There are several “Big Time” sports that generate the most interest in our country. Today, the most popular happens to be football which displaced baseball a couple of decades ago. I believe NASCAR is second after also pushing baseball aside into third. Fourth would have to be basketball followed by ice hockey in fifth. After the big five, all team sports by the way, then I’d say golf, tennis and finally soccer round out the most popular spectator sports in the United States (Yeah, I’ll probably hear from a couple of die hard fans that think their sport of choice should be a little further up on the popularity rankings scale… As Jason Bourne would say, “So be it!”).
My question today is which of these sports generates the highest level of strategy? Think about this now… I always refer back to a game I was taught in my youth, chess.
My Dad would sit me down and go over how each piece of the chess set could move and then push me to play ahead one then two moves and so on until I was anticipating what my opponent might do based on the moves I planned to make possibly as many as five turns ahead. In this process you attempt to ‘set up’ your opponent by using deception, making him believe you are doing one thing while in reality you are doing another. This is the essence of strategy.
Now, with that in mind, once again review the list of sports given above. There is a measure of strategy in each of them, but which one uses the greatest amount of strategy?
Baseball? There is no doubt, baseball is a thinking person’s game. There is strategic thinking going on all the time. Some strategic moves may be as obvious as an intentional walk to get to a batter you believe you have a better chance against or to set up a certain situation, then there are some that are of a much more subtle nature. For instance, late in a tight game the manager of one team might have a right handed hitter step out of the dugout and begin to loosen up as if he will become a pinch hitter, just to see if the opposing manager will get a left handed pitcher up in the bullpen to possibly counter the move. Then the manager sticks with his hitter already in the game, just to see which pitcher might be used in the future. Then there is the pitcher with men on first and third and less than two outs who fakes a throw to third or first rather than throw the first pitch to a new batter who happens to be a good bunter, just to see if the batter starts to square around to bunt, thus giving his infielders a heads up…. Baseball is full of subtle strategic moves that less attentive fans miss while the game unfolds. Baseball is a game of statistics and these are used to form a book on each opponent and their players. Managers are constantly referring to the stats to come up with a means of defeating the opposing team. Which of my pitchers has performed well against the other team’s hitters and so on. Then there are the signals used between coaches and players to call for certain pitches to be thrown or certain defensive alignments to be used or for a hitter to hit away, take a pitch, hit and run, or bunt. Stealing an opponent’s signs is just a part of the game. Many times you’ll see a fast player out on first and the situation calls for a steal of second base. The manager might signal for a pitch out putting his catcher in a much better position to try and throw out the base runner if he thinks he’s picked up the other team’s steal sign.
Baseball has a lot of strategy involved.
Two timely hits by Kirk Gibson resulted in huge wins for his teams. Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda used Kirk once in the 1988 World Series because of Kirk being hobbled. His game winning home run in game one set the stage for the Dodgers to win the series and evoked Jack Buck's famous line "I don't believe what I just saw!"... Lasorda gambled on a lame Gibson and won.
NASCAR? I’m a new fan of this sport and I’m sure others can speak to the strategies involved here better than me… You hear of such things as fuel strategy, tire strategy, playing the odds that the racing will continue under green flag conditions and determining when to pit when fuel becomes an issue. It seems to me that the ‘Car of Today’ and with the ‘Chase’ format installed, NASCAR has removed a fair share of the gray areas where strategic thinking once played a much broader roll. The ‘Chase’ format has brought a new strategy to the forefront, it’s called points racing and involves doing whatever it takes to qualify for one of the twelve ‘Chase’ positions through the first two thirds of the season so that you and your team stand a chance to win the Sprint Cup by generating more points during the final 10 races of the season than the other eleven qualifiers. Strategy definitely has a place in NASCAR…
Jimmie Johnson, two time NASCAR Cup Champion.
Basketball? I grew up playing basketball but was never very good at it (lead feet disease! LOL). I have a pretty fair idea of what’s going on out there on the court and in my opinion this sport leans much more heavily on the athletic skills of the individual performers than on using a lot of strategy to overcome an opponent. The game is played by great athletes basically working around a few plays designed to take advantage of an opponent and their weaknesses, but when it comes down to it, the individual’s ability to perform ultimately determines whether the team is successful. Strategy in basketball is almost spontaneous and this accounts for the number of timeouts in each game while the coaches attempt to take advantage of certain situations. Do you think basketball features a lot of strategy?
How many NBA Championships did Michael Jordon lead the Chicago Bulls to?
Ice Hockey? I’m really out of my league here and I’m sure there are many who consider this sport one of the most strategic, but I don’t happen to be one of them. I’d venture to say that there is more strategy employed in this sport than basketball, but I think it is similar to round ball when it comes to individual ability. It seems to me that a couple of excellent performers can strap a team on their back and make a run at the Stanley Cup. Sure the team has to have a good goalie and one or two good men on defense, but don’t all the teams have those? How much strategy does a team with a Sidney Crosby
The Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby
or a Pavel Datsyuk leading the way really need? Enlighten me, What do you think?
Stanley Cup Champion Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings.
Soccer? At least I’ve attended a couple of hockey games in my life, but soccer? I’m definitely not the person to discuss soccer as a game, let alone soccer strategy and yet I'm sure there is a fair amount of strategy going on, it's just that my untrained eye has a hard time picking it up. The game literally looks like a bunch of people running around chasing an elusive ball to me. Then suddenly one of the contestants breaks free, guiding the ball and attempts to kick it past a goal tender into the goal area to score one whole point! I mean all this running around may go on for half of the game before one or the other of the opponents actually scores a point! I see very little strategy here, it’s just survival of the fittest in my book…?
How about the individual sports, golf and tennis? I suppose you could say there is strategy involved in these two very different sports.
In tennis you try to exploit any known weakness in your opponent. They have a weak back hand shot? Force them to use their back hand whenever possible. They aren’t very quick? Consider using the drop shot more often. They appear to get winded easily? Force them to move laterally from one shot to the next, and so on… Yes, there is strategy in tennis, but I believe it’s about 20% forethought and 80% spontaneity.
Now Coach Jimmy Connors watches a protege'.
One of the top women in professional tennis, Venus Williams.
Golf? This sport is so different. In the final analysis, it pits you against yourself. How well you can control your athletic ability and respond to all sorts of situations, but the strategy remains pretty much the same: Perform consistently regardless of what is going on around you. Block out the distractions and trust yourself to put all those hours of training and practice into play, one shot at a time. Each golf course presents it’s own set of circumstances, but in a competition all of the competitors are faced them equally. There really is no one to blame when things go wrong in golf but yourself.
I've felt like getting down and doing this many times... I've never thrown a club though!
Finally, what about football? If I had to choose a team sport that most closely resembles chess, I’d have to say that game is football. I believe this is true due to the nature of the game. It is the team sport where you line up directly across from your opponent. The game is run on a play by play basis like chess, but probably the biggest factor that brings about in-depth strategy is the amount of time from one game to the next. At the beginning of the season, football coaches first work their teams until they recognize their strengths and weaknesses, then they work to accentuate the strengths and eliminate the weaknesses. Once the season begins they study each opponent prior to actually meeting them on the field. They identify every one of the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and attempt to negate those strengths and exploit their weaknesses. Each team’s coaching staff develops a game plan for each individual opponent and they work their team, practicing what they intend to do during the game. Coaches will devise a set of plays that they will run early in a game just to see how their opponent’s defense reacts, then they will make adjustments while the game is being played designed to give the opponent the same ‘look’ but the play has actually been adjusted to take advantage of the opponent’s tendencies. This same procedure is being carried out by the opposing team’s coaching staff so each in turn works to not become predictable and so it goes. Coaches use signals to notify their team on the field of certain plays to run and they will sometimes shuffle players in and out to get their plays sent in. Professional football is now going ‘high tech’ using speakers in the quarterback’s and the defensive signal caller’s helmets so the opposition doesn’t have a chance to read their signals…
I like to think of the NFC Championship game back in the early 80’s when Bill Walsh sent his 49er offense onto the field with just under five minutes left in the game needing a touchdown to defeat Tom Landry’s Cowboys. Dallas knowing full well that young Joe Montana had a weak running game and would have to pass if the Niners were to pull out the victory, went to a prevent type defense with an extra defensive back. Walsh had his offense switch up and began running sweeps and off tackle plays with his ‘no name’ running backs. The 49ers ended up driving from their own 11 yard line all the way down the field with only a couple of passing plays. The drive ended with what has become known as “The Catch” with Dwight Clark snaring a Montana desperation toss under extreme pressure to the back of the end zone. The 49ers had dethroned the perennial powerhouse Cowboys to set up a dynasty of their own. Walsh’s strategy of running the ball when the whole football world thought pass was out of the box and his courage to think that way eventually led to five Super Bowl Championships.
49ers' Coach Bill Walsh is carried off the field after winning Super Bowl XVI
I could go on and on about the strategies employed in football… It is, bar none in my opinion, the most strategic of the “Big Time” games being played in America today…
So here is my list of the most popular sports in America today:
Since the beginning of the modern sports era, and with the exception of 2007-08, there have been 1,641 NCAA Division I National Champions. Today there are 36 such championships awarded each academic year. Since the NCAA National Basketball Tournament when I noticed the UCLA Bruin’s men’s team uniforms were slightly different from normal, I decided to take a look at who has won all of these NCAA Division I National Championships. This then led me to break the country into regions and finally to look at it in terms of the Division I conferences.
Single season UCLA phenom, Kevin Love... Notice the "C".
The thing that caught my eye about the Bruin’s uniforms was that the “C” in UCLA instead of being blue like the other three letters, was gold. After a little research I found that the gold C represented one hundred NCAA National Championships. UCLA is the first school to get that many titles and they were happy to use this avenue to gain national recognition.
So what did I find? Well 168 schools share those 1,641 national championships. I thought about posting them all with their titles but reason got the best of me. If you know the universities in your home state, you should be able to figure out which schools have won championships over the past 107 years. If you need specific information, ask in the comments and it will be provided. Here is a breakdown by geographical region and state…
Boston Col. Men's Hockey, Syracuse Men's Lacrosse, Brown Women's Rowing Crew
NORTHEAST Schools Titles
Connecticut 2 38
Delaware 1 2
Maine 1 2
Maryland 3 35
Massachusetts 5 20
New Hampshire 2 5
New Jersey 3 24
New York 10 54 3.29%
Pennsylvania 7 65 3.96%
Rhode Island 3 7
Vermont 1 5
Washington DC 3 3
41 24.40% 260 15.84%
North Carolina Field Hockey, Wake Forest Soccer, Georgia Women's Gymnastics
SOUTHEAST Schools Titles
Alabama 2 28
Florida 4 38
Georgia 3 35
Kentucky 5 15
Mississippi 1 1
North Carolina 4 50
South Carolina 3 6
Tennessee 3 20
Virginia 5 31
West Virginia 3 18 .
33 19.64% 242 14.75%
Ohio State Buckeye's Fencing Team Celebrates
MIDWEST Schools Titles
Illinois 6 33
Indiana 4 51
Iowa 5 42
Michigan 8 83
Minnesota 2 24
Montana 2 3
Nebraska 1 20
North Dakota 1 7
Ohio 4 35
South Dakota 0 0
Wisconsin 2 26
Wyoming 1 3
36 21.43% 327 19.93%
LSU Tigers National Championship Football Team
University of Denver Pioneers National Champion Ski Team
Kansas Jayhawks National Championship Basketball Team
SOUTHWEST Schools Titles
Arkansas 1 42
Colorado 3 49
Kansas 2 11
Louisiana 4 48
Missouri 2 12
New Mexico 1 1
Oklahoma 3 75 4.57%
Texas 11 99 6.03%
27 16.07% 337 20.54%
Stanford Women's Cross Country National Champion
University of Alaska-Fairbanks National Championship Rifle Team
WEST Schools Titles
Alaska 1 9
Arizona 2 34
California 15 364 22.18%
Hawaii 1 3
Idaho 3 7
Nevada 1 2
Oregon 3 18
Utah 2 30
Washington 3 8
31 18.45% 475 28.95%
Totals 168 1,641
* * * * *
Regional Comparison:
Schools %Total Titles % Total
WEST 31 18.45 475 28.95
SOUTHWEST 27 16.07 337 20.54
MID WEST 36 21.43 327 19.93
NORTHEAST 41 24.40 260 15.84
SOUTHEAST 33 19.64 242 14.75
* * * * *
Conference Comparison:
Schools %Total Titles % Total
Pacific 10 10 5.95% 374 22.79%
Big Ten 11 6.55 245 14.93
Big 12 12 7.14 191 11.64
Southeast 12 7.14 185 11.27
Atlantic Coast 12 7.14 114 6.95
Conference USA 12 6.55 48 2.93
Big East 8 4.76 47 2.86
Mountain West 9 5.36 41 2.5
WAC 9 5.36 17 1.04
MAC 13 7.74 7 .43
Sun Belt 8 4.76 4 .24
Independents 4 2.38 36 2.19
120 71.43% 1,309 79.77%
* * * * *
Finally, the 2007-08 academic year is winding down… With Baseball and Outdoor Track and Field yet to determine their champions, here are the schools that have won titles this year:
Five titles have been won by affiliate members of Division I and three titles remain unclaimed…
Arizona State University National Championship Softball Team
* * * * *
Are there any conclusions to be drawn from all of this?
Well… The obvious one has to be that the western region has dominated Division I NCAA athletics since 1900. By state, California is dominant, while the Pacific 10, the premier conference of the west, is also the most dominant.
UCLA National Championship Women's Tennis Team
Men's Golf National Championship
UCLA's National Champion Women's Water Polo Team
Here are the top twenty National Championship schools in NCAA Division I (including the 2007-08 results):
School Titles % of Total
1. UCLA 103 6.14%
2. Stanford 96 5.72
3. USC 95 5.66
4. Oklahoma St. 48 2.86
5. Louisiana St. 45 2.68
6. Texas 43 2.56
7. Arkansas 42 2.50
8. Michigan 41 2.44
9. Penn State 38 2.27
10. No. Carolina 33 1.97
11. California 30 1.79
12. Ohio State 29 1.73
13. Georgia 27 1.61
13. Yale 27 1.61
15. Oklahoma 26 1.55
15. Denver 26 1.55
17. Notre Dame 25 1.49
17. Wisconsin 25 1.49
19. Indiana 23 1.37
19. Iowa 23 1.37
* * * * *
I’ve heard comments about the weather in California that makes the athletes from this area better… If that’s the case, then why isn’t the Southeast region one of the strongest in the country? Another reason I’ve heard is that the sports being played are more favorable to warm weather. Sports like swimming and water polo. I have to say that these types of sports are more than offset by ice hockey and skiing. Then there are the sports almost exclusively played at the Division I level in other parts of the country. These include lacrosse and fencing…
Taking all of this into consideration, can you think of any other reasons why the far west produces the most NCAA Division I National Championships?
Where's the money coming from in the future? This is the standard question being asked as business people strive to increase profits and stay out in front of the competition. Sports has become a huge business over the last few decades and this same question must be being asked here as well. What drives sports revenues? Well, we as fans do.
San Francisco's old Kezar Stadium
In the early days we paid admission to stadiums and arenas so we could watch and cheer for our favorite teams. We bought publications that kept us abreast of the daily fortunes of our teams, we listened to radio broadcasts and occasionally we even got to see our favorites on live television. Man, that was a great treat!
So the ticket prices began to rise. In the professional sports we were told that the advent of free agency forced these prices up… Then there was inflation. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. Next, we had to more closely identify with our favorites so it became important for us to wear the team colors. Sports apparel has grown from the days of simply wearing a ball cap or a tee shirt emblazoned with our team’s logo to some now wearing complete outfits in their team's sanctioned authentic apparel lines. Have you priced a ball cap or tee shirt these days? Next, the stadiums and arenas were more than happy to supply the fan's needs for food and beverages. Today we have to pay ridiculous prices if we want something to eat or drink. On top of this we are normally banned from bringing our own snacks inside the stadiums. Couple this with the cost of getting to the various sporting venues. Parking fees, something unheard of in the old days, were begun and have steadily increased to the point that they exceed what a set of two tickets used to cost. Today the cost of fuel has skyrocketed. It seems that now, everywhere a sports fan turns, there is someone standing there with their hand out expecting you to cross it with silver just so you can attend a sporting event.
All of these things have changed the fan's faces in the stands, as many just can't afford to attend these events anymore. Today we are seeing some sports beginning to suffer as their fans have stopped attending their events. The major professional sports, the NFL, NASCAR, MLB, the NBA and the NHL are seeing the effects of their exorbitant costs to the fans as many of the smaller market teams are now struggling to make ends meet. They simply don’t have a fan base large enough to include several thousands of fans willing and able to afford these expenses more than once or twice a season. The same effect is beginning to be seen in the collegiate sports and smaller time sporting enterprises like your local race tracks and minor league baseball. So where is the money going to come from in the future?
Through all of this there has been one shining star that kept fan interest high. In the 1950’s our nation, having won a world war with our citizen’s courage and our technological prowess, our industries developed and brought us wonderful new conveniences. One of the most significant was that we got wired into television. We had entered into the communication age and by the end of that decade, darn near every home had a television. The world had shrunk considerably. The sixties brought us color television and in the seventies the major television networks that had sprung up started getting competition from independent stations. Most of the country could receive television transmissions over the airwaves by antennae. You had to have electricity, but the programming was paid by advertiser’s dollars. The nation’s space program brought us satellite technology that in turn made the first “super stations” available. These came to us by satellite transmission and satellite receiving dishes became a common feature around many homes. Then another communication age phenomenon took place as cable television began following the lead of our country’s electrification and telephone wiring procedure. Another network of wires began to grow based upon the satellite technology. Today all of the country’s metropolitan areas have cable television and for a relatively low price, our citizens can enjoy all sorts of entertainment on television. The country’s sports fans have benefited greatly as we are able to see all kinds of sporting events on a twenty-four hour a day basis. For around $40.00 a month I have 6 ESPN channels, 4 Fox Sports channels, 2 local sports channels, Speed, Golf, Fishing, and more… The channels still bring me advertising while I cough up the monthly fee, but what the heck. Compared to personally going to a live big time sporting event, it’s nothing.
With this basically free television coverage to satisfy our sports appetite, all has been well, but there appear to be dark clouds gathering on the horizon as these business types continue to search for the money. In November of 2003, the NFL owners voted unanimously to fund a new television venture by devoting $100 million towards it’s start up. In 2006 this venture came to life and we know it today as the NFL Network. The problem is we can’t all get this new offering. If you subscribe to the satellite network, Direct TV, you’re in. Most of the cable TV networks haven’t been able to reach a satisfactory agreement with the NFL and so most of the country’s NFL fans are being left out. Then in 2006 a college athletic conference, the Mountain West, started their own sports television network. This is a joint venture between the conference, the Columbia Broadcasting System’s Sports Network and Comcast Cable Television. Known as “The MTN”, it features 24 hour a day of exclusive Mountain West Conference athletic events. Next, in 2007, the Big Ten Conference launched its own sports network as well. In another joint venture, “The Big Ten Network” came into being with the Big Ten Conference owning 51% while Fox Cable Networks operates the network and owns the minority 49%. So a new idea has come to life in the revenue stream… Today I read where the Southeastern Conference is now considering a television network of their own. Considering the conference’s recent successes in football and basketball, it might turn into a very lucrative deal as Fox and CBS would most certainly line up to bid for a partnership similar to the previously mentioned conferences. The trend is clear and I expect to see the other major collegiate conferences join in or they will lose a potential revenue source.
So if all of these new ventures prove to be successful, can we expect to see the other major sports in our country join in? I think we all know the answer to that. What then is the next step in this ongoing need to siphon dollars from the sports fans of America? It’s been around for awhile, it’s called pay per view. At first only the biggest events will go that route, but eventually it will become commonplace. Can NASCAR, MLB and all the others be far behind?
It’s not enough that most of us can’t afford to attend the sporting events in person on a regular basis anymore. It’s not enough that we now pay for our cable television and still have to listen to the advertisements to boot. Will it be enough when we not only pay for the cable television monthly subscription costs, while forced to watch the commercials, and also have to cough up a fee to watch each event?
may be as obvious as an intentional walk to get to a batter you believe you have a better chance against or to set up a certain situation, then there are some that are of a much more subtle nature. For instance, late in a tight game the manager of one team might have a right handed hitter step out of the dugout and begin to loosen up as if he will become a pinch hitter, just to see if the opposing manager will get a left handed pitcher up in the 
bullpen to possibly counter the move. Then the manager sticks with his hitter already in the game, just to see which pitcher might be used in the future. Then there is the pitcher with men on first and third and less than two outs who fakes a throw to third or first rather than throw the first pitch to a new batter who happens to be a good bunter, just to see if the batter starts to square around to bunt, thus giving his infielders a heads up…. Baseball is full of subtle strategic moves that less attentive fans miss while the game unfolds. Baseball is a game of statistics and these are used to form a book on each opponent and their players. Managers are constantly referring to the stats to come up with a means of defeating the opposing team. Which of my pitchers has performed well against the other team’s hitters and so on. Then there are the signals used between coaches and players to call for certain pitches to be thrown or certain defensive alignments to be used or for a hitter to hit away, take a pitch, hit and run, or bunt. Stealing an opponent’s signs is just a part of the game. Many times you’ll see a fast player out on first and the situation calls for a steal of second base. The manager might signal for a pitch out putting his catcher in a much better position to try and throw out the base runner if he thinks he’s picked up the other team’s steal sign. 
things as fuel strategy, tire strategy, playing the odds that the racing will continue under green flag conditions and determining when to pit when fuel becomes an issue. It seems to me that the ‘Car of Today’ and with the ‘Chase’ format installed, NASCAR has removed a fair share of the gray areas where strategic thinking once played a much broader roll. The ‘Chase’ format has brought a new strategy to the forefront, it’s 
called points racing and involves doing whatever it takes to qualify for one of the twelve ‘Chase’ positions through the first two thirds of the season so that you and your team stand a chance to win the Sprint Cup by generating more points during the final 10 races of the season than the other eleven qualifiers. Strategy definitely has a place in NASCAR…
out there on the court and in my opinion this sport leans much more heavily on the athletic skills of the individual performers than on using a lot of strategy to overcome an opponent. The game is played by great athletes basically working around a few plays designed to take advantage of an opponent and their weaknesses, but when it comes down to it, the individual’s 
ability to perform ultimately determines whether the team is successful. Strategy in basketball is almost spontaneous and this accounts for the number of timeouts in each game while the coaches attempt to take advantage of certain situations. Do you think basketball features a lot of strategy?
happen to be one of them. I’d venture to say that there is more strategy employed in this sport than basketball, but I think it is similar to round ball when it comes to individual ability. It seems to me that a couple of excellent performers can strap a team on their back and make a run at the Stanley Cup. Sure the team has to have a good goalie and one or two good men on defense, but don’t all the teams have those? How much strategy does a team with a Sidney Crosby 
but soccer? I’m definitely not the person to discuss soccer as a game, let alone soccer strategy and yet I'm sure there is a fair amount of strategy going on, it's just that my untrained eye has a hard time picking it up. The game literally looks like a bunch of people running around chasing an elusive ball to me. Then suddenly one of the contestants breaks free, guiding the ball and attempts to kick it past a goal tender into the goal area to score one whole point! I mean all this running around may go 
on for half of the game before one or the other of the opponents actually scores a point! I see very little strategy here, it’s just survival of the fittest in my book…? 
They have a weak back hand shot? Force them to use their back hand whenever possible. They aren’t very quick? Consider using the drop shot more often. They appear to get winded easily? Force them to move laterally from one shot to the next, and so on… Yes, there is strategy in tennis, but I believe it’s about 20% forethought and 80% spontaneity. 
How well you can control your athletic ability and respond to all sorts of situations, but the strategy remains pretty much the same: Perform consistently regardless of what is going on around you. Block out the distractions and trust yourself to put all those hours of training and practice into play, one shot at a time. Each golf course presents it’s own set of circumstances, but in a competition all of the competitors are faced them equally. There really is no one to blame when things go wrong in golf but yourself.
where you line up directly across from your opponent. The game is run on a play by play basis like chess, but probably the biggest factor that brings about in-depth strategy is the amount of time from one game to the next. At the beginning of the season, football coaches first work their teams until they recognize their strengths and weaknesses, then they work to accentuate the strengths and eliminate the weaknesses. Once the season begins they study each opponent 
prior to actually meeting them on the field. They identify every one of the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and attempt to negate those strengths and exploit their weaknesses. Each team’s coaching staff develops a game plan for each individual opponent and they work their team, practicing what they intend to do during the game. Coaches will devise a set of plays that they will run early in a game just to see how their opponent’s defense reacts, then they will make adjustments while the game is being played designed to give the opponent the same ‘look’ but the play has actually been adjusted to take advantage of the opponent’s tendencies. This same procedure is being carried out by the opposing team’s coaching staff so each in turn works to not become predictable and so it goes. Coaches use signals to notify their team on the field of certain plays to run and they will sometimes shuffle players in and out to get their plays sent in. Professional football is now going ‘high tech’ using speakers in the quarterback’s and the defensive signal caller’s helmets so the opposition doesn’t have a chance to read their signals… 
driving from their own 11 yard line all the way down the field with only a couple of passing plays. The drive ended with what has become known as “The Catch” with Dwight Clark snaring a Montana desperation toss under extreme pressure to the back of the end zone. The 49ers had dethroned the perennial powerhouse Cowboys to set up a dynasty of their own. Walsh’s strategy of running the ball when the whole football world thought pass was out of the box and his courage to think that way eventually led to five Super Bowl Championships. 
more closely identify with our favorites so it became important for us to wear the team colors. Sports apparel has grown from the days of simply wearing a ball cap or a tee shirt emblazoned with our team’s
logo to some now wearing complete outfits in their team's sanctioned authentic apparel lines. Have you priced a ball cap or tee shirt these days? Next, the stadiums and arenas were more than happy to supply the fan's needs for food and beverages. Today we have to pay ridiculous prices if we want something to eat or drink. On top of this we are normally banned from bringing 
our own snacks inside the stadiums. Couple this with the cost of getting to the various sporting venues. Parking fees, something unheard of in the old days, were begun and have steadily increased to the point that they exceed what a set of two tickets used to cost. Today the cost of fuel has skyrocketed. It seems that now, everywhere a sports fan turns, there is someone standing there with their hand out expecting you to cross it with silver just so you can attend a sporting event. 
venture between the conference, the Columbia Broadcasting System’s Sports Network and Comcast Cable Television. Known as “The MTN”, it features 24 hour a day of exclusive Mountain West Conference athletic events. Next, in 2007, the Big Ten Conference launched its own sports network as 
well. In another joint venture, “The Big Ten Network” came into being with the Big Ten Conference owning 51% while Fox Cable Networks operates the network and owns the minority 49%. So a new idea has come to life in the revenue stream… Today I read where the Southeastern Conference is now considering a television network of 
their own. Considering the conference’s recent successes in football and basketball, it might turn into a very lucrative deal as Fox and CBS would most certainly line up to bid for a partnership similar to the previously mentioned conferences. The trend is clear and I expect to see the other major collegiate conferences join in or they will lose a potential revenue source.