No Beef With Kobe In Asia:
AP
Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant continues to prove he has made a marketing comeback. When the NBA announces its best selling jerseys in China on Tuesday, No. 24 will be No. 1. Bryant will be followed by Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. An interesting note, which is worth a chuckle, is that Yao Ming's Houston Rockets jersey is only the sixth most popular -- down from his third place position last year. More than 400 million NBA products were sold in over 20,000 retail locations throughout in the past year.
Butler Serving Up More Cash:
Butler, with their win against Maryland this weekend and berth into the Sweet Sixteen,
AP
continues to carry the load for the Horizon Conference. Since 1997, Butler - counting its game against Florida - will have represented the conference in 11 tournament games as compared to the rest of the schools in the conference, which have combined for 13 games over the same time period. This year, thanks to a Sweet Sixteen appearance by Butler in 2003 and UW-Milwaukee in 2005, the conference will earn a record $2,299,232 this spring. That's calculated by multiplying the number of tournament games the conference has played in (considered a unit) over the past six years -- not counting this year -- times the current unit value of $176,864. For what it's worth, Butler's entire athletic budget last year was $9.6 million for 15 sports.
On The Road:
A tremendous item in a recent issue of ESPN The Magazine. It's per diem by league per player:
NBA - $102
NHL - $87
MLB - $85
NFL - $85
WNBA - $45
MLS - $45
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