Forget the fact that Saturday is the Kentucky Derby, Formula 1 in Miami, and the NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs are moving along. What’s more important for crossover in sports business? It is Free Comic Book day, and Star Wars Day . Star Wars promotions in sports have become a staple in and around the 4th of May…but Free Comic Book day continues to offer a wealth of opportunities Now in its 23rd year, Free Comic Book Day is the brainchild of comic book retailer Joe Field. The proprietor of the Concord, CA-based Flying Colors Comics & Other Cool Stuff came up with the idea in 2002, after obse ..read more

It’s always nice to see the little things that get done in storytelling that are worth emulating. Two from this week. Penguins paint the ice. Simple one, especially when you have a paint company…PPG…as your arena sponsor. For the second year in a row, the Pittsburgh Penguins allowed season ticketholders   onto the ice to paint messages and pictures on Sunday. This year’s designs featured Sponge Bob, a large rubber duck, emojis, the Pitt Panthers logo and countless penguins, even including the Robo-Penguin. Messages on the ice gave love to Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby and “Big Jeff Ca ..read more

The calls and emails are welcomed and come in droves…this time of year, and I gladly answer as many calls, emails, texts and video messages form people changing careers or starting new ones, the same advice keeps ringing true, whether you have been at this for two weeks or gasp, almost 40 years. Expanding your identifiable skills, being enthusiastic and curious, learning from mistakes, listening to those around you, doing the little things to make a difference, saying please and thank you, sending notes and following up, doing your homework, over preparing and over delivering are all so key to ..read more

How do you know when you are in a startup if the marketplace is telling you that you need to adjust, and how do you keep a business going when you start to hear the siren song of chasing a different direction, especially in challenging financial times. We talked to three smart company leaders about everything from the social space to sports gambling to predictive analytics to NIL and sneakers, and learned a great deal. Enjoy the listens Jamming The Odds. Matt Restivo is the current CEO of OddsJam, but has always been a first mover in the digital space. He has made a career out of delivering ..read more

While the nexus of going to Los Angeles this week was for the CAA World Congress of Sport, the reality…one which I am continuing to realize is a sad reality…is that the real learnings occur far away from the stage for the most part. What the value is resides well outside the room with the casual encounters, listenings, and learnings form those who aren’t the same pontificating on stage, although there are always enough takeaways to note for the journey. Some observations from those stage right in LA “Socks are the new neckties.”  I fully credit my friend and colleague Frank Brown with thi ..read more

The quest for success for spring football continues on, and personally I hope the models that the UFL is now going through works, and find great audiences, sell tickets, and give athletes, coaches and industry professionals at every level an opportunity at career success. Make the pie bigger. But will it work? Still hard to see the clear large scale road forward, even with some wins this spring. Steady progressional wins are needed to prove if “spring football”…not the NFL Draft or The Combine, not high level college spring games, not even the CFL…is actually a thing. However there is “a thin ..read more

Some great listens on three leaders literally carving paths never taken. From the first…and only…college coach who went through Name Image and Likeness as an athlete on the way to multiple championships, to a world class chess player who also likes to mix it up in the gym…to an entrepreneurial gamer  and world champion football player building a business, all are worth the time and the learning. You can hear all of our podcasts here. ENJOY Erin Matson on learning from greatness,  NIL and continuing a winning culture  Erin Matson, decorated field hockey star, and current nationa ..read more

Sports, at its core, is often viewed as a transactional business, a zero-sum game. After all, if you leave it for what it is, the score is there when the game ends. Somebody wins, somebody loses. However, the business that surrounds that score, that result, by those who actually play, is much more fluid. The intangible, personal results, go way beyond a score. I am lucky to be constantly reminded of those intangibles by the people we come across, those who we have known for 20 seconds or 30 years, who remind you that if you do the right thing, wins are much more than the numbers on a scoreboar ..read more

The simple things are usually the best activated, and we wanted to point out two tied to the great game of baseball. First was the story this week that Cracker Jack was teaming with Hall of Famer Dave Winfield and the National Baseball Hall of Fame to rekindle the value of the product we remember from our youth, tied to all the history of the game. It is a great way to link the past…legacy fans, to young people with a core tie…a sugar box of candy that really is literally embedded in the sport and its signature song. Winfield is a great spokesperson, and the Hall of Fame gets great legs for a ..read more

Last week we reached out to quite a few teams, leagues and brands to ask about their potential April Fools Day plans.  After all for decades creative and entrepreneurial folks have taken advantage to out one over on a passionate public (here is a look at some from recent years), so this year should have been no different right? Wrong. For almost all…with the exceptions being the PBR (which did even get some backlash for those who didn’t get the date and the nuance), Utah State Football, the Seahawks mascot…the answer was thanks but no thanks. The attention deprived, the risk of distracti ..read more