The moment of truth – about NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Tony Stewart’s love for Burger King’s Whopper sandwich – takes place at 1 p.m. Tuesday. Stewart has agreed to undergo an hour-long polygraph test with questions submitted by fans.

It’s all part of Miami-based Burger King’s “Tony Stewart School of Endorsements” ad campaign that launched in September and includes CHiPs star Erik Estrada hawking “Estrada” sunglasses and Carrot Top trying to sell a juicer. Stewart tells the class it should “only endorse things you believe in.” Thus the polygraph test, which can be seen at truthabouttony.com.

Meanwhile, Estrada’s sunglasses have become something of a novelty: 150 pairs are being auctioned on eBay with the proceeds going to Burger King’s Have It Your Way Foundation. Check them out at estradaglasses.com, but be forewarned, as the site says, they’re a novelty, not for actually seeing.

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Last week, the NFL refs announced penalties in Spanish for the benefit of the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration at the Miami Dolphins-New York Jets Monday Night Football game at Land Shark Stadium. The stadium took on a decidedly Latin flavor with a Calle Dolphins tailgating area; Gloria Estefan and Hank Williams Jr. singing a bilingual “Are you ready for some football?” in the MNF theme video; and Marc Anthony performing the national anthem.

Sports leagues certainly recognize the power of marketing to Hispanics. Today, the NBA announced its most comprehensive Hispanic marketing effort that encompasses all of its previous efforts, which have included Spanish-language radio broadcasts in 11 markets and Spanish language team Web sites, and new ones, including advertising, broadcasting and online components.

The league’s effort is called “éne•bé•a,” – or the Spanish pronunciation of ‘NBA,’ – and includes a dedicated Web site at www.nba.com/enebea, which currently features a story about the Miami Heat signing guard Carlos Arroyo (who is from Puerto Rico); advertising that features Heat guard Dwyane Wade along with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol on Spanish networks; and content on Spanish language social networking sites. There will also be special merchandise. NBA TV even broadcast the NBA Mexico game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns in Spanish on Sunday.

Already recognized for its efforts to reach fans globally, the NBA wants to make further inroads with its Hispanic fans, who make up 15 percent of the league’s fan base. Some 25 NBA players hail from Latin America and Spain.

NBA Commissioner David Stern said the number of Hispanics living in the U.S. is close to 50 million that will have a spending power in the next several of years of $1 trillion.

“We pride ourselves on our diversity and inclusiveness as a league,” Stern said. “We’ve slowly begun to diversify our efforts to speak to our Hispanic market.”

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The Jacksonville Jaguars host the St. Louis Rams on Sunday and once again the game isn’t being aired on local television. Three home games; three blackouts.

That’s not news -- team officials have predicted they aren’t likely to sell out any home games this season in time to prevent local television blackouts. They’ve blamed the economy. There’s also that loss of 17,000 season ticket holders from last season.

But I think another telling detail is this: a co-worker is one of the Jaguars original season ticket holders. The team played its first game in 1995 and is celebrating its 15th season this year. To honor this milestone, the team sent its original season ticket holders 15-year commemorative pins. Here’s what the note that came with the pins says:

“As a token of our appreciation, we have sent you and 3,819 other special fans who have been with us since Day 1 a pair of 15-year commemorative pins.”

It’s not clear how many season tickets those 3,820 “special fans” account for, but to be at a number that small in just 15 years can’t be good for helping you avoid blackouts.

Meanwhile, here’s a way to tell which NFL games are being broadcast where -- someone’s done a lot of work to figure this out -- check out this site for NFL TV distribution maps. Thanks to Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for finding this.

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About an hour into ABC’s broadcast of Saturday’s UM-Oklahoma game at Land Shark Stadium, Brent Musburger waxed about the Hurricanes’ former home, the now-demolished Orange Bowl.

ABC aired video showing where the old stadium once stood. On the site, as you know, workers have been constructing columns that will serve as the supports for the Florida Marlins’ $515 million retractable-roof ballpark. The images were something like this one at left, although much closer up. (Many, many thanks to Edward Martinez for posting the video on YouTube -- see below).

Here’s what Musburger said (thanks to a friend with a DVR):

“Well, there’s where the old Orange Bowl stood. All those great years and great games. Now an overpass is being built down there.”

Huh? An overpass? Could someone have clued him in?

Here’s what else he said:

“Many, many memories for a lot of folks here in South Florida and around the country, from Doug Flutie to Kellen Winslow, Joe Namath, you can go on and on. And here, they are in their new digs, Land Shark Stadium, where the Dolphins play their home games.”

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With the Miami Dolphins now 0-3 to start the 2009 season after a 23-13 loss to the San Diego Chargers this afternoon, filling up Land Shark Stadium for next Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills (1-2) could be a challenge.

The team hasn’t had a regular season game blacked out on local television in more than a decade.

But team officials were already anticipating avoiding blackouts this season might be tough given that season ticket sales dropped nearly 16 percent last season to 46,131 – the team’s lowest level since 1992. Season ticket sales are up and expected to exceed 50,000 this year. But the team must sell 62,133 upper and lower level seats at least 72 hours before kickoff to prevent games from being blacked out on local TV.

The team, which is scheduled to play the Bills at 4:05 p.m. Sunday, is offering a new “Fins Value Pack” for Sunday’s game – with help from Pepsi and Ball Park. For $45, you get an upper level corner/endzone seat, and vouchers for a free soda and a hot dog. That’s a $58 value.

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Sports consultant Rick Horrow’s new local show Beyond the Game began airing on WPEC Ch. 12 in West Palm Beach on Saturday. Yours truly was on the sports business panel along with former Miami Dolphin Troy Stradford and Brian Finkel, creative director of Horrow Sports Ventures and a student in FAU’s sports management program.

We touched on what to expect at Land Shark Stadium on Dolphins game days; the Dolphins’ new AT&T sponsor patch on practice jerseys, and sports business news around the NFL. Watch it here. The show airs Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.

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Palm Beach County resident and longtime sports consultant Rick Horrow will debut a new weekly sports show, focusing on the industry’s multi-million dollar business side, on the Versus network on Aug. 25.

The $ports Take to be hosted by Horrow, who is known as “The Sports Professor,” has already secured interviews with top industry executives, including NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NASCAR CEO Brian France.

The first show is scheduled to include interviews with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Bryan Trubey, HKS architect on the Cowboys’ new stadium.

The half-hour show, being produced by Atlanta-based Career Sports & Entertainment, is scheduled to air Tuesday nights at 6:30 p.m. and re-air on Wednesdays at 4 p.m.

Horrow has consulted on dozens of sports construction projects and is an attorney and president of Miami-based Horrow Sports Ventures. He did a stint as visiting sports law expert at Harvard Law School and serves as a sports business analyst. He previously served as executive director of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority, when plans for now-demolished Miami Arena were forged.

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Want to catch the 82nd Scripps National Spelling Bee, but don’t have access to TV during the day? ESPN360.com is exclusively broadcasting Wednesday’s preliminary round. The broadband sports network, carried for free by Internet Service Providers including AT&T and Verizon, will also broadcast the semifinals on Thursday. ESPN360.com is offering access to schools whose students are participating in the bee.

The 293 students competing in the bee include 11 from Florida. The three South Florida competitors are: Vincent A. Medina, a student at Ramblewood Middle in Coral Springs; Serena Skye Laine-Lobsinger, a home schooled student (representing the Parents Educating Children Home School Association) from West Palm Beach; and Franchesca Cabal-Ugaz, a student at Conchita Espinosa Academy in Miami.

Family and friends can catch them in the preliminary round, which ESPN360.com will begin showing at 1:15 p.m. Wednesday. The semifinals will be simulcast on ESPN360.com and ESPN starting at 10 a.m. Thursday. The finals are scheduled to air on ABC at 8 p.m. Thursday.

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Just to re-cap and fill in some of the details from the NFL owners spring meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Fort Lauderdale:

+ South Florida lost out to New Orleans – which was the favorite – to land the 2013 Super Bowl. South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee officials, who are preparing for the 2010 game and the Pro Bowl, are already planning to bid for the 2014 game. Typically bid packages go out in November and owners vote in the spring.

+ The league and the players association are to begin discussions for a new players’ contract next month, but NFL General Counsel Jeff Pash says he has no time frame for how long negotiations should take. The league opted out of the last two years of the current agreement meaning the deal ends in 2011 and the 2010 season will be played without a salary cap. Some owners believe the agreement, which guarantees roughly 60 percent of football revenues go to player salaries, isn’t working. NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, who met with owners at their meeting Tuesday, said he isn’t sure why owners feel that way.

“We all know that the players didn't opt out of this deal. We do know that the NFL generated in excess of $8 billion last year. We know that the average team has grown by 400 percent in 10 years. We know that the average team is worth in excess of a billion dollars,” Smith said. “What we don't understand is what is wrong with the current deal when we know those facts exist? And if you want to move or start negotiations it seems to me that we need to understand why they believe that the current deal wasn't good.”

+ Owners didn’t vote on whether to extend the regular season to 17 or 18 games, but they discussed the issue. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell promised the players and partners would be brought in on discussions. Smith said the key to discussions is determining the average each team makes per game and considering why players’ salaries drop for playoff games.

“The players understand the cost to their bodies. The players understand how tough it is to get through a regular season,” Smith said. “They understand the cost. What they don't understand is when their playoff salary drops to $20,000 a game, what's the net profit for the team for that game? And once they understand that, then we can understand or at least be in a process to discuss what the right cost compensation model is for an extra game.”

+ The league reached agreement with Comcast to expand the number of homes that can view the NFL Network from 2 million to 10.8 million by moving the network from a higher pay tier to Comcast’s Digital Classic service. The league also reached agreements with CBS and Fox to extend their rights to broadcast NFL games by two years until at least 2013. Goodell said conversations are also taking place with NBC about an extension.

+ Owners voted Tuesday to allow teams to forge partnerships with their local and state lotteries to generate revenue. Team logos could appear on lottery tickets – as they do in other leagues (see Red Sox example at left) – but only for scratch-off or chance games. “It would not be based on the outcome of games,” Goodell said. “That’s a critical feature for us. We do think it’s responsive to pressures states are feeling right now to help meet some of those shortfalls, what we can do with states and our clubs, to be able to try to create some additional revenue, and I think it has been effective in other sports." The New England Patriots have already jumped aboard with the Massachusetts State Lottery.

+ Owners discussed possibly expanding the Rooney Rule, which requires teams interview at least one minority candidate for coaching positions, to include general managers.

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The NFL owners officially began their spring meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Fort Lauderdale this morning and the league announced it has reached agreement with Comcast to ensure NFL Network is available to more viewers.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement ends the outstanding legal disputes and means the 24-hour all-football network will continue be available to Comcast’s Digital Classic Cable customers, rather than moving to the higher-tier Sports Entertainment package. That means the network will be available in 10.8 million homes, up from 2 million.

“We are delighted to have come to an agreement with the NFL,” Comcast Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts said in a statement. “Our goal has always been to provide our digital customers with access to the NFL’s unique content and, working together, we have struck the right balance between value and distribution on a variety of viewing platforms. We are looking forward to bringing the NFL’s programming to our customers just in time for the start of the NFL season.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement the league looks forward to having coverage of training camps and preseason included on Comcast.

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With sports teams, leagues and events beginning to understand their Latino fan bases better, Hispanic Market Weekly has added the sports business to its roster of weekly features.

“HispanicSportsBusiness” appears on Fridays in the Coral Gables-based online publication that covers Hispanic business trends, advertising and media. The section focuses on deals, marketing, and other efforts sports are using to reach the Hispanic market.

The section first launched April 3 and in its first two editions has included stories about a study NASCAR commissioned to learn more about its Latino fans; Mexican beer Tecate title sponsoring boxing on ESPN; and how the Houston Astros are catering to their Hispanic fans, who represent a variety of cultures and income levels.

The section, which also has included sports business news briefs on broadcast deals and coverage of the IMG World Congress of Sports conference in Miami earlier this month, aims to cover the dollars associated with soccer, football, baseball, basketball, auto racing and extreme sports.

“We’re about following the money, following the dollars,” said Adam Jacobson, HispanicSportsBusiness associate editor. “The Hispanic sports fan represents a huge part of the U.S. consumer base. Retailers understand this. Sports franchises are just beginning to understand this -- that the growth lies in the Hispanic fan base.”

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When the NHL owners were on the verge of locking out players in 2004, Panthers management didn’t want to be caught without a business plan.

Panthers President Michael Yormark worked proactively to position the team and BankAtlantic Center as more than just a hockey team and an arena. In 2005, the team’s owners and arena’s operators renamed their business units “Sunrise Sports & Entertainment” to reflect better their wide ranging company that includes the Incredible Ice practice facility in Coral Springs, which is completing an expansion; and a publications business that is revamping its Panthers Insider magazine.

“We decided strategically to position the BankAtlantic Center and the Florida Panthers as a year-round sports entertainment and media company as opposed to a seasonal sports company,” Yormark said. “Furthermore, we realized the importance of creating customized and integrated, partnership opportunities across all of our business units, in order to deliver measurable results and a return on investment for our participating partners and it grew from there.”

Last week, Sunrise Sports & Entertainment unveiled its latest venture: the Sunrise Sports & Entertainment Media Network. It’s a way to integrate and incorporate all its business units and media partners to sell advertisers, sponsors and corporations on a one-stop shopping approach to all their media needs.

What it means is SSE will work with companies that sponsor the team or arena to develop advertising, sponsorship and promotional programs across 15 different platforms all brought together under the SSE Network roof. That includes: the team; arena; game program; Panthers Insider magazine; Incredible Ice; TV broadcaster Fox Sports Florida; cable partner Comcast; radio broadcaster 790 the Ticket; outdoor marquees; the team’s YouTube channel; Facebook and MySpace pages; Twitter account and more. Read more about the social networking portion here.

“Tonight everyone in this room must face the built in challenge of these tough economic times, which is why now more than ever we must provide unique marketing and advertising opportunities that drive results for our partners,” Yormark said during the network’s unveiling last week in the arena’s Chairman’s Club.

“The timing is absolutely perfect, in a fragmented marketplace where more than just traditional media outlets are needed to significantly effect your business, we give you fully integrated sports and entertainment programming,” he continued. “Tonight we touch every available media channel through one portal.”

It remains to be seen whether the network will drive more partnerships and foster more comprehensive marketing and advertising relationships, but Yormark says the company is breaking new ground. Check out the presentation here:

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Those public service announcements by local athletes in which they say they don’t chew, dip or smoke, are having an impact. So much so that Gov. Charlie Crist proclaimed this week “Tobacco Free Florida Week.”

In an unusual display of teamwork, eight pro and college teams around the state along with Fox Sports Florida and Sun Sports are continuing the anti-tobacco messages in force this week. The networks have taped more than 90 tobacco-free announcements with players and coaches. They’ll be played on scoreboards and during game telecasts.

Skeletons -- representing the nearly 29,000 Floridians who die each year from smoking, according to the Centers for Disease Control – will be dressed as sports fans and placed in the stands at participating arenas and stadiums (see photo of skeletons in UF and FSU gear). Street teams will promote anti-tobacco messages; smokifier vans, in which fans can see how they would age if they smoke, will be at the events.

"By combining efforts of professional and collegiate teams, local County Health Departments and other key tobacco prevention stakeholders, we can further extend the reach of the campaign's message," Kim Berfield, Florida Department of Health deputy secretary, said in a statement.

The festivities started Friday at the Orlando Magic-Detroit Pistons game and continued today at FSU’s basketball game against Clemson. Sunday afternoon’s Marlins-St. Louis Cardinals spring training game in Jupiter will also be a Tobacco Free Florida event. The rest of the week’s schedule: Monday night’s Heat-Cleveland Cavaliers game at AmericanAirlines Arena; Tuesday’s Tampa Bay Rays-Houston Astros spring trianing game; Thursday’s Panthers-Pittsburgh Penguins game at BankAtlantic Center; Friday’s Tampa Bay Lightning-St. Louis Blues game; and Saturday’s UF-University of Kentucky basketball game.

"Tobacco Free Florida Week presents a tremendous platform for us to utilize our unique media assets, along with those of our sports team partners across the state, in a concentrated, highly-visible way and encourage Floridians to pledge to be tobacco free," Fox Sports and Sun Sports Senior Vice President and General Manager Steve Liverani said in a statement.

Tobacco Free Florida Week is one part of this year’s campaign to promote anti-tobacco messages and help smokers quit. The campaign is funded by tobacco settlement dollars made available for anti-smoking programs when Floridians approved a constitutional amendment in 2006. Last year, $17 million was spent on the media campaign; the amount is up to $19.8 million this year.

The program directs smokers to the American Cancer Society’s Quitline for counseling and nicotine replacement patches, gum and lozenges. The message has been effective. Calls to the Quitline rose from about 4,000 in 2007 to about 45,000 last year.

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There are three more chances to enter the Panthers’ “Watch It! Win It!” promotion, for a chance to win a block party, complete with a street hockey game with two Panthers players to serve as coaches.

During the next three Panthers’ game broadcasts on FSN Florida, fans will receive a special code to enter at the team’s Web site, www.floridapanthers.com. They’ll be entered for a chance to win the block party and nightly prizes that have included free tickets, a $100 shopping spree at Pantherland, and an autographed jersey.

Codes will be given out during tonight’s broadcast of the Panthers game against the Montreal Canadiens; Saturday’s game against the New York Islanders; and Tuesday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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FedEx isn’t advertising during Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday, but the express shipping company got nearly four hours of television exposure during this month’s FedEx-sponsored Orange Bowl and BCS national championship games at Dolphin Stadium.

That’s exposure valued at $383 million measured against television ad rates during the games – with the value during the BCS game being higher than the Orange Bowl game, naturally. According to Joyce Julius, which measures sponsor exposure, that value was calculated this way: $256 million from the BCS game in which Florida beat Oklahoma, and $126.8 million from the Orange Bowl game in which Virginia Tech beat Cincinnati. Joyce Julius reported FedEx got 51 mentions and an hour and 59 minutes of screen time during the BCS game and 59 mentions and an hour and 56 minutes during the Orange Bowl game.

Two other BCS bowl game sponsors scored higher values than FedEx did for the Orange Bowl game during their traditional bowl games this year. Tostitos received 43 mentions and an hour and 58 minutes of screen time during the Fiesta Bowl for a value of $138 million; Allstate received 45 mentions and an hour and 51 minutes during the Sugar Bowl for a value of $131 million. Citi, meanwhile, got 25 mentions and an hour and 21 minutes airtime during the Rose Bowl for a value of $111.4 million, Joyce Julius reported.

The Michigan firm's research shows other companies that received significant exposure time during the BCS game included Nike with a value of $61 million and Southwest Airlines with a value of $31.3 million.

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After 12 straight years of advertising during the Super Bowl – and a presence in 18 Super Bowls since 1989 – FedEx is bowing out of the 2009 game. At an average price of $3 million for a 30-second spot, lots of companies are making difficult choices about television’s most expensive advertising. Read FedEx Director of Advertising Steve Pacheco’s reasoning here.

But FedEx is likely to get plenty of exposure during the next week, with its name attached to the 75th annual Orange Bowl game tomorrow night and the BCS National Championship game a week later on Jan. 8.

When the BCS added a fifth bowl game to the mix three years ago, not only did the national championship host location get an extra bowl game, the title sponsors did, too. The eight-figure four-year agreement with Fox to broadcast the BCS games includes a number of ads for the title sponsors during the games and promotion during other Fox broadcasts and in print and radio advertising. FedEx is also the “official overnight delivery service of the BCS.”

Eric Wright, vice president of research and development for Joyce Julius, which measures sponsor exposure, says the title sponsor earns more mentions during the non-championship bowl game, but the value from the national championship game is higher.

“It looks like the sponsor grabs slightly more onscreen time and mentions in their traditional bowl than the championship game, but the ad rates being what they are [in the national championship game] were higher,” Wright said.

For example, Allstate received 61 mentions and two hours and 42 minutes of screen time during this year’s Allstate Sugar Bowl for a total value of $172.4 million, when measured against ad rates during the game. The insurance company got just 50 mentions and one hour and 53 minutes of screen time during the BCS National Championship game, but that time was valued at $231.1 million, Joyce Julius reported.

By contrast, the title sponsors FedEx for the Orange and Tostitos for the Fiesta and presenting sponsor Citi for the Rose Bowl, received less value from their exposure, even if there were more mentions or screen time. Joyce Julius figures show FedEx received 48 mentions and an hour and 49 minutes of screen time for a value of $117.3 million. Tostitos got 61 mentions and two hours and 12 minutes of screen time for a value of $142.3 million. And Citi got 29 mentions and an hour and 42 minutes of airtime for a value of $107.4 million.

The trend was similar in 2007, the first year the fifth game was added to the BCS rotation. Tostitos got 86 mentions and two hours 10 minutes of airtime for a value of $101.2 million for the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. For the BCS National Championship game, the company got 36 mentions and an hour and 50 minutes of airtime for a value of $175.3 million.

Meanwhile, Fedex received 66 mentions and one hour and 55 minutes of airtime for a value of $88.6 million; Allstate received 56 mentions, an hour and 58 minutes of screen time for a value of $89.6 million; and Citi got 26 mentions and just 16 minutes of air time for a value of $26.6 million from the Rose Bowl.

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A clock is counting down the days until the Major League Baseball Network launches in 50 million homes on Jan. 1. It’s down to 41 days.

It’s not exactly the economic environment MLB Network President and CEO Tony Petitti envisioned for starting a new channel, but the number of homes – the largest for a league network – means guaranteed subscriber fees.

(By contrast, ESPN is in 98 million homes; the NFL Network, which launched five years ago, is now in 44 million homes).

Petitti said the network is aggressively pursuing advertisers beyond its corporate partners.

“Obviously it would have been much easier to be doing this a year ago,” Petitti said.

Appearing at the 10th annual Fantasy Sports Association's Sports Media & Technology conference in New York this week, Petitti outlined plans for the new channel:

The network will launch with “hot stove” shows five nights a week at 7 p.m. The network also has the rights to re-air the Don Larsen’s perfect game from the 1956 World Series, complete with the original commercials.

Spring training will bring a “30 clubs in 30 days” show when the network will visit each team’s camp. The network is also scheduled to broadcast 16 World Baseball Classic games.

Once the season starts, an "MLB Tonight" show will air starting at 6 p.m. and run until the end of the last west coast game, Petitti said.

“We want to be the second choice for fans,” Petitti said stressing that fans’ first choice should be their local team’s broadcast. “We built the show to be a complementary way for fans to watch baseball.”

Petitti anticipates the network will show 1,400 live hours during its first year, including 26 game telecasts. Within five years, he said, the network hopes to bid for another package of games. He said there are plans to air the network internationally, with Canada being the first target outside the U.S.

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