Herm Edwards Suits Up for Alfani

This game isn't going to win itself, men. You're going to have to win it. And you're going to have to believe that you can do it. Because what you believe is what you will achieve. From the root, to the fruit. Do you understand? Are you men enough to understand?

Why are you coaching basketball now?

Because they don't let you wear suits like this coaching football... Hello!

Herm Edwards is the best.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Mark Cuban NFL Criticisms in Perspective (3)

Adam Silver

I posted the following on Google+:

Even as I urge NFL owners to listen to what Mark Cuban is saying, I think his message is more urgently, albeit tacitly, directed at his fellow NBA owners.

I think that strategically, the NBA is vulnerable, because it's in the midst of a top leadership transition, that is, from David Stern to Adam Silver. Yes, Silver is officially set as the commissioner, and apparently Stern spent years grooming him. But he hasn't had the battle-tested years under his belt, and the world he faces is radically different from what Stern faced in the last couple of decades.

Think of the transition from Jack Welch to Jeff Immelt. Immelt got A-bombed with 9/11, soon after taking the helm, and there is no way GE was ever the same in the post-Welch era. What will Silver be slapped with?

As a successful businessman, Cuban knows that media is really where the big sports battles are won and lost. We might talk up social media in a lot of blah blah blah punditry, but in fact traditional media - TV, in particular - is very much alive and kicking. The NFL-CBS deal for more Thursday Night games grabbed Cuban's attention, in ways that apparently it hasn't grabbed the attention of other NBA owners. That deal is huge, so these lackadaisical owners better listen up.

I'm sure their comeback is that they are listening and that they are aware of this cutthroat cross-sport competition. Great. But now that one of their own has stirred the pot in a major way, what are they going to do next? I suggest that NBA owners also do some soul-searching and some behind-the-obvious look at market trends, before deciding what to do next. 

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Mark Cuban NFL Criticisms in Perspective (2)

NFL Owners

I posted the following on Google+:

Reference: Cuban: NFL issues go beyond TV.

Mark Cuban's accusation of greed has met with sarcasm and denouncement, but I urge NFL owners to heed it, even if only in the private, behind-closed-doors reflections and conversations they have. You see, greed is a subjective, very personal criticism, and who's to say really whether or not it's warranted in the NFL case?

But to the extent that success - and the NFL is arguably the most towering success story in professional sports - makes owners lose touch with more latent market trends and even with their soul or conscience, then they put themselves in a dangerous position for the future. Think Kodak, Borders. Think Enron, AltaVista. Think Nokia, Motorola. Think of scores of investors around the world, who in the middle of the last decade, thought the heyday of moneymaking stretched into infinity.

For his loudmouth and occasional irreverence, Cuban is an astute businessman. Again, he may - or may not - be right about the impending NFL implosion. But trouble is afoot, even as it revels in its popularity and riches, and unless its owners do some honest, hard-wrought soul-searching and some honest, behind-the-obvious look at their business, they may themselves, perhaps unwittingly, prove Cuban right. 

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Mark Cuban NFL Criticisms in Perspective (1)

Mark Cuban

I posted the following on Google+:

Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business.

Reference: Cuban: With TV deal, NFL is 'hoggy.'

There is no way to be certain about the future (i.e., not until we make time travel a reality). So Mark Cuban may - or may not - be right about the NFL imploding in the next decade. But for sure what he is doing in the present is stirring the pot. Remember, he's an NBA owner, who has just taken one of the boldest competitive steps I know: Cross the line into another sport, and deign to get on the gridiron with big, money-muscled owners.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Vivek Ranadive Eyes Billions in Sacramento Kings

I am less intrigued about the high stakes investment that Vivek Ranadive & Co. plopped down on the Sacramento Kings, and more intrigued about what Ranadive himself has done and how he thinks.  

Ranadive can perhaps be best described as a genius numbers guy who can meld mathematics and technology to solve problems and inform like no other sports owner. His success with Tibco, the software company he founded in 1985, transformed Wall Street by enabling traders to use data in real time by replacing batch processing with real-time processing. Today, Tibco’s software powers most trading floors.

He sounds very much like a man of the 21st century.  Who's whip-smart, and who sees the possibility of media, technology and algorithms (mathematics), and can make it all happen.

Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive is bringing a technological revolution to sports that is going to make his NBA team worth “billions of dollars” within the next decade.

He is confident he can monetize the Kings as a huge social network.  The thinking isn't exactly new, at least not anymore and not in our day and age: It's to pull disparate data together, and make it available, for example, to traders, in real-time.  This way, they can make more time-efficient, no doubt better decisions on the trading floor.  This underpins the business model for TIBCO, which Ranadive plans to do with a more technologized, digitized Kings team vis-a-vis its fans.  IBM is already in this space, such as with tennis.

But if Ranadive & Co. can pull it off, as he has surmised and projected, it will definitely be a coup.  Much as he acted quickly to nail down this investment, he is patient about realizing an ROI.  This is uncharacteristic of many people and organizations in the 21st century.  So let's see.

Refer back to this article in 2024!

Reference: Ranadive: Sacramento Kings Will Be Worth Billions In Ten Years.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

CBS-NFL Cash In on Thursday Night Football

Ratings show that football audience has not had a surfeit of games on TV.  So it makes perfect sense for a major network like CBS to pony up millions of dollars to the NFL, with their eyes specifically on Thursday Night football.  I know there was talk that perhaps the league ought to strike a deal for two games on Thursday Night, but that remains to be seen.

I have eschewed blockbuster, long-term contracts for athletes, just because there is so much unknown in the healthy, longevity and performance in any of them.  In this vein, it seems, this CBS-NFL is just a one-year deal, as Scott Milleisen explains that sports bigwigs want options at their disposal, which long-term deals fundamentally take away.

What these sports leagues and teams do are definitely major lessons in business.  

Reference: How The CBS Thursday Night NFL Deal Benefits Both Sides.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Big TV Deal for Phillies: Is the Cubs Next?

Scott Milleisen leads off this discussion on the high stakes, behind-the-game business of baseball.  Sports is virtually the only live programming I pay attention to.  Mind you, I simply don't have the time to watch many games on TV, and I don't have the budget to go the ballpark or stadium.  But clearly bringing such programming (i.e., content) to fans like me is serious business and it's big business.  

This Forbes discussion looks at the top five markets, Chicago among them of course, and their teams, and the Cubs may be next in line for a major TV deal.  The word is, When it comes to playoff baseball, the October show doesn't quite draw the audience that football draws.  The reason is that baseball in general has more of a local following than a national following.  But the Cubs may be an exception with its country-wide fandom watching on WGN superstation.

Reference: What The Phillies $5 Billion TV Deal Means For The Cubs.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

`Stadium Series Anthem, Interviews and Post-Game

The Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks make their way to the rink before the 2014 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series at Soldier Field.

Jim Cornelison recites [sings] the National Anthem at Soldier Field prior to puck drop.

Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews joins Pierre McGuire rinkside.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Sharp speaks with Pierre McGuire following the 1st period.

Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville speaks with Pierre McGuire during the 1st period.

Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel gives us a 1st period update on the weather inside Soldier Field.

Former Chicago Blackhawks great Denis Savard joins Jeremy Roenick in the 1st period.

Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Bylsma speaks with Pierre McGuire during the 2nd period.

Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville addresses the media after a 5-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Chicago Blackhawks forwards Patrick Sharp and Jonathan Toews address the media.

Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Bylsma addresses the media.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Superb `Stadium Series Blackhawks-Penguins Game

Blackhawks 1 - Penguins 0

Patrick Sharp lit up the lamp to open the snowy scoring in the first period.  He was the first among the Blackhawks, who jumped a couple of feet off the ice out of sheer excitement at being in that wintry spectacle.

Blackhawks 2 - Penquins 0

What can you say about the super-nifty goal that Jonathan Toews scored in the second period?  He took defenseman Brooks Orpik to school, practically undressing him and then blowing by him, with his stick handling.  Toews had presence of mind, after all of that, to stuff a backhander very low five-hole.  You see, even he was so excited that he jumped into the arms of his teammates on the bench.  

Blackhawks 3 - Penguins 0

Patrick Kane, well known for his own brand of magic with the hockey stick and puck, showed tremendous patience and vision on this play.  At the perfect moment, the puck was on-blade for Kris Versteeg simply to tap in.

Blackhawks 3 - Penguins 1

The Blackhawks weren't just happy and excited.  But Brent Seabrook in particular was also magnanimous.  I thought it was a deflection, from our vantage point in the stands, but this was a tap-in goal he scored for the Penguins in the third period like that of Versteeg.  Aw, he must've lost his bearing in relation to Corey Crawford, so his clearing attempt turned out to be a shot on goal.  So clearly it's Blackhawks 4 - Penguins 0, still.    

Blackhawks 4 - Penguins 1

I like Bryan Bickell.  Following a successful campaign last year, through the Stanley Cup Final, and following a huge pay raise during the summer, he seemed to have lost his mental edge and struggled to contribute offensively.  At one point he wasn't even hitting opponents with the big-body checks he was known for.  So I'm happy when he plays well.  Here it was an ugly goal, a dirty goal, a greasy goal.  Whatever.  He was Johnny-on-the-spot with a nice feed from Brandon Saad, and stuck with it, after his first shot was denied, and punched it through.

Blackhawks 5 - Penguins 1

Finally it was defenseman Simon Despres' turn to do the Brent Seabrook thing.  This was was more of a deflection-and-tap-in hybrid, though, off a rebound from an upclose shot by Jonathan Toews.  No matter how it happened, it was the second tally for the Captain, who won first-star game honors for his superb performance in that weather.  

A Blackhawks win was exactly what we fans needed, and it made the Soldier Field cold feel like living room warm.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD

Awesome `Stadium Series Wintry Spectacle

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman considered postponing the Stadium Series between the Blackhawks and Penguins, last Saturday evening, March 1st 2014, due to frigid, snowy weather in the forecast.  But I had hoped he wouldn't, and thankfully he didn't.  Nearly 63,000 fans shuffled like penguins (no pun intended) into the Snow Bowl of Soldier Field, and everyone was in great spirits.  What's a little bit of snow and a little bit of cold to any Chicagoan and diehard Blackhawks fan?

I am thankful to my sister Marinela for inviting me along and arranging our whole journey and entry into Soldier Field.  It was an awesome experience for an event that quizzically is too rare for the NHL.  Yes, our toes got cold, and, yes, we had to take our gloves off to eat hot dogs and pretzels and thereby risk frostbite.  But it was all worth it.

A number of reporters at the game talked about how awesome of a spectacle it was.  Indeed we could vouch for that.  So picture this: It was snowing heavily in the first period, but it eased up early in the second period.  Then it picked up again, until the white stuff became heavy snowflakes.  I looked up in the Chicago night sky, and noticed that these snowflakes seemed mostly to be floating in the air and swirling gently above us all.  There wasn't that much wind to speak of.  Stiff winds usually come off of Lake Michigan.  But there you had it.  Against the backdrop of the bright lights, all the snow was positively magical.  It was a sight to behold.  

How did I dress in particular?  Layers was the operative word.  An undershirt, a turtleneck, a light long sleeve shirt, then a spring jacket.  Marinela bought us Stadium Series jerseys, so I wore that over the jacket.  Finally, a winter ski jacket.  That's for the upper body.  For the lower body, I wore light pajama pants, under my jeans.  The walking boots I wanted to wear were fit only for one pair of socks, so two pairs would've made it too tight for my feet.  So I decided to wear my heavy work boots, with one pair of new gym socks.  Heavy work gloves, not the dress gloves I normally wore.  A Blackhawks ski hat, and I was all good to go.  Aside from my toes getting cold in the second period, I was perfectly fine in those elements.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD