ESPN.com presents Dollars - ESPN Playbook http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars 60 en-us Fri, 24 May 2013 02:00:39 webmaster@espn.go.com http://assets.espn.go.com/i/espn/teamlogos/lrg/trans/espn_dotcom_black.gif 110 110 Sponsorships are worth nothing to companies if they can’t activate in ways that engage fans. Thursday, the NBA’s official quick service restaurant, Taco Bell, is launching the NBA Big Box. There are six boxes in total, three from the Eastern Conference and three from the Western Conference, and 42 players are featured in total (including Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony). These boxes are more than just a handy way to package your food, however.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3529/turn-your-nba-big-box-into-a-court Thu, 23 May 2013 14:52:52 EDT 3529 Michael Jordan is in a bind. His team has lost seven out of every 10 games since he became the majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats in March 2010. On an average night, reported attendance reveals an arena that is 20 percent empty, while actual attendance is worse. The sad part is that dressing the team up in the Charlotte Hornets teal of old, as Jordan is expected to announce Tuesday, won't help much. Lipstick, meet pig. It likely won't bring a significant number of people to the arena.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3505/bobcats-to-hornets-swap-wont-help-jordan Tue, 21 May 2013 10:21:31 EDT 3505 It’s not too late for Cam Newton to become a big marketing star, but he’ll need a little help from his friends -- or, in this case, his teammates. “The main thing for Cam Newton when it comes to his marketability is, first and foremost, winning,” said Doug Shabelman, president of Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing. “If they win and he does well, it’s going to come, and he will be back as one of the most-discussed and sought-after players in the league because his game is exciting, he has a winning smile and he has a good personality.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3495/can-cam-newton-cash-in-on-endorsements Fri, 17 May 2013 17:06:43 EDT 3495 Six years ago, Matt White was the story of the Dodgers' spring training camp. But no one was talking about his pitching. They wanted to know how he won the geological lottery. You might remember it. White bought 45 acres in his home state of Massachusetts from an aunt for $50,000. When the land proved to be too hard to build on, a surveyor told White that he had approximately 24 million tons of mica schist rock on the property. After learning this stone was worth about $100 per ton, an MLB.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3482/ex-dodger-matt-white-digging-for-millions Mon, 13 May 2013 10:55:15 EDT 3482 Although you might know where Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy are on the leaderboard at The Players Championship, you probably don’t know about everything going on behind the scenes at TPC Sawgrass. For example, on Monday, while the golfers were out playing practice rounds, 250 women were attending Executive Women’s Day in the clubhouse. The day included breakfast, lunch, a variety of speakers and networking opportunities. I had the pleasure of attending Executive Women’s Day at The Players and met high-level executives in pharmaceuticals, real estate, banking and virtually every other industry I could imagine.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3470/tpc-offers-many-business-opportunities Fri, 10 May 2013 21:55:08 EDT 3470 With the second round of the NBA playoffs now underway, betting network Favourit analyzed the action on basketball's postseason, and shared the results with Playbook. Those results: Through one round, bettors like the Miami Heat to repeat as champions, beating the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. They also view regular-season top player LeBron James as the most likely Finals MVP, ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant. Not pictured: A big shift from the first round's bets, which showed OKC getting out of the Western Conference before losing to Miami.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3454/graphic-nba-bettors-like-miami-heat Mon, 6 May 2013 19:00:15 EDT 3454 Technology has caught up to almost everything we do and use today, and that's why it's not surprising that one of the last old ways of doing things in sports recovery appears to be coming to an end. It was a question that surfaced while looking at body surfers in Laguna Beach three years ago. Anthony Katz asked himself: Why isn't there a better ice bag for players to ice down with after games? Katz thought of this while looking at the wet suits they were all wearing, thinking there had to be a better material than that plastic bag to hold the melting ice.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3460/will-hyperice-replace-plastic-ice-bags Mon, 6 May 2013 13:27:54 EDT 3460 The SEC Network will become the fourth conference network to launch when it goes on air in August 2014. With it will come the fourth model for creating a conference network on cable television. The first conference network to launch on cable television was The Mtn., the now defunct channel for the Mountain West Conference, in 2006. The channel began as a seven-year deal between the conference and CSTV for the league’s television rights. Shortly after the announcement that the Mountain West would move from ESPN to CSTV, The Mtn.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3451/sec-latest-to-launch-conference-network Fri, 3 May 2013 15:12:48 EDT 3451 If there's one drink you have to have at one sporting event, it's the mint julep at the Kentucky Derby. And luckily for the folks at Churchill Downs, the margins on the drink are tremendous. After having a couple of these things over the years (I'm not a fan), I wanted to see if I could figure out exactly how much of a mint the track was making off this one drink. The folks at Churchill won't talk about the actual calculations, so I decided to take my best educated shot.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3440/huge-margins-on-mint-juleps-at-derby Fri, 3 May 2013 13:26:41 EDT 3440 For years, Andy Krafsur has been going against the establishment, pushing his Spira running shoes in nontraditional ways. In 2005, he boldly proclaimed that using his company's shoes in a sanctioned race would be cheating. Technically he was right. Spira shoes have springs in them, which governing bodies had determined gave an unfair advantage to competitors. In 2007, he outfitted top runners without shoe deals for the Boston Marathon. His runners didn't win the elite race, but they appeared in enough of the television broadcast, in bright yellow shoes, to intrigue other runners.]]> http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3434/beat-your-record-or-your-shoes-are-free Thu, 2 May 2013 12:17:28 EDT 3434