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The odds of owning a horse who races in the Kentucky Derby are pretty slim. All Derby horses are 3-year-olds, meaning each horse has just one chance in its lifetime to race the Kentucky Derby. According to the Churchill Downs communications department, approximately 26,000 thoroughbreds were foaled in the United States in 2010. Just 1.4 percent (369) of those horses were nominated to the Triple Crown, and only 20 will race on Saturday in the 139th Kentucky Derby.

If those odds don’t scare you off, and you still think it might be fun to attempt to raise a Derby contender, consider the cost.

First, you’ll have to purchase a horse at auction or breed. At an auction, be prepared to spend anywhere from the low six figures to the low seven figures. Fusaichi Pegasus, the 2000 winner of the Kentucky Derby, was the most expensive winner ever purchased at $4 million as a then-yearling.

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The year-and-a-half fight for Rick Lentini ended Tuesday when he found out that the World Anti-Doping Agency had dropped deer-antler velvet from its prohibited substances list.

Lentini, CEO of a company called Nutronics Labs, which says it produces more deer-antler velvet than anyone in the world, had been fighting the perception that the product was closely connected to steroids.

"I feel vindicated," Lentini said. "It was the right decision."

Deer-antler velvet, which is a coating that aids growth on a deer's antlers, has been used in Chinese medicine for centuries. It contains IGF-1, which is considered a precursor to human growth hormone. Like HGH, it is not detectable in urine drug tests.

Several athletes who had used it professed to feeling the difference in aiding their recovery. Deer-antler velvet has been said to help everything from heart function to muscle recovery though independent studies to determine the veracity of such claims has been few and far between.

It exploded onto the scene in the U.S. two years ago when stories of its worth and stealth emerged, but then the market got crushed.

In the summer of 2011, St. Louis Rams linebacker David Vobora won a $5.4 million settlement with a company called S.W.A.T.S., which sold a deer-antler velvet spray that Vobora said led to his testing positive for methyltestosterone. Although it was never proved that the product itself originally tested positive for the substance, and subsequent independent tests proved it did not contain the banned steroid, the Major League Baseball Players Association warned players that taking deer-antler velvet could result in a positive test of methyltestosterone.

After word of the letter got out, and it was recounted in publication after publication, Lentini filed a libel lawsuit against the union, but once the union said it would defend itself, Lentini's small company had to give in last month and drop the case. Although some performance-enhancers garner more business when they are banned, Lentini says that, after the initial pop, his business declined by 40 percent.

"We kept telling people that it was steroid-free, but they had a hard time believing us," Lentini said. "They kept asking us why we were banned."

Then came the big break. After golfer Vijay Singh admitted to using deer-antler velvet, the PGA Tour followed up with the World Anti-Doping Agency, which told the tour that it no longer considered deer-antler velvet and IGF-1 a prohibited substance. On Tuesday, when the PGA Tour released its findings that Singh would indeed not be suspended, it revealed for the first time that deer-antler velvet had been taken off the list.

That's how Lentini found out.

"I'm elated for Vijay," said Lentini, who says he wrote a letter to the PGA Tour on Singh's behalf.

He's also happy for his own company, hoping that the damage done is a thing of the past. Not surprisingly, orders were up Tuesday afternoon.

In the past couple of days, Jason Collins has gone from an NBA afterthought to a person who might be quite marketable if he signs with a team and becomes the first openly gay man to play in a major professional team sport in the U.S.

When I first heard of Collins going public Monday, there was only one guy I wanted to talk to, and that was Golden State Warriors president Rick Welts. First of all, Rick is one of the smartest marketers in the game. Secondly, Rick is the most high-profile current sports executive to have publicly revealed that he is gay; he came out in an article in The New York Times less than two years ago.

Before Tuesday night's game against the Nuggets, I asked Rick some questions about Collins' marketing potential.

Rovell: How much more marketable is Jason Collins now versus last week?

Welts: Well, I think it’s a different kind of marketability. I think what will be his experience; there is going to be a lot of thought both by companies that might be looking at him as well as Jason himself because anybody who is going to get involved with him at this point, their message is going to be message-oriented instead of product-oriented. It is not just a player selling a product, this is going to be a message that will go behind that that will make a statement behind this company and making a statement that Jason wants to make.

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Tim Tebow finds himself in a very different place today than this time last year. He is no longer playing in New York, and he occupies a very different place in the marketing landscape.

Just 12 short months ago, Tebow was coming off a season with the Broncos that saw him start 13 games, including two playoff games. Now he’s looking back on a season with no starts and only 77 snaps at quarterback for the Jets.

What a difference a year can make.

Last year, Tebow’s positive Q Score, a measurement of how many respondents viewed him in a positive light, was 22 among sports fans, well above the league average of 16. The latest results from Q Scores, which the company released in early April, show that his positive Q Score has fallen to exactly the league average in just 12 months.

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Lost in the chatter about the new uniforms adidas created for some of its partner schools during March Madness: the fact that 17 schools terminated or suspended their contracts with the apparel giant.

What did adidas do to raise the ire of so many schools?

The issue revolves around the closure of PT Kizone, a factory in Indonesia with which adidas, along with Nike and the Dallas Cowboys, had contracts for the manufacture of goods. According to a report produced by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), violations at PT Kizone began in September 2010 when it failed to make mandatory terminal compensation payments to employees who left the factory. In December 2010, the factory failed to make regularly scheduled payments to current employees. The owner of the factory then fled Indonesia in January 2011. Thereafter, the buying agent, Green Textile, ran the factory and paid workers through March 2011. In April 2011, PT Kizone was declared bankrupt and closed.

The WRC, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and other worker rights advocacy groups claimed adidas was refusing to pay $1.8 million in legally mandated severance owed to the 2,800 workers of PT Kizone. Total severance and other pay due under Indonesian law to the workers, who had no advance notice of the factory’s closure, totaled $3.3 million. Both Nike and the Dallas Cowboys contributed partial severance, but for nearly two years, adidas has maintained it does not owe any of the monies.

Beginning last fall, Cornell, Rutgers, Washington, Georgetown, University of Montana, Santa Clara University, College of William and Mary, Northeastern University, Temple University and Washington State terminated contracts with adidas. In addition, administrators at Oregon State told USAS they sent a termination letter on April 16. Oberlin and three University of Minnesota system campuses (Twin Cities, Crookston and Morris) advised adidas that they would not renew when their current athletics apparel contract are completed. Wisconsin has sued adidas, with the assistance of the Wisconsin attorney general, and in mid-March, Penn State suspended its contract, giving adidas 60 days to rectify the situation.

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When the lights go up on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday for the NFL draft, things will quickly turn into a party for the offensive linemen.

Central Michigan's Eric Fisher, Texas A&M's Luke Joeckel and Oklahoma's Lane Johnson could all go in the top five, which would mark only the second time, and the first time in 45 years, that so many offensive linemen were picked so soon.

From Pop Warner on up, it seems like players always wanted to be the quarterback, running back or wide receiver. After all, it's those guys who get all the attention and get their names in the paper. But if you're athletic and want to make the big bucks, it now actually pays to embrace anonymity in the name of eventual fame.

It can be argued that some of the willingness for players to change positions, and coaches to encourage them, comes from Michael Lewis' book "The Blind Side." Lewis used Ole Miss left tackle Michael Oher to demonstrate that as the price of the quarterback has gone up, the guy who protects him is more valuable than ever.

"'The Blind Side' made it cool to play tackle," said Peter Schaffer, who represents Joe Thomas and Russell Okung, two of the four Pro Bowl starters at left tackle this past season. "It increased the talent pool at the position because the best athletes were willing to play it."

"The Blind Side" hit bookshelves in September 2006. The first "Blind Side" draft in 2007? Two offensive linemen were taken in the top five. At the time, picking an offensive lineman in a top spot wasn't fully accepted by fans. Phil Savage, who was then the general manager of the Cleveland Browns, picked Schaffer's client Thomas as the third overall pick that year.

"When we drafted him, there were shrugs in the room and people said, 'Oh well, he'll be a solid player,'" Savage said.

Savage said there's no question that "The Blind Side" helped players understand that the left tackle was now a skill position. Although many insiders in the business deny that Lewis' book -- and subsequently the movie that became the fourth-highest grossing sports movie of all time -- affected how they think about offensive linemen, "The Blind Side" certainly helped fans understand the most marketable star isn't always the right one.

In the years that followed, the number of offensive linemen taken in the first round grew.

In the six years before "The Blind Side" hit bookstores (2001 to 2006), a total of 23 offensive linemen were taken in the first round. In the six years after the book came out, 36 offensive linemen were taken in the first round, an increase of 57 percent.

The first pick in the 2008 draft was Michigan left tackle Jake Long, only the third offensive lineman taken first overall since the common era draft began in 1967. The Dolphins were so excited to get Long, they signed him five days before the draft. And it wasn't only Long. That year, eight offensive linemen went in the first round, the most since 10 offensive linemen were drafted in 40 years.

Savage also argues that offensive linemen are a much safer bet than picking someone in a traditional skill position in a top spot in the draft.

"If you are a new general manager or a coach, and five out of the first 11 picks are being made by teams that changed both a GM and a coach this year, you want to hit a double your first time out," Savage said. "You don't need to swing for the fences."

Savage reasons that even if an offensive lineman doesn't live up to his billing, he can be moved around on the line and be serviceable for a decade in the league. The same can't be said for guys like quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who was drafted No. 1 in 2007 but hasn't played in the NFL since the 2009 season.

Although Thursday night likely will be all about the left tackle, Savage says it's possible that this will be the last year the position gets so much attention. He reasons that the spread offenses coming to the league have somewhat diminished the responsibility on the left tackle alone, which means that it's more important to have five good players on the line instead of a star and four others to fill up the holes.

Schaffer disagrees.

"Whether you are a spread offense or not, you're still going to want to have your best player protecting your $20 million-a-year quarterback," Schaffer said.

Whatever the future holds, one thing is for certain: Offensive linemen are anything but an afterthought today.

For months now, players such as D.J. Hayden and Lane Johnson have been training for this. They perfected their 40-yard dash time for the NFL combine, met with sports psychologists and learned how to cook themselves nutritious meals. In gyms and training facilities all over the country, they’ve worked with position coaches and learned how to conduct themselves when being interviewed.

All of this, in the hopes they’ll hear their name called a little higher than they were projected just a few months ago.

The trend began in the early 1990s, and today virtually every draft-eligible player spends weeks, and sometimes months, leading up to the combine and draft training in facilities designed to improve the odds of hearing his name called in an early round.

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Social media nights are nothing new for MLB teams. Most teams have at least one on their promotional calendar this year. Although each team does things a bit differently, they generally include discounted tickets for the team’s social media followers and social media-themed giveaways.

On Wednesday, for example, fans who purchased tickets through a special link online for the Mets’ social media night will receive a social media-themed T-shirt and an iPhone Skinit. Fans who purchased the special social media night tickets will also enjoy a pregame meeting with other Mets Twitter followers and staff, and one lucky fan will get to throw out the first pitch. Giveaways will occur throughout the game, and fans’ Twitter handles will be displayed on the scoreboard.

Some teams are finding these social media nights can be a good time for the staff to interact with fans and get feedback about the fan experience.

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On Sunday afternoon, Albert Swallow did something that he never thought of doing before: He sold his marathon medal.

Buying or selling a medal in the marathon world is frowned upon, but Swallow saw the skyrocketing price of memorabilia associated with the race and couldn't pass up the opportunity.

But unlike so many others at times of death and tragedy, who seek to cash in on the moment for their own personal gain, Swallow -- who finished the Boston Marathon in 3 hours and 15 minutes -- says he's not pocketing the money.

"I recognize the controversy regarding the sale of items related to this year's race," Swallow said via e-mail. "But I could not justify hanging this medal in my closet, where I have all my race medals, when someone would pay such a high price for it and I could donate the proceeds to One Fund to help the victims."

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Thursday will be one of the biggest days in ticket resale history. Why? Because the NBA playoff matchups are set and the NFL schedule is coming out. We’re talking about tons of fans scrambling to find the tickets they want over the next 24 hours.

First, let’s talk about the NFL:

To look at this from a ticket broker’s point of view, I phoned Patrick Ryan of The Ticket Experience in Houston to discuss how things go down.

Ryan says brokers first look at their home team’s opponents and figure out what matchups are the most important. From a national perspective, the next thing he does is look at when and where the Packers, Cowboys and Steelers play. And finally, he says he looks at the night matchups on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

“The biggest difference in this year versus last year is the rise of the young quarterbacks, which is going to raise the secondary-ticket market value,” Ryan says. “Aside from RG III and Colin Kaepernick, those that will make an impact on the road will be Russell Wilson and Andrew Luck.”

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Sports history is filled with battles between fans and the owners of their favorite teams, but never before has the tension risen to the heights it has in Miami. Just 15 games into the Marlins' season, the anger is mounting, and a 3-12 record hasn't helped.

After crossing the $100 million payroll threshold for the first time in team history to coincide with the opening of their new ballpark last year, the Marlins had a disappointing season on the field, which prompted much-maligned owner Jeffrey Loria to scrap the idea of spending more to win (and make more). In the offseason, Loria cut the payroll by $73 million, the largest cut in league history, primarily by trading shortstop Jose Reyes and pitchers Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson to the Toronto Blue Jays. In February, in a rare media blitz, he assured fans to be patient and that his actions were the right ones.

"It didn't work," Loria said at the time. "We stunk; we had to fix it; we had to change it; we had to do it quickly."

Loria was certainly talking about the fact that the team lost a lot of money, $47 million, according to the Miami Herald, which recently examined the team's books. The team had projected that it would draw more than 30,000 fans for every game in its first season in the new ballpark. That didn't happen for 73 percent of the team's home games.

Nine home games into the second year of the new ballpark, things have gotten worse. Only 52 percent of the stadium's seats have been filled, and that's including an Opening Day game that was part of a Groupon discount offer with free seats and merchandise credits thrown in. In the past 10 years, no team that has opened a new ballpark has had a lower percentage of seats filled in its second season.

Fans aren't just mad because their team was gutted -- it's also because they're paying for the bulk of the ballpark. A $91 million construction loan financed by Miami-Dade County over 40 years is going to cost $1.2 billion once it is paid off.

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As the affected families come to grips with how the Boston Marathon bombing has changed their lives, and as Bostonians mourn the loss of innocence of one of their most beloved holidays, organizers of the country’s biggest marathons have started to assess how the events will affect their sport.

The early read from the sport's insiders? Marathons not only will survive, they will get stronger.

“The word endurance means resilience, to stand up and overcome the trauma on the body,” said Scott Dickey, CEO of the Competitor Group, the largest private marathon organizer in the United States. “They picked the wrong group. We’re tough and gritty.”

No one can blame Dickey for getting back to business. In December, The Competitor Group was purchased by private equity firm Calera Capital for $250 million. One of Calera’s offices is in Boston, and it is located less than four blocks from the bomb blast on Boylston Street.

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Last week, a craft beer stand at Yankee Stadium was criticized for not actually having craft beer. The brands, which included Leinenkugel's and Blue Moon, are in fact owned by MillerCoors and therefore don't technically qualify as craft.

I sympathize with MillerCoors' smaller-batch brands, as I happen to enjoy both Leinenkugel's and Blue Moon and think the outrage caused by their connection to the larger company is a little bit forced.

That being said, as craft beer continues to boom with double-digit increases in sales and volume against the static larger brewers, stadiums and arenas are going to have to step up the options they offer fans.

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Let's get this straight:

Negativity about Tiger Woods has been completely blown out of proportion.

Sure his scandal resulted in brands such as AT&T, Accenture and Gatorade dropping him, but think about the brands that kept him: Electronic Arts, Upper Deck and Nike. What do they have in common? They're the companies that rely on him most. If they didn't think he could sell, they wouldn't have stuck with him.

As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, I'm a big proponent of polling. But I also admit its faults. Polling, which has universally shown a decline in his popularity, has done a disservice to Tiger. Why? Because polling has to be looked at over time and can't be looked at in a vacuum.

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The digital transaction company Square, maker of the plug-in credit card reader for smartphones and tablets, reinforced something most of us already know. The NFL is king in this country.

After tracking sales volume among about 50,000 Square-equipped vendors in Atlanta this past weekend, the company determined that the Final Four did draw money to the local economy. But the boost wasn’t nearly as big as the Super Bowl gave New Orleans.

Square measured Square-related commerce on Super Bowl weekend and the prior weekend in New Orleans and found that business increased 60 percent on Super Bowl weekend. Following the same procedure for Final Four weekend in Atlanta, which included Monday, Square-equipped individuals and businesses there saw more than an 11 percent increase in business compared to the weekend before.

From Mar. 30 to Apr. 1, Atlanta individuals and businesses used Square to process around $1.6 million. During Final Four weekend, that number increased to just $1.8 million.

It doesn’t seem like much difference, but a closer look does show a few interesting things.

“Looking at the heat maps and the data, it appears that commerce shifted slightly towards downtown, just east of the Georgia Dome,” says Square spokesperson Faryl Ury. “This is unlike Super Bowl weekend, where commerce shifted more strongly towards the Superdome."

And restaurateurs and taxi and limo drivers certainly got a big boost from the Final Four. Food-related businesses had the most number of transactions processed via Square, while taxi and limo drivers saw their business more than double.

Square isn’t taking a stance on what these numbers mean, but it intends to continue to collect sales data around big-time sporting events. The more data it collects, the more likely civic leaders will draw conclusions. For now, those conclusions are TBD.