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? 

I think we all know the answer to that one too…

Resources:

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2008/may/30/sec-v
otes-down-early-signing-date/  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MountainWest_Spo
rts_Network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Network

http://www.thepostcard.com/walt/sports/stadiu
ms/stadium.htm

What have we got?

In the NHL both the Red Wings and the Penguins need to win one game and then they will meet in the finals for the Stanley Cup, right?

In the NBA the Lakers took down the Jazz so they advance to the Western Conference title best of seven series… The Celtics and Cavaliers meet in Boston today with this winner advancing to the Eastern Conference title series. Am I right so far? Tomorrow the Spurs will be in New Orleans to play the Hornets, with this winner also advancing to the Western Conference finals and the Detroit Pistons defeated the Orlando Magic to take the other position in the Eastern Conference finals.

So both of these “winter” sports will finally conclude their 2007-2008 seasons by what, the beginning of summer?

I don’t want to catch a lot of flack here, but don’t you NHL and NBA fans think this is just a little much?

Now, if I’m not mistaken (and that hardly ever happens… LOL), aren’t both of these sports struggling to keep fans in the seats? Don’t you think if, one way or another, they kept their respective seasons kinda like closer to winter, they might do better? By the time these indoor sports get to their playoffs the weather is getting really nice and people are prone to take their discretionary spending in other directions like golf, tennis, baseball, auto racing, and on and on…

These two sports #### up around the first days of Autumn and run through the end of Spring leaving only a three month off season… Personally, I think it’s way too long and both need to be completed by the end of March so that their closure coincides with the beginning of regular season baseball.

Seems to me this could be accomplished by cutting back the number of regular season games. That would give those games a much higher amount of meaning. Next, have fewer teams qualify for the playoffs thus removing a couple of tiers in the pairings. These moves would generate more intense fan interest and act to shorten these seasons back to the days when outdoor pursuits aren’t a competing factor.

I guess on the upside, by the time these indoor sports finally get done you know the NFL is only a month away from training camp...

Just my thoughts…

In many sports you can point to one person who has earned the title of "Best Ever". It might be based upon one sterling effort, like the all-time best time in the 100 meter dash, or the title might be earned over the course of a career's worth of accomplishments... There are those that like to separate a particular sport into eras and then handing out the accolades, and then there are those that like to compare a past great champion to the best individual participating in that sport at this time.

Over the last few days we've seen a couple of posts by people in the Fox Sports Community that brought attention to the individuals participating in various sports. jaguarjoe72  wrote a series entitled

The first in the series deals with the NFL... This was followed by Faces of the franchise-MLB  

and then Face of the franchise-NBA

These highlight certain football, baseball and basketball player's accomplishments that earned them consideration as to whether they had attained enough status to be deemed synonymous with the team they played for, and then there was a NASCAR post by RLGuido entitled

The New Kings ....... there is only one King

Now this last one is getting to the heart of the matter.

So, with this in mind, I'd like to pose a question...

Who are the all-time greatest performers in each of the following sports, or, to borrow from jaguarjoe72, Can we put a face on these sports?

1. Baseball - MLB

2. Basketball - NBA

3. Boxing

4. College Football

5. Golf

6. Hockey

7. NASCAR

8. Professional Football

9. Tennis, Men

10. Tennis, Women

Here are my astute selections:

He won 14 Grand Slam titles and 11 Grand Masters events... Nuf' said? 

10. Tennis, Women

Always the lady, She battled all challengers from the baseline and through pure willpower, she would put them away... Chris Evert!

18 Singles Titles and 3 Doubles Titles in 18 years of Grand Slam tennis defines her, Chris Evert the greatest women's tennis player...

All right, you've seen mine... Let's see yours!