Creating the Court - Final Four 2012

Below is a timelapse video of the making of the 2012 NCAA Final Four Court. It's amazing what goes into creating this floor and awesome that somebody set-up a camera to capture this.

Extreme Skydiving

Often I focus on mainstream sports, but today I wanted to bring attention to an amazing skydiving feat. “Fearless Felix” Baumgartner jumped from a pressurized capsule 71,580 feet in the air earlier this month. That distance equates to 13.56 miles above the Earth. During his just under 4-minute freefall, he reached speeds of 364.4 mph. From end-to-end he was falling for 8 minutes and 8 seconds.

The capsule is an amazing piece of machinery. According to Wired.com, “the capsule has a 6-foot diameter pressure vessel to provide protection from the cold air and thin oxygen. Baumgartner will inflate the pressure suit when he is ready to take his big leap. The 2,900-pound capsule will need around three hours to reach 120,000 feet.”

Despite the impressive height of this jump, Baumgartner has not yet broken the record for highest leap. That title still belongs to his mentor Joe Kittinger from Florida who has jumped from a staggering 102,800 feet (19.5 miles). However Baumgartner plans to shatter Kittinger’s record this summer with a 23 mile high jump. Ref. wired.com, wired.com Pic. Ref. wired.com

MOTOACTV Golf

Motorola has added MOTOACVTV Golf Edition to their MOTOACTV line. Endorsed by Bubba Watson, MOTOACTV Golf leverages GPS to give the golfer real distances to the front/middle/back of the green and to hazards while they are on the links. It also tracks shots and keeps score. Once you get home you can analyze your round and even compare it to other golfers’ rounds (including how Pro’s did on the same course). MOTOACTV Golf can track rounds on 20,000 courses worldwide.

This technology seems pretty impressive. I am excited to see the accuracy of the yardage, but even a semi-close estimate (especially for tougher distances like to hazards) could be hugely helpful for most golfers. Perhaps the coolest feature is the ability to compare your round with a Pro’s. For more details on this new tech tool, check out motoactv.com. Fans at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, FL will get a sneak peak of the gadget starting today. Ref. yahoo.com Pic. Ref. bfreenews.com

Adidas adiPure Adapt

Adidas has added to their adiPure line a feather light shoe designed for the barefoot running enthusiast. This shoe weighs just 4.5 ounces and was, according to Hypebeast.com, “[m]ade to harness the body’s natural mechanics, this technologically-advanced design offers minimal cushioning between the wearer and the ground, forcing your legs and feet to experience the subtle changes in impact. This in turn will influence the wearer to run on his or her mid or fore-foot, providing a more natural run.”

The shoe is currently only available in Europe, Japan and China but planned to be released in the US in June. Ref. Hypebeast.com Pic. Ref. Hypebeast.com

Tournament Challege Challenged

Sports + Spoof Video + March Madness = Tournament Challenge Challenged.

The Tournament Challenge Challenged from Stan Verrett

Though this video could, nay should, have been a minute shorter, it's still well worth watching. Happy March Madness everyone.

March Madness Bracket Infographic

Infographics have been around for a while but are now popping up everywhere as a way of visually sharing pieces of information (usually numbers or stats). This is an especially great tool for showing interesting facts about sports/teams/tournaments etc. Here is a really cool infographic I came across about March Madness, specifically brackets. Hopefully it will help you as you make your picks this year. Ref. totalprosports.com



Created by: Business Degree

World Cup's Impact on Wall Street

Last month the Washington Post published fascinating findings about the influence of soccer matches on Wall Street. *While this topic veers slightly off course from my typical articles, it was so interesting I wanted to share it anyway.

According to the Washington Post,

How popular is soccer? Popular enough to bring financial markets to a halt, it seems. A new paper (pdf) from the European Central Bank finds that during the 2010 World Cup, the number of stock trades plunged an average of 45 percent in countries whose teams were playing at the time. (A goal caused a further 5 percent drop.) “We conclude,” write Michael Ehrmann and David-Jan Jansen, “that stock markets were following developments on the soccer pitch rather than in the trading pit.”

It is crazy how far reaching and impactful an effect sports can have on business. There is no doubt numerous articles will be published over the next few weeks about the dramatic drop in work productivity during March Madness. My opinion (while skewed since I like sports and am not attempting to run a business) is that employers need to be aware of what’s going on, respect the interest, and if possible embrace it. Permit games to be on in break areas and allow for flexible hours so employees can watch games and return to work. Whether it’s the World Cup, March Madness, the Olympics etc, like it or not watching these sporting events will take precedence over most everything else (especially work). So be reasonably flexible and enjoy the renewed excitement and energy these events bring to the office morale. Ref. washingtonpost.com

Vintage NY Yanks

New York photographer Nick Laham used a basic phone app to take truly remarkable photos of the New York Yankees. Laham took part in the team’s traditional photo day. He lined up at 6am alongside many photographers in the Yankees' Spring Training facility in Tampa to snap the best shot he could of the team.

Laham ended up shooting players in the locker room bathrooms with a regular camera and his iPhone 4s. He then used Instagram (a free photo sharing application that runs on iOS and “allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter, then share it a variety of social networking services” ref Wikipedia.org) to upload the pictures to his blog. The results are extraordinary, vintage-looking shots of the team. Below is Nick Laham's photo of Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez. Click here to see more pictures. Ref. blog.wsj.com, nicklaham.com, wikipedia.org Pic. Ref. nicklaham.com

Let the Madness Begin

It is the first day of March! This means one great thing for college basketball fans, MARCH MADNESS. Selection Sunday, the day the bracket is announced, is just over a week away. The amazing process of selecting which teams dance and which head for the NIT is one of the most fascinating processes in sports. NCAA.com recently posted a great video on their website explaining the selection process. (Editor’s note, lots of love for the first team highlighted). To see the video, CLICK HERE
Pic. Ref: tv.popcrunch.com