Lax Rules

True story.

I can remember shaking my head in disbelief not all that long ago when a certain Ivy League school required a modest sign atop a refreshment trailer advertising a soft drink be removed. Commercial advertising, it turned out, was against the rules on the Ivy League campus. Times have changed, of course.

Now Bloomberg reports the Ivy League itself is trying to "sell a sponsorship to a sports championship for the first time, searching for a company to pay television production costs for its inaugural lacrosse tournaments."

From the story:

A presenting sponsorship for each of the men’s and women’s finals will underwrite the cost of broadcasting the game on television and probably provide the sponsor with tickets, advertising and an opportunity to entertain clients, said Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris.

“We don’t have a budget to buy the television time,” Harris said in an interview. “So the sponsor’s money essentially goes to pay the television production costs, and we’ll get some ads to sell during the broadcast.”

Television production costs for each of the men’s and women’s finals will run about $50,000, the league said. Harris wouldn’t say how much she expected to get for the rights.

Green Alert Take: Welcome to the real world, Ivy League. What next, football playoffs? Um, sure.

Ever wonder about the job description for an Ivy League head football football coach looks like? Me neither. But just in case you do, here's Cornell's ad on the NCAA site looking for a replacement for Jim Knowles.

Oh, and here's Princeton's ad on the NCAA page looking for assistant coaches. (Couldn't find a Dartmouth ad looking for assistants.)

A Green Alert blog post about a potential Dartmouth recruit playing for the Tarpon Springs Spongers elicited several emails about the rather original nickname of the high school team. One was from Emerson Houck '56, the author of Go Huskies! Beat Felix the Cat!: The story of America’s high school athletic nicknames and mascots and what they reveal about who we are.

I almost ordered the book for Christmas because I know a certain Hanover High sophomore who would have loved it. I still may order it for him, so I probably shouldn't post anything about that here because he's taken to sneaking a peak at the blog from time to time ;-).

My high school, by the way, was the Canucks long before the NHL team make the name familiar.