, the backward state with [supposedly] no chance, has better brains and better process than the folks out east at this stage," said Maury Brown, spokesman for the Oregon Stadium Campaign [OSC], on an Internet site devoted to Portland's MLB bid. "Let's remember that only when things went bad in terms of the [financing] numbers did Evans go, 'That's it.' Don't place the blame squarely on MLB's shoulders. If [Washington] and Mayor Williams had their act together on the funding proposal they wouldn't be in this position."

As far as I'm concerned, let Portland have the Expos.

The Lowdown On Lisa G.

Both Phil Mushnick at the New York Post, and Richard Sandomir at the New York Times are raising the alarm now that Fox Sports personality/pin up girl, Lisa Guerrero has been hired to work as a sideline reporter for ABC's Monday Night Football.

Sandomir even went out of his way to grab a doomsaying quote from serial malcontent Keith Olberman, a broadcaster known best for burning bridges with whatever employer he leaves behind:

Keith Olbermann, whose time at FSN overlapped with Guerrero's, suggested that the "Monday Night" announcers Al Michaels and John Madden "resign in protest" and that Guerrero "can pose in Maxim but can't come back into the credibility pool."

An executive at ABC called Olberman's comments the "opinion of a troubled man," and I'm happy to agree (besides, Olberman works for NBC now, so he's hardly an unbiased source). And the rest of the world needs to grow up a little bit, and realize that we're talking sports here, not nuclear arms control. And as ESPN's Pam Ward reminded us once, there's not a whole lot of jounralism going on at the sidelines of a typical NFL game anyway.

The Tiger Woods Reality Distortion Field*

Remember earlier this year when perennial PGA Tour runner-up Phil Mickelson took a light-hearted shot at the Nike driver that Tiger Woods uses?

"He (Woods) hates that I can fly it past him now. He has a faster swing speed than I do, but he has inferior equipment. Tiger is the only player good enough to overcome the equipment he's stuck with."

Sensing that the bottom might begin to drop out of the market for Nike golf equipment, Woods and the folks from Nike swung the PR machine into high gear and put Mickelson on the defensive. Eventually, Mickelson apologized in what must have been one of the more ridiculous public statements in recent memory.

Imagine, someone being forced to apologize, not for insulting an individual, but for giving an honest assesment about a piece of equipment. Amazing. And in its own way, deplorable. But back to that later.

Today, Woods and Nike are finishing the job, and essentially turning the whole issue inside out by holding a news conference accusing other players on the tour of cheating and using drivers that give them an unfair advantage:

"First hole, here's my driver," Woods said last week at the Buick Classic. "Make sure it's legal. Green light, red light. That kind of thing."

As his driving distance slips farther down the rankings -- at 292.2 yards, a career-low 29th on tour -- Woods has become increasingly suspicious that some players are using drivers with a little too much pop.

Asked if there were illegal clubs on tour, Woods replied, "You could say that."

Either that, or Mickelson was telling the truth, and Woods really is using an inferior driver.

One the one hand, you have to credit Woods and Nike for their marketing savvy. Mickelson's comments have created some serious word of mouth that the Nike driver isn't any good, and they need to combat that perception in the marketplace to protect their business. By calling for testing of equipment, Woods is setting up himself, and Nike, as the guardians of tradition in the sport, while by extension other club makers like Titlest, Calloway, etc. are underwriting fraud on the PGA Tour:

"Look at all of the young kids now: every one of them, they are cut, they are ripped, hit the ball a long ways, and the game has changed that way," he said last week. "You don't see too many young players coming up playing the way Corey Pavin used play. You don't see that type of game any more. Now it's just bombs away and we'll figure it out from there."

Funny, but if Mickleson was forced to apologize for saying the Nike driver was inferior, then isn't Woods setting himself up to have to apologize to all the other golfers and the makers of their clubs for insinuating that they're cheating?

I'm not holding my breath. And lets hope that the folks who cover the PGA Tour deal with Woods a little more roughly, and with more of a jaundiced eye, than they did when this controversy started back in February.

In the end, I don't know, and don't pretend to understand, the physics behind how and why a golf club's shape and size affect the flight of the ball. But I do know that Woods claims are easily disputable, and reporters who tackle this story ought to do so with the sort of scepticism rarely seen in the past when they've been dealing with Woods.

POSTSCRIPT: Welcome to readers who have arrived via Steve Czaban. I've got a few updates on Tiger's crusade against "illegal" drivers, which you can find in the list below:

Tiger's Jedi Mind Trick

Taking A Pot Shot At Tiger

On Tiger's Campaign

_________________________
*A term borrowed from the PC business, where most folks are well acquainted with the "Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field."

The Meager Start Of The Big East/ACC Conflict

Who do we have to thank for the change in NCAA rules that allowed conferences with 12 teams or more to split into two divisions and play a conference championship game?

Think on it for a little while. I'll wait.

How about the Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference?

And you know what the biggest joke is? They've never held a championship game. Dennis Dodd of CBS Sportsline explains:

The 52-year-old PSAC was formed in 1951 with a group of state teachers colleges and remains one of the biggest conferences in the country. The league actually played a "playoff" game between its division winners from 1960 through 1987. It was more of a state championship game.

Because the PSAC had few Division II playoff candidates back then, it could fit the game in without bumping into the playoffs. The PSAC title game was built into the regular season. . .

The PSAC finally got around to bringing the subject of a conference championship game before the NCAA Convention in 1987. It hardly caused a ripple in the usual haze of legislation. It was even more irrelevant when, soon after, Division II expanded its playoffs. The PSAC, along with other Division II conferences, suddenly had a chance to get more teams in the playoffs and dropped the conference title game.

So after going to all that trouble to pass the legislation, the PSAC suddenly had no use for it. Of course, it wasn't long before ADs in the SEC and Big 12 figured out what was going on, and realized they were passing up another chance to cash in big time.

Fast forward to 2003, and now its the ACC that's looking to qualify for a conference championship payday.

From The Mail Bag

Off Wing email buddy Skip Oliva chimed in on a post from yesterday on my "maximum chaos theory," as a solution to what ails college athletics, as well as the latest news from the Big East/ACC conflict:

I'm with you in supporting maximum chaos.  I'm actually drafting a policy paper now for one of my groups outlining a system whereby the 60 or so major football schools could form a for-profit organization that would screw the NCAA, abolish the immoral vestiges of amateurism, and improve things for just about all the schools across-the-board.

Now as to the lawsuit: Assuming Virginia Tech jumps on the ACC offer (which they will, because that's what the politicians want), the only school with a real bone to pick is UConn.  The other Big East schools can easily form new conference alliances in short order, but UConn is left holding the bag with all the money they spent upgrading to D I-A play.  The lawsuit itself is pretty weak, but there is one potential source of trouble: Donna Shalala's past and continued status as Big East rep on the BCS.  Serving on the BCS while plotting to leave the conference non-BCS eligible gives a judge just enough rope to hang an injunction on.  Especially a Connecticut judge.

Tech's switching sides would probably make the other schools go away, since they'd know the jig is up, but UConn and it's politically rabid state attorney general will still pursue this, because really they don't have much of a choice.

June 30 is the day the buyout fee for Miami, BC and Syracuse doubles to $2 million. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Now the word is that the ACC is thinking about adding UConn to the mix.

D.C. Baseball Update

Today's big story concerns ex-Metrocall Chairman Bill Collins adding two retired Washington Redskins to his Virginia-based ownership group: defensive lineman Charles Mann and wide receiver Art Monk. It was up to Mann to provide the local media with the money quote of the day:

"I think in the heart of every athlete, there's a desire one day to be an owner or to be part of an ownership group," said Mann, 42, who lives in Great Falls. "It would just please me no end to be in the owners' box" at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, where the Northern Virginia team would play until a new ballpark opened in the commonwealth.

"I would probably have to pinch myself a few times," he said.

But the real news this morning came in the midst of Eric Fisher's piece in the Washington Times concerning the proposed stadium site in the Pentagon City area. Apparently, despite having been announced as a possible site, the owners of the parcel of land the stadium will sit on aren't interested in selling to the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority:

Meanwhile, the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, which owns land in Pentagon City coveted by the Virginia baseball lobby, wrote Major League Baseball and each team owner on June 6 reiterating its objection to its land being discussed as a stadium site. It is the second such letter sent to MLB outlining the foundation's strong objection to putting a stadium on its land. "We have reiterated the unavailability our site to baseball, just so there is no confusion," said John Barron, the District-based attorney representing the foundation. "We are still proceeding with our development plans, and we simply have no interest in selling this land. I don't know how we can make that any clearer."

For more on the "One Metropolitan Park" development, click here.

Further, the landowners for the other two proposed sites in Arlington County have expressed opposition to having their land expropriated, while the No Arlington Stadium Coalition lurks in the background waiting to pounce. Once again folks, there won't ever be a ballpark in Virginia.

UVA Won't Vote Yes On ACC Expansion

It looks as if the efforts of Virginia's Democratic Governor and Republican Attorney General have borne some results: the Washington Post is reporting this morning that the University of Virginia will "not vote yes" on any plans to expand the ACC that might harm their in-state rival, Virginia Tech.

Now the talk around the eissue is going to turn to amending conference bylaws to bypass the wishes of the three schools (UVA, UNC, and Duke), who are fighting expansion.

The deadline that now looms larger: June 30th, when the buyout fee for leaving the Big East in time for Miami, Syracuse and Boston College to play the 2004-05 season in the ACC doubles to $2 million per school.

We Get Letters. . .

My post last week concerning the law suit filed by the football schools in the Big East against Miami and Boston College kicked up more than a little dust -- just enough that I thought I should share some of the feedback.

From Tim Harvey, chief cook and bottle washer over at Rink Blog:

While Virginia Tech would have jumped to the ACC in a heartbeat and deserves its share of the blame for this Big East lawsuit charade, to label the Hokies as "free-riders" and link them with Rutgers and UConn is a slap in the face right after we just got bent over.

When's the last time a "free-rider" beat Miami FIVE straight seasons?

When's the last time a "free-rider" played for the National Championship?

When's the last time a "free-rider" has had the top pick in the NFL Draft -- twice?

If you want to blame anyone for being a "free-rider", how about the football programs of Boston College and Syracuse, who have been "free-riding" off of the success of a program that isn't even good enough for the ACC?

Can you tell that Tim is a Virginia Tech grad? That aside, he makes a number of important points that I didn't initially consider. Granted, Virginia Tech's winning streak roughly coincided with Miami's time on NCAA probation, but that shouldn't take away from the success that head coach Frank Beamer has had in Blacksburg. The "free-rider" definition was more than a little unfair when it comes to the Hokies. The real reason Tech wasn't invited to join the ACC, was the fact that it wouldn't allow the ACC to sell itself to any new television markets.

As for the rest of the parties to the law suit, the "free-rider" definition still stands.

Admittedly, when I first read about the law suit, I thought it was of dubious merit. But then I got this note from Skip Oliva:

Now, having reviewed the complaint, I have to say there may be triable questions of fact and law.  The problem I see is that Donna Shalala made repeated assertions on the record (i.e., during official Big East meetings) that Miami would not leave the Big East and that they were not in discussions with the ACC.  The complaint alleges that this was essentially a lie, as Shalala was negotiating with the ACC during the period where she denied any contact took place. 

Perhaps more damaging, though, is the allegation that Shalala abused her position as the Big East's BCS representative to screw over the conference.  Obviously we need to see more concrete evidence, but this is not what I'd consider a legally frivolous complaint.

Gee, amazing to think that a former member of the Clinton Administration might lie to her business partners. Who would have guessed? But as I said in my original post, when you lie down with dogs, you shouldn't be surprised when you get up with fleas. The Big East is dead, the only question now is who gets what in the will, and which of the schools comes up with the best plan to get on without Miami in their football future.

Thanks also to Skip for providing a link to a piece he wrote about the future of college football who wrote over at the Center For The Advancement of Capitalism. It's a pretty radical proposal, and one I've hinted at on this site before: that the top 60 football playing schools in the nation should break away from the NCAA and form their own league with a playoff system to determine a national championship. I think it's a great idea, and one whose time has come. Unfortunately, like Skip, I don't think it will ever happen.

Big East Senators Make Plea

Nine Senators from states where Big East colleges and universities are located have sent letters to the presidents of Miami, Syracuse and Boston College urging them to stick with the conference:

"The Big East has instilled core values of integrity, responsibility, loyalty and leadership in each and every student-athlete," the lawmakers said in the letter sent to University of Miami President Donna Shalala, Boston College President Rev. William P. Leahy and Syracuse University Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw.

"The result -- Big East students continue to excel," they wrote.

The letter noted the conference's success in producing Rhodes Scholars and in NCAA competition -- especially in women's sports, including Connecticut's women's basketball title, Notre Dame's women's soccer title and Villanova's women's cross country championship.

"It is not an exaggeration to suggest that this progress would be seriously jeopardized should you decide to leave the Big East," the letter said. "Instead of working toward the goal of greater equity between men's and women's athletics, the departure of your institutions will have the effect of stifling years of progress."

The letter was signed by Sens. Joe Lieberman and Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn.; Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; Sens. Robert C. Byrd and John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va.; Sens. George Allen and John Warner, R-Va.; and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Conspicuously absent from the list of signatures were the two U.S. Senators Miami President and former secretary of Health and Human Services, Shalala might actually listen to: New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton.

So what can we surmise from this letter? First of all, the roster of Senators who did sign could probably be attributed to the efforts of schools who have the most to lose from a Big East meltdown -- Rutgers, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, UConn and Pittsburgh. Without the Big East all of those schools will have to scramble to find a new conference affiliation for their football programs.

Next, the issue of harm to Women's sports is simply a canard. Had their been any real concern from the Women's sports lobby, you can bet that Clinton would have signed the letter and made a big deal about it.

Finally, this may also indicate that the remaining Catholic schools in the Big East are resigned to the death of the conference. Why?

Had the President of St. John's University, the largest Catholic university in the U.S. and a major presence in the New York metropolitan area, called either Clinton or Schumer, the letter would have gotten signed. Something tells me that plans for an all-Catholic athletic conference with basketball as its focus are well under way.

Not Such A New Idea

One reason I love blogging is having the opportunity to point out facts other folks have forgotten. Such is the case today with this news out of Texas regarding the NBA Western Conference Finals:

Dallas Mavericks fans who tried to buy tickets online to the first two games of the series in San Antonio have been frustrated in recent days when the orders were canceled because their credit card billing address did not come from areas apparently specified by the San Antonio Spurs.

A notice on Ticketmaster's Web site states that sales to games at the SBC Center "will be restricted to residents of San Antonio, Austin and south of San Antonio areas." Dallas is located nearly 200 miles north of Austin and 275 miles north of San Antonio.

"It probably adds to (the rivalry)," said Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who received about 20 e-mails from fans who wanted to purchase tickets to the game. "We have a lot of upset Mavs fans who have friends in San Antonio who would have loved to go to the game, actually got online and bought tickets and had the purchases canceled."

Actually, Mavericks fans aren't the first who have ever been victimized by such a sales strategy. In fact, the first time I can remember it being used was during the 2000 Stanley Cup Playoffs when Pittsburgh Penguins fans were prevented from purchasing tickets for games in Washington for a series between the Pens and the Caps. Pens fans complained loud and long, but their protests were met with indifference from a chuckling Caps owner, Ted Leonsis.

Why? Two reasons really. First of all, Washington, D.C. is among the most popular destination for newly minted college graduates from the Pittsburgh area. Combined with Penguins fans who regularly made the 3.5 hour ride down from the Steel City, Penguins fans would regularly outnumber the Caps faithful in their own arena. And after losing multiple playoff series to the Penguins over the years, Leonsis decided to throw a bone to the home faithful.

The other reason can be found in the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals, where the Caps were efficiently swept in four games by the Detroit Red Wings. Much like the Penguins series in the past, MCI Center was crawling with Red Wings fans for Games Three and Four in Washington. By the time I took my seat for Game Four, the MCI Center was a virtual sea of red and white, with nary a Caps jersey to be found in the arena.

To say the least, it took the edge off of the evening -- and robbed the Caps of any sort of home ice advantage (not that it would have mattered). By the time the team returned to the playoffs two years later, the new owner was ready to stiff the out-of-town folks, no matter what it cost.

By and large, Leonsis's strategy worked, with far fewer Penguins fans in the stands than usual. Despite the success of his gamesmanship, the Caps were still blown off the ice in Game One of that series, one they eventually lost in five games.

Might Warner Scuttle The ACC Play For Miami?

Here's an interesting wrinkle in the battle between the ACC and the Big East -- the personal involvement of the governor of Virginia:

Also yesterday, Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D), who has spoken with his counterparts in Maryland and North Carolina, maintained his stance that Virginia Tech needs to be included in any ACC realignment. However, a spokesman for Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) said that while he has spoken with University of Maryland officials, he was not going to become involved in the matter.

"He wanted to make them aware this was an issue, but we're not going to strong-arm anyone into a decision," Ehrlich spokesman Greg Massoni said. "There are larger issues here than just the teams themselves. There are TV markets and dollars and cents involved. The ACC will make a decision based on all of it."

As we saw earlier this week, UVA has provisionally voted to approve admitting Miami and Syracuse, but only if Virginia Tech is admitted instead of Boston College.

Getting Virginia Tech into the ACC is clearly in the best interest of the state. As an emergent football power, Tech would be hurt the most by the demise of the Big East -- essentially left scrambling for a conference to play in, most likely a conference without an automatic BCS bid.

That's a decision that could potentially cost Tech tens of millions of dollars over time, and cut off an avenue for promotion and publicity that's helped the school raise its national profile since head coach Frank Beamer's program began to take off. Further, extra millions in Bowl payouts helps take some pressure off of Tech's budget, and perhaps take an edge off the financial assistance the state has to provide the school.

Unfortunately for Tech, the addition of Boston College offers a far more attractive alternative for the ACC -- especially when it comes to television money. BC adds all of New England to any potential television package, while Tech is already smack dab in the middle of ACC country.

What will be interesting is just how far the administration at UVA will be willing to go when it comes to pushing for Tech's inclusion over BC. Do they have enough guts to bluff, and convince the rest of the conference that they'll prevent any deal at all if they don't get their way? Alternatively, do you give up Tech's cause, and anger a governor that has significant power over your school's budget?

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: It's official. Miami, Syracuse and Boston College have been invited to join the ACC. Virginia Tech is on the outside looking in, and Josh Crockett is livid.

Tough Enough To Take On Don King?

In a move that's certain to keep the FBI and the Justice Department busy for decades, the Joint Association of Boxers, a union for prizefighters, announced that it has become an affiliate of the Teamsters Union.

Something tells me Jimmy Hoffa would have liked this:

JAB founder Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, a former boxer himself, told the Las Vegas Sun the group will solicit fighters to join the organization, and will charge them two percent of their fight purses. That money will be placed in a fund that will provide the fighters with health insurance and a pension.

JAB already has decided to initiate talks with a major promotion agency, CKP Productions, which is headed by Cedric Kushner.

"When Mr. Kushner heard of our desire to form a union that would set standards in our industry, he was receptive and said he was willing to sit down and talk," Muhammad said. "We take it as a very positive sign that a promoter of Kushner's caliber is prepared to recognize our union."

In a statement, Muhammad said the majority of CKP's fighters have signed JAB authorization cards.

"The purpose of our meetings with Kushner and other promoters is to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that would establish minimum standards for the sport of boxing, and that, we believe, would help the boxing industry move to a new level of integrity," Muhammad said. "Our strategy is to sign up a majority of professional fighters, have promoters recognize our union, and negotiate a standard collective bargaining agreement."

As a free-market sports fan, I generally think Unions do more harm than good -- mostly in the area of distorting wages and becoming vehicles for massive corruption in their own right. But then again, is it really possible to make boxing more corrupt than it already is?

ACC Goes For The Kill Against The Big East

With only North Carolina and Duke dissenting, it appears that the ACC has voted to expand the conference by three teams in order to admit Miami, Syracuse and Boston College -- a move that will pave the way for the ACC to split into two divisions for football in order to establish a conference championship game.

There's just one wrinkle: Virginia, though it voted to expand, has asked the conference to admit in-state rival Virginia Tech, instead of Boston College. In addition, there are already plans to put Florida State into the same division as Miami, in order to preserve their annual regular season rivalry in football.

Then again, it isn't over till it's over, and it looks as if Miami will allow Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese one last chance to entice Miami to stay before it bolts for good. He's reportedly organizing another deal where the Big East will have football and basketball conferences that look nothing like one another (something that's partiallly true now with Notre Dame playing basketball, but remaining a football independent).

But barring a showstopping deal by Tranghese, I think Miami is gone. Which led St. John's coach Mike Jarvis to say:

"Whatever happens in three to five years, intercollegiate athletics will be very different. Very few schools who do not play major football will have a chance to win the national title in basketball. I hope we're the exception.''

(Can we be surprised that Jarvis has been mentioned as a candidate for the head coaching job with the Wizards?)

But this is exactly how the major conferences like the Big 10, Big 12 and the SEC wanted it. Back in the 1980s, these conferences got a little tired of seeing schools like Georgetown, Seton Hall, Villanova, and St. John's make their way deep into the NCAA basketball tournament year after year -- all without having to pay the freight for a major football program. In essence, it was a low-budget alternative to capture a piece of major college athletics -- pay for big-time basketball, and refuse to offer scholarships in any other sport.

Hence, the big boys pushed through a rule that said if you were Division I in one sport, you had to go Division I in all sports. For schools from a good portion of the Northeast, that meant paying for a I-AA program whether you wanted one or not -- something that forced Georgetown to move up from Division III to the Patriot League in football. In turn, Georgetown had to drop my alma mater, Catholic University, which it had played every year for a couple of decades, from its schedule.

The result: the rich get richer, and the big get even bigger.

And we all get a little closer to the grail of a Division I college football playoff.

When we get there, I hope everyone thinks it was worth it.

UPDATE: Fred Barnes (UVA) thinks ACC expansion is a good idea.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jeff Cooper reports that the shock waves from a Big East breakup might be felt as far West as Indiana.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: ESPN's Andy Katz lays out some more possibilities. There's one thing for sure -- the old Big East is simply no more. And while there might be real business reasons for it, I can't help but be a little sad about it.

More Jordan Fallout

Today's Washington Post still has Michael Jordan's firing front and center, this time in a page one piece by Thomas Heath describes Wednesday's events as seen through the eyes of Wizards minority owner Ted Leonsis. Bottom line: Leonsis is putting some distance between him and Wizards majority owner Abe Pollin -- and one wonders whether any goodwill is left between the two partners.

John Mitchell has a similar piece, though less detailed, over at the Washington Times.

The best take on Jordan's firing can be found in Sally Jenkins's column. Today, she takes on the contention posited by her Post colleague Michael Wilbon and former Georgetown University head coach John Thompson, that the Wizards "exploited" Jordan:

To say that Jordan was "exploited" is not just to demean Pollin, but to demean Jordan too, to suggest that the richest and most powerful athlete in modern history, one who prides himself on his shrewdness, couldn't take care of himself in a business deal. Frankly, if that's the case, Jordan had no business running a team. It also ignores the pertinent fact that Jordan's comeback as a player revived his flagging businesses and endorsement deals -- his latest signature shoes go for $175. Maybe he should have paid more attention to his relationship with his owner than his corporate relationships with Nike and Gatorade.

If anything, it was Leonsis who exploited Jordan -- and with Jordan's complete consent. As I've said before, Jordan was Leonsis's Trojan Horse -- his vehicle to gradually take control of the Wizards out from under Pollin's nose. It would have worked too, were it not for a combination of Jordan's arrogance and ham-fisted management style. If he had shown just a little grace, and treated the folks on the inside with just a little more dignity, there's little doubt in my mind that Pollin would have hired him back.

Instead, what we're left with is a Wizards organization in disarray; a Caps team on the rocks and bleeding cash; and two business partners engaging in open warfare in the pages of the nation's leading newspapers.

POSTSCRIPT: Wizards beat writer Steve Wyche was a guest for a moderated chat at washingtonpost.com yesterday. Here's a telling quote from Wyche:

Since I have not spoken to Abe Pollin, I do not know if he thought Jordan wasn't committed to the team or the area. The reasons cited for not re-hiring him did not indicate that.

Funny, isn't it, that the Wizards beat writer hasn't spoken at all to Pollin during this entire episode? Tells you something about what Pollin's camp really feels about the Post's coverage of events, doesn't it?

UPDATE: Both newspapers in the District decided to make the Jordan firing the topic of unsigned editorials. The Post's effort seems to be aimed at helping everybody to just get along, and ends with a plea for fans to take it easy on Pollin. Think of the piece as a first attempt at repairing the paper's relationship with Pollin. In contrast, the Washington Times happily takes sides, and praises Pollin for getting rid of Jordan.

Even Superman Has His Weaknesses

Sometimes you have to get out of town to hear the truth few want to speak in your neighborhood. Here's the Chicago Tribune's Sam Smith on the crux of Jordan's problem (registration required):

The end game, played out the last week, also was Washingtonesque as reports surfaced in the New York Times that Jordan was lazy and divisive. Jordan believed the reports were a plant from Susan O'Malley, a Wizards executive whose father was a close business associate with Pollin. Jordan was constantly at odds with O'Malley, who feared her influence would be reduced if Jordan returned.

The thinking supposedly was that Jordan had co-opted the Washington Post staff and the newspaper would be too sympathetic to Jordan to print anything critical. The Post considers its biggest competitor the Times, so exposure in that newspaper would emphasize Jordan's flaws and also embarrass the Post.

A number of years ago, O'Malley gave a speech at my alma mater, Catholic University. On the stump, she liked telling the story of ex-Bullet LaBradford Smith, who in one game when Jordan guarded him in Chicago, scored 37 points. In the next game back in Washington, Jordan got 36 of those points back: by halftime.

O'Malley liked to use it as a cautionary tale. "Never tug on Superman's cape," she said.

I guess that means O'Malley is kryptonite.

Jordan: The Day After

As you might suspect, Michael Jordan's firing is topic one here in Washington. Here's the basic story that ran on page one from the Washington Post's Thomas Heath. In another front page story, Rachel Nichols talks about the personality clash between Jordan and Wizards majority owner Abe Pollin. Finally, Steve Wyche tackles the issue of what's next for his airness.

On the news side at the undermanned Washington Times, John Mitchell did some double duty on the firing, outlining the basic facts in one piece; and then writing about how Jordan's departure leaves a huge void in the team's front office.

But the best passage comes from a piece from the New York Times' Mike Wise. Ever since Wise's piece on Sunday essentially outlined the case for Jordan's dismissal, it's been clear that Pollin and his loyalists inside the Wizards organization turned to Wise to get out their side of the story. Why? Because it's been clear for some time that the Post's sports section is a hotbed for Jordan loyalists. In turn, Wizards minority owner Ted Leonsis has made it clear that he never spoke to the Times.

In any case, Wise served up this scene from yesterday's disappointing performance review:

During a curt, five-minute exchange yesterday that ended with Michael Jordan making a futile case for his job, Abe Pollin, the Washington Wizards' owner, told Jordan, the man recognized as the world's greatest basketball player, that his services were no longer needed.

Jordan then turned toward Ted Leonsis, a minority owner of the Wizards, in Pollin's office at the MCI Center in Washington and profanely yelled at him for "getting me into this mess," according to a participant in the meeting.

Jordan and his representative, Curtis Polk, then angrily walked out, bitterly ending his three-and-a-half-year relationship with the Wizards, the last two as a celebrated, if aging, player on 37-45 teams.

For more, click the link below:

Just about all of the columnists in the D.C. area came out to play on this issue. Here's a roundup:

Ex-Post reporter and current ESPN NBA beat reporter David Aldridge thinks it's time for Pollin to go.

His former colleague at the Post, Tom Boswell, agrees.

Sally Jenkins says the blame lies with Jordan, but demonstrates the best understanding of the situation -- probably because she isn't friends with any of the principals involved.

Jordan buddy Michael Wilbon blames it all on Pollin. But you knew that already.

At the Washington Times, Thom Loverro reminds us that due to circumstances beyond Jordan's control, the Wizards are going to stink no matter who is in charge. Meanwhile, Dan Daly thinks the real problem is that Jordan still doesn't know what he wants to do with his life -- not exactly the best profile for hiring a general manager.

Curiously absent from the roster of columnists weighing in today is the Post's Tony Kornheiser -- a person with historically close ties to both Pollin and Wizards team president Susan O'Malley. I'll be very interested in seeing what he has to say.

I'll say this: all of us here in Washington owe some thanks to Wise at the Times. Competition is always a good thing, no matter what industry you're talking about, and Wise gave readers everywhere a perspective neither the Post nor the Washington Times was able to.

Pollin Gives Jordan His Walking Papers

If Michael Jordan is going to get a front office job with an NBA team, it will have to be with a team other than the Washington Wizards. The decision came just a few hours ago after Jordan met today with team owner Abe Pollin to discuss his future with the club.

The decision can hardly be a surprise, as it caps several weeks of manuvering in the press between Pollin, Jordan, and Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis.

Here's the nut graph from this afternoon's story on the AP wire:

A team source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Pollin's decision was based on three reasons: player dissension, a franchise faltering after 3 1/2 years of Jordan in charge, and deteriorating relationships throughout the organization.

These are essentially the same bullet points that were outlined to Mike Wise of the New York Times on Sunday. By now it should be clear that Pollin's people were talking to the Times, while Jordan and Leonsis's proxies were leaking to the Washington Post.

Who are the winners and losers in this dance? In the short run, Jordan has got to be embarassed, but it won't be long before he'll end up in Atlanta, Chicago or Charlotte with a front office job and an ownership stake. He can mark down his 3.5 years with the Wizards as nothing more than a speed bump in his glorious career -- despite the fact that just about every one of his personnel decisions was a disaster.

The real loser here is Caps owner Ted Leonsis. The entire Jordan gambit was his attempt to gradually wrest control of the Wizards from Pollin, and hasten the day when the AOL executive would take control of the rest of Pollin's sports properties. Once inside at the Wizards, Jordan would have asked for more and more influence over the team, essentially building an organization that was loyal to Jordan rather than Pollin. As it stands, Jordan had already hired a host of front office staff, as well as head coach Doug Collins. One has to assume that all of those folks, including a major chunk of the scouting staff that Jordan and Collins helped to revamp, will soon be following Jordan out the door.

As one might recall, this whole media war between Pollin and Leonsis began after the Capitals lost their first round NHL playoff series to the Tampa Bay Lightning. After the Caps lost Game Six on home ice on Easter Sunday afternoon, Leonsis began to vent his frustrations with Pollin's organization to the local press. One has to wonder now if that outburst, and the manuvering in the press that followed, wasn't a major miscalculation on Leonsis's part.

As for Pollin, give him credit for seeing exactly what Jordan and Leonsis were doing. He gets to keep control of his club, but at the price of reinforcing the image that Pollin is a small-time owner that can't run with the billionaire owners who now dominate the NBA. Certainly, Jordan did the Wizards no favors when it came to attracting free agents to the team, but today's action is far more damaging in the long run. If anything, the Wizards are getting the reputation of being the team you want to deal with when it comes time to deal players.

The biggest losers of all: Washington Wizards fans. But they'll get their revenge, as they stay away from the MCI Center in droves next season, and the Wizards play host to dwindling crowds. Pollin will cling ever more tightly to his sports properties -- and perhaps even begin to seek a buyer besides Leonsis for Washington Sports and Entertainment, the holding company for the Wizards and MCI Center.

All in all, a miserable day for anyone who cares about the future of the Wizards and the Capitals.

The future's so dim, I got rid of my shades.

UPDATE: The Post has a poll asking whether the Wizards are better off with or without Jordan.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's the link to the team's official statement regarding the dismissal. This quote attributed to Pollin caught my eye:

"I want to emphasize my sincere thanks to Michael for his time with this franchise," said Pollin. "While the roster of talent he has assembled here in Washington may not have succeeded to his and my expectations, I do believe Michael’s desire to win and be successful is unquestioned. In the end, Ted (Leonsis) and I felt that this franchise should move in a different direction. I wish him only the very best in his future endeavors."

Ted and I? Don't believe that for a second. The decision to let Jordan go was Pollin's and Pollin's alone.

D.C. Baseball Update

There are a variety of items that have cropped up over the past few weeks that deserve a look. Over at the Washington Times, Eric Fisher has two recent stories -- one on how District officials now favor a stadium site in Northeast near New York Avenue; the other on how the announcement of proposed stadium sites in Virginia has mobilized public opposition throughout the region.

I've said more than a few times that Northern Virginia's traffic grid simply can't support a baseball stadium -- something that the vast majority of area residents understand all too well. At first, I thought a site on Mt. Vernon Square in the District was the best, but community opposition seems to have derailed that idea, with New York Avenue being the next best choice. If all else fails, the site at the current RFK Stadium exists as the ultimate fall back position.

Meanwhile, out in Oregon, the campaign to bring the Expos to Portland continues to chug along. A stadium financing plan is steadily moving through the state House of Representatives, a plan that was endorsed this morning by the state's largest newspaper, The Oregonian. To keep up with all the news surrounding the efforts in Oregon, check in with the Oregon Stadium Campaign by clicking here.

Finally, be sure to update your bookmarks -- the Washington Post has moved its section on D.C. Baseball, here.

More Reliable Than Arthur Andersen

As a dedicated ice hockey fan and equity analyst, LA Kings fan Phillip Propper was skeptical of the team's claim that it had lost millions of dollars since moving into the brand new Staples Center a few years ago. So Propper had an idea:

On a whim, Propper wrote a letter in February to Tim Leiweke, the Kings' president, volunteering to examine the team's financial statements.

"Mr. Leiweke, I am quite skeptical regarding this claim," Propper wrote, referring to the huge losses.

Rather than taking the conventional view - that letting an outsider, a fan no less, audit the financial guts of a privately held corporation was a form of insanity - the Kings embraced the idea, certain that even a skeptic like Propper would see what they saw: big losses.

The team would not have opened its books to any old Kings fan with a jersey and a cap and a beer-cup holder, but they were comfortable with Propper's financial background. Leiweke told Dan Beckerman, the team's chief financial officer, to cooperate with Propper.

"We wanted to set the record straight," Beckerman said. "We're not happy about losing all this money, and we're not bragging about it. But the flip side is we're also not complaining about it."

And so, Propper spent 10 hours over three days in February at Staples Center. "I went in with the bias that they were lying," Propper said.

What happened next? The Kings, much to Propper's surprise, where telling the truth. The culprit: rising players salaries that increased faster than the Kings could boost revenue.

But what was even more interesting, was Propper's conclusion as to the source of the problem:

"Why did Anschutz buy this team?" Propper said he had asked himself. "They figured that they'd build Staples, and knew what revenues would look like and thought salary growth would be about 8 to 10 percent. But salaries grew too fast. They may not have bought the team had they known this."

He said the Kings had not spent enough in marketing to fill the new arena with more than an average of about 15,000 paid customers each game.

Winning a Stanley Cup, of course, has also eluded the Kings.

Propper's sharpest criticism is reserved for the National Hockey League. He said that under Commissioner Gary Bettman, the league had needlessly overexpanded to 30 teams, forcing salaries higher and creating a wide revenue gap between the most affluent and poorest teams. His proposed solutions include eliminating four to six teams through contraction and consolidation.

Which is a conclusion that plenty of fans have come to all on their own in the last several years. Player salaries increased for two reasons: first, though the league needed enough players to fill out thirty teams, the supply of players at the top of the scale didn't increase -- making the price they could demand all the more dear. Further, teams were able to spend more on salaries due to the expansion fees the league demanded of its new owners.

In the business world, when a public company enjoys a financial windfall that isn't related to its ongoing operations, they report it as a "non-recurring event", and those profits are often broken out, or even excluded from the company's calculation of earnings per share (EPS). On Wall Street, it's understood that while such events contribute to the company's overall health, they can't be attributed to the company's operation as a going concern.

In essence, the league was able to pay players more, even though the long-term fiscal health of the league hadn't improved at all. If anything, we can posit that the expansion fees paid by those new owners were essentially investments in a partnership made against future earnings. And given the current state of the league, I have to wonder out loud if any of those expansion teams ushered into the NHL since 1990 have seen one plugged nickle in profits.

Caray And Van Wieren Shoved Aside

I'm sorry, but this announcement is just downright "un-American":

Longtime announcers Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren won't be part of TBS' coverage of the Atlanta Braves at the start of the season as the cable network tries to lure more viewers.

Don Sutton and Joe Simpson, who've split television and radio duties with Caray and Van Wieren for the past several years, will be in the booth for 90 games on TBS.

Caray and Van Wieren, entering their 28th season with the Braves, will handle 36 games shown on Turner South, a regional cable network in only 6.5 million homes. By comparison, TBS can been seen in 87 million homes.

I don't have any problems with Sutton or Simpson (in fact, Sutton has grown on me over the years), but not hearing Caray and Van Wieren broadcast the Braves seems ridiculous. One of Baseball's great strengths has always been its regional appeal -- and Caray and Van Wieren are as much a part of that fabric as Ralph Kiner and Phil Rizutto in New York.

Further, these are two voices that are inextricably tied to the Braves rise to prominence in the National League. Shoving them off the air cuts millions of fans off from the sort of history Baseball ought to be honoring if it's going to survive.

It seems the Turner execs are hedging their bets, saying that the move is subject to change. It's almost that they're anticipating a massive backlash, and I hope they're right. Here's hoping Caray and Van Wieren get their old jobs back, and right away.

D.C. Baseball Update

The District made its pitch to Major League Baseball's Relocation Committee yesterday, with a $430 million stadium that was two-thirds publicly financed at the center of the deal. As it was put over in the Washington Times:

"It was a positive reception," said Eric Price, deputy mayor for planning and economic development.

Price said the District group made it clear to baseball officials that legislation to finance about two-thirds of a proposed $400 million ballpark would have a better chance for approval if baseball first indicated that the franchise — currently owned by the 29 other major league owners — would be moved to the District.

"We told them that would be helpful," Price said. "We would not need that to introduce legislation, but the more certainty we could have about a team, the better that would be for the process."

As was previously reported, city officials rank the New York Avenue site first, Anacostia second, and the current RFK site as a backup. Any public aid package for a stadium would first have to be approved by the D.C. City Council, and then by Congress.

Portland, Oregon had its shot later in the day, while Northern Virginia is due up this morning. In case you missed it, over in the Washington Post, Tom Boswell is accusing MLB of acting like businessmen in holding out for a sales price for the Expos where they'll actually be able to make their money back.

Shocking. Simply shocking.

War Throws Broadcast Sports Into Flux

Last night's attack on Iraq is causing havoc with sports television, most notably with CBS' coverage of the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament. All or parts of the tournament's first and second round games may be moved off the network to ESPN. Surprisingly, as Steve MacLaughlin predicted in an email to me earlier this week, ESPN made a point of saying that none of its slate of Women's NCAA tournament games would be affected by the potential schedule changes.

POSTSCRIPT: Be sure to drop by Steve's site in the next few days as he previews the Grand Prix of Malaysia. And yes, the organizers say the race will go ahead, even with war raging in Iraq.

UPDATE: In other sports, the D.C. Marathon has been cancelled due to the start of the war. The race shouldn't be confused with the area's oldest marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon, which should go on as scheduled this Fall.

D.C. Baseball Update

The Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority meets with Major League Baseball's Relocation Committee tomorrow in Arizona, with Gabe Paul, head of the Authority, and Bill Collins, a potential owner, dropping some hints to the Washington Post on how they're going to sell the committee on Virginia over the District:

"We haven't grandstanded this issue," Collins said. "This decision is going to be made by three owners who are part of the relocation committee, and six members of the commissioner's office, and then the 26 other owners in baseball. That's it. You can hold all these discussions, hold press conferences and have press releases go out daily -- and maybe it will have some effect on those people who will be making the decision. But I don't think so."

Collins, who heads the Virginia Baseball Club which funds the stadium authority, told fans that the two Pentagon City locations are more urban than the District site with the broadest support: New York Avenue at North Capitol Street:

"People keep talking about the District of Columbia being a downtown site. I don't know how many of you have walked on New York and Florida Avenue, but that is not an urban site. . . . That site is the gateway to Baltimore. There's four lights, I think, before you are on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway."

Paul said the Virginia group will make public its site list soon. Impact studies are being done on each location, he said.

"I'm very confident going into the meeting," he said in a phone interview. "I think we have excellent sites, a good financing plan -- with the majority of it already approved by the legislature -- and we have good political support."

Publicly Financed Follies

John Perricone isn't happy that Bud Selig won't award the Major League All-Star Game to San Francisco's Pac Bell Park. And he thinks he knows why:

Yeah, everybody in the Selig family was pretty happy when they got to host last seasons' All Star game in their shitty, publicly financed, craptacular disappointment of a ballpark less than two full years after it opened. And how do the Houston Astros get an All Star game less than four years after they open their publicly-financed joke of a ballpark?

Sleigula doesn't want to showcase a privately financed, model of success, World Series contending home of a team with the best player of the last fifty years playing in front of his hometown, where-he-grew-up fans because he knows that PacBell makes every single thing he says a lie. He knows that his whole life's work, destroying the Players Association and lining the pockets of every owner too stupid or cheap or lazy to field a winner fairly; is shown to be little more than posturing and propaganda whenever Peter Magowan and his wildly succesful owners group have the national stage.

One item before commenting on John's rant: someone needs to do a thorough investigation and discover which of the writers on The Simpsons is responsible for the creation of the adjective, craptacular. The world owes that person a debt of gratitude.

Whether or not Selig is steering the All-Star Game away from Pac Bell Park for the reasons that John mentions, there's little doubt that Pac Bell's very presence refutes Selig's claim that publicly financed stadia are the only way for baseball to be financially viable. In the case of the Montreal Expos, they'll be awarded to the municipality that puts together the best plan to publicly finance a stadium -- then, and only then, will MLB decide which ownership group will get approval to purchase the club.

And nobody, but nobody, is ready to mention word one about any of the potential ownership groups from this area actually paying for their own ballpark. It's simply not an issue, especially when the political leadership in Washington, D.C. seems prepared to do anything to get a team back to the District of Columbia.

Late Night Roundup

Just a few items to mention tonight. Mets catcher Mike Piazza charged Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Guillermo Mota after Mota struck him in the back with a pitch down in Florida today. To this day, I still contend that the 2000 World Series would have ended differently had Piazza charged New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens in game 2 of the 2000 World Series after Clemens had thrown a shattered bat Piazza's way.

Bob Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television and owner of the NBA's Charlotte expansion franchise, told a conference in New York he would only be interested in buying the Montreal Expos if Major League Baseball were willing to first sell him a 51 percent interest in the team, and then allow him to pay for the rest in installments.

I wonder if any of the other potential ownership groups might use this announcement as a way to leverage Johnson out of the bidding?

While I was down in Florida, I missed two local stories on D.C baseball. The first is from the Washington Post, where the paper suggests that baseball has a business model that Washington, D.C., "can't afford."

Over in the Washington Times last Friday, columnist Deborah Simmons railed against D.C. baseball as something the city's taxpayers can ill afford. Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, there are lingering doubts about bringing a team there, especially when the city can't even afford to keep its public schools open.

All the baseball links come courtesy of a neat little site called Ballpark Watch. Put it in your bookmarks.

Up in New York, the Yankees cable network, YES, has finally come to an agreement so it can be carried on cable systems owned by Cablevison. The winner here: Yankees fans. The loser: satellte television provider Direct TV, formerly the only way for millions of Yankees fans in the New York area to get the Yes Network.

And finally tonight, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jose Mesa, better known around these parts by the Anglicized version of his name, Joe Table, is being investigated by MLB for comments he made suggesting he was planning to kill Cleveland Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel.

Will San Diego Be Any Less Beautiful Without The Chargers?

My guess is no, but that doesn't mean that the folks in San Diego aren't upset about the team's decision to trigger an out clause in their lease on Qualcomm Stadium:

The decision to trigger the renegotiation clause, which had been expected, opens a 90-day window to come to a new stadium deal with the city. It begins a process that could end with the team moving out of San Diego. "The start of this process does not signal that the team intends to leave San Diego," said Mark Fabiani, a former Clinton White House lawyer who is serving as special counsel to the Chargers. "We have no intention of talking to any other city as we begin a negotiation process with the city of San Diego."

[San Diego Mayor Dick] Murphy said the team was short-circuiting the city's good-faith process to review the Chargers' demand for a new stadium. The city council scheduled a March 18 hearing on a final report by a citizens task force on ways to keep the team in the city.

"I'm outraged by the Chargers' triggering today," Murphy said. "I think the Chargers' action is a slap in the face of the Chargers' task force, the San Diego City Council and the public."

Another provision in the lease has resulted in the city transferring $25 million to the Chargers since 1995. That's on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars that San Diego spent on renovating Qualcomm so that it could host the Super Bowl -- ironic considering that during the run up to this year's Super Bowl, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said that it was unlikely the city would host the Super Bowl again in the near future because of deficiencies in the stadium.

All told, the NFL has held up San Diego for a grand total of about $200 million. Wonder if the city might have been able to use that cash to do something else worthwhile for the citizens of that fair city? More than likely is my guess.

"Buffaloing" The Taxpayers?

In Upstate New York, things are looking bleak for the Buffalo Sabres. The team is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman seems determined to hold out for the highest bid for the team possible.

Unfortunately, the only bidder for the team is Rochester multi-billionaire and former New York state gubernatorial candidate Thomas Golisano. And being an actual businessman, Golisano is holding out for a purchase price that will actually allow him to eventually make a profit out of owning the team.

Meanwhile, state officials are still trying to convince everyone that the Sabres deserve some sort of local aid package to keep the team in town:

What is a sports franchise worth to its hometown?

New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi says the bankrupt Buffalo Sabres are worth $65 million a year to the local economy. He said one-third of that comes indirectly from downtown merchants and vendors.

When the team reaches the playoffs, each home game adds another $2 million.

"The Sabres hockey team is a winner for the local economy and for area residents, particularly when they have a good season," he said. "Any enterprise that adds $65 million to the local economy on a regular basis, and as much as $20 million more if they make it to the Stanley Cup championship series, is worth keeping."

Now, you should know that when UPI contacted the Sabres to comment on Hevesi's research, the team refused to comment. After all, as many economists have noted, the financial effects of having a major league sports franchise are often difficult to quantify. And while I don't doubt that $65 million in business transactions in Buffalo are either directly or indirectly tied to the Sabres, I have to wonder out loud just how much of that money would leave Buffalo along with the team were it to fold or leave town.

But the bottom line here is this: do the taxpayers of Western New York want to divert a portion of their state and municipal budgets to keep a team in town that couldn't survive otherwise? Or are there more important priorities for such an economically distressed area?

UPDATE: Jason Scavone has some thoughts on the impending player fire sale in Buffalo.

ANOTHER UPDATE: HOLD ON A SECOND! It's being reported that the NHL has accepted Golisano's bid for the team. Apparently, there are just a few more details to work out.

Virginia Stadium Sites

According to today's Washington Post, the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority is considering four sites in Northern Virginia to build a new stadium for the Montreal Expos in case they move to Northern Virginia -- four sites that are sure to inspire as much community opposition as the ill-fated plan to build a stadium for the Redskins in Potomac Yards several years back.

According to the Post, three of the sites are in Arlington, and the fourth somewhere near Dulles Airport in Loudoun County. The site that would be the most picturesque (complete with views off the National Mall) is located in Arlington's Rosslyn neighborhood, alongside the Potomac and just across the river from Georgetown. The neighborhood has been emptying out for some time now, with USA Today having abandoned the original Gannet building for Tysons Corner. In terms of transportation, the site is located near Metro's Blue and Orangle lines, as well as exits for I-66, VA-50, VA-110, Key Bridge and the George Washington Parkway.

Unfortunately, what makes the site ideal in terms of transportation links, also makes it an absolute nightmare for the everyday commuter. As fate would have it, once you plunk a stadium in Rosslyn, you've created a multi-million dollar roadblock for Northern Virginia traffic. Anyone who has ever travelered I-66 Eastbound, or on an Orange or Blue Line Train out of D.C. at rush hour knows exactly what I'm talking about.

The other two Arlington sites are in the Pentagon City neighborhood, in between the Pentagon and Crystal City. One site would require demolishing one of the most profitable Costco Warehouse stores on the East Coast, the other would be sited on top of several warehouses currently owned by the Cafritz family. Either way, that real estate would come at a dear price -- and the traffic problems the sites would create are only marginally less onerous than Rosslyn.

The bottom line here: there are a number of better sites in the District. If baseball is coming to the area, it should stay out of Northern Virginia.

And By The Way. . .

That NASCAR season starts "officially" on Sunday with the running of the Daytona 500. Jeff Green is on the pole beside Dale Earnhardt, Jr., with Robby Gordon and Michael Waltrip in row 2. Jeff Gordon is on the inside of row 7, while perpetual anger management student, Tony Stewart, is on the outside of row 5. With lots of snow expected this weekend here in the Northeast, it looks as if I'll be making the time to watch most of the race with the surround sound turned way up on the Fox Sports telecast.

while I spent many a Sunday afternoon with my father watching all sorts of auto racing as a child, I would have to admit that the explosive growth of NASCAR has to be the most surprising development in sports over the last ten years (besides the similar rise in growth in the NBA). Back in my younger days, I would have thought that Indy Car had a better shot at capturing the American soul, with NASCAR remaining a sport with nothing more than regional appeal.

Which makes you wonder: today, the NHL has a franchise, the Carolina Hurricanes, smack in the middle of NASCAR territory. They're doing ok financially, mostly owed to their freakish run to the Stanley Cup Finals last Spring. But in the long term, I have to question their ability to survive.

Then, think of this: would I have any trouble attracting investors to a NASCAR track on the outskirts of say, Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver? I think not, and am pretty sure our neighbors to the North would embrace NASCAR pretty enthusiastically.

A Tax Coming To A State Near You

In today's "Fiscally Fit" column in the Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required), Terri Cullen writes about the growth in the "Jock Tax," a device many cities and states around the country are using in order to close budgetary shortfalls on the backs of professional athletes:

[C]alifornia's so-called jock provision dates back to the early 1980s, "when baseball free-agency started to bloom," says Patrick Hill, public-affairs spokesman for the California Franchise Tax Board. However, it wasn't until the early '90s that the state stepped up their collection efforts. By early 2000, the tax had gained so much momentum that Wall Street Journal reporter Sam Walker detailed the tax woes of Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez, at that time the richest athlete in team sports. After reading about the Texas Ranger shortstop's much-publicized jock-tax burden, fans nicknamed him "Pay-Rod." California's success at collecting the jock tax has prompted many states and municipalities to follow suit, and the list of states imposing the tax continues to grow. In 2001, Wisconsin took in more than $11 million in annual revenue from jock taxes.

Leading the nation in the "Jock Tax" rate are California and the District of Columbia -- both clocking in at 9.3%. Now, sure, it's easy to laugh and not care about taking another cut off the top of the salary of a multi-millionaire athlete. Unfortunately, plenty of states are expanding the reach of the tax to include other professions -- notably doctors, lawyers, architechts and other highly-compensated business executives.

One bonus for some collectors: while your state may allow you to take a credit on your return for taxes you pay on income earned out of state, residents of states that don't collect an income tax can just kiss that money goodbye.

Of course, while some tax collectors are patting themselves on the back for finding a new source of revenue during a time when collections are way down, we all know full well that the states who work hardest to exploit the provisions in the tax laws that allow these collections will eventually drive away business. Sure, it's one thing when Mike Piazza has no choice but to play in Dodger Stadium when he's on the road. But it's another thing entirely when a profession can choose to avoid a state altogether in an attempt to avoid an unreasonable tax.

Gary Bettman's Signs Of The Apocalypse

With time running down in the third period, I turned off the Wild-Flyers hockey game from St. Paul to watch the fourth quarter of the Bucks-Mavericks from Milwaukee. This is after being a subscriber to the NHL Center Ice pay-per-view package for the last three seasons.

All Star Disappearing Act

When the NBA agreed to its latest television contract with ABC/ESPN and TNT, the move essentially meant that the league would become a creature of cable television -- something that commissioner David Stern was probably more than comfortable with since the league will be banking $4.6 billion over the length of the six year contract.

But something has changed, and I noticed it early yesterday morning in the cafeteria at work when Off Wing reader Jason G. mentioned that he spent more than a few minutes looking for the NBA All-Star Game before he finally found the cable telecast on its new home at TNT.

It looks like he wasn't the only one.

Buried in all the happy talk about the game being the highest rated basketball game in TNT history was the fact that only 4.9 million households tuned in -- a 1.6 million drop from last year's game on NBC that drew 6.5 million households.

I don't care how much money this contract is for, 1.6 million people is a massive drop, and one that Stern can't be terribly happy about.

Just A Thought. . .

We're just entering the second overtime of the 2003 NBA All-Star Game, and it's only a few minutes before 11:30 p.m. here on the East Coast. Now, when I was a kid, the NBA All-Star Game was an afternoon affair. As an adult, it commonly had a 6:00 p.m. EST start. Now, with the move to cable, and TNT, festivities start at 8:00 p.m. EST.

11:30 p.m. is sort of late for a school night if you asked me, and I have to wonder if the same critics who bash Major League Baseball every year for the 8:00 p.m. start time for World Series games will give the NBA the same sort of treatment in the papers tomorrow morning.

POSTSCRIPT: With a new agreement with the NBA Players Association in place, the NBA will be moving to a best of seven format in the first round of the playoffs this season. Last year's NBA playoffs seemed to be the longest ever due to the crazy television schedule, but any chance you have to increase revenue has to be taken.

D.C. Baseball Hopeful Loses Company

Earlier today it was announced that Alexandria, Virginia-based Metrocall, a wireless communications and paging company, had named Vincent D. Kelly as President and CEO. So why should sports fans care? Well, he replaces William Collins, who was terminated as President, Chairman and CEO of Metrocall to make way for Kelly. This is the same William Collins who is spearheading an effort to get the Montreal Expos to move to Northern Virginia.

In an interview with the Washington Post not long ago, Collins said that his situation with Metrocall, which only recently re-emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, would not affect his ability to purchase the Expos. And indeed, Collins has a few deep-pocketed partners working with him, including Wachovia-First Union Bank, as well as investment bankers Friedman, Billings and Ramsey. Despite this, you have to wonder whether or not Major League Baseball is going to want to sell a team that is failing financially to a business executive that led his last venture into Chapter 11.

UPDATE: Here's the Post's story on Collins' termination from Metrocall.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's a Washington Times piece on the Collins situation.

Merger Musings

Skip Oliva wonders why, especially in economically tough times, that sports leagues don't allow teams to merge:

With NHL teams Enroning themselves left and right, and major corporations having difficulty unloading baseball teams, why don't we just merge unwanted, worthless franchises with other teams? In theory, it's less painful than contraction. You don't have an entire league assuming the failed team's debt, you don't need a dispersal draft, and it could help medium-sized teams instantly upgrade their competitiveness.

Personally, I'm thinking of a potential Ottawa Senators-Washington Capitals merger. It seems like a great fit...

Actually, it has happened before, but in limited circumstances. During the Second World War, due to a manpower shortage, the NFL allowed the Pittsburgh Steelers to temporarily merge first with the Philadelphia Eagles, and then with the Chicago Cardinals. In 1943, the teams were known as the Phil-Pitt Steagles, finishing with a 5-4-1 record. In 1944, the team was known as the unimaginative Card-Pitt, and went a predictable 0-10.

The only merger in the NHL took place in 1978, when the league allowed the failing Cleveland Barons to merge with the Minnesota North Stars. The team became instantly more competitive, eventually making its way to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1981.

As to why we don't see mergers now, the only answer I can come up with are the players unions. More teams mean more jobs; more jobs means more major league salaries and a bigger and more powerful union. When you merge teams, you subtract the total number of major league jobs availbale -- something which has to be classified as a disaster for any union, not just one that represents professional athletes.

Then again, if the NHL does go through a lockout after the 2003-04 season as is currently envisioned, who knows what the league might look like after a protracted labor fight.

Can It Be The Winston Cup Without Winston?

Undoubtedly, no. Without the help of Tom Inskeep, I would have missed this item:

R.J. Reynolds and NASCAR recently announced this year's Winston Cup point fund will be a record $17 million. What they didn't say was that whoever snares the $4,250,000 for first place in 2003 may also be the final Winston Cup champion.

ESPN.com has learned that R.J. Reynolds is seriously looking at ending its long and rich association with the stock car world after 33 years. This follows by just a few days Union 76's announcement that it would cease its 50-year relationship as NASCAR's official fuel and oil. A top-level source inside the tobacco industry and another source close to the situation said RJR is prepared to shut down this remarkable partnership and that NASCAR is already pursuing a replacement.

"There are five years left on the contract, but RJR would walk away as the title sponsor if a suitable replacement could be found," said the source, who requested anonymity. "With all the lawsuits and litigation surrounding the tobacco industry now, Winston feels like it's time to step aside.

"And NASCAR is actively looking for a new title sponsor."

Coke, McDonald's and a host of others are sure to line up to take RJ Reynolds place.

Portland Announces Potential Baseball Stadium Sites

From KGW Television in Portland, Oregon:

The six possible sites are the Blanchard Building site in the Rose Quarter area; the U.S. Post Office site in the Pearl District; Union Station in the Old Town area; Burnsides and I-405 in the Pearl District; Lincoln High School in the Goose Hollow neighborhood; and in Lents in east Portland.

Further, the report also notes that a delegation from Major League Baseball will be in Portland in later this month or next to talk further about what MLB is going to require in order for the Expos to come to town.

Dark Horse Enters Race For Expos

Only a few hours after I posted a listing of the major players in the effort to bring the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C., Newsday is reporting that there's a new player trying to fight his way to the table -- and he's from Long Island:

Long Island real estate magnate Mark Broxmeyer has entered a spirited competition to buy the Montreal Expos, making his desires known in an initial meeting Friday with top Major League Baseball executives.

Broxmeyer, founding partner of Commack-based Fairfield Properties and author of a true rags-to-riches story, is assembling what he termed a "dream team" in his effort to win baseball's approval to purchase the Expos and move them to the Washington, D.C., area. Broxmeyer declined to name other members of his team beyond brother Gary and son Michael, but speculation centers on heavyweight political figures, considering Broxmeyer's background. Broxmeyer has ties to former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, two men who could add considerable luster, and loot in Forbes' case, to Broxmeyer's team.

The paper has some more details on Broxmeyer, a pal of Rudy Giuliani and considered one of America's leading authorities on Israeli security, here. The results of a Google search on his name is here. A quick look over at Open Secrets reveals that Broxmeyer has mostly supported Republicans like Steve Forbes and Rick Lazio over the past few years, with exceptions to support Democratic incumbents in the New York House delegation like Gary Ackerman and Carolyn McCarthy.

One prediction: his effort to purchase the Expos is going to get short shrift here in the D.C. area, at least in the pages of the Washington Post. He's a Washington outsider through and through, and that won't help him with the local press.

Stay tuned. I think the price of the Expos just got a little higher.

UPDATE: Added two more links to the Expos listing on the left:

The Oregonian

Montreal Gazette

UPDATE: The Washington Times has a profile of Broxmeyer that includes this interesting tidbit:

[T]he Malek and Collins group hold exclusivity pacts with the District of Columbia and Virginia, respectively. Those contracts, while not ironclad against the wishes of MLB, do provide some protection. Should MLB select another owner to own a District-based team, Malek's group would receive either the opportunity to buy at least 10 percent of the club or be reimbursed for lost opportunity costs and expenses up to $4 million. Should MLB bypass Collins' group in Virginia, they also likely would be entitled to substantial compensation.

Here's a link to the Post's profile of Broxmeyer. The Times also mentions that a bid is possible from the Bethesda-based Ted Lerner family -- owner of a chain of shopping malls, hotels, and other real estate.

The Late, Not So Great, Comiskey Park

Over at Mike's Ball Rants, the chief cook and bottle washer is upset about the deal White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf just completed to rename the latest version of Comiskey Park, U.S. Cellular Field. The twenty-three year deal calls for the park to remain so named for 23 seasons, or as Mike puts it, "until U.S. Cellular goes Chapter 11":

Reisdorf got a $167 M stadium for free thanks to public funding. Then he renovates the ten-year-old stadium to squeeze in a few more high-price seats and he has it paid for by corporate sponsorship. Meanwhile, the team perennially dumps talent to save on payroll. In 1997, it was Roberto Hernandez and Wilson Alvarez; in 2002, it was Ray Durham, Kenny Lofton, and Bobby Howry.

So far this offseason the White Sox appear to have a clear edge in their division. But with a management team that apparently is more concerned with balance sheets than winning percentage, this could be another disappointing season on the south side. At least, U.S. Cellular will be less offensive to the fans than Jerry Reisdorf Park.

I figured that White Sox fans might welcome the name change. After all, of all of the 90s ballparks that were built, the new Comiskey was the worst of what was generally considered to be an impressive lot. While it was considered a modern park when in opened in 1991, it was quickly overtaken style-wise when the Orioles opened Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992 -- something that helped the retro-ballpark movement take off. Without Camden Yards, there would be no Ballpark in Arlington, no Safeco Field.

Despite all of the new bells and whistles the new park might have had, people ought to admit that it was never going to tug at the heart strings of the fans the way that the old Comiskey did -- and not ever seeing a ballgame at the Old Comiskey has to rank as one of the great regrets in my life as a sports fan (along with never making a visit to Tiger Stadium, though I will get to Fenway sometime in the next few years).

When you look at things this way, perhaps it's a good thing that the stadium that's hard to love got a corporate name. That way, the Comiskey name can lay in wait, ready to be given to a park yet to be built. One that deserves the name White Sox, and baseball fans the world over, grew to love in the first place.

UPDATE The deal with U.S. Cellular totals payments of $68 million over 23 seasons.

Who Gets The Expos?

As promised, in the left hand margin I've posted a set of quick links to a variety of sources involved in determining the fate of the Montreal Expos, and where they'll play in 2004. I'll keep them posted there until Major League Baseball decides what to do with the team -- whose fate most likely won't be decided until sometime this Summer.

Here's the lineup:

Washington Post Coverage

Washington Times Coverage

Washington Baseball Club (Fred Malek)

Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority

Virginians For Baseball (Bill Collins)

Virginia Baseball Fan Club

Oregon Baseball Campaign

Exit Turner, Wither Atlanta Sports?

On the same day AOL/Time Warner announced a $44.9 billion loss, Vice Chairman Ted Turner announced his resignation as well -- something that has folks on the Atlanta sports scene a little worried:

Will AOL Time Warner, which just reported a staggering fourth-quarter loss of $44.9 billion, be more willing to dump its Atlanta sports teams with Turner out of the way? In particular, analysts have speculated that AOL Time Warner will be looking to raise cash by selling the Braves, who have won 11 straight division titles but are plagued by declining attendance. Forbes magazine estimated two years ago that the team was worth $407 million. Stan Kasten, who is president of the Braves, Hawks and Thrashers, was stunned by the news that the 64-year-old Turner was stepping down to spend more time on his philanthropic endeavors. "There's nothing I can say about his new role or relationship because I simply don't know," Kasten said in a telephone interview from his home Wednesday evening. "I just found out an hour ago. All of us in Atlanta just found out."

Even before Turner's departure, the Atlanta Braves were learning to live with a much tighter budget, the departure of free agent pitcher Tom Glavine simply being the highest profile subtraction from the Braves roster.

But as much as AOL/Time Warner might want to exit the sports business, they might not be able to leave anywhere near as quickly as they might like. If anything, the NBA's Atlanta Hawks are the most attractive property in their portfolio and should be easy to move -- something that also makes it harder to part with.

The Braves, while they might have a recent heritage of success, look tough to move as -- especially in light of the fact that Disney can't find a buyer for the World Series champion Anahiem Angels, and Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp can't find one for the L.A. Dodgers either.

Compounding the problem: AOL/Time Warner is unlikely to want to part with the Braves television package that is the cornerstone of programming on the Superstation. Without the Braves, the Superstation has a huge programming hole to filll. But without being able to move the television rights, the value of the Braves is greatly diminished (something that's also a problem with a potential sale of the Dodgers).

As for the Thrashers, AOL/Time Warner might be better off merely folding the team. After drawing large crowds in the wake of the return of ice hockey to Atlanta, most fans come to Thrashers games these days disguised as empty seats. And with a lockout looming, and two other teams in bankruptcy, an NHL franchise isn't looking like a wise investment these days. In the end, getting AOL/Time Warner out of the sports business is going to be a far more complicated exercise than it was for Ted Turner to get it in.

UPDATE: Late last night, Steve MacLaughlin predicted that Turner would be getting back in the game, and according to Matt Drudge, he may be right.

Pro Bowl Blues

This Sunday afternoon, the most inconsequential football game of the year will take place in Hawaii, and I'm guessing few fans will even notice that the Pro Bowl is going on. Heck, even John Madden, due to his fear of flying, won't be travelling to Hawaii to broadcast the game. Over at National Review Online, Steve Chapman says it's time to put the Pro Bowl out to pasture:

It may be unfair to say nothing exciting has ever happened in a Pro Bowl. In fact, there may have been thrilling plays that nobody remembers because nobody saw them. Last year, the NFL had to go to great lengths just to sell all 50,000 seats in the stadium — and this in Honolulu, where locals normally have to travel 2,000 miles to see pro-football players collide. TV ratings have fallen by 65 percent since 1995. Other all-star games have also lost viewers, but none has fallen so fast or so far as the Pro Bowl. The 2002 game got a 4.3 Nielsen rating, meaning fewer than 5 million people tuned in. The baseball All-Star game that ended in a tie in Milwaukee's Miller Park got a 9.5 rating — and that was its worst showing ever. The NBA affair got an 8.2. If that's not embarrassing enough for the NFL, the Pro Bowl had fewer viewers than the Home Run Derby, which is held the day before the All-Star game.

Now, far be it for me to dispute Steven on the facts. Sure, the Pro Bowl is the biggest dud going. If it were to disappear, few fans would notice or care. But that's not why the Pro Bowl exists. For clues as to why, read this passage from NFL.com describing the Pro Bowl's pre-game tailgate party:

You can enjoy tailgating at its best on Pro Bow Sunday at the NFL's Official pregame celebration. The event offers guests an up-close and personal chance to sample the NFL in the company of celebrities, NFL business partners (emphasis mine, EMc) and local dignitaries.

And that's why we have a Pro Bowl. Not for the fans, but for the advertisers and other partners that support the league. In effect, the NFL uses the Pro Bowl the same way it uses the Super Bowl: as an opportunity to wine and dine its best clients. There's also a charity golf tournament associated with the game, one that's chock full of current and former players, including a few Hall of Famers. While tickets for the tournament are for sale to the public for $1,000 each, you can bet that the foursomes with ex-greats like Lawrence Taylor, Eric Dickerson and Paul Warfield are going to the league's best friends.

The only party you might want to feel sorry for is ABC Sports, the outfit stuck broadcasting this turkey. But then again, it's just the freight they have to pay as part of the Monday Night Football package, and they've factored in the loss in ad revenue from airing it by making advertisers pay a premium to get time on Monday night during the season.

The only way the Pro Bowl will go away, is if the friends of the league tire of having to travel to Hawaii in the first week of February.

I guess we're stuck with the Pro Bowl for the duration.

POSTSCRIPT: Though the Pro Bowl has been held annually in Honolulu since 1980, from 1971-1979, the site of the game was rotated between NFL cities. In 1974, better than 64,000 people showed up for the Pro Bowl in Kansas City. That's outdoors. In January. In Missouri.

MLB Relocation Panel To Hear D.C., Virginia, Next Week

Both the Washington Post and the Washington Times are reporting that delegations from the District and Northern Virginia are scheduled to meet with Major League Baseball's relocation committee next week in New York to discuss the possibility of getting the Montreal Expos. Here's a passage from Mark Asher's story in the Post that I thought was significant:

"This is an informal, preliminary meeting," said D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who will lead a delegation that includes one other elected official, city council chairman Linda W. Cropp. "It is in large part a let's-get-acquainted session. . . . This is going to be one of the highest priorities for our city, if not the highest priority."

Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) will be unable to attend on behalf of the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority, a representative of the governor said yesterday. The Virginia delegation is expected to be named by Friday.

Portland's delegation will be led by recently elected Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) and Mayor Vera Katz (D).

So Governor Warner won't be attending -- and that's bad news for Virginia's bid. While I'm sure they'll be involved up until the end as a contender on paper, you can kiss the chance that the Expos will end up in Virginia goodbye.

Sure, I know there's a General Assembly session going on in Richmond right now, but if Warner were serious about wanting a team in Virginia, and was serious about committing the state's resources to getting it done, he would have found a way to get to New York next week.

From here on in, the real competition for the Expos might just come from Portland -- a group that's sending a delegation that includes the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon.

PETCO? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Something tells me it's only a matter of time before somebody comes up with a creative way to ridicule this stadium naming rights deal:

The San Diego Padres' new ballpark will be called PETCO Park after the pet supply company agreed Wednesday to a naming rights deal reportedly worth more than $60 million over 22 years.

PETCO Animal Supplies, Inc., is a nationwide retailer of pet supplies that was founded in San Diego in 1965.

The ballpark is scheduled to be completed by opening day 2004.

Only about 14 months to come up with the best put down of this deal. Get to work!

UPDATE: To give you a little encouragement, here's a few examples. Here in Washington, some people call the MCI Center the "phone booth." At times, the Molson Center in Montreal has been called the "keg."

Hence, the new ballpark in San Diego might be called: "the litter box," or perhaps, "the bird cage," or even "the dog house." Feel free to jump in at any time.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Looks like the folks at PETA have a problem with this deal -- which may be more than enough to get me to change my mind in favor.

Just How Much Trouble Is The NHL In?

That's a question the AP's Hal Bock asks in his latest story concerning the financial woes of North America's fourth major spectator sport. One major problem: a spate of expansion activity in the 1990s that was probably premature:

"In retrospect, the league probably expanded too fast with the result that for an industry without a major television contract, it was probably predictable that in the current economic environment some teams would run into problems," said Ed Edwards, chairman of the financial and commercial law department at Western Michigan University.

It isn't as if any rabid fan of the NHL couldn't have told you that the burst of expansion activity that began with the addition of the San Jose Sharks beginning in the 1991-92 season might have been ill considered. Since then, the league has added teams in Miami, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Columbus, Nashville, Anahiem, Ottawa and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

In addition, it relocated almost as many franchises, moving existing teams to Raleigh, Denver, Dallas and Phoenix. That's one-third of the league with little to no history -- the sort of history that generates the fan loyalty that is the bedrock of the NHL season ticket base. Without it, hockey is just a passing fad that wears off quickly a few years after it blows into town. Just ask the folks who are trying to fill empty arenas in Miami, Tampa Bay and Atlanta.

One has to wonder out loud just how much stronger the league would be without teams in Miami, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Nashville, Anahiem and Ottawa. Would a 24-team NHL be any less attractive to advertisers and broadcasters than the 30-team NHL is today? Something tells me no. And now, with two teams in bankruptcy, there are that many fewer cities to which those teams might relocate.

Something tells me that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is ruing the day he decided to leave his job working for David Stern with the NBA.

The NFL Has It Just Right

Via Ben Domenech, I found this piece by NRO sportswriter Geoffrey Norman that makes a curious claim:

There are a lot of things that go on way too long, and one of them is the professional football season. There are too many games, between too many teams, over too many weeks. It is hard for the prudent fan to keep up or even truly care. Spend twelve hours in front of the television on a lovely September weekend, watching football, and the least you will feel is slothful.

Actually, I'm afraid Mr. Norman has this wrong. If there is any league that understands the need for fans to miss it in order to ensure its continued popularity, it's the NFL, with Major League Baseball a close second. For me, the most miserable time of the year is the gap in the calendar between the day after the Super Bowl and MLB's Opening Day (with the exception of the NCAA Basketball Tourney that makes March tolerable). By the time the Fall comes around again, millions of Americans are literally salivating over the return of college and pro football.

As for keeping up with what's going on, with only 16 games over 17 weeks, the NFL is far easier for fans to follow than the 162-game long baseball season, or the 82-game NBA season. And with the addition of the silly "overtime loss" (or "regulation tie" as the NHL propagandists term it) to professional hockey, the NHL is the most difficult of all sports to follow. In addition, both the NBA and the NHL are hardly gone from the calendar at all before making a premature return to North America's sports pages.

Hockey is going to have this problem in spades after the 2004 season. After finishing off the Stanley Cup Finals sometime in June, the sport will return to television in September for the second edition of the World Cup of Hockey. Then, barring a potential lockout or player's strike, we'll be back to regular season hockey sometime in October. The sport is hardly gone before it's back again. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, something that makes me wish the NHL could trim itself down to a 60 game schedule that would allow it to finish off the playoffs well before the Spring thaw melts all the ice in Canada.

The real danger for the NFL is that someone might get the idea to further expand the regular season or the playoffs, or even have another premature round of franchise expansion. In actuality, however, there's little risk of this happening, as the NFL has to be one of the most conservative businesses in the world. Change for its own sake has never been a problem in the NFL, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

In any case, the only reason I can find why someone might think the NFL season is too long, is that they don't like football all that much.

Fidgeting While Atlanta Burns

Slate's resident sports nut, Rob Weintraub, has a nice little piece today about how AOL/Time Warner's corporate ownership of Atlanta's Braves, Hawks and Thrashers is ruining all three teams:

Throughout the holiday season, residents of Greater Atlanta surged to Home Depot outlets. Their goal wasn't home improvement but rather an effort to pump up the bank account of Arthur Blank, the Home Depot founder who bought the Falcons late in 2001. The local citizenry hopes that if it buys enough track lighting and blended paints, Blank will be able to pry the city's other teams, the Hawks, Braves, and Thrashers, from the claws of current owners AOL Time Warner.

Weintraub doesn't see much reason to hope things will turn around soon, but I'd like to offer a solution. Why not sell one, or maybe all three of the teams back to the owner that turned them into programming gold -- Ted Turner? If anybody could turn these teams around, it would have to be Captain Outrageous himself.

Giving In To The Inevitable

The Atlanta Thrashers showed head coach Curt Fraser the door today, not exactly an uncommon occurence in the NHL, where coaches with far better track records frequently find themelves collecting unemployment. What I found surprising though, was the fact that so many observers seemed surprised at the development.

After all, eventually, every man hired to coach an expansion franchise has been fired -- even the great Scotty Bowman was shown the door in the midst of his fourth season in St. Louis after leading the expansion Blues to three straight appearances in the Cup Finals. More recently, Doug McLean was left looking for work only a few years after leading the Florida Panthers to the Finals against Colorado in 1996.

So, blameless or not, Fraser was a coach living on borrowed time from the day he signed his contract to coach the Thrashers.

POSTSCRIPT: The folks at every AOL/Time Warner sports franchise have been pretty busy in the last few weeks. The Braves have been cutting payroll and restructuring one more time in an effort to stay competitive in the NL East; the Thrashers, before they canned Fraser, made the biggest in-season signing of a free agent in a while when they brought in Byron Dafoe to play goalie; and now the Atlanta Hawks, the only Atlanta team not owned by the struggling media giant, have fired apparent good guy Lon Kruger as their head coach.

How About Football At The World Trade Center?

Earlier this evening, Glenn Reynolds proposed that a baseball stadium be placed on the site of the World Trade Center. Although he initially called it a stupid idea, I think he's onto something -- and David Pinto agrees as well. Although I don't think they're thinking of the right sport. It's football that ought to be played on the site.

There are a number of obstacles to a baseball stadium. First of all, which team gets to play there? Splitting a home field means splitting revenues (parking, concessions, luxury boxes) -- something that neither Yankees owner George Steinbrenner nor Mets owner Fred Wilpon will be willing to do. You can count on that.

Then there's the possibility that one team gets to play on the site, while the other has to make do with a second class facility. That's a solution that's bound to backfire, and one that might force the city to overspend on a second stadium in order to keep both teams happy. And with the city in the midst of a massive budget crisis, one that has already led Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reneg on stadium promises made by the Giuliani Administration to both the Mets and Yankees, that's an unlikely scenario as well.

Then there's the transportation question. Sure, it's one thing for 20,000 people to make their way to Madison Square Garden 80+ nights a year to see the Knicks and the Rangers at Madison Square Garden -- something that isn't so tough, as their fan bases consist of larger percentages of corporate clients who can get to the Garden directly by means of mass transit. But it's another thing entirely when crowds of 45,000-55,000 people have to make their way to Manhattan from all over the New York Metro area for a baseball game 81 times a year. Inevitably, some of those people are going to want to get to the game by car, something that putting a stadium in Manhattan makes all the tougher.

There are other transportation considerations -- like the fact that the majority of the Mets fan base comes from Long Island, and that the current site of Shea Stadium, situated as it is along several main highways, is already in the ideal spot to serve them. Moving the stadium just ten miles West into Manhattan forces more of those folks onto mass transit. And while that might be the ideal solution for fans in the outerboroughs of New York City and Northern New Jersey, it would present one heck of a barrier to fans on Long Island.

But football is a different story. There's only one team that could be placed there, and that's the New York Jets (the Giants being locked into a long term lease as the primary tenant of Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands). Owner Woody Johnson has wanted to move the team back to New York City ever since he bought the Jets from the Hess family. Even better, as well heeled as Johnson is, he'll be able to contribute far more to the construction of a football stadium than either Steinbrenner or Wilpon could to a ball park.

Then there's one last consideration: a football stadium in Manhattan, as Mike Lupica foresaw in his comic novel, Bump and Run, would be a lisence to print money. Selling luxury boxes to corporations in Manhattan might just be the easiest sell in professional sports. In one fell swoop, the Jets may very well be transformed into the most valuable team in the NFL, if not one of the most valuable properties in professional sports.

And just because the Jets would be the primary tenant, doesn't mean that the facility wouldn't be able to host other events. In actuality, a number of designs that have been proposed for stadiums in the New York area have included features that would allow them to be instantly reconfigured to host the NCAA Basketball Final Four or even the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.

This isn't just an idea that could work, it's one that should have sports fans everywhere excited at the prospect.

UPDATE: Charles Kuffner, who is obviously a Jets fan like me, likes the WTC football idea too:

I like this idea. The Jets have never really had a home of their own - they used to play in Shea Stadium, now it's Giants Stadium. It's time they stepped out of the shadows and formed their own identity in their own stadium.

Here, here. It's time to get this ball rolling.

Who Really Needs Contraction?

Bryant Durrell over at Population One thinks it's time for the NBA to eliminate a few teams as a way to improve the level of play. I think he's on to something, but the league that ought to consider contraction seriously besides the NBA, is the NHL. There are simply too many teams sitting on a financial precipice in professional ice hockey. And with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire after next season, just hours after the 2004 World Cup of Hockey is completed, the time to take care of these problems is now.

But don't count on it happening. If anything, we're probably looking at a strike or a lockout to begin the 2004-05 season -- one in which a number of teams simply won't survive -- most likely a few North of the border, something the league can ill afford.

Just Say No To Corporate Welfare

From this morning's Washington Times, an editorial warning the District government not to give away the store when it comes to attracting a baseball team to town:

Of course, the various D.C.-area groups competing for the franchise know that the value of their investment will largely depend upon the extent to which they can convince elected officials to commit taxpayer money for a revenue-gushing, state-of-the-art ballpark. Luxury suites. Club seats. Personal seat licenses. Naming rights. Parking fees. Concessions revenue. Signage. Broadcast rights in a hugely upscale, largely untapped market. If taxpayers were to bear much of the risk by financing a ballpark, the largest physical investment expenditure a team will have, the sky would be the limit for profits to be realized by already-wealthy, now publicly subsidized, relatively risk-free owners. The D.C. Council should repudiate Mayor Anthony Williams' ill-advised offer of $200 million in public subsidies. Necessary infrastructure improvements? Yes. Corporate welfare? Never.

Amen. In a city that has trouble provisioning basic services without busting its budget, Mayor Williams should be sure not to overpromise. I don't envy him in his task.

(Link via David Pinto)