Fundraising and Recruiting: Two sides of the same coin

Just how similar are fundraising and recruiting?  I would say they are very similar.  First lets look at recruiting.  In coaching, it is widely stated that your best recruiter is your best salesman.  The quintessential recruiter is charismatic, persistent, and creative.  These qualities are imperative to recruiting because the act of recruiting is a continuous process.  When recruiting you must do your due diligence and locate the individual or individuals who best meet you organizations specifications.   The most important part of recruiting is building a rapport with the recruit.  If you are recruiting a high school athlete, you might build a relationship with some of the athletes friends, but more importantly you have to make a connection with the family. Once you have secured commitment from your prized recruit, you must continue to nurture the relationship in effort to keep the recruit engaged and pleased with their decision.

Fundraising at its core is the similar to recruiting.  The primary difference is that you are attempting to secure funding as opposed to an athlete.  Fundraising however is going to take greater persistence and more nurturing of the relationship. With fundraising you are attempting to get money from a prospect and more often than not they do not get anything in return except the peace of mind that they have helped with your cause. Ideally with fundraising you cultivate a relationship for a lifetime in order to continue receiving the funding.  Where as recruiting, the relationship might be for four to five years maximum and then the recruiter and recruit go in their separate directions.  The bottom line is this, a fundraising director is someone that has charisma, is creative, and does not take no for answer.  If the people working on your fundraising team have these qualities then you will raise all the money you need and be well on your way to attaining your fundraising goals.

Tom Brady's Endorsement Deals

Tom Brady is arguably the best quarterback in the National Football League.  If you were to use championships as the barometer to measure a quarterbacks greatness, then he is the best quarterback of our generation.  However, lets assess a players  greatness by the amount of revenue he generates from his endorsement deals.  I  say this with all due respect and do not want to offend anyone but only great players receive endorsement deals, period!

Tom Brady has endorsement deals with with various companies.  Brady has deals with Stetson, Movado Watches, Under Armour, Glaceau Smart Water, UGG, and he does lots of "charity work" with Audi, just to name a few.  It has been documented that Tom Brady is very selective in which companies he  endorses, which indicates he is not merely chasing a check.  I think  the strategy employed by Tom Brady is more strategic than anything.  If Brady is extremely selective with which products he endorses than eventually he will be able to command more per endorsement contract. Brady is one of the most sought after athletes to endorse a companies products because of his clean cut image and his success on the football field.  It also does not hurt that he is married to a supermodel which has likely assisted him in securing various endorsement deals.

According to a study by sports illustrated, Tom Brady is going to earn a total of $30,007,280 in 2011.  He is slated to earn $10,000,000 in endorsements and the remainder will be in his NFL salary.
Endorsement deals for some athletes can be extremely lucrative.  Relatively speaking football players receive the lowest endorsement deals of all athletes when you look at the dollar amounts some athletes receive.  What are the reasons for the disparities, these reasons are endless in my opinion.  Could it be because football players wear helmets and there faces are not easily recognizable. Or maybe it is because of the violent nature of the sport.


Freedman, J., (2011) The 50 highest-earning American athletes. SI.com.  Retrieved September 24, 2011.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/specials/fortunate50-2011/index.html

There is no place like, on the road?!!

When talking sports, especially college football, how does a team gain a competitive advantage?  Initially you might say that the home team has the advantage because they have thousands of enthusiastic and ecstatic fans supporting them.  But lets pause right there!  Ponder this question, does playing at your home stadium actually give you a competitive advantage?  In my opinion it does not!  When you play a  game on the road, you do not have any distractions for two days. You travel and relax one day, and the next day you eat and rest until four hours before the game.  This allows the team to get prepared mentally! However, if you are playing at home there are countless distractions.  For example, the day before the game the media wants to interview everyone associated with the team, from the quarterback to the water boy!  However I think the most significant distraction is when a college football player is walking to class on Friday before the game and everyone is telling him how great he is and how the team is going to destroy the visiting team.  Believe it or not this is a major distraction! I feel that for this reason alone, the benefits of playing at home have been trumped by the "clutter" that surrounds a college campus the day before a big game.

Here is definitive evidence to support my opinion.  New Mexico State Aggies opened the 2011 football season at home versus Ohio University and lost 44-24.  The following week the Aggies traveled to the Twin Cities to face the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, and won the game 28-21.  I say this respectfully but University of Minnesota has a better athletic program than Ohio University, so it is not a matter of the Aggies playing an inferior football team.  The following week New Mexico State is at home playing against University of Texas El Paso and loses the game 16 - 10.  This weekend, September 24, 2011, New Mexico State plays against San Jose State in San Jose.  If my hypothesis is correct, and I believe it is, New Mexico State will be victorious.  Check back Sunday for a recap!

2012 London Olympics Media Coverage

The Summer of Olympics in London are right around the corner!  The olympic athletes are currently honing their craft in order to win the coveted gold medal in their particular event.  But what really do the olympics symbolize?  The purpose of the olympics is to foster cooperation and friendship between nations of the world and also celebrate athleticism.  Personally I love watching the Olympics, especially the opening ceremony.  The opening ceremony is the culmination of many hours of hard work and precision execution.  It is a spectacle you want to see!  If you have not yet seen the opening ceremony of the Olympics, you should watch the 2012 London Olympics.

We currently live in a society which is driven by information.  Everyone wants up to the minute access to news information.  As people lead busier lives, the need for quick and accurate information is of utmost importance.  We often learn of current news trends through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.  Media Coverage for the London Olympics will be available through several platforms. You can receive Olympic coverage through your mobile device, radio, and television broadcast. To satisfy sports fans desires for more Olympic coverage the BBC has created a temporary radio network to cover the London Olympics (Cutler, 2011).  

The political climate in London is quite different from that of Beijing.  China is a communist country and there were reports of journalists having difficulty securing visas and there were also reports of the Chinese Government restricting the journalistic work of visiting journalists (Jakobsen, 2008).   However in London I do not foresee these type of problems.  London has adopted western culture, so it is very likely that the government will not restrict which stories can be published.  The biggest problem that will be encountered is the time differences by the viewers across the globe.  

References

Cutler, M., (August 16, 2011).  BBC Trust approves London 2012 Olympic coverage plans.  Sports Business.  Retrieved from http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/184153/bbc-trust-approves-london-2012-olympics-coverage-plans

Jakobsen, L., (July 8, 2008).  Beijing's Olympic Challenges.  Retrieved from http://www.factsandarts.com/articles/beijings-olympic-challenge/

SPORTS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

How do you feel about information technology and its impact in collegiate and professional sports?  I am sure if you ask five people you will receive five different answers.  Since this is my blog, I will give you my perspective on the topic.  The impact of technology on sports is ubiquitous.  Personally I feel as though sports information technology has cultivated parity in college football and basketball.  I also believe it makes for a more efficient game.

The world of collegiate athletics is all about recruiting.  How does a team locate the best athletes and then actively pursue them.  How does a team find the coveted "diamond in the rough!"  In previous decades a college team needed to have a recruiting coordinator who could "cast a wide net" and had contacts across the country.  After locating the potential recruit you had to make contact with the student and wait for several days to receive game film from him or her in order to evaluate their athletic ability. Currently there are collegiate recruiting services that allow college coaches to access databases of high school student athletes and peruse their transcripts, SAT scores, highlight films, photos and videos of prospective players.   More importantly colleges can now locate players, whom in previous years would be out of their recruiting area or the player simply might not have been on the radar of a particular school.  This is part of the reason you have mid-major athletic programs having more success, such as Butler playing for the NCAA National Championship in Basketball and Boise State competing in BCS Bowl games.

Technology has streamlined the recruiting process and now recruiters do not have to waste man hours pursuing an athlete that does not meet the standards of the perspective team, allowing the recruiter to move forward to the next player.  Another form of technology that is used frequently in sports by college recruiters and professional recruiters is youtube.  I currently work in the player personnel department in the Arena Football League.  We use youtube constantly throughout the day.  There are often times we receive a lead on a perspective player and do not have game film of him in our office.  When this happens it is not a problem we simply search youtube!  More often than not, the players have uploaded game film or a highlight tape and we can then begin our evaluation process.

One of my favorite enhancements to sports via technology is the virtual first down line.  The virtual first down line is a yellow or orange line that goes from one sideline to the other on your television screen.  This feature was designed to help the fan at home watching the game have an exact idea of how many yards it will take for the team to get a first down. I can remember watching football games before this technology and wondering just how far the first down marker was from the current line of scrimmage and it was annoying, but technology has rectified this issue.    Now there is technology on the market for the fan at the game who has a difficulty following all of the action.  There is a company that has created a virtual first down line, that can be viewed by everyone in the stadium.  The technology has the capability to replace the infamous "chain gang."  The "chain gang" are the referees who hold the down markers and the chains which help the referee know where to spot the football.  I do not think this technology will ever fully replace the chain gang because it can potentially malfunction, similar to the issues that you might have experienced with the virtual first down line while watching the game at home on television.

As you evaluate the professional sports enviroment, instant replay is the most widely used technology in sports. Instant replay is most frequently used in football, America's newest pastime!  Basketball uses instant replay sparingly and baseball has experimented with instant replay but has not fully adopted the technology.  Instantly replay is used in football because football has many "bang-bang plays."  These are plays which happen fast and need to be further reviewed to ensure the proper judgement was made.  Sports is big industry and big business.  There are substantial revenues that are generated through sports, and wins and losses can dictate the viability of your franchise.   Instant replay is the platform that mitigates human error in sports.

Without technology in sport, it is suffice to say that sport would not be a multibillion dollar industry like it is today!

GLOBAL SPORTS REPORTING

Have you ever wondered how much media coverage your favorite sports team receives outside of their home market?  Lets take it a step further, how much media coverage does your favorite sport receive outside of their home country?  I hate to play the role of "Paul the Pessimist" but do not be surprised if you favorite sport does not receive any media coverage outside of their home country .

I evaluated the Montreal Gazette and the San Francisco Chronicle. These are two newspapers that have comparable circulation statistics and are both located in large metropolitan areas.  I lived in Montreal for four years and played professional football during those years so I am acquainted with the sports environment.  I was born in the Bay Area and currently reside here, so I read the newspaper periodically.  The were some similarities between the newspapers such as the website design.  They both had similar layouts and font style.  The San Francisco Chronicle and the Montreal Gazette both used old english with the display for their name.  I feel this is where the similarities begin and end in my opinion.

When you evaluate the content of both newspapers you begin to notice the glaring differences between the two publications.  The Gazette has several articles on the website that are discussing the plane crash in Russia in which an entire hockey team lost their lives, this was a extremely tragic event that took place. Unfortunately in the eyes of the sports editors at the San Francisco Chronicle, this story is no longer news worthy as of Sunday September 11, 2011.  On Sunday September 11, 2011, the Gazette's feature stories are a Canadian Football League story, English Premier League Soccer, and Tennis.  There are also blogs on topics such as formula 1 racing, soccer, NHL, and Golf!  Sunday is opening day of the NFL Season!  How is there not a blogger blogging about opening day in the NFL?!! Especially when this was an off-season in which there was a NFL strike.  

The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper has article that are re-capping the college football scores from saturday, feature articles on the upcoming NFL games,  and MLB content.  On the SF Chronicles sports home page, 95% of the articles are football related.  There is no reference to NHL, Soccer, Tennis, or NBA for that matter.  It is football season and that is what the public wants to hear about!  I hate to say it but nobody gets excited about curling, cricket, or soccer for that matter!  We want football during football season!

The advertisements on both sites were primarily the same.  That is due to behavioral advertising.  Many of the websites place ads which are based on your previous search history.  The ads I saw on the Montreal Gazette Website were for Villanova's MBA program, textbook renter, and for Mazda car dealerships.  The San Francisco Chronicle had an ad for Mercedes Benz, Google, and a local jewelry retailer.  

The variance in the sports covered in Montreal and San Francisco are based on the needs of the readers.  Many of the citizens of Montreal are no American, and they have no interest in American rules football.  Canadians love hockey just as Americans love football.  The Gazette is an awesome paper with many great journalists however the content in the sports section simply does not meet my needs.  

A TRUE TRAILBLAZER: DON MEREDITH

On December 5, 2010 we lost an iconic football figure in Don Meredith.  Meredith blazed the trail as one of the first professional athletes to transition from the playing field to the broadcast booth.  As a football player with the Dallas Cowboys Meredith was known to be tough us nails and was said to have a personality larger than his home state of Texas.  He is described as a gregarious individual who was never at a loss of words.

Meredith's impact on the great game of football stretches further than his accomplishments on the gridiron.  Meredith is most remembered for his post football career.  When Meredith choose to abruptly retire from football in 1969 it was a shock to most people, however he resurfaced two years later in a new role as a broadcast analyst for Monday Night Football.  Meredith brought entertainment and credibility to the broadcast booth.  He was famous for his slick one-liners and was a change of pace from his broadcast mate, the legendary Howard Cosell.

Being a former athlete I have much respect and admiration for Don Meredith.  He opened up doors for many professional athletes.  After retiring Meredith had success as a broadcast analyst and tried his hand in acting.  I feel that without Meredith exploring these options in the 1970's, we as former athletes could be limited in terms of the opportunities we had post career.

Thank you for everything Don we could not be where we are today without you.

About me

I first fell in love with the game of football in 1987 when I was 8 years old, but I did not realize it until I was much older.  I grew up as a baseball fan and a little league baseball player.  I think its fair to say that I had potential to be a darn good baseball player and I was passionate about the sport.  I owned thousands of baseball cards and had tremendous knowledge of the history of the game.  To be honest I had no interest in playing football.  Our neighbor at the time was the president of the local pop warner football team and asked my father if I wanted to tryout for the team, but I declined, I informed him that I was a baseball player not a football player.  However our neighbor was persistent, and two years later I conceded and told my dad that I want to try playing football.  This was the best decision that I ever made!  Playing football was easy to me and I enjoyed it!  Everything about the game came naturally for me, whether it was learning plays or evaluating my opponent.  

I continued to have success playing football in high school.  At the conclusion of my high school career I was the recipient of a full athletic scholarship to play football at New Mexico State University.  While at New Mexico State I had a more success on the gridiron than I did during my high school years.  As result of my on field success I received attention from the NFL but ultimately found my niche playing  north of the border in the Canadian Football League.   My experience playing in the Canadian Football League was a lifetime dream come true.  The phrase "I'm living the dream" was exactly what I was doing.  I was playing professional football and getting paid for it!  Playing football in the Canadian Football League was truly a blessing!  However, the moment I keep close to my heart and cherish greatly is the night that I met my fiance, Carla!  She means everything to me!  She is very supportive of me and I can not thank her enough for how greatly she has impacted my life in a positive way! 

My football playing days are now a thing of the past.  I retired from playing football in 2009 at the age of 29.  It sounds young but in athlete years, especially football, you are at the "cuffs" of your career at that age.  Now the real excite has begun!  There is a old adage that goes, "if you do something you love you will never work another day in your life."  Living by this mantra has caused me to set my sights on  securing a position in the corner office!  Yes I am talking about the coveted position as a General Manager of a NFL franchise!  These positions are hard to attain but they are attainable.  I am currently honing my skills by working as the Player Personnel Supervisor for the San Jose Sabercats of the Arena Football League.  With this organization I wear many hats which is providing priceless experience that I will take with me to the NFL.  Some of my duties are hiring interns, recruiting and signing new players, evaluating opponents rosters, and setting up open tryouts to find new talent.   

Be on the lookout because I will soon be spearheading your favorite NFL teams personnel decisions!!!