The 2009 Princeton Sports Symposium is being held today in Princeton, NJ. Some of the brightest minds from the sports industry will be on hand to discuss current events in sports business. For more information on the Princeton Sports Symposium, visit their official website at www.sportssymposium.org. Below are a few widgets to help keep up with what’s going on at the Symposium for those who cannot make it out to the event.

Here’s a little glossary to help navigate the widgets:
Orange: The Princeton Sports Symposium has asked that everyone attending tweets with the #psports hashtag. This widget is a culmination of everyone using the hashtag.
Gray: Tweets from the @sportssymposium, the official Twitter account from the 2009 Princeton Sports Symposium.
Light Blue: Tweets from Joshua Duboff, the Founder of The Sports Business Exchange.
Brown: Updates that mention @sportssymposium somewhere in their tweet.

Updated 12/10/09: The Twitter searches for @joshuaduboff and @sportssymposium have been disabled

Today’s guest blog comes from Tim Cary. Tim has covered college football from the Illinois, Louisville, Ohio State, and Purdue press boxes for BleacherReport.com. Currently, Tim serves as a Bleacher Report featured columnist and writes about college football at FirstandBigTen.com. He can be reached via e-mail (carryingonabout@yahoo.com) or Twitter (@TimCary).

The BCS has taken to social media to state its case.

And at first glance, that doesn’t seem to be a good thing.

College football’s Bowl Championship Series has been debated, criticized, and even termed illegal by frustrated fans since its inception in 1998 as it struggles to produce an undisputed national champion for one of America’s favorite sports. With this week’s decision to hire Bill Hancock as its first executive director, the BCS appears ready to utilize Facebook and Twitter to help convince its detractors that the system is not as flawed as many want to believe.

The series’ official Twitter account, @InsidetheBCS, has especially drawn attention this week.

But again, that’s not necessarily a positive sign.

Since (and including) its first tweet Wednesday, the Twitter feed in question features a grand total of four messages. One is a welcome, two are links to pro-BCS stories, and one is a pro-BCS quote from Florida football coach Urban Meyer, who termed the series “not perfect, but…great for college football”.

One of the reasons the BCS has drawn so much hatred and criticism is its perceived lack of concern for what college football fans have vocally and repeatedly expressed a desire to see: a full-fledged playoff system. Personally, I am an unabashed proponent of the playoff, but I have resigned myself to the fact that the university presidents and other powers-that-be won’t change the system until it’s in their best interests.

I am of the opinion that it would take a complete boycott of college football by fans everywhere: one season worth of not buying tickets, not watching on television, and not attending bowl games. Until fans are willing to make this sacrifice so that their voice can be heard, the decision-makers involved with the BCS have no financial motivation to change.

However, this week’s entrance of the BCS into the world of social media gave me hope that at least the new executive director was interested in an honest dialogue with fans, not just regurgitating PR spin.

And perhaps, the @InsidetheBCS account will be used for exactly that purpose. Unfortunately, the fact that it hasn’t in its first 36 hours of existence may have doomed the social media experiment before it even started.

Let’s face it: football fans aren’t exactly a patient bunch (just look at all the second or third-year coaches who are about to get fired before they’ve even seen their first recruiting class graduate). So when a widely-despised entity sets up an account that only appears to be a public relations mouthpiece, the impatient fans pile on in a hurry.

And pile on they did. Twitter users responded to the Meyer quote with quotes of their own, most notably Yahoo! columnist Dan Wetzel, who referenced sentiments of USC’s Pete Carroll (“I think it stinks”), Penn State’s Joe Paterno (“I think we ought to have a legitimate champion”), and even Meyer himself (“The system is a failure. You’ve got to blow it up and start over”).

Some tweeters were polite: “Please implement a college football playoff system as soon as possible. It’s the right thing to do. Thank you.”

Others were sarcastic: “Can you explain why you continue to ruin College Football in under 140 characters?”

Snarky anagrams (“Inside the BCS= SEC’s Behind It”), one-liners worthy of a late-night comedian (“Isn’t it a bit contradictory for you to have more than two followers on Twitter?”), and wondering amazement (“If the balloon boy dad set up a Twitter account, even he would not draw the level of venom @InsidetheBCS is right now”) ensued as word spread of the series’ Twitter feed.

Meanwhile, replies to the questions of the masses were nowhere to be found. As the hours dragged on (an eternity in social media), tweets began to question why the BCS would subject itself to this kind of criticism and feedback without a strategy for utilizing Twitter to its advantage.

A sampling: “You should have known better than to tangle with social media unprepared,” “worst sports media idea of 2009,” and “The biggest problem…is how they’re using it. It’s like they didn’t think it through at all.”

Those questions continue to this very moment. If the BCS does in fact intend to dialogue with fans, maybe change isn’t as far off as I previously thought. However, dialogue (Facebook Page encourages playoff proponents to submit their suggested models, since “this should be fun”, which doesn’t seem to bode well for serious queries), the whole social media exercise is a waste of time and merely opens Hancock and his organization up to more serious and widespread criticism than they faced previously.

Count me among the hopeful that honest, personalized responses start flowing from @InsidetheBCS to its questioners sooner rather than later, and maybe social media will achieve what undefeated, complaining, excluded football teams like 2004 Auburn, 2007 Hawaii, and 2008 Utah couldn’t as their national title dreams were brutally dashed by—ironically—a computer.

 
The guys at FanChatter have put together a special ChatterBox for the event that will aggregate any Twitter conversations that includes the #sportsbiz hashtag.

Therefore, we’ll be urging everyone to use the #sportsbiz hashtag while at Thursday night’s event.

If you’re unable to make tomorrow’s event, visit The Sports Business Exchange to check out all the action.

Thanks again to FanChatter for setting this up and to Russell Scibetti from The Business Of Sports, and we hope to see all of you there!

Interested in finding out more about the Business of Sports Networking Events?

Click here for a review of:
The Business of Sports Networking – New York on May 26, 2009
The Business of Sports Networking – Boston on June 23, 2009

Make sure to join these LinkedIn groups for more information:
Sports Business Professionals – NYC
Sports Business Professionals – BOS

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) convention in Orlando, FL. Everyone from Athletic Directors to Marketing interns gather in central Florida to discuss the state of college athletics, network with others in the industry, and share ideas from their campuses. As a member of NACMA (National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators), I was able to attend any workshop I pleased. Dan Migala of The Migala Report opened the convention with his 5-tool sponsorship plan. Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen address the convention as the keynote speaker on the third and final day. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience all week.

Throughout the three day convention, there were several themes that kept surfacing during many of the workshops, speakers, and discussions. In no particular order, here are the five themes that seemed to surface throughout the convention.

Social Media:
Several workshops addressed Twitter directly and another discussed Facebook exclusively. Additionally, many other workshops and discussions seemed to discuss social media on some level even if it was not the main topic. Kathleen Hessert of Sports Media Challenge, organized a Tweet-up during the first day of the convention. While the turnout was small, the most surprising part of the meeting was that there was only one university represented. All other Tweeters were with companies. Additionally, if one were to search Twitter for #NACDA or #NACMA, they would find that almost all the tweets came from people associated with companies, not universities. It is clear that many universities, and college athletics in general, has not fully integrated social media into their plans for the upcoming semester.

The Economy:
While it’s not the auto or banking industry, the economy is hitting college athletics hard – and from all sides. Lack of available jobs, sponsorship renewals, ticket sales, and elimination of entire programs were topics being discussed throughout the convention. Athletic Marketing Departments are being forced to become even more creative with how they spend their money.

Media Rights Partners:
Over the last 18 months, many large athletic programs have signed contracts with major agencies such as ISP Sports, Learfield Sports, IMG College, and Nelligan Sports. The benefits and disadvantages of teaming with such agencies were discussed at length.

Licensing/Commercialism:
The court case surrounding EA Sports was the catalyst for these discussions. With standard marketing practices failing to live up to expectations, many universities are turning to new mediums to increase revenue. Unique licensing endeavors offer different opportunities for revenue for the upcoming semester.

Professional Growth:
To the Athletic Directors at the conference, this may not have seemed like a major theme. However, since The Sports Business Exchange is geared towards young sports business professionals, and I, too, am a young sports business professional, the amount of discussion on professional growth easily warrants its placement on this list. Mentors talking with mentees, recent grads talking with recent grads, established professionals talking with young professionals – it was all there. There was plenty of good advice being passed around. The only question is, how much of it will be followed?

See you all next year in Anaheim!

Note: The author of this blog is a member of NACMA. While at the convention, he did not attend any ICLA or NAADD sessions. Therefore, the above list was gathered mainly from NACDA and NACMA workshops, first hand discussions, and panelists/speakers during convention-wide gatherings. For more information, visit www.nacda.com.