Home » Sports Business

Sports Business

Articles

INVESTING: Adventurous investors could get thrill riding surf stocks

Surf’s up! Because I love surfing, those words have been music to my ears for more than 25 years. Now, Wall Street is showing some enthusiasm for the sport, too, as well as the culture that surrounds it. The California surf culture has been setting fashion trends across America for decades. The sport of surfing has witnessed consistently strong growth since the Beach Boys and Gidgett exploded into the mainstream in the 1960s. For evidence of the incredible reach of…

Read More

Riverview Hospital opens health care, fitness center:

Riverview Hospital opened a Health Care Pavilion July 5 at 146th Street and Hazel Dell Parkway. The 15,000-square-foot facility is the first building to open in the new $5.2 million health and fitness complex. The pavilion will be home to Hazel Dell Family and Immediate Care, as well as several physicians specializing in such areas as women’s health, preventive medicine and sports medicine. The second building in the complex, the Riverview Health and Fitness Center, is slated to open in…

Read More

SPORTS: Lance Armstrong miracle started here…or did it?

It is 10 a.m. on July 24 and, from several thousand miles and an ocean away, it is being reported that Lance Armstrong has, indeed, won his seventh consecutive-and last-Tour de France. I pick up the telephone and dial Dr. Lawrence Einhorn at his home here in Indianapolis. “What a way to go out,” says the doctor, the pleasure obvious in his voice. “And it still gives me goose bumps.” What a championship pairing: Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor. Lawrence Einhorn,…

Read More

EYE ON THE PIE: Your call is important to someone

I’m on hold after calling Wishard Hospital’s Adult Medicine Clinic at 7 a.m., as instructed, to get an appointment with my doctor. My call is very important, the recorded message says, but no one is responding. First, I am told that if this call concerns a “life-threatening situation,” I should hang up and call 9-1-1. That’s really helpful. Maybe other, more sophisticated patients can identify a “life-threatening situation.” I am always reluctant to make such a determination. Then I go…

Read More

Solheim fills LPGA marketing cup: Sold-out international event at Crooked Stick set to be anchor of new advertising campaign

With unprecedented growth in Solheim Cup ticket and sponsorship sales, the LPGA is preparing to use the September event at Crooked Stick Golf Club as a cornerstone for its new, racier marketing campaign. The LPGA, working with the Indiana Sports Corp., quickly sold out the event earlier this year and expects more than 150,000 people to come through the turnstiles for the three days of practice and three days of competition for the international women’s golf event. “We had so…

Read More

University Place getting major makeover: New owner IUPUI investing $13M in renovation of 18-year-old hotel

A hotel built during an era in which Indianapolis first laid claim to its title of Amateur Sports Capital of the World has a new owner that is spending millions of dollars to bring the structure into the new century. University Place Conference Center & Hotel, on the campus of IUPUI, opened amid the fanfare of the Pan American Games hosted by Indianapolis in 1987. Nearly 4,500 athletes from 38 countries converged on downtown, including a throng of media that…

Read More

SPORTS: A history lesson for 21st century stadium critics

It is Oct. 20, 1971. I am standing near Market and Alabama streets, where the groundbreaking has taken place for a venue to be called Market Square Arena. The price tag is a salty $23 million, and the project has attracted critics and naysayers who wonder about the city’s priorities, especially since our mayor, Richard Lugar, is using federal revenuesharing funds to help pay for the arena. Plus, Lugar has this wacky idea about using the arena as a catalyst…

Read More

Radio Disney catching the ears of youth-and advertisers: Event marketing key to getting local kids to tune in

Two years after its launch, Radio Disney’s local WRZD-FM 98.3 affiliate is outperforming many affiliates in the 55-station network, even though traditional measures of its success are anything but magical. WRZD’s rating by New York-based Arbitron Inc., the industry’s standard media research firm, shows the station barely cracking the top 20 in this market. But WRZD has prospered through another number: listener calls per day. The station averages an eye-popping 4,070 calls a day, according to officials at Radio Disney’s…

Read More

$34M from NFL lightens Colts’ load: Money will count toward team’s portion of stadium cost

A $34 million loan of sorts to the Indianapolis Colts from the National Football League brings the franchise and local officials another step closer to signing a new stadium lease and drastically reduces what the team will spend out of pocket for the stadium’s construction. The National Football League approved a $34 million loan June 14 that will be applied to the Colts’ $100 million share of the $625 million downtown facility, which is scheduled to open in time for…

Read More

TOM HARTON Commentary: Keep your eye on the design

Design matters, and architects aren’t the only ones who should care. On the eve of two significant ground breakings, even those of us who know nothing about facades and fenestration should consider what’s about to take place here. Later this month, the first dirt will be turned on the site of the city’s new airport terminal, and we can assume that dignitaries will brandish shiny shovels next month just south of the existing RCA Dome. In both cases, there will…

Read More

SPORTS: Artest’s future bright as long as Bird’s in his corner

In this space and in other media forums, I have expressed optimism that the Indiana Pacers’ Ron Artest will (a) make it through an entire NBA season without incident, (b) perform like the selfless allstar he has been and can be again, and (c) therefore justify the Pacer management’s faith in keeping him in a blue-and-gold uniform. What I fear, of course, is that he’ll do (d) none of the above. Artest’s talent is obvious. Unfortunately, so is his volatile,…

Read More

BEHIND THE NEWS: Hat World helps propel parent’s stock out of slumber

When Indianapolis-based Hat World Corp. announced its $165 million sale to a Tennessee firm 17 months ago, it had posted increases in same-store sales for an impressive 27 months in a row. Now, make that 42 and counting. Such a streak is almost unheard of in the rough-and-tumble retail world, especially for a firm wrestling with the inevitable distractions that go along with the transition from independence to ownership by a publicly traded company. “We have maintained the same momentum…

Read More

Firm plans to get personal with clients’ home pages: Former gubernatorial candidate runs Web business

Developing an Internet home page that gives users more options for content than what behemoths such as America Online and Yahoo! offer through their syndicated selections has become the ambition of George Witwer. The 46-year-old Bluffton native, who once aspired to be Indiana governor, launched the northwest-side Humanizing Technologies in January 2000. With much of the product’s research and development in the can, the venture is close to weaning itself from investors and, for the first time, could turn a…

Read More

Fever reverse attendance slide, grow sponsorships: League still working to stabilize, diversify fan base

The Indiana Fever have reversed a fouryear attendance slide at a time when most WNBA teams are sliding backward. The team, owned by Pacers Sports & Entertainment, has seen average per-game attendance grow from 7,589 last year to 7,926 this year. With the Fever in the playoff hunt in second place in the Eastern Conference and several promotions planned, team officials expect average attendance to climb higher the second half of the season. “The lifeblood of the WNBA is ticket…

Read More

Colts tout new stadium: Zupancic adds muscle to sales and marketing efforts

A multifaceted sales and marketing effort is being executed amid a front-office reorganization that includes replacing the team’s longtime marketing mastermind and adding nine positions to bolster ticket and sponsorship sales. The offensive is being quarterbacked by former strength and conditioning coach Tom Zupancic, who took over for Ray Compton when Compton left this off-season to form a consulting firm. The team says its sales and marketing initiative is already putting up big numbers, but today’s good news will quickly…

Read More

Employers promoting fitness: To battle steep insurance costs, businesses help employees get healthier

Wearing a pedometer, Kelly Dircksen treads 2,000 or so steps a day at the office, racking up her highest counts in her treks to the photocopier. Her 2-1/2-mile daily goal entails after-work walks, as well. The 34-year-old quoting specialist said her company pays 50 percent of any fitness-related costs for her and her family, including a Weight Watchers program, running shoes for her kids, and the entry fee for her son’s marathon. “I’m definitely healthier,” said Dircksen, who celebrates incremental…

Read More

SPORTS: If heroes fail as role models, put yourself in the game

– Luke 12:48 In light of the above Scripture, many would agree that among the most blessed creatures on this Earth are professional athletes. As has been noted often, they receive handsome compensation to play games, and it doesn’t really get much better than that, does it? Along with the fortune, however, comes celebrity, and from celebrity comes attention. That means there are no non-public public moments. The spotlight illuminates both the good and the bad. These thoughts come to…

Read More

NOTIONS: Dear Lance: How ’bout beyond-the-bike immortality?

Dear Lance: I’ve got an idea. I thought you might noodle it during that 239-kilometer, Stage 17 ride from Pau to Revel. It might keep your mind off those flags people wave in your face. By way of background, you and I have much in common. Like you, I’m a cancer survivor. As in your case, a physician from the Indiana University School of Medicine figured out how to treat mine after others had botched it. Like you, I ride…

Read More

SPORTS: NBA’s delayed-entry rule, Michelin’s move and more

So much news, so little space. Item: The NBA and its players’ association enter into a new collective bargaining agreement that will increase the age for draft eligibility to 19, or to one year after an athlete’s high school class has graduated. Reaction: Perhaps the NBA and its players’ association believed they were tossing those involved in college basketball a bone by raising the age limit. If so, it is a bone that likely will stick in the throats of…

Read More

Marian College launches motorsports curriculum: Classes to focus on business side of racing

This fall, Marian College will begin offering a unique curriculum focused on the business of motorsports. Initially, motorsports-related classes will be offered within Marian’s sports management program, but school officials said they’d like to expand the program to offer a minor and major in motorsports management. Unlike programs at Purdue University, IUPUI and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Marian’s courses will not focus on computers and engineering. Instead, the program will instruct students in marketing, communications, sales and business management in…

Read More