Why Notre Dame Football Will Never Join a Conference

Back in the summer of 2007, then-Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White announced that he had scheduled the Irish to play in a series of "home games" at neutral sites.

Tonight was the first one of those, a "battle" against hapless Washington State in San Antonio''s Alamodome. The move was done, no doubt, to expose potential recruits in Texas to the ND football experience. Like the Cowboys, Lakers, Cubs and Yankees, Notre Dame is a national brand with fans and alumni in all corners of the country.

My good friend David Robb covered it for the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana, and reports that although the game billed as "The San Antonio Showdown" drew a crowd of 53,407, the majority of fans were Irish supporters. Not quite a sellout of a stadium that seats 65,000, but not bad given that each school is located at least 1,300 miles from the River City.

In addition, the Irish will play "home games" in Orlando in 2011 and 2014, the first college football game in the new Yankee Stadium, against Army in 2010 - heck, even a game in Dublin against Navy in 2012.

It's a pretty genius move in that it accomplishes two things: 1) It gives ND's far-flung alumni base an opportunity to see their favorite team without having to pay a fortune to come to South Bend, and 2) It allows the Irish to make important in-roads in the talent-rich football states of Texas and Florida.

Of course, all of this will help line Notre Dame's coffers, and it would be infinitely more difficult to pull off these grandiose ventures if they were part of a major conference.

As it stands now, however, their status as an independent allows them to schedule games against practically anyone, anywhere, any time. They get the lion's share of the exposure and revenue from these games, and the only authority they must answer to is the NCAA.

In a word: Brilliant.

$Money$ Quote of the Week

From Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Jackson, petulant prima donna and participant in the infamous Malice at the Palace, after he was suspended for two games for ripping Coach Don Nelson, a decision which ultimately cost Jackson $139,000.

"If my mom took some money, I'd still love her to death, but I'd still be upset about it. And he's not my mom. So you can you imagine how I feel."

About The Title ...

There are plenty of dubious pronouncements that athletes often try to foist upon the media. None may be more laughable, however, than a free agent telling the press with a straight face that, "It's not about the money" when weighing his options.

Even the greenest sports writers know better than to buy a tired sports cliche that - outside of a few notable exceptions - is complete garbage.

As former Houston Astros star Jeff Bagwell once told Steve Rushin of Sports Illustrated, "Whenever a guy says, 'It's not about the money', the one thing we know for sure is, it's about the money."

This blog will certainly be about the money, but it will also delve into so much more. It'll use statistics and analyze numbers, give props to creativity and innovation in sports marketing, and try to raise important questions regarding current and potential future issues in sports business.

Welcome!

Sports, at its core, are entertainment and therefore, a business. A complex, but very lucrative business (see: the prolonged sale of my beloved Chicago Cubs - a 2.5 year process). And as much as people might bemoan some decisions that owners and general managers make, often the deciding factor is money. This is a reality, uncomfortable as it may be for some.

The fact that millions in contract incentives are sometimes won and lost on the outcome of a layup, or a ahoestring tackle, however, is interesting to me. This blog will explore everything from sports marketing to athletes' contracts to stadium deals to whatever captures my interest at the time.

Hopefully, people will come to this site to hear my take on the latest sports business news, or perhaps learn something they didn't know. Either way, I'll try to turn this blog into an informative, entertaining daily stop for you. Thanks for visiting and let the games begin.