Building Soccer in the US

Note: By an act of some devine being, the US National Team advanced in the Confederations Cup. Bust out your buggle horn as the US tries for more suprises this morning at 11:00 AM (PST) against world-number-one Spain.

Soccer is known as the world’s sport. It is easily the most popular pastime from Western Europe to Africa to South America and parts of Asia. And even though it’s the fastest growing sport among young Americans, the sport does not enjoy a competitive share of commercial success in the States. This is unfortunate because soccer is a great sport, rich in both tradition and athletic grace.

Part of has to do with the fact that the sport’s infrastructure and league organization is not nearly where it needs to be in order to compete with established institutions like the NFL or MLB. Moreover, the fact that games basically run for 90 minutes straight without any stoppages of play means that the opportunity for advertising and promotion falls far short of what is possible in sports like basketball or baseball. Because of all of this, there is simply not enough money to go around that would attract the top talent necessary to create real buzz around the sport.

But these targets all take time and are really part of the end-game. To make soccer more commercially viable, the sport just needs to increase its domestic presence. Getting more eyes on the sport should make people more amenable to it.

ESPN is doing its part, having just purchased the rights to televise a large number of La Liga games from GolTV next season. The deal is structured such that ESPN will air 114 matches on ESPN 360, 95 on ESPN Deportes and 20 on ESPN2. This is great news for existing soccer fans and for potential ones as well.

La Liga, Spain’s top soccer league, doesn’t have the cache of England’s Champions League but it is still a great league for the WWL to feature. Whereas strength and bullishness is more prized in the English version, there tends to be more creativity and artistry in Spanish soccer. Fans tend to find this style of play to be more exciting. There’s also the language affinity that the Spanish league will bring to potential viewer in the US. Finally, the addition of superstars Kaka and Christiano Ronaldo to the Spanish league adds fodder to the belief that ESPN’s move could help cultivate a fan base.

My hope is that this move will increase soccer’s fan base amongst Americans and thus be a boon to the future of professional soccer in the States. Really, I think the impediment to a full-fledged league is the lack of fans. Get the fans (ie the demand) in place and then we can focus on other issues, such as getting world class player talent and matching league calendars with those in Europe.

Slammin' Sammy Update

Turns out there’s more pathetic news on the Sammy Sosa steroid front. Evidence has come to light suggesting that Sosa requested that the sleeves on his jerseys be tapered to show his increased size. Go back and take a look at some photos of Sosa from 2002-2004 and look for the elastic bands that were sowed into the sleeves. So not only was Sosa likely juicing, he wanted to show it off! He rubbed it in the faces of Chi-city dwellers and ball fans alike.

This type of custom tailoring is not altogether original. Jimmy Fox had his jersey sleeves cut short and so too did Ted Kluszewski of the Big Red Machine. Even Tiger Woods had the left sleeve of his polo shirts shortened to free up his swing. The difference with Sosa is that these other guys altered their attire so as to free up their bodies to perform. Big Klu cut off his sleeves because he couldn’t swing properly: "They [coaches] got pretty upset, but it was either that or change my swing — and I wasn't about to change my swing.” Football runningbacks and receivers have elastic on their jerseys but that’s done to make it harder for wanna-be tacklers to grab hold of something.

Sosa’s move, on the other hand, was outright vainglorious. His alterations weren’t done to make it easier to swing. Rather, he made them tighter so as to show off his growth. It was done with aesthetics in mind, not performance. I’d laugh if it weren’t so blatantly stupid.

Pricing Model Responds to Demands of Crowd

The current economic conditions have put a damper on attendance at games and matches throughout all sports. Baseball, especially, has had a tougher time than most getting fans into seats, with ticket sales down at least 5 percent. But the San Francisco Giants organization is fighting this trend with a slick pricing strategy that is used primarily in the sale of airline tickets and hotel rooms.

Feeling that the League’s mandate to use StubHub as the primary ticket dispensary was hurting sales, the Giants began experimenting with a dynamic pricing model. For each home game, the Giants offer about 2,000 seats whose prices shift based on demand. Unlike other teams who peg prices at the beginning of the season which rarely change, the Giants’ model weighs factors such as weather, opponent profile and past ticket sales in setting prices. So a Saturday game against the Dodgers where Tim Lincecum pitches will cost more than a Tuesday day game against the Nationals.

The model has been successful. The Giants say they are sell about 20 percent more tickets in the dynamic pricing zone—which is located in the upper deck and three bleacher sections—than they did a year ago. The team is also averaging about 375 more fans over the same period as last year, although attendance is below last year’s full-season average.

From the fan’s perspective, there are positives and drawbacks. The benefit is that a fan can come by a cheaper than face-value ticket if he doesn’t mind seeing a non-blockbuster match-up. But the system could hurt season ticket holders in the future if one is able to buy a seat via the new model at a price lower than what was paid by the season ticket holder. Season ticket holders buy their seats at set prices at the beginning of the season. In the future, will season ticket holders get refunds if dynamic pricing sets prices lower than face value? The organization should be wary of how dynamic pricing could effect loyal customers who purchase vast quantities of seats each year.

Other teams are watching the Giants’ experience closely. Indeed, the organization is a vanguard in applying this model to ticket sales. If successful, it’s likely that other baseball teams, and teams across all sports, will adopt dynamic pricing in their ticket sale operations.

Surprised? Hardly

Were you surprised when you tried to beat Joey Chestnut’s hot-dog eating record and failed? Were you surprised when Obama won the election? Were you surprised that the hot girl left you when you spat game like Tarzan? No? Then why the hell is anyone surprised that Sammy Sosa was juicing?

I’m sorry, but I’m fed up with all the steroid talk. Everyone is peddling eulogies, saying how this is such a shame, how it degrades Sosa’s legacy and how it undermines the game. People talk about how inspired they were by the summer of 1998 and how Sosa and McGuire provided a respite from the otherwise pedantic lives of their fans. Now that the truth is out, they don’t know if they can live anymore. Jeeeeeeeeeeeeesus. What sycophantic talk!

I could go on and on about how I think almost every single word that’s been spoken about steroids are misguided tropes filled with moral relativism completely lacking any modicum of context and perspective. If I did, however, I would give myself an aneurism. Wellllll, let’s tempt fate.

What’s so frustrating is that the debate among baseball enthusiasts rings, most unfortunately, like debates among politicians. All parties point fingers at others, each thinking that it is magically able to occupy the moral high-ground all by itself. Players blame the league, the league blames the players and the fans blame both.

It’s part and parcel with Democrats blaming Republicans for being overly ambitious in their war planning, the GOP shirking any responsibility because Democrats were being unpatriotic and the people blaming both because DC politicians can’t do anything. It’s like, Hellooooooo! Both parties voted for the war, and most all Americans wanted to kick some Middle Eastern tail. Everyone is to blame!

It’s relatively similar in baseball, especially with regards to the widespread applicability of blame. Except in baseball, it’s something like this: Pitching dominated baseball during the 1960s and 1970s. The league messed around with mound height, ball density, bat technology etc, all with the hope of balancing out defense and offense in the game. With the popularity of baseball struggling to compete with the ascendancy of the NFL, the need to liven up baseball was pressing. Home runs came in to solve this problem. “Chicks dig the long ball” is what we’re told, but so do Johnny, Billy and everyone else playing Little League baseball across the country. So players knew that power and home runs were what was going to get them that lucrative salary. Good lord, what are players supposed to think when Adam Dunn gets millions for his .225 average, 200 Ks and 40 HRs but David Eckstein (model baseball player) gets chickenshit? So home runs began flying all over the place and fans were happy and therefore Bud Selig and the league were happy.

So who cares if they took steroids? No one was complaining when Sosa and McGuire were belting home runs. It’s just so typical for people to get moral in hindsight. What, was no one suspicious? Did people not want to be? Were red flags not raised when the normally affable Sosa had near apoplexy after Rick Reilly challenged his arrogance by informing him that there was a testing facility 10 minutes down the road and that if he really wanted to quell the rumors why not go piss in a cup? Then, when the guy stops hitting dongs, he gets caught with a corked bat. Hmmm, what year was that? Oh, 2003? The year he tested positive for steroids? This is just way too obvious.

People need to accept the fact that steroids were, and still are, a part of baseball. In fact, they’re probably more prevalent in sports than many people think. How else has the average O-lineman in football gained 75 pounds, increased his bench-pressing ability, yet still manages to run a 4.8 40-yd dash? That wasn’t happening 20 years ago. Wow, just wait until 60-minutes breaks this one.

The steroid era does not need to have a big tainting effect on the game’s legacy. If you set aside your predilections, the last 15 years of baseball have been some of its most entertaining. No one discounts the achievements of Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson for having pitched in the Dead Ball Era. We’re going through the same thing now. Get your panties out of a twist, and enjoy the fact that the game is more offensively minded.

But hey, don’t get me wrong. I love a good pitchers duel. But the last time I saw one, every goddamn tech-start up, entrepreneur wanna-be, venture capitalist never-will-be was too wrapped up in their Crackberry to soak in and appreciate the subtle intricacies of the game of baseball. Instead, it was only when Barry Bonds was pelting balls into the Bay that these college-nerd drop outs took their thumbs off their QWERTY keyboards to stand up and cheer. The game has changed because the fans have changed. Baseball is no longer the slow, cerebral, thinking man’s game that made it popular at the turn of the century. Fans don’t want to see a perfectly executed relay, much less a well-timed pickoff move. They want to see balls flying out of the park as if they were North Korean missiles.

I think I feel an aneurism coming on.

From The Crowd

Any true, hardcore sports fan appreciates good trash talking. When done right it enhances the experience for friends and hopefully it jeers the player in the crosshairs.

Last fall, while sitting in the right field bleachers as a Washington Nationals game, we called out Elijah Dukes for his sub-par play and propensity to miss the baseball with his bat. We pissed him off, he flipped us off and then proceeded to can a routine fly-ball. Dude deserved it, he’s a punk. But we didn’t curse, didn’t cross any lines and kept it, well, R-rated yes, but at least not NC-17.

Where am I going with this?

While good trash talk can be all fun and games, sometimes fans take it over the line. Like the Rams fan at the Niner game last year who I saw toss his Bud at a Niner fan but pretty much missed due to his inebriation and spilled it, instead, on a little girl. Punches ensued, security arrived, and though it’s darkly entertaining, it’s unnecessary.

A new service being peddled around sports stadiums is the ability to text security in order to alert them to unruly fans who may be taking things a bit too far. So when you finally get tired of the drunk bum behind you who’s been spitting on you as he tries to curse the ref, you can solve the problem discreetly, without confrontation.

The service is offered in 29 of 32 NFL stadiums, and dozens of MLB, NHL, and NBA venues. This past week, I received an email from the SF Giants informing me that they are going to begin offering the service themselves. It’s called the “Text-to-Security” program and is being billed as a fan enhancing tactic.

And on its face, it is. If someone is being a true dick, they should be tossed. No one likes the guy uninformed, ignorant jackass that’s too stupid, drunk and unathletic to realize that a third-to-first pick-off move is not a balk. So when he spews out his bullshit you can get the jerk removed.

Nevertheless, in a sense, it smacks of tattling and narcing. Fans shouldn’t have to protect themselves in the first place, nor should they be put in the position of having to rat on fans, no matter how stupid they’re acting. The onus shouldn’t be on the fan to police the stands. That’s what the ushers are for! They’re the ones who should be making sure that fans don’t get out of line. Still, it’s a good thing that stadiums and management are recognizing that while energy should exist at events, games and matches don’t have to have the same atmosphere as a British pub after their soccer team was beaten by the German nationals.

A brief news update in the politics of sports—

One of sports’ great anomalies is lack of uniformity in the application of antitrust legislation. Baseball is the only sport—and business for that matter—exempt from Congress’s blanket of trust-busting. Other sports do not enjoy such protection.

This time it’s college football that’s been caught on lawmakers’ radars. Senator Orin Hatch (R.-UT) is plotting a potential antitrust investigation into the NCAA’s Bowl Championship Series. He is planning hearings, too. Alleging that the current system “leaves nearly half of all teams…at a competitive disadvantage,” the investigation would look into strength of schedule disparities and other factors that go into the controversial computer ranking system.

Perhaps he’s grandstanding. More likely, he's for real--after all, every fan of college football hates the system and greatly prefers a playoff model. Or maybe he’s just still bitter about the fact that his states undefeated record wasn’t good enough for a spot in the ‘ship.

The Slide of Paul Revere

The Slide of Paul Revere

[Grantland Rice]

Listen, fanatics, and you shall hear
Of the midnight slide of Paul Revere;
How he scored from first on an outfield drive
By a dashing spring and a headlong dive—
‘Twas the greatest play pulled off that year.

Now the home of poets and potted beans,
Of Emersonian way and means
In baseball epic has oft been sung
Since the days of Criger and old Cy Young;
But not even fleet, deer-footed Bay
Could have pulled off any such fancy play
As the slide of P. Revere, which won
The famous battle of Lexington.

The Yanks and the British were booked that trip
In a scrap for the New World championship;
But the British landed a bit too late,
So the game didn’t open till half past eight,
And Paul Revere was dreaming away
When the umpire issued his call for play.

On, on they fought, ‘neath the Boston moon,
As the British figured, “Not yet, but soon;”
For the odds were against the Yanks that night,
With Paul Revere blocked away from the fight
And the grandstand gathering groaned in woe,
While a sad wail bubbled from Rooter’s Row.

But wait! Hist! Hearken! And likewise hark!
What means that galloping near the park?
What means that cry of a man dead sore?
“Am I too late? Say what’s the score?”
And echo answered both far and near,
As the rooters shouted: “There’s Paul Revere!”

O how sweetly that moon did shine
When P. Revere took the coaching line!
He woke up the grandstand from its trance
And made the bleachers get up and dance;
He joshed the British with robust shout
Until they booted the ball about.
He whooped and he clamored all over the lot,
Till the score was tied in a Gordian knot.

Now, in this part of the “Dope Recooked”
Are the facts which history overlooked—
How Paul Revere came to bat that night
And suddenly ended the long-drawn fight;
How he singled to center and then straightaway
Dashed on to second like Harry Bay;
Kept traveling, with the spped of a bird,
Till he whizzed like a meteor, rounding third.
“Hold back, you lobster!” but all in vain
The coaches shouted in tones of pain;
For Paul kept on with a swinging stride,
And he hit the ground when they hollered:
“Slide!”

Spectacular players may come and go
In the hurry of Time’s swift ebb and flow;
But never again will there be one
Like the first American “hit and run.”
And as long as the old game lasts you’ll hear
Of the midnight slide of P. Revere.

_________________________________________

We read this poem for my Politics and Law of Sports class. Written around the turn of the twenitieth century, Rice’s poem joined an array of other popular culture movements that looked to affix close bonds between baseball and American iconography. All such works were part of an effort to elevate baseball through patriotism which was a boon to establishing baseball as America’s national pastime.

What Is the Greatest Sound In Sports?

I debate this in my mind constantly. I know, I know, really geeky right? But seriously, let me know what you think. Here's my top 5:

1. The rattling of a golf ball in the hole after you've sunk a 20-footer.
2. The pop of a 90 MPH fastball as it smack the raw-hide of a catcher's glove.
3. The crunch that emanates from the collective crash between a middle-linebacker and a wide-receiver as he streaks across the middle.
4. The swoosh of a basketball as it falls through the mesh net. (Does a chain-link net sound better?)
5. The roar of 43 NASCAR stock cars as they start their engines at the beginning of a race.

Do you agree? Think I'm way off? Am I missing others? Let me know what sounds in sports are akin to the strings in Beethoven’s Fifth.

Electronic Arts' Market Strategies

So the economy is still hurting and companies across the board are looking for the best strategies possible to ensure stability and viability. To be sure, the sports industry has not dodged the economic bullet. But one company provides a lesson for how to navigate these testy times.

Electronic Arts, a titan in the sports videogame market, recently reported a third quarter net loss of $641 million, or $2 per share. This compares to a $33 million loss for the same quarter a year earlier. Citing poor holiday sales, the maker of Madden, FIFA Soccer and Tiger Woods Golf has released considerably more conservative forecast projections.

But despite these poor numbers, EA shares rose 6.1% in after-hours trading the other day. How could the share price rise in the face of such crummy numbers? For starters, the company has been transparent and forthright regarding their losses. So investors were not shocked by the poor numbers—they expected them.

So this accounts for why the stock did not tank upon the earnings’ release. But why then did the share value actually increase? It turns out that EA has been proactive and vocal about its plans to regroup and recharge. EA has made the decision to tighten its belt by focusing on their most successful products and extracting maximum value from their best brands. Thus the decision has been made to delay work on niche products such as “The Sims 3” and to transfer focus to their more popular games such as the Madden franchise. Furthermore, EA plans on cutting 1,100 jobs and closing twelve facilities.

So investors were calmed and even encouraged by EA’s comprehensive and robust war plan to get the company back to posting strong profits. Indeed, the gaming company forecasts per share earnings to fall between a five-cent loss and a 40 cent profit. When compared to this years earnings drop off of $3.29 for this fiscal year, that’s quite an improvement. EA’s plan to pare back on niche products and to focus on aggressive marketing for their best products position’s them nicely to weather the storm.

Baseball as a Civil Religion

The important distinction is that baseball is a civil religion and not a "religion". Thus it is not an ecumenical religion like Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Buddhism. In “Civil Religion in America,” Robert Bellah posits the idea that “most Americans share common religious characteristics expressed through civil religious beliefs, symbols, and rituals that provide a religious dimension to the entirety of American life.”[i] Civil religions have neither gods nor sacred texts but they do have institutions which aid and abet their effects. They possess religious overtones as they live deep in peoples’ souls and elicit a visceral emotional connection.

They present qualities that its follower’s value and create a spirited community.
In the same way that religions have institutions, so too does baseball. If institutionalized religion has cathedrals and synagogues, then baseball has stadiums. Walking through the tunnels of a stadium is like walking through the crypt of a church. Stepping out of a tunnel and facing the open field is then analogous to entering the sanctuary. Even baseball jargon is religious in tone and form. In the stands you here cries of “you gotta believe!” and strategies that require “sacrifice.” When the game is close fans are encouraged to have “faith” in such “life and death” scenarios. Larry Merchant, a sports analyst for HBO, once said that the World Series was treated by fans “as though it were a solemn high mass.”[ii]

The emotions felt by athletes and fans work to inspire religious feelings as well. When Robert Novak goes to watch his beloved Dodgers he notices several ways in which baseball creates and inspires a civil religion:

By the asceticism and dedication of preparation; by a sense of respect for the
mysteries of one’s own body and soul, and for powers not in one’s own
control; by a sense of awe for the place and time of competition; by a sense
of fate; by a felt sense of comradeship and destiny; by a sense of
participation in the rhythms and tide of nature itself.[iii]

All of these emotions and effects are present in baseball but could easily be found in religion. The companionship of crowds yields congregational sentiments. The sense of fate breeds respect for what will come and helps us cope with events when things go sour. The rituals of baseball—do not step on the foul line, take exactly two practice swings, lick your fingers before every pitch—are not unlike the rituals found in religion.

A famous sports saying goes “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” What follows from this is that in losing there is a sense or element of death. To lose is to die. But this is symbolic just as baptism and communion in church are symbolic. In each ritual the participant dies, symbolically, and then is reborn, symbolically. The same is true in baseball. A player loses a game or strikes out three time and dies, symbolically. But the next day he is born again with a chance at redemption. As long as the churchgoer or player cedes himself to the symbolism and does not just walk through the motions, the effects of the rituals can be impacting.

Some are cynical and find it aggrandizing to elevate sports to a semi-religious status. They are more humanistic and fail to see—or refuse to see—how a stadium could bear resemblance to a church. But then again, what religion does not have its skeptics, its nonbelievers? “Any religion worthy of the name thrives on irreverence, skepticism and anticlericalism. A religion without skeptics is like a bosom never noticed.”[iv] Indeed, Novak welcomes their challenges as their dispositions validate baseball’s religious nature.

Baseball is also religious in that its followers share common histories and pass shared experiences and memories down through generations. Robert Elias’ A Fit for a Fractured Society, quotes Stephen Riess who said “the national pastime…supplied some of the symbols, myths and legends society needed to bind its members together.”[v] Shared beliefs create communal bonds and also inspire reverence for the subject. A young child listening to his father’s experience seeing Jackie Robinson play or Barry Bonds slug home runs can have a very impressionable effect. That these memories can be passed down through generations shows the sport’s transcendentally religious nature. Sharing memories and stories ensures that the civil religion persists and stays vibrant.

Unlike much of the world, we lack the thousands of years of evolving society that has placed art, and music and opera at the summit of societal importance. We have musical talents but nothing on the order of Beethoven or Mozart. America has some great literature but most rankings put Shakespeare, Milton and others at the top. The reason is that Europe has had thousands of years of societal struggle—we have had just over 250. Alas, sports are our civilizing agents.[vi] They better us by bringing us together and they inform our hearts and souls through the values that they teach. Baseball is America’s universal art form and our civil religion.

It is very easy to gloss over sports. So ubiquitous in our society, they often fade into the background as scores scroll across the bottom of television screens. We are inundated with sports to the point that they may even seem to have a dulling effect. But to rest there would be a serious injustice. As the French author Jacques Barzun once wrote, “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”[vii] What began as a simple game played on the Elysian Fields in New Jersey has blossomed into so much more.

[i] Robert Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Winter 1967, Vol. 96, No. 1, 5.
[ii] Larry Merchant, quoted in Will, 24.
[iii] Novak, 18.
[iv] Novak, 23.
[v] Stephen Reis, quoted in Robert Elias, A Fit for a Fractured Society: Baseball and the American Dream,(Armonk, New York: Sharpe, M.e., Inc., 2001), 10.
[vi] Novak, 27.
[vii] Jacques Barzun, God's Country and Mine: A Declaration of Love Spiced with a Few Harsh Words, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1954) 159.