Sports Biz

The Ohio State LeBrons!:
We’ve seen the Jordan Jumpman brand on the likes of college basketball players on Cincinnati, but - until now - we haven’t seen that LeBron logo show up anywhere. But we have confirmation that when the No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes basketball team takes the floor at the Big Ten Tournament on March 9 in Chicago, they will be wearing new uniforms. Retailing sources tell CNBC that Ohio State is permanently replacing its swoosh with LeBron James “LBJ23 logo.” Nike will be selling this new gear to coincide with the change. I’m not completely sold on this move, though if any team is going to make sense it’s probably this one. James obviously played his high school ball in Ohio (Akron) and plays in the state with the Cavaliers today.

Winning-Eating Correlation?:
I love concession stats and I got this great nugget, courtesy of the National Football Foundation. Concession sales at the University of Hawaii football games rose 47.7 percent last season. That’s interesting to me because attendance only went from 32,735 fans per game to 36,589 fans per game (11.8 percent). Makes me wonder - with Hawaii coming off a very successful 11-3 season - if winning more makes fans want to eat more. I don’t usually get a lot of data like this so it’s all really inconclusive, but when the Carolina Panthers had their worst season in 2001 (1-15), I briefly studied beer consumption. Check this out below:

Date      Panthers Record    Beers Sold      Beers/Fan

Sept. 30       1-1                62,494            .93
Oct. 14        1-3                45,124            .97
Oct. 28        1-5                57,394            .97
Nov. 18        1-8                59,424          1.02
Nov. 25        1-9                51,308          1.13

NBA In Vegas:
I had two flights canceled to Las Vegas so I never made it to the NBA All-Star Game. I’ve heard everything from “it was very dangerous” to “everything is being so overblown.” It’s hard to know what to believe, but I will tell you one thing, this 403 arrests number isn’t a good number for journalists to quote if they are trying to prove that it was mayhem. The Las Vegas Police Department reported that there was 403 arrests from Thursday through Monday. That’s 80 arrests a day. Did anyone bother to put this in context? If they did, they would have discovered that the Las Vegas Police Department arrest, on average, 120 people every New Year’s Eve and that at the Super Bowl in Miami police arrested more than 100 people a day in the 48-hour period surrounding the game.

One Great Endorsement Deal:
There are lot of bad endorsement deals and not so many really good, out of the box good ones. But TomTom’s deal with Curt Schilling is pretty damn cool. We all know that those navigation voices could get really annoying. So wouldn’t it be nice if your favorite pitcher was telling you to “turn left” or “when possible make an immediate U-turn?” The folks at SportsByBrooks tell us that TomTom has signed Schilling to a deal. His voice will be available for purchase ($12.95) and download for all the company’s devices.

One Big Correction:
So yesterday I bashed the LPGA for their new logo. Turns out -- the logo wasn’t new at all. I was actually referring to the old logo. Word is they are still working on the new one. So to those at the LPGA, I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed. I look forward to seeing what you have.

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