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DraftKings Banished from NYC

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By: Dallas J. Short

DraftKings and FanDuel are the industry leading providers of daily fantasy sports, but after this morning’s decision, they will not be allowed to operate in New York (for now, at least.) The 600,000+ New Yorkers who use the sites are out of luck.

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman originally filed an enforcement action in New York State Supreme Court on Nov. 17, seeking a preliminary injunction against the fantasy sites that allow players to compete against each other for money. It took Supreme Court Justice Manuel J. Mendez two weeks to decide, but has barred DraftKings and FanDuel from “accepting entry fees, wagers or bets from New York consumers in regards to any competition, game or contest” on the websites.

The two company’s ads and promotions have been ramped up this year and have blanketed the sports world. They must remove their signage from the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets during national games. FanDuel, which is headquartered in New York, and DraftKings, which has a satellite office in Manhattan but is based in Boston, can still operate their national businesses out of those locations but they cannot do business with anyone within the state.

DraftKings has already said they are disappointed and filing an appeal, I’d be surprised if FanDuel didn’t do the same. Both are very popular and simple to use. You don’t have to spend a lot of money and you can always quit. It has added more excitement for a lot of people to games or sports that had been losing interest in. If you are not sure what the Daily Fantasy Sites are, here’s a quick breakdown.

FanDuel (started in 2009): Choose your league for the day: play against your friends or take on opponents across the country. Pick the players you want: they use a salary cap format — so every player has a price. Know if you win THAT night: watch your team climb the standings with every last yard.

DraftKings (started in 2012): You sign up for an account. You choose your sport and enter a contest. You draft a line-up and hopefully win.

DraftKings has a lot of ties and backing, with investors including Fox Sports, Major League Baseball, the NHL, and the owners of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, Boston financial giant Wellington Management, and the owners of the New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys. So I don’t expect them to just sit back and lose money either.

There people in sports who are against Daily Fantasy Sports or at least they’re against it until they receive some of the money. Washington’s wide receiver Pierre Garcon has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of NFL players against the daily fantasy sports site FanDuel, alleging it misuses players’ names and likenesses without proper licensing or permission. We’ll see how that turns out.

I, personally, do not play fantasy sports. I have a lot of friends and family members who do. I’m not against them, I am just a passionate fan who has a real hard time rooting against people or teams I don’t like or even worse having the bright side of my team losing being it got me fantasy points from being scored against. I do not even bet on teams I do like, afraid of the jinx (better safe than sorry.) To each his own though. There was a long time that pinball was considered illegal in New York City because of gambling, but since they decide it wasn’t a game of skill, it was finally allowed. Since anyone can play and win, I have a feeling it will not be too long before the daily fantasy sports are back in the game here in NY.

What are your thoughts? Do you or someone you know play fantasy sports? Do you think it should be illegal? Do you think it will be overturned? I look forward to hearing your feedback and ideas.

As always, if you enjoyed what you read, please be social and share. Please feel free to follow me: @meddafore @indraPRGroup

 

The NFL Names Twitter as Starting QB

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By: Dallas J. Short

The 50th Season of the NFL has kicked off and the league has a new two-year extension with Twitter. The multiyear partnership will deliver uniquely packaged official NFL video and other types of content to fans daily, year-round. Partners since 2013 through the Twitter Amplify program, NFL and Twitter will offer brands the opportunity to present official NFL content created specifically for the Twitter platform, on PCs, tablets and mobile devices. The partnership breaks new ground in creative programming, improved video delivery and brand integration with NFL content on Twitter.

While this is a win for Twitter (Vine and Periscope), Facebook takes the loss on this. The NFL will be posting “significantly more official NFL content than in the past” on Twitter and Twitter is taking the lead on ad sales. Zuckerberg can’t “like” that. The NFL will continue their deals with Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube, as well as their new deal with Yahoo, but Twitter is getting the star role. This is Twitter’s first time it has done a multi-year deal with a big media company like the NFL. So, it should get real exciting and offer fans a lot more looks. Besides video of the most exciting plays during games, NFL’s social media team will be publishing infographics as well as overall game recaps specifically developed for the Twitter audience, including dedicated feeds. Also, on the NFL Communications page, their only social media link is to their Twitter page. Well played. The NFL’s Twitter followers have gone from five million to 13 million in two years and it is sure to explode even more with this new program fully launched.

I prefer Twitter as my go-to social media platform when it comes to sports. I might post a status on Facebook about the game, but going back and forth in real time on Twitter is a lot more fun and interactive. If you haven’t, you can think of it as a big conversation at a sports bar, sitting alongside your fellow fans, your rivals, of course trolls will always troll. Also, most analysts and sports journalists tweet throughout the games and players are more likely to tweet after the game (some players even get put on time out by their organizations for being so knee-jerk, emotional and sometimes aggressive with their tweets), so this deal makes a lot more sense than I think some might realize at first (despite whatever is going on at Twitter internally.)
The NFL hits the social media hat-trick with this, it engages, it educates and it entertains. Like NFL Red Zone has also proven, the FOMO (fear of missing out) is real for football fans. They want to be involved all of the time and know everything that is going on, as soon as it happens or while it happens, even if it is not their favorite team. Everybody wants to be an “insider” and feel like the Adam Schefter of their friends or the Mort Report of office water cooler conversations.

Which social media platform do you usually get your NFL fix from? If not Twitter, will this new deal have you checking it more? As always, if you like what you read, please be social and share. Please feel free to follow me @meddafore @indraPRGroup

Tony Robbins’ Advice on How to Condition Your Business like a Pro Athlete

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By: Gina Mason

I am a huge Tony Robbins fan and I absolutely love listening to his seminars and reading his blog posts. As per usual, he posted a very insightful blog that I really enjoyed and thought it would be great to share with our readers who may have missed it.

The link between sports and business is very strong. In many ways, the intuition, skills, competitive edge and drive that it takes to be successful in athletics also translates into a running a successful business. In his blog, Robbins talks about how business leaders can condition their business like professional athletes by using the example of recent Wimbledon Champion, Serena Williams who is known as one of the fiercest competitors out there and who has achieved greatness on a number of levels. The full post is below. Enjoy!

“Successful businesses — those that continually improve and produce consistent results — share more in common with high-performance athletes than you might think. To create lasting growth, both must consistently outperform their competition and produce winning results. With any truly remarkable business, entrepreneur or athlete, creativity, discipline and productivity aligns into a force that is greater than the sum of its parts and becomes a brand synonymous with achievement.

Few companies have managed to disrupt their industry, stumble into near-failure and then soar to unimaginable, sustainable heights than Apple. And even fewer athletes have charted as remarkable a rise, blistering fall and even greater rise than Olympic tennis champion Serena Williams.

FROM HIGH RISK COMES HIGHER REWARDS

According to ESPN, Williams’ trademark “high risk” aggressive playing style, is defined in part by her serve — considered to be the greatest in women’s tennis history — balanced by her ball placement and ability to fire powerful shots with great accuracy.

As we know from Rule #2 of the 7 Forces of Business Mastery, Constant and Strategic Innovation is what separates the merely competent from the truly ingenious. By measuring and enhancing her natural strengths, Williams developed a killer combination that’s made her arguably the greatest women’s player in history and an icon studied by the entire tennis industry.

Rather than modeling herself on peers who excelled in different areas, Williams shared the approach of the most successful companies and created something new and better with what was available and already existed as a resource. It’s only by moving beyond core competencies and developing unique strengths that companies, businesses or athletes create an invincible advantage and create an opportunity for success on their own terms.

Williams truly began to distinguish herself as a unique opponent by utilizing what we define as Force #6, Constant Optimization and Maximization — her ability to focus the existing strengths in her swing and serve, and execute them more efficiently, with greater control, became key to continuously evolving her business, both on the court and as a personal brand, to the next level of success.

“The older I get, the better I serve,” Williams explained to USA TODAY. What makes her serve even more deadly is her ability to consistently place powerful shots with great accuracy. These strategies are intuitive laws of successful performance in every realm, but in business they become magnified by the scalable potential a single person can’t achieve without first creating a recognizable brand.

BETTER, STRONGER, FASTER

But Serena not only mastered the serve, she’s mastered the comeback — like Apple in the ‘90s, Serena’s career trajectory hit turbulence over nearly a year of recovery from recurring injuries in 2007 which caused her ranking to plummet from #1 in the world, down to #172 in 2011. In her biography, Serena outlines the struggle with handling physical rehabilitation and the toll of depression. Consulting with Tony Robbins helped her reignite the hunger and drive to start winning again — not only restoring playing power but improving every aspect of her game before the U.S. Open.

In times of trouble, failure or extreme challenge, the most effective leaders and performers return to Force #1, An Effective Business Map, and refocus on the core processes the business is already doing and learn to execute more effectively. Whether it’s regaining the psychological edge over negative emotions on the court, or revisiting what your business can provide better than your competition — creating and maintaining a working map is the only way to ensure you are consistently moving closer to your goals.

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK

Jim Loehr, a performance psychologist who has worked with a number of top tennis players, believes Williams had developed a pattern of competitive upsets caused in part by not meeting the high standards she set for herself. In the words of John McEnroe, “To me, she’s the greatest. I’ve never seen someone come back from behind as much as she has. Serena seems to be mentally tougher than she has ever been. And she has been awfully tough at times.”

Use Williams’ incredible comeback as a demonstration of how small, incremental improvements made in a few key areas can result in geometric growth to your business as a whole — just as with steady and measurable improvements in a high-performance athlete recovering from a debilitating injury.

Focusing on these four keys can help you train and condition your business like a professional athlete:

  1. DEVELOP THE MINDSET OF A CHAMPION

High performers have clarity of vision— they attack their goals and are committed to preparing for “the game.” A champion studies the strengths and weaknesses of the competition, and then develops a game plan that leverages his or her own skills and expertise to bring about the desired outcomes. It also requires effective leadership skills: having a mission or purpose that not only drives you, but inspires others as well. Stepping into that winning mindset— for yourself and for your team — is a must.

  1. EXECUTE, ADAPT AND ROUTINELY OPTIMIZE YOUR RESULTS

To constantly optimize your business you must be completely focused and committed to the specific outcomes that will grow your business. Opportunities for maximization can be found in almost every area of the business: lead generation, sales and prospecting, sales conversion, changes to your offers to lead to higher prices or additional upsells, etc…Understanding and measuring your company’s current process and results in each of these areas, anticipating the biggest areas of challenge and then mobilizing your team with a clear plan so you can target specific improvements will have the most impact in the long term.

  1. USE THE POST-GAME ANALYSIS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Like a player who immediately regroups with their coach to analyze every aspect of their performance and their opponent’s, you must learn from your unique experience and results.

Evaluate your successes and failures, and in reliving the game, mentally prepare for the next one.

  • If you lost, how will you keep pushing your practices forward?
    • If you won, what factors contributed to your success?
    • What were the key decisions you made, for better or worse?
    • How will you maintain your strengths and build on your weaknesses?
  1. FOSTER A FAVORABLE CULTURE FOR HIGH PERFORMERS

As a business leader, you know that high-performance organizations foster successful innovators, thanks to the alignment of several vital forces. Constant innovation, efficient business processes, powerful performance systems, and team competency and behavior all work in harmony inside the world’s top companies.

Today, at 34 years-old, Serena Williams has leveraged her experiences into a growth mind-set and developed a mental toughness that’s allowed her to not only remain at the top, but to consistently outperform both herself and her competition.”

To read more of Tony Robbins’ awesome blogs, be sure to check out his website here: http://humanelevation.tonyrobbins.com/blog/career/ceo-lessons-from-serena-williams

Do you agree with Robbins? What do you do to continually improve your business and set yourself apart from the competition?

As always, if you like what you read be social and share.

 

We’re Still Talkin About Practice

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By Dallas J. Short

May 7, 2002, a day that will forever be remembered as the greatest NBA press conference in history or least the press conference that created a timeless quotable. The date when Allen Iverson questioned “Practice? We’re talkin about practice, man.”

(Full disclosure, the Sixers are my favorite team and I believe Allen Iverson is one of the greatest players of all time.)

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d29VsG35DQM

Thirteen years later, we’re still talking about practice. This is a quote I use on a regular basis, as recently as Monday night I used it at my kickball game. I used it in a blog a few months ago. It has taken on a whole life outside of that press conference, been parodied by comedians, referenced by other athletes, paid homage to on t-shirts and much more.

If you’re reading this, you probably have already done your Allen Iverson “practice?” impersonation out loud or replayed it in your head. So, now that we have got that out of the way, let’s talk about a few social media practices. Don’t worry, I didn’t click bait you with the Iverson story. I really wanted to talk about it, but this is, after all, a professional blog and I figured it was a good tie-in.

Here are five social media practices, which while known, often seem to slip through the cracks.

  • Questions are a great way to engage your community. It makes your fans and followers feel involved. Do not just talk at them, talk with them. Keep your questions short, simple and to the point. “Are you talking about practice?”
  • Asking for a retweet, this is a practice which I know a lot of people say they are against, but when used right, it’s effective. If you have a strong opinion or emotional photo, this could be the time to rally your troops. Use sparingly, otherwise it will be like crying wolf and will have negative effects.
  • You have a story to tell, get it out there. Make sure you sure you have options for people to share your blog posts or articles through other social media platforms. It lets your story grow outside of your own site and increases readership.
  • Your social media voice should be the voice of your company, not an employee. Define it and ride with it. If the person handling your social media ends up not working there anymore, it should not be obvious to your readers. If the ball is ever dropped, it should be able to easily and seamlessly be picked up by anyone on your team.
  • You can never take your online community for granted. You do not need to fawn over them, but you need to make sure to thank them and make them feel appreciated. They are an extension of you. Online and offline, you want them cheering on your side.

Are there any memorable sports quotes you find yourself bringing up at work? What other social media practices do you think people sometimes forget or should try to improve?

As always, I welcome your comments and if you like what you read, be social and share.

Yes, practice.