NBA Borrows $175M for 15 Teams ($11.66M Each)

Professional sports are not immune to the economic downturn.We saw the Arena Football League close indefinitely. MLB free agents are signing shorter, smaller deals (except for Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia). And several NBA teams are shopping star players to save money (ie the Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Hornets.

Now word comes out that the NBA has secured $175,000,000 to help support 15 teams who apparently need the assistance. It will be interesting to see how this affects the trade deadline (expect lots of major contracts to move) and this summer's free agency. The financing comes at over 8% interest - so it is clear that this was a needed move... and considering the NBA's health as compared to Major League Baseball - I wonder what will happen when (not if) MLB attendance and advertising falls... big names and contracts will move quickly and at pennies on the dollar.

The NBA is set to borrow $175 million Feb. 26, marking one of the first league financings since the implosion of the credit markets last fall. The money, which will be available to 15 teams, supplements an existing $1.7 billion leaguewide credit facility that uses the NBA's media contracts as collateral to secure loans for the clubs. The NBA surveyed its teams, and 15 responded they would like to tap into the new borrowing.

While the league said it is pleased to borrow in an extremely illiquid credit market, the deal came at a cost, with interest rates up to 8.27 percent, hammering home the notion that the era of cheap money in sports is over. The 15 teams can use the money for any purpose, but covering operating losses may be high on the list.

Each of the 15 teams can borrow a maximum of $11.66 million from the debt proceeds. -- Sports Business Journal

ESPN.com Wants to Make Sure You Know Valentines is Coming

I spend a lot of time on ESPN - particularly their mobile properties... which for big media brands - really are the best available. And while I have been critical of ESPN.com's relaunch, I respect their ability to land big advertising deals (though skeptical of the advertisers' results). Today's campaign is the most in-your-face yet...

If you have somehow forgotten that Valentines Day is on the horizon - ESPN and JC Penny are certain to make sure that you won't forget. After all, about 70% of the homepage is covered in Valentine's promotions. The ads are nicely aligned and build on one another (a major complaint of using AdSense or other contextual networks that result in disjointed units).

I hope that ESPN is getting a very solid CPM deal here, because as a reader, this is a major turn-off. I am all for advertising - particularly on great, free content. But at a point, two things happen:

1. You get irritated, and/or 2. It takes too long to get to the content

beRecruited Growth Continues; Rock Mountain News Coverage

It's been a great couple months for beRecruited. By all measures, traffic and site-usage are ramping very nicely (more than doubling in the last calendar year).

Perhaps more importantly though, our recruiting metrics are growing at similar rates and our users continue to validate the effectiveness of the service. We have had a series of great press mentions and the common theme is pretty simple: beRecruited works for athletes, parents and coaches.

Our latest mention is in the Rocky Mountain News: "Social networking sites let coaches, athletes strike a happy medium":

When national signing day arrives Wednesday, some local athletes will credit beRecruited.com for helping cultivate their college commitments.

"BeRecruited had a big role when I signed with Washington," said John Dalton, a swimmer from Arvada West High School who recently committed to the Huskies. "It helped me get to know the coach more and see what their meet schedule was like."

... "A lot of schools have been contacting me; I can't keep track of how many anymore," said Bla- dek, who probably will wait beyond Wednesday to make her decision. "Just this week, I've talked to three schools already. I try to make sure to update my profile every week or so. Since I'm in club (volleyball) right now and we play every other weekend, my mom takes footage of that and we tried to put it online as much as possible."

"Kirsten Bladek, a volleyball player from Monarch High School, received an expense-paid trip to New Mexico Highlands after contacting the school on the Web site beRecruited.com. The school offered her a scholarship, but she has yet to make a decision."

Star Trek Takes Over ESPN.com... Four Months too Early

On Super Bowl weekend, ESPN was able to sell its homepage with two massive rich-media Star Trek advertisements... you know, the new iMax move that comes out May 8th, 2009. On a weekend when ESPN likely expects greater-than-normal traffic... and when television ad-spots are notoriously expensive... and in an economy where those Super Bowl ads *still* are not sold out... this campaign is both impressive for the publisher and questionable for the advertiser.

Even for Hollywood - advertising four months out on the web seems strange. Usually Hollywood advertises online to reinforce campaigns already airing on television, in theaters, and so forth. And usually the campaigns are more targeted and within a couple weeks from the movie's release. For instance, the week leading up to Bride War's release, PerezHilton.com was covered in full-page units.

That makes total sense. This, however, is completely bizarre.

Real-Time Sports Scores Widget by InGameNow

You can already take InGameNow on the go with our iPhone Apps and Google Talk / AOL Instant Messanger integration. Now you can take InGameNow directly to your website with our new live sports scores and scoreboard widgets. On an aside, InGameNow is starting to gain serious momentum. During Sunday's AFC Championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens (two small/medium-sized markets), over 2,500 InGameNow posts were exchanged specifically about the game. And the day before, we launched a full scoreboard on the homepage that we are continuing to roll-out thorughout the site and team pages... much more to come in the next couple weeks.

beRecruited Featured in Guam's Pacific Daily News

A few days after beRecruited's feature in the Wall Street Journal is the below mention from Guam's Pacific Daily News. The article profiles a local softball player - MeiLani Quintanilla - who received a scholarship to play at Calumet in Indiana. Quintanilla was found via beRecruited:

"I was really shocked," Quintanilla said. "I didn't think that I would get a chance to play at all. I had to recheck my e-mail to see if it was really my account. It was surreal."

Crimson Wave softball coach Tom Fickett sent the e-mail. After Quintanilla replied, Fickett called her and offered a year-to-year scholarship later that month. She said she has partial academic and athletic scholarships to attend Calumet, which participates in the NAIA. She said she will serve as a utility player.

...

The opportunity presented itself after a motherly intervention. Lillian Quintanilla, MeiLani's mother, posted a profile of her daughter on a Web site called beRecruited. The site states that it can be used as a tool to connect high school students with college coaches.

MeiLani Quintanilla's mother was also her softball coach in her senior year at George Washington High School. Lillian Quintanilla knew that if she wanted her daughter to play college softball, she would have to do something different because coaches in the U.S. mainland rarely come to Guam to scout athletes.

She said that she did her research online and found the beRecruited site. She then posted a profile of her daughter, and Fickett read it.

"It was good information," Fickett said via telephone from Whiting. "I really liked the grades academically as strongly as athletics. I saw that she was award winning."

beRecruited Featured in Today's Wall Street Journal

beRecruited is prominently featured in today's Wall Street Journal article, "The Do-It-Yourself Scholarship", which graces the cover of the Personal Section. Author Matthew Futterman gives a thorough overview of collegiate sports recruiting and how the internet has made the process more effective and efficient for athletes and college coaches. Specifically, Futterman profiles the landscape of "recruiting marketers" ($1,000-$5,000 per athlete) and how services like beRecruited are reaching greater scale.

Kirsten Bladek had a problem.

Three weeks into her senior season on the Monarch High School volleyball team in Colorado, the 5-feet, 10-inch setter found herself warming the bench. Her dream of an athletic scholarship seemed dead -- especially since her family couldn't afford the $1,000 or so that many parents pay these days to hire a private athletic-recruiting counselor.

But then in September, Ms. Bladek spent $39.99 to post her athletic résumé and pictures of her playing on the Web site beRecruited.com. The shots, combined with videos posted later, highlighted her ability to set the ball from in front of her forehead, with arms thrust out like Superman in flight. That display, combined with some telephone campaigning by Kirsten and her mother, got college coaches to start paying attention.

"I've been getting so many calls from random numbers, half of them I'm scared to pick up," says Kirsten, who recently took an all-expenses-paid visit to New Mexico Highlands University, where she was offered a scholarship.

Ms. Bladek's experience highlights the changing landscape of athletic scholarships. Coaches and recruiters easily notice top-tier talent in big-name sports.

ESPN Beta - The Review (Beta)

I have blogged regularly about how much I like ESPN and their internet business. In fact, I've gone so far as to say it's difficult-to-impossible to complete with ESPN on content alone. And I've gone so far as to pay for their Premium Insider service. As an ESPN Insider, I got access to the new ESPN Beta (in other words, the new ESPN website revamp that has apparently been much of their focus for the last several months). And because I have spoken glowingly about ESPN and ESPN.com previously - I don't feel bad being sour about ESPN Beta.... but I am and here's why:

- It's too much like a magazine and too little like a sports site

- The magazine layout makes it more appropriate for People / US Weekly-like content than sports

- The screen shot below demonstrates just that - the only true sports content is in small blue text on the upper right... and that's what I want to see!

- The grid layout below the main module is visually attractive - but it's used exclusively to promote ESPN personalities rather than content

- The new header is clearly designed to increase pageviews and make hubs out of each league / sport (the navigational drop downs were removed)

- There are five headers / navigation bars: leagues, scores, ESPN properties, ESPN.com themes, sports... HUH?!

- While I like the ESPN Red color scheme, it makes the blue, gray and brown text very difficult to read

I've turned the Beta off as I am more than underwhelmed... I am struggling to use the new site.

InGameNow NFL iPhone App Live

InGameNow has had a busy week (real-time scores and new Apps) - and here's one more: we've launched the InGameNow NFL iPhone App and, after just one day, it's quickly becoming our most popular. I think two things are worth noting here:

- first, we have seen that narrowly-focused apps are performing very well. While our core InGameNow App has been very successful, the league specific apps are growing faster and we have several more coming shortly. I was surprised by this - but excited nonetheless.

- second, real-time scores have already played a major role in the NFL App's success. Predictably, live scores are most important for mobile users. Delivering real-time scoring alerts has encouraged deeper, more relevant discussions and today was consequently the biggest day InGameNow has ever seen on all fronts: users, interaction, posts, etc.

- InGameNow now has three new iPhone Apps (all top sports apps in iTunes). Download them: - InGameNow App - NFL InGameNow - Soccer InGameNow