Brewers Try Viral Marketing

This is the time of year when it is often hard to sell baseball tickets. School is not yet out so kids often can't go to night games. The weather is often uncooperative, especially in northern cities and the pennant races are a just a distant dream of September. It's the time to try out new promotions and still try to sell season ticket packages.

The Milwaukee Brewers, unexpectedly sitting in last place in the NL Central, are trying a new approach to selling tickets. They are trying a form of viral marketing, using their season ticket holders. An email was sent out to the season ticket holders asking them to forward the email on to their friends. The recipients would be given an offer to purchase tickets to a series with the Dodgers and receive tickets to a series with the white hot Diamondbacks. The original season ticket holder would get club level seats to a D-back game if one of the people to whom they forwarded the email actually bought tickets.

What a great idea! I'll be very interested in hearing how the promotion turns out. If anyone is in Milwaukee, please let me know what you hear. The Brewers believe that no one else in MLB had tried it before and I have not heard of anyone else in one of the four or five majors (MLS included) having done so. It's a little bit hard for me to believe but so be it. The Brewers choice of the Diamondbacks as the giveaway is a little suspect as I think the D-backs probably would have been a big draw on their own the way they have been playing, but I guess the promotion was dreamed up before the D-backs got hot.

Almost Preakness Day

It's Black-Eyed Susan Stakes Day at Pimlico, which means tomorrow is Preakness Day, the most overlooked and overshadowed jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown. The Preakness has the misfortune of being the second race and the shortest and comes too close to the Derby, being only two weeks later. The proximity to the grinding mile and a quarter of the Derby causes many of the losing Derby horses to skip the Preakness for freshening with an eye towards going after the Derby winner in the Belmont, which comes three weeks after the Preakness.

Being a somewhat overlooked race bodes well for Big Brown as he will face only one other Derby horse in Gayego. Big Brown will go off as the odds on favorite to win in a race that almost everyone will be wishing and hoping to see both the colt win and all of the horses to complete without incident.

In an all too familiar pattern, Big Brown's principal owners IEAH has announced that Big Brown will not race past this year. An announcement about where he will stand at stud and the deal that will be made with the stud farm and his stallion syndication was supposed to have been made yesterday but the announcement was postponed as the deal apparently fell through. For IEAH to get the maximum value from the syndication deal, he better win tomorrow. Leaving value aside for the moment, retiring Big Brown after six races, assuming he goes on to run in the Belmont, is no good for either the industry or horse racing fans. Big Brown has the potential to be the star the industry needs to help rebuild its fan base. It would be a great benefit to the industry to see him, like Curlin, run as a four year old. More importantly, for the benefit of the breed, it is important to see him run as much as possible to determine if his bad feet are a condition that would ultimately be a conformation and racing flaw that would be passed along to his offspring. As we discussed earlier, the injury problem with horses as shown with Eight Belles and Barbaro is attributable, in my opinion, mostly to breeding horses for quick sale rather than for racing durability. Early retirement of quality horses to the breeding shed only reinforces the problem.



The owners of Pimlico are praying for more than just a safe trip of all of the horse tomorrow. Among other things, the principal owners of Magna Entertainment are praying that the weather forecast calling for a sunny day with highs in the seventies comes true as it will help bring out a crowd. Pimlico definitely needs a crowd as the viability of the track is more and more dependent on the Preakness. The failure of Maryland to pass legislation allowing slot machines at the track has put the continued operation of Pimlico, and with it the location and perhaps the date of the Preakness, in question. The Preakness has been sponsors and corporate tent buyers in recent years and the current economy is helping matters. Although attendance was a record 121,000 last year corporate sales were down. Even though the Preakness managed to drive Pimlico's profit up, Magna lost over $100 million last year. It wouldn't take too many down years at Pimlico to put the Preakness in jeopardy.

DC United Gets Shirt Deal

DC United became the ninth MLS team to have a jersey sponsor today with the announcement that Volkswagen would sponsor the team's jersey. VW will the club $14 million over 5 seasons making the deal the second richest jersey deal in the league behind the $5 million a year deal that Herbalife has with David Beckham, - oops, I mean the LA Galaxy. Volkswagen has also agreed to become the official car sponsor of MLS, replacing Honda whose deal ended this season. The league has been without a car sponsor since the season began. VW has recently moved it US headquarters to Herndon, Virginia, just outside DC.

BCS Confirms Big East Membership

While the lead story coming from last week's meeting of the BCS Commissioners was that there would be no change in the structure of the BCS Bowl Championship Series, meaning no playoffs and no adoption of the Plus One format, the more important decision for fans of the University of Louisville (and most of you know I am one) was the reaffirmation of the participation of the current six conferences through the end of the 2013 season. That means that the participation of the Big East is secure despite the harping of some sportswriters.

There was a very complicated mathematical formula applied taking into account Top 25 rankings, BCS bowl performances, conference rankings and other measures. The formula was first derived when the ACC raided the Big East and the Big East was forced to search for new members back in 2003. At that time, the formula was put in place to give the Big East an adjustment period which ended this year. However, it was the reconfigured ACC which actually found itself in greater danger of falling prey to the vagaries of the formula. Its performance since the raid has been far inferior to that of the Big East under all of the different categories used to measure continued membership. However, all is well under the Big Tent and none of the Big Six are going anywhere. They will continue to cut up Fox's and ABC's money among themselves and go home happy.

Eight Belles Leaves More Questions Then Answers

Before I get into the Eight Belles issues, let me first say a few words about Big Brown. I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong and I was very wrong about this Derby. I didn't think that Big Brown could get a mile and quarter off of only three races and especially when he would have to use up so much energy coming so wide of the field. Well, he's a whole lot better colt then I gave him credit for, or he was really juiced or some combination of the two. I lean towards the latter. He is a whole lot better than I gave him credit for and we'll never know about the juice. He shouldn't be challenged in the Preakness but the Belmont should be very interesting.

The Eight Belles tragedy raises several questions about the conduct of thoroughbred racing and breeding, some of which I discussed in my pre-Derby post, but will get into in a little more complete way today. The horse racing and breeding industry is going to have to do some serious soul searching and take a good hard look at the way it has been doing business if it is to restore the public's confidence and regain the public's interest in the sport.

There is no quick fix to a rash of breakdowns, if there is even a rash occurring. We may think there is as a result of Eight Belles and Barbaro in just three years, but Eight Belles is the first fatal injury in the Derby in at least 80 years and perhaps ever, although records and history are a little sketchy. It just so happens that the two horses were injured in the only races that most of the country seems to care about.

Three factors stand out in addressing fatal injuries. One is the condition of the racing surface. Churchill Downs is a dirt track. Whether synthetic surfaces reduce the rate of injuries is something that is too early to tell, but is being studied by vets and race tracks. The results will determine the course of tracks in the future. With the history of the Derby, and the care taken with the track, it's only natural for Churchill Downs to be one of the last track to switch away from dirt. I should point out that there is no indication that track conditions had anything to do with Eight Belles' injury.

The two major factors I believe are breeding and medication. Over the last twenty years, there has been a radical shift in the breeding industry as breeders have bred almost exclusively for the sales market rather than for racing themselves. As a result, importance is placed on how the animal looks in the show ring (conformation)and the pedigree line, rather than the ultimate track performance. This has led to inbreeding to successful sire lines and the unwillingness to try and inject new blood into the breed since buyers are reluctant to take chances. Sellers will often have surgery performed on young animals to correct conformation defects at a very early age thereby hiding problems which will be passed on to later offspring or will arise once the horse is placed into training. As Jon Weinbach showed in his Wall Street Journal article every horse in this year's Derby could be traced back to Native Dancer. That inbreeding is bound to produce problems.

Medication is an issue the thoroughbred industry refuses to face. America is the only nation in the world were a horse is allowed to be given race day medication. Why we allow the medication of horses in training that can mask an unsound horse's troubles or allow for the medication of horses in the weeks leading up to sales, is a question I have never seen adequately answered. That question is likely to continue to dog this year's Triple Crown quest, given the sketchy past of Rick Dutrow, Big Brown's trainer, who has received multiple suspensions for illegally medicating his horses. The thoroughbred industry needs to get together and agree that all drugs should be banned and no horse should run on anything but hay, oats and water - just like the rest of the world.

Finally, and this relates back to breeding, the industry should push for longer races, particularly at the stakes and allowance level. This would force breeders to breed more for stamina instead of just speed as they do now, since buyers would increasingly be looking for stamina in the horses they would want to purchase.

I may be living in a fantasy world thinking that racing would adopt any of these suggestions. Racing is notoriously fragmented and slow to react to change. However, the uproar that has greeted the industry in response to the Eight Belles tragedy may just be enough to provoke real action. Horse racing is supposed to be the stuff of dreams, right?

Computer Crash

My apologies for the intermittent posting over the last few days - it will be like that for the next week or so as well. My computer has probably breathed its last. It crashed last week and the Geek Squad believes it to be beyond repair at a reasonable price. That means I'm borrowing my wife's machine for periodic checks of email and sundry other things but my usage is limited. Posting will be accordingly light.

It also means that I will be in the market for a new laptop. I'm not sure what I want to buy since I didn't plan on buying this soon and haven't really been thinking about it. The thought of making the jump to a Mac has appeal but the price doesn't. I am still thinking about getting one for under$850, preferably well under and am soliciting any and all suggestions, comments and helpful advice, war stories, etc. I need to start researching but keep putting it off.

A posting about the Derby will be forthcoming as soon as time allows.

Three Questions For Handicapping Derby 134

It's Thursday of Derby Week and here in the River City that means it's Pegasus Parade Day. The Parade goes off around 5:00 tonight and is Louisville's answer to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, only without the bearded guy in the red suit. It's a light day for the horses and no event real events surround the race

Yesterday was the post position draw and that brings us to Question number 1 (the questions are in no particular order of importance). How important will post position be? Derby morning line favorite Big Brown will break from post position 20, on the extreme outside. That post position has seen only one winner in the race's history, Clyde Van Dusen in 1929, but Big Brown has the speed to get out early and away from the cavalry charge that is the post charge from the gate. Whether he uses up too much getting away from the field may determine his fate. Second choice, Colonel John, (my current pick still subject to change) will break from the 10 spot, an almost perfect post position. Third choice, Pyro has the post position 9 just inside Colonel John and has a great spot as well.

Question number two deals with the racing surface and for this question Colonel John and Pyro are the poster boys. Will the horses who have raced primarily on synthetic tracks to the Churchill Down dirt? Colonel John who has raced exclusively in Southern California has never run a race on dirt. He has trained well all week and posted some terrific work out numbers but that's not the same thing as racing on dirt. How he reacts to the dirt, especially if it turns out muddy is impossible to judge at this point. I loved his Santa Anita Derby - it was the most impressive run I saw all Spring but I have nagging doubts about how he will handle the Downs dirt.

Pyro presents a somewhat different problem. Never worse than third in six starts over a variety of tracks and conditions, the Louisiana Derby winner flamed out in the Bluegrass Stakes over Keeneland's polytrack synthetic surface, finishing tenth. Do you just throw the race out and figure he will revert to form when he returns to the dirt at Churchill Downs or was the Bluegrass a signal that something is wrong with the colt? It's often the case that a horse running on a different surface for the first time won't run well so the Bluegrass truly could be just an aberration worth throwing out when trying to decide if Pyro is worth betting. Still, the drop in form was huge and I rather prefer Colonel John although the price might not be as large as I hoped given Big Brown's post position.

Question number 3 is the same one dogging human sports: what is the effect of performance enhancing drugs? The return to the Derby of Rick Dutrow, Big Brown's trainer, brings the issue back to the forefront. While there is no evidence that he is doping Big Brown, he has a bit of a checkered past. In 2005, he served a 60 day suspension when two horses tested positive for prohibited drugs and he had a claiming violation. Last year he had a one week suspension because of a medication overage in one of his horses and a two week suspension for violating his 2005 ban by having contact with one of his horses. In addition to Dutrow, Steve Asmussen served a six month suspension in 2007 for a medication violation in Louisiana. Does that mean that either of them is using banned substances on their Derby horses? Of course not, but it does indicate that horse racing is no more immune from the performance enhancing substance controversy than any other sport and that it is a problem that the horse racing community needs to address. It needs to focus on and face squarely and publicly and not sweep under the rug. It also presents an X factor in trying to handicap the Derby because it is a great unknown and unknowable.

So, three questions to ponder as we sit two days before Derby and one day before the Oaks. Today, I like Colonel John to win and I'll include him in an exacta box with at least Z Fortune (Steve Asmussen trained and Robbie Albarado jockey) a play on the jockey as much as anything, with one or more of Monba, Eight Belles and Tale of Erkati on the bottom. I just don't think that Big Brown can get 1 mile and 1/4.

The American Invasion of Serie A is On

Having thoroughly ingratiated itself into the ownership ranks of the English Premier League, American billionaires are looking for new sports horizons to climb. It appears that the Italian Serie A will be the next target now the new Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has given his blessing. Berlusconi, the billionaire owner of AC Milan has approved the proposed takeover of AS Roma by American billionaire George Soros, had been thought to oppose foreign ownership. However, he made it clear that he has no objection.

"If someone comes in who can make the fans happy by strengthening the squad, he's more than welcome," Berlusconi told a local radio station.

While Roma would not confirm that Soros was the prospective buyer, he has been rumored to be the purchaser for weeks. Soros denied comment, but has not denied interest in the purchase. Italian media has reported the price as being $400 million for the 67% interest owned by a company controlled by the Sensi family.

UPDATE: Trading in shares of AS Roma was halted earlier today on the Milan stock exchange amid reports that George Soros had withdrawn his offer to purchase the club. Shares had dropped over 11% before closing off 9% percent when trading was halted.

Will It Be An All American Champions League Final?

Manchester United defeated Barcelona 1-0 today at Old Trafford securing its place in the Champions League final in Moscow on May 21. With the victory an all England final is assured. Man U's opponent will be determined in tomorrow's semifinal between Chelsea and Liverpool.

A win by Liverpool at Chelsea's home ground at Stamford Bridge will result in the unprecedented event of a Champions League final between two clubs owned by Americans. European soccer's most prestigious club tournament would be contested between clubs owned by Americans. I can't imagine what will do to psyches all across Europe. There were practically riots in Manchester when the Glazers bought Manchester United. Fans picketed Old Trafford and protested the purchase. It has taken winning to bring them around.

Liverpool's ownership is a mess. Tom Hicks and George Gillett bought the club a year ago and the partnership has been dysfunctional practically from the start. Gillett, the owner of the Montreal Canadiens, has attempted to sell his 50% interest to Dubai International, the vehicle of Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, only to be blocked at every turn by Hicks. However, to date, Hicks has not exercised his right to buy Gillett out. Despite the problems in the owner's suite, the team keeps winning.

Chelsea doesn't have ownership problems - Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is the free spending owner - its problems this year have been around playing time and coaching issues. When Jose Morinho left early in the season and was replaced by Avram Grant, an Israeli unaccustomed to the rigors of the Premier League and the Champions League, the doubters were out in force. Taking the Blues into the semifinals as well as back into the Premiership race has silenced the critics - for now.

As always, the Champions League and English clubs provide a wealth of good storylines. The addition of Americans only makes the stories more upsetting to all the Britons reading the daily tabs.

Profting From the Army All American Game

Ever wonder how the players are chosen for the US Army All American High School All Star football game? Ever wonder where the money goes from all those ticket sales and the television rights that NBC pays to televise the game? Well, wonder no more, for this morning the Wall Street Journal has answered all your questions.

It turns out that game is the brainchild and money making machine of two former New Jersey politicians, Douglas Berman and Richard McGuinness have parlayed the game into quite a profitable empire, consisting of the game, invitation only summer camps for promising young players from the age of 12 and up, and sponsorship. The US Army, for instance, now pays more than $2 million annually for naming rights and exposure throughout the company's programs. There are at least a dozen other sponsors, including Russell Athletic which pays $500,000 to $600,000 annually.

The two are doing fairly well for themselves I would say - just another pair of guys profiting mightily on the dreams of high schoolers for an athletic scholarship to college. This has become a major industry in this country, with summer camps in almost every sport you can imagine. The fees for these camps are high, Berman and McGuinness charge $500 for a three day camp, and the payoff is far from assured. Many kids attend three or four of these camps a year, starting in middle school. The investment by parents in these camps is enormous and the disparity in opportunity between kids with parents able to afford these camps and those who can't is vast.

I can't fault Berman and McGuinness for seeing an opportunity and capitalizing on it. It's the system that disturbs me, but I'm not sure there is a good solution to the problem. Perhaps the NCAA can work with the National High School Federation to set up some ground rules and restrictions to promote equity, but then again, the NCAA is probably the last organization you would want to get involved in rule making.

Tuesday Tidbits

There have been a number of articles and blog posts worthy of your time and attention in the last couple of days so here are a few of them:

Danica Patrick's win at the Japan Indy 300 on Sunday has transformed her from the Anna Kournikova of motor racing - all beauty, no wins - into a champion. Forbes and my friend Darren Rovell weigh in on the impact on her endorsement potential (all good as you might expect) and Darren catches up with Danica for a one on one.

Interesting article in the New York Times about the continuing tension between bloggers and the teams they attempt to cover on a daily basis and the important question of who owns the games being covered.

The Times strikes again with an article about the owner of Kentucky Derby contender Big Brown, a syndicated partnership modeled on a hedge fund which its principal owner hopes will help him raise as much as $100 million to invest in thoroughbreds. The Times article makes it sound as if this has never been tried before. It has. Back in the go-go years of the early 1980s, syndications along this line were all the rage on Wall Street and along shed row - they petered out with the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and I'm not sure that any of them turned out to be a financial success for anyone except perhaps the promoters and their attorneys.

The Wall Street Journal brings us a story about a different sort of syndication entering the sports world. This time it's a public company only the promoters won't say what the money raised will be used to do. It's called a SPAC, a special purpose acquisition company, and there are plenty of them coming public in the last few months. Most have the housing crisis as their reason for existence but this one intends to pursue sports acquisition, specifically teams in major professional leagues and perhaps Nascar. It's an interesting approach and it gives Andrew Murstein, the man behind the company and the owner of a taxi financing empire in New York City, a $216 million warchest to go hunting.

NBA Owners Ignore Lawsuits, Approve Sonics Move to OKC

Capping off a week of revelations and threats, the NBA Board of Governors today approved the move of the Sonics to that noted metropolitan area of Oklahoma City despite the continued existence of a lease with the Key Center in Seattle through 2010, and ongoing litigation with the City of Seattle over the terms of that lease. Ignoring legal niceties, Clay Bennett and his merry band of Raiders convinced the Board of Governors to confirm the plan they hatched when they bought the team from Howard Schultz.

This week saw the revelation of internal emails among the Raiders which would lead a reasonable outsider to believe that the group had no intention of keeping the Sonics in Seattle. That will be a very significant point in both the existing litigation in which the Raiders are attempting to terminate the Key Center lease and truck out early and in the proposed suit by Howard Schultz, first announced this week, for a return of the team as a result of a breach of the purchase agreement by the Raiders. The basis of that suit, if filed, is that Clay Bennett and his merry men failed to make good faith efforts to keep the team in Seattle. Nice of Schultz to try to ride to the rescue of the Sonics at the eleventh and a half hour, much as he was recalled to save Starbucks, but let's not forget that had he been more concerned about the city when the Sonics went on the market, he would have called Steve Ballmer and sold the team to him instead of Bennet and the Raiders. Then, none of this would have happened. Sure, he might have made a little less money, but the Sonics would be in Seattle and he still would have made a fortune on the sale.

Why David Stern is hell bent on seeing the team leave Seattle remains a mystery to me. It is especially mystifying as to why he is so intent on moving to OKC, a market that is, what, the 45th largest media market in the country? Sure, they supported the Hornets for two years while in exile from New Orleans and maybe the Hornets should have stayed there, but to leave Seattle, which has supported the team for 41 years and is the 13th largest media market in the US and will be by far the largest without a NBA team. It doesn't make sense despite the sweetheart lease deal. It doesn't make sense from the standpoint of the league as whole and if allowed to stand should be rectified by putting a team in Seattle in a Cleveland Browns style expansion/relocation (the Hornets come to mind) as quickly as possible.

A NFL Stadium for LA that Works?

Real estate developer, billionaire and partner in the Staples Center, the Lakers and the Kings, Ed Roski today unveiled a proposal for a new stadium in the City of Industry, about 20 miles east of downtown LA. The proposed stadium will have 75,000 seats and will cost upwards of $800 million. Roski already controls the land and, importantly, has already completed an environmental impact statement.

The question is does the NFL care anymore, and do the folks in LA even want a team? It's clear that the owners have far more pressing problems on the agenda at this point than putting a team in Los Angeles, not the least of which is the upcoming battle with the players over the likely re-opening of the collective bargaining agreement, which is likely to happen this fall. Expansion is no longer likely so to put a team in Los Angeles would require the relocation of an existing franchise. There are no shortage of possible candidates. The three that spring to mind are the Saints, the Bills and the Vikings, all of whom have stadium issues to work out.

The league will go out of its way to see the Saints stay in New Orleans and it is far more likely that the Saints will survive there than will the Hornets. The Bills are in the process of working out a new relationship with Toronto that may make their continued presence in Buffalo viable, perhaps as a regional team playing games in both cities. Minnesota still needs to work out a stadium deal and until that is done, the likelihood of relocation is high. Will that be to Los Angeles? That is a stretch at this point as there is a great deal yet to be done to get from this announcement to a team. I should point out that on the day of Roski's press conference, the state legislature blocked the City of Industry's plan to divert $800 million in property taxes to subsidize the project.

Duke's Legal Team Goes 0-2

Duke just can't seem to get out of its own way when it comes to the lacrosse case. It seems to always make the wrong choice each and every time. Today, the mighty Blue Devils legal team went 0-2 in court, losing hearings in cases brought by former lacrosse coach Mike Pressler and the 38 non-indicted players on the lacrosse team.

First, let's talk about the completely misguided attempt by the University and the City of Durham to shut down a blog maintained by the players to discuss the progress of their case against Duke and the City. The lawyers for Duke and the City asked a federal judge to shut down the site, Dukelawsuit.com, and to sanction the lawyers for the players for violating the North Carolina Code of Professional Responsibility. In a hearing held today, Chief District Court Judge James A. Beaty, Jr. rightly declined to do so.

Meanwhile, back in Durham Superior Court, Judge Howard Manning ruled that Mike Pressler could continue his claims against Duke and University spokesman John Burness. He found that the settlement agreement reached between the university and Pressler nullified any obligation that Pressler had to submit to arbitration.

While these were procedural rulings and don't address the merits of the cases, let's just hope that they are a sign of things to come. Maybe this is an indication that Duke's attorneys will fare no better in this morass than their clients performed. In that case, justice may finally be served.

Fantasy Fishing, Yes Fishing, For a $1,000,000

As if the Internet didn't already give you enough reasons to waste time, now comes along FLW Outdoors and fantasy fishing. If you can wildly guess which team of 10 fishermen each week will pull the largest number of bass out of the lake in that week's FLW Outdoors tournament you stand a chance of winning $1,000,000.

Do you think this is just tailor made for the few people who can manage to find Versus on their cable outlets? Apparently not as comScore reports at least 132,000 visited FantasyFishing.com in February. That's likely to be far more people then tune in to the average telecast of a fishing tournament on Versus - in fact it may be more people than actually know where Versus is located on their cable system.

Who would ever have guessed there could be this kind of money in fishing, much less fake fishing? The wonders of the Internet will never cease.