The Reminders of Katrina

More than last night’s win to put them in the Super Bowl, when I think of the New Orleans Saints, I think of this play.



Unquestionably, it was the most emotional, if not physically scintillating football play ever televised.

You’re going to hear plenty about the Saints’ connection to the Bayou region for the next thirteen days. You are also going to hear plenty about how the region is still reeling post-Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

My greatest hope among the excessive banter about Super Bowl XXIV is that the team’s appearance reminds this country that there are still issues in the area that the federal government forgot four+ years ago.

It is completely understandable that the tragedy in Haiti is fresh on everyone’s minds and that there will be a concerted effort from the NFL, NBC and its advertising partners to prominently speak on relief efforts.

It is also understandable that many of you have been unable to assist for various reasons; an inability to make a donation because of financial constraints or unwillingness because of lessons learned in the weeks after Katrina made landfall.

It may seem rather unfair to bring up the post-Katrina struggles when you consider that every team represents a city, town or region that is going through some sort of travail. We may never see a sports promotion that involves giving urban homeless a chance to rejoin mainstream society. I doubt that there will be some player that brings light to unemployment or that the Super Bowl MVP would turn down the Cadillac he wins because General Motors took TARP funds. No league will dare take on alcoholism, gambling or drug use; threats to the integrity of their games in their own rights.

However, in light of the public outpouring and concerns for Haiti – a nation with inordinate amounts of economic strife before the earthquake rocked Port-Au-Prince – I wonder if anything will be done, if not at least said, from the official league and team channels encouraging people to remember the Gulf Coast.

We have just less than thirteen days of non-news and uber-analysis. That’s plenty of time for something.

Video credit to b4mvfan68

Citi (II)

And so with every ballpark having officially opened for the new season, it's that time again for your favorite Scribe to see what these cathedrals to the game of baseball have to offer.

Just over a month after walking around this place, Stephon Johnson and I finally walk through the $800 million halls of Citi Field. It's safe to say that Keyspan Park in Brooklyn (a very nice minor league piece of real estate for the Mets' Single-A affiliate Cyclones) has been surpassed as the best ballpark in New York City.

Yes, I know. I haven't gone inside the new place on 161st Street in the Bronx, but that will come fairly soon.

Meanwhile, beacuse so much video was taped along with the pictures, there are two clips followed by a slideshow of the particular features of Citi Field.

With that said, before anyone asks again, NO, this park was not built on TARP funds. In fact, it was built on from New York State and City tax coffers, thank you very much.

Yes, same difference.

Citi Field - Jackie Robinson Day

Hopefully you will take the opportunity to head out to Flushing for a game after seeing this post. As for the second park on the docket this week, you'll get a glimpse this Saturday.

I'll give you a hint: it's not the other one here in New York. See you then!

Hard

It doesn't take a phD in economics to know that "times are hard, son" as the kids say these days. With the exception of the Oakland Raiders - thanks in part to two astronomical short-term deals with cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha and punter Shane Lechler - it seems as if every pro sports team is feeling of the plummeting economy.

While the NBA trading deadline was dwindling down and it was rather obvious that a few teams were paring payroll to lower costs, news broke out that the league was granting loans of at most $11.7 million to at least fifteen teams hoping to offset operating losses (the league itself being granted a $175 million credit from JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America).

Two weeks ago, Advertising Age reported that both the NBA and Major League Baseball were expanding their ad offerings to liquor and gambling (you read that right: baseball and gambling) to bring in revenue.

Yet, for a complete shocker, look below.

Now, if you live in this area, this should be VERY striking to see as the Yankees relied on their history alone to sell tickets. Is the economy tanking so badly - or at least are their usual ticket buyers reluctant to purchase seats in the brand new and pricey Stadium - that the Bronx Bombers have to hustle and bustle like everyone else in the league?

It's possible that every team in baseball is making some concerted effort to advertise ticket sales through what is known in the advertising and marketing community as behavioral targeting. Yet, this is the last team in the known universe you'd expect to use this avenue.

Could this be a result of the body shots that have crippled the financial sector (and beyond) that have taken away some of the usual suspects in ticket purchases for both New York teams? Could this be part of the potential public relations fiasco that may follow if the big wigs of some of the companies that receive bailout money happen to be seen on the YES Network  or YES Network-lite (FOX) during a game? Who knows, really.

All we can tell right now is that "times are hard, son."

Say What?!?!: Speaking of the Yanks, the financial sector and hard times, the Stanford Financial scandal (as mentioned recently on Scribe) actually affects a few players on the team. It may be nominal investments for these guys, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Fraudulent

No, no, this isn’t about a player. Sorry to disappoint.

This is about an ongoing story from the business world is that of Stanford Financial.

In the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal and the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program (a.k.a. The Bailout), Stanford Financial has undergone some intense scrutiny, though outside of the business media, there is little traction gained from this story. Stanford is being investigated by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the FBI for dealings through its offshore bank in Antigua. The SEC is trying to determine how Stanford can sell CDs (certificates of deposit) that offer yields of twice the industry average when many assets that the company invests in have rapidly eroded in the last two years.

Even though the alma mater provided a tremendous business education, I can still claim to be a complete idiot in the realm of finance, so it would be unfair to burden you with any more details without the wisdom or savvy to walk you through it.

Why is this important to Scribe?

BusinessWeek’s Unstructured Finance blog has been following this news closely along with its originator, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg and all other important business media. Matthew Goldstein brought up Stanford’s sports marketing deals; most notably its arrangement with one of the best golfers in the world, Vijay Singh.

“One can only imagine how professional golfer Vijay Singh is feeling in the wake of the news that securities regulators and other federal authorities are investigating Texas-born billionaire R. Allen Stanford’s fast-growing financial services firm.

In January, Singh, one of the world’s top-ranked golfers, inked a marketing deal with the 58-year-old financier’s Stanford Financial. In return for an undisclosed sum of cash, Singh agreed to make the Houston-based company’s golden eagle logo the main brand appearing on his apparel clothes and golf bag. Trade publication Street & Smith’s Sport Business Journal, which first reported the deal, said the arrangement is expected to last up to five years.

The deal with Singh is just another in a string of high-profile sports marketing arrangements that Stanford Financial has struck in the US and in the Caribbean island nation of Antigua, where the firm’s controversial offshore bank, Stanford International Bank, is located. Allen Stanford has used the sports marketing deals to raise the international profile of his $50 billion firm and help attract wealthy buyers for the high-yielding certificates of deposit issued by its offshore bank.”

Recently, there was news that Citigroup, the naming rights holder for the new baseball field for the New York Mets, may consider severing their deal with NYC’s National League club to halt a simmering public relations disaster as it is one of the companies currently accepting bailout money from the American government. Whether or not Citi Field will remain as such remains to be seen (as of now, it will), however, it appears that for the second time this decade, sports sponsorships are coming into the forefront because of maligned (at best) companies.

It was between 2000 and 2002 that several high-profile accounting and securities fraud scandals broke out; the most notorious of all belonging to Enron. Before the house of cards fell, the Houston-based company purchased the naming rights – a thirty-year, $100 million deal – to the new ballpark for the Astros in 1999. It was Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay who threw out the ceremonial first pitch in the building’s history. Of course, when the company was investigated by the SEC for irregular accounting practices (along with the former Arthur Andersen), the Astros relinquished the naming rights as a result of the public relations nightmare this scandal had become. The death of Enron Field gave way to the current Minute Maid Park, nicknamed the Juice Box.

Enron was not the only fraudulent company with naming rights as Adelphia Communications had a deal with the Tennessee Titans for what is now known as LP Field in Nashville. The cable company, once the fifth largest in the United States, also brokered their deal in 1999 after the team moved across the state from their temporary home in Memphis to start their after-Houston Oilers life. The Rigases (father John and sons Timothy and Michael) had hid $2.3 billion in liabilities from their books and apparently used the funds for personal gain. In the sports realm, what makes this scandal worse than Enron or Citigroup is that not only was John Rigas the majority owner of the Buffalo Sabres, but Adelphia created a regional sports network and a sports radio station in western New York.

That era produced several notorious naming rights and sponsorship fiascos evidenced here as many companies went belly-up because of corrupt management or overinflated value leading to the dot-com bust. You would think that history wouldn’t repeat itself so soon.

Unfortunately for some teams, individual athletes and leagues, they have to contend with these business calamities as their partners seem to bring more trouble than these long-term deals may be worth. Now with the current climate from Wall Street to 150th Street to everywhere else besides Main Street, the sports world has to be asking itself “is there anybody on the up-and-up?” Even more, the companies looking to sports as a promotional avenue (and an ego-booster of immense proportions) are becoming more wary of doing so to avoid the perception of having their more-than-ever finite cash flow invested somewhere not so feasible to the public.

And so, I pose this to all, regardless of your background: should companies cut back or eliminate their sports marketing programs?

Also, check the poll on the right.