March Madness 2014

With selection Sunday just 3 days away and the round of 64 only a week out, I thought it'd be a good time to take a look at the NCAA March Madness tournament.
March Madness is the annual tournament to crown the NCAA Basketball National Champion. The tournament is a huge deal for most sports fans, especially the gambling type.  The tournament drives people from all across the country to Sin City in hopes of making some extra coin watching college hoops. Though Vegas sees a substantial increase in visitors during the tournament, I want to talk about TV ad revenue.
The March Madness tournament generated over $1 billion dollars last year alone! That's more money than NFL generated that amount over the entire football postseason,or more than the postseason ad revenue for the MLB, NBA, and NHL combined.
I was shocked when I saw just how much money the NCAA brings in through the tournament. I fill out a bracket or two every year with various work groups and friends, but over a billion dollars sounds insane.

Ticket info for Regionals at the Honda Center

2014 Boston Marathon

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This year’s Boston Marathon will take place on April 21st under much tighter security. After last year's twin bombings and subsequent search throughout the city that resulted in the death of 4 and injuries to 264 others, the number of security assigned to the marathon will be doubled to an astonishing 3,500 in 2014. The additional security forces should be able to deter any other attacks on the event.
Last year’s marathon was a tragedy, and it will not shortly be forgotten, but that really doesn't justify doubling the security this year to 3,500 people. Last year’s event was an isolated incident, and the suspects were determined to have acted alone. There is no reason to suspect that anything similar will take place this year, especially after last year. If anything, the likelihood of a bombing should be considerably lower this year due to last year’s bombing. I am all for people to get together and have a good time exercising and rooting on the competitors in a safe matter, but spending thousands of unnecessary dollars is still spending thousands of unnecessary dollars.

 

 

Boston PD Salaries

 



Mike Trout Makes a Million Dollars

Yesterday, Angels OF Mike Trout signed a 1 year, $1 million contract with the LA Angels of Anaheim. The deal though small, is the largest in MLB history for a non-arbitration eligible player. Just a couple of days ago, reports claimed the Angels were discussing a 6 years, $150 million contract extension with Trout.
When I read the rumors of the 6 year, $150 million contract I thought no fucking way! That deal is beyond fictional, it's laughable. The Angels already have the OF under team control for the next four seasons, and even if he (and he probably will) sets records for arbitration contract increases, his average annual salary over the next four seasons will probably be about $10-$12 million. That means, if he were to receieve the afore mentioned contract the Angels would be only gaining two years of service time, and Trout would be making about $50 million annually! That number is almost twice as much as the largest annual salary in baseball history! Sure Trout has some of the most impressive stats in MLB over his first two full seasons, but that kind of money for only two more years of service is just stupid. Sometimes I wonder who believes these reports.

2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi

The Winter Olympics have now come and gone and it was every bit as boring as it usually is. The Winter Olympics seem to just be about 100 different ways to see who can go the fastest on ice. The only sports I looked forward to were hockey and curling. The US had a very disappointing hockey performance and the US curling team is terrible too, but watching the matches was still entertaining.

The cost of building Sochi Olympic Park was an estimated $8.7 billion and the total cost of the Olympics was about $51 billion dollars. Now, with all the athletes and media leaving the area, the 40,000 hotel rooms, multiple ski resorts, and 700 sports grounds are left without am adequate amount of people to keep them profitable. The Russian public is expected to have to cover 90% of the total cost of the Olympics.

Freddie Freeman's New Contract

Freddie Freeman reached an 8 year, $135 million contract extension with the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday, a move that keeps the Braves first baseman with the club through 2021, and makes Freeman a very wealthy man . The contract buys out Freeman's three remaining arbitration years as well as five free agent years, keeping him under contract through age 32. The deal is the largest in Atlanta's history.

Last year, Freeman was an all star and in the top 5 in MVP in the national league. He's only 24 years old, and has improved his game each of the past 4 seasons. He got engaged a month ago, and now has $135 million dollars to look forward too. Things appear to be going well for the guy.

I know Freddie, and have since childhood. We met on the 9-10 year old all star team in little league, and we lived about 5 blocks apart. Even when Freddie was a kid we all knew he was better than everyone else. We went on to play at El Modena High School together, and we were really good friends. Since high school I don't see him much anymore. Probably about 2-3 times a year when he comes back to Orange for holidays and whatnot.

Proof we played together


Freddie Freeman


v My thoughts on Freddie v

Best Sunday of the Year

The Super Bowl was last Sunday and as always, it was huge show. The game turned out to be an absolute route with the Seahawks destroying the Broncos by a score of 43-8, but the NFL spent tons of money and it paid off them.

Superbowl 48 pulled in a record setting 111.5 million viewers this past Sunday, a gigantic mark that beat the previous high of 111.34 million viewers set by Superbowl 46. The 111.5 million mark set the highest total television viewership in US history.

The Bruno Mars headlined halftime show actually topped out even higher than the game with 115.3 million viewers; a mark that beat out Madonna and Beyonce's previous highs.


So, even though the game was awful, the NFL and FOX made a ton of money anyways. Each 30 second commercial slot ran about $4 million, or about $0.28 per set of eyes on the television.

I can't believe how much money flies around during events like the Superbowl. Four million dollars for 30 seconds of airtime is incredible. How the hell does the NFL have a tax-exempt status?

Pays to become a Yank

Last Wednesday, months of speculation ended when the Yankees announced the signing of prized Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka. The Yanks will pay Tanaka $155 million over 7 years, plus an addition $20 million to the Rakuten Golden Eagles of Nippon Professional Baseball for the rights to negotiate with the player.

This is an absolutely absurd amount of money for a pitcher who has yet to make a single pitch in the MLB. With this deal, the Yankees have now committed $483 million this offseason alone - they apparently haven't learned anything from their previous blockbuster deals with big name free agents. This is the second largest deal ever handed out to a free agent pitcher and let me reiterate - he has never pitched in the MLB before! Sure his stats from last season, are numbers that we haven't seen in the MLB in the live ball era, but we also haven't seen Tanaka in the MLB ever.

Lets break down the numbers in little more detail shall we?  Tanaka will make an average annual salary of $22.14 million, the fifth highest annual salary for a pitcher in the major league. Assuming he averages 200 innings per season - which is probably high - he will make $111,000 per inning pitched, or about $37,000 per out.

As a broke college student, I worked about 25-30 hours per week last year and made about $20,000. Masahiro Tanaka will make almost twice what I did all of last year for every single out he records.

Oh, and did I mention that he's two weeks younger than me?

I never should have stopped playing baseball.

What is this place?

My name is Matt, and this is the beginning of my blog. 

This blog will be about sports. This blog will not be a list of my favorite teams or regular recaps of big games. This blog will focus on the business of sports, the money behind the sports. 

I will discuss a lot of things that your typical sports fan probably doesn't consider.  Things like - How much does it cost to name a sports arena after a beer company? Do ticket sales really translate to big profits? Why do aging players continue to make huge sums of money even though their performance isn't what it used to be?

Professional sports is a huge industry that is responsible for nearly 3 million jobs in the United States alone. Individual franchises can be worth billions.

Since I'm American, and typically follow American sports, most of my entries will be focused on - but not limited to - American sports. I'll take a look at player contracts, TV deals, stadium construction, and large scale events like the quickly approaching 2014 Sochi Olympics.