Businessmen and sports

A lot of business persons were athletes in high school and college. There are many things that are similar between team sports and business activities, and both attract many of the same people. It is a good idea to become familiar with the basics of baseball, football, and basketball at least in order to make semi-intelligent sports-related small talk. Beyond small talk, business talk is filled with sports-related idioms. These are used so comfortably in American speech that the speaker probably will not even realize that he is using them.