Back in early December I wrote a column entitled “The Financial Golden Age of Sports: 1996-2008″.  In it I predicted that professional sports were going to go into a financial decline that would last for years.  I don’t make forecasts unless I have a very strong sense of them being correct.  Well, this forecast has unfolded so quickly and so correctly that even I am a bit surprised.

In that column I wrote:

“going forward, the economics around sports in general will decline, at least for the next 5-8 years if not longer.” And

“Corporations, after firing thousands of people, will …

We are coming to an end of the greatest financial age of sports in history.  The twelve years between 1996 and 2008 were years when the money around sports exploded beyond any precedent era.  This also means that, going forward, the economics around sports in general will decline, at least for the next 5-8 years if not longer.

The bookends for these 12 years of explosive financial growth are the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and the Beijing Olympics of 2008.  The Atlanta Olympics were the first post-cold war Olympics and, being held in the U.S. created a huge marketing platform.  The …