Courtside Post

By Eric Goodman – Courtside Post Reporter

These aren’t my father’s baseball cards. And, having grown up in the sports card crazed world of the 1990’s, I can’t say these are necessarily my baseball cards either.

On Monday evening, a lucky gambler named Robert J. Power turned a nearly $9,000 profit on a Bowman Chrome superfractor 1 of 1 version of Washington Nationals rookie pitcher Stephen Strasburg that he had purchased for $16,304 on May 29 from Ebay. While all that geeky superfractor talk might be confusing to the uninitiated collector, remember that baseball and business are all about the numbers and someone netted a nearly five-figure profit in one month’s time on a single product that they had already spent five-figures on.

by Eric Goodman

Now that Texas Rangers’ manager Ron Washington has admitted to recently using cocaine and later revealing that he did marijuana and amphetamines while as a Major League player in the 1980’s, Rangers’ management is confronted with an important decision. So far, general manager Jon Daniels and club president Nolan Ryan, a Hall of Fame pitcher who began his career in the late 1960’s and played into the early 1990’s, has stood by their man. The choice to keep Washington on is the right one if only because it helps chip away at finally crumbling two of America’s last remaining taboo subjects: race and drugs.

By Eric Goodman

NEW YORK – - The New York City Sports Sales Combine commenced from Jan. 15-17 at the Affinia Hotel and Madison Square Garden in New York City, exposing approximately 25 young men and women from throughout the United States to the world of a ticket sales representative for one of the four major professional sports leagues.

by Eric Goodman

What’s in a name? Well, the answer to that question depends on who you are talking about. If you happen to be LeBron James then your name means quite a lot to the many different businesses seeking to bank off your image. And perhaps no business realizes the profit potential of such a name than LeBron’s current primary employer, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

by Eric Goodman

Up until recently, the formula for sports journalism was quite simple: a reporter attends a post-practice media scrum and either writes or broadcasts the news he has gathered to the thousands of waiting fans.

by Eric Goodman

While American professional sports has, for years, featured arenas being shared by teams from different leagues, the typical combination has always been NBA and NHL teams playing in the same venue or NFL and MLB clubs calling the same stadium home.

by Eric Goodman

When the reported $240+ million 3-D animated action epic film Avatar opened in theaters last week it exposed the world to a totally innovative technique in how three-dimensional images were captured and presented for the movie screen.

Featured Columnist Eric Goodman takes a look back at the last decade and examines the economic impact of individual athlete “off the field” blow-ups.