The NFL's richest man.

This weekend has produced the highest NFL contract since the beginnings of professional football. Drew Brees, the man who has just broken Dan Marino's single season passing yardage record, was handed his 5-years $ 100 million contract by the New Orleans Saints.

While this move is not only record setting in terms of per year salary, it is also a significant move for the New Orleans franchise. The organization which was hit hard by the harsh penalties following the still evolving "bounty-gate scandal" had the first positive news since the end of last season. They signed the most productive and successful Quarterback in franchise history for a long-term deal and sent a message to the whole league that they want to be contenders in the future.

In terms of economics it is amazing to give a 32 year old QB such a huge contract, including $ 60 million of guaranteed money. Remember: Before coming to the Saints Brees had a significant, career-threatening shoulder injury, and he is not exactly young either. When the full 5 years of this contract are played out, he will be around 37, which is very old for an NFL QB. My guess is that this contract either makes the Saints look extremely smart over the next few seasons, or it will pretty much end the feel-good-story in the Big Easy.

Anyway:  i think it is just appropriate to congratulate Brees and I wish him all the best for the next five years at least.

Here we go again...

Another year at the Tour de France and we have yet another doping scandal. Yesterday we had the first day of rest of the 99th edition of the Grande Boucle. But instead of resting the peloton experienced a major shakeup. Cofidis rider Rémy Di Gregorio was arrested by the French police in the aftermath of a team hotel raid. He was later suspended by his team and is the first doping casualty of this year's tour.

But it is not the only doping related story these days. Lance Armstrong is fighting doping allegations brought forward by the USADA. Currently highly successful team SKY, the team featuring the current tour leader Bradley Wiggins, is confronted with doubt and suspicion, as it was questioned by the media if the remarkable time trial performance on Monday was possible without performance enhancing drugs.

After a relatively quiet Tour in 2011 we are probably back to the days when doping news were daily business during the 3 weeks of the Tour. Up to this day no positive test results were published, but Di Grigorio's case does not look good. Maybe he is indeed the "single case" his team wants him to look like - or not guilty at all. Maybe he is part of a team Festina-like structure of organized doping and just a scapegoat. We will have to wait and see what the next few weeks will bring along...

Doping is a highly interesting topic in sports economics. A recent paper by Coupé and Gergaud (2012) presents a recent attempt to analyze data from professional cycling in order to establish a link between doping related indicators and riders' performance.

Playoffs?!?

Now we have the long anticipated change in the BCS system: a four team playoff was introduced. So instead of having an dubious ranking system to go along with 5 BCS bowl games, including a championship game, we now face a mini playoff which will crown the next champion of College Football.

But has anything changed? Not really I would argue. Selecting teams into this playoff is more difficult than selecting them into 5 BCS bowls. And who will select them? This question still remains to be answered. The only thing that we know about this is that a "committee" will select the programs. Many experts argue that such a four-team playoff system would not have included teams like Boise State in the past, who also were the losers in the BCS system, as non-automatic qualifying schools.

Another point is that there will be a lot of money earned with the new playoff system. TV contracts will be huge. Even if the hopes of BCS powerbrokers  that the "playoff finale" will be just like the Super Bowl will probably not quite be fulfilled, the new format will generate even bigger revenues than the current BCS format. And this will lead to the following question: How will these revenues be shared? My opinion (and I am not alone)  is that this "playoff" system will make the rich colleges even richer and fully manifest their power over all the smaller colleges. The current BCS cartel will get even more powerful and we will see more disparity between school on and off the field.

The critical media coverage, criticism from within the NCAA, a vast number of scandals and legal issues, as well as continuing confusion over the actual champion of NCAA football made a change necessary. This change, however, will make matters even worse and the monster called BCS will grow and get more powerful.

New world record!

In the shadows of the current UEFA championship and the aftermath of the Heat's second NBA title, a very significant event took place in the US. Ashton  Eaton, 24, from Bend, Oregon, broke the decathlon world record at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials on Saturday. He improved the previous world record, owned by Czech Roman Seberle (2001) from 9,026 to  9,039.

This is an amazing and very impressive performance and Eaton is now the favorite for the Olympics in London. He had amazing performances on the 100 sprint, running it in 10.21 seconds and and amazing long jump at 8.23 meters. Decathlon is often considered to be the supreme discipline in track and field and eclipsing the 9,000 points mark is something very special. Eaton will probably not become as famous as LeBron James or the future winner of the UEFA championships. But his performance is second to none and will certainly go down in history. And if he wins gold in London it will also pay off. I wish him all the best and congratulations!

Margin for (human)error?

Now that we are well into the second phase of the European Championship in soccer, it is time to look back at the most notable event: a decision made by a referee-assistant in the game England vs. Ukraine. As the TV images clearly show, England defender John Terry was not able to keep the ball out of the goal on his spectacular attempt to prevent the Ukraine from tying the game at 1:1. The picture (in contrast to the famous Wembley goal) tell a clear story and there is absolutely no doubt that the newly installed goal referee made the wrong decision by not declaring it a goal.

Some people and media analysts continue to argue in favor of preserving the current way of enforcing the rules in a soccer match. They come forward and praise the human decision making as the best way to handle critical situations like the Ukraine non-goal. UEFA officials, spearheaded by president Platini, are still reluctant to accept any technical assistance for referees in order to make their decisions easier. According to them it would destroy the "flow" of the game. Moreover the performance of referees is often praised excessively and "human decisions" are considered part of the game of soccer and the optimal way to achieve a fair competition.

Well, the latest non-goal makes UEFA look old. But it is really just another example of refereeing that might decide important games. Some people, and they are probably right, argue that the vast majority of referee calls in soccer are correct. But even if 1% of all calls are wrong this can influence the result of games. In a still growing business of soccer and sports betting a wrong decision by a referee can have dramatic consequences. Moreover, they can change player careers, end coaches contracts and leave whole nations of soccer fans desperate. By now most of the major sports worldwide have some sort of technical assistance for referees. Even highly traditional sports like tennis and baseball have it by now.

In the end UEFA might turn out to be the biggest loser, as Platini might lose the power struggle with FIFA president platter over the use of goal line technology. And the European Championship lost quite some momentum as Ukraine (probably unjustified) dropped out of the tournament.

Another victim of extraordinary bad refereeing is Greece. One of their key player, Karagounis, will miss today's quarter final against Germany because he received his second yellow card in the game against Russia. This card came after a clear foul against him remained unseen by the ref and interpreted as blatant dive. This is neither bad luck, nor is it just or performance related. And it should definitely not be part of the game. It is just a very bad decision that will influence competition on the field of play.

If the UEFA was interested in fair competition they would lift the card off Karagounis and let him compete today. And they would finally accept that in today's football referee mistakes are avoidable and definitely not just a "part of the game".   

Concussions

In the upcoming days of the annual NFL spring meetings this week, there was a lot of discussion going on about the NFL and the obvious problems of negative long-term health effects of the game on players. In the wake of Junior Seau's tragic death, the question of the NFL's responsibility for retired players is more prominent than ever.

One phenomenon that was often downplayed or even ignored is the number of concussions professional football players suffer from during their careers. The league is facing an avalanche of lawsuits from former players who argue that they suffer from neglected long-term effects from ignored head injuries and concussions. While the NFL was quick to release a study which should prove that retired NFL players actually live longer than other people. The study, carried out by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), is focusing on all retirees who played in the NFL for at least five seasons from 1959 through 1988. It argues that playing in the NFL actually offered health benefits. While I do not know the exact details of the study (some results are presented here), I am sure that most of the problems you will face when evaluating the healt effects of a certain activity, were not dealt with adequately. Of course, the group of NFL player is highly selected and in order to make it to the NFL, you have to be in above-average health conditions already. So there is a lot of potential for sample selection bias and there is definitely not the full information on injuries like concussions. Moreover, the study has no power to prove any form of causality between playing in the NFL and long-term health effects.

What should be evaluated is the effect of playing in the NFL compared to other sports. We, and definitely the NFL, should be interested in the influence of the number of concussions on long-term health and brain conditions in retirement age. The NIOSH study concludes that former NFL players had a much lower rate of death overall compared to men in the general population. This does by no means surprise me. And it has no power as evidence that former NFL players do not suffer from negative effects when they have retired.

It will be interesting to see how Commissioner Goodell will address this issue in the future and at the spring meetings. The current stance of the commissioner on the Saints "bountygate scandal" indicates that the problem of (head) injuries and possible consequences has already been addressed. My intuition is that the danger of losing a huge amount of money in upcoming lawsuits is the main reason for this. The long-term health of players, however, should be the only reason. The NIOSH study does not tell us anything (new). While the neurologists are already working on the issues, a lot of further research in this area is needed. 

Money can't buy you...or can it?

Last weekend most Europena football leagues found their 2012 champions. The new Champion of the English Premiere League is Manchester City, the Italian Champion is Juventus Turin, in Spain, although already on top, Real Madrid was able to break the 100 points barrier and (because of home bias) the new champion in Austria is Red Bull Salzburg.

So what do Machester City, Juventus Turin and Red Bull Salzburg have in common? Well, ManCity is financed by  Sheik Mansour, Juventus by Fiat through Italy's richest sponsoring contract, and, of course, RB Salzburg is one of many "Red Bull operated" clubs. With UEFA's fair play initiative on the way things might (and I am still sceptical) change in favor of open competitions with more equal chances for all clubs who are not supported by a powerful oligarch, a sheik or a local business.

While Real Madrid is not really known for financial responsibility, one example for a national champion who has not won due to financial power is Borussia Dortmund. Dortmund has just defeated FC Bayern for the fifth time this season (5:2 in Berlin) to capture the DFB cup on Saturday, despite featuring a budged significantly lower than Bayern's. In fact Borussia Dortmund was in financial ruins following a period of heavy spending and transformation into a share issuing business in the mid/late 1990s. From this financial turmoil the club made a complete restart and focused on developing young talents while operating strictly within their financial limits. In contrast to their local rival, Schalke 04, who are heavily sponsored by Gazprom, Dortmund was highly successful during the last two seasons and is said to have surpassed FC Bayern as the dominating force in German football.

Time will tell if Dortmund and their almost unique approach towards the "business" of professional football will carry over into longterm success and a permanent ability to challenge the heavy-spending FC Bayern. However, in times where titles are usually going to towns where big money is, it is refreshing to see that it is not always money that brings success. Maybe it is not UEFA Fair Play that will change Europena football. Maybe all it needs are some clubs that change their attitude and have success on and off the field of play.

Congratulations Dortmund!