1. LA Lakers: The Lakers make the list simply because of the number of NBA Championships they’ve won. And, we know they’ll do it again.
2. New York Yankees: They’ve been playing baseball for over a hundred years, and they have quite a track record. Even if you’re a Mets fan, you probably would like to own the Yankees.
3. Real Madrid: The most successful football team in Champions League history, they’re worth owning for their brand recognition.
4. FC Barcelona: This is probably the most popular soccer club in Europe. They’re worth owning for their sheer fan excitement.
5. Manchester United: This is also a team worth owning for their brand awareness. They also happen to be the most successful soccer team in the world, from a financial standpoint. (Though Real Madrid is close)
6. Detroit Redwings: They are recently the most successful of Canada’s hockey teams.
7. Dallas Cowboys: The Cowboys are an American football icon – and they’d make you a heck of a lot of money, too. They may just be the most valuable professional sports franchise in the world.
8. Boston Red Sox: Their record has been solid of late, but that’s not the best reason to own them. You want to own them because they are among the most profitable teams in all of pro sports. Did you know, that more than half the major league baseball garb sold bears either the Red Sox or the Yankees logo?
9. Washington Redskins: Ok, so their record is pretty bad, particularly in recent years. But, they still make a pile of money. Their fans are die hards.
10. The Williams Sisters: So, they might not really be franchises, but these two women are the powerhouses of tennis today. It would be great to work with them and share in their profits and their winning record.
11. Chicago Bulls: They’ve won six championships, and the franchise is worth over $500 million. It would be a nice little investment. Over the years, they’ve had some of the most talented and colorful players, too.
12. Toronto Maple Leafs: They’ve appeared in the Stanley Cup 21 times. That’s enough reason for me.
13. St. Louis Cardinals: They’ve been part of American baseball since 1882 and they’ve won 10 World Series. They’re part of baseball legend.
14. San Francisco 49′ers: It’s said the 49er’s are worth about $900 million. They haven’t done that great in recent years, but they have an amazing fan base.
15. Pittsburgh Steelers: They’ve had a pretty decent run in recent years, and, man, their fans are crazy! Oh yeah- and they’re worth about $100 million, too.
16. Boston Celtics: They’re one of the earliest teams of the NBA, and they’ve won 17 championships.
17. Montreal Canadiens: Another great Canadian hockey team, this one has been in the Stanley Cup 33 times. They are arguably the greatest team in NHL history.
18. San Antonio Spurs: They’re one of the newer NBA teams, having come from the ABA originally. They’re worth about $400 million, and they’ve developed a big fan base in recent years.
19. New England Patriots: They’ve been dominators on the football field in recent years.
20. New York Giants: Though they don’t make the news like a lot of other football teams in the last couple of years, both they and their fan base is going strong. They are one of the most valuable teams in the NFL.
21. The Arsenal: They made $369 million in revenue last year. They are one of the hottest soccer teams in the English Premier League.
22. New York Jets: This team is valued at over $1 billion.
23. Houston Texans: Their stadium naming deal with Reliant alone was worth over $300 million.
24. Philadelphia Eagles: Season ticket renewal rate for this team’s holders is over 99%; one of the highest in the NFL.
25. Chicago Bears: Their revenue is over $240 million and the team is worth over $1 billion.

Of course, everyone has personal reasons for why they might want to own one team over another reason. But, there are plenty of great reasons to own any of these 25!

Basketball

Learn more about basketball, challenges and more. A great look at what is happening in the world of this fast-paced game.

1. The Official Dwight Howard Blog: This young player shares his thoughts and insights. A great way to learn more about coping with the ups and downs of basketball.
2. Cappie Pondexter: Updates, insights and inspiration from this bright player.
3. Cash Beyond Borders: Slam hosts this blog from Swin Cash, with insights on competing in another country.
4. Etan Thomas: This “gentle giant” blogs about politics at The Huffington Post. And he’s just published a book of poems. Get inspired to find a cause.
5. Women’s Basketball Player Blogs: Different members of the women’s basketball team at Weber State University share their insights and experiences.
6. Club Trillion: Mark Titus is known as a walk-on basketball player for Ohio State University. Interesting (and sometimes entertaining) insights.

Football

Read the stories of football players, and find out what is happening in their lives. A peek inside the world of football.

7. Kerry Rhodes: This young football player blogs about the game and life, including his charitable foundation.
8. Darius Butler: Get into the head of this player for the Pats.
9. Larry Fitzgerald: Read about determination, moving forward, and life.
10. Drew Brees: This devoted Christian inspires many through his football play, and his foundation.
11. Chad Ochocinco: If you want to be inspired by fashion and outrageousness, Ochocino’s Facebook postings are the way to go.

Baseball and Softball

Great insights into the worlds of baseball and softball. Stories that will keep you going, and that will give you something to think about.

12. 38 Pitches: Few people are as inspiring as Curt Schilling, who played during the World Series with a bloody sock.
13. Pat Neshek: This Twins player offers insight, and includes information on baseball.
14. CJBaseball.com: Read the thoughts of baseball player CJ Nitkowski.
15. Jennie’s Blog: This softball player works to inspire others to to dream and believe.
16. We are IU Softball: Player perspectives from the ladies and coaches on the Indian University softball team.
17. The Official Blog of Matt Antonelli: This upbeat Padres player has plenty to say about work and life.
18. The Million Dollar Arm Blog: Follow the adventures of two Indians working to become professional baseball players.

Golf

Golf is a game that requires a great deal of patience and practice. Feel inspired when you read the thoughts of these golfers.

19. The Golf Chick: Join this golfer as she ruminates on golf and life.
20. All About Natalie: You can enjoy some insights into the thoughts of this LPGA golfer.
21. Rory McIlroy: Straight talk from this young golfer. Insights on feeling discouraged, as well as keeping up with training.
22. Average Golfer: Share triumphs, news, insights and more related to golf with this avid golfer.
23. Grouchy Golf Blog: If you have a love-hate relationship with golf, this blog can inspire you. And maybe make you laugh.
24. Paul Casey: Be inspired by this rising golf star. Includes information on winning habits and attitude.

Soccer

The world’s favorite sport offers plenty of opportunities to read about overcoming difficulties in triumph.

25. Moritz Voltz: This soccer player offers well-written insights into the sport and training.
26. Chasing the Dream: Nick Humphries blogs about his efforts to become a professional. Interesting and inspiring blog.
27. Escribbler Football Sports Blog: Former professional soccer player Andy Hunt muses on soccer and life.

Running and Triathletes

Some of the most inspiring athletes are those that accomplish amazing feats of running and competing in triathlons.

28. Diary of an amateur triathlete: This a great blog that offers inspiration and support for those who are interested in overcoming the struggles related to participating in triathlons.
29. Murtha’s Triathlon Blog: Journey into the thoughts of this interesting triathlete. Shares triumphs and disappointments.
30. Mauricio’s Triathlon/Running Blog: A great place to go to find encouragement and insight.
31. Swim Bike Run Live: Find out more about triathlon training, and be inspired. Includes thoughts on giving back and priorities.
32. Marathon Training: This blog is written by fellow runners who provide insight and inspiration.
33. Trifuel: Inspiring posts on strategy, working out, and improving your performance.
34. Runblogger: Inspiration for those who want to live an active life. Great for running encouragement.
35. Running and Rambling: Great thoughts, insights and more on running and on life.

Climbing

It takes endurance and determination to be a good climber. Read about it from these bloggers.

36. A Climber’s Blog: Four contributors muse on life and climbing.
37. RockClimberGirl: Fun and inspirational stories from women who rock climb.
38. ClimbingNarc: A look at climbing, and overcoming the challenges it presents.
39. Stewart’s Climbing Blog: Great blog about rock climbing and more.
40. The Chalk Blog: Learn a bit about climbing, and overcoming challenges.
41. climber.me: Interesting stories from around the world as you follow this globe trotting climber.
42. B3bouldering.com: A cool blog that shares the ups and downs of climbing.

Other Sports

Here are a few other athletes that offer interesting insight and inspiration.

43. Long Track Long Shot: This former investment banker looks to become a long track speed skater.
44. Anne’s Tennishead Blog: Anne Keothavong blogs about her performance, and offers insights into tennis and better play.
45. Mat’s Swimming Blog: Get inspired by athlete stories and more from this swimmer and coach.
46. TEXAS SWIMMING: This swimmer and coach offers insights about swimming, life and kids playing sports.
47. The Backcountry Skiing Blog: Inspiration for those who enjoy going off the beaten path.
48. Skimaven: Follow the adventures of this skiing athlete and get insight on life as well.
49. Quartersnacks.com: This skateboarder offers thoughts on the past, on life and on the skateboard.
50. Pat Griffin’s LGBT Sports Blog: A great blog addressing issues of LGBT athletes from someone who was involved.

As you can imagine, sports psychologists are often employed by professional athletes and athletic teams to help them maximize their performance on the field, using psychological techniques. Sports psychologists help athletes and teams learn goal setting, relaxation, visualization, self talk, concentration, confidence, etc. along with their physical training to get the most out of each performance.

To be a sports psychologist, you must understand general psychology, but you must also have a good understanding of sports, training and fitness, and sports injury and medicine. There are some degree programs available for sports psychology.

If you’d like to learn more about the field before entering a degree program, check out these 10 open courseware classes that are relevant to the subject. All are free and they come from some of the best universities in the country.

1. General Psychology: This course from UC Berkeley gives you the basics in psychology.

2. Confronting Injuries: This class in sports medicine from Johns Hopkins explores injury control and prevention.
3. Stress Management: This course from Weber State University explores stress management as it relates to human performance. It focuses on causes of stress, recognizing personal stressors and life changing management for stress control.
4. Musculoskeletal Pathophysiology: This course from Tufts University focuses on disorders that affect the musculoskeletal system.
5. The Chemistry of Sports: This course from MIT focuses on swimming, cycling and running, and introduces students to the chemistry of their biological systems.
6. Sports Media and Culture: This course from Learning Space looks at the media coverage of sports. Learn how media coverage has impacted some of the greatest moments in sports and how media coverage in general can affect sports performance.
7. Introduction to Cardiovascular Fitness: A healthy cardiovascular system is critical in all sports. This course from Wikiversity explores getting fit for a strong heart.
8. Clinical Psychology: This course from Berkeley offers an introduction to clinical psychology concepts.
9. Developmental Psychopathology: A general class in developmental psychology offered by the University of California at Berkeley.
10. Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology: Nutrient Function and Metabolism: This course from Berkeley covers diet and nutrition, including required nutrients and their function in the diet and metabolism.

For More Information

Sports psychology is still relatively new as a career field, so it’s not as easy to find information as on some other fields. There are, however, some publications that can help you in addition to the open courseware classes listed here. Take a look at the following:

1. The American Journal of Sports Psychology: This is a great resource for finding articles, info about sports, and even jobs in sports fields. It’s a resource you’ll use over and over again.

2. Athletic Insight: This is a new online journal of sports psychology. You can read articles, find conferences to attend and keep up with all the news in the sports psychology arena from this site.
3. The International Journal of Sports Psychology: This online journal publishes empirical and theoretical contributions in the human movement sciences from all over the world. You can find a lot of statistical and medical information related to sports medicine and sports psychology here.
4. The American College of Sports Medicine’s Home Page: This is a great resource, focusing primarily on sports medicine. However, there are some great articles and resources related to sports psychology, too.
5. The Journal of Applied Sports Psychology: This journal is a paper publication that is published four times a year. However, you can access back issues online, too.
6. The Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology: This publication publishes research articles about the interaction between the mind and body in the psychology of exercise and sports. It is published bi-monthly. Many of the articles are available for free online, but you can get a full subscription with a fee.

Sports help a child to decrease overweight and obesity and save them from many health issues so helping a child to develop health and sporting habits help him to avoid later health problems. It has been observed that children and young who enjoy sporting activities are less prone to anti social activities. In case, if a children has a disability or going through medical problem then there are many sport activities which they can indulge into or play on.

If children have a disability or ongoing medical problem there are many sports they can play. Discuss this with your child’s doctor and then find out what is available in your area. However, involving a kid into sport do also requires many recommendation and ideas like as if a children starts in competitive sport before they are emotionally or physically maturated so it is possible that they may face disappointment and stress and even may quit gaming altogether.

However, in this exercise parents do have great role to play as apart from parents rest they can have support from parents, coaches, drivers, umpires, fundraisers and cheerleaders to play on an active and important role in entire activities. Parents even can help children by many means and methods to get excited and play and enjoy sports themselves as child can watch his parents involved into the sporting activities and children even can join them. Parents can play with children and even can teach children to develop those sporting skills and to the best and improve their skill and can do the best thing as much as possible.

They can go along with there children at sport spot and even can encourage them in improving their skills  and doing as best as possible for them in encourage them to attempt and try on various sport activities and ideas. Parents can teach children what by any means could be good sportsmanship and in what manner they can react to good sports as well as poor one. They help children to learn rules of the game and tell them why they are too important to even rule of the game and always should avoid them from blaming children from mistakes.  More it is on the part of parents is that they should always show courtesy and consideration at sporting events and they even should not argue with umpire and other players. This stresses a kid too. Thus it is clear that sports are very necessary for children for physical as well as mental growth.

The first sport psychologist known to be in history is Norman Triplett, a North American man from Asia, born in 1861. His first finding as a sport psychologist was the relation of the fact that cyclist ride faster in pairs instead of riding solo. The International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) was formed by Dr. Ferruccio Antonelli of Italy in 1965. In 1966, sport psychologists in Chicago formed the North American Society of Sport Psychology and Physical Activity (NASPSPA).

Since 1970’s, sport psychology has become part of the university syllabus. The Sports Psychology programs as a part of the kinesiology help students to learn how to develop positive attitudes in athletes using sport psychology and drugs. By the 1980 sport psychology became more research focused. Now on Sport psychologists deal with issues like performance enhancement, the psychological impact of exercise and over training as well as stress management. Also, sport psychologists have started considering exercises as a mean to provide a therapeutic addition to healthy mental adjustment.

And with advancement of sporting activities, sport psychologists also have started gaining recognition for their valuable contribution which they have made to in assisting athletes and coaches in improving performances during competitive situations as well as understanding how sports psychology contribute to the growth of a sport activity. Below is the list of most common words used in sports psychology.

• Cohesion: This term refers to the extent to which a team or group share a sense of shared task or social bond.
• Imagery: This term is referred to be as ‘imagined’ sensation, which is known to be as visualization.
• Attention Focus: This is termed as mean to block everything out, especially, crowd for having attention while playing a game.
• Motivation: This most needed word is consisted of several traits that together form a general orientation of a person towards achievement in sports. The research related to sport is known to be Motivation as known to be The Achievement Motivation Inventory (AMI) (Schuler, Thornton, Frintrup & Mueller-Hanson, 2003) which is a broad-spectrum assessment of achievement-motivation in business.
• Internal Monologue: This is about having the positive thoughts on a competition by handling a running conversation in one’s mind and brain.
• Criticism: A tenet of motivational theory that is necessary to improve performance.

Some of the skills that are taught in working on the sports performance include: relaxation, goal achievement or setting, visualization, relaxation, awareness, concentration, relaxation, attribution training, self talk, control and periodization. These sports psychologist theories can also be applied to various other physical activities like playing musical instruments, acting in a play and so on. There are certain colleges that offer the Sports Psychology Program online.

The Keiser University and Keiser Career College
The Keiser University and Career College is a well established educational system that is based at Florida. In fact, it is made up of a series of schools that are associated, hence one main online institution. This online school works hard in providing well trained professional adults that can serve the nation with integrity and dignity. The Sports Psychologist courses are fully provided within this online institution and students have been well trained into better people. This online school ensures that all the trainees have acquired the skills of their profession to-be so that they can be a reliable team of workers.

Liberty University
Liberty University is an online sports psychologist school based at Virginia. It is one of the largest and rapidly growing Christian universities within Virginia. It was established with a mission to ensure that it has trained young lives for Jesus Christ. Some of the Sports Psychologist Programs provided at Liberty University include: Counseling Psychology, General Political Science and Government, General Psychology, General Social Sciences, Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, and most of all the Sports Psychology Course.

The Grand Canyon University
This particular University was originally founded in the year 1949. It first began as a simple teachers college then grew to big private University. It is private and non denominational Christian Institution. It provides quality training to the young trainees, molding them into better people in the society. Some of the Sports Psychologist Programs provide d include: Counseling, Sociology, General Psychology and International Relations.

Ashworth University
It is also a growing Sports Psychologist School that provides quality training. It is a greatly respected college and a global leader. It is an accredited educational institution that provides high quality education online. It is also known as a Career Development Institute since it works on shaping green lives into integral young professionals. Some of the programs on Sports Psychology provided include: General Psychology and Sports Psychology.

Ashford University Online
Ashford University is a well established institution that works on providing affordable, innovative and good quality education to young lives. It offers degree and Master Programs on the following Sports Psychologist Fields: American Government and Politics, General Political Science, General Psychology, Sociology, General Geography, and so on.