What you see pictured above (snapped by me, with my cameraphone in Times Square) is but one outcropping of an epidemic that’s overtaken New York City: The spread of knockoff baseball caps emblazoned with “NY” logos, designed to look just enough like official Yankees or Mets gear to pass the glance test.

Seriously, I’ve seen these hats all over the place — subways, on the street, in clubs… Frankly, I’d be embarrassed to be seen wearing one. They’re downright shoddy-looking.

I’m guessing the only reason Major League Baseball (and any other sports league) isn’t filing infringement lawsuits is that those chunky-fonted logos are just distinguishable enough to not be considered credible copies of their obvious inspirations. But come on — there’s no mistaking their appeal, funky colors and patterns aside. They’re faux team colors for $5 off the street, versus the $20-and-up for the real deal.

The National Hockey League Eastern Conference Final begins tomorrow night between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers. This all-Pennsylvania playoff series has the Keystone State all geeked up, as fans from each city are plotting public-monument desecrations in the rival towns.

Top target in Philly: The statue of Rocky.

The attack may have already happened overnight - just as a similar outrage was apparently committed by Montreal Canadien fans during the previous hockey series.

The evidence: On the pavement in front of the bronze Italian Stallion lay a black No. 87 Sidney Crosby jersey around 9:30 this morning. The sleeves appeared to have been cut off, perhaps to facilitate draping it over Rocky.

In retaliation, Brotherly Lovers are putting the cross-state call out:

I am recruiting a Philly native and loyal Flyers fan that is living in Pittsburgh to place a Flyers jersey on a significant landmark in Pittsburgh (panther statue on Pitt campus, in front of Mellon Arena or anything you can think of) and send me a photo of it to submit to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

It’s all pretty childish, but hey, both cities are thirsting for a championship. Nice to see some passion for the postseason. And at this rate, I think Pennsylvania is giving Minnesota a run for its money for that “State of Hockey” moniker.

They’re no longer in Montreal, but the Washington Nationals are still saddled with a familiar problem: Anemic attendance, despite a spanking-new stadium.

Since we can’t blame a hockey-distracted populace this time around — or some sort of franchise curse — a trickle-down effect in DC’s political mechanics may be to blame for all the empty seats, particularly the highly-visible ones:

Then Jack Abramoff tried to buy off all of Washington. New lobbying laws soon followed, and now the maximum gift given to a lawmaker cannot exceed $50. Which means all the [behind home-plate] Presidential tickets – $325 for single-game ones, $335 on Saturday and $400 for the front row, all more than the best seat at Yankee Stadium, which goes for $250 – that should have gone from lobbyist to Congressman to hard-working staffer no longer exist, and the market won’t get any hotter unless the Nationals do, too.

So cleaner politics means bad business for the nation’s (alleged) pasttime in the nation’s capital. Emblematic of the times, no?

Further evidence that the 20-something MySpace generation has no shame: Disclosing annual salary among friends is now considered practically de rigueur.

For people old enough to remember phone booths, a blunt reference to salary in a social setting still represents the height of bad manners. But for many young professionals, the don’t-ask-don’t-tell etiquette of previous generations seems like a relic.

For them, salary information is now fair game, at least among friends. Many consider it crucial to prosper in an increasingly transient, winner-take-all workplace — regardless of the envy that full disclosure can raise. Besides, when the Internet already offers a cornucopia of personal information, it almost seems coy to keep personal income private.

As Ilana Arazie, 32, an online video producer for a media company in Manhattan, said, “If we can talk about how many orgasms we have with our mate, why can’t we discuss how much we make?”

Well, if you bring orgasms into, okay then.

Actually, I was joking about that “no shame” quip (mostly). I don’t disagree with this sharing concept, simply because it’s a rightly-recognized acknowledgment of modern-day working life:

Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell, said that an open flow of information is deemed crucial by young professionals who think of themselves as free agents, not company men.

“People move between jobs a lot more now than they used to,” Dr. Frank said. This mobility alone increases the instances that salary might come up among friends.

Indeed, no one should expect to stick around with a single company for their entire career, simply because the companies themselves don’t even tacitly offer that security anymore. I argued 10 years ago about that fundamental shift in American life; we’re all free agents these days, like it or not. So there’s nothing wrong with collaboratively comparing notes, in order to establish a market value among peers.

Does this mean I freely cough up my gross/net earnings? Well, no. For one thing, at 36, I’m old enough to cling to the oldschool taboo on the subject. For another, now that I’m a full-time consultant, my annual “salary” can vary, especially with the of-late recessionary rumblings. It’s a bit moot, as I don’t detect any requests from friends and colleagues for that information anyway (nor do they offer up theirs). If anything, I’ll more-or-less let my visible standards of living speak for themselves, and let those curious enough guess at the pricetags and do the resultant math.

So today at around 1PM, I flipped the TV channel to ESPN, fully expecting to see the first round of this year’s NFL Draft in full swing. I haven’t been particularly interested in the lead-up, but I wanted to get a token fix of Mel Kiper et al.

But, shocker of shockers — no draft coverage. Because there was no draft, because unlike years past, the league and the networks decided to slightly streamline football’s most overhyped offseason event:

- The draft will start at [3PM Eastern] Saturday, three hours later than had been the case, but only Rounds 1 and 2 will be held that day. The third round has been moved to Sunday.

- Teams will be allowed 10 minutes to make a selection in the first round instead of 15, and the time between second-round picks will be seven minutes instead of 10.

- Sunday’s portion of the draft will start an hour earlier [10AM Eastern] and teams will have five minutes between picks in Rounds 3-7.

The later start time Saturday is beneficial for ESPN and the NFL Network because viewership grows throughout the day. But the reduction in time between picks is going to be interesting.

The quicker pace between selections has greater impact than just television coverage and ad sales, of course. Teams do jockey for trades during that between-selection time, even if it is for slot-swaps to move up in a round. Potentially, that means a reduction in horsetrading, even if it is only for trivial fourth-round positioning.

Still, as much as I ignored the draft for the past couple of years, I do feel a void. It was a reliable background noise if I chose to tune in. Today’s mid-afternoon start didn’t work for me at all; as a result, I’ve peeked in for maybe five total minutes of coverage. I doubt I’ll catch much more tomorrow.

As the New York Rangers get set to embark upon Round Two of the NHL playoffs, I can’t think of any stranger soap opera material than news of Sean Avery seeking out, and landing, an internship at Vogue Magazine.

Avery, who makes $2 million a year with the Rangers and has cavorted with starlets since his days with the Los Angeles Kings, initiated the contact with Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

“He is ridiculously obsessed with fashion,” Avery’s publicist Nicole Chabot told ABCNews.com. “He loves it more than anything in the world. It’s something he has always wanted to do.”…

Though his assignments are “evolving,” Avery will go to Paris Fashion Week with international editor-at-large Hamish Bowles, according to Chabot.

Presumably that Paris trip is scheduled for after June; Rangers faithful would be less than pleased to lose Avery’s agitating skills in the midst of a Stanley Cup run.

I can only guess that this timing is designed to encourage mindgames among upcoming playoff opponents. No one wants to get pushed around by a budding fashion-mag internist…

Professional puckheads won’t have to go begging for National Hockey League broadcasts next season, as NBC has extended its broadcast agreement with the league through the 2008-09 season.

“There have been positive signs for the league, both on and off the ice,” Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, said in a statement. “Ratings were up this year; the Winter Classic in Buffalo was a huge success; advertising sales were healthy; and the product on the ice has never been better, led by young, marketable stars such as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. We believe this is a sport that will continue to grow.”

Ratings for the regular-season Sunday games on NBC were up 11 percent from last year.

We’ve heard all this before — a one-year bump is nice, but doesn’t guarantee any long-term commitment. The key component is that NBC is getting the content for free — no rights means the NHL is simply getting some much-need exposure, and the network has no risk in either broadcasting or else bumping the random game.

Still, having a prime broadcast presence is still a status symbol that any claimant to major-league sports must have. It might not mean as much five years from now, but for now, it’s a requisite that the NHL is glad to have.

Yes, I have noticed that the 2008 National Hockey League playoffs commenced earlier this week. In fact, I’ve been putting myself into sensory overdrive by watching all the games thus far — including the ones being streamed on Yahoo! Sports, like tonight’s Pittsburgh-Ottawa Game 2 tilt.

But no, I haven’t blogged anything about the NHL postseason so far. That might change, but for now, I’d rather just take in the games and leave it at that. The last thing the world needs is another set of predictions and assessments over which team will hoist the Stanley Cup in June.

That said, I am enjoying watching my hometown Rangers taking the early lead in their series against the Devils, and I’m crossing my fingers for an upset advance into Round 2. Out West, I’m skeptical that the Sharks will finally go all the way to the Finals, despite their on-paper strength, simply because they manage to find a way to implode every year.

So far, so fun. Game on.

If you watched last night’s NCAA men’s basketball championship game, you might have noticed the shiny new ladder that was used for the night-ending climb to the ceremonial net-clipping.

What, you didn’t? That’s bad news for Werner Ladder, because they ponied up the necessary scratch to be named the “Official Ladder of the NCAA Basketball Championships”.

Actually, I didn’t watch a minute of the game, since I’m not a hoops fan. But this news item worked on me in a sense, because I did make sure to tune in at the end, just to see how that ladder would be precisely-positioned for the camera to catch that prominent Werner logo. So I noticed it, if no one else.

But why stop the sponsorship gravy only halfway up?

Still unsold but presumably available would be a sponsorship of the Official Scissors of the NCAA basketball net-cutting ceremony. More often than not, a bandage scissors provided by the winning team’s trainer is used to actually cut down the nets. Perhaps ShopScissors.com?

There is, of course, an echo of gallows humor to the observation. Because it’s a lead-pipe cinch that by this time next year, some scissor-maker will step up and buy their way into that coveted “official NCAA scissor-cutters” spotlight. In fact, this year’s branding focus on the official ladder will serve to spur the bidding on the until-now moribund scissor namings-right opportunity — money begets money. That competitive spirit is what college sports is all about, right?

Maybe the winning clip-job sponsor will throw a curveball into the process, and have the Scissor Sisters on hand to deliver a deranged serenade for this triumphant ceremony.

Looks like Dick Vitale is branching out beyond his college hoops expertise, with a weekly quick-hit roundup on ESPN.com of his take on current sports stories.

I guess it’s something to keep Dickie V occupied during the roundball offseason. But I find it strange to see him quip on the NHL playoffs, even briefly — very out of context.

Now, if he starts dropping in copious amounts of V-Speak in future editions, I’ll get more into it. Can’t wait for Dick to anoint Alex Ovechkin as a PTPer!

Here’s an interesting Chicago sports alliance: The MLB White Sox and NHL Blackhawks will be cross-promoting each other in their barns during 2008-2009, with offers including ticket sales and other baseball/hockey merchandising.

What makes this especially noteworthy is the speculation around Chicago hosting a future outdoor National Hockey League game, ala the 2008 Winter Classic in Buffalo. This development could be seen as the initial groundwork leading to U.S. Cellular Field (nee New Comiskey Park) being the site of an outdoor ‘Hawks game in a couple of years.

While Soldier Field might seem like the most iconic choice for an ice-over, I said before that a baseball-stadium option might have more of an inside track in Chi-town:

[Blackhawks president John] McDonough, of course, just landed in Blackhawkland after a lengthy executive career with the Chicago Cubs. So I guess it’s natural that he’d tap the two area baseball stadiums as first choice, because they and their overseers are known quanitities to McDonough.

Networking overrides all. The other advantage is the avoidance of potential conflicts with any Bears playoff dates.

Does this mean Chicago will get its Winter Classic (rightly renamed “Windy City Classic”) in the 2008-09 NHL season? I doubt it. The New York option, with the opportunity to stage an outdoor game in Yankee Stadium just before its demolition, is too sweet for the league to pass up. But I’m sure something could be set up for the ‘Hawks to take their turn in 2009-2010.

Baseball’s Washington Nationals are starting this season in brand-spanking-new Nationals Park — and in this age of stadium naming rights, that kind of default facility name is bad news.

If, for no other reason, the depreciative effect:

Had a deal been in place already, the corporate sponsor would be identified with the park from its first day of existence — just as CitiBank will be identified with the New York Mets’ still-to-come Citi Field, just as telecommunications behemoth MCI was linked to Washington’s MCI Center two years before it opened. Some experts believe a relationship that begins on Opening Day — or, in some cases, years in advance — means the fan base will permanently link the corporation with the team.

“With every day that passes once the ballpark is open, the value of that rights deal could very well decrease,” said David Carter, the executive director of the University of Southern California’s Sports Business Institute. “There’s so much upfront media attention and buzz, and that impacts how the name would be received by the public… The opening weekend is a tremendous amount of positive publicity, and that could have a halo effect to a sponsor if one was in place.”

It’s strange to think that a phantom facility is more valuable, marketing-wise, than an already-existing brick-and-mortar structure. But it’s true, and I’ve noted that mindshare has an awful lot to do with it:

The chief reason why the naming-rights prices are super-sizing is that they’re being applied to brand-spanking-new buildings. That’s key. Instead of slapping a new name onto an old building — that comes with an entrenched name and tradition that, sometimes, never gets completely supplanted — the naming-rights holder gets virgin territory. So there’s no chance of Prudential Center being referred to by its “old” name, because there is no old name for the stubborn voices to hang onto.

In a way, things have come full-circle in the stadium naming game: Corporate branding of an events edifice has gone from a crass rarity to an essential element. And as the DC situation illustrates, it’s now even a top-of-list priority.

Much as Monday Night Football and Terrell Owens taught up almost four years ago, you simply cannot put a black man and white woman together in American media and not have people go (pardon the pun) apeshit.

But the image is stirring up controversy, with some commentators decrying the photo as perpetuating racial stereotypes. [LeBron] James strikes what some see as a gorilla-like pose, baring his teeth, with one hand dribbling a ball and the other around [Gisele] Bundchen’s tiny waist.

It’s an image some have likened to King Kong and Fay Wray.

“It conjures up this idea of a dangerous black man,” said Tamara Walker, 29, of Philadelphia.

And in fact, some think that photographer Annie Leibovitz, who shot this April 2008 cover of Vogue, took her inspiration from the semi-famous “Destroy This Mad Brute” World War I propaganda poster, which predates King Kong.

As always, image is everything.

Since no one seems to be buying them for everyday use, Segway is repurposing its namesake hi-tech scooter for niche uses. First up: The X2 Golf model, a sort of golfcart replacement.

Like its siblings, it’s a personal mobility machine, but it sits on big, soft turf tires and offers a golf-bag carrier on one side and a handlebar-mounted scorecard holder.

They forgot to include a cupholder, for the inevitable beercan-cradling…

As if golf could get any dorkier. No telling if this helps or hinders the efforts to reinvigorate participation in the sport.

Developed as an accidental side-effect to a cardiovascular/blood pressure treatment, Viagra debuted 10 years ago this week, forever changing the prospects of limp-dickedness:

Since Viagra went on the market it has been used by 35 million men around the globe, and it took impotence off the taboo list, making it infinitely easier to treat.

Urologists’ waiting rooms became busier as news got round that the condition, which was rechristened with a new, scientific name — erectile dysfunction, or ED — could be treated with a triangular blue pill.

Personally, this decade-long journey has meant that I now can’t remember what National Football League game broadcasts were like before the torrent of penis-pill TV ads started dominating commercial breaks.

Amid much bitching about how its competition is undercutting it, Hawaii-based Aloha Airlines filed for bankruptcy yesterday, the second time it’s done so in the past couple of years.

This development compels me to invoke the signature catchphrase (usually used to signify an out-of-the-park homerun highlight) of former ESPN anchor and Hawaiian sports media alum Larry Beil:

“And aloha means goodbye!”

Not that every on-air wonk from here to CNBC won’t be repeating that same phrase today…

Here’s a cute local sports media maneuver: To coincide with this week’s rebranding of the Fox Sports New York (FSNY) to MSG Plus, the channel’s Islanders pre- and post-game host Deb Kaufman is taking the opportunity to rechristen her own on-air handle.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do; there just never seemed to be a good time to do it,” she said. “Since the network was changing its name…”

Well, why not? Starting with tonight’s Islanders-Lightning game, Deb Kaufman will be Deb Placey, her name in her non-work life for the 13 years since she married Ed Placey, a senior coordinating producer for ESPN college football…

She does not plan a formal announcement but figures [Isles announcers] Howie Rose and Billy Jaffe will take care of spreading the news.

Actually, she did make the announcement on the air, during the pregame show. I’m sure many Islanders fans hearts were broken upon hearing that Deb is already hitched; I suppose they could start drooling over competing NHL television MILF Christine Simpson on Versus.

It’s worth noting that MSG Network has not caught up on this development, as it still lists her as Deb Kaufman on her bio page. Rebranding is always a tough row to hoe.

A couple of observations on the ethical debate over performance-enhancement drugs, as applied to aiding in mental aptitude:

- There’s a markedly different consideration given to efforts to boost your brain versus your other muscles, i.e. it’s seen as more worthwhile:

“I think the analogy with sports doping is really misleading, because in sports it’s all about competition, only about who’s the best runner or home run hitter,” said Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. “In academics, whether you’re a student or a researcher, there is an element of competition, but it’s secondary. The main purpose is to try to learn things, to get experience, to write papers, to do experiments. So in that case if you can do it better because you’ve got some drug on board, that would on the face of things seem like a plus.”

So as long as you’re not engaging in anything as base as naked competition, it’s okay to pill-pop away. It strikes me as hypocritical, if not downright snobby.

- The long-term implications are being misread by academia:

The public backlash against brain-enhancement, if it comes, may hit home only after the practice becomes mainstream, [University of Pennsylvania neurology professor Anjan] Chatterjee suggested. “You can imagine a scenario in the future, when you’re applying for a job, and the employer says, ‘Sure, you’ve got the talent for this, but we require you to take Adderall.’ Now, maybe you do start to care about the ethical implications.”

I doubt the societal impact would come down this way at all. Rather, it would be more along the lines of the class action lawsuit against Major League Baseball being contemplated by ex-minor leaguer Rich Hartmann, which contends that an unsafe environment was created via the rewarding of steroid-takers with promotion to the big leagues. The harm doesn’t come from an explicit order from a prospective employer to start drugging up — it comes from a broader peer-pressure environment where everyone is juiced up, and you’re at a competitive disadvantage by staying all-natural.

So, correcting Dr. Chatterjee’s hypothetical from above: It’s not going to be a prospective employer saying, “we require you to take Adderall”; instead, it’ll be “you’ve got the talent for this, but not as much as this other guy — who already takes Adderall”. Holding out will mean missing out in this brave new job market.

Part One was a month ago. Now, Metropolitan Corporate Counsel takes a further overview look at how the major pro sports league exploit their playing facilities as revenue streams: Namely, via naming rights and amenitized in-stadium premiums like luxury boxes, club seating and personal seat licenses.

As I pointed out a while back, the New York metro area is lately leading the way in terms of naming rights deal, dollar-wise:

Thus, in a span of less than three months, three New York area teams from different sports generated almost $1 billion in sponsorship fees. Such astronomical numbers can be attributed not only to the location of the facilities, but also to the pent-up demand for such agreements. Indeed, prior to this string of deals, the last naming rights agreement in the New York area had been in 1996 when Continental Airlines put its name on the former Brendan Byrne Arena in New Jersey’s Meadowlands sports complex.

And it’s always important to remember that, just because a stadium name remains unblemished by corporate rechristening, that doesn’t shut the door on selling select facility components:

Similarly, although the Yankees do not plan (at this time) on renaming their new $800 million palace - as the Yankee Stadium moniker is as sacrosanct as names can be in sports - they do plan on selling naming rights for each gate at the stadium. In light of the history, popularity, and importance of the New York Yankees, these mini naming rights deals should prove very profitable as well.

By the same token, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Yankees sell the naming rights to the actual playing field — something like “Merrill Lynch Field at Yankee Stadium”.

As with the first edition of this report, there’s not much new here. But it’s a good summation of the current landscape of big-time sports business leveraging.

I’ll say this for the National Hockey League in this cap-strapped era: It’s damned efficient when it comes to trading players.

The league trading deadline came and went today at 3PM, and the teams exploded for 25 transactions. That’s more action than the rest of the year combined (even counting waiver-wire pickups that included notables like Ilya Bryzgalov, Sergei Samsonov, and Mark Recchi). As someone who enjoys trade news, I’ve resented the dampening effect the salary cap has had on trades for the past couple of years. So it seems Deadline Day is all I’ve got left.

As for today’s specifics, the biggest stories obviously were Brad Richards landing in Dallas, with Tampa Bay getting back a long-needed potential starting goalie in Mike Smith; and the Penguins surprising everyone by landing Marian Hossa.

Wild day. I almost wish I had taken the day off for it.

Funny thing about Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Dan Boyle and the freshly-inked contract that keeps him off the trade and free agent market:

TSN has learned that the deal will pay Boyle $6.66 million per year for six years [for a total of $40 million].

Sure, business is business, but that 6-6-6 per year is unusually satanic.

What’s more, the incoming new owner of the Lightning happens to be one Oren Koules, Hollywood producer best known for the Saw horror-flick franchise. It’s been acknowledged that Koules has been given the greenlight to make personnel decisions ahead of officially closing on the sale, so Boyle’s contract doubtless had his final approval.

So, did Koules engineer that mark-of-the-beast dollar figure, as some sort of subtle movie-marketing tie-in? Will every Lightning contract during the Koules era have some nefarious subtext attached to it?

I’m happy for Boyle’s bank account, but scared for his soul.