The problem addressed is the lack of empirical research describing the delivery of individualized learning material in a secure and mobile manner. The goal was to investigate the effectiveness of deploying training materials to National Football League (NFL) players during a recent NFL season. Over the past few seasons, NFL teams have started to deliver player training material to mobile devices. The training material is sensitive and includes planning documents for upcoming games. An effort was made to survey a representative at each of the 32 NFL teams in order to gain insight on effectiveness, security, and process. Nearly half of the league responded with 14 of the 32 franchises reporting back. The results demonstrate that mobile devices can be an effective means to distribute educational materials to individuals in secure manner. The iPad was identified as a suitable platform for delivery of instructional material. Security elements such as encryption and using mobile security products should be strongly considered. The results are discussed in detail. A set of standards and guidelines were created based on the responses provided by club employees.

George Taliaferro was a trailblazer. He was the first black quarterback in professional football, the first black quarterback in the National Football League (NFL), and the first black man to be drafted by an NFL team.Taliaferro's story of perseverance revealed the slow and difficult process of integration in high school, at Indiana University, and in his professional football career. The obstacles he faced and the lessons he learned were representative of issues related to the integration of the NFL.A combination of personal narrative and historical investigation was used in this creative project. In addition to Taliaferro's first-hand accounts, depth and perspective were added through interviews and reportage.The biography that resulted, the story of Taliaferro's resolve, became a vehicle for telling a larger story, the integration of the NFL. / Department of Journalism

Master of Science / Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Todd Easton / Throughout an NFL season, 512 games are played in 17 weeks. For a given fan that follows one team, only 16 of those games usually matter, and the rest of the games carry little significance. The goal of this research is to provide substantial reasons for fans to watch other games. This research finds the easiest path to a division championship for each team. This easiest path requires winning the least number of games. Due to NFL’s complicated tiebreaker rules, games not involving the fan’s team can have major implications for that team. The research calls these games critical because if the wrong team wins, then the fan’s team must win additional games to become the division champion. To identify both the easiest path and the critical games, integer programming is used. Given the amount of two-team, three-team, and four-team division tie scenarios that can occur, 31 separate integer programs are solved for each team to identify the easiest path to the division championship. A new algorithm, Shortest Path of Remaining Teams (SPORT) is used to iteratively search through every game of the upcoming week to determine critical games. These integer programs and the SPORT algorithm were used with the data from the previous 2 NFL seasons. Throughout these 2 seasons, it was found that the earliest a team was eliminated from the possibility of winning a division championship was week 12, and occurred in 2012 and 2013. Also, throughout these 2 seasons, there was an average of 65 critical games per season, with more critical games occurring in the 2013-2014 season. Additionally, the 2012 season was used to compare flexed scheduled games with the critical games for those weeks and it was found that the NFL missed three weeks of potentially scheduling a critical game.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-88). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-88).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--School of Education and Dept. of Sociology. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2007. / "A dissertation in education and social science." Advisor: Carolyn Thompson. Typescript. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed July 30, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-121). Online version of the print edition.

Despite evidence indicating negative consequences of repetitive head impacts (RHIs) on the brain, the long-term effects remain largely unknown. Contact sports, such as football, expose players to multiple collisions. Professional sports players have undergone thousands of concussive and sub-concussive RHIs over their careers. In this study we used structural 3T MRI to evaluate cortical thickness of 86 former NFL players (mean age ± SD = 54.9 ± 7.9 years old) and 24 former professional non-contact sport athletes as controls (mean age ± SD =57.2 ± 6.9 years old). Cortical thickness was compared between groups using FreeSurfer. The NFL players displayed decreased cortical thickness in the right temporal lobe and fusiform gyrus (cluster-wise p-value=0.0003, 90% CI=0.0001-0.0005) and the left pre- and postcentral gyrus (cluster-wise p-value=0.0096, 90% CI=0.0084-0.0109). When looking only at NFL subjects impaired in measurements of mood and behavior (n=36) compared to controls, NFL players displayed a similar but more extensive cluster of decreased cortical thickness in the right temporal lobe and fusiform gyrus (cluster-wise p-value=0.0001, 90% CI=0.0000-0.0002) and in the left supramarginal gyrus and pre- and postcentral gyrus, (cluster-wise p-value=0.0002, 90% CI=0.0000-0.0004). Reduced cortical thickness in NFL players is suggestive of the long-term effects of RHIs. Still, future studies are necessary for examining the time-course of damage and the implications of regional cortical thinning.

No description available.

The purpose of this research is to analyze the dynamic processes of collective identity by examining the relationship between New Orleans and its professional football team, the Saints, after Hurricane Katrina. Much of the discourse written on American professional sports focuses on economic transactions between player and franchise or franchise and city. This study explores sports from a cultural perspective to understand the perceived social values provided to the host community. This case study spans the years from 2006 to 2013 and discusses several major events, including the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the reopening of the Superdome, the Saints winning a league championship and subsequent cheating scandal, and the city’s hosting of Super Bowl XLVII. Using a mixed-method approach of content analysis, in-person interviews, and participant observation, this research demonstrates how post-Hurricane Katrina events altered the collective identity in New Orleans. Additionally, it explores how the interaction of sports, identity, and ritual served to create a civic religion in New Orleans. Finally, the research examines the impact of this religious devotion on New Orleans’ tourist economy.

This paper looks at the impact that competitive balance has on team revenues. The hypothesis that this paper is operating under is that higher levels of competitive balance will lead to higher levels of revenue. Two different measures of competitive balance will be used and regressions will be run to investigate whether high levels of the competitive balance measure are associated with high levels of revenue. The results of the data indicated that over all three time horizons (ten year, five year, and two year), high levels of variability in playoff appearances were associated with high revenue for Major League Baseball (MLB) teams. The results also indicate that over a two year time span, high standard deviation in winning percentage were associated with higher revenue in both MLB and the National Football League (NFL) and also that high standard deviation of winning percentage over a ten year period were associated with lower revenues in the NFL. The data provides consistent support for the hypothesis of a positive relationship between competitive balance and revenue in MLB and inconsistent support in the NFL. This inconsistent relationship in the NFL is hypothesized to be due to differences in time horizons. Over the short term, fans like to see high variability in winning percentage because it gives them faith that their team will be good the next season. In the long term however, fans do not like a lot of variability in their team and would rather see a consistent winner.