• 9+1
• Number of fingers most people have
• The number of heads Ravana has in Ramayana (yes, you can only see 9 heads in the picture, but this doesn’t matter)

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with all this “10 stuff.” This is the 10th edition of the Sports Business Carnival (if you’re new here, this carnival is a bi-weekly roundup of articles from the best sports business bloggers out there). Check out the links below for some great reads.

Kenji Summers at Sports Agent Blog writes that entertainment guru Jay-Z will start a new advertising agency with long-time friend Steve Stoute. Translation Advertising will help connect brands with multicultural audience, which represents about $2 trillion in buying power, according to the article.

At Biz of Basketball, Maury Brown has an interview with Celtics President Rich Gotham, who discusses the the pressure to have a good team in Boston, finding a presenting sponsor and future plans to focus on content and programming. Very interesting article.

We’ve heard a lot (ok, more than just a lot) about the Roger Clemens saga recently. At The Word on Employment Law, John Phillips offers his take on the situation in a post titled, “Rocket Man.”

CNBC’s Darren Rovell writes that NASCAR needs Dale Jr. to win–for the sake of its TV ratings and sponsors such as adidas and Amp energy drink.

At MMA Payout, Adam Swift presents “Cuban’s HDNet Fights Enters the UFC-Couture War.” For those of you who don’t know the background, Randy Couture (UFC heavyweight champion) doesn’t want to fight with UFC anymore. UFC says he is still under contract and doesn’t want him to fight elsewhere. HDNet Fights wants the court to decide when Couture’s contract expires, so they can potentially plan to set up what could be one of the biggest fights in MMA history – Couture vs. Fedor Emelianenko.

Emmett Jones at Sports Business Digest writes about the NBA’s potential expansion into Europe.

Lastly, I put together a few notes/thoughts from the Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit.

That’s all for the 10th edition of the carnival. Thanks for participating.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates so you don’t miss anything.

The most recent carnival was unique in that it was hosted by Emmett Jones over at Sports Business Digest. I’ve always encouraged participation (though haven’t always done my best about reaching out to everyone), so if you’d like to host one of the carnivals, let me know.

So in the spirit of the 10th edition of the Sports Business Carnival (and because it’s Friday), why not submit an article and start participating? You can submit to me directly (use the contact form and paste in your link) or at our official blog carnival page.

Have a great weekend.

The next Carnival will be back here in about two weeks. Stay tuned for more information on how to participate.

When I started the Sports Business Carnival, the goal was eventually to have other bloggers get involved and host them. For the 9th edition of the carnival (which will be published on Monday, February 4), Emmett Jones of Sports Business Digest has agreed to play host.

Please submit your articles to Emmett at:

emmettjones@sportsbusinessdigest.com

Thanks for your participation in continuing to make this a good resource for sports business bloggers and a way for people to see what some of the best and brightest minds (YOU) are writing about.

On another note, there’s this little event called the Super Bowl this weekend…Enjoy!

Mark at SportsBiz – The Business of Sports Illuminated discusses his thoughts on Turner’s deal with the NBA to operate all of it’s digital assets.

Sports Agent Blog offers the most important factor in negotiation and an 11-step framework for negotiation preparation. I commented that you can’t forget about the human element –ripped straight out of Fisher and Ury’s Getting to Yes (affiliate link), a great book on the merits of negotiating based on principles.

While we still don’t know if there’s any truth to the allegation that Randy Moss assaulted his lady friend, John Phillips, who blogs about legal issues facing the workplace, poses the question, “Are the Patriots liable for his conduct?”

Emmett Jones at Sports Business Digest presents his thoughts on ESPN showing video games some love.

At Sports Marketing and PR Roundup, Joe Favorito offers some tips on how to land a job in the sports business industry.

Z’s Newsbits, which offers a steady diet of blurbs from sports business-related press releases, offers a link that reveals some more details on the new Women’s Professional Soccer league.

MMAPayout posts that sources say that talks between the UFC and CBS are moving forward.

That’s it for this edition. If you’d like to host the next sports business carnival in 2 weeks, let me know. It’d be great to have some of you participate.

For those of you who are new here, the Sports Business Carnival is a bi-weekly collection of articles from some of the brightest sports business bloggers. A variety of sports business topics are covered each week. The goal of this carnival is to not only be a resource to help you keep up with what’s going on in the sports biz segment of the blogosphere, but also to help the individual bloggers gain more exposure.

Take A Peck has hosted these carnivals so far, but I’m open to having other sports biz bloggers host them (as long as they’re willing to scour the internet for relevant articles).

Again, you can submit an article here and be featured in this unique carnival. Have a great night!

After a nice break for the holidays the Sports Business Carnival is back. Check out the links below to see what’s been going on.

Emmett Jones presents “The NFL Shoots, Scores with Winter Classic” at Sports Business Digest.

At Sports Agent Blog, James Alexander Taylor presents, “Sponsorship – A Necessary Evil?”

Adam Swift presents “UFC 79 Review: The Iceman Cometh Again” at Payout: The Business of MMA.

At Sports Marketing and PR Roundup, Joe Favorito presents “Playing Politics…SI Scores with Obama”

Marc Isenberg presents “Money Players Top 10 Biggest Sports Losers in 2007.”

Mark presents “College Basketball’s Most Valuable School – It’s a Tobacco Thing” at SportsBiz – The Business of Sports Illuminated. My Tarheels are #1 (worth $26 million last year) according to Forbes list.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says, “Let Tebow and Other Collegians Profit from Jersey Sales.”

Pat Coyle presents “Sports Marketing 2.0 – A Digital Ecosystem.” Pat also recently started the Sports Marketing 2.0 community, a digital think-tank and for sports marketers in the Web 2.0 world.” Check it out, and if you do, make sure to add me as your friend.

Lastly, I took a look at Super Bowl ticket prices on some secondary ticketing websites. Individual tickets range from $2,680 to over $16,000 ($31k for a spot in a sideline suite). Ridonculous!That’s all for this edition.

If you’d like to submit an article for our next edition (January 21) shoot me an email at jolpid (at) gmail dot com.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates so you don’t miss anything.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmakwanzika! It’s time for the 6th edition of the Sports Business Carnival. Here’s what’s been going on in the world of sports business (or at least what we’ve been blogging about).

Toby Boyce presents, “What the Mitchell Report Teaches Us…” at Sadie’s Take. While it was obviously wrong for players to take PEDs and for baseball to look the other way, Toby compares the situation to the real estate boom, and how everyone tried to take advantage of it, often using questionable tactics.

Adam Swift from MMA Payout, discusses the two promotional models employed in MMA today: Exclusivity (UFC) vs. co-promotion (used by pretty much every other group/entity). The potential Couture-Fedor fight could potentially turn the UFC’s model upside down (Couture is under contract with UFC but wants to fight Fedor, who is with M-1). If the UFC doesn’t work out a deal with M-1 and the fight happens without the UFC, this could definitely have some interesting implications.

At Sports Agent Blog, Jason Wulterkens discusses the two college coaches who received new contracts and major cash recently: Minnesota’s Tubby Smith and Arkansas’s Bobby Petrino. The post highlights some incentives and this provides a very interesting look into what makes up a the contract of a college coach (Tubby Smith in particular).

Sports Media Watch provides us with a reason not to place Google ads on your site—you can’t fully control them. In an article on CNN about steroids, visitors were shown ads for steroid-related websites, since Adwords tries to match ads to content to display results. Nice job, CNN. (note to self-reexamine how my site is using Google Adwords…)

Regardless of what you may think about Roger Clemens being named in the Mitchell Report, Brian Berger of Sports Business Radio presents us with a story about something that can’t be argued: Clemens has made a ton of money in his career. Depending on how everything plays out, Berger says Clemens may have traded a spot in the Hall of Fame for all his millions.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell gives us an interview with MLB President and COO Bob DuPoy, who answers questions about the Mitchell Report and how baseball will move forward.

Joe Favorito of Sports Marketing and PR Roundup gives us his thoughts on the media’s coverage of the Mitchell Report, as well as some lessons and best practices that we can see from a PR standpoint.

There’s a great quote on Money Players by Baron Davis, who talks about how he’s learned about how to deal with the pressures of being an affluent athlete and still trying to keep it real with people in his community. While it’s probably easier said than done, more athletes should try to surround themselves with people who challenge their way of thinking, rather than “friends” who just want to party and have fun.

I recently released a list of 50 sports social networking websites. Check them out and let me know what you think about niche sites. What do you think their long-term viability is? Also, let me know if I’ve missed any.

The Sports Business Carnival will take a break for the holidays and see you back here on January 7th for the next edition. Stay tuned for an announcement about how you can submit an article and be a part of the round-up.

Let’s make this a good one.

If you’re new here, the Sports Business Carnival is a collection of articles from some of the web’s brilliant sports business bloggers that is published every two weeks.

Ladies and Gentleman. Boys and Girls. Amateurs and Professionals. It’s time for the resurrection of the Sports Business Carnival after a brief hiatus. Here’s what’s shakin’ for the 5th edition:

Joe Favorito of Sports Marketing and PR Roundup presents “Dealing with Tragedy and Putting Things in Perspective…Sean Taylor, Joe Kennedy and Nick Saban.” This is a great list principles to work off of when dealing with a crisis.

On Payout: The Business of MMA, Adam Smith presents “Prime Time: Details on MMA’s Looming Network TV Deput and What it Says About the State of the Industry.” NBC and CBS have reportedly been in talks with the UFC to air some fights, and this article goes into more details about this and some of the challenges UFC may face in 2008.

With A-Rod going around his agent, Scott Boras, to negotiate his contract with the Yankees, many people have wondered what happened. A few people have even gone so far as to suggest that all agents are money-grubbers and are unnecessary in today’s world. Darren Heitner from Sports Agent Blog still believes many athletes should have full-time agents and discusses his thoughts for going/not going to an hourly fee system.

Brian Berger of Sports Business Radio gives his thoughts on a tough week for the NFL. From the Sean Taylor shooting, to the abysmal conditions at Heinz field for the Steelers-Dolphins game to the NFL Network’s struggles with reaching a deal with cable companies, Berger gives us his thoughts, which are always interesting and insightful.

Brent Hunsberger of Playbooks and Profits gives us the scoop on Nike’s efforts around the Davis Cup. Interestingly, while Nike’s first paid athlete endorser was a tennis player (Ilie Nastase), tennis shoes now make up only 2% of the sports shoe market, according to one source.

At Biz of Baseball, Maury Brown sheds some light on Chicago Cubs ticket prices, and how they will increase for all types of tickets for 2008.

NFL team websites: they reach more fans than NFL stadiums and people spend a lot of time on them. Pat Coyle of Sports Marketing 2.0 makes his case for why NFL media buys should include team websites.

Paul Sen of Sports Media Watch says the NBA will begin miking players and coaches during nationally televised games. Coaches will also now be interviewed during live games. I’m interested, but will other coaches be…

With ticket scalping being legalized in Missourri, Phil Miller from The Sports Economist discusses some thoughts around legalized scalping and how scalping actually ensures that people who value the tickets the most have access to them.

Emmett Jones of Sports Business Digest presents some reasons given for not changing the current BCS format and his thoughts about them in “The BCS (Bowl Championship Series or Big Cash, Son!)”

Last but not least, Sarah Talalay of The Business of Sports, gives us some details about the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ plan for a new ballpark.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates so you don’t miss anything.

Here’s what’s in the bag for the 4th edition:

Emmett Jones from Sports Business Digest discusses how the battle between cable companies and nets such as ESPNU and NFL Network is hurting fans. So, who’s right? Get over there to weigh in.

The Colorado Rockies plan to sell World Series tickets only online failed. Steven Silvers presents his take on the crisis and how companies can learn from this and remember some basic crisis management principles.

Darren Heitner from Sports Agent Blog presents, “Is Age An Important Factor In Determining Success?” He says experience, not age, is what really matters, and I have to agree with him.

Mark at SportsBiz writes that the shareholders at Cablevision have rejected the Dolans offer to take the company private. However, Mark says that shareholders “may have shot themselves in the foot in an effort to get back at the Dolans” as MSG’s current shares are selling at a price that is well below the offer that the Dolans made.

Charles H. Green presents his take on the Joe Torre-New York Yankees situation and what this can teach the business world. Charles says, “Really great performance doesn’t come from the extrinsic motivation of rewards—it comes from intrinsic motivation,” and this is true in the business world and in the sports world.

At Sports Marketing 2.0, Pat Coyle says that companies should look for the right mix of reach and passion when deciding on a sponsorship. Coyle asks the question, “If you had $1 million to spend on a sponsorship program, what would you spend it on?” and says that NFL team websites may be a good answer in that they can provide a good deal of reach and passion.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell discusses the ongoing battle between Gatorade and Enlyten, a new company that makes dissolvable “SportStrips,” which aid in electrolye replacement. Gatorade has the electrolyte replacement category through their NFL league deal, and seems to have bullied the Buffalo Bills into stopping a deal with Enlyten. Enlyten has filed a lawsuit seeking punitive and compensatory damages and an injunction that will prevent Gatorade from interfering with Enlyten’s business agreements.

Brian Goff from The Sports Economist presents “The NBA: Where Hardly Any Game Matters.” He analyzed how many playoff games actually mattered (the game was one where a team could win or lose the series) and found that only 30% of NBA playoff games fit this criteria. Brian wonders if the NBA should adopt a lose-and-you’re-out format, similar to the NCAA, to keep things more exciting. What do you think?

Brian Berger from Sports Business Radio discusses Clay Bennett’s official announcement that he intends to move the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City. However, there are still a few hurdles Bennett must clear before the move will happen.

Lastly, I attempt to answer the question, “Should Your Agency Blog?” Blogging is a great way to foster dialogue and spread ideas. But while there are benefits to corporate blogging (especially for sports agencies), there are a few things agencies should be aware of before they jump into the world of blogging.

That wraps up the 4th edition of the Sports Business Carnival. Thanks again to everyone who submitted an article. On another note, Surfspot, an online surfing community which was one of the sports social networks I recently mentioned, is now online. Go check it out.

If you enjoyed this post please Subscribe in a reader.

Happy Halloween!

The 4th edition of the Sports Business Carnival will be published Monday, November 5th. If you’d like me to include one of your articles, please submit a link here, or by contacting me directly.

Thanks!

Lucas Aykroyd presents Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford is wrong: NHL belongs at Olympics posted at HockeyAdventure.com, challenging Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford’s argument that it would make good sense for the NHL and NBA to pull out of the Olympics after 2010 and 2008 respectively.

Mark from Sports Biz presents his take on the Wall Street Journal’s recent article about Ohio State’s enormous athletic budget. Mark points out a few mistakes in the story and wonders, “Are 6 flat screen TVs in a locker room really necessary? Where did it all go so wrong?” The college arms race isn’t ending any time soon.

At Sports Agent Blog, Darren Heitner suggests that every sports entity, including sports agents, should go green and embrace the environment and do everything they can do protect it. According to Darren, fellow sports agent Leigh Steinberg has taken the lead on this and wants to encourage sports executives to go green whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Brian Berger presents “The Wie Family Mows Through Another Agent” at Sports Business Radio. Brian suggests that Michelle Wie’s career is quickly heading for disaster (she isn’t winning and has gone through 2 agents in 2 years). Michelle might want to tell her controlling father to stop interfering with her career and let a good sports agent do the job.

Darren Rovell presents his take on the Joe Torre-Yankees fiasco, saying that the deal was fair and he was surprised that Joe Torre didn’t take it.

Sarah Talalay from Sun-Sentine’s Business of Sports reveals that the Carolina Panthers have signed a new deal with Ticketmaster that expands its current deal to include sales of tickets on TM’s secondary ticketing service, TicketExchange. In my humble opinion, it will be interesting to see how secondary ticketing rights play out in the future, as there is sure to be tension over who controls these rights at the league and team level. Teams will want to do their own deals and gain additional revenue and retain control over the resale of their tickets. Leagues will likely want to do umbrella deals which give a ticket provider these exclusive rights for all teams.

Skip Sauer of The Sports Economist shares some interesting MLB stories. One of these looks at the reason behind the MLB’s estimated $6 billion in revenue from this year and the other is his assessment of a story that argues that A-Rod reall is worth $30 million a year over 10 years.

Last but not least, at Biz of Baseball, Maury Brown presents a compelling interview with MLBPA legend and super-agent, Dick Moss.

Thank you all for your submissions! Feel free to pass the word on to other bloggers who may be interested. Visit our official page to submit an article for the next edition, which will be published Novemeber 5.

Besides Nationwide locking up the title sponsorship of NASCAR’s former Busch Series and MSG and Isiah Thomas being found guilty, here’s what else has been going on lately:

Brian Berger from Sports Business Radio recently took a trip to China and was granted incredible access to a sports apparel factory there. Brian provides some insight about the conditions at the factory and its workers. On one hand you’ll be appalled to know that the monthly minimum wage is $110 (US Dollars) based on a 6 day, 60-hour work work. However, most workers are glad to have a steady job and decent working conditions. These sports apparel factories certainly aren’t sweatshops–one drop of sweat could taint the products and put things behind schedule. Brian’s article is definitely a fascinating read.

Formula One rookie driver Lewis Hamilton stands to secure up to $60 million in endorsements, should he win the F-1 title, according to Mark from Sports Biz. Lewis would be the first rookie driver and first black driver ever to win the title.

Darren at Sports Agent Blog discusses the announcement that Creative Artists Agency will work with the Yankees to bring corporate sponsorships to new Yankee Stadium, among other business opportunities. He also sheds some light on CAA’s core business, which is representing athletes, actors, artists and others in the entertainment space. It will be interesting to see how CAA tries to build cred in the sports space, and the challenges it will face trying to convince people that it knows about more than just entertainment.

Donations to university athletic departments are rising at a greater pace than donations for academics. Rachael Bachman of The Oregonian picked up on this for and interviewed some people from University of Oregon to comment on it for her story. FYI the Oregonian has a great sports business blog written by Brent Hunsberger–Playbooks and Profits.

Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong brand has generated more than $200 million for cancer research. Check out Darren Rovell’s interview with Lance about the brand.

For the third year in a row, GMC has teamed up with the National Football League and Digitas to create a “Pro Grade Challenge” minisite, downplaying traditional media in favor of digital interaction with NFL viewers to promote its vehicles. Pat Coyle of Sports Marketing 2.0 gives us some details about the site and provides a few key points for brands who are trying to do something like this.

You would think MSG would be trying to lay low for a while because of all the stuff relating to the Anucha Browne-Sanders trial stuff. But they are also suing the NHL for monopolizing control of team promotions (mainly the Rangers website). Skip Sauer from The Sports Economist provides some insight about this from an economist’s perpective.

In his article about Shawn Marion seeking a trade (possibly to the Lakers), David Friedman from The Biz of Basketball dispels two information myths that the mainstream media regularly tout. 1) Stars will take less money to play with Steve Nash and 2)Nobody likes Kobe Bryant. IMHO this really shows the influence media have in spinning a story and getting people to think something is true. Even though rumors like these may not be completely true or factual, they definitely have an impact on a star’s marketability, and sponsors pay attention to these things.

Lucas Aykroyd presents In the Spotlight: IIHF President René Fasel posted at HockeyAdventure.com. In this exclusive interview, the President of the International Ice Hockey Federation discusses plans for NHL hockey teams to play European clubs and a new European Champions League modeled on soccer’s, among other topics.

Last by not least, David Stein presents the first Celebration of Life Through Sports Award to Alexi Maguire at Britannica Blog. I know we usually focus on sports business topics, but this post is a good example of how sports are intertwined with life, and how sports can give people hope, joy and motivation. Sports are more than a business, and they mean so much to so many people.

There are some great posts here from some of the Blogosphere’s brightest sports business minds. The goal of this carnival is to provide different perspectives on a wide variety of sports business topics, trends and news. I’ll start out by hosting these carnivals, but I’d like to establish a schedule where someone different hosts the carnival each time. The next edition will be published October 8, and the cutoff for submissions is October 7 at 5pm Eastern Time. You can submit an article here.

Here are the articles for this edition in random order. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for submitting.

Mark at SportsBiz writes that golf has decided to join other major leagues and start a drug testing program. He says that there are a few things could come out of this. 1) John Daly has a year to get clean before the PGA TOUR begins testing and 2) Golf could rejoin the Olympics if its drug policy is in compliance with WADA standards.

Brent from Playbooks and Profits, reports on the dominant theme of Nike’s annual shareholder meeting: Why aren’t the annual meetings fun anymore?

At the Biz of Baseball, Kurt Hunzeker gives us The Busch Corollary, a mathematical model for obtaining a value (and loss of value) for second-hand naming rights to an arena/stadium. Interestingly, he says “It does not matter if the name is corporate-based (i.e. San Diego’s PETCO Park) or a family name (Cleveland’s Jacobs Field)”

David at Biz of Basketball gives us an in-depth look at Phil Jackson’s accomplishments and how he got Michael Jordan to buy into his system.

Basketball mogul Sonny Vaccaro recently spoke at Harvard Law School, one of his stops on his tour where he isn’t afraid to give his honest opinions about college and professional sports and the exploitation of college athletes. Michael at Sports Law Blog gives us some reactions to Vaccaro’s speech at Harvard.

Floyd Landis was recently stripped of his Tour de France title. Howard Bloom at Sports Business News provides details of Landis’ efforts to fight his positive drug test. Ultimately, Landis must own up to his mistake and move on with his life.

Darren at Sports Agent Blog provides a perspective on Donovan McNabb’s recent comments about the treatment of black quarterbacks.

The Starting Five also examines McNabb’s recent comments and comes to the conclusion that while we know a lot about what goes on in professional sports, we never really know the exact truth. There’s a battle going on between those who want to maintain the status quo and those who want to reveal the truth.

The market for OJ Simpson memorabilia has come alive once again as a result of OJ’s recent shenanigans. Darren Rovell gives us his valuations of some hot OJ memorabilia (if they actually were for sale), included the famed “if it don’t fit you must acquit” glove.

Lastly, I had the opportunity to interview a couple guys from KickApps about the intersection of sports and social media. Check out the interview here.