The Sports Info Business

Hello friends of sportsinfo101.com.    If you look at the time between the last post and this one, it has been a few months since I have posted to this blog.  It was the longest period of time I have gone between posts and with good reason.

I have not abandoned the idea of sharing insights, ideas and personalities, but took time out to channel my spare energies to completing a book I have co-authors with three other talented folks.  Our book, titled Social Media in Sport Marketing, has just been published by Arizona based Holcomb Hathaway Publishers.

I must tip my cap to the other co-authors that made this project possible.  First is Tim Newman.  Tim and I first crossed paths over Twitter, eventually met at a sports management educational conference and came up with the idea for this book.  Tim has been the team leader and quarterback.  I thank you, if you are reading this for your perseverance.  Two other men joined the effort and added valuable writing and knight that made the book a reality.  They are Jason Peck and Brendan Wilhide.

We have spoken countless times as a group over the phone as well as via email and Twitter, brainstorm, sharing and counseling each other to help finish this reference book.

When we started writing this book, the sport industry lacked practical resources to apply many of the developing technologies to their marketing plans and goals.  Today, the landscape is more educated.  However,  many senior management leaders are still learning what the shift means.

To understand what we wrote abut, I simply list the chapter titles:

Chapter One:  Introduction to Social Media

Chapter Two: Introduction to Principles of Sport Communication, Marketing and Social Media

Chapter Three: Social Networks and Real Time Platforms

Chapter Four: Blogging

Chapter Five: Photos, Video and Podcasting

Chapter Six:  Search Marketing

Chapter Seven: Mobile Marketing

Chapter Eight: Email Marketing

Chapter Nine:  Planning and Measuring A Successful Social Media Program

Writing a book, even with partners is not easy.  I learned a lot about myself, the publishing industry and finished a project I am proud to have seen through.

This is only half of the reason, however, why I have not published more often here.

The second reason is that I have devoted a lot of time to becoming a better photographer.

Landscape photography has become truly a passion and with it, I developed a site where I can feature my favorite landscape photographs.

©Charles Harris Photography

The website address is charlesharrisphotography.smugmug.com and I feature categories for the photographs including Sports, City Scapes, Black & White,   and the area with the most and best work, Outdoors.  I encourage you to visit the site and let me know what you think of my work.  With it of course, I started a blog there to share my photography experiences.

The site design needs some work, but for now, it is a great place to showcase what I do with my Canon camera.

From book, to photography and back to blogs, it is good to be back writing in this space.

Are you suffering from information overload?  If you are a hard core sports fan or an employee in the sports management industry, chances are you are extremely focused on the news that impacts your world.  Beyond wins and losses you probably focus on team-related news including trades, sponsorship news, promotions and of course news stories.

So you may have missed yesterday’s effort by The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, who asked asked Americans to wear purple on Oct. 20 to show their efforts to support the end of anti-gay bullying.  I’ll be honest.  I heard something about it but didn’t really know too much until I saw a few Facebook postings related to it.

From CBS News in traditional media to Mashable online, it seems that a majority of media have being weighing in on the issue since several homosexual teens recently committed suicide after being bullied by peers.

From the sports side of media however, I noticed little was written and said about this news.  It is something that is just not talked about.  Not much has changed over the years.

Not much was said until I ran across one press release that ran on Business Wire.  The news release promotes a special that focuses on one athlete dealing with conflict in his workplace.  That workplace happened to be the Major League Baseball field.

Here is what the press release said in part.

Out. The Glenn Burke Story tells the dramatic tale of Burke’s Major League career as an outfielder for the Dodgers and as a starter in Game One of the 1977 World Series, to being traded to the Oakland Athletics the following season, and then walking away from the game that he deeply loved in 1980. Many of Burke’s teammates were aware of his homosexuality during his playing career, as were members of management. And many of those teammates believe that his sexuality led to the premature derailment of his baseball career.

Several former players including Reggie Smith and former Dodger and current Phillies coach Davey Lopes were interviewed for the story.  I found these clips that Smith and Lopes spoke of  Glenn Burke.

I think we are a more tolerant society today than 10, 20 or even 30 years ago.  However, listening to new reports of teens killing themselves of being bullied is unacceptable.  I didn’t know Glenn and he was not part of the team when I joined their front office in 1994.

The timing and release of this documentary by the promoter was not an accident.  I have not seen it so I cannot comment on the quality of the film.

It is by all means, still a hot topic based on these recent media stories.

Respect and tolerance are two words we need to use more often when referring to all people.

Humans first, then we can worry about all of the other stuff.

Enough said.