Sports Networker
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If you are part of the tourist board for Paris or Tokyo or New York, you have visitors coming in all the time, for millions of different reasons.
If you are a smaller town or less urban region, you have to look around and ask some hard questions….what do we have that can draw visitors and tourism dollars since we appear to have misplaced our Eiffel Tower?
One answer is sports tourism.
Without focus, football players miss passes, field goals, and audibles at the line of scrimmage. Without focus they can also miss correct formations, called penalties, and kick-off returns.
With the power of focus, players make Hail Mary receptions and speed through the line with force and fury. Blitz’s work. Nickel and dime packages make defensive strategies look like child’s play.
No doubt, focus makes and breaks games. It creates great players. Legendary coaches are made by laser focusing on how to best utilize the team’s talent.
There are few things in life (family, friends, & my cat) that I love more than the city of Philadelphia and sports. I was born and raised in the city, and I’m a lifelong Philly sports fan. One of my first sports memories is Joe Carter hitting a three-run walk-off home run against closer Mitch Williams, propelling the Toronto Blue Jays into a World Series victory over his hometown Phillies. Sigh.
I swore to myself before the start of the NBA free-agency period that I wouldn’t write about LeBron James. Sports media are putting in enough hours of coverage about his team status, for all of us.
I realized, however, that I work in and write about sports publicity and PR, and since James announced he would share his intentions of what team he’ll join for the next few years in an hour-long broadcast on ESPN, his story became a good PR/bad PR story.
Over the past year, Twitter has shown us its incredible power when it comes to talking about and sharing “breaking news” and current events (not just in sports). For example, last year’s Iranian presidential elections completely dominated Twitter for a number of weeks, and became the medium for finding out what was happening in the Middle East. Other major news events, like the Hudson River plane crash and Michael Jackson’s death, have proven the same.
July 1 marked the start of one of the biggest summers in the history of the National Basketball Association. A number of the league’s premier players, including LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwayne Wade, became free agents. 2010 NBA free agency has been quite an experience, and Twitter has truly given fans an insight into free agency unlike we’ve ever had before. Like the events mentioned previously, Twitter has completely altered who controls the messaging and the way we gather information.
Communication student Richard Loat has decided to embark on a journey across Canada to play ball hockey while raising money for local food banks along the way. The event, dubbed Five Hole for Food in honor of the most glorious way to score a goal in hockey, is fueled by sponsors Molson Canadian, Boston Pizza, and Marketwire, along with support from teams in the National Hockey League, American Hockey League, Canadian Hockey League and the East Coast Hockey League, and has relied solely on social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube to promote the event.
Pro athletes always seem to have an abundance of resources at their disposal; whether they need to make a cross country move, assess their personality and skill level, get their financial picture in order, or simply find a post-sports career job or business. A multitude of businesses clamor for the athletes’ attention but which ones can they trust? I found two businesses that really put their heart and soul into helping pro athletes manage their career and life.
Last week former tennis star and current broadcast analyst, John McEnroe, was right when he said that the three-day, 11-hour record-blasting Wimbledon match between John Isner of the United States and Nicolas Mahut of France was “the greatest advertisement for our sport.”
Change channels to World Cup soccer where referees became the story. Players, coaches and analysts seemed to question calls at every turn. Fans, particularly in the United States where soccer popularity remains infantile, have been outraged.
Technology helps us do a lot of things; it saves time, saves lives and is now beginning to save the careers of sports executives. With sports being a multi-billion dollar industry, professional teams, and more specifically scouts are looking for anything that can give them the edge over their opponents.
The sports industry is not nearly as glamorous as many outsiders may perceive. Some of the things that you should really expect as an employee in this industry.
Here is an interview with Robert Wuhl, writer, comedian, and actor who starred as a sports agent in the HBO show Arliss. Wuhl shares with us his thoughts with the current state of sports and how media has changed the presentation of players. Wuhl is an Emmy Award winner and also starred in Cobb, a story based on the life of baseball’s great Ty Cobb. See who he think is huge in sports.
In years past, the crucifixion of Barry Bonds in the baseball world brought steroid use to the public eye in a powerful way. Is it my imagination or does it seem more of an accepted practice in the world of football?
