You just have to love the Dodgers; they’re just a fountain of stories this year.  It will be almost a shame to see the McCourts divorce ever get settled.  Now, the amazingly bizarre stories have spread to the dugout.  Former Dodger pitcher Chan Ho Park has sued his former batterymate, claiming that catcher Chad Krueter stiffed him on a $460,000 loan. 

Park, now pitching for the Phillies, loaned the money to Krueter in 2005.  Krueter signed a promissory note but according to Park’s complaint, made only one payment of $290,000.  Park wants the balance together with unpaid interest and fees totaling $226,358.76.

I wonder if the Dodgers can negotiated a bulk rate on court costs with the LA County Superior Court.

I’ll be traveling with my family between now and New Year’s so expect posting to be sporadic if at all.  In the meantime, gorge yourself on eggnog and bowl games and I’ll be back with you in full force come the new year.

Best wishes to all of you for a belated Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas and for all of you my hope that you have a safe, happy, prosperous and above all, healthy new year to you and your family.

Finally, I can’t wait to see Fitz lead the Cats win their first bowl since 1949, on New Years Day no less, when the War Eagles go down in flames.

Reality, this is the NFL; NFL, this is Reality, now shake hands and come out with real plans to deal with concussions.  After years of studies that were performed in a manner similar to those conducted by cigarette manufacturers into the safety of long-term tobacco use, the NFL has finally acknowledged that concussions can lead to long-term problems in the brain. 
 
In a telephone interview on Sunday, league spokesman Greg Aiello said, “It’s quite obvious from the medical research that’s been done that concussions can lead to long-term problems.”  Of course, he wasn’t referring to the league’s own studies which have been so badly mismanaged and biased that the league has been forced to suspend them and receive the resignations of the co-chairmen of its concussion committee.

The NFL has finally begun to revamp its rules regarding concussions.  Players now must be cleared by brain-injury experts unaffiliated with the team, and cannot return to a game or practice in which they have shown any significant sign of concussion.  Hopefully, these rule changes will be implemented at all levels of football and other contact sports including hockey and maybe even lacrosse, although the incidents of concussion in lacrosse are certainly not as frequent.  The long-term cost of concussion is present no matter what, the severity of the brain damage is usually determined by the frequency of the concussions or the closeness in time between multiple concussions.  Any rules and practices that can minimize those factors should be welcome by all sports administrators for the benefit of the sports and all those who play them.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Since Christmas is fast approaching, and you may be running out of ideas for gifts, I thought I would share a list of some of the sports and sports business related books from 2009 that I have enjoyed this year and found worthy of recommending.  There are in no particular order and in the case of The Blind Side, was just reissued in 2009 to tie-in with the movie (which you should go see if you haven’t).

If you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi

When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird, Earvin “Magic” Johnson with Jackie MacMullan

Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itselff, by Michael Shapiro

Never Make the First Offer: (Except When You Should) Wisdom from a Master Dealmaker (Portfolio), by Donald Dell with John Boswell

What Were They Thinking?: The Brainless Blunders That Changed Sports History, by Kyle Garlett

The Blind Side , by Michael Lewis

Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey–and Even Iraq–Are Destined to Become the Kings of the Worlds Most Popular Sport by Simon Kuper and Stefan Syzmanski

The Beckham Experiment by Grant Wahl

The NBA should soon have its second major international owner, as Chinese investor Albert Hung has finalized a deal to purchase a fifteen percent in the Cleveland Cavaliers, which would make him the team’s second largest owner behind the club’s principal owner Dan Gilbert.  The sale needs to be approved by the league’s Board of Governors.

The sale to Hung is likely to accelerate the expansion of NBA activity in China, especially that of the Cavaliers and LeBron James.  It may well become a factor in the free agent wooing of James at the end of the season.  James has extensive endorsement activities in China which would undoubtedly could be enhanced through the connections possessed by Mr. Hung.  Since LeBron is on a quest to become a billionaire, that endorsement edge in the Chinese market combined with the Cavs ability to pay more than any other team and the Cavs hometown appeal may all combine to keep LeBron in Cleveland.  At least Dan Gilbert hopes so.

With this Tiger story it doesn’t seem to matter when you decide to write a story, pen a post or whatever, it will be out of date almost as soon as it is released.  No sooner had I posted yesterday’s post on the impact of Tiger’s behavior on his endorsement empire, then Accenture announced it was terminating its relationship with him.  Of course, this had been foreshadowed by his disappearance from the company’s website as I reported yesterday, but Accenture’s announcement marks the first company to publicly break with Tiger.

Accenture found itself in a no-win situation.  It had built its entire marketing campaign around Tiger, with its ads carrying the tag line “Go, Be a Tiger” for the last six years.  It has been a highly successful campaign according to the company and the company is now forced into a high stakes rush to find a new marketing campaign.  In the meantime, I would assume that airport billboards around the world will be changed to remove Tiger and replace that picture with something carrying just the company logo.

I’ve refrained from commenting on the ongoing Tiger affairs, since so long as they were nothing but tabloid  fodder, I felt no reason to add anything to a story that I felt, and still feel, is mostly personal and not worthy of the attention it is receiving.  Now, that Tiger has announced his temporary suspension of play on the Tour, and it appears that his centi-million endorsement empire is beginning to implode, it becomes a story worthy of our attention.  I hope that Tiger and Elin find a solution that works for them away from the prying eyes of the public; I’m somewhat doubtful that will be the case.

Manny Pacquaio and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. have purportedly agreed to all of the major terms of a deal to fight each other on March 13, with an announcement coming as soon as Tuesday.  Top Rank is promoting the fight which may turn out to be one of the highest grossing fights on record.  For Bob Arum and Top Rank’s sake, it better be.

Each fighter will earn $20 million for the fight, with the possibility of earning as much as $40 million, depending on the pay-per-view returns.  Interest in staging the fight has come from  Las Vegas, Dallas and New Orleans.  Las Vegas was originally thought to be the site, as the MGM Grand has hosted several fights for both fighters, but there has been interest in placing the fight in new Cowboys Stadium, which I’m sure intrigues Arum. 

This could be Paquaio’s last fight for some time as he will be returning to the Phillipines following the fight to run for Congress.  That race, if successful, is preparatory, many believe, to a run for the President.  With his popularity and charisma, he will make a formidable politician.

In the spirit of my earlier post about markets that would be able to support major professional sports franchises, here is a list of eight franchise relocations that fell through.  In several cases, we can all consider ourselves blessed that the proposed relocations collapsed (the Saskatoon Blues?).  Then, there are the novel franchise swaps that in one case happened and in one case didn’t.  In the one that didn’t, can you imagine what it might have been like if The Great One had been plying his trade in the renamed Maple Leaf Forum in Toronto rather than Los Angeles after being traded from Edmonton?  Gretzky was already a huge hit with the Toronto media but had he been playing for the hometown team, it would have been rock star like – Beatles proportion.