Fordham professors on the World Cup, fan depression, & soccer in the U.S.

Photo: Deadspin.com

After a harsh and surprising loss to Germany, Brazil, the host country of the 2014 FIFA World Cup is out. Argentina narrowly beat the Netherlands and the world awaits the final game for the “World Cup” on July 13.

Throughout the one-month tournament, the professional athletes on the losing teams have walked off the pitch looking dejected. Some, even, in tears. The same could be said for their fans (especially Brazilian fans during the 7-1 beating they took at the hands of Germany). All of this emotion over a game? Why? We asked Fordham professor Paul Baard, an expert in sports psychology, to explain why it’s like this in the World Cup and various other sports, such as American football.

“The phenomenon is the over-identity of fans with their teams,” said Baard, a clinical associate professor of communication and media management. “In other words, a fan wants people to identify him/her with being the uber-’Patriots’ fan. When he walks into a bar, he delights in being sought out for his opinion on an upcoming game. He gets teased about being tried and true. He berates other team's fans. He ‘equals’ being a fan of said team.

“Just as having one's occupation become too much of an individual's identity (I work with professional athletes on this), they can also ‘fan out.’ A fan rooting for a favorite team should consider that role as a hobby, while it may be an important role for an individual. As in all of life, there are ups and down, especially in the clearly-defined win-lose world of sports.

“Hobbies can serve as relief from the pressures of day-to-day life, such as gardening, playing an amateur sport, etc.  Hobbies would seem best when they do not create anxiety, but relieve it.”

Here at Fordham’s Marketing and Communications office, a group of us went out to see the last game the U.S. Men’s National Team played in. (There was lots of sadness, but thankfully no tears, when they lost to Belgium.) Yet we were very aware of the enthusiasm for a game that hasn’t always gotten top-billing in our country. The place was standing-room-only packed with fans decked out in red, white, and blue. Is this an opportunity for Major League Soccer (MLS) to build on the seemingly-new fan base?

After all, the Big Apple's new Major League Soccer team, the New York City Football Club, has signed Atletico Madrid (one of La Liga's professional teams) player, David Villa, (pictured below) and reports say Barcelona star, Xavi, is next.

We asked a few Fordham professors, who teach in the Sports Business Concentration at the Gabelli School of Business, to weigh in:

Mark Conrad, associate professor of law and ethics, and director of the sports business concentration at Gabelli, said he wasn’t so sure that MLS can capitalize on the success of the World Cup, “at least not directly.

“It's hard to translate a once in four-year spectacle to a day to day league,” he said. “Witness the 1980 Olympic Gold Medal for the US Hockey team. It did not have much correlation to the National Hockey League (NHL).”

John Fortunato, a professor of communications and media management, and an expert in sports media and promotion, said he couldn’t see there being huge springboard opportunities for MLS because “many of these players play in European leagues.  

“MLS doesn't have the best players like the NBA or NFL or MLB. The gold medal hockey game a few years back between the United States and Canada did a great rating, but has had little impact on increased NHL ratings,” he said.

“This World Cup is doing great on television because the games are at great viewing times and because it is on ESPN, a network is promoting it a ton on Sportscenter. Next time (2018), it is in a more challenging time zone in Russia and is on Fox-- two big differences.”

Francis Petit, associate dean for academic programs at Lincoln Center, said the MLS should try their best given the changing demographics of our nation.  

“Unfortunately, for MLS, it will not capitalize on the World Cup to the extent it would like to due to various reasons including consumer options and professional soccer's historical insignificance within our country,” he said. “MLS will never be the National Football League, but it can certainly become a threat for leagues such as the NHL and the slow and tedious Major League Baseball games/product.”

-Gina Vergel

Fordham Professor: Press conference was Adam Silver's 'birth in the NBA'

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver
Photo via CBS Sports/Getty Images

Tuesday’s hotly anticipated press conference by National Basketball Commissioner Adam Silver proved to be quite the introduction for a man who assumed the post only a few months ago.

"It was the birth of the Adam Silver Era in the NBA,” said Fordham’s resident sports business expert, Mark Conrad.

Mark Conrad
Photo by Janet Sassi

Conrad, the director of the sports business specialization at Fordham Business schools, closely watched the conference, in which Silver announced a lifetime ban and $2.5 million fine on Los Angeles Clipper owner, Donald Sterling, who was caught on tape making a series of racist remarks that became public on April 25.

Silver also pledged to take steps to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, saying he’d do “everything in his power to ensure it happens,” a move Conrad called “gutsy, direct, and bold.

“By instituting a lifetime ban and the maximum fine, he signaled that the league will not tolerate this conduct,” Conrad said. “I think he will win the respect of the great majority of players, fans and sponsors."

But it won’t be easy.

"The most difficult aspect of his decision was seeking a forced sale of the team. Three-quarters of the owners must approve this action, and that’s unprecedented. If that happens, I think that there is a strong possibility that Sterling will take this to court."

Conrad was quoted in a New York Times story on Monday about the Sterling matter:

“It is not easy to force an owner to sell a team,” he said.

The Sterling tape scandal isn’t the only story Conrad has been weighing in on these days. Last Friday, he was interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor for a story on Northwestern’s scholarship football players, who were voting later that day on whether to unionize. (The players did vote to unionize.)

Conrad was asked whether the vote “would set the course for reform” in collegiate sports.

“The system is broken in a number of ways because of the money involved,” Conrad said. “Part of it is the amount of revenues, which are about as great as big-time sports. Athletes seem to feel left out of that pie and want some additional rights than what they’ve had before. It’s really part of a general crack in the system that has existed for 50 years in its modern form.”

For more about Conrad and the Sports Business specialization, read this piece from Inside Fordham.

-Gina Vergel

Gabelli School to Hold Sports Symposium

If you want to play sports professionally, joining a team is the first step. But what if you just want to actually help run the team? 

The Gabelli School of Business' second annual Fordham Business Sports Symposium will help answer that kind of question next week by bringing legal counsel and senior executives from national sports associations, leagues and the media together at Rose Hill.

Thursday, April 10

4 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.

Hughes Hall Room 208, Rose Hill campus

The conference is sponsored by the Gabelli Business of Sports Society and the Sports Business Program.

This year's preliminary list of speakers includes:

Andrew Arcangel, founder and CEO, True Athelite

Michael Brady, senior coordinator, Identity Assurance, National Basketball Association

Adrian Burke, president, Business of Sports Society

Kevin Clancy, NYC blogger, Barstool Sports

Mark Conrad, director, Gabelli School of Business Sports Business Program

Curt Clausen, Esq., Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and U.S. Olympic team member, race walking (1996, 2000, 2004)

Laura Gentile, vice president and founder, ESPNW

Anthony Iliakostas, Fordham 2011 graduate and current JD candidate, New York Law School and founder, “Law and Batting Order”

Francis Petit, professor, Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business

Jill Pilgrim, Esq., Pilgrim & Associates, Miami, Florida and New York

Tom Richardson, founder, Talent League

David Roach, director of intercollegiate athletics, Fordham University

Bill Squadron, president, Bloomberg Sports

Max Tcheyan, start-up consultant

Keith Wachtel, executive vice president, global partnerships, National Hockey League

For more information and a schedule of talks, visit the Gabelli School of Business website. 

—Patrick Verel

Roundup: Fordham Professors Quoted in the Media

Gold medalist skier Lindsay Vonn will miss the Sochi Olympics.

When it comes to news stories dealing with sports business or law, chances are Mark Conrad, associate professor of law and ethics, has an opinion.

Conrad, who oversees the sports business specialization at the Gabelli School of Business, was quoted in an article on CNBC.com about what the absence of gold medalist skier Lindsay Vonn means for the Sochi Olympics. (Vonn will skip the competition due to a knee injury):

"She's highly marketable, and without her I would expect interest in the games from U.S. viewers to drop," said Mark Conrad, professor of sports law at Fordham University.

...

"There aren't that many well-known American athletes in the games, and she was probably the major draw," he said.

Conrad was also quoted in the New York Times about a lawsuit settlement which will allow former National Football League players suffering from health problems to receive as much as $5 million each.

According to the Times, some former players have indicated that the settlement is insufficient and are inclined to turn it down because they say not enough money will be available for players struggling with memory loss, anger management and other problems.

Still, Conrad doesn’t see too many former players opting out:

“I think this is pretty much a done deal,” said Mark Conrad, who teaches sports law at the Gabelli and Graduate Schools of Business at Fordham University. “Are people going to go to litigation by themselves and spend years doing this? I thought the $760 million was too low, but time is not on the side of people with these conditions.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Over on the local politics side of things, New York City welcomed its first new mayor in more than a decade, and Christina Greer, assistant professor of political science, has kept busy giving interviews.

Former President Clinton swears in new mayor Bill de Blasio.
Image via The Nation.

Greer provided live analysis on NY1 during Mayor Bill  de Blasio’s inauguration (it was cold one! See video here). She also penned an opinion piece for The New York Times’ “Room for Debate” section, which asked if speakers at the Jan. 1st inaugural were rude to the former mayor or just “voicing the frustrations of millions of New Yorkers who are rarely heard.”

Mayor Bloomberg wasn't smiling in the inauguration.
Image via Daily News.

Greer wrote:

“If anyone expected the inauguration of the first Democratic mayor in 20 years to serve as an occasion to celebrate the accomplishments of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, while ignoring the issues of stop-and-frisk, homelessness, hyper-development of neighborhoods and rising inequities in general, they were sorely mistaken.”

Still, DeBlasio has a lot to prove, Greer added:

“It is now up to Mayor de Blasio to make his promises a reality. If not, he will be the one sitting bundled up on a cold January day in 2018, listening to future poets, activists and politicians go on about how he disappointed New Yorkers.”

Read the entire piece, and the opinions of others who weighed in on the same topic, here.

Greer, author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press, 2013), also weighed in on another change in New York: an apparent shift by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (FCRH '79) on medical marijuana. Read that story here.

Finally, in other media clips news related to Fordham and the new mayor, a Dec. 13 article in The New York Times included a book published by Fordham University Press as “suggested reading for de Blasio:”

“The Accidental Playground: Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned” (Fordham University Press). Daniel Campo, a former New York City planner, considers the serendipitous development of Williamsburg and concludes: “In contrast to urban space produced through conventional planning and design, the accidental playground that evolved on the North Brooklyn waterfront generated vitality through immediate and largely unmeditated action. The waterfront was there for the claiming, and people went out and did just that without asking for permission, holding meetings or making plans.”

See the rest of the list here.

-Gina Vergel