Hey NFL and NBA – What About The Fans?

It costs the family of four $413 to go to an NFL game or $759 if you go to “Jerryland” and attend a Dallas Cowboys game. That is for the cheap seats, as the average ticket price for an NFL game is now $242. Now, let’s assume you are a hard-core fan and want to go to a few games; perhaps the thought had crossed your mind that you want season tickets, brother that’s a lot of scratch. Now, here in Boise we have the beloved Broncos of Boise State, so it really doesn’t affect us in this part of the country. And the whole BAA thing is a topic for another post.

But, where does it stop? How much can the sports franchises, across all professional sports, bleed out of the fan? After all, it’s just sports, games that grown up kids play. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE football and the NBA playoffs this year were Fantastic. But, come on! You’ve priced the average fan out of the game.

Now we are subjugated to listening to millionaires and billionaires fight over a larger share of the pie. SHAME SHAME SHAME! We are coming out of the worst economic period since the Great Depression, thousands are still without jobs, millions still have no health insurance, and so many people have lost their homes. Yet, neither side has come to the defense of the fan. Sports are a reprieve from life, albeit for a few hours. They let us forget our difficult lives for just a bit as we root for the home team.

Back in the day sports owners never gave consideration to making beastly profits off their sporting teams; and players wanted to play for the love of the game. It should be asked of both parties, how much more does the fan and taxpayer have to foot the bill for luxury stadiums, that only corporate executives truly benefit from. Do you really need to have in your contract an allocation or consideration for personal appearances? Why is there no talk of the plight of the fan? Why not be the first to give up money for the benefit of the fan?

“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” ~ Erich Fromm

There comes a time when people have had enough, sometimes not by their own choosing, but by the choosing of their pocketbooks. If they owners and players don’t recognize it I’ll spell it out for them – Careful boys, your playing a game you can’t draw up a winning play for.

Facebook – You Are Dead To Me.

I’ve been Facebook Free for three months and I’M LOVING IT! I thought it would be a lot harder to quit, but to my surprise it wasn’t hard at all. I still hear friends talking about what they saw or read on someone’s profile and I can’t help but laugh at the mindless enjoyment people can find in inane banter. Here are the 5 reasons why I left, maybe you can relate.

1. Privacy - Or the lack there-of. I don’t have much to hide. Most of my “friends know that I’m married with two kids”. But just do a little research and you’ll quickly find out what Facebook knows about you and what they share, it’s pretty frightening.

2. De-Friending – For the longest time I never knew you could hide or block the ”over sharer”. So being nauseated about the copious amounts of posts about people’s eating habits or their menu for that night, exercise regiments, pet pictures, things their kids said, feelings about their employment situation, or how mad they were at their spouse; I would just bow out being “friends” with certain people. It’s not that I don’t like the person, I just don’t need to or want to know that much about you. De-Friending came back to bite me on three different occasions, with my sister-in-law, a co-worker, and with an aunt. Now when someone asks why we are no longer friends I simply say “I’m Facebook Free”.

3. Friend Requests – I was getting friend requests from people at work and other random people. I’m sorry if this sounds bad; I really do like the people I work with and have worked with in the past. However, I already spend more waking hours with these people than I do with my wife and kids, isn’t that enough? On my time off from work I don’t want to reminded of work, if we are friends I get reminded that I get to see you every Monday morning, yay…..

Plus, some of you all are freaks! I still want to look across the room and have a semi-respectful view of you and not have that picture of you in Cabo passed out on the beach going through my head.

4. Time – We all hold something in our possession that in truly invaluable – time. Once that time is gone its gone forever. It’s not that I would spend hours on Facebook but I spent enough; time I’ll never get back.

5. My Marriage - An old flame friended me, I personally saw nothing wrong with it so I accepted the request. My wife has never had an account on Facebook so she didn’t know that I had friended this gal. I personally saw no reason to tell her, it’s not like I was hiding anything. In fact, my wife from time to time will go to my profile to see other profiles of mutual friends we share and had a good laugh. My other sister-in-law, who at the time happened to be my friend, related to my wife that I was now friends with said girl.

One night coming home from work my computer screen was on this girl’s profile. Before I could x out of the screen my wife comes into my office and asks why I would be friends with brand x. Needless to say I choose not to tell my wife if she was mad about this girl why wasn’t she mad about the other girls that I was “friends” with?

So to prove a point, with my wife in the room, I deleted my account. “There, are you happy now?” She might not have been jumping up and down with excitement but now that it’s been a while I’m jumping up and down with excitement. I’m Facebook Free!

Change For The Better?

If you live long enough you’ll see change. We’ve seen the Berlin wall and the USSR fall. We’ve gone from vinyl to 8-Track to cassettes to cds to MP3 to who knows what else. We’ve gone from the brick cell phone to having smart phones that are literally portable computers. As Ferris Bueller so eloquently put it “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around every once in a while you could miss it”.

Add to that we see change in ourselves, our tastes, our desires, our family make-up, and our careers. In my line of business I see it all the time. Anywhere from the business owner who wants to move on to the next phase in his life, to the long-time employee who goes out on his own or buys out his employer who is moving on, to the professional who wants a new challenge.

New paths can be exciting and breathe life into what might seem to be a listless existence. Here are some items you might what to consider given the above scenarios.

First, with the business owner who wants to move to the next phase in his life.  Have you consider what happens to your business? Do the kids take control or a key employee? If your selling the business, what type of tax implications might there be? After the business is gone have you invested the proceeds so that there is income protection and additional wealth creation?

Second, what about the professional that wants a career change and goes into business for himself? Do you start a new company or do you purchase an existing operation? Is the new venture within your current industry, if not, do you have the capabilities to manage and operate the business on a day-to-day basis? What are your ultimate life goals and what would be your expectations for entering into such a venture?  Does your personal situation even allow you or warrant a change at this time?

Look all of us from time to time fell stuck in our lives, and at times change is needed. We can take past experiences from our lives and plant them into new ventures that could ultimately bring about new perspectives and new ideas. But the key is to do your homework, get advice, and be all means feel free to post a question in the comment section if there are any questions that I can answer regarding this subject.

The Discipline of Self-Discipline

Self-Discipline helps you to zoom past steep obstacles if your life.

People have made their resolutions for the year. Guess what, its January 3rd and a lot of people have probably already cheated on a diet, missed a workout, smoked a heater, or broken a promise to themselves.  It’s not that they didn’t want to stop smoking, stop drinking, or improve themselves in some way or another; they did, badly! The problem with most resolutions is that they are doomed to failure even before they are started.  If people want to make real changes in their lives they need to start with “self-discipline”.

When you were a child there was something about getting disciplined by your parents; the sick feeling you get in your stomach, the nervousness about the punishment, and the remorse and regret. It’s not that your parents enjoyed punishing you, it was that they had your best interests in mind. They may have seen danger in a certain course you were taking and wanted to make sure they straightened you out before it was too late.  It’s the same with self-discipline, you have to want to have your best interests in mind.  You have to like or love yourself enough to makes difficult changes, correction in behaviors, and breaking of bad habits.

To do this you need to take the initiative, no one else can do it for you. You have to value you yourself, you have to love yourself enough to over-power any outside factors that may lead or have led to unwanted behaviors. This can be easier said then done, many people are way too hard on themselves at times. It’s not that you want to be an ego-manic; you just value the outcome of your life enough to affect needed changes.

Life is like a bike, you have to keep moving or else you fall over and crash. Its the same with changes we need to make in our life. Your going to stumble from time to time.  But, if you stop you’ll crash.  You might just have to coast at first, or you may feel like your climbing up a mountain.  But, eventually you’ll gain momentum and start to blaze down the hill; then you’ll be unstoppable. If, you practice the art of self-discipline.

It’s Just A Game – No! It’s A Lot More Than That.

Laces Out Dan!

I was recently watching a college football game, Boise State v Nevada, and the kicker missed not one but two field goals. To say that the field goals were chip shots is an understatment.  He could have won the game and given his team a chance at a National Championship Game or at worst a spot in the Rose Bowl, the granddaddy of all college bowl games.  He choked, and yes I do feel bad for the kid.

Tonight, LeBron James returns to Cleveland to play against his old team as a member of the Miami Heat.  He took his talents to South Beach.  He left behind his formed team for a chance to win titles in Miami.

After  Kyle Brotzman, the kicker for Boise State, missed not one but two field goals I felt devastated and upset.  “That’s his only job” I told my wife. Her reply “It’s just a game, now hopefully I won’t have to hear about it anymore”.  I love my wife, she’s great and I can’t imagine life without her.  But, for a split I wanted to draw up divorce papers right then and there.

For the Cleveland and Heat game tonight, I can only imagine the reaction the fans are going to have for “No-Ring King”, or “The Traitor”.  You’ll always hear people say after a tough loss, or losing your star player to another team. “It’s only a game.”  No, it’s not, it’s a lot more than that.

People follow teams and players for years.  We buy sweaters, shirts, foam fingers, cheese heads, dog collars, banners, posters, hats, and other fan paraphernalia.  We buys tickets, go to games, cheer real loud, talk smack to the other team and fan base, and let people know that we are apart of “The Nation”.  We sign up for fantasy leagues, spend hours watching their games on TV, try to inculcate our wife and kids to liking our team, and teaching them the game.

So when your team suffers a devastating set back - it hurts.  When you’re sitting at the edge of your seat and a kick or two are no good, you can’t help but to hurt.  You’ve invested in this team, your team.  It becomes more than a game, it becomes a piece of you.  Now, hopefully you have enough balance in your life that it’s a small piece, but none the less, it’s part of you.  You associate yourself with a type of family, your sports family.  And just like when someone in your everyday family is hurting, you hurt. When their sad, your sad; when they cheer, you cheer, and when they find success, you take a part in that success.

That’s the way they want it.  Schools, owners, commissioners, and leagues.  They want you to be vested in their teams and players.  That’s what gets you to come back and spend your hard-earned dollars.  Or gets you to invest your time, time that could be spent with your wife who thinks “it’s just a game”.  No, it’s more than a game to a lot of people.  Whether that’s right or wrong is for you to decide, but the saying that “it’s just a game” is just plain wrong.

What To Blog When You Have Nothing To Blog.

Where will my next blog idea come from?

They say every good writer has days when he runs out of material or inspiration.  By no means am I classifying myself as a good or even a decent writer.  However, I have run out of ideas for this blog.  I know this will be a temporary situation but I’m going to try to relate this to business.

Let’s say you’ve run out of ideas or inspiration to keep your business going, to generate sales, or to get your team motivated.  Maybe some of the things you’ve tried in the past didn’t work or weren’t as successful as you needed them to be.  Now what?  Buy a book.

There are many business books out there with a plethora of useful information to help you with your current situation.  When I read a book on a business topic or a critical subject I go in with the goal of finding three things that will help me or could be of real use.  A lot of business books are filled with fluff and finding those three things can be hard at times.  Look at your current standing, what your core competencies?  More importantly what are your core weaknesses?  Find a book and the subject and start reading.  Better yet, start getting stronger.

I’m off to find a book on how to keep ideas rolling.  Please feel free to share your own ideas for a blog topic.

Jerry Jones – The Best of Intentions

Can we both learn from our mistakes T.O?

I don’t like the Dallas Cowboys, I never have.  It’s actually been very comical what’s been happening lately to the franchise and its hopes for the big game to be played in its new football palace.  But I will say this, it’s not been for a lack of trying.  Jerry Jones is a very passionate man when it comes to his team and there is much to be said for that.  But herein can lie the problem.

Is it possible to care too much?  I look at Jerry and see a young kid who loves and cherishes his pet dog and just wants the best for it.  But he loved it too much and squeezed it so tight that now the puppy is on life support.

We all are invested in something. Whether its our families, careers, a hobby or an idea.  Jerry is invested in the Dallas Cowboys and the business of football.  He brings in good players, pays them well, builds an incredible stadium, and tries to give his fans an experience.  Ask any football fan and they’ll tell you truthfully that they’d love to have him as their owner.  However, were Jerry and others like him fail is balance.

Did he really need that big of a TV, the one that kickers can easily hit?  Does he really need to be the GM?  Or could he find someone who would be more than capable and possibly smarter than he is.  Does he need to keep his horrible head coach that long, when everyone else in America knew that Wade was a terrible coach.  Did he really need to experiment with Terrell Owens, a guy who had proved over and over that he can be a cancer?

The point is this – know your own limitations and check your pride at the door.  Realize just because you think you’re the smartest guy in the room doesn’t necessarily make you so.  Just because you have passion about something doesn’t mean you’ll always have the right answers or know the best possible way to go.  Ask for help.  Look to others who might be more knowledgeable, and don’t be afraid to admit mistakes and to turn the ship around.

Baseball – No Longer The National Pastime.

First, Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants for winning the 2010 World Series.  Second, I love baseball, I love the Boston Red Sox, and I loved collecting baseball cards as a kid.  Third, baseball is dead.

This morning as I was getting ready for work I turned on the TV and what was the topic du jour on the sports channel, Randy Moss.  When I got into my car to come to work this morning what was sports talk radio talking about, Randy Moss.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 

Look baseball did it to itself and it deserves anything it gets (steroids, no replay, long season, long games, not building interest in kids, five plus dollars for a pack of baseball cards, no parody).  Baseball is no longer the national pastime, so can we stop calling it that!  Other sports have long supplanted baseball, most notably football.

I hope base can come back, but hope is fading.  MLB needs to address its issues faster than Ricky Henderson used to steal bases.  Baseball fat cats need to wake up and see that people don’t care anymore, and that’s a killer to any business. 

MLB has fallen, can it get up?

Economic Forecast

*Disclaimer – This blog post is solely my own opinion and does not reflect the views of my employer.

Now that I got that out-of-the-way let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.  I recently attended an economic forecast meeting and I thought I would briefly share some of the more interesting tidbits. 

Jobs – The economy has shed 8.4 million jobs and people who still have their jobs are sitting on the sidelines when it comes to spending.  The economy needs 10 millions jobs as of today.  The forecast is to add 3 million jobs in the next three years.  When jobs do come back people are going to have to accept less and adjust to lower paychecks.  Forecast is about 4.5 – 5.5 millions people will get rehired at significantly lower wage levels.

Elections – Its predicted that after the elections that their could be gridlock in the form of party affiliations.  Historically, when this happens you have a large uptick in corporate spending.  This fragmentation in politics brings about predictability in the economy as both sides typically don’t work together for the second half of a president term.  Corporations like predictability and it could result in two to three years of robust growth.  The hopes would be the growth would take the economy back to semi-normal levels.

Recovery – The economy is recovering, albeit at a snail’s pace.  Consumer confidence is up but well below the historical average and things still feel awful.

Auto Sales – Have seen a small recovery but are still way off of normal levels and remain historically low.

Home Sales – In the majority is metro areas around the country the bottom has been found.  There are still pockets that could see another 10 to 15 percent decline in prices.  The largest problem for the housing market today is the lack of households. The last three years have created a shortage of the formation of households.  This is one of the major reason there is an excess supply in the marketplace.  These households need housing units, be it rentals or owning homes.

Typically, 3 million households form in a year. Since 2008 we have had a shrinkage of households.  So far for 2010 we have had 1.5 million households that did not form.  A lot of people have room mates, or are living with relatives.  This is directly related to the lack of jobs; no jobs no households.  If we had the normal formation of households we would have housing shortages in most metro areas. 

Corporate Profits – GDP V. Corporate Profits are at an all time high and rising; 8 to 10 percent of GDP.  They have been using a smaller workforce to produce the same amount of GDP.  Currently, corporations have 1.2 trillion is cash reserves sitting in banks.  They are not spending it on modernization or capital improvements, most are not paying it out in increased dividends to shareholders, and they are certainly not hiring. 

Conclusion – Late 2013 the economy should rebound to pre-recession levels.  It will be a slow climb.

Love To Win!

In my short-lived and modest blogging career, the most popular post I’ve written was ”Hate To Lose”.  There I explained that many successful people share a similar trait – they HATE to Lose!  If you haven’t read it before I basically explain that truly succesful win over and over again because they hate to lose more so than they like to win.

After reading that post you might well consider that this post “Love to Win” as a complete contradiction.  Not so, the reason is people are different.  The way we look at life, tackle problems, raise kids, and even how we eat our Snickers bars (forks).  For some “hate” is not a quality they’ve cultivated or choose to cultivate.  While there are many things that I have disdain for (The Patriots of the NFL and Tom Brady‘s hair) I wanted to look at the other end of the spectrum of success.

Loving to win is all about creating momentum, it’s about taking victories no matter how small and building upon them.  It’s a daily process that entails learning and repeating the process over and over so success can be sustained and new levels of success can be reached.  You have to enjoy the sweet taste of victory, remember what it taste like and form a longing for it.  It almost becomes addicting, you’ll make yourself better in any way possible to get that success rush over and over again.

So what if things were to go awry?  Loving to win means that you look over the process and see what things need to be changed in order to come to a different outcome.  I’m amazed the amount of times I’ve seen awesome ideas scraped because the desired results weren’t achieved the first time around.  When a slight adjustment or some tweaking could have meant success.  Or just the opposite happens and people continue to walk the same path that has led to failure time and time again.  WAKE UP PEOPLE!

In your line of work are there things that you do really well?  Are there processes that you have in place that work?  Is the team well oiled and high performing? Are you finding success in the economic downturn?  Can you build on any of it?  If things are not going to plan can you make adjustments? Finally, when you have a success are you building upon it and can you nurture and cultivate into different aspects of you business?  Are you throwing your hands up and loving the sensation of winning?  Fist pump to way to a long life of success.