Normal service will return to CSTB shortly — you’d be surprised how many people get upset when I try to drive a school bus and blog at the same time. But for now, here’s an unhappy item from the Sacramento Bee’s Bill Lindelof that serves as a reminder the restaurant business is a tough one.
The game is apparently over — at least for now — for Center Court With C-Webb, the sports restaurant opened by the former Sacramento Kings basketball star three years ago.
A recording on the restaurant answering machine said that Chris Webber is calling a time out for his sports bar and restaurant at 3600 N. Freeway Blvd.
“We regret to inform you that we have decided to close our Natomas location on Tuesday, Nov. 17. However, we look forward to seeing you at our new location in the near future. Thanks to all of our patrons for your continued support over the past years. Chris Webber and staff.”
There is no indication where or when a new Webber restaurant might open. It is also unclear what caused the sudden closure, but the recession and a recent shooting could not have helped the bottom line.
The star burger was the “Fab 5,” touted as Sacramento’s biggest burger with 44 ounces of choice Angus beef and selling for a princely price of $29.50.
I’m no expert on this industry, but there’s no way Don Nelson’s frequent, negative Yelp reviews were helping Center Court’s bottom line. But if Chris Webber could have a theme restaurant in the California capital this long after he left town, maybe there’s still a chance for Aubrey Huff to open a bar in Baltimore?
(never let it be said no one cares about the Nets – their recent woes resonate greatly with persons who consider David Wells to be an aesthetic influence)
All season ticketholders will receive two extra tickets for Tuesday’s home game against the Indiana Pacers. The Nets are also selling some seats for $10 at the box office, while supplies last.
“Your team has played very hard this season, but with an unprecedented amount of injuries, we just haven’t been able to attain a victory,” Brett Yormark, the team’s chief executive, said in a statement.
“But even with the injuries, the entire team believes that ‘10 Is Enough.’ That’s why we are asking you, our loyal fans, to rally around your team like never before at Tuesday night’s game. So bring your enthusiasm, show your support, and let’s get our first win.”
Belson quotes a Nets source as expecting 15,000 people to turn up at the Swamp tonight, which sounds like the sort of wide-eyed optimism that should serve Mr. Yormark very well during his job interview with the New York Mets next spring.
(Glazer patriarch Malcom, contemplating whether being mistaken for Charley Steiner is a compliment or not)
The Tampa Tribune’s Roy Cummings reports a local radio host has been suspended by Clear Channel after claiming Thursday morning the Glazer family — owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United — had lost nearly a half billion in Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme, and might soon be forced to sell the NFL franchise.
Dan Sileo, who hosts the early morning show on WDAE, quoted a “friend” who works with the Securities and Exchange Commission as saying the Glazers lost $440 million in the Ponzi scheme.
Mike Killebrew, program director for WDAE, said that WDAE and Clear Channel Tampa will not be issuing any comment about Sileo’s remarks until they “get a handle on the situation.”
Killebrew said station officials have asked Sileo not to make any comments about the situation, as well.
Sileo said the Glazers’ involvement has led them to consider bankruptcy. Sileo also gave his opinion that the team could be for sale as a result of the owners’ financial distress.
“The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are not, nor have they ever been for sale,” Glazer’s statement said. “In addition, our family or any of our related companies have never invested one penny with Bernie Madoff.
Sileo’s report also said the Glazers allotted only $2 million for free agent signings each season the past five years. The Bucs are $23 million below the NFL’s imposed team salary cap of $127 million.
The lack of financing for a project of this scale in this economic climate—the largest development since the birth of Levittown in the 1940s and ’50s—may be reason enough for Wang to pull the plug, says the source. Using the deadline may have been a tactic to enable him to gracefully bow out of the controversial project.
Wang bought the Islanders in 2000. Since first being proposed in 2003, the Lighthouse has undergone intense scrutiny from environmentalists and politicians, reaching a fever pitch in recent months with allegations that Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, Murray and former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato have all played key roles in stalling progress.
Imagine you’re working for Japanese television, doing a news feature on the splendors of the American pawn shop. Short of say, Mitch “Blood” Green driving a Yugo through the establishment’s display case, could there be any bigger a stroke of luck than former NL MVP turned serial deadbeat Lenny Dykstra looking to unload some rings’n'things? Thanks to Mark Twistworthy for the link.
“If John Elway can take the time to host and narrate a recognizing-your-local-terrorist video,” pleads David Roth, “hopefully you can make time to post it. And SAVE INNOCENT LIVES.” I wasn’t sure David hadn’t sent me some deleted scenes from “Team America : World Police”, but I’ve since been informed that was a puppet film. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know for certain.
Chin Up, Jim Dolan, Alex Spanos, Tom Hicks & Donald Sterling……you guys might no longer be serious contenders for the title of Most Despicable Owner In Professional Sports, if there’s any truth to the following report by NPR’s Frank James.
Talk Radio and conservative icon Rush Limbaugh has teamed up with Dave Checketts, owner of the national Hockey League’s St. Louis Blues, to try and purchase an ownership stake in the St. Louis Rams.
It’s difficult to determine from reports if they are trying to purchase the whole team or the 60 percent owned by the children of the late Georgia Frontiere, the long-time owner of the franchise who died last year.
Limbaugh couldn’t give details, citing a confidentiality agreement with the Goldman Sachs investment bank which was retained to shop the team around.
“A reason to hope for the deal to happen is so a Limbaugh-owned Rams could play the Donovan McNabb-led Philadelphia Eagles,” quips James, neglecting to note by the time this transaction is made official, McNabb’s more likely to be sitting alongside Chris Berman and Tom Jackson (and far more qualified for such a role than Limbaugh) than starting for the Eagles.
“Perhaps ESPNBoston.com’s newest business partnership will not prove to be a colossal conflict of interest in the long run,” opines the Boston Globe’s Chad Finn. “But upon first glance, that’s precisely what it appears to be.”
ESPNBoston.com, which became the second of ESPN’s planned network of city-specific sites to launch Sept. 14, is using Kraft Sports Group as its local advertising sales agent for the site. SportsBusiness Daily was the first to report news of the partnership on Thursday.
Kraft Sports Group is a holding company founded by Patriots owner Robert Kraft (above, far left) in 1998, four years after he purchased the NFL franchise. Along with the Patriots, Kraft owns the Revolution of Major League Soccer as well as Gillette Stadium, the venue for both teams’ home games.
Given that a significant amount of ESPNBoston.com’s coverage is dedicated to the Patriots, and a smaller amount to the Revolution, the partnership is beginning on dubious journalistic ground.
ESPN’s general strategy with its localized websites is to launch in cities where it already owns and operates an ESPN Radio station, then have the station’s staff coordinate ad sales for the website. Such was the case when ESPN Chicago launched in April.
While the ESPN mother ship has not been reluctant to criticize the franchise – it was relentless in its reporting and speculating during the “SpyGate’’ controversy of 2007 – the situation bears monitoring to see whether ESPNBoston.com’s curious new bedfellow has an effect on its reporting of potentially unflattering Patriots news.
Though it’s a bit early days to accuse ESPNBoston of lacking integrity, Finn would be remiss not to raise the points above. He’s equally remiss, however, in failing to disclose (even if it’s old fuckin’ news) the Globe’s parent company, The New York Times, holds a minority stake in the Boston Red Sox. Though I can’t think of an example of the Globe covering anything up to curry favor with John Henry, Larry Lucchino or Tom Werner, a number of shots have been taken by Globe writers at former players who’ve ended up on ownership’s shit list for one reason or another. Heck, the team almost lost a General Manager a few years ago over what seemed like a victorious power play on the part of Lucchino, successfully (for a while, anyway) engineered with the help of the CHB.
(Tom Hicks and Nolan Ryan, shown in happier days, ie. before the former began sleeping in his car)
Before the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Jennifer Floyd Engel is accused of trolling ala Mike De Silva, she’d like to point out “Rangers fans have been paying for fireworks and dollar hot dog night for nearly a decade. And now they finally have a season that genuinely generates legit hope for next season and they have no idea where this team is going.” To wit, the notion the financially hamstrung Texas Rangers might soon be under the control of Major League Baseball ala the final days of the Montreal Expos, continues to gain traction, and Ms. Floyd-Engel merely asked someone at MLB’s office who was in charge of the ballclub. The reply? “Pat Courtney”
After exhaustive Google research, I learned that Pat Courtney is Major League Baseball’s vice president of public relations. This obviously is an important man and certainly he’d have answers for scared and confused Rangers fans desperately wanting to know what this off-season may bring for this team.
Tom Hicks is normally the man to call on such matters, but what is the point nowadays? Everybody knows The Texas Rangers are at least partially funded by and possibly run by MLB, with someone named Pat Courtney apparently being a go-to guy.
Mr. Courtney never called back Monday, likely gagged like everybody else about this Rangers business. All joking aside, though, what I want to ask Courtney, and his boss, is who is running the Texas Rangers and thereby in charge of big decisions facing them?
Who sets the Rangers’ budget for 2010? Who decides what free agents the Rangers can or cannot pursue? Who decides whether ticket prices will be increased?
Are the Rangers going to try to re-sign Marlon Byrd? Who makes the call about an extension on Josh Hamilton? Is there an MLB-imposed ceiling on this like there apparently was for Matt Purke?
Bidders are unlikely to include the nearly two dozen businesses and individuals who charge the hardnosed player known as Nails bilked them of millions of dollars.
The most amazin’ item available is Dykstra’s 10-karat World Series ring, symbolic of the Mets’ stunning defeat of the Boston Red Sox.
The sparkler – valued at $20,000 – bears the Mets logo, Dykstra’s name and familiar No. 4, and the words “New York Mets, 1986 World Champions, 116 Wins.”
Among the other items up for sale at Heritage Auction Galleries:
Dykstra’s replica World Championship trophy, a foot-tall “glorious, glittering prize” inscribed with his name.
Dykstra’s home run ball that won game three of the 1986 National League Championship Series.
Hicks essentially has lost fiscal control of the team, which has had to borrow at least $15 million from major league baseball. MLB is making many of the calls regarding Rangers’ moves, including the one that cost them the ability to sign No. 1 draft pick Matt Purke.
The Rangers thought they would be able to offer Purke one amount, but commissioner Bud Selig, responding to pressure from other owners, forced them to back away from that offer and Purke wound up rejecting the team’s subsequent lower offer and will play for TCU instead.
The seriousness of the situation was brought into sharper focus Friday with speculation about the possibility of MLB stepping in to force the Rangers to shut down right-hander Kevin Millwood before he reaches 180 innings pitched, automatically guaranteeing him $12 million for 2010. It was a very relevant and valid question.
Millwood, who was scheduled to start against the Mariners on Friday night before the rainout, needs just eight more innings — probably two starts — to trigger the option clause for next season.
Nolan Ryan and general manager Jon Daniels said that contract clauses would never influence the team’s decision about who starts in the rotation, but the fact is, that decision potentially could be taken out of their hands, just as their ability to sign Purke was blocked.
“I don’t think MLB is really that in tune with all the details of what’s going on here,” Ryan said.
That’s probably a good thing and it would certainly be an embarrassment to Major League Baseball if it did anything that might hamper the Rangers’ ability to finish what has been a remarkable season.
I’ll fully admit I’ve tried to flog some really dubious items on eBay in my time. Whether it was “BACK ISSUE OF NEWSWEEK (FEATURES HANDSOME, GRAYING POLITICIAN ON COVER)” or my most recent attempt at raising money for charity, I’ve got a bit of experience when it comes to selling the sort of items no retailer (save for Reggie Perrin) would touch.
“A colossal, spiritless box, it would fit more comfortably in a cornfield than at one of the busiest intersections of a vibrant metropolis.” That’s how architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff described Ellerbe Beckett’s spartan reduction of Frank Gehry’s original design for the proposed new Brookyn Nets arena, a review that clearly stuck in the craw of Atlantic Yards landgrabber Bruce Ratner.
Assisted by NYC firm SHoP, a new collaborative design with Beckett was presented by Ratner yesterday, with the Nets owner promising NBA action in Brooklyn perhaps as soon as the 2011-2012 season. That’s if a 4th or 5th design isn’t commissioned first, however. From the New York Post’s Rich Calder :
The building consists of three separate but woven bands. A main concourse is placed right at street level, allowing a direct view to and from Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. Large areas of glass at street level make it not only pedestrian-friendly, but also encourage a strong visual connection to the surrounding urban neighborhood, the developer says.
“The Barclays Center will quickly become an iconic part of the Brooklyn landscape,” said Mr. Ratner. “The design is elegant and intimate and also a bold architectural statement that will nicely complement the surrounding buildings and neighborhoods.”
“The arena design is irrelevant,” said Daniel Goldstein of the opposition group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. “Designs continue to come and go, but they change nothing. It’s all lipstick on a corrupt pig, window-dressing on a boondoggle.”
The state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, in October plans to hear a legal challenge by Goldstein’s group over the use of eminent domain to seize private land for the Atlantic Yards project. While the developer has won lower court rulings in the case, a victory by opponents here could doom the project.
Less than a week ago, CSTB’s David Roth took a long, hard look at the state of the Jersey/Brooklyn Nyets, noting the team’s current home court, the Izod Center is “festooned with branding and logos on every flat and semi-curved surface.” This year, those flat and semi-curved surfaces will include the torsos of Kenyon Dooling and Bobby Simmons, as the following item from Sports Business Journal’s John Lombardi details.
The New Jersey Nets are the first NBA team to sell a practice jersey sponsorship, which will put the logo of PNY Technologies on practice uniforms this fall.
The company, a flash-drive manufacturer based in Parsippany, N.J., also bought the naming rights to the Nets’ practice facility in East Rutherford, N.J., to be called the PNY Center as part of a two-year sponsorship agreement. Brett Yormark, president of Nets Sports & Entertainment, refused to comment on the value of the sponsorship. PNY officials would not disclose the specific value but said they are paying in the low six figures for the overall team deal.
We’ve been reading for months the marketing climate is at best, precarious for professional sports franchises. If someone is willing pay more than $200 to affix their logo to a Nets practice jersey, Barack Obama can take pride in having presided over the most dramatic economic recovery in history. Either that, or PNY Technologies overreacted to being told they’d not be allowed to formally sponsor a local team that plays in a nicer arena.
Feel free to think of James Dolan as a less abusive / not nearly as commercially-savvy version of Simon Cowell. Though the whole thing seems very low rent, full credit to Cablevision for not taking the Donald Sterling approach.
(Redskins owner Dan Snyder, perfectly willing to work out an installment plan with struggling seniors…who aren’t named Joe Gibbs)
Is someone having trouble paying Jason Campbell’s salary? The Washington Post’s James V. Grimaldi reports the Redskins are a suing a 72 year old grandmother / season ticket holder who sought to be excused from her annual ticket agreement for two seasons.
Pat Hill’s real estate sales were hit hard by the housing market crash, and she told the team that she could no longer afford her $5,300-a-year contract for two loge seats behind the end zone. Hill said she asked the Redskins to waive her contract for a year or two.
On Oct. 8, the Redskins sued Hill in Prince George’s County Circuit Court for backing out of a 10-year ticket-renewal agreement after the first year. The team sought payment for every season through 2017, plus interest, attorneys’ fees and court costs.
Hill couldn’t afford a lawyer. She did not fight the lawsuit or even respond to it because, she said, she believes that the Bible says that it is morally wrong not to pay your debts. The team won a default judgment of $66,364.
“It really breaks my heart,” Hill said, her voice cracking as the tears well and spill. “I don’t even believe in bankruptcy.
“We are supposed to pay our bills. I ain’t trying to get out of anything.”
Redskins General Counsel David Donovan said the lawsuits are a last resort that involve a small percentage of the team’s 20,000 annual premium seat contracts. He added that the team has accommodated people in hard-luck circumstances hundreds of times. He said he was unaware of Pat Hill’s case.
“The Washington Redskins routinely works out payment plans and alternate arrangements with hundreds of ticket holders every year,” Donovan said. “For every one we sue, I would guess we work out a deal with half a dozen.”
Bernie Madoff biographer Erin Arvedlund is already on record as claiming Fred Wilpon will be forced to sell the Mets after suffering losses to the tune of $700 million in the Mother Of All Ponzi Schemes. Mets VP David Howard, truly a credible person if you believe obstructed view seats are worth $55 apiece, addressed Ms. Avredlund’s claims earlier today on the Fox Business Channel. According to Howard, the Amazins are absolutely, positively not for sale, calling the club “a family jewel” (seriously). So that means we’re still on track for John Franco’s #31 being retired sometime in 2011. (video link culled from Seven Train Into Shea)
If you owned a Minneapolis sports bar, there’s all sorts of local sports memorabilia you’d be keen to display ; Fran Tarkenton’s tax returns. Restraining orders taken out against Kirby Puckett. The incriminating photographs of Kevin McHale that are currently in Danny Ainge’s safe. In lieu of those collectables, however, one enterprising Mankato tavern proprietor struck gold this week, winning a $750 auction to gain possession of Onterrio Smith’s Whizzinator. From the Star-Tribune’s Michael Rand :
Buster’s owner Matt Little couldn’t be in attendance for the auction, but he sent an agent to make the purchase for him. He said he wouldn’t have bought it “if the price had been 10 grand,” but overall his motivation was fairly simple.
“We’re a sports bar, and I’m a sports collector,” Little said. “I’d love to have the Original Whizzinator on display. … I’m going to use it.”
Use it right now? Little laughed.
“It’s out in the truck,” he said. “I’d feel a little weird if I had it in my hand right now.”
But soon, the Whizzinator will be out in the open at Buster’s and will be featured prominently in some of the bar’s rather risque promotions. One would imagine it will attract curiosity seekers — particularly next summer during Vikings training camp in Mankato.
“We’re going to try to get Onterrio down here,” Little said. “There might be some sentimental value. He might want to come down to see it.”
On an afternoon in which the Amazingly Disableds squandered a genuinely fine effort from starter Pat Misch, the Angels took on more than $20 million in salary in the form of ex-Met / Al Leiter nemesis Scott Kazmir (above) — exactly the sort of late season move we once came to expect when New York’s 2nd richest baseball club was, well, rich. According to author Erin Arvedlund, whose forthcoming Bernie Maddoff tome, “Too Good To Be True” will presumably not be offered for sale at the Mets Team Store, Fred Wilpon was fleeced to the tune of $700 million, making his eventual sale of the Mets a foregone conclusion. From Reuters’ Ben Klayman :
Arvedlund said she does not know the terms of the Wilpons’ bank loans but said the losses are steep enough that a sale of the baseball team is certain.
“It’s qualified by when,” she said. “It’s possible they would have to sell by next year.” Fred Wilpon was among thousands of investors defrauded by Madoff, himself a Mets fan.
Madoff pleaded guilty in March to running the biggest investment fraud in Wall Street’s history, which investigators said bilked investors out of $13 billion to $21 billion.
Madoff is serving 150 years in a federal prison in North Carolina.
The team said Arvedlund has no knowledge of the baseball team or its finances and repeated previous statements that the Mets are not for sale. “Her speculation that the Mets — or any part of the team — is for sale is completely false and is irresponsible,” the team said.
A team spokesman told MarketWatch that Arvedlund’s loss projection is inaccurate.
Let’s hope said spokesperson isn’t merely playing damage control. As much as I’ve criticized Fred and Jeff Wilpon this season, all you have to do is look at the state of midtown Manhattan’s basketball teams — men’s and women’s —- to realize things could actually be much worse if the frontman of the Straight Shot added the Mets to his toychest.
At present, subscribers to Cablevision are denied access to the Tennis Channel ; Dolan Inc. would prefer the Tennis Channel being offered as part of their Sports Pak. Much like the NFL Network in years past, the Tennis Channel would naturally, rather be available as part of a basic package. A protest advertisement aimed at Cablevision customers ran in a number of newspapers this weekend, but not Cablevision-owned Newsday. Tennis Channel chief exec Ken Solomon tells the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir he’s surprised the ad was rejected, “The newspaper industry is not doing all that well, so it’s a surprise they turned down this amount of money.” No kidding, that might need that dough to sign Ramon Sessions.
“Thanks for nothing Cablevision,” says the ad, which shows a tennis racket smashing a cable box.
It adds: “You’ve dropped the ball by preventing your subscribers from seeing Tennis Channel’s round-the-clock coverage of the U.S. Open.” It invites Cablevision customers to switch to DirecTV, Dish TV or Verizon FiOS to get access to the coverage.
The channel said that the ad was accepted by all the newspapers it was offered to — the New York Times, New York Post, Daily News, Westchester-Rockland Journal News and the Record of New Jersey.
Newsday’s decision not to carry the ad raises questions about the paper’s independence from Cablevision and whether it would have accepted the ad under its previous owner, the Tribune Company.
Bob Steele, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, said, “There are times when a newspaper says no to an ad because they find it objectionable on taste grounds, or find it filled with hatred for a particular group of people. But this one doesn’t measure up in terms of protection because they’re protecting themselves.”
Howard Schneider, a former Newsday editor who is dean of the journalism school at Stony Brook University, said, “It’s not a felony to protect your economic self-interest unless it influences your news coverage.”
Who’d be crazy enough to charge boutique prices for a minor league sporting event? Besides Jeff Wilpon, I mean. After a brief brush with insolvency, the NBA Development League’s Bakersfield Jam have presented a questionable new business plan writes the Californian’s Zach Ewing, to reintroduce the franchise as “entertainment for the elite” (link swiped from Ridiculous Upside)
The Jam announced last month that, upon returning this fall, it would vacate spacious Rabobank Arena and instead play in its cozy practice facility on Norris Road.
Jam owners Stan Ellis and David Higdon (above) further unveiled Friday their revamped business model for the franchise, and it includes $40,000-a-year suites for 12, a cigar room, an open bar and dinner served to all 550 guests at the Jam Center.
That’s right, only 550, and if you can’t pay for a 21-game season ticket — the cheapest season seats range from $3,000-$4,000 — you’ll have a hard time getting in.
Ellis estimates that low attendance figures and high overhead cost at Rabobank in the team’s first three years cost him roughly $1 million a year. With that in mind, he’s not concerned with pricing out the average fan.
“You get tired of it, frankly,” he said. “… You get tired of going out there to the community and killing yourself … and at the end of the day, you’ve got nothing. So if anybody wants to give us any (trouble) for just being a private business, I’ll say, ‘Well, where were you supporting us when I was spending a million bucks a year?’”
It’s a pretty ambitious scheme, and one I hope the owners of the Austin Toros are willing to consider in partnership with, well, me. If Bakersfield can fill $40,000 suites to watch the D-League, I’m pretty sure I could pick up some lawn chairs from Loews and peddle some ultra-exclusive courtside tix to see the new-look Toros take on the development circuit’s leading lights on my driveway. And I’ve already got the halftime entertainment picked out.
At length, anyway. In today’s Washington Post, journalist Ian Shapira describes in detail his emotional roller coaster ride upon learning one of his recent stories had been excerpted at length by Gawker. At first, Shapria admits “I confess to feeling a bit triumphant…I was flattered.” After a dressing down from his editor, however, Shapira came to understand that Nick Denton’s House Of Snark had ripped him and his employer off (”after all the reporting, it took me about a day to write the 1,500-word piece. How long did it take Gawker to rewrite and republish it, cherry-pick the funniest quotes, sell ads against it and ultimately reap 9,500 page views?”).
While I sympathize with one of Shapira’s main complaints — that Gawker failed to attribute the original piece’s publisher in a prominent-enough fashion — there’s a number of questions unanswwered in his otherwise thoughtful piece. How is it, for instance, that a venerable institution like the WaPo, not only finds itself openly coveting Gawker’s ad revenue, but struggles to maintain a readership when faced with competition from the likes of Denton, the Huffington Post, etc. Why would someone rather puruse the aggregators than the original sources?
Perhaps it’s a matter of convenience. Or maybe a matter of tone. But there’s a fair bit of cut & pasting happening on the part of the tradtional print media as well. How many daily newspapers and/or dailies-owned sites are thoroughly reliant on TMZ, Perez, etc. for gossip content? How many print journalists no longer reader the work of their colleagues and competitors, preferring to cherry pick from stories they’ve seen highlighted on Deadspin, TBL, heck even this blatant bastion of C&P’ing?
I’d probably have missed Shapira’s piece were it not for a link provided by a traditional journalist in a non-traditional setting. The New York Post’s Bart Hubbuch, a Mets beat reporter whose work has been linked to on many occasions at CSTB, Tweeted last night about Shapira’s WaPo item, and commented, “replace ‘Gawker” with ‘metsblog.com’ in this story and you’ll know exactly how Met beat writers feel about aggregators.”
It’s a hell of a bomb to drop in the middle of a Mets game. Metsblog’s Matthew Cerrone has been the subject of criticism in this space previously, but as a frequent reader of his site, he seems pretty responsible when it comes to attributing his sources, along with generating a fair amount of original content. Do all beat writers really share Hubbuch’s opinion?
In CSTB’s nearly 6 years, I’ve read more than a handful of suggestions that I’ve quoted from others’ works too extensively. Obviously I don’t share that opinion, but I do believe I’ve done a number of writers (new media and old, staffers and freelancers) far more good than harm in highlighting their work and encouraging a dialogue. I’m sure that sounds a little self-serving to Hubbuch, but I wonder if outrage over such excerpting is so widespread, why have I heard so few complaints from writers and editors over the years? Print journalists and their bosses have not been shy in the slightest when it comes to defending themselves (on or off the record), requesting corrections or retractions, or in many instances just saying “thanks”. I’m not saying Hubbuch isn’t entitled to his opinion, but I’m not so certain he’s speaking on behalf of a majority of beat writers, either.
For the record, I’ve been asked exactly TWICE during CSTB’s run to remove someone else’s copywritten material from the blog. In both instances, these were photographs, and in both instances, I complied quickly and without complaint. If a writer, editor or publisher — print or online — has a problem with the way their work has excerpted or credited on this site, I’m more than willing to remove said content. If NewsCorp would like a piece of CSTB’s advertising revenues —- which didn’t crack $3K in 2008 and are on pace for far less in 2009 — I would just as soon eliminate all advertising from the site.
And yeah, I’m throwing the name of Hubbuch’s parent company around for a reason. It’s staggering to me that with all of the Murdoch companies’ vast resources and opportunities for synergy, Matthew Cerrone gets named and shamed as a reason why hard-working reporters might lose their jobs. How many years has the New York Post been a money loser, and how many of those years were long before the advent of blogs? NewsCorp, WaPo, the New York Times (Times and Globe), TribCo, etc. had a massive headstart on the likes of Cerrone (who despite the current hookup with SNY, was very much a DIY publisher at one time) — if he’s attracting more eyeballs, is the answer really to impugn his integrity? Maybe Hubbuch’s highly original blog entries about the Mets would receive more traffic if the Post’s website didn’t look like shit?
The part I find most ironic about this is that while sports bloggers are being castigated for hurting Hubbuch’s peers, I continue to pay the hosting bill for old CSTB entries that quote from newspaper stories those publications long ago eliminated from their archives. Curious readers googling the names of various Post writers, current and former, might well come upon a CSTB entry from 2005 much faster than something from the newspaper’s own site. That’s ok, by the way. I’m totally comfortable having more respect for these journalists’ work than their own employers do.
While Philadelphia’s acquisition of Cliff Lee earlier today dealt a serious blow to J.P. Ricciardi’s hopes of trading Roy Halladay (above) outside of the AL East, there’s some question of whether or not Toronto can get their story straight. When Rogers Communications purchased the Blue Jays from Interbrew, the former understood “the ball club had value beyond its own bottom line” writes the Globe & Mail’s Stephen Brunt. However, “In the past year, the world economy collapsed and Ted Rogers died, and those two events have undeniably changed the operating environment for the Toronto Blue Jays.”
There is a reason the NFL forbids corporate ownership of its franchises. When the first duty is the protection of shareholders’ interests and a sports franchise is but a single cog in a larger machine, decisions that can dramatically affect the product on the playing field can be mandated by issues far removed from sports.
Right now, the squeeze is on at Rogers, as it is in so many places. It is the responsibility and fiduciary duty of those managing the company to do what they can to improve the balance sheets. And while, under Ted Rogers, some aspects of the company may have been more protected than others, now all are viewed equally – including a baseball team that by itself loses money every year.
“We remain obviously committed to the Blue Jays,” Nadir Mohamed, the president and CEO of Rogers Communications said yesterday during a quarterly conference call with analysts.
But that commitment isn’t romantic. It isn’t unconditional. It isn’t a fan’s commitment. It can’t include risking shareholders’ money in a terrible economy for what might be a once-a-decade chance to push the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, or to keep the best pitcher in baseball in the fold.
In June of ‘08, the Associated Press unveiled a new licensing scheme in which rank & file blogging scum would pay as little as $12.50 or as much as $100.00 to quote from an AP story. At the time, Making Light’s Patrick Neilsen Hayden warned, “welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish.” A little more than a year later, headliner writers at the New York Times suggest they consider such blogging, “pirated journalism”, with the Gray Lady’s Saul Hansell reporting on one company’s plansto track activity between newspapers and “even the tiniest sites that copy their articles.”|
The plan faces many technical and legal hurdles. Attributor wants to take some of the ad money that would have been paid to the pirate site and give it to the copyright owner instead. To do that it needs the cooperation of big advertising networks like those run by Google and Yahoo. So far those companies have reacted coolly to the proposal.
Still, Attributor has been able to attract many major publishing companies to what it calls the Fair Syndication Consortium, which is exploring its ideas. These include The New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company, Hearst, Reuters, Media News Group, McClatchy and Condé Nast.
For now those companies have committed only to receiving data from Attributor about how widely their content is being used on Web sites that don’t pay for it. Later they will decide whether to proceed with the revenue-sharing plan.
Attributor co-founder Mr. Pitkow said a study in January of 250,000 articles from 25 publishers showed that on average, each article appeared on 11 unauthorized sites. Looking at traffic data, Attributor calculated that five times as many people read each article on pirate sites as on the site of the publisher. And it estimated that collectively the publishers were losing $250 million a year from unauthorized copying.
Early papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York show no sign Baldwin will be using the “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” argument to untangle his affairs.
His bankruptcy petition says his Upper Grandview, N.Y., home is worth $1.1 million, but he owes $1.19 million on two mortgages. Big income tax troubles are also evident from the court filing, with $749,974 owed to the IRS on taxes as far back as 1999 and a $139,288 debt for unpaid withholding taxes, as well as $194,527 in unpaid state income taxes.
The youngest of the acting Baldwin brothers also has more than $70,000 in credit card debt to shake, according to court documents.
The filing lists no assets, other than the mortgaged-to-the rooftop house. Even Baldwin’s “HM” tattoo, which he agreed to get in a deal that allowed him to appear on Miley Cyrus’s show, is not listed as an asset.
Court papers are also silent on the born-again Baldwin’s ventures in Christian ministry, which began, according to Wikipedia, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and were supposed somehow to make money.
Josh Alper, formerly of the late, lamented blog The Feed, reports for NBC Washington that the Bronx Bombers seek to quash the commercial aspirations of an aspiring t-shirt peddler.
Long Islander Steve Lore has attempted to trademark the phrase “The House That Juice Built” and has been selling t-shirts and other merchandise with that phrase online. The trademark application actually came up in April, but a brief note in the New York Post brought in further attention this week. According to the Post, the shirt in question features the red, white and blue top hat with stars that has long been associated with the team on top of a syringe, but a search of the Internet isn’t able to come up with that particular logo.
The logo that you can find has the contested phrase, with house and juice in blue, in large block letters. It also has Bronx, New York written underneath the dig, just so there’s no confusion about which house we’re talking about. While the Yankees’ concern for the brand is understandable, it’s hard to see where they have much of a case.
Their argument, that swapping Juice for Ruth could cause confusion, doesn’t hold much water. Lore’s t-shirt is a pretty clear case of parody, whether or not it is trademarked as such, and if he isn’t using any official Yankee logo there doesn’t seem to be much chance that people would think that this is an official Yankee product.
The Yankees, after all, didn’t come up with the phrase “The House That Ruth Built.” It was coined by a sportswriter after the first game at the old stadium, which, of course, no longer exists as anything but a memory. They also don’t seem to have a problem with people calling the new stadium “The House That Jeter Built” or other such turns of phrase unless our courts are backlogged with cases on that front.
Mere hours after the Post’s Joel Sherman raised the spectre of Fred & Jeff Wilpon having lost so much money in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme that signing Eric Hinske wasn’t economically viable (as opposed to being a lousy idea purely for baseball reasons), SNY.TV issued the following press release (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory). How long before Citi Field’s parking lot is turned into an open-air flea market?
USCOINS.com, an official New York Mets partner, is hosting a major two-day gold-buying event at Citi Field. On Saturday, July 25 and Sunday, July 26 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., you will have the opportunity to enter and view the stadium from the Modell Clubhouse, take pictures, meet former Mets players, get a free photo and autograph and sell your unwanted gold items at today’s high prices. Entrance will be through the Bullpen Gate located along 126th Street.
On Saturday, Mookie Wilson (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.), Ed Kranepool, Ron Swoboda, George Foster (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) will be on hand, and on Sunday, Darryl Strawberry (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) will be available to all sellers. USCOINS.com is paying the highest prices for your gold coins, silver, gold jewelry, rare coins, currency, diamonds, sterling silver, entire collections, Rolex and other vintage watches and Tiffany items.
Don’t miss this opportunity to sell your valuables and meet the Mets. To be admitted, you must have at least $300 in merchandise to sell. Screeners at the Bullpen Gate will assess your merchandise.
How might the landscape of US professional or collegiate sports be affected if, instance, Nike or Majestic were to go belly up on the eve of a new season? OK, I’ve employed a bit of hyperbole with the above headline, but with the fate of Canterbury in flux, a number of European teams might well search for vintage shirts on eBay. From the Guardian’s Owen Gibson :
Rival sportswear firms have wasted no time in making overtures to the wide range of rugby, football and cricket clubs affected by the collapse of Canterbury Europe, plunged into administration on Monday with the loss of 72 jobs. All of its contracts were summarily cancelled. Portsmouth – currently in limbo as they await a new owner with no permanent manager, no new players and now no kit supplier – will be among those affected, along with the Scottish Rugby Union and Heineken Cup holders Leinster. All were in the first or second year of new deals running until 2012 and worth up to £1m a year. The affected clubs, also including London Wasps, Cardiff Blues and Yorkshire County Cricket Club, will be treated as unsecured creditors.
The SRU was forced to cancel the planned launch yesterday of an alternative Scotland kit, while Portsmouth are due to launch their new kit on Tuesday – and as of yesterday were still encouraging fans to pre-order on their website. The administrator, KPMG, will continue to run the business in administration with a skeleton staff and the company’s New Zealand operation is unaffected.
At $10 a pop, even the most budget conscious amongst us can dress as though we have terrible taste in baseball players.
Of course, this is an even cheaper alternative.
Lest you think Friday’s swap of Church for Francoeur was the end of Omar Minaya’s wheeling and dealing, on Saturday the Mets acquired a former AL Rookie Of The Year without giving up a player. And I’m really not trying to mock Angel Berroa ; Omar could just as well have signed Ben Grieve.
It’s pretty easy to pile on Lenny Dykstra when he’s down, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. For one thing, his bottom-of-the-9th inning HR off Houston’s Dave Smith in Game 3 of the 1986 NLCS was one of the most exciting moments I personally witnessed at Shea Stadium, and is not the sort of treasured memory years of (likely) PED abuse, pathological lying and casual racism can ever erase. For another, me and Lenny have a few things in common. We both dearly love Twizzlers and each of us blames the biggest problems in our lives on Washington Mutual.
Those are the only things I can come up with at the moment, but given this bond, however tenuous, I’d like the former Players Club publisher to know that if he ever requires a new outlet for his thoughts on a variety of topics (helicopters, cigars, women’s studies), he’s got a home at CSTB. Unless Chuck Meehan wants to start posting again — I don’t have room for everyone.
Having napalmed all ties between his Philly self and Bristol, CT, journalist/yackmeister Stephen A. Smith (shown above, right, with Tommy Hearns) has returned to the public eye of late and the Sporting Blog’s Dan Levy suggests the former “Quite Frankly” host has bigger fish to fry than mere sports commentary.
After starting that uStream channel during the NBA playoffs that got a smattering of viewers, SAS took to the fast-paced world of podcasts, and immediately used his name and ESPN notoriety to shoot himself to the top of the charts on iTunes. Oh yes, and he joined Twitter, famously calling out nearly everyone of color for not supporting Quite Frankly. It seemed insane at the time, but maybe it was foreshadowing. Could Stephen A. Smith be the next Al Sharpton, without the religious leanings? Could Smith be the next great political pundit who uses his verbose dialog and pastoral cadence to both galvanize and polarize the nation whenever the issue of race comes up?
Quite frankly, it’s possible.
At least MSNBC thinks so. The Place For Politics has featured Smith throughout their coverage of the Michael Jackson death and subsequent funeral. Smith was on the network three times Tuesday alone. And that’s after he was on a panel earlier in the week to discuss the job Barack Obama is doing in the black community.
Forget about the top black voice in sports. Leave that job for Jason Whitlock or William Rhoden or Wilbon or the more-poignant-than-ever memory of Ralph Wiley. Stephen A. Smith might be angling to become the top black voice in America. And if you’ve gotten as far as Smith has on style over substance, why stop at ESPN or the occasional guest spot on cable news? Having seemingly burned all bridges in sports, could Smith, who was featured on CNN during the election as well, be shifting away from the basketball arena and into the political one?
These are things I would have loved to ask Smith. But when I reached out to his assistant with the understanding that I was writing a story on Smith for this very site, I was told, “Presently, Stephen is not available for comment regarding his career. Thank you for the follow up inquiry”
If you’re amongst those aghast at Cole Hamels’ wooden delivery as a pitchman for ESPN The Magazine or New Era, in fairness, it must be said the Phillies starter comes off like Billy Fucking Mays compared to Pacers F Tyler Hansbrough in this web spot. Lucky for Indy, Hanbrough’s not being paid to do much public speaking.
OK, this looks kinda tawdry. But I’m told Jerry Jones gave Wade Phillips a case of this stuff for Xmas and it goes really well with Ed “Too Tall” Jones’ Charcoal Briquettes
Thanks to Baller Craig for passing a link along to the above piece of merchandise. In questionable taste, but a far more economical option for grief addicts than this garment.
(will the The Special One make the jump to the WWL? Better yet, when does Mario Rosenstock let loose on Bill Belichick?)
Earlier this month, Setanta’s failure to make a contracted payment to the SPL was described by this author as “the worst news to hit the football biz since the On Digital debacle.” Of course, that was before I imagined Trey Wingo hosting a Sunday soccer roundtable discussion. From the Daily Mail :
ESPN have secured a clean sweep of beleaguered Setanta’s Barclays Premier League TV packages for the next four seasons.
Sportsmail understands that the Disney-owned TV channel, who already broadcast two sports channels to the UK on the Sky platform, will be the owners of both Setanta’s packages for next season – a total of 46 games.
Sky have purchased the five other bundles for season 2010-11 and were not allowed to buy the sixth.
Setanta lost the right to broadcast the matches on Friday after failing to meet a deadline for a £10million payment to the Premier League
Setanta has around 1.2m subscribers, but this is below the 1.9m it needs to break even, and it is currently thought to be running at a loss of nearly £100m a year.
It suspended new subscriptions earlier this month, prompting fears over the future of the business, and also recently missed a £3million payment to the Scottish Premier League.
Even Pau Gasol has his own custom tee upon winning a World Championship ; woe is the sportswear manufacturer that got stuck with the Adam Morrison license.
From the first inning’s Alexei Ramirez homer to left to the Bobby Jenks vs. Milton Bradley faceoff in the 9th that left Mr. Absent-Minded twisting on the end of a 1-2 hook, Game “2″ (Game 1 being rained out an rescheduled for September 10th) of Crosstown ‘09 was a sight to behold.
Unfortunately, I could personally behold only two innings of it due to work constraints. I did manage to check in to see Big Bobby’s aforementioned punchout of Bradley and could not help but smile as Cub Nation glumly streamed for the exits with one out, down a mere three runs with the heart of their order coming up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bobby displace that many people at one time outside an Old Country Buffet.
In stark contrast to the sad faces in the lanes of the northbound Edens expressway, Ozzie’s chipper demeanor remained undented all day, starting with an encounter with a Wrigley t-shirt vendor. Having had many months to think of a replacement for last year’s Humanitas award-winning “Horry Kow” Fukudome paean, Cub Nation idly looked out the bay window of its Lake Forest manse and noticed that lawn mowers have nameless, Ozzie-like people attached to them. (I’ve got some friends in merchandising, so if next year anybody wants to run with my Cubbie-blue Klan hood, complete with lil’ red “C” on the front, drop me a line.)
Guillen cheerfully purchased a shirt, and then cheerfully pounded Ryan Dempster (L, 4-4, 6IP 4H 3R, 6BB 4K) with a smallball assault while Johnny Danks turned in a magnificent no-walks 9K outing (W, 5-5, 7IP, 5H 1R, 9K 0BB), getting out of jams in the 3rd and 4th.
It’s not enough that the advent of modern technology has patrons at a Mogwai gig demanding I stop texting (or else) ; next up — when Razor Shines waves David Wright in from second on a ground ball back to the pitcher, I’ll be able to experience it while attending an indictment, funeral or major medical procedure. From Maury Brown’s Biz Of Baseball :
With today’s release of version 3.0 of Apple’s operating system fo iPhone and iPod Touch, MLB.com will release its latest version of At Bat that will allow live video streaming of games to the devices. But, unlike Gameday Audio for At Bat, this time blackout restrictions do apply. How will MLB.com know where you are? As reported in May, MLB.com has technology to track you.
Not every game that is available via league’s out-of-market online package MLB.TV will be streamed for the mobile devices when the new version is launched. Today’s interleague tilt between the White Sox and Cubs from Wrigley Field will be the first game streamed live (2:20 ET), followed by the night game between the Tigers and Cardinals (8:15 ET). Shortly thereafter, it is expected that the same package of games that are normally available through MLB.TV Premium will be rolled out.
Sports Agency the Wasserman Media Group, while not quite as delusional as Darren Heitner, are awfully competitive when it comes to astonishing audacity on behalf of their clientele. Here’s an excerpt from a brochure they’re circulating while trying to drum up interest in former golden boy Michael Owen.
“Were it not for an unhappy spell at Real Madrid and two injury-scarred years at Newcastle, he would be spoken about in the same breath as Torres and Ronaldo and valued in the priceless figures that only match-winning goalscorers ever justify.”
Scoffs Who Ate All The Pies‘ Ollie Irish, “WMG produced the glossy brochure to help convince the likes of Everton, Aston Villa, West Ham and Man City – all of whom have expressed an interest in signing Owen – that Owen is actually a thoroughbred in the same class as Senor Torres and Senor C-Ron, and not, as some people suspect, a past-it crock.”
The Houston Chronicle’s Larry Young reports the Houston Texans have received a practice jersey sponsorship offer from Zero Tolerance, the LA adult video firm known for such titles as “You’ve Got A Mother Thing Cumming” and “I Came In Your Mom 2″. Sadly, the Texans have said “no ,thank you.”
The Chronicle reported last week that the Texans were offering marketing opportunities to companies wanting their logo on the team’s practice jerseys.
The Texans have since declined Zero Tolerance’s offer, but are open to listening to offers from other companies.
“We were contacted from an unsolicited ad agency and upon discovering it was an adult entertainment company, we shut it down,” said Tony Wyllie, Texans vice president of communications. “We will not consider, nor will we ever consider their offer.
“We will not be associated with them.”
I’m not sure how many Fortune 500 companies are gonna be eager to buy space on the Texans’ practice shirts, even if the economy improves. So perhaps Houston might consider making a charitable gesture and affixing the wildly popular “FREE WILLIE D” sticker to the back of each jersey, at least until the Geto Boys icon’s legal status is resolved?
When Tom Hicks (above) and George Gillet acquired Liverpool F.C. in August of 2007, “all their talk was of cherishing Liverpool’s heritage, of the Kop, name-checked repeatedly by Hicks in his Texan drawl, of a golden future to replicate the glorious past,” write the Guardian’s David Conn. The financial evidence to the contrary, however, puts the club’s ability to compete at an elite level squarely on the shoulders of Rafael Benitez’ ability to find (relative) bargains).
The accounts released on Thursday, covering the year to 31 July 2008 for Liverpool Football Club and Hicks’ and Gillett’s holding company, Kop Football – ultimately owned, naturally, in the low-tax US state of Delaware via the Cayman Islands – set this out in black and white. In part the figures, revealing a £42.6m loss made in a bumper year when the club turned over £164.2m, confirmed what we already knew. The North American pair borrowed the £185m to take over Liverpool and although they promised in those choreographed public appearances not to “do a Glazers”, they have loaded the responsibility for paying those debts on to the club itself.
With £313m already spent of a £350m loan facility with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia few believe the new stadium will be built anytime soon, since that, too, has to be financed with borrowed money, currently projected at about £400m.
While Chelsea have Abramovich reaching into his pockets again, and Manchester City were bought by an owner blessed with an outrageous fortune, Manchester United and Arsenal have major borrowings to service too. Liverpool may not fall too far behind just yet if Benítez can spend his budget wisely this summer and has luck with injuries next season.
It is, though, difficult to see where the club can get to under the current owners. Even if the £350m loan is continued there are questions over Hicks and Gillett’s ability or willingness to fund the club further themselves. Two and a half years since the arrival of these “good” Americans, the new stadium remains on the drawing board, and Liverpool are servicing huge debts, including the £185m cost of being taken over by the pair in the first place. It is difficult to see quite how it all fits in with that rose-tinted commitment, made at the beginning, to cherish the heritage of Liverpool FC.
…for a price. Just hours after The Sports Putz twittered in protest over this afternoon’s Rays/Yanks game being unavailable on his Extra Innings package due to MLB and Fox’s blackout policy, the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir reports Yankee games will soon be available via MLB.TV to fans within the YES Network’s defined “home market”. (link courtesy Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
The agreement between the Yankees’ YES Network and Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which controls the Internet rights of all 30 teams, will let fans inside the New York market buy a subscription to Yankees games. They will be able to watch on computers, laptops and other devices, giving the games a portability they have not had.
The first carrier to sign up is Cablevision, which will share revenue with YES and M.L.B.A.M. Fans can buy the in-market Yankee games only if they already subscribe to the expanded basic service on Cablevision that includes YES. The Yankees’ cable network is pursuing similar deals with other local cable operators, like Time Warner, and telecommunications services, like Verizon.
With the Yankees deal complete, other teams are expected to follow.
The Yankees’ service is supposed to start sometime this season and follows quickly on Cablevison’s recent renewal of its YES contract. A price was not available.
Bloomberg said on his radio show Friday that the move bodes well for the project, which has stalled because of litigation, rising construction estimates and the economic downturn.
“Ratner came to the conclusion . . . that in this day and age you just cannot finance something as complex to build as that stadium,” Bloomberg said.
Ratner is replacing the Gehry design with work by architecture firm Ellerbe Becket of Kansas City, Mo., shaving millions from construction costs.
“Frank Gehry, who is a genius, designed a spectacular stadium,” Bloomberg said. “But this one, Ratner just . . . decided to part company because Ratner couldn’t afford to build if the economics didn’t work with today’s market.”
If you’re keeping track of the venue plans for LeBron James’ likely suitors the summer after next, Madison Square Garden unveiled plans this week for a half-billion dollar facelift. It remains to be seen how The Chosen One might react to a work environment featuring “PARDON OUR APPEARANCE” signs, but compared to the Izod Center, that might not be such a bad thing.
Back in the mid-1990’s, I either associated the name Setanta with some a-ok Edwyn Collins records or nursing Saturday AM hangovers watching Premiership matches on satellite at Nevada Smith’s on 3rd Avenue in lower Manhattan. Over the following decade and a half, the company responsible for the latter has transformed soccer viewing habits in both North American and Great Britain for better or worse. On Monday, the following Guardian report from Ewan Murray might well be the worst news to hit the football biz since the On Digital debacle.
Fears intensified for the future of Setanta last night as it emerged it has defaulted on a payment to the Scottish Premier League. Sources north of the border have confirmed a routine payment to SPL clubs, thought to total about £3m, did not arrive as scheduled yesterday.
Neither the broadcaster nor the SPL would comment on the matter but it raises serious questions over the viability of Setanta’s commitment to Scottish football and the other parts of its rights portfolio. Following a meeting in London, one source has revealed an email was sent to staff in Glasgow confirming the payment had not been made and that no comment was to be given under any circumstances to the media.
Setanta has been thrown into turmoil following its failure to retain half of the 46 English Premier League games it will screen live until the end of next season. From 2010-11 it will show only 23 English top-flight matches a season. It has recently made payments as scheduled to the Football Association, with whom it has a deal for FA Cup and England matches, but is actively fresh seeking investment.
A meeting between SPL clubs and Setanta early last month sought to secure a way forward as the broadcaster sought to renegotiate the terms of its wide-ranging sports coverage. The options suggested at that time were understood to be a cut of as much as £30m from the extended contract or a shortening of the deal by two years. No formal agreement has been reached, however, with news of the missed payment sure to prompt concern over whether Setanta can service the SPL at all.
(l-r : Diane Taurasi, guy telling her what to wear)
There’s not many WNBA entries at CSTB, mostly because I’m still getting over the trauma of attending a New York Liberty game with seats directly adjacent Chyna Phillips and Stephen Baldwin. But today’s press release from the Phoenix Mercury is (take your pick) a harbinger of things to come for American professional sports franchises, or perhaps a rather desperate stab for revenue by a struggling league.
The Phoenix Mercury and LifeLock have entered a multi-year marketing partnership to launch the first-ever branded jersey in WNBA or NBA history, it was announced today by Phoenix Mercury President and COO Jay Parry and LifeLock CEO Todd Davis at a press conference at the NBA Store in New York City. LifeLock is an industry leader in identity theft protection.
Highlighting the innovative alliance, which runs through 2011, is the appearance of the LifeLock name on the front of Phoenix Mercury’s player jerseys and on warm-up suits. The Mercury and LifeLock are the first to finalize such an agreement following the WNBA’s decision this off-season to make this unique opportunity available for its teams and sponsors.
LifeLock promises a one-year complimentary membership (retail value : $110) to each WNBA season ticket holder. a bold initiative that should cost the company at least 2 or 3 thousand dollars. Sponsors’ logos on the front of professional football jerseys have hardly hurt the development of that sport, but there’s something a little screwy about David Stern deeming the women’s league worthy of such an experiment, but not say, the New Jersey Nets.
….with a series of commercials featuring Joe Buck. At least that the prognosis supplied by the Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Futterman, reporting earlier today that Major League Baseball’s Saturday afternoon telecasts on the Fox network have suffered a 4% rattings dip compared to the same period in 2008.
Fox Sports spokesman Lou D’Ermilio confirmed network executives will head to Milwaukee next week to strategize with Commissioner Bud Selig about reversing the downward trends. “The purpose of the meeting is to find a way to boost the ratings for the All-Star Game and the World Series,” he said. Plans include showing baseball movies on Sunday afternoons on Fox’s sister channel FX, and promotional ads with broadcasters Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Fox says it is less concerned with the shrinking Saturday audience, since the regular season games represent about 10% of the value of the $255 million annual rights fee the network pays.
It would interesting to learn, for instance, how Fox’s Saturday numbers thur far in 2009 compared to ESPN’s Sunday night tally, or TBS’ Sunday afternoon results. The oft-cited Saturday blackout period no longer applies to MLB.TV’s online offerings so long as the games have a 1pm start. I doubt this is enough of a factor to contribute to a 4 percent drop in viewership for the late afternoon national TV game, but it makes as much sense as Futterman musing “additional revelations of steroid use certainly haven’t helped.”
Video link courtesy Alec Cumming and David Roth, the latter calling the above film, “the most enjoyable and endearing attempt to figure out — or at least portray — people who spend $150 a week trying to get a cardboard-mounted piece of Dan Haren’s uniform pants.” I’d scoff at such types, but I spent the money earmarked for last month’s gas bill on assorted items from Breathing Problem Productions.
(an artifact from the dusty days back before scientists discovered it was lame to go to bed early)
Maury Brown of Biz Of Baseball.com reports Major League Baseball and Fox Sports have announced weeknight games during the 2009 World Series and ALCS will start prior to 8pm EST. Just barely.
The FOX pre-game show will start at 7:30 p.m. ET for weeknight games with first pitch scheduled for 7:57 p.m. ET. Games on Saturday will start no later than weekday games and could start earlier. Games on Sunday will take place following the conclusion of the NFL on FOX as in year’s past.
“Our goal is to schedule games to allow the largest number of people to watch and this change puts our games in the window we believe will work the best for our fans,” said Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig. “We appreciate the work that FOX has done to make this happen and I expect that fans of all ages will respond favorably to this adjustment.”
The last time a regularly scheduled World Series game on Monday through Friday started before 8 p.m. ET was 38 years ago when the Baltimore Orioles faced the Pittsburgh Pirates in Game 5 of the 1971 World Series.
When one or more persons are killed during West Coast rush hour, frantically trying to get home in time for the first pitch (or to see Taylor Swift sing the national anthem), I’m very hopeful a certain bearded NewsCorp. employee of considerable vintage takes note…and blames himself.
Braves OF Jeff Francoeur made a personal appearance on behalf of corporate sponsor Delta Airlines at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport earlier this month and brags via the company blog, “I guess nobody was expecting to see me there so I got a lot of double-takes.” Indeed, there might be some casual Braves fans unaware Francoeur was ever called back to the parent club after being demoted to Richmond last June. (link swiped from Baseball Think Factory)
I started the visit out by surprising Delta customers and employees at check-in…shaking hands, taking pictures, and signing photos and even boarding passes. I snuck up on a couple of travelers who were using Delta’s self check-in units and asked if they needed any help – I don’t think they were expecting to look up and see me rather than a Delta representative. Of course, I’m pretty much an expert at the self check-in process since we travel so much. It’s definitely my preference because it’s so fast and easy!
As usual, the above headline isn’t exactly what the Guardian’s Steven Wells had to say. But in hailing the NFL draft (”part of a system designed to make sure that all the assets don’t end up in the hands of a greedy few”), Wells suggests “the nationalisation of the Premier League (and the stupidly named leagues below it) would face almost no serious ideological opposition, and would probably prove massively popular with the vast majority of football fans, particularly those who are fans of clubs that — under the present system — have no realistic chance of ever again winning anything meaningful.”
“At the moment the Premier League resembles a video game where four posh boys got their daddies to buy them the cheat code,” protests Wells, no doubt aware any future threats to the relative dominance of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal are likely to come from whoever has the deepest pockets.
The benefits of nationalisation are manifold and obvious, including:
• The elimination and reversal of dumb-ass anti-fan cultural practices (generally but erroneously knows as Americanisation).
• The reintroduction of genuinely competitive leagues and a genuinely competitive league system.
• The regrassrootisation of football.
• The enforced and equitable sharing of TV moneys.
• The self-proclaimed socialist Sir Alex Ferguson no longer having to live under a perpetual cloud of self-loathing and embarrassment.
• The immediate execution by firing squad of anybody who refers to fans as customers.
The alternative of course, is an ever cheaper and tackier continuation of the current drearily predictable circus — the strip-malling of soccer. Every league in every country essentially the same, season after season after season, while the ’small’ clubs gradually wither away and football, as a vibrant cultural institution, rots at the roots and dies.
