Sports Biz Feed

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Courtesy ESPNThe face of the ads, Steve Bradband ESPN, hyping its new live a.m. SportsCenter broadcasts, is launching a live ad campaign produced by Portland-based Wieden+Kennedy. The ads will run 20 to 25 times each day for 15 days, mostly... [Link]

UPDATED: Nike said today it will drop three print ads from its Hyperdunk basketball shoe campaign that critics said played off some viewers' homophobia. TrueHoops points out why the "Punks Jump Up" ad evokes a 1992 rap song with the... [Link]

According to a recent report by eMarketer, total revenues for US sports sites will reach $2.96 billion in 2012, up from $1.49 billion in 2007. eMarketer also predicts that ad revenues for these sites will go from $819 million in 2007 to $1.95 billion in 2012, an increase of 24%.

Bottom line: sports websites will continue to grow and there is an opportunity for teams, leagues, sponsors and brands to take advantage of this and make money. There is ...

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I media train people for a living when I am not hosting Sports Business Radio. I help people prepare for interviews, speeches and presentations. And I can honestly say that I have NEVER seen a more compelling, better delivered speech than the one Randy Pausch delivered at Carnegie Mellon University on September 18, 2007 - its called his "last lecture" and has been downloaded over 3 million times on YouTube alone.

The speech was clever, funny, introspective and most of all ...

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Summer is quickly winding down.  I will be in Orlando this weekend at the Disney Wide World of Sports complex watching some of the next big basketball stars take the court.  A week later, I’ll...

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I recall the Cal-Tennessee football game last year, a tasty inter-sectional contest, with a bit of NoCal spice thrown in: tree sitters, among them someone named "Running Wolf". The tree sitters, their bodies and camping equipment visible above the top of the stadium, were protesting Cal's plans to build a training center in "Oak Grove." The issue is back in the news:

Even after more than 50 emotionally wrought people begged and pleaded with the City Council to appeal a ...

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I have discussed it as a guest on various radio shows, have thrown the idea back and forth among my colleagues, and have written about it on this blog: Will going overseas to play basketball become...

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Posted By: Darren Rovell There were a lot of cheers when Chicago Cubs fans heard that Mark Cuban was still in the running for becoming the next owner. It’s not really a home run that someone who spends $1 billion on a team is going to automatically care about winning. But we know that Cuban does.     Read More Topics: Television | Media | Print Media | Marketing | Advertising | Sports Sectors: Media Companies: ... [Link]

At Baseball Prospectus, Nate Silver provides a thorough analysis of the downsizing of Major League Baseball stadiums in recent years. (Silver's piece is free until 7/27, gated thereafter). I'm struck by two things. New stadia have almost 10,00 fewer seats, a considerable decline. Yet the trend in the English Premier League is the reverse - the top clubs adding a significant number of seats to their stadia. Second, Silver mentions an problem at Wrigley Field which strikes me as ... [Link]

In Columbia Sportswear Co.'s otherwise dour earnings call Thursday, Chief Executive Tim Boyle added some details about the company's upcoming high-cost marketing push. And no, we're not talking Velo Gert. _uacct = "UA-2580816-1"; urchinTracker();... [Link]

And now there are only 5. The Tribune Company has reportedly narrowed the pool of bidders for the Cubs down to 5, all of whom have bid more than $1 billion. In what can be considered a major upset, the early odds on favorite, Commissioner Bud's bff, John Canning, Jr. is out and Commissioner Stern's nemesis Mark Cuban is still in.

Of course, even if he is the high bidder, Cuban must still be approved by 75% of the Lords of ... [Link]

From Danielle Sessa at Bloomberg:

The Cubs' sale price is likely to exceed Dan Snyder's 1999 purchase of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League for $800 million, the most paid for an American sports team. John Henry's $700 million purchase in 2002 of the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park and the majority of a regional-sports network is the most spent for a baseball team.

England's Manchester United soccer club was sold to Malcolm Glazer in 2005 for $1.45 billion ...

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Quote from the Mercury News: “[Barry Bonds] has nothing to prove there,” Jeff Borris told the Associated Press. “He doesn’t need to go to an independent team and hit two home...

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It feels like basketball never leaves. With the NBA finals wrapping up just over a month ago, the Summer Leagues are in full swing. Whilst not every team competes in Vegas, it gives the teams an...

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UPDATED 7/26: Three Wieden+Kennedy alumni today announced the formation of a new ad agency/design shop, weights&pulleys. Founder and creative director James Selman, account manager Devon Flintoff and studio director Jeremy Jiracek all worked a W+K for at least seven years.... [Link]

A-Rod was discussed earlier today, so let’s keep the trend going.  Luckily, or unluckily, most agents will never deal with an issue like that which Alex Rodriguez is currently wrapped in. Lies,...

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Posted By: Darren Rovell According to a survey cited by Forbes, 60 percent of restaurants fail in three years. I have a feeling restaurants using an athlete's name fail even more than that. The bottom line, like anything, is that the name alone won't make a restaurant's success.    Read More Topics: Marketing | Advertising | Sports Sectors: Food and Beverage MEDIA: PHOTO Permalink [Link]

Gerard Haran Gerard Haran was put back in the lineup after his brief rest period.  In his return, Gerard came back in style by going 1 for 2 with 2 RBIs and 1 run.  With Gerard’s help, the...

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I really did not want to get involved in the whole nasty A-Rod divorce.  It is not our business to dip into such topics around here; I was going to leave it to sites like Deadspin to make sure that...

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The trial finished up Wednesday, but the timetable for stadium construction got even murkier.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri Beth Cohen listened to closing arguments on whether a $515 million ballpark at the site of the Orange Bowl serves a “paramount public purpose” under the state constitution, or is just, as auto dealer Norman Braman alleges, using public tax dollars to subsidize a private enterprise.

She heard from Braman’s attorney, Bob Martinez, about democracy and protecting the people’s money, about the county ...

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We have talk a lot in this space about the economics of running a major college athletic department. Most of the time, we are talking about Division I schools and mostly those with big time football programs. We don't spend that much time talking about the difficulties that face those schools without football and believe me, those difficulties are numerous. Football is the cash cow that funds all the Olympic sports at most D-I schools, even those at the lower ... [Link]