By Rick Horrow and Karla Swatek
February 13, 2012
“Bust”: Top Five Reasons the Armageddon is Near
1. MSG Co.’s second-quarter profit and revenue fell 22% and 14%, respectively, from the same period last year, due primarily to the NBA lockout. In particular, MSG Sports’ revenue dropped 31%, while the company’s media revenue fell 1.2% because of lower NBA ad sales.
2. San Francisco 49ers owners John and Denise DeBartolo York are in a dispute with the family of late minority partner Franklin Mieuli over the value of the franchise. Mielui’s heirs want to sell his 5% stake in the team. Forbes last year valued the 49ers at $990 million, but the Yorks contend the team is worth $360 million.
3. EPL Chelsea star John Terry is being left out of Umbro’s upcoming marketing campaign after being accused of racially abusing a fellow player. Terry’s deal with Umbro is worth more than $6 million, and he’s endorsed the brand for nearly 13 years.
4. Student attendance at Duke men’s basketball games is down significantly this season, a surprising fact for one of college basketball’s most rabid fan bases. The school designates 1,200 seats for students at Cameron Indoor Stadium, but this season students are filling only 700 seats per game.
5. Bermuda is at risk of losing the Grand Slam of Golf if the PGA is successful in finding a new title sponsor for the tournament, and Hawaii and Barbados already are interested in the event should it relocate. Naming rights for the event reportedly cost $1.5 million annually.
“Boom”: Top Five Reasons that Prosperity is Right Around the Corner
1. NBC earned a 47.0 Nielsen rating and 111.3 million viewers for its broadcast of Super Bowl XLIV, setting a record for the most-viewed TV program in U.S. history. With 30-second commercials costing $3.5 million each, companies that advertised in the game spent approximately $0.03 per viewer.
2. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson says the city is on track to have a financing plan for a proposed $387 million Kings arena before the March 1 deadline. The city has at least 13 firms interested in leasing Sacramento’s parking operations, which could provide as much as $200 million for the project.
3. EPL club Aston Villa signed a four-year, $23.7 million kit deal with Italian sportswear manufacturer Macron. The deal is the most lucrative kit contract in Aston Villa’s 137-year history, and replaces the club’s previous five-year, $15.8 million contract with Nike.
4. Valero Energy has extended its title sponsorship of the PGA Tour Texas Open through 2018. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the naming rights are estimated at $5-6 million annually. Since becoming the title sponsor in 2002, Valero and Golf San Antonio have raised more than $45 million for charity.
5. The Pac-12 Board of Directors unanimously voted to extend Commissioner Larry Scott’s contract through 2016, with an option to add more years. Since taking the job in 2009, Scott expanded the conference, negotiated a new TV deal with ESPN and launched a Pac-12 TV network.
“Hope”: Top Five Reasons That Creativity is the Key to Economic Survival
1. The NFL announced its extending NFL Network’s Thursday Night Football package beginning next season. The league-owned network will show one game each week from Weeks 2-15. Including Thanksgiving, every NFL team will play a Thursday game in 2012.
2. EA Sports’ latest iteration of its Tiger Woods video game will allow users to play as Woods at nine different stages of his life. The “Tiger Legacy Challenge” starts with a two-year-old Tiger on The Mike Douglas Show and concludes in the future with him trying to surpass Jack Nicklaus’ 19 major wins.
3. The Big Ten Conference has proposed implementing a college football playoff that would remove the top four teams from the BCS pool and have semifinals games played on the campus of the higher seed. Under the proposal, the championship game would be bid out like the Super Bowl.
4. Christopher Hansen, a San Francisco hedge-fund manager, has been working with the city of Seattle on a plan to bring back the NBA. If an arena deal is secured in the immediate future, a NBA team could relocate to Seattle as early as next season.
5. D.C. United and RFK Stadium are close to reaching a new lease for the MLS team to continue playing at the 51-year-old facility. United still is seeking its own soccer-specific stadium, and there was speculation the club would find an alternative venue in the interim. However, with the MLS season beginning March 10, RFK is the team’s most logical short-term stadium option.
