Student-athlete gifts are a large expense for Universities and Conferences. That is why three men's and women's basketball conferences are eliminating the gifts their athletes recieve. The three conferences are the Big Ten, the PAC-10, and the Mid-American Conferences. The Big Ten and the PAC-10 are expecting to save up to $300,000 by eliminating the gifts given to all their student-athletes. The Mid-American Conference is expecting to save up to $40,000. The athletes in the three conferences are losing a significant gift. Some examples of other conferences that are still providing gifts are the Big East, ACC, and SEC. Both the Big East and ACC are provide a Nintendo Wii package for all their players. The SEC is providing a choice of a GPS, camera, Ipod, or watch for their players. The total amount of gifts that players can recieve is approximately $3,000 worth, which includes gifts from their school and conferences. It is also possible to recieve gifts from the NCAA if the athletes participate in the NCAA Division I Championship Tournament.
The biggest expense in terms of gifts is for men's and women's basketball programs. Of the money that is budgeted for gifts, 75% of it is spent on the men's and women's basketball tournaments. As you can see a lot if money will be saved for those three conferences. The large expense comes because each conference must providing each team with up to 25 gifts. With approximately 10-12 teams in each conference that estimates each conference having to provide 500-600 gifts for both the men's and women's basketball teams.
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"I can tell you, it's not going to be a popular move in the locker room," said one player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We loved T.J. The man loved the game and put it all on the line only to get dumped after his best season. I think you should reward players for performance. You dump him but give Vernon (Gholston) another shot? Doesn't make sense."
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Does the NBA need the Knicks to be good again? Well, Celizic, writer for the Journal News, sure does think so. I certainly agree. Madison Square Garden, home of the New York Knicks, is known as the mecca of basketball. It is proven that the sport is way better off when all of the major markets are contending teams. New York is one of, if not the biggest sports city in the nation. It is very ironic that a team in arguably the biggest market in the country struggles to break 30 wins every year.
As Celizic said, it is perfectly fine for any team to be in a rebuilding stage. It is however not okay for a team in a market such as New York City to stink up the place every year. As Celizic also stated, Madison Square Garden needs to return to old form. Madison Square Garden needs to once again be sold out for home games, with a team that competes for a championship; or at least in the playoffs. It needs to have celebrities other than Spike Lee there every game. It need to once again be a place where rocking concerts and top ticket boxing matches take place.
This offseason will be crucial for the Knicks. Arguable the best free agent class will be available, and the Knicks will need to cash in. They will also need to draft well to get a nucleus of strong, cheap young players to play alongside whoever they acquire. Madison Square has lost its swagger. The Knicks have lost their swagger. It's time for them to get it back.
The Winter Olympics is a great tradition that brings people from around the world to one specific place. Even if you are not a participant, a family member supporting your loved one, or one of the lucky towns people in Vancouver that get to be apart it, you still want to experience the 2010 Winter Olympics. Many well known websites have given people the chance to virtually experience the Olympics. Google, Bing, Yahoo/Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter have given people different opportunities to be updated about the progress of the Olympics.
On Google, you can take a virtual tour of the Olympics. Bing has created a Winter Olympics app for people to receive updated news. On this app, people can also see the medal count, the different venues, and photos. Yahoo has a site directly for the games. This site gives users live results, photos, news, and many more. On Yahoo's Flickr people get post their pictures from the 2010 Winter Olympics. The very popular Facebook has an official page for the Olympics. Besides just looking at news, people can share their own experiences about the Olympics. Users can even become fans of Olympic athletes and teams. Lastly, Twitter has some athletes participating updating their pages for the fans. With all this options and many more, becoming a part of the 2010 Winter Olympics is just a click away.
Jeff Gordon leaves IMG and explores new opportunties by just marekting internationally. He is getting involved with a motorsports marketing agency in Indianapolis, which has not been represented any NASCAR driver before. Jeff is seeking a new direction in his career and is tried of the traditional deal.
Gordon had spent more than 10 years with IMG, and during most of that time he was the only NASCAR driver in the agency's talent stable. But as Gordon, 38, approaches the twilight of his driving career, he's looking for a deeper selection of business opportunities within motorsports that extend beyond endorsements.
The Nigerian Basketball Federation, also known as the NBBF just signed a long term deal with Nike, a company well known for international manufacturing. In doing so, the NBBF has also secured their partnership with the NBA. This could mean the development of more basketball players from Nigeria, and other African countries for that matter. According to reports, the president of the NBBF, Tijjani Umar has also confirmed that Nike will begin to hold summer camps and other training programs, which ultimately means the development of NIgerian basketball.
There is no doubt that basketball is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. Throughout the years, we have seen the number of International players from areas such as Asia and Europe drastically increasing. The skill level and competitve nature of these players are also greatly improving. The NBA's efforts to spread the great game of basketball throughout the world has been very frutiful thus far. It won't be long before we see a lot of great players coming from the continent of Africa, the likes of Nigeria's own Hakeem Olajuwon.
The 2010 Winter Olympics have not been running as smoothly as planned. The weather has been causing problems outdoors and as of Monday February, 15 the problem shifted indoors. To promote "Going Green" the Olympic Committee chose to use a battery powered Zamboni(the machine that smooths the surface of the ice). Unfortunately, there were mechanical difficulties with the battery powered Zamboni. The event staff at the arena was forced to use a propane fuled Zamboni. The difficulties occured halfway through the first of two races for the men's 500-meter speedskating event. Because of the time stopage, American speedskater Shani Davis withdrew from the event. Eventually, the problems were fixed and medals were awarded. Hopefully, this is the end of the problems that have plagued the Olympic Games thusfar.
biggest hit and many hockey players rushed out to the store to get one.
After a couple of months the S17 became white noise. Everyone thought that the S17 was as good as hockey technology was going to get. They were sorrily mistaken.
A couple of months ago Easton came out with a brand new stick titled the S19.
This stick once again opened the eyes of many hockey players. The Easton S19 improved characteristics like a more accurate flex of the stick,and the stick became
lighter while increasing its durability. This just goes to show that when you think techonology is at the best it can be, you are only deceiving yourself.
Communication is a significant factor when it comes to the 2010 Winter Olympics, which are being held in Vancouver. Not only is it vital to have the communication system up and running successfully with no problems, but to have the adequate amount of technology and equipment to run the system. With tens of thousands of participants using the network, the network has to have large enough capacity to handle the amount of information being transmitted; weather it is being sent or received by phone, email, fax, internet or any other connection. Because of this, VANOC (Communications team) had to work very diligently at creating a system to make sure that this was possible. The only way to ensure that there will be no flaws is to test the system numerous times and to have workers readily available to take on any situation if problems do arise.
