Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Radio Show Preview [10/26]


Wednesday, 5PM, Slope Radio

In this week's radio show, we will be discussing a variety of topics ranging from NBA labor negotiations to allegations of Frank McCourt looting money from the Dodgers. Check out the full list after the jump.

Roid Rage
  • The effects of Reggie Bush calling out teammates.
  • Todd McClure bringing trash talk from the field to the media.
Business Breakdown
  • The regulations and effects regarding GMs and Managers leaving their teams while still under contract
Isiah Thomas Award
  • This week's winner is Frank McCourt for allegedly looting 190 million dollars from the Dodgers. We will be discussing the affect that this had on the Dodgers' performance.
  • Also, the Oakland Raiders coaching staff for bringing Carson Palmer into the game while down 21 points.
We will also update the world on the NBA labor negotiations and look into the ramifications of mediation talks breaking down.

Our weekly Suck for Luck update will discuss the possibility of teams like the Rams and Colts grabbing the first round pick, and if they should use it to get coveted QB Andrew Luck.

Additional Topics
  • USC QB Barkley calls out Notre Dame for quitting.
  • World Series: The effect of crowd noise on calls to the bullpen.
  • The Tim Tebow Saga begins: his on-field "success" and its influence on marketing and jersey sales for Broncos.
  • NCCA backs 2k per athlete.
  • The possibility of West Virginia to the Big 12.
Our show is airing at 5PM this Wednesday on www.slopemedia.org/radio/

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Monday, October 24, 2011

Event Preview: Gary Schueller, Group M Entertainment & Sports Partnerships

10/28 -- 4:00PM -- Ives 105

On Friday, October 28th, the ILR Sports Management Club will be hosting Gary Schueller, Account Manager for Group M Entertainment & Sports Partnerships. This event will take place from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm in Ives 105. Gary is a Cornell ILR alumnus who is eager to speak with students about his experiences working in sports.

Gary has worked in various areas of the sports industry, specifically marketing and public relations. He has previously directed communications and public relations for both the Australian Baseball League and the Jackie Robinson Foundation. He has also worked in community affairs for the New York Mets and in media relations for the New York Yankees. Currently, he works as an Account Manager for Group M ESP, which acts as a sports and entertainment marketing strategy consultant for major brands. They provide top-level creative strategy and evaluations for these brands and negotiate on behalf of them.

This event is open to all who wish to attend. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Vice President of Events, Robbie Cohen (rnc48@cornell.edu).

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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Alternative Perspective: College Athletes SHOULD Be Paid

At least one observer believes the Fab Five should have been paid

In Part 1 of our Blogger's Roundtable, three ILRSMC bloggers were unanimous in thinking that college athletes should NOT be paid. Here, Eric Weintraub (ILR '14) argues for the idea that these players deserve compensation.

I was shocked when I found out that I was the minority in the room, but I still believe collegiate athletes should be paid.

Follow the jump to hear me out.

In light of all the upheaval and the changing climate of college athletics, the paying of college athletes has recently become a major issue with the NCAA, and it has shifted dramatically in recent years toward a big capitalistic venture, away from its non-profit roots. College sports is making headlines more often for recruiting violations, pay-for-play schemes, and Nevin Shapiro-types than for Heisman-worthy performances and huge upsets.

One can argue that all this corruption on the college level is a direct result of talented, yet naive, athletes from inner-city backgrounds getting taken advantage of by seedy agents or boosters that throw a few bucks or gifts their way. I don’t think that giving every athlete two-to-three thousand dollars per year in stipends is going to fully eradicate these violations from the culture of college sports, but it can definitely help.

Additionally, these athletes should be entitled to these stipends simply because they are the central actors in the product that the NCAA and big-time colleges are selling to the public as entertainment, not to mention profiting from handsomely as well.

When studying for an economics test the other day, I tripped over one of those semi-irrelevant sidebars that just happened to be talking about the marginal revenue product of a college athlete. The blurb said that a Heisman-caliber performer at a D-I school can generate up to $800,000 of additional revenue for his school every year, adding up to over $3 million over the course of his four-year career. And to think that this student is only compensated in free education (which he probably has little use for anyway) is mindboggling. And don’t tell me that college athletes are compensated in other ways, such as the opportunities to market themselves to professional teams, or just the fleeting glory of being a college athlete. When it's a Division III softball player or the star quarterback for a D-I school, a large majority of these athletes have no pro aspirations; they are just playing because they love the game.

Unfortunately, the reality of this notion isn’t so idyllic. When thinking about the overwhelming daily stresses of the life of a college athlete today, I think back to the vivid interviews Jalen Rose gave in the hit ESPN documentary, "The Fab 5." Rose, a native of the projects of Detroit, was talked about how the life of the college athlete is not as glamorous as it seems. He revealed that he was driving around a beat-up old car, and he and his teammates on the Michigan basketball team would eat Ramen noodles and hot dogs for dinner more often than people thought. They had pressure to keep their grades up to avoid academic ineligibility, and they had to go to practice every day as part of a highly regarded team. Also, they did not reap any of the benefits that came with the success they were having on the court, aside from heightened exposure and expectations. This frustration Rose shared with the rest of the Fab 5 over their situation hit its peak when they came back from a trip in Europe after their freshman year and saw all this Fab 5 merchandise selling in the stores around Michigan. When they realized they weren’t getting one cent from those sales, (and the fact that the sales all lined the pockets of the Michigan athletic program) they eventually left school early and went to the NBA, finally able to taste the fruits of their unpaid labor.


From Rose’s perspective and background, can you blame college athletes for succumbing to the allure of improper benefits? By giving a few thousand dollars to each of these athletes, lending them some semblance of day-to-day financial living stability, a lot of these violations should be eliminated from the culture of college sports. This is perhaps the most compelling reason to pay college athletes.

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Blogger Roundtable: Should College Athletes Be Paid?

Sorry, Reggie - no pay for you.

The Blogger Roundtable compiles the views of various ILRSMC bloggers and e-board members. If you have a suggestion for a future roundtable topic, email Geoff at gjr52@cornell.edu.

A timeless debate for sports fans, the simple notion that "student-athletes" should or should not be paid is enough to start a fiery debate. There's no question that some schools are the beneficiaries of what has become not just a game, but a business. If colleges are making money thanks to their football team's performance, why aren't the players compensated?

At the same time, many argue that these athletically-inclined young adults are called student-athletes. The emphasis should be on the student part of their title. Naysayers will also point out that most of the colleges who make big bucks from their athletic departments already DO give tremendous benefits (often times, a free or discounted education) to their players.

Admittedly, the debate is getting tiresome. But recently, there's been some gasoline thrown on into the flames.

Apparently, according to a person in the know, college presidents, provosts and chancellors are thinking of giving “student-athletes” a $2,000 a year salary for their efforts. Athletic Directors seem to think $3,500 is a better stipend but for now the $2,000 figure seems to be right amount of money to spend on players for the Lords of the Ivy Towers.
Weiner goes on to give a very detailed look at the collegiate athletic landscape and whether or not athletes are entitled to some sort of "salary."

On a new installment on the ILRSMC Blog, we asked SMC bloggers:

Should student athletes be paid?

The opinions after the jump.

Here's what they had to say:

Adam Kirsch (ILR '15)

I do not believe that college athletes should be paid. DI players receive their diploma essentially for free and gain the benefit of numerous services that aren't necessarily accessible to the ordinary student.

Although they generate a great deal of revenue for the university, not every athlete contributes the same degree to the university (example-Cam Newton brought much more revenue to Auburn than Notre Dame's second-string punter brought to South Bend). There is no way to create a fair and reasonable system to proportionally compensate student-athletes beyond the scholarship system.

Furthermore, although DIII athletes do not receive scholarships, they do not bring a significant share of revenue back to the university compared to their DI counterparts.

Given the above reasons, I do not think that DI athletes should be paid. They have the option to leave early for the pros if they want to get paid-there's no reason they should be paid in college when they can make the jump and collect on a signing bonus.

Robbie Cohen (ILRSMC VP Events, ILR '13)

I believe that college athletes should not be paid. They are essentially being paid by receiving scholarships, as they don't have to pay the increasingly high costs of tuition.

Furthermore, they are STUDENT athletes - note that the word student comes first. While most have the end goal of being professional athletes, college is their time to learn as undergraduates - if and when they make it to the pros, that is when they should get paid.

NCAA athletes do bring in tremendous revenues to universities. But if these universities had to pay each and every one of their athletes, they may not be able to sustain their programs - unless they devoted more resources to sports, which would mean sacrificing the education that the university offers.

Going along with this, the competitive balance would be diminished as the bigger, richer universities would be able to just pay for the better players.

Johanna Gill (ILR '15)

College athletes definitely should not be paid. Ultimately, they are at an educational institution where, in theory, academics, not sports, should be the main focus. At the moment, there are already rampant issues with corruption in college sports; take for example the University of Miami. Officially allowing schools to compensate athletes may only exacerbate unethical practices and lead to an even more exaggerated divide in competition if schools with more resources are continuously able to attract the top athletes.

Also, many athletes are on athletic scholarships at their respective schools. Isn't that compensation enough? Especially now with the economic downturn and colleges being forced to cut academic programs, monetary compensation should only come into play in a professional league.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The bloggers seem to be pretty certain of their views, but there is at least one who takes exception. Check out his take in Alternate Perspective.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Radio Show Preview [10/19]

Wednesday, 5PM, Slope Radio

In case you were unaware, the ILR Sports Management Club hosts a radio show called Sports Inc. every Wednesday at 5 PM. You can listen to us on www.slopemedia.org/radio/

For the rest of the semester, we will be doing a preview and recap blog post about every week's show. The preview post will outline the topics covered on the show and the post-show blog will recap the on-air opinions.

Hope you enjoy!

The topics after the jump.

This week on Sports Inc.:

Roid Rage

Unfortunately (or fortunately) we have many contenders for Roid Rage this week.
  • First, there's Brandon Marshall, who never ceases to amaze with his quotes. This week, he declared,
    "They’re going to fine me. It’s probably going to be like a $50,000 fine. But that quarter and a half that I’m out there, I’m going to play like a monster. I might get in a fight with Bart Scott. [Antonio] Cromartie, we pretty much matured our relationship and grew a little bit. We used to fight in Denver and San Diego. If that happens, it happens, so we’ll see."
  • Then there's AJ Hawk, who gave his favorite hand gesture to his own bench on Sunday after a sack. Not to mention the fact that he was clearly going to be shown on television after a big play.

  • Finally, there's Javell McGee, who declared,
    "Some guys in there are ready to fold,"
This was after an NBA lockout negotiation session. Always good to let the other side know when you'll give in.

Isiah Thomas Award
  • This weeks lucky winner is the Oakland Raiders, who apparently are continuing in the tradition of the late great Al Davis by conducting questionable trades. In response to a season ending injury to their starting quarterback Jason Campbell, the Raiders traded for the Bengals' Carson Palmer in exchange for a first round pick and a 2012 second round pick, which could possibly become a first round pick if they win a playoff game this season. Now their draft looks like this.
Business Breakdown
  • This week there were another few shakeups in the college football landscape. The Mountain West and Conference USA agreed to combine football programs to make a "Super-Mid-Major" football conference. Also, the Big East schools agreed to increase their exit tax, conditional on adding additional teams first, in order to try to become a more stable conference.
Additional Topics
  • The most talked about confrontation of the week, Jim Harbaugh vs. Jim Schwartz.

  • Sean Payton's injury, his bench play-calling, and his assistant coach losing a challenge.
  • The Bengals huge gain from the Carson Palmer trade and their bright future.
  • Brandon Lloyd being traded to the Rams
  • Ronnie being traded to the Lions for Jerome Harrison
  • Rex Grossman benching
  • The popularity of the World Series without big-market teams
  • The party known as the Red Sox locker room
  • Theo Epstein compensation for the Red Sox
  • Paul Konerko almost becoming a player-manager
  • Tim Tebow getting his chance
  • The safety concerns in Indy Car
  • College Football possible undefeated teams
  • Marcus Lattimore's injury and its effect on the draft
And of course, our weekly Suck for Luck update.

Once again, our show is airing at 5PM this Wednesday on www.slopemedia.org/radio/ .

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

A New Way to Look at the MVP Race

Clayton Kershaw: 2011 MVP?

The craziness of the 2011 MLB season has sparked extra heat under an already charged topic of debate: voting for the league’s Most Valuable Player. Consider the American League MVP race. Rarely, if ever, have the front-running candidates for baseball’s most prestigious award consisted of: A non-position player (Detroit pitcher Justin Verlander), two outfielders whose teams failed to make the playoffs (Toronto’s Jose Bautista and Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury- no comment necessary on the latter), and a third outfielder whose batting average just barely beats the league standard (New York’s Curtis Granderson, at .262).

The use of any of the conventional standards for MVP consideration (i.e. “best player on the best team,” “a pitcher can’t win” “BA/HR/RBI”) simply won’t work in the American League this season. So, perhaps the strange nature of this season’s award race will precipitate a fundamental shift in the way the term MVP is defined and determined.

Here’s one proposal: consider the literal definition of the word valuable. Inherently, expectations for each player are not equal; each player is held to a different standard based on his respective salary. In 2011, for instance, St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman Albert Pujols contributed 5.1 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) to his ballclub, collecting over $14 million for his efforts. New York Yankees’ outfielder Brett Gardner also provided his team with 5.1 WAR, but earned just a tad over $500,000. Thus, I would argue that Gardner was more “valuable” in the purest form of the word*.

*Assuming, of course, you buy into the advanced metric WAR – I don’t blame you if you have a hard time accepting that Pujols and Gardner had statistically comparable seasons.

The bottom line is that value should be assessed through the lens of cost-benefits anlaysis. To operationalize the term “value,” we should consider the ratio of dollars earned by a player to his contribution to wins. Gathering salary data (from USA Today) for every qualified Major League player in 2011, and the WAR for each of these players (from Fangraphs), we can identify which players were truly the most (and least) valuable.

Most Valuable Players
Player
Team Salary WAR $/WAR
Clayton Kershaw LAD $500,000 6.8 $73,529.41
Alex Avila DET $425,000 5.5 $77,272.73
Doug Fister SEA/DET $436,500 5.6 $77,946.43
Andrew McCutchen PIT $452,500 5.7 $79,385.96
Madison Bumgarner SF $450,000 5.5 $81,818.18
Ian Kennedy ARI $423,000 5 $84,600.00
Cameron Maybin SD $429,100 4.7 $91,297.87
Mike Stanton FLA $416,000 4.5 $92,444.44
Justin Masterson CLE $468,400 4.9 $95,591.84
Peter Bourjos LAA $414,000 4.3 $96,279.07

Least Valuable Players
Player Team Salary WAR $/WAR
Kosuke Fukudome CHC $14,500,000 -0.2 ($72,500,000.00)
Juan Pierre CWS $8,500,000 -0.4 ($21,250,000.00)
Alex Rios
CWS $12,500,000 -0.7 ($17,857,142.86)
Aubrey Huff SF $10,000,000 -0.6 ($16,666,666.67)
Raul Ibanez PHI $12,166,666 -1.3 ($9,358,973.85)
Bronson Arroyo CIN $7,666,666 -1.3 ($5,897,435.38)
Ichiro Suzuki
SEA $18,000,000 0.2 $90,000,000.00
Vernon Wells LAA $26,187,500 0.3 $87,291,666.67
Carl Crawford BOS $14,857,142 0.2 $74,285,710.00
Jason Bay NYM $18,125,000 0.7 $25,892,857.14



Our analysis indicates that Los Angeles Dodger’s pitcher Clayton Kershaw was the most valuable player in the Majors in 2011, costing just over $73,000 per win above replacement. Amazingly, Seattle Mariners’ outfielder Ichiro Suzuki was the least-productive productive player, with his club shelling out $90 million per win above replacement he provided. Chicago Cubs’ outfielder Kosuke Fukudome brings least valuable to a new level; theoretically, should have owed his team over $72 million per win (below) replacement.

So there you have it: Kershaw for NL MVP. Value aside, his “hard” stats alone could potentially serve his case (9.57 K/9, 4.59 K/BB, 2.47 FIP). In the AL, forget the heavy hitters out east. Catcher Alex Avila of Detroit has been the most valuable player. Costing just above the league minimum in salary, Avila posted a very impressive .895 OPS while fielding baseball’s most difficult position flawlessly. Each player a star; each player a bargain. The essence of an MVP.

Below, check out the “most valuable team” for the 2011 season:

C: Alex Aliva, Detroit Tigers
1B: Gaby Sanchez, Florida Marlins
2B: Neil Walker, Pittsburgh Pirates
SS: Elvis Andrus, Texas Rangers
3B: Ryan Roberts, Arizona Diamondbacks
LF: Bret Gardner, NY Yankees
CF: Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh Pirates
RF: Mike Stanton, Florida Marlins
DH: Billy Butler, Kansas City Royals
P: Clayton Kershaw, LA Dodgers

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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Event Recap: Marcia Harding, ILR Career Services

On Tuesday, September 27th, the ILR Sports Management Club hosted its first guest speaker of the year: Marcia Harding from ILR Career Services. Marcia gave an informative presentation titled “How to Get a Job in Sports,” where she offered tips and advice on how to obtain a job in the competitive sports industry.

Marcia provided great insight regarding networking, resume building, social networking (specifically LinkedIn), and interviewing within a sports context. She emphasized the resume as being an important aspect in trying to get a job in sports. For example, as with resumes in other career fields, it is important to highlight one’s specific sports-related internships/positions in the past to show the employer your previous experiences and interests in the industry.

Marcia's PowerPoint presentation also highlighted how social networking is increasingly becoming more important, as is getting to know people in the industry and learning how they obtained their jobs, as well. Furthermore, any other possible connection that can be made could prove to be invaluable later down the line. LinkedIn (Editor: check out our members' LinkedIn profiles on the Contributors page!) has become a great resource for communicating and connecting with current employees within the industry.

The resources and help provided by the ILR Career Services team can definitely be applied to any career field. We were lucky to have Marcia (and all those who helped make the presentation) at the latest Sports Management Club meeting as we continue to follow our passion and search for jobs in sports!

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