THE DAILY each Friday offers our take on the performances over the past week of people and entities in sports business. Here are this week's newsmakers:
WIN: MLB -- After a September in which baseball was panned for a lack of drama, MLB captured attention away from other sports leagues and reclaimed its role in the national spotlight in perfect timing to kick off its postseason. The last day of the regular season served up the drama and the league’s cable partners hammered it home, notching ratings that were an impressive improvement over the same day last year. Sports writers took to Twitter to laud the work of their on-air counterparts and share their delight over ESPN's and MLB Network's coverage of the night’s big games.
LOSE: REEBOK -- The company settles a $25M lawsuit after the FTC rules its EasyTone shoe ads have unsubstantiated claims about exercise benefits. The news gets worse for Reebok as the company now faces refunds from consumers who have bought the shoes for the last year and a half. The worst may be yet to come with sales of the footwear that top $1B in ’10 down almost 50% in the first eight months of this year.
DRAW: MARK EMMERT -- The NCAA President came out swinging this week with a stern lecture for college ADs who he feels have created the impression that the realignment frenzy is all about money. While Emmert was correct when he said, “The world’s convinced that’s all we care about,” we’re wondering if this dose of reality comes too far into the realignment chess game to have any impact.
