London - Day 11 & 12

Wow.  What a busy few days it has been since I last blogged.  I caught some heat from Mrs. McGoo about my lack of blogging over the weekend and promised to do better and yet I skip a day.  I think she understands now as I was able to discuss with her what a normal day here looks like. Here's a taste of how a normal day goes here.

Wake up around 7am and get cleaned up and read a bit of "Radical" which is the book I'm currently reading.  Head to breakfast at 8 and then to lecture at 8:30.  We'll have lecture, with a small 10 min break, until 11:30.  Then get back and get dressed for our program visit and head to the buses/trains/tubes to grab lunch and travel in order to make it to our destination by 1:45 (It can take anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours to get to a location).  Our visit starts at 2pm and we'll likely get out between 5 and 5:30.  Once we are through, we'll try and see some sights around the area and then come back to get cleaned up for dinner.  Head to dinner around 7:30 or 8 and depending on where we go, will normally get back around 10:45 or 11.  Once I'm here, I try and catch up with Mrs. McGoo online, but as she can attest, hasn't been all that easy to do.  Either way, I'm now pushing midnight to try and get the blogging in or some general homework done (We specific people that present material for the lecture the next day - mine is this morning).

So as you see, we don't get a ton of down time while we're here.  I wouldn't change it for the world, but at least you can see how it can be hard for me to sit down and blog here and there.

Sky Sports News

Monday - Day 11

Today we started off with a lecture from our very own Dr. Amis (Our Memphis professor) about sport sponsorship and how necessary it is in the global market.  Sport is the one thing in the world that breaks cultural barriers and religions. 

After our lecture, we cleaned up and jumped on a train to head to Sky.  Sky is owned by Rupert Murdock, who owns News Corp, which owns tons of media entities such as Fox, The Wall St Journal, The New York Post, The Sun, as well as Sky.  The closest thing I can associate to Sky is Fox.  They have news, entertainment, sports, and other channels that are all driven by consumer interest.  Sky Sports however is the ESPN of the UK.  They show 150 sports and obviously football (soccer) is the most popular. 

Panoramic of Sky Sports News Center

We got to hear all about their processes and how they are being innovative (sounded a bit like ESPN) with their 3D channel, Sky-Go mobile app) and their 4 channels plus Sky Sports 24 hr news channel.  Sound familiar?  Then we took a tour of the facilities and saw where they host their shows, news room, and control centers.  I got a cook panoramic of the news room that I kinda liked. 

They were the first ones of all our tours to actually present us with gifts.  We all got bags with tons of goodies in them - usb drives, pens, t-shirts, towels, and other stuff.  Not bad Sky Sports News, not bad at all.

Tuesday - Day 12

White Heart Lane

Gives you an idea how BIG that trophy is

Every day, we have a group that is selected to play "host" to our guest lecturers and visits.  Today, was my group's responsibility and our visit was at Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club.  Right up my ally right?  Yep, however, they are the bitter rival to the team I support, Arsenal.  However, I didn't let that ruin my day, but it did amount to some good fun.

After our morning lecture on Sport Tourism, we headed out to Tottenham, which is located on the other side of the city.  Our appt was scheduled for 2pm, with us making sure we were there at 1:45.  We left at noon to make sure we had enough time.  Not a chance.  We after multiple train stops (literally stopping in the middle of the black tunnels) we made it to White Heart Lane (where their field is) at 2:10.  So we got a late start to our visit. 

We toured their facilities and I was very impressed with their history and stadium, just not their locker rooms.  They were a dump.  The U of M soccer teams have nicer locker rooms and that is no joke.  Walking around the stadium was really cool though, as you get the feel of being right on the pitch.  Oh, and the pitch was in fantastic shape.  They wouldn't let us walk on it because they are four weeks away from their first match. 

We then headed up to lecture where the lady speaking asked us in the room if any of us were football fans and a few of us raised our hands.  She pointed to me and said, "so, who is your favorite team."  "I'd rather not say at this point in time nor in this particular area of town."  "Ahhh, you must be an Arsenal fan."  Cue the laughter in the room by everyone.  She then proceeded to show a highlight video of the previous season and how they fared.  Half of the highlight video was of Tottenham coming from 2 nil down to beat Arsenal 3-2 in one of the final games of the year.  She looked right at me and said, "You see this game?"  To which I nodded and everyone laughed.  Fun times...

Visitors Locker Room

Overall a good visit.  Tottenham are currently looking to build a larger stadium and upgrade their facilities.  The problem they face is the area they are located in is a rougher part of town.  Basically, not the London we have been touring around and seeing.  It was like the rough parts of a city vs the suburbs and Tottenham was in the rough parts. 

Today we head to Wimbledon.  But first, I have to present to the class how the visit went and talk about how Tottenham can extend its brand globally.  Should be fun.  Wish me luck (actually, I'll have already presented by the time you read this).