In 1994, the FCC conducted a thorough review of the siphoning of previously free to air sports to cable, or pay, networks. The commission found no evidence of that. Wonder what would happen if the commission re-investigated that today. (H/T @fangsbites for the link)

My students often say they like sports, but don’t like economics. The reality is the two are highly inter-related. We talk about PSLs all the time, but I never refer to them as two-part tariffs. Eyes would glaze over instantly if I did.

Proof you can insure anything…

Interesting video on Gatorade’s “Mission Control”, the brand’s attempt to monitor what is being said, and how frequently, about its products. Accompanying story is from Adam Ostrow at Mashable.org.

Wonder what Mission Control heard when Tiger pulled a Powerade out of his bag at this past weekend’s U.S. Open.

Congress to get involved with realignment?

June, 9, 2010

Jun 9

1:40

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By David Ubben

Consider college football a bunch of kids playing in the backyard during a grown-ups party, until things get a little too rowdy and the little kids get hurt. Then the parents come out back and yell, “Hey! Knock that off!”

Playing the role of angry parents claiming to hold a trump card: Congress.

Kansas lawmakers and Nebraska lawmakers are feuding in the Senate over exactly the same issues as the fans, athletic directors and presidents.

From the Omaha World-Herald:

On Tuesday, Sen. Pat Roberts, Wildcat Republican, buttonholed Sen. Ben Nelson, Husker Democrat, addressing him in a hallway just off the Senate floor.

“Don’t be the domino that blows college football up into four major conferences and gets rid of the NCAA,” a World-Herald reporter heard the Kansas senator tell Nelson. “It isn’t going to do anybody any good when those dominoes start falling.”

Roberts added, in apparent reference to Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne: “He doesn’t want on his tombstone ‘He ruined the Big 12.’”

Nelson, for his part, deferred: “I just have a lot of confidence in Coach Osborne to make the right decision, ultimately.

[...] Roberts later told The World-Herald that if the Big 12 falls apart, Congress could act.

“There’s going to be a lot of litigation, and then Congress will probably try to stick its nose into it,” Roberts said. “I would prefer that that not be the case, but there have always been antitrust concerns.”

Can I get a minute to compose myself? I’ve been flatlined by the idea that lawmakers might actually get involved with (gasp!) college football.

Especially if it means their home state will suffer.

Jokes aside, there’s plenty of precedent for this, and there’s serious financial loss around the corner if teams like Kansas and Kansas State get relegated to a second-rate league, the likeliest scenario if the Big 12 dissolves. Fighting to do what they can to prevent that is the most sensible move and it’s also one that may earn politicians like Roberts votes in the future.

Finally, I’m no mortician, but I’ve seen plenty of “Six Feet Under.” And I don’t think the family would sign off on “He ruined the Big 12″ on Osborne’s tombstone. Of course, that’s assuming he dies. There’s some debate in Nebraska about whether that’s possible.

Shock! It’s an election year and a representative from Nebraska is concerned about his university. Confirms research I presented at CSRI this spring (http://www.slideshare.net/sdittmore/csri-bcs-public-choice). H/T to @DufresneLATimes for RT this article

Not sure I buy everything Wetzel is selling here, but it is worth the read.

H/T to Andy Hutchins at The Sporting Blog for sharing this late last week. Showed it today to my facility class. Highly interesting documentary. Some NSFW language, so be warned.

By Derek Gatopoulos, Associated Press Writer

ATHENS, Greece — When it comes to overspending, Greece gets the gold medal.

Governments in the Greek capital of Athens haven’t balanced a budget in nearly 40 years, and the country narrowly averted bankruptcy in May before panicky European partners grudgingly put up massive rescue loans.

While many factors are behind the crippling debt crisis, the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens has drawn particular attention.

If not the sole reason for this nation’s financial mess, some point to the games as at least an illustration of what’s gone wrong in Greece.

Their argument starts with more than a dozen Olympic venues <emdash /> now vacant, fenced off and patrolled by private security guards. Stella Alfieri, an outspoken anti-Games campaigner, says they marked the start of Greece’s irresponsible spending binge.

“I feel vindicated, but it’s tragic for the country … They exploited feelings of pride in the Greek people, and people profited from that,” said Alfieri, a former member of parliament from a small left-wing party. “Money was totally squandered in a thoughtless way.”

The 2004 Athens Olympics cost nearly $11 billion by current exchange rates, double the initial budget. And that figure that does not include major infrastructure projects rushed to completion at inflated costs. In the months before the games, construction crews worked around the clock, using floodlights to keep the work going at night.

In addition, the tab for security alone was more than $1.2 billion.

Six years later, more than half of Athens’ Olympic sites are barely used or empty. The long list of mothballed facilities includes a baseball diamond, a massive man-made canoe and kayak course, and arenas built for unglamorous sports such as table tennis, field hockey and judo.

Deals to convert several venues into recreation sites <emdash /> such as turning the canoe-kayak venue into a water park <emdash /> have been stalled by legal challenges from residents’ groups and Byzantine planning regulations.

Criticism of the Olympic spending has sharpened in recent weeks, after parliament launched an investigation into allegations that German industrial giant Siemens AG paid bribes to secure contracts before the 2004 Games.

A former Greek transport minister has been charged with money laundering after he told the inquiry that he had received more than $123,000 from Siemens in 1998 as a campaign donation.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said linking the debt crisis to the games is “unfair.” He argues that Athens is still reaping the benefits from its pre-games overhaul of the city’s transport systems and infrastructure.

“These are things that really leave a very good legacy for the city … There have been expenses, of course. You don’t build an airport for free,” Rogge told The Associated Press in Lausanne, Switzerland. “Had Athens still been outmoded, the economy would have been much worse probably than it is today.”

Greek Olympic officials insist the scale of the country’s dire financial problems <emdash /> and its staggering national debt of $382 billion <emdash /> are is simply too big to be blamed on the 2004 Games budget.

Some financial experts agree.

“Put in proper perspective, it is hard to argue that the Olympic Games were an important factor behind the Greek financial crisis. It is, however, likely that they contributed modestly to the problem,” Andrew Zimbalist, a U.S. economist who studies the financial impact of major sporting events, said in an email.

“The empty or underused facilities are a problem and the maintenance and operating costs continue to impose a burden. That said, Athens also benefited from infrastructure development and the Greek public debt is $400 billion.”

Before the games, Greece’s densely populated capital got a new metro system, a new airport, and a tram and light railway network, along with a bypass highway, while ancient sites in Athens’ city center were linked up with a cobblestone walkway.

It’s those advantages that organizers of the 2012 London Games are quick to point out, as Britain now also faces high public debt levels.

“I think the underlying issues in the Greek economy were far greater than a snapshot of the Olympic Games,” Sebastian Coe, chairman of London’s organizing committee, told the AP.

London’s main Olympic budget now stands at $13.3 billion. Last week, Britain’s new coalition government announced $38 million in Olympic budget cuts as part of efforts to slash the nation’s budget deficit.

Over the last decade, Greece’s budget deficit remained well above the limit set by the European Union of 3 percent of gross domestic product, but rose abruptly last year to reach an estimated 13.6 percent <emdash /> the highest level since Greece was previously in recession in 1993.

Greece will get up to about $135 billion in bailout loans through 2012 from the International Monetary Fund and European governments worried the Greek crisis could damage the euro.

Prime Minister George Papandreou blames the debt crisis on decades of poor management, putting off unpopular reforms, and vast clientele networks set up by political parties, promising government jobs, social security perks and loss-making regional projects to win votes.

Nassos Alevras, the lead government official for Olympic projects, insists that, overall, the games carried a net gain including a tourism boost.

“The issue of venue use is a sad story … Plans for post-Olympic use were later ignored,” Alevras told the AP.

But he added: “The money spent on the Olympics is equivalent to one quarter of last year’s budget deficit. So how can the amount spent over seven years of preparation for the Olympic Games end up being considered responsible for the crisis? That’s irrational.”

___

AP Sports Writers Graham Dunbar in Lausanne, Switzerland; Stephen Wilson in London and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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This would be a huge blow to the Olympic movement if there is truth to this. The Olympics are too big, and there is too much pressure on each host city to “better” the previous host city. I’d be concerned if I lived in Brazil now.