Who Knew? Valentine’s Day is for Sports Lovers

I am guessing that people who schedule sporting events must look at a Calendar now and then, no?  When sporting events cross with mainstream events, it sometimes gets interesting.

Valentine’s day, February 14th is coming up and some of the common characteristics associated with this special day include a romantic dinner, maybe long stem red roses, some chocolate and maybe even a wedding proposal.  Now, be honest, how many of you would have thought of Valentine’s day = sporting event(s)?

I went to the Sports Calendar Bible, better known as SportsCalendarPro.com and wanted to know who planned major sporting events for V-day.  How many significant others would be upset at this “conflict of interest.”

The following are events researched and listed and happen to fall on Valentine’s Day.

*  The Winter Olympics from Vancouver

* The Daytona 500

* The NBA All-Star Game

These are the big events but I am sure there are most regional events in your area.  What were they thinking?  It may have coincidence falling on a weekend this year, thus the conflict, buy who knew that Valentine’s day is for Sports lovers?

Whatever the case, I have seen enough wedding proposals at sporting events to know that lovers are found all over.  Even at sporting events.

Special Events + Business Intelligence = Success

A good friend asked for a favor as she was preparing for another special event.  She works for a non-profit group and somehow, nearly single-handedly puts together terrific events and raises thousands of dollars as part of her job responsibilities.

She is currently  in the final stages of planning another event this week and called me for a bit of resource assistance.  My friend received a couple of tickets for an Anaheim Ducks game as a silent auction item and wanted to know if I had items that could enhance the presentation.

Of course I did.  I got a hockey stick and T-shirt with the team logo over to her to help dress up the presentation.

We got to speaking about the weekend’s festivities and she said that she was expecting some 250 people for the 3rd annual fundraising event.  This was an increase, she noted, of more than 100 people more than a year ago.

“Why such a difference?” I inquired.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.  “I think it is because of the time of year and the day we chose a year ago.”

Therein lies the challenge.  People who put on special events, from my experience concentrate on the planning and execution.  Here is the secret.  Special Events + Business Intelligence = Success.

Putting on the event is only part of the job.  To learn more, follow the story to www.sportsinfo101.com

Let the Wild Rumpus start!

Let the Wild Rumpus start! The NFL playoffs are here and there are four games this weekend, Two games today and two games tomorrow.
Today, the New York Jets travel to take on the Cincinnati Bengals in a game that starts at 4:30 p.m. ET and 1:30 p.m. o the West Coast.
In the late game, the Philadelphia Eagles will play the Dallas Cowboys in an 8:00 p.m. (ET)/5:00 PT kickoff.
Both games are being televised on NBC

Bowl’d Over, Finally

Tonight is it.  The final of the 956 annual college football bowl games leading up to the BCS championship between the University of Alabama and the University of Texas.

This game decides who will be named national champion, unless of course you hail from Boise State and you want to be considered in the same sandbox.  I have heard some media reports that Boise, who finished the season 14-0, could be named #1 in the next fall’s pre-season college football poll.

TV ratings are expected to be high, social media sites like Twitter will surely have thousands of folks posting messages about every other play in the game.

Most special events, outside of the Mega technology event based in Las Vegas CES have hopefully stayed away from planning any sort of event that conflicts with tonight’s game.

otherwise, be prepared for TV’s being rolled out somewhere or many folks checking their smart phones to get score updates.

NFL Playoff Game Schedules

Now that the 2009-10 NFL regular season is in the books, the planners at the National Football League get down to business pretty fast as the 2010 NFL playoffs begin in earnest this weekend.

I have just spent time updating the sports component of SportsCalendarPro.com and have added each round of the playoffs, from Wild Card Games all the way through to the NFC and AFC Championship games.  If you have purchased the subscription, then you are enjoying a central location for all major sports events.  This allows you to see which teams are playing, the location, TV broadcast and time of event.

For example, here is what you would see on the schedule, a breakdown,  for Saturday’s NFL, AFC Wild Card Game

The New York Jets vs. Cincinnati Bengals

NBC

4:30 p.m. ET

The best part of this is that you can see it within Goolge Calandar, if you like seeing your schedule online.  As for me, I do not put my scheduleds online,  Rather, everything is sync’d with my iphone and I can do that within the system as well.  For the first time in my life, I have all of the schedules in one place, iCal and iPhone.  The Sports Calendar, The Tech Calendar, the Entertainment Calendar, major holidays, friends and family birthdays, business meetings are all color coded in one place.

I love it.

A Busy January for Sports

Are you “football’d out?”

After a plethora of college and football games in the last week, my guess is, now that you have returned back to work and the remaining schedule might have escaped your thoughts, outside of the BCS National Championship Football game on Thursday this week, between Texas and Alabama.  Once I got to work this morning, I started to look at the schedule and noticed, starting tonight, there are still a number of football games including one every night between now and Thursday.

You have the 39th Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Fed Ex Orange Bowl and the GMAC Bowl leading up to Thursday’s championship game.

So that got me to thinking.  How bust of a January do we have in sports?  I went to my www.SportsCalendarPro.com sports schedule and did a little checking…..

I have counted 29 major sports events in January alone.  This includes the NFL playoffs, Australian Open, Baseball Hall of Fame related events and a sports related business conference towards the end of the month.  That’s just the sports side.  I also used SportsCalendarPro.com to check major technology and entertainment events for the month and, we begin this new decade, everyone seems in a hurry to hold a major event in January.

What I did note though, and something that is pretty well-known is that Tuesday and Wednesday are the slower days for events in any given month.  January being no exception.  Of course there are college basketball games and other events, but as a whole, they do not make the schedule since they are not considered national in significance.

In any case, enjoy your viewing!

Attention All Event Planners

This blog is specifically for you. In the course of a year, I am sure you have many different types of events to worry about. Some of you may be planning weddings, others fundraising events while a niche group might be planning an executive retreat.

The first question that often comes up is, when is the best time to plan such a special event?

I cannot tell you how many times I have attending a fundraising event only to see a TV “propped” up in the corner because it was conflicts with the super bowl, the academy awards or the NCAA final four basketball tournament or a big technology trade show like CES.

Do you have a resource to check again conflicts

2010 Complete Sports Calendar

Welcome to the first posting of the Sports Calendar Pro blog.  My name is Charles Harris and I will be your guide.   I have created this sports blog to help let people know about the fantastic new tool I have created, www.SportsCalendarPro.com.  Why did I create this new resource based web site?  For starters, I have been involved in the sports management business for more than 20 years.  In all of that time, I never found a complete guide to sporting events listed in one place.

I have a regular blog that I have been posting to for more than a year.  Located at www.sportsinfo101.com, this site covers the business of sports.  It includes the news, jobs and people behind the sports business.

What we are here to talk about events.  I spoke with people and even conducted a poll, would you have an interest in a complete calendar, with 100 U.S. major sports events and conferences, where you could see it all in one place with dates and times?  Everyone said yes.  So please, visit the site and try it.

Let’s take a quick look at events.  If you have purchased my calendar, you would know that the Hesiman Trophy Award ceremony is scheduled for tonight.  Most college football fans would want to know this.