Recent Articles from Stewart Schley
Sports biz: Av-onomics: Looking up
For Colorado Avalanche fans, the best thing about the new National Hockey League season is that it’s just that: new. After closing the books on a forgettable year, the Avalanche returned to the ice with a legend in the coach’s box and a much-improved vibe among the fan base, if anecdotal chatter means anything. I […]
Sports biz: We are what we watch
In his introduction to the 2001 book, Fast Food Nation, The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, writer Eric Schlosser makes a gentle suggestion: Be an informed eater. “People should know what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction,” Schlosser writes. “They should know what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns. […]
Sports biz: Going deep
The most famous touchdown pass in college football history arced over Miami’s Orange Bowl field for seconds before settling into the arms of the Boston College wide receiver Gerard Phelan in a breathtaking last-second finale. But the echo from Doug Flutie’s impossibly magnificent, 48-yard heave continues to resonate, and right now, is especially loud in […]
Sports biz: Fashion statement
Between the annual player draft in April and the first kickoff of the first pre-season game in August, there is a rare period of fallow time in which the National Football League – despite its around-the-clock television channel and daily blog entries posted by teams and the occasional early-look profiles written by sports beat reporters […]
Sport biz: No fishing
Ben Rifkin realized the Denver Cutthroats had an image problem. “Two or three times a day we’d get phone calls from people asking about the fishing trade show,” says the affable president and general manager of Denver’s newest professional sports team, which is poised to begin its second season in...
Sports biz: Kroenke’s duck call
A delicious bidding war last month pitted Denver’s Kroenke Sports Enterprises against a media industry rival for control of a TV channel devoted to … ducks. Well, ducks and people who like to shoot them, that is. Along with: fishing, hunting, close encounters with elk, more fishing, the work lives of federal conservation officers, white […]
Sports biz: Wheeling, dealing and winning
The 1970s “Saturday Night Live” character Chico Escuela, played by comedian Garrett Morris, was best known for a signature line delivered in halting English: “Baseball” – or beisbol, as he pronounced it – “has been very, very good to me.” As far as I know, none of the owners of the Colorado Rockies makes a […]
Sports biz: Bar code, please
Like few other sports – quite possibly none – baseball’s appeal often transcends the personas and talents of the individuals playing. Especially on Opening Day. A team full of scrubs, no-names, has-beens, just-off-the-bus Triple A hopefuls and fatigued-looking, seen-it-all veterans with creaking k...
Sports biz: Skiing gets a second life
Been skiing yet this season? Then you might have already noticed something’s different: There aren’t as many snowboarders zooming down the slopes. A sport that seemed to be on an unstoppable growth track now seems to be declining. Just over 30 percent of U.S. ski resort visits came from snowboarders last season, compared with 32.6 […]
Sports biz: Tech it out, sports fan
Tech it out, sports fan The annual industry forum for the display of electronic gadgets that are better than stuff you bought last year concluded last month in Las Vegas, and if even only some of the trend indicators come to pass, you, sports fan, are in for some serious sensory stimulation. The international CES […]
Sports biz: Hey, Buffaloes: Meet big data
Want to make a few million bucks? Get hired as the University of Colorado’s head football coach. Then get fired. That’s the path that has enriched the last three coaches who guided the Buffaloes’ football program. Gary Barnett walked away with $3 million when he was fired in 2005. Dan Hawkins collected $2 million when […]
Sport biz: Fashion statement
Cowards, I say! The people who run the NBA are cowards! Took a perfectly good opportunity to slam-dunk an easy-money scheme and dropped it like a bad bounce pass. Where, oh where, is exploitative capitalism when you need it? You probably heard. Before the season began, the NBA nixed a contemplated plan to festoon the […]