By Adam Grossman
Donald Sterling’s lifetime National Basketball Association (NBA) ban, $2.5 million dollar fine, and potentially forced sale of the Clippers may seem to fit in the category of previous owners who received a comparable punishment. Marge Schott was forced to sell the Cincinnati Reds for her anti-Semitic and racist comments while owner of the team. George Steinbrenner was suspended twice as owner of the New York Yankees, with the last occurrence spurred by his allegedly hiring a private investigator to examine the history of his team’s star slugger Dave Winfield.
However, Sterling’s comments and the reaction they provoked is an example of the evolution of the modern crisis. This includes:
- Convergence of Sports and Entertainment — Sterling’s comments were first reported on TMZ.com, a site known for celebrity gossip more than sports coverage. This made sense, as TMZ created TMZ Sports because of the convergence of sports and entertainment. More specifically, players, coaches, and even owners are some of the most well-known celebrities in entertainment.
- Influence of Technology on Sports Crisis — Ten or even five years ago, there would have been less of a chance that a crisis would have emerged because of Sterling’s comments. The only reason the Clippers’ owner’s statements were made public is that someone recorded a private conversation on a mobile phone. The comments were then posted on TMZ.com and quickly spread throughout social media. While Sterling’s comments were abhorrent, it was unlikely he thought they would ever be made public. Rather than relying on hearsay of a fan sitting near the Clippers owner at the game, the league, media, and public could directly hear what Sterling had to say in his own words. This is a reminder that every sports fan can become a citizen journalist by turning on their smart phone.
- Pre-crisis Preparation — Sterling’s racial views have been well known and well documented. On his ESPN 980 radio show in Washington D.C., Tony Kornheiser and his Pardon The Interruption co-host Michael Wilbon recently discussed that they had conversations about Sterling’s views ten years ago. In addition, the Department of Justice had filed suit against Sterling alleging that his housing practices violated anti-racial discrimination laws. The NBA could have recognized this as a potential crisis and moved earlier to oust him before these events forced the league’s hand.
Los Angeles Clippers players stand up for the national anthem before the 31 December 2007 game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Staples Center. Photo by Paul de los Reyes. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Virtually every one from players, coaches, and owners to media critics, pundits, and morning newscasters have analyzed the impact that Sterling’s comments had on his team’s and the NBA’s brand. What has received less coverage is why the NBA needed to take this type of action to try to resolve this crisis from an economic perspective. Sterling’s crisis potentially impacts three key revenue streams that demonstrate why his immediate ban makes sense for the NBA.
- Subsidy / Revenue Sharing — Like most major professional sports leagues, the NBA shares revenue among all 30 teams. In fact, the NBA rules dictate that teams keep 50% of their revenue with teams sharing the remaining 50% with the entire league minus expenses for items such as arena operating costs. Therefore, any revenue lost by the Clippers impacts every NBA team. Sterling has taken steps in the past to ensure that the Clippers have remained profitable even when the team is losing. His team’s recent success combined with the Lakers relative decline has made the Clippers a more important franchise for the NBA in the large Los Angeles market.
- Sponsorship – Corporate partners spend millions of dollars with the league and its teams to increase their brand awareness and enhance their brand perception. In particular, the NBA can help companies target young, male, and often African-American audiences. It would be extremely difficult to sell or with current corporate partnerships and sign future corporate partners when their brands could be associated with Sterling. The immediate exit of State Farm and Kia illustrates the possible crisis consequences. While some sponsors have already returned, Sterling’s comments and the uncertainty of whether he will sell the team still threatens their brand.
- In Game – In Game revenue consists of money a sports organization generates through competition. Most in game revenue comes from tickets, concessions, and parking that occurs on game days. The question here is whether fans would stop attending Clippers’ games because of Sterling’s comments. Unfortunately for Los Angeles sports fans, there is an example of another owner who had a similar impact on his organization. When Frank McCourt owned the Dodgers, he was embroiled in a bitter divorce and also took steps that forced the team into bankruptcy. During McCourt’s final year owning the team in 2011, average game attendance declined to 36,173 as compared to 46,172 in 2013. One could have expected a similar 22% decline for the Clippers with Sterling continuing to be the team’s owner.
Sterling’s past actions and recent comments deserved the harsh punishment. Understanding the relationship between crisis and revenue, however, can outline and forecast the possible financial questions of crisis responses. If Sterling fights the ban or refuses to sell the team, the above analysis will play an important role in the future of the club and revenue for the league.
Adam Grossman is the Founder and President of Block Six Analytics (B6A). He has worked with a number of sports organizations, including the Minnesota Timberwolves, Washington Capitals, and SMG @ Solider Field, to enhance their corporate sponsorship and enterprise marketing capabilities. He is the co-author of The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High-Performance Industry with Irving Rein and Ben Shields.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only business and economics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post Banning Sterling makes a lot of cents for the NBA appeared first on OUPblog.
By Ron Rodman
In this blog last month, I wrote about Dr. Billy Taylor and his pioneering work on television as an advocate for jazz. To celebrate Black History Month, it is appropriate to mention another African American musician who was a pioneer on American television: Nat King Cole, jazz pianist and vocalist, was the first African American musician to host a nationally-broadcast musical variety show in the history of television.
Publicity photo from the premiere of The Nat King Cole Show.
Nathanial Adams Coles was born in 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama. He first learned to play piano around the age of four with help from his mother, a church choir director, and by his early teens, was studying classical piano. He was drawn to the music of jazz pianist
Earl “Fatha” Hines, and eventually abandoned classical for jazz, which became his lifelong passion. At 15, he dropped out of school to become a jazz pianist full-time, and developed an act with his brother Eddie for a time, which led to his first professional recordings in 1936. He later joined a national tour for the musical revue
Shuffle Along, performing as a pianist.
In 1937, Cole started to put together what would become the “King Cole Trio,” the name being a play on the children’s nursery rhyme. As part of the trio, Cole expanded his own role in the group, both playing jazz piano and singing with his rich, velvety baritone voice. The trio toured extensively and finally landed on the charts in 1943 with Cole’s song, “That Ain’t Right.” His first big hit the following year was “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” a song reportedly inspired by one of his father’s sermons. The trio continued its rise to the top with such pop hits as the holiday classic “The Christmas Song” and the ballad “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.”
By the 1950s, Nat King Cole emerged as a popular solo performer. He scored numerous hits, with such songs as “Nature Boy,” “Mona Lisa,” “Too Young, ” and “Unforgettable.” He worked with many of the greatest jazz artists in the country, like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, arranger Nelson Riddle, and others.
However, the 1950s was a difficult decade for African American entertainers. In his performances around the country, Cole had encountered racism firsthand, especially while touring in the South. He had been attacked by white supremacists during a mixed race performance in Alabama. Yet, he was also criticized by other African Americans for his less-than-supportive comments about racial integration, and for performances for segregated audiences. Cole considered himself an entertainer and not an activist, and often sought to assimilate with white audiences.
1956 proved to be a pivotal year for Nat King Cole, and he was to become not just an entertainer, but also a pioneer for equal rights. By the mid-1950s, he had achieved status as a mainstream performer and sought to pursue this career as other stars had done — to produce and star in his own television show. His bid for a TV show brought with it a sense of mission. “It could be a turning point,” he realized, “so that Negroes may be featured regularly on television.” Cole realized the stakes were high, and said, “If I try to make a big thing out of being the first and stir up a lot of talk, it might work adversely.” Cole and his agents negotiated with CBS for a show, but his own program never materialized. Cole’s manager then tried NBC, and they successfully reached an agreement for The Nat “King” Cole Show.
The Nat “King” Cole Show debuted on 5 November 1956. The show aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; the network assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge. Cole exuded his benign, soft-spoken persona on the set, chatting with the TV audience and singing Broadway and Tin Pan Alley tunes. But the show was innovative in that it also featured Cole in his original role as a jazz pianist, playing and singing with jazz notables such as Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. Cole also used his connections to bring other high caliber musicians to the show, many of whom voluntarily appeared with minimal compensation. Some of these included Harry Belafonte, Mel Tormé, Frankie Laine, and Peggy Lee (shown below).
Click here to view the embedded video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Despite the high musical quality of the show, the race barrier seemed too much for the predominantly white TV audience of the 1950s to overcome. Many national companies balked at sponsorship, as they did not want to upset their white customers in the South who did not want to see a black man on TV shown in anything other than a subservient position. Although NBC agreed to fund the show until a sponsor could be found, Cole decided to cancel the show himself in its second season, disappointed with ratings and lack of sponsorship. Cole was quoted as saying of the doomed series, “Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.” The last show was aired on 17 December 1957. After he cancelled his show, Nat King Cole continued to appear on other TV shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Garry Moore Show, and others.
Though short lived, The Nat “King” Cole Show paved the way for other black entertainers to find their way to television in the next decade. 1967 witnessed the premier of The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show on NBC, as a mid-season replacement that ran for 15 episodes.
Click here to view the embedded video.
In 1969, singer Leslie Uggams, hosted The Leslie Uggams Show, a musical comedy variety series that aired on CBS for one season in 1969.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Unfortunately, American audiences still seemed uncomfortable with TV shows hosted by sophisticated black musicians, and it finally took a comedian — Flip Wilson — to host a successful show, The Flip Wilson Show, which ran for four seasons on NBC from 1970-1974.
Ron Rodman is Dye Family Professor of Music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is the author of Tuning In: American Television Music, published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Read his previous blog posts on music and television.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only music articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Publicity photo from the premiere of The Nat King Cole Show. NBC Television. Via Wikimedia Commons.
The post The Nat “King” Cole Show: pioneer of music television appeared first on OUPblog.
Next month The London Book Fair (LBF) takes place. The LBF is a large book-publishing trade fair held annually for publishers, booksellers, literary agents, librarians, media and industry suppliers from over 100 countries.
The LBF has a large section dedicated to children’s books and this is why I was very keen to attend. I wanted to find out the latest about new children’s books, not just from the UK but from all over the world and also to build up relationships with specialist children’s book publishers. This vision was all with an eye to enabling me to write about the very best children’s books and the most exciting developments in the world of children’s publishing. In other words I wanted to attend in order to make this blog a more interesting blog full of stimulating content that you would want to read.
Attending LBF seemed like a pipe dream – I don’t live nearby, and I make no money from Playing by the book. But, and I can barely tell you how pleased and excited I am by this, through the generous sponsorship of Tidy Books I will now be attending The London Book Fair.
Tidy Books is a UK based company with a growing international presence who specialise in simple, beautiful storage products for families and children, especially those who love books. Their flagship product is the Tidy Books Bookcase.
As you’ll know already, children’s books often don’t fit easily onto regular bookcases – they’re often outsized and differently shaped. Also, kids love to choose what to read or listen to by looking at the covers of books, rather than at the spine.
The Tidy Book Bookcase addresses all these issues by enabling your children to store their books on their own dedicated bookcase where books face outwards, they don’t need to be packed tightly to prevent them falling over and tall books are no problem.
A Tidy Book Bookcase!
An added bonus of this bookcase is that it doesn’t take up much room – because books are shelved facing forwards, the
.jpeg?picon=3306)
Ooh lucky you, I’d love to there, have fun!
You of all people should so be there! Please let us know all the yummy treats you find at the Fair!
Hi Katherine and Choxbox, thanks, I certainly intend to have fun! And will of course be reporting back