It is that time of year again…Super Bowl season!  For educators who teach business and marketing, this is a time of year where you can have a lot of fun in the classroom, all while conveying some powerful messages that support valuable business/marketing lessons.  After all, what better way to validate all your time teaching students about advertising than to point out that companies like Pepsi, CareerBuilder.com, Audi and Bridgestone just invested $3 million each for a 30 second spot during this year’s big game.

Among the topic areas that are relevant in the classroom (many relating specifically to our non-traditional…

When summer rolls around I usually take a brief reprieve from adding any posts to the post but the Beijing Games are nearly upon us and I thought I’d be remiss not to add some quick commentary.  Traditionally, this blog has been dedicated to educators around the country.  Now that we’ve developed an avid readership from a myriad of professional backgrounds, I suppose we should step up our efforts to contribute more regularly…

So, without further delay, here are a few items in the news as it relates to the Olympic Games that have caught my attention over the past few weeks.

Sponsorship

Top sponsors…

The seven-time Tour de France winner is again leveraging his amazing sporting accolades to maximize his marketing power.  On the heels of one of the most successful brand campaigns, Lance Armstrong and company are pushing the LiveStrong brand as a means for raising more money for cancer research.  This time, however, the promotion is tied-in through a major sporting goods retailer (Dick’s Sporting Goods).  The partnership between Dick’s and Armstrong serves as an excellent example of cause marketing for all you teachers out there.  Proceeds from sales of the Livestrong/Nike branded merchandise will go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a group formed…

As is usually the case, there were plenty of wild and whacky promotions featured throughout the summer at minor league baseball stadiums around the nation.  There’s no doubt the promotions have been helpful in driving attendance to ballparks as minor league baseball announced that the 2007 season marked the fourth year in a row that a new attendance record was established.

According to the release, in 2004, the 106-year-old industry broke a record that had stood since 1949 by drawing 39,887,755 fans. The following season, the number jumped nearly 1.5 million to 41,333,219, an increase of nearly four percent.  Last season, 41,710,357…

I was in Albuquerque last month and read an interesting article in the Albuquerque Journal.  The headline read ‘Lobos Head to Bahamas Minus J.R.’, a reference to new University of New Mexico men’s basketball head coach Steve Alford’s decision to travel without one of their top players because he is behind in his school work.  I had forgotten that UNM had recently tabbed Alford as coach, news that made waves in the world of collegiate men’s basketball.  After reading the article, I took a moment to analyze the situation and realized that UNM and Alford were charting the perfect course for establishing the…

By now, most of our members are either working through the unit on careers in sports and entertainment or have already completed it.  (Some of you are lucky enough to be enjoying your summer already!)  With that in mind, an article in this week’s Charlotte Business Journal caught my attention.

Here’s the intro:

“The voice of the Charlotte Bobcats won’t be returning, one of at least six staffers dismissed this week as the team continues to shuffle employees under the new management team brought in last year.

Matt Devlin, the Bobcats’ play-by-play announcer since the team’s inception, was told this week the team wanted…

This story isn’t exactly a current event as the news of Paul Allen’s re-acquisition of the Rose Garden became public a few weeks ago. That said, I wanted to revisit the story in our blog because it illustrates an issue of paramount importance in the world of sports business. For those teachers who follow our blog, I would encourage you to spend some time in your classroom discussing arena financing as it relates to sports/entertainment business and marketing.