| South Africa: The Art of Rewarding Appropriately
THE furore over the Premier Soccer League (PSL) bonuses again raises the dilemmas of executive remuneration and incentives. An executive's ability to lead, to inspire and act creatively, to learn from failure, not to hide behind policy and plan or others' patronage, distinguishes executives who make a valuable difference from the mediocre and those who prefer things to be safe and familiar. Share options and bonus schemes are intended to ensure that organisations get the best talent. "Experts" claim to define what and how value will be created, as if the future were predictable. .
News Index
VANCOUVER - David Beckham says the Los Angeles Galaxy knew what they were getting when they signed him to play Major League Soccer.The former England captain was responding to criticism from soccer legend Pele, who said American fans were misled into thinking Beckham would be a goal scorer in the league. "The Galaxy wouldn't have come out and said that," Beckham said Wednesday after the Galaxy played to a 0-0 draw with the Vancouver Whitecaps in an international friendly before 48,172 fans."The Galaxy brought me in because I'm a football player. Everybody in the world knows I'm not a goal scorer."Everyone has their own opinion. Pele is a great player and a great ambassador for the game."Pele told the Associated Press that American soccer fans were given the impression Beckham would be a goal scorer."They announced him as a scorer of goals," Pele said during an interview in Sheffield, England.
TV-RADIO NOTEBOOK: NFL is very fortunate how schedule plays out
In the spirit of this holiday season, let us resolve to take NFL commissioner Roger Goodell at his word regarding the eight-game NFL Network schedule that began Thursday night with the Colts-Falcons. That means we will stipulate to Goodell's assurances that the NFL did not rig the schedule to ensure the league-owned network would have attractive matchups and, more importantly, games it could employ to apply maximum pressure on cable carriers that don't carry the service, such as Time Warner, Charter and Cablevision. And so, given that assumption, we are left to conclude that the NFL this season is not conniving, merely fortunate. Next Thursday, NFL Network will air Packers-Cowboys, a potential preview of the NFC title game. The game will air on over-the-air TV in the teams' home cities but not in some of their most important secondary markets � among them Waco, Austin and San Antonio, all serviced by Time Warner Cable, and Madison, Wis., a Charter Cable market.
Teams will study what Eagles did against Patriots
Maybe a little too much. To be certain, the Eagles' strategy on both sides of the ball did plenty to disrupt the Patriots and nearly resulted in one of the greatest upsets in NFL history. To be certain, the teams left on the Pats' schedule and those they could face in the postseason have a great deal to ponder in reviewing all that the Eagles did to make for a long and unnerving night for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and everyone else in Patriot Nation. But of those clubs, which are capable of generating the same relentless blitz pressure that the Eagles did on Brady, while playing man-to-man coverage, and control the ball by mainly attacking the middle of the field through the air as A.J. Feeley did so effectively? Not many. The Baltimore Ravens, who face the Patriots in Week 13 on Monday Night Football, have some talented linebackers who can blitz well, but their banged-up and inconsistent secondary could easily be overwhelmed by one of the most talented groups of receivers in the league.
Knights in national spotlight
With the Rutgers women's basketball team playing nationally or regionally televised games at least twice a month all regular season, I started thinking about what these big games can do not only for the Scarlet Knights program, but also the sport of women's basketball as a whole.
RU plays on the big stage 12 times this year, including three of the five games that the Knights have played so far this season.
The increased exposure is due to a few factors: the team's heightened profile following last season's finals appearance and the fact that 12 of the Knights games are against preseason Top 25 opponents. In fact, the Dec. 30 game versus Temple on ESPNU is the only televised matchup that does not involve one of the aforementioned ranked opponents.
Playing in to both the toughness of RU's schedule, as well as the increase of TV time for the Knights, is the strength of a Big East Conference that sent eight teams to last year's NCAA Tournament.
Fans are losers in NFL Network impasse
The NFL knew it had something special when its scheduling formula spit out a Packers-Cowboys matchup this season. While the league could never have anticipated they would rank as the top teams in the NFC, it did know the value of tradition and could document each team's enormous drawing power on national television. So when the schedule maker divvied up 2007 games among the league's television partners, it decided the Packers-Cowboys would not go to Fox, the network of the NFC, or the prime-time packages on NBC or ESPN, a trio which anted up $2.41 billion in rights fees this season. Instead, the NFL delivered the game to its own fledgling NFL Network, which will deliver the game to only one-third of the country. It's part of the league's plan to help transform an ugly duckling into a cash cow.
|
