I’m going to be traveling for the next week and without internet access, so this will be the last post until around January 9. Enjoy the bowl games, especially the offensive display tomorrow in the Sun Bowl and the mythical national championship in the Grandaddy (my pick is USC, for what it’s worth). Best wishes to you and your family and friends for a safe, happy and healthy new year. See you in 2006.

Trojan fans received an early new year’s present today with the announcement that head football coach Pete Carroll had finalized a contract extension. While the neither USC nor Carroll would release details of the deal, you can be sure that he is being paid well into the millions and the contract will run for several years. Carroll had been mentioned prominently for several NFL openings and has chosen to the freedom to run his own show at USC, where he has complete control over every aspect of his program, from player selection (USC no longer recruits, they select) to the height of the grass in the Coliseum. No NFL team ever could offer him that degree of control because he would always be dealing with grown men making huge salaries, instead of college kids still responding to adult figures in their lives.

Across the country, Bengals’ fans also got a present today as, shockingly, the team announced the signing of quarterback Carson Palmer, a USC grad by the way, to a contract extension that would keep him a Bengal through 2014. Sending a strong message to the team that for once management might actually want to build and maintain a winner, the Bengals actually took the offensive in approaching Palmer about signing him to a contract that could keep him a Bengal for his entire career. Hopefully, that means that other young stars, Chad Johnson among them, will now favorably consider staying in Cincinnati.

Remember this face? Well, if you don’t, fairly soon you won’t be able to forget her. Coke will be making sure of that. You see, it will be an unprecedented marketing campaign, Coke has decided to make Michelle Kwan the face of the Winter Olympics. Why is that so unusual? Well, you see, for all of her success and fame and personality, Michelle has never won the seemingly single most necessary asset to have to be an Olympic marketer – an Olympic gold medal. In her previous Olympics, Kwan has finished second and third. Sure, she medaled, but she didn’t win and in America’s eyes that had always equaled failure. Never before had a major Olympic advertising campaign been built around an athlete who had failed to win Olympic gold.

Of course, this is Coke who can be build an advertising campaign around no names if they push enough money behind it. Still, it’s a bit of a risk. After all, she could fall, break a leg, break someone else’s leg – oh wait, that’s already been tried. But that’s exactly why Coke took the risk with Kwan, because the only risk was her failing to win the gold. She passed the personality and character things with flying colors. So, get used to that face. You’re going to see a lot of it between now and the Olympics. If Michelle Kwan wins the gold, she may never leave your living room.

This year’s Sugar Bowl is proving to be a landmark in more than ways than one. Not only is it the first time that the game has ever been played outside of the city of New Orleans, but it will markthe last year that Nokia will be the title sponsor. The mobile phone company is giving up it sponsorship following this year’s game after a 12 year run. Fox, which takes over the broadcast of the BCS games other than the Rose Bowl next year,, will be in charge of finding a new sponsor.

A press release was issued yesterday by General Sports and Entertainment LLC, a company owned by former Detroit Pistons executive Andy Appleby announcing announcing that it had entered into a letter of intent to purchase the St. Louis Blues and the operating lease on the Savvis Center, the Blues home arena. There was no further comment from either Appleby or Blues owners Bill and Nancy Laurie. The Blues have been on the sale block for some time and this is the second letter of intent that the Lauries have executed.

Appleby owns a minor league baseball team and a minor league hockey team. He has never owned a major league franchise in any sport. With the sales history of the Blues and what little information is known about Appleby, it is hard to judge how optimistic to be about the chances for success of this sale or what the sale could mean for St. Louis or the team should it occur. Appleby has a successful background as a sports marketing executive with the Pistons and that is certainly something the Blues could use right now as fans are staying away in record numbers. At this point, however, all Blues fans can do is sit and wait to see if Appleby can pull off the sale and see what are his plans for the team.

Forbes released its annual survey of the value of NBA franchises and several things me when I was first looking over the list. The first is that winning has very little to do with where a club places on the list. Market size is far more of a factor than the quality of the team that takes the floor; otherwise how could you ever explain that the Knicks? How long has it been since the Knicks were anything but pathetic on the court?

Look at the next few names on the list and what do you see? First, you see another team whose winning days have been in the past, the soap opera formerly known as the Lakers. Then we have the always up and coming, but never really there, Rockets followed by the Bulls. Now, the Bulls were a decent fan story last year but hardly a true winner, and that followed several years of dismal teams after MJ retired. For true winners, we have to get to the next names on the list, the Mavs, Pistons, Suns and Heat.

So, what is it that drives market value? Like baseball, market value is driven in great part by not only size of market, but also the ability to craft a favorable regional television contract. That too is often, but not always, a function of market size. It is also a function of enlightened and savvy management, something with which many of the teams at the bottom of the list have not been blessed.

This list makes clear something else that is vital to NBA teams, but is often overlooked in discussions about NBA finance – ticket sales. One of the strong factors in the Knicks value is the ability to consistently sell out Madison Square Garden, which brings in $74 million in annual ticket revenue. One of the problems that teams in the bottom third of the list have is the inability to consistently sell out their games. While that may be due in great part to losing teams, that is only partly true. As we have seen, the Knicks certainly aren’t winners and effective marketers will be able to sell tickets even to losing teams if they can make the experience enjoyable enough to entice families to want to come. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has written extensively about the hard work his staff puts in year round into selling tickets. It takes an all-consuming effort to be successful. You can’t just rely on the team’s success to expect to draw fans to games. Do that, and in a few years your team will either be for sale or you’ll be making noises about moving the team for lack of fan support.

The Miami high school that was the focus of a New York Times profile on schools giving easy grades to athletes to make them eligible for college athletic scholarships is closing at the end of 2005. The school and its owner are under investigation by the Florida officials including the Attorney General’s office and the Miami-Dade State’s Attorney.

Also yesterday, NCAA President Myles Brand announced the formation of a 17 member panel to study correspondence and other nontraditional routes to college in an attempt to set standards for athletic eligibility and scholarships. The panel will study four areas:
1. NCAA criteria and approval process for core courses
2. Time limits on core courses
3. Adequacy of core courses at prep schools
4. Requirements for reporting ACT and SAT scores to the NCAA

While I applaud the NCAA for finally taking the steps to examine these areas, I remain amazed that it took this long and the series in the New York Times to get there. Clearly, there has been ongoing academic fraud being perpetrated on a wholesale basis for years now. The NCAA has had such loose standards and oversight of the clearinghouse process that it effectively has been non-existent.

That any of the “graduates” of University High were admitted to major state universities, much less given scholarships and eligibility by the NCAA should be a major embarrassment for everyone involved, from the admissions officers to the coaches and the athletics offices. That the NCAA is finally acting is commendable. I wait with great anticipation to see what comes out of the committee’s deliberations.

Earlier this week, Gator Bowl officials were complaining that Louisville was having difficulty selling out its allotment of tickets for the bowl game to be played in Alltel Stadium on January 2, 2006. “To be honest, the response from Louisville hasn’t been what we expected, based on what they told us they thought they could do,” Gator Bowl president Rick Catlett said.

As the week went on, the Gator Bowl officials may have cause to change their tune. Not only has Louisville sold out its original allotment, but it has requested an additional 1,000 tickets for the team’s family and friends and now is estimated the total Louisville fans attending the game to be well in excess of 20,000. In fact, word from Jacksonville is that Virginia Tech has released some of the hotel rooms that they had originally been obligated by the Gator Bowl to reserve. So, Mr. Catlett, it appears that you owe the Cardinals and their fans an apology.

What is the name of a city worth? Well, if your city is Anaheim, California, your name is worth at least nine figures according to your lawyers. In the city’s ongoing lawsuit against the Angels, the City of Anaheim intends to ask for damages of in excess of $100 million in the event the Angels are found to have broken their lease. The damage estimate is based in part on the “hundreds of millions of impressions” lost through the term of the lease, which ran until 2029.

While the Angels contend that the city received its revenue sharing, I think the Angels have a good chance of making their claims stand up. If the court agrees, I believe that Angels owner, Arte Moreno, may well decide that changing the name back again is far cheaper and more beneficial in the long run than paying out damages to the City of Anaheim.

As American cities contemplate bidding on the 2016 Summer Olympics, they are taking inventory of the existing assets in the city and determining what would have to be built in order to make a credible bid. First and foremost, for any American bid to succeed, a way has to be found for Cuba to participate in the World Baseball Classic. An appeal has been filed by Major League Baseball and the Players Association and Cuba has offered to donate any money it would have received to victims of Hurricane Katrina. If Cuba remains barred, IOC executives have indicated that the US will not host the Olympics again. How long the position will last, remains to be seen.

Assuming a way out this mess made by the Bush Administration amateurish handling of the permit issue is found, Chicago is one of the cities contemplating a bid for 2016 Olympics. Mayor Daley realizes that a new stadium is a necessity and has floated the possibility of constructing a new domed stadium near the campus of the University of Illinois Chicago, which could be used by UIC after the Olympics are done. The proposed tenant for this dome, you ask? No, not the Bears, since they play in a newly renovated Soldiers Field. A new NFL team is what Hizzoner, Jr. has in mind. Where is this team going to come from is not yet determined, as the NFL has made it clear that expansion is not on the agenda and the league would like the Saints to return to New Orleans.

Of course, as we have discussed here several times, if the Saints can’t make it in New Orleans, their likely destination is not Chicago but Los Angeles. After all, Los Angeles is the primary relocation destination for any NFL team according to the Commissioner. However, if the Saints move there , then I suppose the next couple of teams with stadium problems could become prime candidates for Chicago, specifically the Vikings. The entrance price to Chicago that would have to be paid to the Bears I imagine would be huge and I don’t really think Chicago is ready to support another team. The population is there, just not the desire. The Bears have the heart and soul of Chicago and did all the time the Cardinals were there. Daley needs to come up with another idea for the Olympics than a new NFL team for Chicago.