Author: David Shama

NBA teams are allowed to place corporate names on their practice uniforms and the Timberwolves have added this to their sales offerings. Team business executive Chris Wright said the Wolves will offer a package that not only includes their practice jerseys, but also other practice site signage.

The Minnesota Lynx and other WNBA teams are allowed to place corporate names on both game and practice jerseys.  Wright, who is also involved with the Lynx, said separate sponsors for the two local pro teams makes the most sense because of differing demographics.  He said 82 percent of Lynx fans are female, with about 63 percent of Wolves patrons being male.

WCCO Radio Sports Huddle host Dave Mona read Wednesday’s Sports Headliners story about the “devastating” changeup of Twins pitching prospect Deolis Guerra.  Mona then emailed with an anecdote about his high school pitching days at Roosevelt.  Several years after graduating from Roosevelt he encountered an umpire who recalled Mona’s pitching skills. “I remember it very well,” the umpire said, “because for the first two innings I thought you had one of the best changeups I’d ever seen in a high school pitcher…until I figured out it was your fast ball.”

The Wild’s Brent Burns is at Hockey Canada’s National Men’s Team orientation camp in Calgary.  Burns is one of only 16 defensemen trying for a spot on Canada’s Olympic roster.

Former Minnesota North Star Mike Modano, 39, is hoping to make the U.S. Olympic team.  The Olympic team’s general manager is Edina native and Toronto general manager Brian Burke.  The winter Olympics will be held in Vancouver next February.

New Jersey forward and Faribault native Zach Parise took batting practice from Twins manager Ron Gardenhire on Tuesday.

Former Minnesota North Star Gord Dineen was recently named an assistant coach with the Toronto Marlies, the Maple Leafs’ American Hockey League affiliate.

Canterbury Park’s summer race season ends Sunday with the 16th Minnesota Festival of Champions, a day of racing dedicated to horses bred in Minnesota.  Post time on Sunday is 1:30 pm.

Former Viking Mike Morris, now a KFAN talk show host, thinks the Brett Favre-fueled Vikings can go 12-4 this season.  He told Sports Headliners if Favre is able to play at the level he did before injuring his arm last season with the Jets, the Vikings have a quarterback who will perform with the best in the NFC.  He ranks Favre No. 1 among quarterbacks in the NFC North.

Morris said it’s important that the Vikings limit Favre’s throws in practice and that is going to happen.  Coach Brad Childress said this week he isn’t going to put a number on the throws but “it seems prudent.”

Childress also expects Favre to start and play the first half of Monday night’s preseason game in Houston against the Texans.

Chicago linebacker Brian Urlacher was asked in the August 17 issue of Sports Illustrated if there’s anyone in the NFL like Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson who led the league in rushing last year.  “No, there’s no one as explosive as him,” Urlacher told S.I. “He does some things I haven’t seen before.  He’s definitely the best offensive player in the game.”

Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier talking about rookie defensive back Asher Allen, a third round draft choice, and what he likes about him: “His quickness and the way he studies.  He really does a great job of preparing.  For a rookie to take the kind of notes that he does and ask the kind of questions that he does ask really lets you know that he is really into it and doing everything he can to mentally be engaged in what we are trying to get done. You don’t normally see that in rookies. They are usually more focused in trying to get through a practice physically. …”

Through two games the Vikings are the only NFL team that hasn’t given up a sack or turned the ball over.

St. Thomas is ranked in three preseason top-25 polls for Division III — the first national ranking in football since 1997. The Tommies were 7-3 last season under first-year head coach Glenn Caruso. Their plus-five turnaround from a 2-8 finish in 2007 was the third best out of 241 D-III programs. (Caruso’s first seven MIAC games were decided by eight or fewer points).

New Tommie assistant coach Eric Pulley worked at three different prep football coaching jobs in the same season during 2005.  When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in late August of that year, he moved to Mississippi to coach, and storm damage there forced him to relocate to Burnsville where he finished the season.

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Despite Brett Favre’s impact on ticket sales and other revenues, the celebrity quarterback is expected to cost the Vikings more money than he generates.  In discussions with three sports and entertainment sources who spoke anonymously, there was consensus the Vikings will lose money this season on Favre’s reported $12 million contract.

Since the announcement of Favre’s signing last week the Vikings have sold thousands of season and individual game tickets.  Let’s presume the franchise sells an additional 10,000 tickets per game (probably a generous estimate) at an average cost of $70 per ticket.  For a 10 game preseason and regular season schedule, that’s $7 million in gross sales.  But the Vikings don’t keep all of that money because the NFL requires the home team to share 40 percent of its ticket revenues with the visiting teams.

Playoff ticket revenues?  Nope, the NFL keeps all the ticket revenues from those games.

The Favre fan hysteria, including the rush for Vikings jerseys with his name on the back, will be big business.  However, NFL merchandising revenues are like TV revenues in that they’re divided up among the 32 franchises.

The Vikings will likely profit from an increase in local sponsorships.  If they were able to sell several additional sponsorships, sources thought those revenues might increase by $3 million at the absolute max.

The Vikings may reduce their payroll by $500,000 or more by cutting a player because of Favre’s roster spot.  That would mean another way to look at what Favre costs is $11 million, not $12 million, and the Vikings could have revenues of about $7 million to put against that figure.  Net loss: $4 million.  That’s minimum and probably under stated by a lot.

Vikings owners, including Zygi Wilf, didn’t sign Favre with worries about whether dime for dime he pays for himself in 2009.  Instead, this is another sizeable investment in player payroll to push the Vikings toward post-season success, perhaps a Super Bowl.

The Vikings are now mentioned in the same sentence with the most likely contenders for an NFC championship.  A championship will increase public enthusiasm and support for the Vikings beyond previous levels.  Instead of often being angry with the Vikings, this becomes a Purple-mad state.

And that’s exactly the kind of culture that will help persuade the public and government officials to push the drive for a new stadium into the “end zone.”  That’s what Wilf wants, and as part of that process the value of his franchise will jump from its estimated $839 million (lowest in the NFL according to Forbes.com) to over a billion dollars.  https://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/30/sportsmoney_nfl08_NFL-Team-Valuations_Rank_2.html

So Favre is definitely a potential money maker for the Vikings.  Just don’t crunch the numbers too closely right away.