In the world of sports, there is always something happening. With so many sports to choose from, fans certainly have a variety of events to watch each week.  For example, just look at the overlap in terms of some of America’s major sports leagues: Major League Baseball (today is Opening Day www.mlb.mlb.com/mlb/schedule), National Hockey League (the 2010 regular season ends on April 11th www.nhl.com/schedules/20092010) and the Professional Golf Association’s Masters Tournament begins April 8th (www.pgatour.com/r/schedule). Even in terms of the sports not currently in-season, the media keeps fans up-to-date on breaking news and events such as the National Football League’s 2010 Draft (which takes place in one month www.NFL.com/Draft). Of course one cannot overlook other sports, such as basketball, especially since games are taking place at both the professional and collegiate level (March Madness is certainly in full swing www.ncaa.com/champ/m-baskbl-d1-champ.html). 

With so many sports opportunities available it is no wonder that the sport industry must constantly strive to attract AND maintain fans, particularly in difficult economic times. Given all of this, I surprised myself when I realized how much I actually missed watching the 2010 Winter Olympics. I can’t believe the Olympic Games ended almost a month ago. No matter how you look at it, there is something different about watching the United States Hockey team as opposed to watching the same players on their regular NHL teams. 

For me, a large part of it boils down to the pride and importance athletes take in playing their sport for their country. In today’s world, with free-agents and the reality of “sports as a business” there can be something lacking in terms of player and fan loyalty. However, the pride of playing for a medal for a country transcends all of the other stuff. In a sense, the Olympics seem to have a sense of innocence or purity that doesn’t exist in professional sports or even college sports when athletes have an eye for turning professional down the road.

I know I can be a bit idealistic but I can’t help wondering if there is a way to bring some of the pride, dedication, sacrifice, work-ethic and honor that accompanies successful, individual, Olympic athletes to our young athletes in recreational sports to collegiate sports and eventually to professional sports as well. In fact, we could all use a little of those qualities in our everyday life, regardless of the profession in which we work.

 What do you think? How can society use professional sports in America as a vehicle to inspire others towards attaining excellence in ways OTHER than looking at the paychecks of professional athletes? How can we take some of the business out of sports and put the emphasis on the game? How about the character of the player? Or, maybe I’m just wrong and nothing should change. What do you think about professional sports versus Olympic sports?

Matt Bish and Wally Reed explain the importance of a positive outlook while selling tickets for the New Jersey Nets. The Nets are currently mired in one of the worst seasons in NBA history.

Day two of the CSRI Scholarly Conference on College Sport has come and gone.  Today’s sessions were mostly academic research presentations, and I will get to them.  There were two keynote speakers, though.  The first was Dr. John Gerdy (Ohio University), and the Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics Luncheon speaker was Dr. Bernie Mullin (The Aspire Group).  Both were informative and took two different approaches.
Dr. Gerdy started the day off talking about how the intercollegiate model of sport has taken on the professional sport model with regards to football and men’s basketball.  He stated the reform in intercollegiate athletics should remain at the Division I level with football and basketball.  Dr. Gerdy also gave some alarming statistics regarding retired NFL players.  He said that two years after retiring from the NFL, 78% of the retirees file for bankruptcy or are under financial stress due to joblessness or divorce.  He went on to say that five years after retirement, 60% of the retirees are broke.  He attributes this to the lack of direction, planning and purpose while the players are in college.  Dr. Gerdy suggests the only way to reform the professional model is to eliminate the scholarship in exchange for a need-based financial aid agreement that is administered outside of the athletic department.
Dr. Mullin compared and contrasted the NBA and college basketball.  He said that that reform is needed in intercollegiate athletics and from the basketball side, a lot could be fixed if the students were forced to stay in college longer, giving them a longer period to grow as basketball players and as adults.  He noted that the players that only stay one year are neither physically or emotionally ready for the NBA.  Dr. Gerdy asked Bernie if it was the NBA’s fault that 60% of NBA retirees are bankrupt after two years.  Dr. Mullin not only said no, but he outlined what the NBA does to prevent it, and went on to say that if they stayed in college longer they would be more mature and learn the skills needed to prepare them for life after college.
I also saw two other interesting presentations. The first was Intercollegiate Athletic Participation and Undergraduate Student Engagement by Dr. Tammy Crawford (Washington State University).   It was an interesting study in terms of not only the types and levels of engagement student athletes had, but some of the statistics were alarming and need more investigation.  The statistic that was most eye-opening to me was this one:

The amount of effort put into the following activity:

Practice

95%

Attending class

73%

Spectator for another sport

47%

Preparing for class

41%

 
It is alarming to see that the student-athletes surveyed put more effort into being a spectator at a sport than preparing for class, but on the other hand they are putting forth a fair amount of effort to attend class.
Dr. Steve Dittmore (University of Arkansas) and Mr. Craig Crow (East Stroudsburg University) did a wonderful job presenting the topic Competitive Balance in the Founding BCS Conferences: Regular and Post Season Implications.  The premise behind the study was to see how competitive balance has changed since the BCS was founded in 1998.  There were two results that stood out to me.  The first was that all six original BCS conferences had an increase in competitive balance since the inception of the BCS in terms of the within-season results.  The second was that the recent conference alignment has positively affected competitive balance in the two most impacted original BCS conferences which are the ACC and the Big East.
The poster session with the YCP students went well as did their case study.  I will find out later if they will advance to the finals later this evening.  Overall, it was a good day.  I will update you tomorrow on the final day of the conference.