ARMSTRONG TOPS YEAR-END PODIUM OF TOP SPORT BUSINESS STORIES

 …NHL lockout and NFL Bountygate also the Podium of top sport business stories
in 2012 on The Sport Market on TSN 1050 in Toronto and TEAM 1040 in Vancouver
and heard nationally online at TSN.ca/radio and TEAMradio.ca

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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28TH, 2012 – The
fall of cycling icon Lance Armstrong – along with the domino effect it had on
his sponsors and the ramifications it holds for his LiveStrong Foundation – was
the biggest sport business story of 2012.

The Armstrong story
will be among the major talking points in the Year-in-Review in sport business
in 2012 on tomorrow’s edition of The Sport Market, to air 7-11 a.m. PST on TEAM
1040 in Vancouver and between 11 a.m. and 12 noon EST on TSN 1050 in
Toronto.

Guests include Steve McAllister of Yahoo! Sports
Canada, Greg Bishop of The New York Times and NYTimes.com and Drew Dorweiler of
Dartmouth Partners. Also on tap in Vancouver will be Anthony Abrahams of
Emblematica Brand Builders, Bev Wake of The Vancouver Sun, Bob Mackin of
Business in Vancouver, Aziz Rajwani of the UBC Sauder School of Business and
Langara College School of Management, comedian Torben Rolfsen and junior sport
business correspondent Owen Pitblado.

It was a year in which
Armstrong had his seven Tour de France titles stripped by the United States
Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after he withdrew from his opportunity to appeal the
allegations. The International Cycling Federation (UCI) later upheld the
stripping of the Tour de France titles and imposed upon Armstrong a lifetime ban
from sanctioned cycling events.

The discipline led to the
cancellation of a series of corporate sponsorship agreements and endorsements,
including with companies such as Nike and Armstrong’s resignation from the
LiveStrong Foundation, first as its Chair and then as a member of its Board of
Directors.

“It’s not only the sport business story of the year,
it is certainly among the biggest sport business stories of all-time,” said Tom
Mayenknecht, host of The Sport Market on TSN 1050 in Toronto and TEAM 1040 in
Vancouver. “It’s certainly not just another case of a high performance athlete
being accused of using performance enhancing drugs, but the fall of a sport
icon, someone who was also a cancer survivor and a sport philanthropist who did
a lot of good with his cycling accomplishments and fame.”

Armstrong topped the year-end listing of sport business storylines compiled by
The Sport Market and thesportmarket.biz:

GOLD #1 – The fall of
Lance Armstrong and its impact on sport sponsorship and sport philanthropy: The
events of 2012 cast in doubt the capacity of Armstrong’s LiveStrong Foundation
to continue to do the kind of work it has done for those living with cancer in
the U.S. and around the world. With close to $500 million raised since its
inception in 1997, it is the largest sport philanthropic organization in the
world. Although former Armstrong sponsors such as Nike – which manufactured the
Foundation’s famous yellow rubber bracelets – committed themselves to staying on
to support LiveStrong, the annual ceiling for fund-raising and donations to the
cancer charity is bound to be lowered in the years to come. Lawsuits are also
expected to rise from the ashes of USADA and UCI’s judgements in 2012, with
former Armstrong sponsors almost certain to litigate to seek partial or full
reimbursement on bonus payments related to the cyclist’s Tour de France
titles.

SILVER #2 – The NHL lockout: At more than 100 days and
counting, the third lockout in 17 years of National Hockey League history
appears to already be the most damaging. “I think that (NHL) brand has been hurt
more in this half-season lost to date than it was back in 2004-’05 when an
entire season was lost,” said Mayenknecht. “To me, this is the most wrong-headed
lockout in North American pro sport history and one that the NHL is fighting on
the most flimsiest of reasons ever for such a drastic action in work stoppage.”
In a column filed for The Vancouver Sun and published by PostMedia News on
Canada.com and in newspapers such as the Montreal Gazette and Ottawa Citizen,
Mayenknecht listed 12 reasons why he believed the lockout was so wrong-headed in
terms of both timing and extent. According to Mayenknecht: You don’t lock out
your employees in times of 50% growth of your business; you don’t do so when
your business has never  been better in Canada and when Canada is your bread and
butter; you don’t risk losing momentum on the revitalization of your Original
Six brands in the US, especially when the Chicago Blackhawks have grown their
attendance by 39% since the last lockout and when the Boston Bruins have done so
by about 20%; you don’t do it in the year after the LA Kings win in the second
largest market in the US, and after Original Expansion franchises from 1967 have
increased their attendance by 11 per cent since the last lockout (including the
Pittsburgh Penguins, up by 36 per cent; you don’t do it when you have a brand
new NBC television deal that’s just gaining traction and when your Canadian TV
deals come up for renewal in two years. “I’m not sure you even go into one day
of a lockout when you’ve already become the first league in pro sport to lose an
entire season due to a lockout just seven years ago,” said Mayenknecht. “The
NHL’s big business growth since 2005 was not just because of a salary cap and
the parity that came with it,” he said. “They rode a white horse of new rules
that made the product better than ever and did so in 2005 when the US GDP was at
4.3 per cent, twice what it’s projected to be in 2013.”

BRONZE
#3 – The NFL Bountygate Scandal: The third biggest sport business storyline of
2012 revolved around a nine-month saga that began when NFL commissioner Roger
Goodell came down hard on the New Orleans Saints, their ownership, football
operations and head coach Sean Payton and also on five Saints players whom the
league believed were directly implicated as leaders of the so-called Bounty
program where they were paid bonuses for cart offs and knockouts. It’s a story
that was one part sport ethics, one part sport law, one part sport labour
relations, one part public relations and one part sport safety or player safety.
The story took many turns throughout the year, culminating in a ruling by former
NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue that upheld the NFL’s evidence but put the onus
on management and ownership and not on the players involved such as Jonathan
Vilma, hence lifting those suspensions. “That ruling obviously didn’t make
Goodell very happy, despite the fact the Tagliabue was his own personal mentor
and he was Tagliabue’s hand-picked successor,” said Mayenknecht, who expects the
story will continue to resonate and affect the NFL and other pro sports leagues
as they face the challenges inherent in administering player safety and
legislating concussion management. The story is also bound to affect scope of
authority, not only for Commissioner Goodell but for all commissioners in
professional sport.

#4 – The London 2012 Social Media
Olympics

# 5 – The bankruptcy auction purchase of the Los
Angeles Dodgers for a record $2.15 billion

#6 – The valuation of
ESPN at $42 billion

#7 – Euro 2012 and the advent of goal-line
technology in soccer

#8 – Seattle Sounders FC and the club’s
season ticket holder vote to retain Adrian Hanauer as General
Manager

#9 – Online Gaming Legislation in Canada and its
potential impacts on sports betting throughout North America

#10
- The continued growth in Super Bowl television audiences, in the U.S. and
Canada