Intern for Hire

I said that I would write often, and I have time tonight, so here you go. Right now, I am looking for my summer internship. Do you want to know what my ideal summer internship would be? Well, I have a few. One would obviously be to be a full-time paid power soccer player. Seriously though, I would love to put in some work time to promote the sport. There are other people who travel around the country starting new teams, and I think that would be so much fun. There's nothing quite like seeing the excitement that new players have the first time they touch the ball. Another cool internship would be working for the Phillies. I watch them anyway, so why not do it in person and get paid to do it? Actually, I would also like to work in their accounting office because there's so much money to handle! Accountants get used to being the indispensable people behind the scenes, and I would like to help with that with the Phillies. How cool would that be? Do any of my readers have an awesome internship for me? If you want me to work for you, let me know!

Excitement Coming

It is very exciting to think about the future of our power soccer team. While we don't know entirely with that future will look like, I know it will be exciting. The reason it will be so exciting is because we have a lot of great people. That isn't just me; I know that that sentiment is felt by many of my teammates, and that is obviously a great thing. We are willing to work together and seem to do so relatively effectively. It is good when people are able to get things done while still keeping everybody else informed about what is happening so there is no wasted time in doing the same thing. We seem to do that very well also with a relatively accessible line of communication that we are relatively diligent with. It is going to happen, and it is an exciting sport.

I want to let you know that there might be some changes coming up in my blog. I am not sure when they will happen or exactly how, but I may not be writing as often. I will give you more details in a few days when I know more myself. I have a new idea that is pretty exciting though!

Global Management

Well, I think that this is the first blog post I have written in a shirt, tie, and Argyle sweater vest. The reason is not because I have gone through some amazing transformation right feel the need to overdress. I have a presentation today with my group about how businesses adopt and adapt to changing technology. Of course, none of you want to hear that right now, but I think it is enough to say that I feel pretty good about our presentation. My group mates know what they're doing, and I know what I'm doing, so it should go pretty well. Honestly, the hardest part is allowing all five of us to talk in 10 minutes. I have one PowerPoint slide on globalization, and it is very difficult to condense even that relatively small amount of information into one fifth of the time or two minutes. Even by putting the material on one slide, I am missing a lot of what really is the body of globalization. I realize that today is only supposed to give the rest of the class a broad overview of what we are doing, but there is so much to say because globalization is such a huge topic.

Photo by FlyingSinger on Flickr

Perspective

It can be overwhelming to look at everything at once. I had that happen twice yesterday. I was meeting with my group for my management class and essentially the end product that our group will have to produce will be a 100 page paper. Of course, looking at that right now while we haven't physically written anything is overwhelming. However, if we look at just the 20 page first part that we have to write for a few weeks away, it definitely is not so overwhelming anymore. Then, I talked to some of my power soccer teammates just to talk about the game and visit, and the conversation went to thinking about what is involved in creating a first-class organization similar to what other teams have been doing. Of course, if you look at everything that these organizations do, it can be kind of overwhelming because it does seem to require a lot of money to make these things happen. Of course, it is totally possible to do this because obviously there are teams who are already doing this, but it is important to look at everything in steps. Yesterday was pretty great in that respect, and now I see how all of this stuff will be able to get done.

Photo by Sir_Iwan on Flickr

Take to the Air

Let me just say how awesome this is! I was bored at UVM today, so I was looking through the pages of Xable.com. It is a great resource for all people with disabilities. Anyway, they had an article on the website talking about different airlines and how accommodating they are for people in wheelchairs. Anyway, everything in the article was stuff that I had heard before except for one airline that isn't even in existence yet. ChairFlights is a nonprofit that is forming to allow people who must remain in their wheelchairs such as myself to fly. I can't even begin to tell you the impact this could have on the sport of power soccer. Can you imagine what the ability to travel easily could do for all of us athletes? Right now, many teams are separated by hours of driving from their nearest competition. However, if we could fly to another location to play in a matter of hours, imagine how much more teams will be traveling. Not only that, but imagine how much more easily we all could travel anywhere we want to. This is such a great idea, so I really hope that they get off the ground soon!

True NFL Incomes

I think that it is interesting how people can tend to have quite a bit success, but then they quickly lose touch with the early success. I am still reading the book written by Drew Rosenhaus in regards to his career and how he became one of the most powerful agents in the NFL. I think I figured out the main thing, he flatters people. Flattery has gotten him places definitely. However, while he definitely needed to cater to his clients, he also needed to know how to play hardball. He could not just walk up to the negotiation table and be nice. He needed to buckle down and get what he felt his client deserved. There was an interesting note that I noticed however. In the NFL, careers often only last under five years. In 2007, the minimum salary for a rookie was $285,000. For the second through fifth years, the salaries increase from $360,000 to $435,000 to $510,000 to $595,000. Add that up and this hypothetical player who played five years at the minimum would have made $2.18 million. In 2009 I saw that the average per capita income was $39,138 according to the US Department of Commerce. Say you work at this average career for 45 years (20-65 years old). You will make $1.76 million which is pretty nice. It definitely seems ridiculous that in five years the worst player in the NFL could have made more than the average person in the United States. This wasn't really the fact that surprised me though. Living as an NFL player is much more expensive than the average life. If all the team goes out to an expensive restaurant, this player will go as well. I would bet that the $2,000,000 goes pretty quickly when you live that lifestyle. I guess that surprised me that this money will go quickly, and many ex-NFL players need to go back to work after their careers are complete. I guess I never really thought about that though. I thought all athletes had it made forever. I guess that only applies to the best of the best however.
Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr

Money Talking Issues

There seems to be a trend lately. If something can leak, it has been. First, we had British Petroleum, then we had all of the Wiki Leaks, and now Major League Baseball has been hit. An investigation is underway to uncover who opened up documents that exposed the financial histories of the Tampa Bay Rays, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Seattle Mariners, the Florida Marlins, and the Pittsburgh Pirates according to the New York Times. Many teams are not publicly owned, so they do not need to release quarterly or annual reports to shareholders. They only need to give financial reports to the Commissioner's Office, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Ernst & Young, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. However, there is an interesting quote in this article from Vince Gennaro, a consultant to several major league baseball teams and author, said,

"If I were Major League Baseball, I'd be much more concerned if the Yankees' numbers were released. It would present a dramatic disparity and you'd begin to wonder how you can retain an economic structure that allows teams to earn such disparate amounts of money."

When I read this, what I think Gennaro might be referring to is the necessity for a salary cap. I definitely have mixed feelings about this. While I do think that the salary level is ridiculous, I also know that if the players aren't making the money, the owners are going to pocket more. Again, I do not have a problem with the owners making money because that is why they bought the business. However, what would ideally happen is that with less salary to pay because of the cap, ticket and merchandise prices might be able to drop to make baseball much more affordable for the average fan. I do not think that this would happen because as long as people are willing to pay for the tickets, the prices will not drop. However, I do not think that the owners would adopt the lower prices because when there's profit to be made, they will make it. So, I don't think that there should be a salary cap, because the intended effect to make the game more affordable for the fans due to fewer expenses would not happen.
Photo by daveynin on Flickr

LeBron James is Going Where?

I was wondering what to write today to bring you something new and maybe kind of weird. Well, I've got that for you now. Last night I had a dream that I knew where LeBron James would sign. I was sitting in a press conference, and the moderator introduced James. Everyone started cheering as he came onto the stage carrying flags of all the teams that have potentially been in the running for his services. I am not really sure if this has ever happened in the history of the press conference. As most of you know, the Cavaliers and Bulls are the favorites to land him while the Knicks, Nets, Clippers, and the Heat have all been mentioned as outside chances. However, in my dream, all of these flags were passed on until only one remained. For some reason, my mind projected the Sacramento Kings. Don't ask me why or how I came up with this, but I do know that when it does happen, I will be one of the few who thought about this ahead of time. It's not like I'm even a Sacramento fan and this was wishful thinking; I'm a Mavericks fan. Whatever, all I know is that I barely ever dream, so this kind of surprised me.
Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr

Delayed Fiction

As I said yesterday, today would be Fiction Friday delayed to Saturday. Therefore, I won't delay any longer, but I guess 24 hours isn't that bad when sometimes planes are delayed longer than that.

I had always thought that I played basketball for fun. However, now that free agency hit me, I realized it was more than that. Basketball had become a career; it was no longer a pastime. I missed the freedom to play ball just to play it. Now, just playing basketball became a business venture; my points per game were like my stock price. If it went up, I was doing well, and I preferred not to talk about it when the price dropped.

Now, I had to make it all pay out. I didn't want to end up like Scottie Pippen and have to be suing for my airplane that I bought and almost end up bankrupt. However, I realized how lucky I was to even be in this scenario to play basketball for money. How many people get paid to play a game? Whatever, I thought, it all will work out somehow. With that, I walked into the conference room and began negotiations.

Photo by Matt Callow

Sports Ticket Pricing

I think that, watching Brazil beat Chile right now, Switzerland should have made it into this round. Anyway, enough complaining about the Swiss as much as I liked that the team for beating Spain. The other day I was looking at some ticket prices on the FIFA website and realized that for a ticket to the finals, you could be paying up to $900 per seat. I realize that this is outrageous, but that is in US dollars. I wonder how much more outrageous to people from a poor country. Very few of us have $900 lying around for no reason, and we live in one of the richest countries in the world. I would bet that most of the people who are able to afford a ticket probably didn't simply because as I have been complaining for the past few days, Americans don't care about soccer half as much as the rest of the world (or half as much as they should). I was also reading an article the other day that talked about a shortage of ticket sales. I wonder why? If people can afford the tickets, they won't go simply because they can't. I wish all sporting events would realize that trimming a little bit off of ticket prices might indeed bring in more fans who would make up the lost profit from cutting prices.
Photo by the US Army on Flickr

Michael Jordan's Legacy Etched in Stone

I am a little bit behind in reading my newspapers. However, this morning I opened up the Parade magazine from Sunday's paper and read an article about how to save the NBA. To be honest, I think that the NBA has been slipping downhill since Michael Jordan retired in 1998. I know he made a comeback after that, but he was not the legend that he was before that first retirement. During his career, the league essentially became Michael Jordan and a bunch of other players. Don't get me wrong, there are several other players of his era who were amazing as well such as David Robinson or John Stockton. However, I do not know the figures off the top of my head, but I would bet that the amount of endorsements that Michael Jordan received was several times that of any other player of that time. He was the face of several national brands, most notably Gatorade and Nike, he played on the original Dream Team which also received quite a bit of international media exposure, and he became a legend in college basketball first thereby gaining a fan base that Lebron James could never get because he never went to college. We are always looking for the next Jordan for a reason; his personality, obvious talent, and championship success all became major selling points for the NBA. Even people who didn't know basketball understood that he was the best. I don't really see that happening right now because there are so many different players who might be the best, Lebron, Kobe, Wade, or a few years ago Steve Nash. All of this talent is awesome, and I'm glad that all of these players are stars, but it also takes more of an in depth understanding of the game to know all of these players and realize who is the best. At least in the 90s, there was no question.

So, how would I save the NBA? I think mainly I would need a player who'd come in from college with a national championship, be very flashy on the court but have a good reputation off of it, and he would need to go to a bad franchise and turn them around into a champion. Lebron James came in heralded as the next Jordan, but until he can win that championship, he's not on the same level of stardom.
Photo by Esparta on Flickr

Enterprising

I wish I were a talented computer programmer. If I was, I think that I could make a lot of money. The reason I make this claim is because the world is becoming largely Internet driven. The easiest way to become a presence on the Internet is to be able to create some device that nobody else has and then market it effectively. What I would like to create a social networking site specially designed for athletes. There are websites out there that are for sports fans, but I think that athletes should have one network so that college or professional coaches can find everyone who might potentially be. However, what I would like to do to differentiate my product would be to make sure that every entrant on the website would have video uploaded of certain skills. For example, for the basketball section, I would want to see a video of the player taking a jump shot, dribbling at full speed, or performing lay-up drills. Watching an in-game video is obviously beneficial and would have a place on the website. However, I feel like the videos of each player performing fundamental skills in isolated instances would allow coaches to see a direct comparison between players.

While ideally the service would be free, until I garnered enough sponsorships, I would probably need to charge simply to have enough money to buy the webspace to store all of these videos. However, this is all just in my head, so if you want to rip off my idea and create it, there's nothing I can do to stop you. However, remember me when you get famous.
Photo by websuccessdiva on Flickr

Riches Abound

First of all, I just want to say that this snow is ridiculous. Okay, now that I've ranted to you, on with more important issues. I assume that many of you may have noticed the five-year, $125,000,000 contract that Ryan Howard signed a few days ago to remain with the best team in baseball. I was thinking about the amplitude of this amount of money. What would you do with $25,000,000 a year? Personally, I have no idea they anything of that amount, and I would have to decide what to do with it for five consecutive years. I think I would definitely keep enough to pay off the house, car, or any other debt I would have outstanding. Then I think I would put some of that in the bank for future retirement purposes. I think I would end up donating a lot of it to various charities simply because it is a nice thing to do and there comes a point where more money does not change your life. If it doesn't change your lifestyle, there is really no reason to keep the money. Money in the bank that isn't doing anything except for generating more interest for me would seem to be kind of useless. I always used to say that I would want to buy a Hummer if I ever became rich, but that will probably be impossible by the time I am able to afford one since the brand has folded. So, I'm not sure what type of car I will buy now, but I'm not Ryan Howard so this problem isn't mine yet.

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