Is it Worth it?

Did you know the average lifespan of an NFL lineman is only 52 years old? Almost 20 under the average male lifespan in America (of those who didn't die at birth). These numbers shocked me when I read them and made me ask myself, is it worth it? It is true that NFL players make a lot of money but most careers are only 3-4 years long and the long term effects are overwhelming to the majority of the players (Azpiri, 2008). Many ex-football players suffer from football related ailments such as dementia, heart disease, crippling arthritis, never healing muscle tears and brain damage. Brain damage to the point where living football players want to donate their brains to science to help future football players who may benefit from the research (Azpiri, 2008). Players like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are set for life and will always be able to afford the best quality health care even long after they retire but they make up the minority in the NFL. Hundreds of other NFL players  are paid closer to the minimum ($300,000) and usually do not budget properly to ensure themselves financial stability after their playing days are over. Many end up working hard labor or minimum wage jobs when their playing days are over. The players union does fight for retired players so they can get some medical benefits as well as retirement income but it's not enough for everyone. The impending lockout has a lot to do with this subject as present players are fighting for their retired counterparts. Lets hope the owners and players can come to a resolution so we don't have to go back to the old days when football stars like Johnny Unitas ended up crippled and broke with no NFL compensation to help with his injuries.

Azpiri, J. (2008). Average lifespan of a football player is 52. Retrieved on 5/19/11 from

http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/average-lifespan-football-player-52

Are big time collegiate athletes already being compensated?

This time of year brings you basketball play-offs, hockey play-offs, the start of the baseball season and the all important NFL draft. The NFL labor agreement has many college athletes in this years draft unsure of their financial future. A big question still being asked is, should college athletes get paid for amateur athletics? An interesting article at USAToday.com led to the question, are these college athletes already being compensated? A USA Today financial analysis determined that college athletes can earn as much as 120,000 annually in goods, services and future earnings for his athletic work. They break it down in the categories of tuition, room and board, coaching, medical insurance premiums, game tickets and in some cases future earnings. Now these numbers vary because most athletes do not end up playing professional sports but still can take advantage of a free education from a prestigious school. We all know how expensive health care is and these athletes get top treatment. For the players who do go pro, they are getting some of the best coaching at the collegiate level and then the opportunity to earn on the professional level. Throw in the general promotion a kid gets from nationally televised games, along with all the sneakers and equipment you can use and it does start to add up. I've always been a proponent of college athletes getting paid because these schools do make a killing off of certain players who do not get directly compensated. These schools could put money made from a specific jersey they sell or making a bowl game, in a trust fund for such players to utilize once they have completed their collegiate careers. With that being said and as someone who had to pay for his own under-graduate degree,  these college players are still being compensated very well for a 17 or 18 year old.

Berkowitz, Steve & Wiener, Jay (2011). What players get. Retrieved from www.USAtoday.com on 5/3/11

Fan Engagement

Fostering fan engagement is very important in all aspects of sports. Everyone from every different race, color, gender, age and religion can find some aspect of sports to relate to. In this post I will talk about different ways to engage fans from all walks of life with different sports. Men and women who engage in professional sports are elite athletes leaving the common fan to only dream about any such participation. These dreams are what makes us fans of the sports we love so dearly and this is why what Ken Potrock,Senior VP of Disney Sports Enterprises, along with the Walt Disney company are doing is so special. Giving kids the opportunity to play the sport of their choice and really gain the professional experience by hearing their name over the loud speaker or seeing their stats scroll across the bottom of the tv screen is really amazing. Not just amazing to the kids playing but to the families watching as well, who get to see their loved ones' names in lights. This is the closest 95% of us will get to the real thing and I commend Disney for making it possible. Not to mention the manicured fields and state of the art equipment the kids are able to use to further enhance the experience. I believe these are great ways to foster fan engagement while creative life long fans of all sports. What better way to foster fan engagement then by allowing people to truly experience their sport of choice. We have all pretended to hit a last second shot or hit a walk off homerun but these kids really get a chance to live it.

Monday Night Football moves to cable TV

I grew up loving Monday Night Football like any other teenage sports enthusiast. Waiting patiently for that music to start and the highlights of the two teams about to play, and all surrounded by the pronounced voice of Howard Cosell. This was the only good thing about Mondays and was a weekly ritual in my household with my father and I. In the 70’s and 80’s television was dominated by the major networks, (NBC, ABC, CBS) and cable stations were still a few years away. MNF became synonymous with ABC and led resurgence for the fledgling station. MNF became the longest running program in the history of the network entering its 17^th season in 1986 (SBD, 2005).

In 2005 ABC and the NFL announce the end of their 36-year MNF partnership (SBD, 2005) leaving the door open for ESPN to ink a MNF contract from 2006-13 for 8.8 Billion. The Walt Disney Company owns both ABC and ESPN and saw how lucrative MNF could be on cable (espn.com, 2005). ESPN has taken a bit of history with then to the cable arena and that was the nail in the coffin for standard TV, as we know it. Hour long shows and sit-coms on cable are one thing but MNF? I continue to watch like all other sports fans do, but something just isn’t the same. Where is the symphonic music during the introductions? Where are the highlights of the two teams about to play? In this day and age of in your face flash, I guess I can’t blame ESPN for flooding the screens with light flashes equipped with blips and bleeps or even terribly acted skits just before a game (see link) to amuse the masses. I just wish they would keep things authentic like their predecessors on ABC.

Link to MNF skit on ESPN:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48zBQeE1r60

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/99247 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2040130

NFL going to an 18 game season: Is this a good or bad thing for the league?

I have recently heard a number of players, such as Hines Ward and Ray Lewis to name a couple, openly criticize the NFL’s newly proposed 18 game schedule. The two game increase may not seem like a lot but to NFL players, it’s a tremendous increase on an already grueling season. Player criticisms revolve around more player injuries due to the increase in games, thus compromising the overall product on the field. 

            The NFL owners, on the other hand, would love two more games and feel as if the extra games will benefit everyone involved. NFL owners understand that the fans want more football, on top of that, two extra games means more money for the owners, players and everyone in the organization. The current CBA went into effect for the 2006 season, and the owners exercised an opt-out clause in 2008 that makes the deal expire next March. According to the NFL, the average player salary rose from $1.5 million in 2005-the last year of the old deal-to $1.9 million in 2009 (Associated Press, 2010). This means the NFL owners must feel the players are getting more “love” than them and now they want a new CBA . It seemed to me like everyone is happy under this agreement but the owners proved otherwise by opting out (Cooper, 2010). Do the owners want more money? The head of the NFL’s negotiating team says it will be much easier to reach a new labor agreement with the players’ union if the accord includes an 18-game regular season (AP, 2010).

The question is, will an 18 game season help or hinder the league? I feel with 2 less pre-season games, the 2 extra regular season games will not be that much of a difference. Also, the league will expand rosters so teams can do more substitutions, etc. Injuries are a part of the game and will continue to happen whether it’s pre-season or other. The fans will love more football and I feel teams will have to determine whether to sit a player one week or what players to keep on an active roster. Bring on more football!

http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/feed/2010-09/nfl-labor-talks/story/key-to-labor-talks-is-18-game-season

http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2010/12/04/nfl-players-association-tells-players-to-prepare-for-2011-lockou/

Should College Athletes have control over their Rights of Publicity?

I believe totally that college athletes should be paid for the amount of money they generate for the NCAA each year, but these athletes don’t have any control over their Rights of Publicity. The Right of Publicity is the right of every person to control the commercial use of his/her identity, often applied to an individual’s persona. A persona encompasses things such as a person’s likeness, nickname, performance style or mannerisms (Mueller, 2004).

One specific case where a former athlete, Ed O’Bannon, is fighting for his Rights of Publicity as well as the rights of other former and current NCAA athletes in a classic action lawsuit against the NCAA. Ed O’Bannon was a former UCLA forward who led them to a national championship, scoring 30 points and pulling down 17 rebounds in the win (Lawyers.com, 2010). Today, O’Bannon coaches a high school basketball team and is a car dealer in Las Vegas, but the NCAA still profits off of his likeness. Whether it is his image, re-broad casts of games or in video game form, the NCAA still makes money through the sales of licensed merchandise. O’Bannon states in his lawsuit that the NCAA makes about 4 billion dollars annually on collegiate licensed merchandise (Lawyers.com, 2010).

In my opinion, O’Bannon feels taken advantage of by the NCAA. The modern day college athlete has been referred to as a “slave” on the NCAA “plantation” because college athletes do not get paid but the NCAA makes an incredible amount of money from the talents of these collegiate athletes. It seems only right for the NCAA to start sharing this money with the people they exploit year in and year out. Student athletes are not allowed to get jobs or receive any money from their scholarships and should get some sort of monthly stipend. I understand that some athletes go on to make millions playing professional sports but what about the 90% of student athletes who do not make it? Just something to think about.

Drake, S. (2010). Sports Illustrated Michael Mann on the NCAA lawsuit. Legal Broadcast Network. Retrieved on 11/27/10 from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y77cUTWKvEU

Lawyers.com. (2010). Former college athletes sue NCAA over licensing. Lawyers.com. Retrieved on 11/27/10 from:

http://intellectual-property.lawyers.com/intellectual-property-licensing/Former-College-Athletes-Sue-NCAA-over-Licensing.html

Mueller, K. (2004). No control over their rights of publicity: College athletes left sitting the bench. LexisNexis. Retrieved on 11/27/10 from:

https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&doctype=cite&docid=2+DePaul+J.+Sports+L.+Contemp.+Probs.+70&key=1d270bd467b85713ff892a88163e1186

What is the biggest sports story of the decade?

In my opinion, I believe the biggest story of the decade was steroids in baseball. On February 16, 2005, Jose Conseco held an interview with 60 Minutes where he discussed his much talked about book he calls “Juiced”. This book purports to tell the truth about his use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormones, and the same about other top players in Major League Baseball (Hancock, 2005).

Steroids have been a part of baseball’s banned substance list since 1991, however testing for major league players did not begin until 2003 (espn.com, 2007). Conseco’s book in 2005 caused rumblings all around the league and led to former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell’s 409 page report, identifying 86 names who admitted to using steroids. Names on the list included Barry Bonds, Miguel Tejada, Andy Petitte, Eric Gagne, Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens (who continues to deny his usage). The problem is that we don’t know how many people actually were using steroids during this era. If fingers are pointed at the few who admitted to it, what about the players who didn’t? The entire era will have an asterisk attached to it because there is no way to determine who really had the upper hand. Former N.Y. Yankees outfielder Gary Sheffield, who admitted to unknowingly using a steroid-based cream in 2002, says records can’t be stripped because of “speculation.” If “somebody comes up with facts, then we can talk. Other than that, it’s a waste of time”  (Jenkins, 2005).

If it were up to me, I say let everyone use what ever they want and lets go (I jest), but the game was its most exciting during those McGwire/Sosa homerun battle years or watching Bonds take the only good pitch of an at bat deep. I thought it was the live ball era but we now know it was much more than tightly strung baseballs. This past World Series was the second lowest rated fall classic ever and baseball needs to find a way to” juice” up the game again.

ESPN.com. (2007). Mitchell report: Baseball slow to react to players’ steroid use. Retrieved on 11/12/10 from http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3153509

Hancock, D. (2005). Steroid-user Canseco names names. CBS.com. Retrieved on 11/12/10 from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/10/60minutes/main673138.shtml

Jenkins, C. (2005). Players admit steroids changed baseball. USA TODAY. Retrieved on 11/12/10 from http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2005-03-15-steroids-mlb-cover_x.htm

CNBC video, “The Biggest Plays in Sports Business”: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1368367744