NBA

The NBA has decided to extend their agreements with Haier, they announced Wednesday.

The deals involve a variety of NBA-themed promotions, including advertising, retail promotions, hospitality and NBA-themed sweepstakes, according to a statement from the league.

So…what’s your favorite sport?

Cause you only have a year and a half left to enjoy it.

In case you didn’t get the memo, American sports are ending in 2011 (the Mayan Calendar was a year off, who knew?).  Collective bargaining agreements, revenue sharing, and anti-trust law are just a few of the issues separating your favorite sport’s owners and players.  Is the gap so wide that we’ll see a work stoppage in 2011?  Let’s examine.

Tim Donaghy...NBA gambling pioneer?

One part “All Star game in Las Vegas” + one part “recession” + one part “$175M loan” = Legalized Gambling?

The NBA…its where Spanish happens.

In a move which almost seems long overdue, due to the increasingly Hispanic population in America, the NBA is going back to its Spanish roots…well, if it had Spanish roots.

The patriarch of one of America’s legendary families, Joe Kennedy, always preached to his famous sons “You Are Who You Say You Are,” and that creedo is a good example of how today’s brands can best pitch and stay on message. Remembering “who you are” and “what you do” and making sure everyone in the company is in line with that vision is the best way to effectively and consistently communicate. A great example of that consistent messaging, and the placing of a steady stream of information around that message, is being done by the New Jersey Nets as they battle every obstacle in their planned move to Brooklyn in the future.

NBA fans love watching basketball on TV.  That’s always been true, but never in the numbers that exist now.  It’s almost…Amazing (cue Kanye West…)

TNT broke another record Tuesday night, as its coverage of Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals drew 10.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched pro hoops playoff game in cable television history.

On Monday night, ESPN drew 9.88 million viewers with Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, and while the record was short-lived, the game still stands as the most-watched basketball game (college or pro) to have aired on the sports network. (Of course, that could all change later this afternoon, when the deliveries for ESPN’s coverage of Game 5 of the Lakers-Nuggets tilt come through.)

Question:  How do you make the NBA playoffs more exciting?

If you’re answer was, “Add a steel cage match” or “hit someone with a chair” and you aren’t Nuggets Forward Kenyon Martin, Kenyon’s mom, or Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, then you must be talking about Game 4 of the Western Conference finals.  Why is game 4, which is to take place on May 25th in Denver, such a big deal? Its because World Wrestling Entertainment already reserved the Pepsi center for that night, for its Monday Night Raw program.

One of the best sites on the web for sports things digital is Pat Coyle’s Sports Marketing 2.0, and they recently did a summary on the NFL Draft and teams use of twitter to actually break news (which was also put together by the Sports Business Daily). As brands and athletes jump to the twitter bandwagon, it shows that the technology may have an immediacy that others do not have for exclusive news distribution.

Remember when Kobe had that sexual assault case?  It was like he was trying to win that case on the court…It’s like the judge threw him the ball and was like “I’ll play you for your freedom”

– Dave Chappelle

Often times colleges in mid or low mid major positions will look to take risk in order to shock the system into a new level. The hiring of coaches, the jump to a new division or a new league, an aggressive marketing campaign all usually revolve around the elusive grab for both attention and the sponsor dollar, and with that the even more important alumni dollar. Into that mix usually goes some strange bedfellows…New Jersey Institute of Technology and their foray into a western conference, Army to Conference USA, Bob Hill going to Fordham as hoops coach are just some examples of bold and sometimes unsuccessful moves made by Universities that come to mind.

Fresh off the heels of their strange, yet very humorous Super Bowl ad, Gold trading company Cash4Gold, has officially found a new sports sponsor…The Milwaukee Bucks.  How can a company that has a stable of endorsers including MC Hammer, Ed McMahon, and this lady (who traded in the ring from her first marriage for cash!), not be destined for greatness? (Answer: there is no way it is not destined for greatness!)

The footprint and hours spent by the NBA growing their brand in China over the last ten years is perhaps the best example of global sports brand expansion to date. Now that that process is in place, the league, which has already established a relationship to brand and grow basketball as a sport through its relationship with the NCAA in North America, will now look to refocus on bringing the impressive lineup of multinational partners to Europe. With FIBA’s success in growing hoops in Europe and its partnership with the NBA continuing to gain steam, there is perhaps no better time to introduce those brands which the NBA has cultivated and activated with in North America to the European continent.

It was probably over a year ago that if an athlete or even an entertainer broke major news on his or her blog he or she would have been vilified.

Growing economic concerns and lawsuits be damned, the New Jersey Nets are going to Brooklyn.

America’s New Jersey’s New York’s Jay-Z’s? favorite sports team is taking the show on the road, with the move to Brooklyn in the 2011-2012 season seeming to be imminent.  From Bloomberg,

“It will happen,” Yormark said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “For the Record,” which will air tonight. “We’ll be there for the ‘11-’12 season. We’ve pre-sold 20 percent of our suites. We’ve got eight of our 14 founding partnerships already completely signed. Next week, we’ll announce our ninth.”