Washington at Dallas:

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE----

Monday Night Bloodbath? Cowboys Face Redskins In One Of League's Most Intense Rivalries

Arlington-  Tonight the Dallas Cowboys will play host to the Washington Redskins in front of a sell-out crowd in Arlington, Tx. at Cowboy Stadium at 8:30pm in a battle of two teams with an intense hatred of one another.  Throughout the week the big story has been the injuries of Cowboys starting quarterback Tony Romo and starting running back Felix Jones, and how the Redskins would attempt to exploit those injuries.  In front of a national TV audience on Monday Night Football football fans everywhere will have a chance to see just how effective the Redskins are at attacking the injured ribs and lung of Romo. 

Romo is expected to be available and starting for the Cowboys at quarterback.  Earlier in the week, Redskins cornerback D'Angelo Hall made headlines by proclaiming that Romo's injury would become a target of his.  "Absolutely. I want to get a chance to put my helmet on whatever's hurt," Hall said. "Romo's ribs -- I'm going to be asking for some corner blitzes.  "If you know something's wrong with an opponent, you're going to try to target in on that. We're going to try to definitely get as many hats on that team as possible."

The Redskins are starting a season 2-0 for the first time since 2007, and are attempting to keep the Cowboys winless in home season openers at the new Cowboys stadium which opened in 2009.  The Cowboys lost their previous two season openers to the Giants in 2009, and the Chicago Bears in 2010. 

The two teams have a storied and bitter history against one another. The two teams first met in 1960, and in the 102 meetings since, the Cowboys have dominated having 62 wins to their credit.  But, the only two times the teams have met in the postseason the Redskins have finished victorious. The rivalry really heated up in the 1970s and 80s as both teams won Super Bowl Titles.  Between them the two teams have 8 Super Bowl wins.

The Redskins have lost four of their last five meetings against the Cowboys, but that hasn't dampened the intensity of the rivalry.  Redskins quarterback Rex Grossman is excited to be in such an intense rivalry.   "Any time you are in a rivalry game kind of like the Bears-Packers, Cowboys-Redskins, it's one of the biggest rivalries in the NFL," Grossman said. "It's a very important game for both teams so it adds a little bit more adrenaline, a little bit more excitement, Monday night football, so it's going to be a fun day."

Redskins/Cowboys Fans Watch a 2010 game

The Cowboys desperately need to avoid a loss in order to avoid starting the season 1-2 and falling behind the division-leading Redskins even further. The injured Cowboys:  Romo, Jones and wide receiver Dez Bryant need to step up in order to provide their fans with hope for the season, and to prove that they're a legitimate threat in the NFC East.

The much-maligned Romo especially needs a strong start and to avoid injury in order to keep from drawing fans and perhaps coaches ire.  The injured Romo was instrumental last week in leading the Cowboys to a hard-fought overtime victory over the 49ers.  He gained some support by proving how tough he was last week by returning to the game after leaving with injured ribs.  This week he'll get a chance to show everyone how tough and effective he can be if he can lead the Cowboys to a victory against the hated Redskins. ###


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Brett: An Advertiser's "Favre"rite Endorser

Advertisers have been using sports to reach their consumers for a very long time.  In the late 1800’s, advertisers used tobacco ads featuring boxers, hunting and horse racing.  This concept grew and with the advent of television in the 1940’s advertisers began to truly realize that sports broadcasts and personalities could be used to market products.  Now, the concept of using a celebrity or athlete to endorse a product is ubiquitous.  It is hard to go 30 minutes without watching an athlete on television pitching a product for consumers to buy.  Advertisers realized the popularity of athletes and consumer’s feelings about the athletes could allow them to effectively brand their product with that athlete and appeal to the consumer.  In return for their endorsement the athlete receives recognition and compensation, and the company’s product is set apart from the competition.  This usually creates a good return on investment for the company.

Some partnerships with products and athlete have become so well known that almost everyone, even non-sports fans, are aware of which company an athlete is an endorser of.  We think about the holy grail of endorsers, Michael Jordan, and immediately Gatorade and Nike come to mind.  Tiger Woods and Nike, before his scandal. Even a non-athlete like John Madden, is synonymous with the endorsement of his video game which is released by EA Sports.  

Favre in Wrangler's Ad

If we look deeper at former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and his endorsements we can see how he has crafted his image in order to appeal to consumers.  Favre was arguably the most popular football player of the mid-to-late 90s and into the 2000s, so advertisers flocked to him.  Which product an athlete chooses to endorse can tell us quite a bit about what the athlete is trying to convey to us about him or her. 

A good example of this is Favre and his endorsement of Wrangler Jeans.  Favre crafted an image as a player as a gritty, tough, blue-collar, gunslinger who was a leader of his team.  Favre endorsed very few products throughout his career, but as the end of his career neared he started endorsing Wrangler Jeans.  It’s easy to see the similarities between the product and Favre, and they feel like a natural fit. That is why the ad works well.  There is no disconnection between endorser and product.  If Favre were to start endorsing products like Rolex or Lacoste, then the audience may be smart enough to realize that there is something wrong with that connection and the ad would be unsuccessful.  So, it’s important for advertisers to realize how their product connects to the endorser. 

Recruiting and Fundraising: What a Similar World

In the sports world, the coaches who usually are the best recruiters are the ones who are going to be most successful at their jobs.  In the world of college athletics recruiting it's vitally important for coaches to target players that they feel give their team the best shot to win.  The coach must convince the player to come to his or her school.  The schools  that usually win the “recruiting wars” are the ones that are usually who win the most on the field as well.

The same can be said for sports fundraising.  Recruiting and fundraising could not be any more different when looking at a distance, but if we look deeper we can see that the schools that also raise the most funds for their athletic departments are also the ones that usually win more, and in a sense of irony are the best at recruiting.  It’s a weird double-edged sword.  For a team to be able to raise funds well they have to recruit well in order to win, and for a team to recruit well they have to have funds to improve their facilities and make their school more attractive to recruits.  Therefore, the art of fundraising and recruiting are both strikingly similar.

  

To be successful at both you must be able to effectively identify potential recruits and donors.  Yes, any person in the world can be a recruit or a donor, but the job of the school is to decide who to target for each that gives them the best shot at succeeding.  Schools will look at recruits who have relationships with the school, either by geographical area or perhaps they’ve shown interest in the school.  The same can be said about donors, because the school will look for relationships or ties between the donor and school as well.  Also, schools look for recruits who will have the ability to play at their particular level, and they also look for donors who have the money to give to charitable contributions.  Almost every athlete and fan of a school would like to be a player or donor, but it’s up to the school to narrow that list down and target the appropriate people.

After potential recruits and donors have been targeted, next the school must seek to communicate with those parties.  Communication could begin with mailings, and then if there is an interest level they could advance to contact by phone, visits to school and attendance at sporting events.  The goal is to develop a connection with the recruit and donor and convince them that their school needs them and wants them.  Coaches and athletic directors will sometimes look to build these connections by associating with acquaintances of the recruit or donor in order to strengthen those ties. Finally, it is up to the coach or athletic director to get the recruit or donor to sign on the dotted line and agree to play or donate to their school.  They have to differentiate themselves between other schools and show the person how they will help the school.  Once the agreement is made it is up to the coach or athletic director to make sure the relationship continues and try to advance the relationship further.

Saban on the field

Saban raising funds for his charity

Whenever I think of recruiting and fundraising I feel like Nick Saban, the football coach of the University of Alabama has become a master at both of these concepts.  According to rivals.com, since 2008 Saban has had the top ranked recruiting class three out of those four years.  In 2010, they “slipped” to number five.  Therefore, his team is able to compete at the highest level every single year regardless of the player losses they incur from graduation or defection to the NFL.  In fundraising, Saban is also a master at encouraging donors to give as much as they can.  Let’s be honest, although Saban is not the head of the athletic department he is very much the public face of University of Alabama athletics.  In the off-season he routinely travels the region holding dinners, fundraising events, meet and greets, conferences, etc in order to raise money for his school and charitable organizations.  He signs autographs and books so that he can connect with people, in order to make it more likely they will donate to the school. A Forbes.com article estimated that in 2008 Alabam's football program had $54 million in revenue and $32 million of that was profit. That money then helps to finance the entire athletic department. He shows coaches and athletic directors how dependent the success of one is on the other. 

For an interesting article about the similarities between recruiting and fundraising please visit http://tiffinonline.org/pub/content/ac21c4ad-24dd-43e5-8da1-d428a0c72c5a/Recruiting_and_Fundraising.pdf?eclg_res=1156538&eclg_resver=2150639

London's Olympics and the New Age of Media

The Olympics has always been a global event that has captured our hearts and attention.  For a short time the world's nations put their differences aside and fight for control not on a battlefield or in a board room, but rather on a sports field.  The world turns their attention to see not only the competition of sport, but also for national pride. The Olympics has become not only a sporting competition but also a global media event.  As a global media event it poses certain problems for the media organizations that cover and report it.

First, to put the sheer massive scale of the broadcasting of the games into perspective we can look at the coverage for Beijing's Olympics in 2008.  Those games were broadcast to every country in the world, and they had an estimated audience of over 4.3 billion people. That's billion with a B.  In America, NBC put more coverage into these games than their coverage for all of the other Olympic games combined.  The massive nature of this global media event creates some logistical problems for the people charged with covering the event.  The fact that NBC dedicated more coverage to the 2008 Summer Olympics than all of the other Olympics combined tells us that the coverage is growing and that there is a desire for people to know more than ever about what is going on.  This creates pressure on the executives to decide how to cover certain events and how they will be broadcasted.  NBC has a platform that allows them to air different events on their different channels in their network.  For instance, CNBC may cover badminton one night, MSNBC may cover swimming and the main network may have track and field.  This gives NBC the advantage to give viewers the option to choose between different events and watch what most appeals to them.  It also presents them with problems logistically in determining coverage of these events.

While it may feel like NBC should be happy that more channels now give them the ability to cover almost every event in the Olympics, it also has its drawbacks. All of these channels now available to viewers give them more choices in what they watch.  The Olympic coverage now represents a smaller portion of programming that viewers can tune to.  This creates challenges for NBC because they have to find ways to ensure that viewers tune in to the Olympics and/or stay tuned to the Olympics.  In the past they have decided to create a "story" for the viewer in order to lure the viewer in to the human aspect of the event, more than the actual athletic event going on.  The media organizations want to give viewers a dramatic story, they feel like this is the best way to capture viewer's attention and make them interested in the event.  In the past, this attempt to tailor a story that's important to the viewers has gotten in the way of the actual coverage of the event, at the anger of some viewers.  How NBC navigates this and promotes a balance between the two could make or break their coverage. 

The popularity of new social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have both grown substantially since the last Summer Olympics in 2008, also create many challenges for the media organizations.  The question that media has to answer is how to report messages or information that comes up on these sites.  Social media sites have given access to the world of athletes like never before, and they have taken to it in mass and used it to communicate their daily lives to the public. Suppose a hurdler wins the gold medal and tweets it, is that something that should be reported by the media? What is the IOC's responsibility in trying to limit access of athletes to tweet about these things? The IOC wants their broadcasting networks to have the right to broadcast events when they want, and because London may be in a different time zone  it poses certain challenges for the broadcast networks, who may choose to tape-delay certain live events. NBC may not want this information getting out to the public because it'll lessen their excitement in watching the event when they broadcast it.  But, it is still news and journalists have a responsibility to report the news.  Media organizations thrive if they are able to break news that other networks are not able to have.  The groups that break stories first and are accurate in their reporting are usually the ones that the public has more faith in.  If the IOC and NBC tried to limit the rights of journalists to report the results of events before they broadcast it, then they would be hampering the journalists jobs.  Where exactly is the line between broadcast rights and censorship? Social media has created challenges for traditional media outlets in regards to the reporting of news stories, but it has also provided the media and the public with more access than ever before.  This creates a problem because NBC wants to protect their broadcast rights.

Conception for Royal London Olympic Stadium

Speaking of protecting broadcast rights.  There is a feeling among the technological and broadcast community that these will be the last Olympics in which the broadcast rights can be generally protected. If people are computer literate enough they can tap into other countries broadcast of the Olympics and watch events live.  This presents problems for NBC as London is 5 hours ahead of Eastern Time in the United States.  So, NBC would like to broadcast popular events here in primetime that may have already happened live in London. This presents a particular challenge for them as they have to create a show in which they present an event as live but it has already happened and the viewer may know the outcome.  The world has changed in the 3 years since Beijing. The world's information needs are always on, and are always trying to be met. People who want to know the outcome of an event will find a way to get the outcome somehow, technology makes that possible.  The challenge is for NBC to come up with a way to be the ones to meet those needs.  Offering interactive media, live streaming press conferences, mobile apps, video chats, and insider access are all ways that NBC can try to bridge this gap.  There are opportunities out there for NBC to capitalize on technology and to answer the challenges in coverage that exist in today's world.  If they don't people now have the ability to find alternatives to fill those needs.          

Information Technology and the Sports World

I think back upon my childhood and it's interesting to see how technological advances have changed the sports industry.  Growing up I loved the Atlanta Braves, but I do remember the hassle it was for my parents when they would buy tickets to a game.  You either had to find a Ticketmaster outlet near your (which may be easy or may not) or actually stand in line the day of the game at the stadium's box office and wait to buy tickets. Don't forget places only took cash and there were not ATMs, so if it was a weekend game you had to make sure that you took enough cash out of the bank on Friday to cover the cost of everything.  If the game was sold out, then it was sold out and unless you wanted to track down a scalper there was nothing you could do to go see it.  Now, ticket purchases are made online with a few clicks of a mouse or even with a few pushes of a button on a smartphone.  Thanks to websites like Stubhub, you can even find tickets to sold out sporting events very easily. Luckily, my Atlanta Braves in the 1980s weren't very good, so we could get tickets to most any game we wanted to see.  Technological advances have made it possible for almost anyone who wants to see a particular sporting event to be able to see that event if they're willing to pay the price.  If Joe Smith wanted to see the Super Bowl he could buy tickets to the game.  That was something that was unheard of only 20 years ago. 

                                      
The technological advances have changed the way every single business industry functions.  Sport is not immune to those changes.  In an interesting article in the Sport Journal, by Dr. Rosandich he believes that society has moved from an Age of Industry into an Age of Information and technological advances are the reason for it.  Information Technology is the engine that is driving this change. 

For example, if we look at the sports world databases are compiled to provide information to sport organizations about every aspect of their consumer.  Information is easily compiled and sorted so that it can be analyzed to either help determine marketing strategies, organizational policies or goals, recruitment of athletes, how athletes train, and even help event planners run large events.  Being able to access this information affects every aspect of a sport organization.  Having this access to information has made a sport organization's job much easier.  Let's be honest, what rules the sports industry is money.  Databases now allow the tracking of donor's information more easily, so that fund raising for organizations is much simpler and easier to complete.  Every aspect of running a business has been helped by being able to sort and accumulate large amounts of information easily. 

Fans watching an NHL game on their phone

The article also talks about how the Internet has changed marketing and commerce rules for industry, sports included.  Every major sports team has a website, and through this website they are able to offer a product to their fans and consumers.  Not only is the team a product to be consumed, but also there are untolds amounts of merchandise that teams can offer to sell to their fans.  The Internet has also changed the way fans consume their product. I'll give you a personal example.  I live in Ohio, and there are basically no Braves games televised unless it's a national broadcast, but if I wanted to I could see the Atlanta Braves play every single game this year through the MLB website.  This access keeps fans connected to their team, and willing to follow their team and consume the team's product.  Without this access I would have to rely on highlights and the newspaper to tell me what was going on with my team. And this doesn't even scratch the surface, because I'm only a domestic example, there are fans throughout the world that can follow any team they want. This opens up avenues to commerce abroad for sport organizations that were unconceivable only 15 years ago.

Perhaps most interesting to me is thinking about how technology will advance even further in the next couple decades and how it will change the industry.  What once was unthinkable 15 years ago is now very much thinkable and realistic.  In order to stay ahead of the curve and maximize their revenues sport organizations will have  to find ways to use information technology to sustain their business in order for their organizations and teams to continue to thrive and grow.

For a full text of Dr. Rosandich's article please go to:
http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/information-technology-sports-management

Melbourne vs Atlanta: Two Sport Sections, Two Cultures

                            

It’s always interesting to see how another city from a different part of the world covers their sports.  Sports can tell us quite a bit about society and what is important to a society.  If we examine two different sports sections from two different locations around the world, we can actually see that there are some major differences and some general similarities between the two sections.  For purposes of this blog, I chose to look at the sport’s section in a newspaper in Melbourne, Australia called The Age, and a sport’s section in a domestic newspaper in Atlanta, Ga. called the Journal-Constitution. 

Let’s begin with the actual layout of the two different websites and their sports section.  Both websites have a section on the front page that has advertisements and ways to follow the specific newspaper on twitter and other social media outlets.  Both sections dedicate themselves to covering sports that matter to their local consumers.  In terms of looks, both sites look the same.  There is a column on the left that has the headlines, feature articles and videos.  Both sections are broken down into easy to navigate links that direct the reader to whichever sport they would like to read about.  Even if the sports covered by the two sections are different, in general both sections aim to cover sports that are popular and interesting to the readers in their area. 

Although both sections have some general similarities, if we look deeper we can see that there are some major differences in the sports that are covered and the way that they are covered.  For instance, the domestic paper, the Journal-Constitution is very heavy on local stories and covering the local professional, collegiate and high school athletic teams.  The reader has very small links at the bottom of the page to see other sports like tennis, golf and soccer. Whereas, the Melbourne paper has a more of an international look at sports and has major sections devoted to tennis, soccer, horse racing and cricket from in Australia and around the world.  There is a feature story in The Age that is about a Saudi Arabian football (soccer) player.  That seems like an article that would be highly unlikely to be published in the Atlanta newspaper.  All of the major articles in the Atlanta paper focused on the local writers writing stories about the local teams. 

Another difference I found is that a lot of the articles on the Atlanta site are not just articles reporting on the games and reporting on stories from the different games, but rather are editorials and opinions based on the different sporting events.  The major news in the Journal-Constitution section was the University of Georgia’s recent loss to Boise State in football.  There were at least two different editorials written about that game and the author’s opinion of it.  I did not see any opinion based articles on The Age’s front page that were just an opinion from an editorial columnist.  Of course, there were feature stories, but they were not opinion related. 

What these similarities and differences can tell us is that both sections strive to appeal to their consumer base.  In Melbourne, the consumers enjoy reading about sports that are not heavily localized.  Of course, they do like reading about their local teams, but it does not constitute the bulk of the paper’s content.  Both have advertisements and strive to get their readers to interact with them through social media.  But, it also tells us about major differences between our two cultures. Obviously, readers in Atlanta are more concerned with their local sports teams than national and international sporting events or leagues.  This can tell us that either there is no desire from domestic readers to know about events that may occur outside of what they’re accustomed to. They’re very insulated consumers.

More importantly, it also tells us about the newspaper industry and how they view their responsibility to cover sporting events.  What this is telling us is that the Journal-Constitution is a very specialized paper, and I’m sure we will see the same thing in different sports sections from different papers in the United States. The focus is on the local team, because that is what the newspaper feels they are best suited to do.  They focus their coverage on the local teams in order to appeal to their local consumers.  The feeling is that there are other outlets for readers to get coverage on national sports teams, or international sporting events. They would probably lose readers if they broadened their coverage to more national teams and sports.  People turn to their local paper because they feel their job is to give them information about their local teams.  This tells us the major difference between the two different sports sections.  The Age attempts to cover sporting events that are local while expanding coverage to national and international sports. While the Journal-Constitution focuses on local coverage to appeal to their consumers.  These sport sections can be considered microcosms of the two societies in general. American readers have always been more concerned with local American issues while paying scant attention to international stories, while international readers are concerned with local issues, but also give attention to international events as well.  It was very interesting to see how these two opposing sport sections can give us a view into our societies as well.

Here is a link to both sport sections:

Melbourne: The Age

Atlanta: Journal-Constitution

"Dandy" Don Meredith a True Innovator (1938-2010)

Meredith (center) with Cosell (left) and Gifford (right)

                                      

 “Dandy” Don Meredith was one of the original commentators for Monday Night Football when it debuted on ABC in 1970.  He formed a three-man team of commentators along with the outspoken Howard Cosell and former NFL legend Frank Gifford.  Monday Night Football and this team of commentators would go on to revolutionize the way football was broadcasted and bring its popularity to new heights.   

It was a risky venture when it started, but Monday Night Football 

Meredith playing for the Dallas Cowboys

would prove its doubters wrong, as it quickly became must                                    

see TV for sports fans and non-sports fans.   

No one had ever dared to put a sporting 

event in primetime television on a major network, but 

ABC saw the promise in marketing Monday Night Football 

as not only a show but also as an event.

At the center of this “event” was the three-man booth of Cosell, Gifford (who replaced Keith Jackson) and Meredith.  Meredith’s folksy, cheerful charisma proved to be the perfect complement to Cosell who was outspoken and opinionated.  Viewers tuned in to hear what light-hearted comment Meredith would make to bring levity to Cosell’s opinions.  Meredith’s comments sometimes drew criticism, but he remained true to himself and endeared himself to viewers everywhere.  Together, they would change the way that media corporations and television viewers would view the role of the broadcast team.  No longer was the role of the commentator to recite what the viewer had just seen on television, but rather the commentator was there to entertain the viewers as well. Meredith helped give birth to a new age of sports broadcasting which realized that the commentator could become central to the viewer’s television experience.  For that, we reflect on Meredith and the entire Monday Night Football team as innovators in their field.