Blogs

I'm often asked how to get into the business of sport, sometimes by students
and sometimes by people who are fed up with their particular brand of
corporate slavery. Many of these people see the sports business in a narrow
sense; working for a professional sporting team or rights holder, but the
industry is wider than that.

Sports tourism is one area that is often overlooked, both by the sports
industry and the tourism industry. This is despite the large amount of
investment by tourism organisations in attracting events and building
infrastructure to deliver them.

For many, sports travel means group tours to 'mega-events' like the football
world cup or the Olympics, but someone travelling to play golf or to go
kite-boarding is also part of a big sports tourism industry.

The NFL's Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at the end of the season. The NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on July 1, 2011. There seems to be a sizable gulf between each league and its respective player's unions in regards to getting a new deal done. 

The NFL owners want players to add two more regular season games to the schedule (16 to 18 regular season games), they'd like to add regular season games in Europe AND they're asking the players to take an 18% paycut. Bet the players can't wait to sign off on that deal. 

The NBA owners want to reduce player salaries by $750M and they'd like to reduce the number of years for guaranteed player contracts from 6 and 5 years to something more along the lines of 3 and 2 years. Heck, if the owners had their way, they'd move to a system where contracts are not guaranteed. NBA Commissioner David Stern has even said that contraction is on the table during the CBA discussions. 

The unions for the NFL and NBA have already shown great resistance to these suggested changes. We know there's tension between the player's unions and the owners. So I'm a bit mystified as to why NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NBA Commissioner David Stern would decide to stand on their soap boxes in the past few weeks and talk about expansion into Europe. I would think each Commissioner would see that things clearly have the possibility of going sideways here in the U.S. if new CBA's are not able to be negotiated in the near future. 

This is like talking about adding on to your house before you've broken ground on the original structure.

I'm proud to be a Penn State alum! Attending was one of the best decisions I've ever made and shaped my career in the sports business world. Unfortunately, I chose the worst years to attend in terms of football - the worst four years in head coach Joe Paterno's history. The whispers on campus those years and articles on major sports sites were about how "Joe must go." But then some bowl wins at the Orange, Alamo, Capital and Outback with a Rose Bowl appearance quieted those calling for JoePa to hang it up. Suddenly he was a great coach again as if he emerged from the dead. Typical of the media and whimsical fans. But now, a 4-3 unranked season with loses coming in uncompetitive and overmatched games to Alabama, Iowa and Illinois, Penn State is on the verge of not making a post-season bowl appearance (Only team left on the schedule with a worse record is Indiana). Naturally, the "Joe must go" chants are back.

The NFL will immediately begin suspending players for dangerous and flagrant hits, particularly those involving helmets. The NFL said such discipline will be in place for this weekend's games.

We saw several vicious hits this weekend in both the pro and college ranks (a Rutgers player is in ICU in critical condition). This after the league has had more conversations than ever before about when players should return to the field following a concussion.

But is the NFL contradicting itself? Essentially, the NFL is sending out a message that it wants to protect its players with this new rule, but at the same time, NFL owners are negotiating to add 2 more regular season games to the schedule - even more opportunity for vicious hits to take place and for injuries to occur.

If I told you that Tiger Woods won all those majors without a coach or Rafael Nadal won the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open this year all by himself, would you believe me? Probably not. If you're a professional athlete or trying to become one and want to attain the highest degree of success in your sport, then it's almost a given that you need a coach. Someone who analyzes your game, makes technical adjustments, gives emotional and mental support and maybe even works with you on a nutritional or physical fitness plan. During the victory speeches, you see how important coaches are to the success of their athletes.

But many of you reading this are not professional athletes (though we can dream), but we ARE professional or soon-to-be professional sports businessmen & women. And we all have career aspirations and goals ... Whatever and wherever they may be. The actual goals may be different than an athlete, but they are still goals that you strive for and hope to achieve. But yet, how many of us have a coach to help us along our journey to success?