Sonia Sotomayor's Connection to Sports

Looking for a rewarding career? These vocations can help you reach out to others

Is your career feeling a little stunted? Are you one of those people who love to help others?

How Much Does the Super Bowl Cost?

The NFL claims cities that host the Super Bowl see between $300 to $500 million of influx to their economy.

Clippers -- Lessons from Losers

Recently, on the NBA Network I caught the tail end of a conversation between Kenny Smith and another announcer about the LA Clippers.  Maybe there are less successful franchises by some metric, but the Clippers must be in the mix in any discussion of trees that never bear fruit (see Pro Basketball Reference).   If this season's trend continues, the Clips will record 1 winning season in the last 14 and 2 out of the last 18.  In half of these seasons, they have won less than one-third of their games. Long losing streaks (for example WKU football) or extremely […]

Deals, Deals, Deals

The University of Colorado will join Nebraska and Utah as members of the Pac-10 in 2011 after negotiating a $6.863 million exit package with the Big 12.  Nebraska is paying $9.25 million for the same privilege to leave for the Big 10.   This story in Boulder's Daily Camera notes that the Pac-10 is financing Colorado's severance payment, in effect through reduced future payouts to Colorado.  Payouts of this magnitude -- and the ability of Colorado and the Pac-10 to finance the early move with internal funds --  imply very large gains to the new Pac-10 group of schools from this realignment. Elsewhere, […]

Oriole Park - success story for whom?

There are two stories related to Oriole Park at Camden Yards in the Baltimore press. A common thread in the stories is the lease the Orioles signed with the Maryland Stadium Authority for the use of Camden Yards. In the first story, the subject is whether Camden Yards is or is not a success. What it means for the stadium to be a success is a point of contention. One supporter who was actively involved in the dealings with the Orioles suggests building the stadium "was not a fiscal project". Instead, "it was to benefit the citizens". I think the […]

MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

Watching NBA highlights last night on NBATV, I stumbled across this video story on the 2010 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Daryl Morey, GM of the Houston Rockets, helped establish the conference (now in its 4th year) that includes a variety of owners (Mark Cuban, Robert Kraft), GMs, coaches, and statistical assistants. Panels cut across a variety of on-the-field analysis (basketball analytics, baseball analytics, limits of analytics) as well as off-the-field issues (attendance, expansion, and others). Data-oriented sports analytics now appears to be in mid-stream when viewed along Zvi Griliches S-Curve for the spread of innovations. When Moneyball appeared in […]