Baseball and Business
This comes from the sports section of yesterday's USA Today:
Q: What has to be done between now and opening day to get the [Montreal] Expos in position to play in Washington, D.C.?
A: It's almost as if they are an expansion team. It starts with renovating RFK Stadium. From there, virtually an entire front office staff will have to be formed, and they will have to market the team, attract sponsors, set up concession and parking arrangements, work out TV and radio deals, sell tickets, and, oh, by the way, field a team.
The lesson seems to be that the team itself is secondary to the marketing of the team. That's no surprise, I suppose. In today's world of big-money professional athletics, foul lines, three-point lines, yard lines, and blue lines are never as important as the bottom line.
Call me naĩve, but I could swear there was a time when baseball, basketball, football, and hockey were sports rather than industries.
Q: What has to be done between now and opening day to get the [Montreal] Expos in position to play in Washington, D.C.?
A: It's almost as if they are an expansion team. It starts with renovating RFK Stadium. From there, virtually an entire front office staff will have to be formed, and they will have to market the team, attract sponsors, set up concession and parking arrangements, work out TV and radio deals, sell tickets, and, oh, by the way, field a team.
The lesson seems to be that the team itself is secondary to the marketing of the team. That's no surprise, I suppose. In today's world of big-money professional athletics, foul lines, three-point lines, yard lines, and blue lines are never as important as the bottom line.
Call me naĩve, but I could swear there was a time when baseball, basketball, football, and hockey were sports rather than industries.
posted by Michael at
6:40 PM
1 Comments:
"Call me naĩve, but I could swear there was a time when baseball, basketball, football, and hockey were sports rather than industries."
::cracks open smelling salts:: Can you hear me, Mike? Come back to us, Mike. You're stuck in some bizarro dream and babbling about sports as something more than a money making endeavour. Mike, wake up! Wake up, man. Come on!
By
dilliwag, At
October 01, 2004 11:09 PM
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