The Sport Market
SATURDAYS: 9AM – 12PM
THE PROGRAM
The Sport Market on TEAM 1040 is a dynamic new program featuring sport business news, stories and trends. Join Tom Mayenknecht every Saturday from 9am – 12pm for an in-depth look at the “business” of the sport industry. Topics will include:
- Sport Management
- Sport Finance
- Sport Venues
- Sport Technology
- Sport Marketing
- Sport Branding
- Sport Broadcast
- Sport Media
- Sport Merchandising & Licensing
- Sport Betting
- Sport Entertainment, including Sport Video Gaming, Sport Movies, Sport Television & Sport Music
- Sport Labour
- Sport Law
The Sport Market will feature leading sport executives, sport broadcasters, sport media and sport business analysts in a fast-paced talk format, with entertaining features and informative segments on the topics of the day.
THE HOST
Tom Mayenknecht is a sport business leader who has worked in professional and Olympic sport for much of his 30-year career. Best-known for his nationally-recognized work in media, marketing and brand management, he has experience in newspaper journalism, television, radio, professional tennis with Tennis Canada, the NBA with both the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies and the start ups of General Motors Place and Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment. National and international awards include the Doug Gilbert Media Medallion in 1983 and the National Lacrosse League’s Executive of the Year in 2002.
THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM
LINSANITY CREATES BUZZ OF MEDIA INTEREST, SOCIAL COMMENTARY AND MERCHANDISE SALES FOR NBA
…The Sport Market also talks about the implications for NBA and NHL of a proposed arena in Seattle and the bankruptcy of the Glasgow Rangers soccer club Saturday 10-11 am ET on TSN Radio 1050 and from 7-11 am PT on TEAM 1040 and online at tsn.ca/radio and teamradio.ca
Follow The Sport Market on LinkedIn/companies, sign on at Facebook.com/thesportmarket or follow us on Twitter @thesportmarket
Friday, February 17th, 2012 – As unheralded point guard Jeremy Lin becomes the NBA’s newest breakout player, the New York Knicks and the league are the beneficiaries of an explosion of interest in media, social media and merchandise sales.
The perfect storm of implications and impacts of Lin’s meteoric rise in the #1 U.S. media market has been the single biggest sport business storyline of the week throughout the NBA; impressive for an athlete making $788,000 per year in a league of $15-25 million a year superstars.
“There have been athletes who have made their mark and become stars as draft afterthoughts or even as undrafted players, but I’m not sure anyone has quite come out of nowhere as bullishly as has Jeremy Lin,” said Tom Mayenknecht, founder and host of The Sport Market heard on TSN Radio and TEAM Radio. “The perfect storm of buzz has been created by the seven-game winning streak and the nature of some of his buzzer-beating contributions and scoring totals, combined with his Asian-American background and the context of his rise in the Big Apple. Those factors are what help make Lin a sensation on several fronts.”
Linsanity will be a major talking point on tomorrow’s edition of The Sport Market, heard from 10-11 am ET on TSN Radio 1050 in Toronto and from 7-11 am on TEAM 1040 in Vancouver. The sport business show is also heard nationally online at tsn.ca/radio and teamradio.ca.
On the court, Lin became the first player in NBA history to post at least 20 points and seven assists in his first four starts. Cut by two other NBA teams (the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors) before signing on with the Knicks. Lin is the first Harvard University graduate to play in the league since Ed Smith in 1954. The last Ivy League product to make a mark in the NBA was Chris Dudley of Yale University nine years ago.
Off the court, Lin has made many forget the NBA lockout that cancelled 32 games and aired the dirty laundry of vitriol from both league owners and players for five months. The stock value of MSG, the parent company of the New York Knicks, has risen on the strength of Linsanity and thanks to the Lin-led winning streak and the presence of stars such as Carmelo Antony and Amar’e Stoudemire, the franchise has become a factor in the NBA conversation for the first time since Patrick Ewing and the Knicks of the mid-1990s.
MSG (Madison Square Garden) Network posted its largest audience of the season, at 427,015 with Lin and the Knicks playing the Toronto Raptors and looking for their sixth straight win. Even without Time Warner distribution, Knicks telecasts are up 69% this season and 109% since Lin’s arrival February 4th.
Asian-American audiences watching Knicks games have climbed 967% since Lin began starting for the Knicks. When the Knicks beat Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, Lin scored 1.2 million Twitter mentions.
As reported by Darren Rovell of CNBC, the Knicks accounted for 17% of the tickets traded on StubHub since before Lin began starting on February 4th. Since Linsanity, the Knicks are commanding 52% of the traffic.
Thanks to Linsanity, Taiwannow ranks third behind only the U.S.and Canadain NBA merchandise sales according to NBAStore.com. The online merchandising arm has distributed merchandise to 22 countries since February 4th. At Modell’s sports store in Manhattan, owner Mitchell Modell has ordered 168,000 Jeremy Lin items (as of Thursday, February 16th). A game-worn jersey (from Dec. 28th, 2011) has fetched $40,000 and there are close to 12,000 Lin items on eBay.com, meaning an auction every three minutes relates to the Knicks’ point guard.
Also on tap on tomorrow’s edition of The Sport Market will be the new Seattle arena plan and its implications for both the NBA and NHL and the spate of bankruptcies affecting European soccer, with Glasgow Rangers going into bankruptcy protection on Tuesday and more than 20 Spanish clubs facing the same difficult financial woes.
The national hour of The Sport Market features host Mayenknecht, Brian Cooper of the S & E Sponsorship Group and Steve McAllister of Yahoo! Sports Canada.
Among those headlining the Vancouver show will be Cam Tucker of The Vancouver Sun and Bob Mackin of Business in Vancouver.
Background on each of the major sport business stories of the week is available at www.TheSportMarket.biz. The Sport Market sport business platform is also available at Facebook.com/TheSportMarket, Twitter.com/TheSportMarket and LinkedIn.com/TheSportMarket.
