Check out this cool Google Earth tour of each stadium in the Pac-10 Football Conference.
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Category Archives: Sports – Football
The NFL confronts the Mismatch Problem
The pathological way in which National Football League teams annually evaluate college football players has been a common topic on this blog. So, I thoroughly enjoyed this New Yorker video (H/T Guy Kawasaki) of a recent talk by Clear Thinkers favorite Malcolm Gladwell in which he uses the NFL’s new-player evaluation process as an example of a hiring practice that is undermined by the "mismatch problem" — that is, the tendency of an employer to cling to outmoded employee evaluation variables despite the fast-changing nature of the employer’s jobs.
Gladwell’s point is that the nature and demands of jobs in American society are becoming increasingly complex. That complexity, in turn, drives employers to desire more certainty in making the right employment decision. However, in striving for that certainty, many employers continue to measure the wrong variables in evaluating prospects and finalizing their employment decisions. Gladwell is currently studying the mismatch problem and has some initial observations on how employers can minimize its effects. Check out his talk.
The Quad previews the Coogs
In its countdown of the 120 Division I-A football programs, The Quad previews the 2008 Houston Cougar football team at no. 64.
Expanding DKR Memorial
A couple of years ago, while attending the Texas-Iowa State football game (blog post here), I took the photo on the left of the horseshoe section on the north end of the University of Texas’ Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium. After the 2006 season, UT began the process of replacing the horseshoe section with a more modern end zone section that is closer to the field and contains the now-ubiquitous luxury suites and club section that are a part of most big-time college football stadiums these days. The new section is now complete and ready for the 2008 season, so check out this cool time lapse video of the construction of the section. We get things done fast down here in Texas. ;^)
Counting down with the Quad
It’s less than three months until the kick-off of the 2008 college football season, so in anticipation of the upcoming season, the New York Times’ quite good college sports blog — the Quad — is providing an excellent summary each day of the 110 or so Division I-A teams. The Quad rates the Rice Owls at no. 104, which seems far too pessimistic to me given the Owls’ returning offensive firepower. But the summaries are generally thorough and provide a decent perspective of each program, so they are a good primer for the college football season. In these parts, it’s never too early to get ready for some football!
Opting out with meaning
Earlier this week, the owners of the National Football League elected to opt out of the final two years of the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with its Players Association. The Mile High Report and Stacey Brook do good jobs of analyzing the impact of the owners’ election and neither believe that a lockout or strike is likely before a new deal is struck. My sense is that they are probably right, but I did chuckle when I saw this AmLaw Daily blog post on the owners’ decision in regard to hiring counsel for the upcoming labor negotiations:
. . . [The NFL owners] hired L. Robert Batterman of Proskauer Rose. Batterman is well known in labor circles for his National Hockey League work. It was Batterman who presided over the NHL labor negotiations that scuttled the league’s 2004-05 season, making it the first North American pro sports league to lose a full year to labor strife. "Batterman bullied [the union] into submission," says one sports labor lawyer who requested anonymity. "If one accepts the conspiracy theory of collective bargaining, this means the NFL must be looking for trouble," says another. [. . .]
No official negotiations have been held. But the hiring of Batterman sent a clear signal to the union. Gene Upshaw, president of the NFL Players Association, told SportsBusiness Journal in April that his "concerns were heightened" when he heard Batterman had been retained, noting that NHL players crumbled before Batterman’s hard line. The NFLPA’s outside counsel, James Quinn of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, says that the owners "have this bizarre notion that they want to get tough, so they go get Bob Batterman." (Jeffrey Kessler of Dewey & LeBoeuf is also counsel to the NFLPA.)
Doesn’t sound exactly as if the NFL owners are preparing to play nice, now does it? ;^)
Valuing the Stros
The Stros are not worth squat on the playing field this season, but the club continues to be among the dozen most valuable franchises in Major League Baseball.
Forbes’ annual valuation of MLB franchises is out and the Stros come in at a respectable 12th among the 30 MLB franchises, down one slot from last year. Forbes thinks that the Stros ($463 million valuation) are doing about as well financially as they can do in this market. A list of the values and operating income for all 30 franchises is here.
Interestingly, although the Yankees have by far the most valuable franchise in MLB, they were dead last among the 30 MLB franchises in operating income at a negative $47 million. The World Champion Boston Red Sox were 29th in operating income at a negative $19 million, although the club’s valuation of $816 million is behind only the Yankees ($1.306 billion) and the Mets ($824 million).
This post from last fall noted Forbes‘ most recent valuation of the National League Football franchise, which continue to be much more valuable than the MLB franchises. The least valuable of the 32 NFL franchises (the Vikings at $782 million) would be the fourth most valuable MLB club.
They just don’t make football players like that anymore
The Johnny Carson interview below of former Baltimore Colts defensive tackle Art Donovan had my late father and me (as well as Carson himself) in stitches when we first saw it together back in 1990. Donovan’s description of his on-the-field spat with Norm Van Brocklin is a classic.
I’m shocked, shocked! There is academic cheating in big-time college football!
The entertaining hypocrisy of big-time college athletics continues at Florida State University. (H/T Jay Christensen). Just like Rick’s Cafe, everybody knows what’s going on, too.
So, what level of embarrassment in regard to "academic integrity" is it going to take to prompt university presidents to reorganize big-time college football into the professional minor league business that is its true nature?
This imbroglio reminds me of an insight into academia that my late mentor, Ross Lence, passed along to me years ago. As regular readers of this blog know, A Man for All Seasons — the story of Sir Thomas More’s conflict with King Henry VIII — is one of my favorite movies and it was one of Ross’ favorites, too. Ross particularly enjoyed the scene early in the movie when Sir Thomas attempts unsuccessfully to persuade his student, Richard Rich, to eschew a political appointment for a teaching career. After rejecting Sir Thomas’ advice, Rich takes a political appointment from Henry’s henchman, Thomas Cromwell, in return for agreeing to betray Sir Thomas.
"Sir Thomas knew that Rich had a corrupt heart and would never be able to resist the corrupt temptations of politics," Ross observed to me once with a chuckle. "So he recommended that Rich become a teacher." Then, with a twinkle in his eye, Ross posited the question for discussion:
"But was Sir Thomas suggesting that a corrupt heart is not a problem for an academic?"
The importance of recruiting classes
The institutionalized fanaticism that is college football recruiting reached its annual zenith yesterday as hundreds of the nation’s best high school senior football players signed National Letters of Intent with various big-time college football programs. It never fails to amaze me how much interest the competition between big-time college programs for 17 and 18 year-olds generates among the supporters of those programs.
But as this earlier post noted, there is no doubt that it is important to the success of the programs. For example, over the past decade, the respective programs of the University of Texas and Texas A&M have mostly been going in the opposite direction, UT up and A&M down. This Suzanne Halliburton/Austin-American Statesman article reviews the past ten UT recruiting classes, while Ryan over at TAMABINP does the same here with regard to A&M’s recruiting classes over the same period. As noted earlier here, A&M remains well a decided step below UT in the overall quality of its recruiting classes.
By the way, this website developed by three Stetson School of Business and Economics at Mercer University economists contains information about an econometric football recruiting model that predicts the collegiate choices of high school football players. Check it out.