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Sports Fans Revolution

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:30:48 +0000

ns Revolution

By Sports Handicapper Ron Raymond

Date: June 24, 2008

Welcome to the “what’s in it for me” sports fan generation!

Darwin once stated; “….Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps.” That’s why you cannot change things with extreme measures, as it’s perceived as a shock to the system. My favorite example is the car, look how the evolution of the Mustang has progressed since the ‘60’s to the Shelby GT 500 of today?

In my own opinion, that’s why internet gaming is taking it’s time to be accepted by the masses and the decision makers at the top, as gaming in all forms needs to be socially accepted by a large part of society, but it’s slowly getting there with the help of the poker, horse racing and fantasy league players.

Nortel Networks had a great slogan in the 90’s; “what do you want the internet to be?”

The same can be said with today’s sports world, it’s not like your fathers and grand father’s sports world anymore. During those years, nobody talked about salaries and they all had a favorite player and team. Since the evolution of the internet, today’s younger generation of fans want a different interest in sports and that’s why sports betting and fantasy leagues have taken away personal allegiances to sports teams. In today’s sports world, bettors and fantasy players care more about certain teams and players on certain nights. It’s all about “what’s in it for me” on this night, winning my wager or collecting some fantasy points!

The evolution of sports business and the way we watch sports is forcing us to make an investment into the sports we are watching and following. When you consider the sports fans are now paying to watch the game that is not in their local market, it’s forcing them to make a decision and an investment. Do you really think the average sports fan wants to pay $400 to $1000 a year on special sports package because it’s a form of entertainment? Perhaps some will, but the majority of the younger and mid generations of sports fans are watching because they have a “special interest” in the game or event they are watching.

This is not about following a certain team or player anymore; this is about ones personal interest and outcome of a game. One of those forms of interest is sports betting, like it or hate it, it’s here to stay! The internet has taken away allot of the networks ad dollars away and that’s why you’re seeing the newspaper industry losing money each quarter. In fact, according to a report last week by Bloomberg, “newspaper advertising has now dropped eight straight quarters… The dollar volume fell to $8.43 billion, which sounds like a lot of advertising—until it is divided among all the nation’s local, regional and national papers.” Other reports suggest they haven’t seen such a decline since the early 80’s, which means the internet is playing a bigger role in all aspects and since the ad dollars aren’t picking up the tab anymore, it’s going to force the consumer to pay for their “on demand” entertainment, such as “sports watching”.

Which brings the question, when will the new “sports fan revolution” take place? If I’m going to spend $400 to $1000 on sports packages and pay per view events, it has to be looked at in some form of an investment like one does in the stock market. Sports bettors or Fantasy league players, who invest in these sports package, want their piece of the pie in some way, so they can get their Return on Investment back! Players leave teams, they don’t care about you or the team; they care about the financial gains that will provide for their own personal growth. When the average sports fans realize it’s not about following a team or a player and more about satisfying your own needs, then the sports fans revolution will start to take place. When a player is a free agent or gets traded, do you really think they are taking the fans into consideration? Of course not, it’s about their own interest, just like bettors and fantasy sports fans look after their own interest when watching a game.

What can we expect in the future from our sports radio and TV stations? I see stations like ESPN, Fox Sports getting less popular, as the Sportscenter type shows will not match the newer shows who treat their shows like a stock market report, with a fantasy sports and betting angle incorporated. Instead of talking about last night’s game, look for sports handicappers and regular bettors playing a bigger role and hyping up the nightly games with gaming tips to help their own personal interest of the night. Plus, the whole sports media is turning everything into a “on-demand” world, so get ready to pay for listening to your favorite radio station and TV station within the next 7 to 10 years. Again, you can’t shock the “system” by making drastic changes, that’s why everything is done with baby steps, or else you will have a negative revolt from those who don’t want to pay or accept the new world order in sports.

There’s a new breed of sports fans out there today and they don’t care about who wins or lose, just as long as they cover the spread baby! Get ready to join the new sports fans revolution and like the slogan goes; “What do you want your sports to be?”

Sport Movies—exciting as Well as Entertaining

hanun — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:48:44 +0000

What do we expect from movies? No doubt, entertainment is the first thing that we would expect from movies. What else? After long hectic schedules of daily work, we would often prefer to go for an amazing movie that can give us lot of excitement and good fun, than those tragic ones. Sport movies are the kind of movies which can give people utmost joy and pleasure.

The sport movies are built upon sports settings like football field or baseball stadium, arena, or the Olympics etc. Often you would find a competitive event or various athletic events being the central point upon which the whole story of the movie is built. Mostly the protagonist of the story is a boxer, footballer or a racer or any other sports person according to the demands of the story. Sports movies does not necessarily be fictional, they can be non-fictional also or a combination of both. However, they would surely belong to one or the other subcategories like biopics, dramas, comedies, documentaries, fantasies, film noir and melodramas.

Whatever may be their category, sport films are widely popular among the masses. The sound tracks of the sport movies are often exciting. The narrative and commentaries in the sport movies are also marvelous. Excellent sound track, good choreography and real like settings make the sport movies unique. Many sport movies have won the hearts of the audience and remained evergreen till today. Some of the most popular sport movies include Olympia (1938), Bull Durham (1988), Raging Bull (1980) , Hoop Dreams (1994), Hoosiers (1986) , Remember the Titans (2000) , Million Dollar Legs (1932) , Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2005) and Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) etc.

Many sport movies are also based on real stories. Some of the renowned sports movies which are based on real life stories include The Great White Hope, Gentleman Jim , The Cinderella Man etc. The Pride of the Yankees (1942) is also a famous sport movie based on Lou Gehrig the reputed baseball player of the New York Yankees. Another film Ali starred by Will Smith is based on the life of boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Somebody Up There Likes Me released in 1956 is also an excellent film highlighting the life of middleweight champion Rocky Graziano.

Sport movies are always acclaimed. Till now, movies on various sports, including football, cheer leading, wrestling, chess, boxing etc have been made. But, the most popular sport themes in the Hollywood seem to be baseball, basketball, American football, soccer and boxing. However other sport themes like horse racing, golf and wrestling are also greatly appreciated by the audience.

Why Sports Nutrition Supplements

hanun — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:23:50 +0000

The way to the top is earned by hard training, everyday. The ultimate fuel for the body is good nutrition, no discussion about that. Giving the body what it needs to excel is the number one priority for all athletes. Talent, hard training, a good mindset and good nutrition’s is what the body needs.

Let’s focus on good nutrition. In the modern western world food is widely available, but not all available foods are good for the body. We can see that every day. Plenty of people are overweight and are not nourishing their bodies. The athlete’s body needs a much higher standard than the average person and that is why the athlete needs good quality food in the right quantity.

Many books have been written what good quality food is. Libraries are filled with these books. But the athlete needs more than that. When the quality food doesn’t meet the physical needs, the athlete can think about sports nutrition. Only the matured athlete needs to think about supplements. There is no good reason for teenagers to start with these supplements. Many researches have concluded that there is no significant result in teenage athlete’s using supplements for endurance, muscle grow, reaction speed or concentration.

Sports nutrition supplements fill a gap. Sometimes people have physical limitation to what their body can consume. A person’s stomach has limitation. When the body needs more than it can consume this gap must be filled. Supplement can fill that gap.

There three important reasons the use supplements. The majority of the needed nutrition’s need to come from healthy foods. Only a shortage must be filled with supplements. To fine tune the performance Because it is smart thinking, you don’t have to overload your stomach

To know what supplements you need you first know what you’re aiming at. For endurance training you will need other supplements then for pure muscle growth. After that goal has been set you can take the next step.

Register what you daily food consumption is for a week or even better several weeks. Then you need to know the training intensity and how many calories you need to complete a training session. Don’t forget to add the calories needed for other daily activities.

You know now how much calories you daily need and how much you daily consume. If necessary you need to estimate the extra calories for additional training and add this to the needed calories. The gap what is needed and consumed can be filled with the proper supplements.

There are enough nutritional supplements available in the market. Here are the major categories: protein supplements, vitamin supplements, weight loss products, creatine, glutamine, and protein bars. The important issue is to know your goal and choose the right one(s).

The bottom line here is awareness of one’s needs, practices, and goals in terms of health. Without it, no matter how good the market of sports nutrition supplements is, not one product will match well.

It is true that certain nutrients have been found to be commonly beneficial for all but in some cases, there happens to be enough already in the body as they are regularly taken in through food. This will obviously be not evident without proper awareness and information gathering as well.

The one thing that needs to be remembered is that these nutrition supplements are intended to fill in the nutrition gap. They should be used just because every body else is taken them. Taking them and not needing them will only be harmful to the body. Be wise and use them only if needed.