Word: zimbalist
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...days later, you hear that if the game doesn't sell out, it won't be shown in the Detroit market. Are you really going to shell out good money so that someone else can watch it at home? "Are people really behaving that way?" asks Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College. "Maybe a few dozen in each city. This notion that the blackout rule has accounted for full attendance and full stadiums is far-fetched...
...impact, frequent local blackouts could do some long-term damage to the NFL's business. In Detroit, Yuille believes that after five Lions games were blacked out last year, casual fans completely lost interest in football. "More than anything, television is a mass-market promoter of a sport," says Zimbalist. "You don't want to cut that...
...economists, however, blissful predictions like these are bunk. "I don't believe it's that big of a bonanza, frankly," says Smith College sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, who predicts an economic impact of about $15 million. "It's kind of silly to suggest that it is." Festive fans of North Carolina, the University of Connecticut, and Villanova University - the other three teams that made the Final Four - will likely have a nice time in spruced-up Detroit. But it's a stretch, Zimbalist says, to figure they'll suddenly think of Detroit as a repeat destination - and even more...
...past, sports have largely been recession-proof, a not-too-costly escape from reality that didn't have to be cut back on in the same way that travel or big purchases might be. "Historically, revenues in the sports industry don't dip along with the economy," says Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College and author of several books on sports business...
...stratospheric ticket prices, which fund the cartoonish salaries of sports stars. Likewise, companies that dish out millions for sponsorships won't be able to justify sports-marketing expenditures to their shareholders. "The new model that has emerged over the last two decades is not going to hold up," says Zimbalist. "It's not conceivable that sports will be impervious to a downturn...