Stuff Worth reading and Sharing...'08

The “Owner As Brand” Fades Into The Twilight…
The passing this week of the beloved Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin was the latest in a series of instances recently that seem to show us that one of the great storylines of American team sports, the iconic “owner” that we loved or hated and sometimes followed with as much or more passion than the players themselves, is fading into the distance of corporate America. Yes, we still have Jerry Jones with the Cowboys and a community and business leader like Mike Ilitch with the Tigers and Red Wings, but these days a single owner as the personality of his or her franchise seems to be more a hindrance than a help when teams’ cost of doi

Can Jimmie Johnson and NASCAR win New York?
Jimmie Johnson was in one of the few races this week that he has yet to win. The race to make his brand, and in a larger part the brand of NASCAR, relevant to the casual sports fan and the discretionary spender in the world’s largest marketplace, the New York tri-state area. It is a race that many have tried before…Richard Petty, Mario Andretti, Jeff Gordon, Al Unser, even Formula One’s Michael Schumacher…and although some have been met with casual success, the fact remains that with NASCAR still out of sight in terms of a race, it is still out of mind with the New York consumer. Can that change and can Johnson, a now a four time Sprint Cup champion, be t

Finding The Right Mix of Heisman Hype…
Every year as the college season winds down, the debate begins…who are the Heisman Trophy hopefuls…should schools use monies to create multimedia campaigns…do such campaigns resonate with voters…is it all about winning…is winning not just about the award but about relevance to the school and to the athlete? It is a tough question to address as a one off, and a recent article in the Pittsburgh Tribune weighed both the pluses and the minuses of Heisman hype and what it netted the schools. There is no doubt in looking at the last eight winners, all of whom played in the

MLS Cup Sets Template For Future Soccer Success…
One of the most significant games in the history of professional soccer took place in the Pacific Northwest in the late summer of 1977, when the New York Cosmos, led by the legendary Pele, won their first North America Soccer league title by defeating the original Seattle Sounders 2-1 in Portland Oregon. This past weekend, perhaps the most important game since then in the evolution of professional soccer in the United States again took place in the Pacific Northwest, where a crowd of over 40,000 saw Real Salt Lake defeat the Los Angeles Galaxy 2-1 on penalty kicks to take the 2009 Major League Soccer title? Is this championship more significant than say, last y

Globies Race To Keep Growing The Brand…
It is not easy trying to remain relevant with national brands for the travelling road show. There are less performances of the circus, less ice shows, less boxing matches, less LPGA events, less AVP events, less, less less. When you do not have consistent brand relevance in a market and are out of sight for all but one week a year, the ability to keep an event fresh and top of mind when discretionary income, and with that partner value, can be hard to explain is making the “tour” even more difficult to sustain. So what does a touring brand do? You try and find national platforms that give the product year-round life, so that when the event does make its an