With this year's summer Olympics just around the corner, athletic outfitter Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) unveiled its new Olympic products yesterday.

While Nike has never really embraced the concept of being a sponsor for the Olympics, it prides itself on being an outfitter for the competing athletes. This year there will be thousands of Olympic hopefuls from over a hundred companies that will be sporting the famous "Nike Swoosh" on themselves for millions of watchers to see.

Nike will definitely leave its own footprint all over this summer's Olympic games. For the first time ever, BMX will be an Olympic medal sport, and the new Nike gear for the sport is being heralded by Nike's global director for action sports, John Martin, as the "illest BMX product ever." I honestly thought the word "illest" vanished from the vocabulary around the same time as Run-DMC; guess I was wrong. But I will definitely look forward to seeing the "illest" BMX gear ever, Nike definitely got my attention on that one!

Market gurus like Jim Cramer preach the benefits of broad diversification, something I think is good for investors too: if your goal is to produce returns approximately equal to the market averages. In other words, if you believe in diversification, buy an index fund. If you don't want to simply buy and hold index funds, broad diversification is unlikely to make sense for you.

I recently found a good summary of why combining diversification with stock-picking is a bad idea from an unlikely source: Michael Konik's The Smart Money, a book about an elite sports bettor who gambles hundreds of thousands a day on football -- and wins. Here, he explains why the elite gamblers don't bet on more than a few games each week:

I'm sober enough about the difficulty of betting sports to realize that gambling on seven pro games in one weekend is the sign of a sucker. The linemakers just don't make that many mistakes on NFL football, where all the information is widely known to everyone in the universe.

It would be impossible to sum up the problem with diversification in the stock market any better. Generating greater returns without taking greater risk requires the investor to spot instances of market inefficiency -- the stock market equivalent of the linemakers making a mistake. And even the best investors in the world can't find enough market inefficiency to earn exceptional returns while owning a lot of stocks.

While sagging global music sales may be down, spelling hard times for music labels and the like, the proliferation of cribbed (read, downloaded illegally) music is actually driving concert sales to record levels.

Anyone heard of Live Nation (NYSE: LYV)? It only happens to be a real player in this industry. Live Nation recently announced its global ticketing initiative, which is set to debut next January. Live Nation is partnering with European firm CTS Eventim, which will provide the back-end technology and other related services for LYV's ticketing business.

So, what does this new business mean to a company that is a mover and shaker in the the promotion and production of live music shows, theatrical performances, and specialized motor sports events?

With the newspaper industry in decline and big layoffs at a lot of big newspapers, this is a tough time to be a journalist. But someone forgot to tell that to the elite sportswriters who, according to The New York Times, are receiving offers of double or triple what they earned at newspapers to write for Yahoo! Sports (NASDAQ: YHOO) and ESPN. Even Sports Illustrated lost star columnist Rick Reilly to ESPN -- for a reported $3 million per year.

The Times quotes sports agent Leigh Steinberg: "It's the exact same model as what happened to athletes. We're seeing free agency for sports journalists."

In spite of all the complaining and gnashing of teeth about the decline of journalism, I would argue that the internet is the best thing that has happened to the industry in a long time. The rise of aggregators and syndication has probably created a decline in the number of reporter jobs available -- but less duplication of efforts is good.

Not so long ago, the NHL seemed like it was on the brink of losing what little cultural relevance it had left. The lockout irritated the sport's loyal fans, and less-loyal fans simply lost interest. Attendance was weak, and what were thought to have been important contests were getting beaten in the ratings by arena football games.

Now, Nashville investor David Freeman has led a group buying the Nashville Predators franchise for $193 million -- a strong vote of confidence in the league's future.

The last NHL team to be sold was the St. Louis Blues in 2006. The Blues fetched $150 million. An NHL-commissioned report found that, during the 2002-2003 season, the NHL's 30 teams lost a total of $273 million.

It seems like efforts to rein in player salaries may be making the league more competitive financially, and the NHL could be back on the road to profitability.

Now all it needs is a young stud to revive mainstream interest the way that Wayne Gretzky did many years ago. If the league can get behind promoting him, 20-year old Penguins phenom Sidney Crosby could be their man.

A fascinating piece (subscription required) in The Wall Street Journal looks at the ways that Las Vegas bookmakers are teaming up regulators to catch cheating in collegiate sports. And with the Tim Donaghy scandal, there may be more of a need for vigilance in professional sports than we would like to think.

Las Vegas bookies have a terrific incentive to uncover game-fixing schemes: If gamblers manage to place a large bet based on illicit information before the bookie has a chance to move the betting line, they can be left holding the bag. Because they have relationships with gamblers and will be the first to notice signs of unusual gambling activity (much like a market maker might be able to detect suspicious trading activity in the stock market), they can be a valuable source of intelligence for the leagues and regulators.

In the book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt looks at the ways that the economist's toolkit can also be used to detect signs of cheating -- whether that be elementary school teachers' changing students' answers on standardized tests, or sumo wrestlers throwing matches.

While relying on input from members of the underworld might seem distasteful, bookies and even criminals often have valuable real world experience and connections that can help regulators. Ex-cons like Barry Minkow and Sam Antar have helped the FBI and SEC crackdown on numerous cases of securities fraud, and bookies can help the NCAA fight cheating. It's good to see that they are taking advantage of the opportunity.

On the other hand, Major League Baseball has been reluctant to take help from the underworld. Former Commissioner Fay Vincent explained to The Journal that he hadn't used Las Vegas as a source of information because he "can't quite imagine what they would've been telling us that we would've been interested in."

Perhaps that is part of the reason baseball has suffered from so many scandals over the years, including a whole decade of statistics that are in doubt because of steroids.

Having established yourself as a fantasy football guru, are you interested in trying out your talents with your very own NFL franchise?

Well according to a Forbes Special Report, the average NFL team would set you back $957 million. By contrast, only one Major League Baseball team is valued above that -- The New York Yankees at 1.026 billion. No other team is worth more than $617 million. The Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable team in sports, worth an estimated $1.5 billion.

The value of the NFL's television deals remains huge, with 75% of Americans saying they watched a game on TV last season. NFL teams are also the most profitable sports franchises, perhaps driven by the league's cost controls that some would deride as anti-competitive.

Seeing the value these teams have, entrepreneurs including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban are exploring the possibility of setting up a new football league to rival the NFL.

On his blog, he has written that the NFL "not designed for a competitive environment. Competition for top players, even if the UFL gets just a few, increases prices at the top end for all teams. Every star will get paid more, but still have to fit under the cap. That forces teams to use more low cost players, at the expense of signing the middle of the roster. That gives us access to quite a few very, very good NFL players ..."

As long as there's no competition, the NFL's value is huge. But will its structure and salary cap system make it vulnerable to a well-funded upstart?

Before you get mad at me and leave nasty comments, this isn't my idea. Yahoo! Sports writer Dan Wetzel has actually suggested that kids who play in the nationally-televised Little League World Series should be paid $1,000 per game. I'm not kidding. Here's a quick summary of his reasoning:

1. Advertisers and the networks (and the non-profit Little League Inc.) make a lot of money from the event -- and the kids are the ones who play.
2. Many of these young athletes come from developing countries, and a few thousand dollars could go a long way toward providing educational opportunities that they might otherwise miss out on.
3. The event has already been corrupted: "There has long been cheating in Little League, from doctoring birth certificates to playing out-of-district ringers."

Here's the problem with these arguments:

Walt Disney Corp. (NYSE: DIS), Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) may be tempted to pick up the Yankee Entertainment & Sports Network, the cable TV channel that broadcasts the baseball team's games which Bloomberg News said could be worth as much as $2 billion.

The channel, whose owners include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and former New Jersey Nets owner Raymond Chambers, is "running a limited check" and would only consider selling if it got a price "reflecting its real value," spokesman Peter Rose told Bloomberg. Funny guy to be quoted in a baseball story. I guess anything is for sale at the right price. What an original concept.

It will be an interesting test of wills between Disney's ESPN and Comcast. ESPN remains a juggernaut for the house that Mickey built. Comcast is trying to challenge ESPN with its Comcast SportsNet channels including the one I watch in Philadelphia that broadcasts Phillies games.

Remember, we're talking about the Yankees here, one of the most recognized though not necessarily loved franchises in baseball. New Yorkers, though, continue to love their Bronx Bombers even though they have struggled this year.

But the time the YES network is sold, however, slugger Alex Rodriguez will have left the Big Apple for parts unknown. With $2 billion in the bank, I'm sure the team could afford to replace him.

Ticketmaster, the leading ticket sales website owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp (NYSE: IACI) is being sued by the Cleveland Cavaliers. The NBA basketball team accuses the company of anticompetitive and monopolistic practices.

According to the Associated Press, "The Cavaliers allege in the lawsuit that Ticketmaster is trying to prevent the team's Flash Seats secondary-ticketing Web site from competing with the ticketing giant. Flash Seats provides season ticket holders a way to sell and transfer seats electronically _ a system that is superior to Ticketmaster's TeamExchange program, the lawsuit says."

Ticketmaster has also sued the team, claiming that its contract makes the relationship with Flash Seats illegal.

As Doug McIntyre wrote earlier, IAC reported disappointing earnings today sending the stock down more than 5%. But the drop does not appear to be attributable to the Ticketmaster lawsuit.

Zac Bissonnette is a partner and writer for Hedge Funnies, a satirical take on the financial markets.

Since the end of the season-long lockout, the TV ratings for NHL games have been floating somewhere between beach volleyball and Arena Football. In what could be seen as an act of desperation, the league has signed a deal with NeuLion to offer webcasts of all NHL games. According to the Wall Street Journal, "The league's Web site, NHL.com, and all the team Web sites will sell "Center Ice," a package of out-of-market games now available on satellite and cable TV. Fans will be charged about $15 a night, or $169 to subscribe for the entire season. About 45 games will be transmitted each week."

The move makes sense for the NHL -- While watching hockey games on a computer will probably only be appealing to diehard hockey fans, it seems like the aficionados are the only ones bothering to follow hockey at all these days. My question is "Why?' There was speculation that the emergence of Pittsburgh Penguins phenom Sidney Crosby would revive the sport but even all the success that 19 year-old has had has failed to catapult his name out of the hockey world.

But the NHL appears to be taking the right steps. The league became one of the first to sign a deal with YouTube to offer highlights on the site. As the Journal wrote, "the NHL has been pioneering new methods of reaching fans." But will any of it matter, or is the sad truth that no one cares about hockey anymore?

For the first time in about two months, shares of Big Five Sporting Goods (NASDAQ: BGFV) are below $24 as a result of cutting its second quarter forecasts thanks to worse-than-expected same-store sales growth. While the market reacted semi-dramatically, sending the stock down more than 5%, I believe this decline in growth is only a hiccup in the company's growth story, especially because this is the company's first quarterly decline in same-store sales growth in 11 years.

While many would expect a value investor to jump on the opportunity to purchase a good company after a slip-up, I don't think that Big Five offers much value, at least when compared to a similar company: Cabela's (NYSE: CAB). To start, I believe the two companies are in fact very good comparisons -- they are similar in nearly every regard: multiple to this year's earnings, multiple to next year's earnings, multiple to sales, multiple of enterprise value to EBITDA, balance sheet dynamics (relatively speaking, very close debt/equity ratio), operating margins, etc.

As the story continues, it seems that Cabela's is actually cheaper than Big Five, despite the company's recent fall. Why?

New York's Major League Soccer team is owned – and named after - Red Bull. Xyience is the drink of choice at the UFC. Gatorade, a unit of PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) is an official sponsor of the NFL.

Earlier today, Jones Soda Co (NASDAQ: JSDA) said it would be a sponsor of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks on CNBC. The Seahawk organization granted Jones the exclusive soft-drink and certain non-alcoholic beverage availability rights at Qwest and Events Center as well as other sponsorship and trademark rights regarding the use of the Seahawks trademarks through 2012.

The world of alternative beverages continues to gain notoriety and Jones' deal with the Seattle Seahawks is a big step not only for the company but for the sector. Shares of Jones Soda closed up 8.25%, to $21.64 today.

I wonder if Jones would make an exclusive drink to promote the deal. They could call it Seattle Sludge, perhaps? How about Football Fudge?

John Henry acquired the Boston Red Sox in 2002, and led the team to its first first World Series victory since 1918 in 2004. This year, the team is off to a 26-11 start, good enough to give it the best record in baseball. However the hedge fund empire that gave Henry the money to buy the team has not fared so well. In fact it's performed more like the Kansas City Royals, who have the worst record in baseball. Since December of 2004 (2 months after the Red Sox won the Series), his fund has lost a mind-boggling 36% of its value, and assets under management have been cut in half to about $1.4 billion as investors flee in search of better returns.

The recent free-fall has given the investment legend a pretty poor long-term track record, and got me thinking: Is Henry just no longer that interested in trading commodities and such? He's already earned hundreds of millions, and one could hardly blame him for pursuing pennants instead of pork bellies.

This reminds me of a study I read about a few months ago, which suggests that companies whose CEO's have recently purchased large houses are likely to underperform the market. As I wrote then, "Building an expensive home may be a sign that a once-driven executive is getting bored with work. And besides, who has time to manage things like cash flow and strategic vision when there's wallpaper to pick out, home theater packages to choose from, and a wine cellar to design? Being a CEO takes a lot of time and energy, and so does building a palace. Something's gotta give."

My suggestion to investors: Avoid investments where the CEO or fund manager has interests other than making lots of money with your investment. This might sound cold-hearted, but it takes a super-human to build a great art collection and manage a company. As a loyal Red Sox fan, I'm thrilled that his fund has tanked as the Red Sox have soared, and I'm just glad I didn't have money in Mr. Henry's fund.

German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas AG (FRA:ADS) posted a whopping 52% jump in revenue for FY 2006 to $13.23 billion (over 10 billion euros), the first time Adidas has broken the 10 billion euro threshhold. The increase was fueled mainly as a result of tremendous sports clothing sales for the 2006 World Cup played on its home country turf and by the acquisition of sport shoemaker Reebok. 4Q earnings topped $17 million versus $4 million in losses in 4Q 2005. 4Q sales were up 48% to just under $3 billion. FY 2006 earnings were $649.76 million.

Adidas has ambitious plans for Reebok, the official sponsor for the National Football League. Reebok has lost market share in recent quarters, posting weak sales and small profit margins.The order backlog at Adidas fell 4% in 2006, and a much larger 18% for Reebok, meaning that production has consistently outstripped demand. Adidas bought Reebok in order to compete more effectively against Nike and Puma in the American market.

Adidas executives continue to be optimistic, forecasting 2007 sales to increase modestly, gross margins to increase 45-47%, and net income growing at 15%.