sports drinks banned

Sports drinks banned from students at california .....read complete article at...

http://tinyurl.com/3x2skcn

Division II sports finally getting some love

I am a little bias because I go to Grand Valley State University( a division II school). We have been dominant for many years in collegian athletics. NCAA division II sports are no longer filled with second class athletes. In most cases athletes had the opportunity to play Division one and chose not too because of a variety of reasons. Anything from reoccurring injuries, causing them to transfer down, to getting in trouble off the field also causing them to move to Division II. Or maybe they just wanted to play right away. Regardless of the reasoning, many Division II amateurs are still great talents and enjoyable to watch. It's about time a big network like CBS air a few of their games.

check out CBS and Division II's TV partnership for the upcoming seasons (featuring my GVSU Lakers) .....http://tinyurl.com/2vma77p

FSU attempts to remind fans they care...

In recent years Florida State University's football team has not lived up to its legendary name. Over the past 3 seasons they have posted a 24-15 record. That may not be bad to a average program but to Seminole fans its just not good enough. Well FSU is beginning a new era in 2010, after releasing Hall of Fame coach Bobby Bowden new head coach Jimbo Fischer reestablish the Seminoles as a acc powerhouse. But FSU needs to get long time ticket holders and fans aboard, which could be especially difficult after letting their great Bobby Bowden go. How shall they do that? They have came up with a very personal and complex marketing campaign they began implementing in April. I believe their going in the right direction, and with the new coach, and marketing campaign fans will be reassured FSU still cares.

http://tinyurl.com/ydcqoml

Big Ten plus one, two, six?

In many recent reports there has been speculations of the big ten considering adding a team or more to their conference. These were first just rumors but recently Big ten commissioner Jim
Delany publicly expressed the idea of additions and even gave a time line of 12-18 months. It makes sense, college sports are profit maximizers and continue to expand into new markets. In this case some of the teams the big ten has expressed interest include: missouri, syracuse, pittsburgh and rutgers. These east coast schools would potentially bring in fans from the massive New York market to the big ten. But the big ten is being careful, they don't want to expand if an expansion cost won't create more revenue. As of now that desired revenue is around $22 million per team added espn. com reports. Interestingly enough the big ten will also require a $5 million loyalty clause fee from any big east team if this deal actually happens. I'm not even sure if a league fee is legal at the college level. The NCAA is becoming more profit minded every year, they are a business who has an extremely high untaxed revenue every year, yet in the big tens opinion they don't make enough. We will see what happens in the next year and a half but theres not a doubt in my mind the big ten will add a team if not multiple teams to ultimatly increase their revenue as a conferencce.

Miami heat.....

Interesting story I heard on sports-center this week. Reports say Miami owners and team management want to schedule less games at home in the beginning of the season due to the heat. They think fans in fact hate the high temperatures at the early season home games and this would make fans happy. But this seems like a extremely poor business decisions (if they actually did this) because ticket sales and filling up the stadium is a big part of their revenue. And as one analyst pointed out in Miami some consumers come to games just for social purposes. For example you might see a celebrity such as part owner Jennifer Lopez. Decreasing the number of home games will limit these fans opportunities as a whole to go to games(no matter what their reason is for going) and decrease your maximum profit potential. I don't know what the management team in Miami is thinking, It's Miami shouldn't fans expect it to be hot.

Block party

As I've said many times before women sports do not get enough recognition. This time of the year although there are two NCAA championship basketball tournaments only one is religiously followed. Lucky for the womens tournament many fans are no longer interested in watching the men due to the large number of upsets this year. The average fan doesn't know who butler is and hates Duke. So this is the womens time to shine. Thanks to a young lady named Brittney Griner who plays center for Baylor people are beginning to talk. The 6ft 8in freshman phenom has put up monster numbers this tournament forcing the sports world to notice. She has 36 blocks through 4 games and is practically averaging a triple double in points, rebounds, and blocks. Watching five minutes of Baylor's elite game against Duke I couldn't help but be entertained. Anytime a Duke player went into the paint their shot was altered or rejected by Griner. This is exactly what the NCAA women tourney needed star power. Accompany that with Uconn's win streak and viewer ratings could go up any maybe even compete with the mens tournament this March.

Mad month of march

As we all have waited the past 11 months the time has finally come. The most sacred and exciting sporting event on the planet. Everyone gets involved when it comes to the mens college basketball championships. But the excitement is in fillingout the brackets, attempting to be perfect or at least be better than your friends. The tv ratings for the NCAA on cbs are rediculous every year because everyone wants to see drama, a cinderella story unfold. But is this really true? It happens year end and year out, some little team from nowhere beats a powerhouse and we fall in love with them. Usually its one team, not this year the little guys are knocking out all the heavy favorites. In only 3 days kansas, georgetown, and villanovas championship hopes have ended(to name a few). 56% of america picked Kansas to win it all, them no longer playing could cause many people to lose interest in the rest of the tournament and not really want to watch anymore. So we must be careful what we wish for. We want the drama of a cinderella story, but maybe not so much when they knock out everyones favorite team.

He's a smart man...

Ochocinco may be highly critisized for his behavior but he does it all for a purpose. From changing his name from Chad Johnson to "Ochocinco" he created a buzz around the entire sports nation. He taunts, talks trash to opponents and just about invented the idea of a touchdown celebration. Beyond his stellar performances as an NFL athlete Ocho always knows how to continue to build a cult like following. In this recent era of the internet and social media (twitter,blogs,facebook...etc), he has been a leader, being one of the first stars to actively use twitter his fans an upclose look into his everyday life. From his twitter account he has created his own reality show that fans and followers can watch daily. And apparently that isn't enough, according to espn radio Ochocinco plans on starting a second web show for our viewing pleasure as early as next week. This man is brillant, other than Terrell Owens Ochocinco might be the most critisized, followed and fined by the NFL and sports media but in the end its all just him building his brand that many of us love. I'm sure his new show will be interesting and exciting and only continue to set him apart from his athletic peers in the wide world of sports.

Its all about the money...

If you didn't already know, the uconn women's basketball team just might be the most dominant program of all time, in any sport and in any division. They just won their 70th straight game only to tie a record that was just set by themselves a few years back. That is just rediculous, but whats more rediculous is the lack of their tv coverage. We all know womens basketball isn't the hottest commodity but this doesn't mean they don't deserve recognition. The problem is sports even in college is a business, and womens basketball (in many peoples eyes) is like watching the minor league game compared to the pro game. Its nots fair but not many consumers follow womens basketball which in turn means theres not much profit to be made by networks who air their games. I'm not sure how but this needs to change, marketers behind ncaa womens basketball need to develop a plan to increase their following. Once this is done (which I'm not sure can be done), then maybe a team (uconn) won't have to win 70 games in a row for a 30sec blip and highlight on sportscenter. but they may even earn more coverage of their games.

Olympic Marketers Happy

This past Sunday it seemed every household in America was watching the gold medal hockey game (reportedly more than 1 million homes). The winter Olympics haven't quite got the hype they've had in previous years. We can all agree from an American perspective, other than the hockey portion no one really cares. In recent years we haven't been very good in the hockey tournament. But this year that changed, after beating Canada in early rounds of the winter Olympics Americans all of a sudden began to believe again. From a marketing and advertising standpoint this was perfect. Because the gold medal game came down to the Americas biggest rivalry Canada. With those expected TV ratings, which were met, advertisers had the opportunity to capitalize on an event the USA team typically wasn't in. Better yet an event majority of Americans wouldn't even watch. So millions of hockey fans around America mourn over the loss, but I'm sure the media world was very appreciative for the opportunity.

Tiger has finally spoken...

Over the past 3 months Tiger Wood's name was everywhere. From cnn, to espn, no matter how little new information that had been gathered the news reporters were constantly updating it's viewers on Tiger's every move. To be quite honest I thought what he did was wrong but I was over it after the first week reports surfaced of him cheating on his wife. In this modern day of technology and media as a professional athlete, especially as popular as Tiger you have to be careful what you do. The media, endorsements and his plain out performance on the golf course made him out to be some superhuman that could do no wrong. This was clearly not the case. But I can't put all the blame on him. It's our fault as fans too, for putting him up on this high pedastool. Major sponsors such as gatorade, gillete and accenture dropped him leaving many reporters constantly asking if he could ever rebound from such a drastic downfall. This was a PR nightmare, probably the worst in sports since the kobe bryant rape allegation. But this week news finally came that Tiger after 3 months of hidding from the public was going to address his critics and fans, tell us all what happened, and what was in the near future. Everyone rejoiced, saying its about time, he's selfish for waiting so long etc but this was actually a smart move. When rebuilding his brand, that was that made himthe biggest hero in sports this decade (besides maybe lebron James), he first must attempting to regain the trust of his fans. The route he's taking to address the public is interesting. He will speak in front of a very select and private party where he has a prewritten speech, and no questions will be answered. This is great strategyin my opinion. Because this way before he is bashed in the media and more rumors arrive he can tell his side of the story, now whether the fans believe him or not is up in the air.As a NIKE rep pointed out I believe in a few years this will be just a minor blip on his career. But for now he has to start over, win, rebuild that relationship with his fans, apologize his ass off and hopefully soon enough this PR nightmare will all be forgotten and he'll still go down as the greatest golfer of alltime. Tiger Woods to speak publicly Friday - News - FOX Sports on MSN

This being super bowl Sunday I figured It is only appropriate to speak on the super bowl. From a marketing stand point, this can be a big weekend for many companies. The big game could be the largest advertising weekend of the year. On average businesses will spend nearly $2.4 million for an ad or commercial, that is a little ridiculous. The fact that the Superbowl(and pro sports as a whole) has become this commercialized is a joke. To point that out, ESPN has extended It's coverage to two entire weeks of coverage between its network and radio stations, as if there isn't already enough pregame following. The Marketing scheme of Superbowl week and or leading up too it is huge. It creates a large amount of profit and involves companies and many attempts of businesses to attract consumers like one wouldn't believe. The most interesting marketing strategy that stood out to me this week is Tim Tebow. Beyond his NFL stock dropping after a rough week at the senior bowl, he is reportedly going to be in an ad this Sunday. This ad is just attempting to reiterate his "intangible characteristics" that teams can't find from the average (more polished in my opinion) Qb these days through Tebow's "religious beliefs". This is just another prime example of how marketing in this day in age can be overwhelming. It's an attempt to maximize profit and gain an competitive advantage by creating "star power". But rumor has it the ad is one founded by a religious organization, we all Tim Tebow is a "Saint" and "Hero". Why must I be reminded on super bowl sunday. Will we ever be able to just sit down and enjoy the game again with out all the side shows and stunts? What do you think?