The Sports Info Business

Psst.  You.  Yeah, you.  Can you help me?  I need the keys to let me out of this claustrophobic room.  I feel like I am being held hostage in the never-ending saga of the 2010 LeBron-a-thon.

We are far beyond ‘hype’ of the most sought after NBA free agent in the summer of 2010.  Thank goodness it is all coming to an end tonight when King James and his new Twitter followers will tune in to ESPN tonight at 9 p.m. ET and 6:00 p.m. on the West Coast to find out where the talented basketball player will be taking his game.

You cannot help but feel James and his representatives have hijacked the NBA free agent process and made it their own.  In my mind, ESPN’s decision sets a dangerous precedent in broadcasting the exclusive announcement.

Here are a few thoughts I have about it:

1)   James and his team had ESPN create a one-hour prime time special  called “The Decision” to make the announcement.

2)   According to an article today in Adage.com, James also dictated who will interview him during the special.  For the record, it is scheduled to be Jim Gray.  Do all top-tiered athletes all have “their guy” who they will grant interviews to. moving forward?

3)   Does this mean the next super star will want to one-up LeBron by demanding a media outlet run 24 consecutive hours of news and features the next time something like this happens in baseball or football?  Where will this lead to next, is the question we have to ask ourselves.

4)   ESPN gave up significant advertising revenue to make room for this special program and again, according to the Adage.com article, revenue during the special will be donated to Boys & Girls Club of America, a charity that ESPN and Disney also support.

5) Since this TV special is entire produced by James, it is safe to say he is now in the TV production business?

If I were counseling James during this process, I would highly recommend him to remain humble during this process.  His image has forever changed with the LeBron-a-thon.  Even if he returns to Cleveland and new coach Byron Scott, he’s not the humble hometown hero anymore.

Personally and professionally, I was always taught to shut up until you win something big.  He is a man among boys and extremely talented.  However, I feel he has crossed the line with too much focus on him.  Last I checked, basketball was a team game.  At least make it appear that way until you have won a championship.

Now that the Bulls have signed Carlos Boozer, my best guess of where James will land is one of two places:  Cleveland Cavaliers or the New York Knicks.  If he is a true hometown guy, he has max’d out his publicity from this stunt and returns to his roots.  The reason why I think the Knicks have a shot is that he takes the money and goes into the limelight in the largest media market in America while joining Amare Stoudemire in rebuilding a team that has certainly struggled.  He will make more money by going to New York than any other city in the league.  No doubt about it.  If that happens, look for guys like Jets QB Mark Sanchez to send a giant thank you note for taking the expectations and moving them to another person and team for a while.  If winning is all that matters, then he will land in Miami with Bosh and Wade, but for some reason I don’t think it will happen.

This week, James also joined Twitter and with four basic messages now has a following of more than 312,000 people.  The one Tweet getting the most attention is the one he left on the site this morning….

“Good Morning! It’s your chance to ask me a question about my decision, use #lebrondecision to submit and I’ll answer them tonight.”

I will not be updating my Twitter account around the announcement tonight.  No value to add for people that follow me.  At least as of 7:00 p.m. California time, we will finally know and we can end the LeBron-a-thon.

What a strange and wonderful day in the world of sports. It has truly been the wide world of sports.

So different but if you had the time to watch some or all of either or both matches, it was a thing of beauty.

The day started with the World Cup match between USA and Algeria. It was win or go home for team USA and it looked, as regulation was coming to a close, the Americans were headed for a long long flight home.
Then American soccer sensation and Galaxy star Landon Donovan knocked in a loose ball in front of the Algerian goal in the 91st minute and suddenly the Americans had advanced to the round of 16 in South Africa.

Meanwhile over at Wimbledon a different drama was playing out on court 18 between 148th ranked Nicolas Mahut and 19th ranked John Isner.

The two singles players, which took their match to a fifth set played for more than seven hours. At Wimbledon, the fifth set is a win by two games and as the soccer game finished I noticed the two players were tied at 28-28 in the final set.
56 games played for a single set? For a first round Wimbeldon match?
The match was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning.  The games went to 30 apiece and as far from over. It jumped to 35 apiece and then 40-40 each in games.  When it got to 50-50, it felt like the score for a basketball game.  The only thing that could stop the match was the lack of light.

ESPN reporters, broadcasting the match, called it epic. Another said you would have to wait 50 to 60 years to see something like this again.  We will never see anything like this, ever.

The winners of today?  A few people…..

• The local fans who attended both of these events. For better or worse, no one will forget either.
• ESPN comes up huge as they broadcast both events
• Associated sponsors to gained valuable air time.  This includes Nike, IBM, Lacoste and Slazenger.
• Social Media — I saw the USA vs. Algeria match had set web record for traffic.  I am sure the tennis match will have a few online records of its own.
• Sports fans.  Records, drama and stories to retell for years to come.

The events could not have been more different and here’s why.

You have a soccer match, team sport that is timed.  Now compare it to a singles tennis match.  Two people who no one to depend on but themselves.  The fifth match is decided by two games, with no stop watch to halt the action.  It could go on forever and for the fans, broadcasters and especially the players, many felt it would never end. And is hasn’t ended.

Just take a look at the time of each set by Manut and Isner.

Set #1 32 minutes

Set #2 29 minutes

Set #3 49 minutes

Set #4 64 minutes

Set #5 Still going.

Total time for the match is 10 hours!

Here are some notes to compare to the tennis match:

• So far, the two players combined for 118 games in the final set alone.
• Haile Gebrselassie from Berlin set the Marathon word record on 9/28/08 with a time of 2:03.59.  He could have run three and had time to spare in the time it took to finish the tennis match.
• The two players combined for 118 points in the final set.  By comparison it took the Baltimore Orioles scored only 75 runs for the entire month of Aril, a span of 23 games.
• No service breaks in the first 118 games of the final set

The 1980 match between Bjorn Borg vs John McEnroe remains etched in my memory.  That match was 18-16, not even a third the number of games that Isner and Mahut played today.

What stopped it all?  The lack of light.  More fun tomorrow and a match no one will ever forget.

The Space Needle in Seattle is anything but miserable

Tom Van Riper, a reporter from Forbes.com recently wrote a story about the 10 most miserable sports cities.  Now, I enjoy lists and I found this one interesting.  What makes a sports city miserable?

According to Riper, Seattle is number one for some of the following reasons:  The Supersonics left town and morphed into the Oklahoma Thunder behind Kevin Durant and UCI alum and coach Scott Brooks. Riper goes on to write, “The Seattle sports scene isn’t exactly hopping these days. Baseball’s Mariners haven’t been in the playoffs since 2001, while the NFL Seahawks are 9-23 over the past two seasons.”  Okay, fine facts, but does that qualify as the most miserable sports city?

My initial take would be a town like Detroit (sorry guys), where the city has produced the following:

The Lions have never won a Super Bowl much less been in one.

The Detroit Tigers while returning to winning ways since Jim Leyland took over, have not won the World Series since 1984 and captured the division just once (1987) in the last 25 years.

And then there is Cleveland, the long suffering sports town that has been the butt of many sports jokes.  Here is what Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski, a long time Cleveland fan, wrote in the May 24th issue of SI:    Talking about Lebron James (and Cleveland), he wrote “It is not exactly fair that you ended up playing for your hometown Cavaliers in a city that has not won a championship since the Browns beat the Colts in the 1964 NFL Championship Game — 20 years, almost to the day, before you were born.”  Ouch.  That’s 46 years between banners if you are keeping score at home.

I am not trying to jump on Detroit or Cleveland.  They are mid-western towns and I am a Chicago guy so I can relate.  This whole business about Miserable Sports city in a story should not even be one.  Once upon a time we, the sports fan, grew up in a town and cheered on the home team.  We had something to believe in.  Now, many of you play Fantasy Sports and cheer on stats, argue salaries and pick one player to like.  You can take me out of Chicago but you cannot take the Chicago out of me.

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Here is the Forbes.com list, in order

1. Seattle

2. Atlanta

3. Phoenix

4. Buffalo

5. San Diego

6. Cleveland

7. Washington, D.C.

8. Kansas City

9. Minneapolis/St. Paul

10. Houston

I was recently contacted by the folks who are connected with Doritos and asked if I would write about the finalists in their fourth annual “Crash The Super Bowl” Challenge.

Let me say from the outset, that I have always loved Doritos, but no one has offered to pay me to write this.  They didn’t even offer to stack my house for the Super Bowl with a care package in exchange for writing a word or two (not that there is anything wrong with that) but I will say, the company has moved to a level of activation that others have not.  Today, just running a 30 second commercial and spending millions of dollars for brief mentions during the super bowl is not enough.

The Doritos brand has revealed six finalists selected from more than 4,000 entries in the fourth annual Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” challenge.  The contest encouraged people to make their own commercial, submit it and then people would vote on the best of the best.

Here are the six videos (in no particular order) that have made the finals.

According to the promotion, you can now vote for a finalist once a day at www.crashthesuperbowl.com between January 5 and 31, 2010.  If you are not keeping track at home, that gives you until tomorrow to do so…

Contestants are not only competing to have their self-made Doritos commercials aired during the Super Bowl XLIV broadcast, they are shooting to make history by beating the ad pros and garnering the top three spots in USA TODAY’s annual Ad Meter.  If they can do it, Doritos will award the winners a shared $5 million cash prize.

Online consumer voting will determine which three of the six finalists will air as Doritos’ Super Bowl commercials during the big game on February 7, 2010

Two more to go…..

Which one is your favorite?

Here is the bottom line.  The company was able to activate thousands of people to make commercials, even more to vote and place these commericals online, where they will live for a long time to come for people to see.

The investment will pay off by allowing others to talk about the brand in a new and unique way.  It is something I helped lead in my last corporate position.  Bravo.

The first step in making things better is admitting you have a problem.

So, here goes.

Hello, my name is Charles Harris and I have a problem.

“Hello Charles”

I, am a news junkie.  That’s right, I need to know what is going on in the world.  From Gilbert Arenas getting suspended for the rest of the NBA season to President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night, I digest this and much more.  Every day.

I started thinking how much media I consume in any given day.   I started to make a list.  The list includes printed newspapers I still receive to my home this day (let’s see if I but the new Apple iPad here eventually), news online, TV related news, magazines and more.

In no particular order….

Los Angeles Times

Wall St. Journal

Orange County Register

Sports Illustrated

NBC Nightly News

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

New York Times

Yahoo News

No, I do not feel like I am going to get asked important questions by clients at any moment nor am I preparing to appear on the game show Jeopardy. There are several reasons I guess. The top reason is just plain knowledge.  Learning and knowing what is going on in our world.  Another is sharing.  With the advent of all of this new media, I like sharing and finding people that find value in information they do not know about.  I post it to one of my two Twitter Accounts, Twitter.com/sportsinfo or Twitter.com/Coast2CoastExp and if it is event related I am probably adding it to a master calendar called SportsCalendarPro.com I absolutely include items in my free, monthly business newsletter to interested folks.

I tried going the way of most people, by dumping my subscriptions for the printed version of newspapers for the online version and in some cases it has worked.  My wife was happy for a while since she hates the newsprint in the home and secretly dumps it herself whenever I am not looking.  But it is back in a few different forms.  The process starts when I am eating breakfast.  I must read something when I eat breakfast.  Again, a habit I blame on my father but not a bad habit.

But there are so many more types of media I am not even mentioning.  I read links to what people post on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I look for news that I feel my clients can benefit from and pass this on to them.  At the end of the day, I am not a site aggregator myself but a knowledge base.  For me, for my family and for the people I interact with on a daily basis.  If that is a problem, I guess it is one of those good problems to have in life.

Have I made things better?  You tell me.

Happy holidays to all.

Please find enclosed a few sports jobs that have been recently advertised.  The companies below include Nike, the Fox Sports network and the Chicago Cubs

Field Marketing Manager for Nike

Description

As our Field Marketing Manager for Nike 6.0, you’ll assist in the creation and execution of category and seasonal initiatives for 6.0 that drive brand strength, fuel consumer demand and strengthen our connection with consumers. You’ll be the voice of the 6.0 consumer and protector of the brand. You’ll maintain a close relationship with key consumer groups and work closely with Sports Marketing, Event Marketing, Geography Marketing teams and Field Representatives to identify influencers and stay current on market trends. You’ll support the development of strategic marketing plans and briefs, as well as complete the field-work/research needed for the plans. You’ll assist in the gathering of information, communication and progress on 6.0 initiatives and in leading categorical and seasonal event execution that ensures excellence with functional and regional groups. You’ll contribute to the team’s development of strategy, implementation and evaluation of plans for category and seasonal marketing initiatives and to the definition of 6.0 marketing strategies that support the broader brand plan. You’ll also support the Integrated Marketing process for 6.0 and assist in leading processes that enable timely and effective execution by cross-functional business teams. You’ll participate in the creation of seasonal product outlines that detail all key products for 6.0 and communicate product support to cross-functional teammates responsible for other key seeding packages. In addition, you’ll meet monthly with accounting to track expenses against each assigned budget. You’ll also work closely with the Inventory Management and Promo Planning team to place product buys and ensure the timely product delivery and program execution.

Link to Apply

Production Coordinator, Fox Sports Network

Description

Fox Sports Network Digital Production is recruiting a Production Coordinator. Under close supervision, this position is responsible for assisting in all digital production group projects and events as well as perform general administrative support to the Vice-President, Coordinating Producer, and Manager of Digital Production. This Coordinator will produce and maintain necessary documents related to all Digital Production group projects. The position will report into the Vice-President, Coordinating Producer, and Manager of FSN Digital Production, and will be located on the Fox Studio Lot in Century City, CA.

Responsibilities:

• Assist the group with hands on production duties related to Digital Production group projects

• Assist with the flow of content from capture to distribution

• Support the group administratively; produce and maintain necessary documents related to all Digital Production group projects

• Maintain a variety of correspondence and general administrative files and records

• Coordinate all group and inter-division meetings, aligning meeting personnel schedules and providing necessary documentation for each meeting

• Schedule and arrange all group travel and assist with expense report submissions

• Performs various special projects, as required

• Attend training classes

• Actively contribute ideas during group meetings

• Become well versed in the regional sports networks and the personnel in each region

Requirements:

• College degree preferred/experience within TV production is preferred

• Excellent writing and communication skills required

Link to Apply

2010 CHICAGO CUBS INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

The Chicago Cubs have advertised several internship opportunities for 2010.  These include the following departments: Entertainment, Mezzanine Suites, Sponsorship Sales, Special Projects, IT, Publications & Creative Services, Event Operations, and Media Relations.

Qualified candidates should possess or be near completion of an undergraduate/graduate degree (any major).

Interested candidates should submit a cover letter containing their area of interest, date of availability, and resume to:

Chicago Cubs
Attn: Human Resources Dept.
1060 W. Addison Street
Chicago, IL 60613

Email: cubsjobs@cubs.com
Fax: (773) 404-4747

Here is a link to the page to see the entire description

A happy but soggy Monday to all, at least on the West Coast.  I have a few things I would like to share with you today so I am going to submit them into different posts.  I hope you will come back more than once.

Today’s posts will include a look at future of sports content in this post and later today, a different look at the latest in Tiger Woods news and hopefully by the end of the day, more job information for those of you looking for new positions.  Just make sure to watch the video at the end of the Post.  Pretty cool stuff.

We start with this.

If you are keeping tabs on technology developments, the newspaper and magazine business people have been looking for ways to keep people interested in their brand.  At the end of the day, it still all about the content that is created.  The newspaper industry specifically has been searching for new delivery tools while increasing revenue opportunities.  Apple, has been rumored to be coming out with a Tablet. From what I have read, it will be a larger sized than the current iPhone with better functionality for reading.

That said, I was surfing the Internet when I came across this video, posted by the folks at Sports Illustrated. If this will happen in 2010, the SI and its sister publications will be ahead of the game in attracting viewers.  Enjoy the video and see the future of sports content, now.  It is called the Sports Tablet Demo 1.5 and the video producers of it are the folks at the Wonder Factory.

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Great Holiday Gift Idea!

All Sports Schedules in one place — www.SportsCalendarPro.com

A product form Sportsinfo101.com

According to a report this morning in the San Francisco Business Times, The National Football League (NFL) has restricted use of the social media tool Twitter and other similar services by its players, coaches and other employees of teams on game days.  The enforcement policy includes stopping all postings representing the player or coach (aka agent or public relations person) starting 90 minutes before a game and continuing until its end.

NFL referees and other officials are banned from using Twitter at all.

In a related story, Florida-based TV station WPTV.com and reporter Adam Kuperstein filed a story last month claiming that the Miami Dolphins had restricted Twitter.

“If I had Tweeted during the non-open tweeting period, I would have been shot and I would not have been able to do this interview with you,” Ethan Skolnick of the Sun-Sentintel was quoted as saying in the story.

News to me.  The Dolphins have a tweeting period?  A little too much control, no?

Someone needs to educate the administrators that social media is designed to open the lines of communication between fans and the product (teams, the league etc)  It is the way of the world and where things are moving.  I understand wanting to try and control events during the games, but if you want to restrict insight, get the sidelined reporters interviewing athletes and coaches at halftime out of there.  Also, let the baseball managers do their job and not have to provide interviews from the dugout during games.  TV pays the bug bucks for access.  I get it and this is part of the reason why I am guessing the NFL came out with this policy.

If you’d like to read more about the NFL’s policy and their take,

Here is a link to the full social media press release by the NFL

This has also become a hot topic in college football as well.  The SEC recently set is own social media policy which caused an uproar in online blogs and the social media space.  Obviously, everyone is learning as this new technology moves forward.  Restricting the use of Twitter however, will only fuel the fire of those demanding openness and transparency for companies, including those in the sports world.

Do you have a favorite Chris Berman nickname?  The long-time ESPN reporter, play-by-play announcer and host made a name for himself a long time ago in a land far far away.

He unveiled her personal nicknames of athletes and integrated them into his broadcast to entertain fans and athletes.  At one point it got him in hot water with the folks running the emerging cable sports and entertainment.  They made him stop, then it was brought back.  In any case, you probably  know a few of his tag lines like back-back-back-back-back-back-back during home run calls

He-could-go-all-the-way….and he does! during great football TD runs, how many of the nicknames he has given athletes over the years can you repeat?

How about a few of these:

Ron Bon in the US Cey

David Sili Cone

Jay Fielder on the Roof

Tom Henke Panky

Stan Javier Self a Merry Little Christmas

John I am not a Kruk

Sandis Ozolinsh that stole Christmas

Eric Karros Matic.

It goes one and on…..

Personally, I have held quite a few nicknames over the years.  As a kid living in Chicago, it was Chuckie.  As I grew older, it turned into Chuck, Chas, Up-Chuck (people still think this is funny 150,000 times later, Chuck Buck, Dodger Chuck, Huck, Chuck E Baby.  This list also goes goes on and on.

So it came as a surprise when I was working for the Dodgers in the 1990′s that Chris Berman was visiting during an ESPN broadcast.  He looked and me and as if he knight me, proclaimed “Charles E Cheese”   Whenever he saw me, it was always Charles E Cheese.  Years later when we saw each other while I was with the Ducks in the NHL, it was still Charles E Cheese.  No has ever called me it before or since

I don’t think I will show up in any “Best Of” lists, but I am always honored the “Boomer” gave me my own moniker.

If you’d like to see an entire list, I found this special Chris Berman Nickname List. Check it out.

Eight days.  I was only gone for eight days but it seemed like a month.  In an age where I never feel disconnected from my computer, my sports blog, friends, family via emails, I pretty much turned off technology for eight days while I was in Paris and Normandy, France.

Here is just a sample of some of the things that happened while I was gone…..

Michael Vick from 60 Minutes Interview

• Michael Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles and is back in the National Football League after serving a prison term for running a dog fighting ring.  Speaking of whch, I watched the 60 Minutes story on Vick last night.  He was polished and prepared by his advisors.  James Brown appeared to be asking tough questions, but did not come across like the hard nosed reporting from regular reporters on the show.  I wonder, was that a condition for Vick granting the interview?
• Eli Manning became the highest paid professional football player after signing a six year extension
• Major League Baseball players were being hit in the noggin by pitchers at an alarming rate
• Speaking of being hit, Andre Beltre made headlines after taking a ball to an area a little lower in the belly button and journalists are now asking who is wearing a cup in baseball.  The details of him be nailed in the pelotas on a one hopper off the bat of Alexi Ramirez is a bit more graphic than former Dodger Jeff Hamilton, who once went on the disabled list for “general soreness.”
• Reports circulated that ESPN has stopped allowing reporters to Tweet sports news and that it has developed a new company wide social media policy.  I am still catching up on this topic.
• Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino had an affair

And a few non sports related items as well:

• A touring helicopter crashes into a small plane in New York while the guy in the control tower was busy chatting with someone in a non work related event.
• Former president Bill Clinton made headlines after a trip to North Korea to free imprisoned journalists Laura King and Euna Lee
• Government town hall meetings over health care crisis stirs emotions of average Americans.  Journalists focus on the shouting day after day in news reports.  I only know about this since I taped John Stewart and National TV News programs while I was gone.  Staged or real anger?  This debate will go on
• Director John Hughes passed away
• A Continental Express jet stranded 50 or so passengers 50 feet from a Minnesota exit and would not allow them to leave overnight as security went home after the plane had landed.

Being disconnected for eight days from technology is a bit tougher than I thought.  I am an information junkie.  Always have been and always will be.  I like to know what is going on in the world, but to what extent?  While I speak French, I was not sitting in front of a TV in Paris watching the news.  It was mentally healthy not to be in front of a computer for a few days.  I had enough to do while I was there, but by allowing myself to disconnect, I also allowed my body to recharge.

That and of course, some genius in France rearranged all of the letters on all French computer keyboards so as I contemplated trying to Blog or Tweet from France, this little obstacle stopped any thought of that.  It is good to be home.  Being disconnected for eight days or for one or two does a body good.  Take time out once in a while.  I am glad I did.

One of the things I thought about while I was away was a good friend of mine, an executive with a sports team whom I had the pleasure of playing golf with on a sunny California afternoon.  He must have checked that Blackberry 50 times during the round.  For a change, my hands were free to concentrate on playing 18 holes, which I do not get to do as much as I would like to.  Disconnecting for a bit is not a bad thing.  We all need to recharge our batteries once in a while, even if it is for a couple of hours.

Now, let’s get back at this.  There is a lot going on in the world.