In the past couple days I had been debating on what to blog about next. Opening night of basketball, Upcoming showdown between Cowboys and Giants, the holidays. I decided on none of the above (Cowboys/Giants will probably occur later in the week). I'm writing about something a little more important to me, new year's resolutions. A friend of mine hit it on the head today in a facebook uipdate, he said:
"has no resolutions for 2012. He just wants to keep improving on himself each day."
On that note, feel free to head over to his blog at www.thelibraicon.com for all the latest sports updates as well. Back to the blog.
Why do people make new year's resolutions? I used to believe people made this resolutions because they genuinely had things in their life that they wanted to improve/change and new year's created an opportune time to start these improvements. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that if someone genuinely wants to improve themself, they will not wait for a date in order to do so. When I was trying to lose weight and I talked about it and made several half hearted attempts to do so, nothing changed. Change began the day I decided to change my lifestyle. A new year cannot do that for you, it is a crutch. If you want to make improvements in your life, start today, start yesterday. I am all for someone improving themself but true change and improvement starts within, not within a new year.
I always tell people at work that if you're not making yourself better, you're making yourself worse. If you're waiting for some magical day to make you better, your only making yourself worse in the progress. Make yourself better each day, some days you will succeed, and others you will not. Don't do it alone, ask friends and family for help, that's what they're there for. Some days will be easier than others, don't get discouraged.
Michael Jordan once said: "I can accept failure, I can't accept not trying."
I did not wait, I'm in love, I've been loving those around me, living my life the best I can and enjoying all the world of sports I can enjoy.
My New Year's Resolution: Love, Live, Sports.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
5 Reasons why the NBA will never top the NFL
For those who know me, I am an avid sports fan. I love the Dallas Cowboys, I love the Chicago Bulls, love Penn St. Football (still), and I really like the Miami Heat (from the old Knicks/Heat rivalry days). Both the NFL and the NBA had a lockout this year after experiencing their best seasons ever (Which is like winning the lottery but not cashing in your ticket because you feel like the government is taxing your winnings too much. They are, but who wouldn't still want $60 of the $100 mil they won? NFL and NBA owners). Nonetheless, here is the list:
5) It's a man's world. You know why nobody ever complains that it's not fair that a star high school football player is being denied their ability to earn a living by not being allowed into the NFL? Because it's for MEN, not BOYS. If the NBA had not removed all semblance of physicality, they wouldn't have this problem. You know why you didn't hear about high school kids going to the NBA before the 90's? Because you had to be a man to play then, now all these guys are in the NBA and never seen a weight room. Make the league for MEN, and only MEN will play. College is for BOYS to become MEN. The NFL got it right, the NBA dropped the ball.
4) The Super Bowl. The most viewed NBA game will never garner more attention than the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is an event, name a person who doesn't know what the super bowl is or when it is. Companies make sales around the Super Bowl like it's a holiday. Even if it's the Buccaneers and the Raiders, you're watching. Nobody watches the Finals if it's not a good match up. Remember the Spurs/Cavs finals? Me either.
3) David Stern. Now, I'm not even going to get on the whole trade veto thing, David Stern's biggest mistake started way before that. His biggest mistake? Marketing players over teams. In the NFL people are fans of a team, Cowboys, Redskins, Steelers, Packers, 49ers, Bears, etc. As players come and go , their loyalty remains unchanged. In the NBA you have your die hard fans but so many people are fans of players first. People were Nuggets fans because of Melo, Magic fans because of Howard, Hornets fans because of Paul. Look in the news, how many people are Clippers fans now? Heat/Bulls fans last year? David Stern messed up because he did not know how to market team and player, the only teams it can market are the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, and that's only when they're good.
2) Business Model. Hang with me while I explain this using a little math that I hope you follow. The average NBA stadium seats 18,000 and the average ticket price is $72.36. The NBA plays 82 games a year (minus this season). That equates to roughly $107 mil revenue potential per team. The average NFL stadium seats 70,000 and the average ticket price is $113.17. The NFL plays 16 games a season. That equates to roughly $127 mil revenue potential per team (both figures are if all games were sold out). Looks relatively even, right? Wrong. The difference is in the number of games. Because the NBA plays so many games, the demand to see the games is so much less than the NFL. The current TV contracts for both leagues looks like this . Currently each NBA team receives on average $31M in TV rights where with its new deal each NFL team receives on average $218M. Those numbers are not typos. Despite having double the payroll than the NBA, the NFL will always be better because the demand for 16 NFL games is bigger than the demand for 82 NBA games. Not to mention that the attendance of NBA games makes it highly unlikely for most teams to achieve the revenue number I used.
I hope you all followed that, the base is this: Between ticket revenue and TV revenue each NFL team is making over $200 million more than it's NBA counterpart, $200 million!
1) Stupid Owners. Quick, can you tell me which of these players is in the top 5 highest paid players in the NBA: Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Rashard Lewis, Lebron James, Gilbert Arenas, Dwight Howard?
If you guessed Rashard Lewis (2nd) and Gilbert Arenas (5th), you would be correct. It's sad that Arenas is the 5th highest paid player in the league right now, and he doesn't even have a job. That is the #1 reason why the NFL is better than the NBA, it's owners are just smarter, or maybe just not as dumb.
Thanks for reading. As always, any feedback is appreciated.
5) It's a man's world. You know why nobody ever complains that it's not fair that a star high school football player is being denied their ability to earn a living by not being allowed into the NFL? Because it's for MEN, not BOYS. If the NBA had not removed all semblance of physicality, they wouldn't have this problem. You know why you didn't hear about high school kids going to the NBA before the 90's? Because you had to be a man to play then, now all these guys are in the NBA and never seen a weight room. Make the league for MEN, and only MEN will play. College is for BOYS to become MEN. The NFL got it right, the NBA dropped the ball.
4) The Super Bowl. The most viewed NBA game will never garner more attention than the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is an event, name a person who doesn't know what the super bowl is or when it is. Companies make sales around the Super Bowl like it's a holiday. Even if it's the Buccaneers and the Raiders, you're watching. Nobody watches the Finals if it's not a good match up. Remember the Spurs/Cavs finals? Me either.
3) David Stern. Now, I'm not even going to get on the whole trade veto thing, David Stern's biggest mistake started way before that. His biggest mistake? Marketing players over teams. In the NFL people are fans of a team, Cowboys, Redskins, Steelers, Packers, 49ers, Bears, etc. As players come and go , their loyalty remains unchanged. In the NBA you have your die hard fans but so many people are fans of players first. People were Nuggets fans because of Melo, Magic fans because of Howard, Hornets fans because of Paul. Look in the news, how many people are Clippers fans now? Heat/Bulls fans last year? David Stern messed up because he did not know how to market team and player, the only teams it can market are the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, and that's only when they're good.
2) Business Model. Hang with me while I explain this using a little math that I hope you follow. The average NBA stadium seats 18,000 and the average ticket price is $72.36. The NBA plays 82 games a year (minus this season). That equates to roughly $107 mil revenue potential per team. The average NFL stadium seats 70,000 and the average ticket price is $113.17. The NFL plays 16 games a season. That equates to roughly $127 mil revenue potential per team (both figures are if all games were sold out). Looks relatively even, right? Wrong. The difference is in the number of games. Because the NBA plays so many games, the demand to see the games is so much less than the NFL. The current TV contracts for both leagues looks like this . Currently each NBA team receives on average $31M in TV rights where with its new deal each NFL team receives on average $218M. Those numbers are not typos. Despite having double the payroll than the NBA, the NFL will always be better because the demand for 16 NFL games is bigger than the demand for 82 NBA games. Not to mention that the attendance of NBA games makes it highly unlikely for most teams to achieve the revenue number I used.
I hope you all followed that, the base is this: Between ticket revenue and TV revenue each NFL team is making over $200 million more than it's NBA counterpart, $200 million!
1) Stupid Owners. Quick, can you tell me which of these players is in the top 5 highest paid players in the NBA: Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Rashard Lewis, Lebron James, Gilbert Arenas, Dwight Howard?
If you guessed Rashard Lewis (2nd) and Gilbert Arenas (5th), you would be correct. It's sad that Arenas is the 5th highest paid player in the league right now, and he doesn't even have a job. That is the #1 reason why the NFL is better than the NBA, it's owners are just smarter, or maybe just not as dumb.
Thanks for reading. As always, any feedback is appreciated.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
From in the doghouse to king of my castle
Have you ever had to lie to the person you love and they find out you lied but you can't tell them why you lied because it would ruin a surprise? Well this happened to me. I had been scheming on a gift for my girlfriend for a while and had an accomplice on the inside assisting me. This past weekend I told my girlfriend that I was going home after a meeting at work to go to sleep but I was really going to meet her friend and pick up the gift from her because my girlfriend was coming in town that evening and I hadn't picked the item up for her yet.
Quick background on why this is important to the story. The night before at work I was there until almost 12:30a and had to be back at 6a for a meeting and then back at work again from 1p-11p.
SO... After my shift I call her on my way home and I complain about how tired I was and how I had not been back home since 530a in the morning. BIG Mistake, I was caught dead in a lie and could think of nothing other than to tell her that I lied to her but I couldn't tell her WHY I lied. Needless to say that landed me in the doghouse.
Fortunately I talked my way out of the doghouse for the most part and the next day leading to when we exchanged gifts went well. Finally, we're exchanging gifts and BAM! She opens a box and gets the gift that she had no idea she was getting. I explained to her how long my accomplice and I had been working behind the scenes to secure this gift for her and she was completely blown away. This was the icing on the cake, she was excited, and this was the first time I had EVER truly surprised her.
That was the day I went from the doghouse to being King of Castle, if only more days could be like this!
Quick background on why this is important to the story. The night before at work I was there until almost 12:30a and had to be back at 6a for a meeting and then back at work again from 1p-11p.
SO... After my shift I call her on my way home and I complain about how tired I was and how I had not been back home since 530a in the morning. BIG Mistake, I was caught dead in a lie and could think of nothing other than to tell her that I lied to her but I couldn't tell her WHY I lied. Needless to say that landed me in the doghouse.
Fortunately I talked my way out of the doghouse for the most part and the next day leading to when we exchanged gifts went well. Finally, we're exchanging gifts and BAM! She opens a box and gets the gift that she had no idea she was getting. I explained to her how long my accomplice and I had been working behind the scenes to secure this gift for her and she was completely blown away. This was the icing on the cake, she was excited, and this was the first time I had EVER truly surprised her.
That was the day I went from the doghouse to being King of Castle, if only more days could be like this!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Welcome to my Blog!
I know the internet could not function without another blog, so it was my duty to create one. People always tell me I have plenty to talk about, now I have an avenue to share my views and thoughts on love, life, and of course my favorite topic of all, sports. I would like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to come stop in and visit me.
I will be updating this blog at least three times weekly and each post will be geared towards either love, life, or sports. Of course, if there are any hot topics anyone would like to see my views on, feel free to let me know.
I will be updating the page through the weekend and create my first real post sunday unless anything pressing happens that I need to speak on.
Thank you,
Love, Live, Sports
I will be updating this blog at least three times weekly and each post will be geared towards either love, life, or sports. Of course, if there are any hot topics anyone would like to see my views on, feel free to let me know.
I will be updating the page through the weekend and create my first real post sunday unless anything pressing happens that I need to speak on.
Thank you,
Love, Live, Sports
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