Rugby World Cup : a Texan Perspective

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on their site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/09/29/missing-the-rugby-world-cup-its-a-crime/

Note to local miscreants: If you had plans to rob a house, you missed your chance Sunday. You should have been in Ireland.

You had no idea, did you? We can guess you didn’t because most of the United States likely doesn’t realize the world’s third-largest global sporting event is going on right now. The Irish know, though. Some 89,267 fans packed London’s Wembley Stadium Sunday, and judging by their number of green shirts (and wigs, facepaint, and capes), 89,167 of the assembled throng were Irish. The entire country seemed to have emptied to come watch its national team, and set an attendance record for a Rugby World Cup game. And of those Irelanders who didn’t make it across the Irish Sea to see the match in person, you’d have to figure a significant portion of them watched the TV3 broadcast in pubs for the duration of the match. So that meant a lot of temporarily vacant housing ripe for burgling.


Of course, even if you’d tuned in to see the match here in the States and noticed the green sea covering the stadium’s red seats, you wouldn’t have made it to the Emerald Isle in time to get into much trouble. But you almost certainly didn’t watch it because it wasn’t one of the featured matches on official U.S. broadcasters Universal Sports Network and NBC Sports Network. Those outlets are carrying USA Rugby’s matches plus a handful of others (including the semis and final). You would have had to purchase the pay-per-view package with your ill-gotten gains.
FYI, the USA’s chances to advance past pool play don’t look strong at this point. They’ve lost tough games to Samoa and Scotland (though they did lead the latter at halftime), and they’ve got match-ups ahead against Cinderella story Japan and one of the world’s best, South Africa.

If you do fancy watching upcoming U.S. games at Upper 90 on College or another rugby-friendly sports bar, you’ll want to come armed with some knowledge.

Firstly, know that the sport you’ll watch is called “rugby union.” It’s played with 15 players per side and is distinct from the rugby league code, which uses 13 men. The two sides split more than a hundred years ago over professionalism issues. The American football code broke off from rugby not long after that, fyi.  Rule (or law, as they say in rugby) differences evolved over time. Rugby union, the most popular code in most of the world, finally went professional in the 1990s.
New Zealand’s team, known as the All Blacks for the uniforms they wear, is the defending champion and the favorite to win in 2015. Australia, England, France, Ireland, South Africa, and Wales are also considered to have decent chances. New Zealand and some of the Pacific Island teams perform Haka rituals before the game. These are based on native dances and are an important part of rugby tradition.

I won’t try to explain all the laws (rules) here, but just remember you can’t pass the ball backwards and you can tackle really hard as long as you come in low and wrap up your opponent. To score a try (similar to a football touchdown), you have to cross the tryline (aka goal line) and touch the ball to the ground.

World Rugby (formerly known as the International Rugby Board), the sport’s global governing body, suggests that the Rugby World Cup ranks behind only the Olympics and soccer’s FIFA World Cup in worldwide impact. Teams representing six continents participate, with Canada, Argentina, and Uruguay joining the USA from the western hemisphere.
England hosts the quadrennial event this year, with Wales also staging eight games (Japan gets it in 2019). Whether you’re into rugby or not, the whole spectacle of a huge sporting event feels cool to a sports fan. The RWC’s presence shows up throughout London. Notices remind you to factor in possible gameday delays when taking the train, advertising signs pass along official sponsor messages (and the occasional ambush ad), and people wearing rugby shirts from many countries wander the streets.


The game I attended (together with the whole of Ireland) came at Wembley Stadium. The facility serves as England’s national association football (soccer) stadium, but it has also have played host to a pair of RWC matches. Even though the crowd had only pockets of yellow-clad Romanian supporters, the game presentation stayed studiously down the middle, as it must during a neutral-site event. The P.A. announcer’s energy level when announcing lineups and tries for both sides would have felt at home at a Mavs game. They play both national anthems before the match and have a large video board for replays.


Late in the game, a wave (or Mexican wave, as the English call it) broke out. It started poorly, with different decks going in different directions, but eventually straightened itself out.


A packed pregame fanfest offered a chance for attendees to mingle, drink Heineken (RWC official beer), try a few rugby-related games, and watch USA v Scotland on a big screen. At one point, one of the event’s on-screen messages directed Dermot Kelly, Michael Collins, and Padraig Pearse to the lost-and-found. It was either a prank, a joke, or a tradition and I never quite figured out which – the men mentioned are an actor and two Irish revolutionaries from the days when they fought the English presence on their home island. While we’re on the subject of revolutions, here’s another good reason for the American one. On a whim, we tried the nachos in the fanzone. Thank goodness for independence – you do not want the English controlling your nacho-making. Trust me.
Once the game began, a strong Irish team coming off a win in the RBS 6 Nations tournament (an annual meeting of the national rugby teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales) crushed the Romanians. The Irish team now sits at the top of Pool D.

Criminals, take note, Ireland plays again on Saturday against Italy. If you’re taking a crowbar or wire cutters with you on the plane, be sure to put them in your checked luggage. For the rest of you, there’s a huge sporting event going on, to which you may want to pay attention. You might really enjoy the spectacle and the competition, even if you’ve planned nothing more nefarious than collapsing a scrum.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


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Stars For A Day

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on their site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/09/23/stars-for-a-day/

When you attend a Dallas Stars game, you might say “Wow, that video they play before the game looks awesome!” You might laugh a lot during a TV timeout when ersatz game show host Daryl Reaugh awards a player 25,000 points for preferring steak over sushi. You could even declare, “Wow, Jamie Benn’s really cute without his helmet.”

After making those observations about what you’ve just seen on the big center-hung video screen, you might then wonder “How do they do all this stuff?” The answer: Media Day.

Thursday, the Stars took their whole team to Cedar Park, Texas to begin training camp. They have to marshal massive amounts of gear and personnel to make the move happen. Earlier in the day, an undertaking nearly as large preceded it. That’s the one that yields you your player features.

You don’t actually see a lot of media at Media Day. It’s mostly for the Stars’ in-house productions. They set up a dozen or so video and photo stations scattered throughout a darkened Frisco Dr Pepper StarCenter. Top players like Jason Spezza and Jamie Benn visit every spot, while young players likely to spend the season in Cedar Park or junior hockey don’t have to make the entire circuit.

Stars Vice President of Production and Entertainment Jason Walsh and his department bear the responsibility for putting on the event. They want to try to shoot almost every element they’ll need for the entire season. Why do they go to the trouble?

“The players’ time is valuable,” explained Walsh. “During the season, the guys play so many games and attend so many practices and team events that their time with families is at a premium. We respect this and want to get in, capture the needed content, and get out of their way.”

On Media Day, Walsh’s group will have been at the facility since 5:00 am after a full day of setup the day before and weeks of planning.

Walsh said, “This is a project that requires every video resource we have in house and significant help from outside the organization. It takes a month or so to visualize all the needed elements from every department in the organization. Marketing, corporate partnerships and our foundation all play a major role in how we go about preparing for this day.”

At 8:30 am or so, the players started hitting the ice to shoot video elements the Stars can use in-arena, online, and in their television broadcasts. This year, the team added a high-speed camera that shoots at 240 frames per second. The slow motion video it produced looks stunningly dramatic.

After some on-ice photos, the players removed their skates and pads and returned for the next several stations. The various emplacements were numbered and the front office issued each player a card listing which ones he needed to visit. Going in numerical order was not required so long as each player made it to every station they’d assigned him.

They had to get photos made for NHL official head shots. All pro sports leagues shoot such items preseason, so as a player you can always expect that whatever hairdo you had at the beginning of the campaign will follow you throughout visiting arenas for the rest of the season.

Players also posed for photos in team branded shirts, caps, and other wearables for use by the folks who sell Stars merchandise.

Three stations on the Dr Pepper Arena’s concourse level involved players saying lines in front of a blue screen. The Stars have to use blue screens rather than the green ones typically used by weathercasters. That’s because they wear green jerseys and the technology that removes the green to replace it with a background would also take out the jersey.

They said lines for marketing and in-game use. Spoiler: if you’re at a game this year and the Stars score in the second period, you’re going home with a coupon for a free taco. You may also laugh when the player on the video board says “I like tacos.”

Another funny moment will come when players hold up a fake mustache while saying lines. This one isn’t for a sponsor promotion, though. Pro athletes often look to do more than just entertain. They can can use their visibility to inform and motivate fans regarding charitable causes. The Stars Foundation station creates that sort of content.

Also upstairs, they did interviews for Stars features and Fox Sports Southwest promos and features.

In a room downstairs, a sparkly 30-foot wide banner stood behind two podiums. Players entered this room by twos so they could play a game called “Head to Head.” Stars TV/Radio analyst Daryl Reaugh played the part of a game show host, asking questions and allowing players to answer as seriously or flippantly as they desired. Sometimes they got it. Sometimes they didn’t and it was still amusing. Reaugh suggested that the best line of the day might have been when defenseman John Klingberg declared “I don’t understand this at all.”

“The whole idea is to give fans a chance to see the players in a different setting, without their gear, and hopefully exhibiting a bit of their personality,” Reaugh explained. “The more smiles we can put on fans’ (and players’) faces, the better.”

Razor has mastered the subtle details that traditionally marked the game show genre. He wore a loud tie. He entered the set as if Don Pardo had just introduced him. He improvised awarding ridiculous sums of points for answers he saw as having shot and scored.

“One of the best answers came from (goaltender Antti) Niemi,” Reaugh said. The question was: ‘Would you rather spend summers in Texas or winters in Finland?’ He was up against fellow Finn Kari Lehtonen and he showed quick wit to go along with his lightning reflexes. His answer: ‘Summers in Finland, winters in Texas.’ Bam!”

Reaugh even engaged in fake silent happy talk after the game show concluded. That’s the part where the audio operator has turned the microphones down on the set but you see the host banter with the contestants as the credits roll. Razor mimicked the effect by mouthing words to the players after he closed each segment. If the players caught on, it was funny. If they didn’t, it was funny.

Sports teams have long produced lots of content (like game programs, scorecards, and publications like Dallas Cowboys Weekly), but technology like HD video boards and websites has driven teams to put resources into producing content of all kinds like never before. They do it all to entertain and engage Stars fans like yourself. And now when you see some of that content on the American Airlines Center video boards, you’ll be able to say “I know where that comes from – Media Day.”

Disclosure: For the last couple of years, the Stars have paid me to help organize the crews and gear for their Media Day setup.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


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Wines Above Replacement

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on their site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/09/15/wines-above-replacement/

Precocious and powerful, with hints of strawberry. Consider a possible pairing with salmon.

Did I just describe Gallo, the wine, or Gallo, the baseball player?

Modern technology and sabermetrics have combined to empower an ever-growing crop of analysts to rate the odds that young baseball players will prosper in the big leagues. As the prospect prognosticators have sought ways to express their opinions, they’ve popularized certain terminology. One evening while watching the exploits of a ballplayer who shares a last name with a winemaker, it occurred to me that the way talent evaluators use words like “toolsy,” “raw,” and “pitchability” have much in common with the way wine enthusiasts use words like “buttery,” “crisp,” and “drinkability.” I may or may not have been nursing a glass of Tempranillo when the parallel occurred to me.

So can we find linguistic common ground between wines and wins, and how might we relate such to the Rangers’ viticulturally named prospect Joey Gallo? To explore the possibilities, I consulted with Jon Bonnell, owner and executive chef of Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine in Fort Worth. He has taught an extended education class called Wine 101 at TCU, and he knows tannins and blends the way a scouting director knows contact rates and Ultimate Zone Ratings.

Baseball uses five basic evaluation tools : run, field, throw, hit, and hit for power. “Typically,” Bonnell said via email. “We start to describe wine by style, weight, personal characteristics and specific perceptible food flavors.”

Certainly baseball evaluators look at weight, and also personal characteristics like good citizenship. They rate tools on a scale with numbers from 20 to 80. Wine raters use a 100-point scale, and, like baseball, the higher the score the better. Noted critic Robert Parker, Jr. created the system (should it be called parkermetrics?), which considers clarity, bouquet, taste, length, and quality.

“You get a base of 50 points just for being able to make wine in the first place,” Bonnell said. “The scores reflect exactly how we were graded in school. 70 points, obviously some flaws, not great, barely passing. Over 90 points, you’ve really got something there. Nobody wants to get the dreaded 89-point wine score. It’s like a batter hitting .299 on the season. It just sounds wrong.”

We’ve certainly established a baseline for comparison here between, if we so chose, vino and Votto. It’s a different Joey we had in mind for this column, though, so I asked Joey Gallo to talk about himself a bit. The former minor league 40-home run man knows what scouts have noticed about him.

“Obviously, most people think power,” said Gallo. “It’s what comes to mind for me.”

So, does the word “power” get used in describing wine?

Jon Bonnell says, “ ‘Power’ is used a tremendous amount in wines. When a wine is very expressive, or seems highly concentrated, it’s referred to as a powerful wine. Pinot noirs tend to be on the light side, with plenty of finesse and lighter fruit, tart acidity. Cabernet Sauvignon or Petite Sirah tends to show much more power with intensity and concentrated darker fruit flavors, heavy on the palate, with long finishes.”

Gallo has hit more than 120 home runs in his first four minor league seasons and that specific talent has made him one of the most buzz-worthy prospects in baseball. It’s a skill in high demand in today’s game and it’s also sexy. Chicks still dig the longball, and so do general managers. Power plays well at the plate or on the palate, it seems.

Gallo believes he can do more than just hit the ball a long way and, as he acknowledges, strike out a lot.

“Because of my body type, people want to assume that I’m just a big power hitter and not really doing anything else on the field but just trying to hit home runs,” he said. “That’s not really true.”

Gallo cited baserunning and defense as areas in which he feels underrated. Did you see him speed safely into third on a wild pitch last Friday and look rather athletic doing it? The Rangers have felt good enough about his defensive abilities to let the third baseman play more than 100 innings in the big league outfield this season.

“For me, being so big and stuff, it gives you a lot of room to run around and you know you can have longer throws,” he said. “You can throw balls a lot harder. At third base, you only have a certain amount of distance to throw a ball and you have to be perfect on the target. Here (in the outfield), you can kind of let balls go and I’ve had a lot of fun in the outfield so far.”

In wine, too, “big” can be considered good or bad. When referring to taste, it indicates a wine of intense flavor. When it comes to serving size, however, we tend to think of products bottled in containers larger than 750ml as the immobile corner infielders of the wine world (John Kruk comes to mind). Like Joey Gallo, though, the reality is more nuanced.

“When someone gets wine in anything other than a nice wine bottle (box, jug, etc) it tends to be the cheap stuff,” Bonnell explained. “Very nice wines, however, are often available in large format sizes (magnums, 3-liter, 6-liter). These large format bottles fetch much more money for their collectable nature and limited availability. Just like a baseball card doesn’t always reflect how good the player was, only how rare the card might be, a large format, say 6-liter bottle from one particular vintage might be way more valuable than the same wine if you bought eight regular bottles. Larger bottles also age at a slightly slower rate, so they have big collector potential for those wanting to hang on to them a while.”

In both wines and baseball, we see and hear comparisons. People see some historical slugger embodied in Joey Gallo every time he homers, walks, strikes out, or fiddles with his stance. It’s the equivalent, said Jon Bonnell, of looking at “flavor profiles, fruit characteristics, oak aging attributes, price, region, and vintage.” I named some Gallo-related players and asked for Bonnell’s opinion on equivalent wines.

On the Grantland website, Ben Lindbergh suggested that Gallo’s best comp according to the PECOTA system was, encouragingly to Rangers fans, Giancarlo Stanton.

Stanton is Californian, goes well with fish (he just signed a long-term deal with the Marlins), and is super premium rich (thanks that previously-mentioned record-breakingly expensive deal with the Marlins).

Bonnell suggests: A big time Napa chardonnay like Kistler or Staglin, rich in every way, aged in only the finest French oak barrels, perfectly balanced and a great pairing with fish.A comparison that occurred to me was Adam Dunn, a guy who walked a lot, struck out a lot, and hit 462 career home runs. For him, I thought about something red (He played several seasons with the Reds), big, and that goes well with steak (Dunn played football for the University of Texas Longhorns).

Bonnell suggests: Dunn Reserve is a highly collected Napa cult wine, but always needs at least 10 years to become drinkable. Not one to ever go near when its young.

Darryl Strawberry was another power hitter who drew his share of walks (Gallo tends to be a selective hitter). I wondered, is there a wine that goes well with strawberries?

Bonnell suggests: Champagne comes to mind, a perfect pairing with strawberries, a little nutty, but always worth celebrating over.

A Fangraphs article by Chris Mitchell offered a number of comps for Gallo. Tim Salmon stuck out for me, perhaps because his inclusion reflected the young Ranger’s high upside (a good scouting word) or perhaps because of how he used to rake against Texas.

Bonnell suggests: Salmon begs for a pinot noir. It’s on the lighter side of red, great acidity, tart cherry and cranberry notes, just enough fruit to pair perfectly with a rich, grilled filet of salmon.

I also asked Gallo about hitters he considered influential in his career.

Derek Jeter – iconic, good over a long period of time.

Gallo says: My parents are from New York. I grew up a huge Yankee fan, of Derek Jeter. I wasn’t the type of player he was. He was more of a contact hitter, righty, shortstop.

Bonnell suggests: Opus One. It stands up to the test of time and is reliable and outstanding year in and year out. Also, on the pricey side, just like Jeter. And it’s easy to spot a mile away, very distinct label.

Chris Davis – a robust Texan.

Gallo says: Ever since I got drafted, I kind of got compared to Chris Davis with the Orioles. He plays first base now (Davis came up as a third baseman), but that kind of player: hitting, going to strike out a lot, hit for some power, average won’t always be too high, but will produce a little bit and so I’ve always looked at a guy like that.

Bonnell suggests: Becker Iconoclast, as big and intense as any Texas cab yet.

Jason Giambi (who worked with Gallo in Las Vegas) – a big personality that needed to mature.

Gallo says: For him, it was more like a mental side that he’d talk to me about – not always on-the-field stuff, kind of off-the-field stuff that you’ll have to deal with.

Bonnell suggests: Berringer Private Reserve. It’s got a hefty price tag and everybody wants in on it from the ground floor, but if you don’t let it age enough, it’s too rough to handle. Once it mellows and matures, it’s smooth and complex, well worth the wait.

One comparison we can’t really make is to Ernest or Julio. Joey isn’t related to the famous winemaking Gallos.

“I don’t know if I’d be playing baseball if I was related to that guy,” he acknowledged. “I’d probably be making wine somewhere.”

The Rangers do serve a variety of Gallo-brand wines at Globe Life Park in Arlington, though that has more to do with corporate relationships than with any desire to create a liquid equivalent of the Beltre Buster.

Joey Gallo hasn’t matured into a rare vintage of a ballplayer yet, the kind that gets a 24-ounce hamburger named after him. He’s struggled to master the top two levels of pro baseball this year. He just became eligible to drink fermented beverages (if he so chooses) last November, though, and few players of his age excel against that level of competition. He popped a home run off Clayton Kershaw during his first big league stint and the Rangers recalled him from Round Rock for the September pennant drive, so one expects he’s still got a great chance to become a superb big leaguer. His journey from minor leaguer to Major League standout could end up looking a lot like that of a startup winery.

“When you plant a vineyard, you cannot get your first crop of grapes for three years. Even then, maybe it’s not such good stuff. As the vines mature, the fruit usually improves,” said Bonnell. “There are some vineyards still harvesting incredible wines from 100 year old vines. Termanthia in Spain has received a perfect 100-point score for 100+ year old grapevines. Most cabernet in Napa tends to be in the sweet spot somewhere from 5-25 years of age.”

Gallo finds himself in that sweet spot, hoping to eventually earn his place in a big league cellar/clubhouse. Like an enthusiastic vintner, he plans to savor the process.

“One of the things (Jason Giambi) taught me is just kind of have fun with it,” he said. “Don’t take it for granted.”

In baseball, as in wine, the important thing is not how you describe it. It’s how you enjoy it.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


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Fantasy Football Slackers

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on their site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/09/09/fantasy-football-slackers/

Russel and Rush

At this time of year, I get sort of annoyed with my friend Russell.

That’s not actually fair to him. Russell is a good guy with a lovely family and he’s a fine citizen, with no outstanding warrants to my knowledge. The reason I’m vexed with Russell is quite unreasonable, actually : he’s not a football fan and therefore doesn’t play fantasy football.

Of course, I shouldn’t be bothered by him;  It’s me and my football issues that are the problem. I feel like I’m dead weight in my fantasy league. There, I said it, got it out in the open (exhale). I’m that guy who fails to update his roster for weeks on end. If my quarterback is in a bye week or sustains a season-ending hangnail, my opponent that week pretty much gets a free win. I let the computer autodraft for me. In short, I’m apathetic.

The thing is, I’m very much not apathetic about sports, as the three or four of you (including my father and editor) who read this column regularly may know. My problem is one of self-control.

I could easily get carried away with fantasy sports. I’d love to munch data and micromanage a roster like crazy. Constant monitoring of the latest league-wide minutiae, however, would require oodles of time a business owner doesn’t have. So I don’t even try fantasy sports like baseball and hockey that play lots of games. Football’s once-a-week approach better tolerates indifference.

I forced myself to adopt this approach a few years ago after spending a sizable amount of time researching players and preparing a draft list for a league in which I used to play. I even created a logo (sorry for the trademark infringement –  it was right after the XFL’s bold experiment). We got into the season and I got busy with some work stuff and forgot to update my roster to remove a key player on his bye week. I lost that week, of course, and heard about it from the guy vying with my opponent in the standings. He was right : My inattention was bogus. When that league decided to raise the entry fee to $100 the next year, I decided I needed to either go hard or go home. I went home.

Luckily, a good friend named Trent runs a fantasy league and he offered to let me in despite my likely failings as an owner.

Trent is a fantasy sports guru. He’s won a number of leagues and in high school, he even ran a USFL league (which he won). In those pre-internet days, we couldn’t have spent all our time gathering data on that league even if we had wanted to. We drafted by passing around the same preseason preview magazine and basically picking random names. Trent guessed right on Jim Kelly and John Jenkins’ Run-and-Shoot offense.

Maybe Trent allows me to play in his league because he’s a good guy (he is) or maybe he’s keen to get that occasional free win when I forget that some All-Pro running back or other has been on injured reserve for three weeks. Whatever the reason, Trent has assured my that my detachment would be OK with him and the XFL Rejects were welcomed (maybe too strong a word there) into the circuit known as “Fractional Points Rule.”

In the ensuing years, I actually managed to win the league once, although in the depths of my apathy I had forgotten it until the commish reminded me in the course of researching this article. Autodraft stuck me with Peyton Manning and he went nuts that year. I tend to feel bad when I beat someone, knowing it’s all luck. The one bit of work I have actually put into it the last couple years (other than really trying to occasionally, every once in a while, remember to adjust my roster if someone has a bye week) is to cut any Redskins the computer drafts for me. As a Cowboy fan, I realized it diminished my enjoyment of football on Sundays to cheer for any part of the team with the least sensitive name in pro sports. I dropped Alfred Morris the year after he gained 1600 yards just because of his team affiliation. I didn’t win many games that year, but I also didn’t experience the angst of having to root for him to shred the Pokes’ D twice that season.

You’ve now heard my fantasy football confession and you’re probably thinking : “How does this involve that Russell guy?” Well, see, when Trent first started the league he got Russell to join it. As a math genius, Russell could really make hay with advanced statistical analysis if he wanted to, but he just doesn’t really like football. So after a few years, he dropped out of Fractional Points Rule.

I hated that, because as long as Russell had a team, there was someone in the league more apathetic than me. Now I was on my own, my lethargy exposed to the world. It was tough to swallow.

Thus I’ve decided to make a guy who’s been a loyal comrade since 7th grade the scapegoat for my fake football failings. I realize this situation is really on Trent and me. We had four years of high school to help Russ realize how rewarding obsessing over sports can be and we failed. Kind of like the XFL Rejects will do again this year.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

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Harlequins : Onside with Rugby in the U.S.

We have a special video blog this week, created in conjunction with our partners at the Fort Worth Weekly and Ludisian Legion Entertainment. It's got interesting sports business insights and sound bites from a cool kid we met.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports