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On 8/30/2019 at 5:12 PM, Bucfan56 said:

Also, Ray Ratto has been a very weird, but I think, very good addition to that group. I'm surprised he hasn't been picked up by a larger publication yet. 

He is 65 and outside of The Athletic and 95.7 The Game, he's basically taken a check from every Bay Area media outlet.  He's an Oakland native, so isn't relocating. 

The Ringer profile of him right after being let go from NBC Bay Area is good writing. 

I'll start watching College GameDay again if they keep on cursin'

He later apologized 

33 minutes ago, the admiral said:

The private equity people shouldn't have bought Gawker. No one should have, because all you would get for your money is a gaggle of private school brats who throw big public bitchfits whenever you suggest that maybe they don't have to do twenty posts a day about their grudge against Dave Portnoy, and then cry about how they want their daddy Nick Denton back, who, pace all the Gawker mythos, did plenty of content-steering by quietly firing anyone who didn't generate enough pageviews for him. We did this whole dance when Univision bought them: there are new executives, we don't respect them, they're mean, they're compromising the sterling integrity of the Brett Favre dick picture Hulk Hogan sex tape website, we want Daddy back. Then they bled Univision out and had to be sold for pennies on the dollar to private-equity vultures. There's no real money in blogging (as I understand it, the whole content side of the operation is essentially the loss leader for their Groupon-esque deal site) and we're on the precipice of everyone learning this the hard way. Including Barstool? Especially Barstool! Idiots though they may be, at least they figured out the real money is in t-shirts.

 

I wish I had sympathy for these people (other than David Roth, who is easily their best writer and non-coincidentally seems to stay out of the inside baseball), but I don't. They've been throwing this fit for three or four years now.

True, but after Univision's experiment with failed their acquisition of Gawker, The Onion, and The Root, they all were easy pickings for private equity.  That also coincided with Disney divesting from Fusion as both media companies tried to be woke.

That said, Great Hill Partners, the new owners just seem to be waiting for the union contract to end for them to really gut the various sites.  Everyone there should be looking for another gig.

I know that some folks here dislike Richard Deitsch, but his conversation with WaPo's Ben Strauss was a nice discussion of Greenwell's departure and its impact. 

As for Barstool, a "Variety" story this week claimed a third of their revenue (35%) is podcast-related.  In February, Digiday reported $15M in revenue from podcasts in 2018. 

1 minute ago, Gary. said:

The Dragons look like a Create a Team on Madden 

I'm not sure you can do much more with a dragon and not go kiddie cartoonish, especially if you are hellbent on using green.  They all generally face the right too.

Dragons and snowcapped mountain peaks are a one trick operation.

17 minutes ago, Bucfan56 said:

Those are ALL lame as hell. 

6 minutes ago, buzzcut said:

But that's just one man's tweet.

Yea, with all of 20 followers.

I'm not saying he is incorrect. His skills on TESS might be stellar, but there is no "Los Angeles Archangels" on TESS.

2 hours ago, AstroBull21 said:

So I screenshotted the images and these were what I saw in order:

 

- a wave

- a reptilian eye

-  gargoyle statue

- someone working at a refinery

- a city street at night

-  grassy field

- the fan of a plane engine

- a fighter pilot flying

- a cavalier statue

- US Marines

- fallen leaves in a forest

- a tattoo

- a pack or bikers

 

Some of this surely combines ideas into a name, but Washington might be the Marines.  Cavalry might be another name, as is something oil industry related (Roughnecks, Wildcatters, etc).  Gargoyles is likely there too.

 

Any other suggestions?

 

 

Those two could be a nod to three of their cities.

Seattle for Boeing

Los Angeles for Lockheed, Douglas, Northrup, and Hughes.  Not to mention the JPL

St. Louis for McDonnell

8 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

So I said it in the other XFL thread, but perhaps it would be more appropriate here.

The team names/logos should have been unveiled months ago. This drawn out process is just stupid. Just release the names and logos already.

I wouldn't even say months ago. 

However, we are a week from college football starting its Week 0 and the NFL is in Week 2 of Preseason.  America's focus has already moved.

Nobody cares about their first QB signed in Landry Jones. 

And they still MUST SELL TICKETS!

Even if every one of y'all buy a tee for $25, they'll just see 10-15% of what you paid in a licensing fee. That $hit ain't keeping the doors open long even if Vince can still sell stock.

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Her shtick was to be the cool, pretty, just-one-of-the-guys girl like so many women in sports media. But apparently she aged out of that and is just sort of grouchy and doesn't like watching sports. I'm not sure how much of a role there should be at ESPN for sports anchors who don't like to watch sports.

Oh, I understand.  She was positioned to be the quirky blonde one for sports aka a Jenny McCarthy but nearly a decade later* from Jenny's .

There could be bits or a podcast for her to do, then again, they have Katie Nolan and Julie Foudy who both do of those and one is younger and the other is a former athlete who can get better guests.

*-Beadle is three years younger than McCarthy. 

4 hours ago, Digby said:

I think of Nichols as more of a reporter/interviewer than a host, but she should be good there.

 

Countdown’s problem is that the players try too hard to emulate the yelling and talking over each other parts of the TNT crew while rarely offering much else. It gets old.

Exactly.

They need to decide what it is because "Inside the NBA"-Lite doesn't workm.  Either mimic the NBATV version but add a writer (Windhorst, Ramona, Jackie Mac...) or just have a host and Jalen.

34 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Good. Michelle Beadle seems to actively dislike watching NBA games so I never understood why she was given the job.

Going back to "SportsNation" I've never gotten her shtick.  She just likes the Spurs since that's where she was the in-arena host and Pops has courtside tickets. 

Michelle Beadle off another show as Rachel Nichols and Maria Taylor replace her on "NBA Countdown".

https://thebiglead.com/2019/08/16/rachel-nichols-and-maria-taylor-replacing-michelle-beadle-on-espn-nba-countdown/

https://www.ocregister.com/2019/08/14/anaheim-hopes-to-see-stadium-lease-proposal-from-angels-by-october/

Quote

Anaheim expects to see the team’s pitch for a new long-term lease within 60 days, and economic consultant Larry Kosmont has been hired to help evaluate it, City Manager Chris Zapata told council members Tuesday, Aug. 13.

 

That will happen behind closed doors, but more stadium-related issues will be aired in public in coming weeks.

 

Councilman Jose Moreno has asked for an explanation of the current lease terms and a discussion of provisions council members would like in a deal at upcoming meetings, and he announced two community forums – Aug. 21 and 29 – to answer residents’ questions and hear from the community on a potential new lease with the city’s arguably most prominent tenant.

 

Moreno surprised some observers at Tuesday’s council meeting by saying a council discussion of the current lease terms is needed because some people, himself included, didn’t understand that the extension granted in January reinstated the original lease through 2029 and simply extended the team’s deadline to opt out through the end of 2019.

 

Some observers have said the city didn’t ask for enough from the current lease and hope a new deal would include better terms for Anaheim.

 

The deal was broadly characterized in the media as extending the team’s lease through the end of 2020. Some people took that to mean if there was no new deal by that deadline, the Angels would need a new home and the stadium property would be free and clear for whatever the city chose to do with it, Moreno said.

33 minutes ago, Bucfan56 said:

I found Rusillo joining The Ringer to be pretty surprising, but not really surprising at the same time. He's been doing work for them for awhile now, so it's no surprise that he would want to make a transition like that at some point. But the whole crux of his argument against ESPN, and the reason he's been kind of on again/off again with them over the past few years is money. I'm sure there's more to it in that guys complicated, malcontent brain, but money is definitely #1. Him joining The Ringer full time and leaving ESPN has to be about money (And with his new Manhattan Beach home he goes on about ad nauseam, he probably needs it). If that's the case, than what's been Simmons' holdup on actually paying his already established people their fair share? They obviously have the cash flow to pay a guy who's in as high demand as Rusillo. Stands to reason that they would have the cash to pay everyone else. 

 

Rusillo is a really strange one for me. He's probably my favorite personality in sports, and there's absolutely no podcast I look forward to more than his. He's fantastic at what he does and has an insight that almost nobody has, and he can articulate things to his listeners better than anyone out there. That's a HUGE get for Simmons and The Ringer. That being said, he comes across as such a miserable, smug douche (His "You know, no big deal" line he puts out whenever he drops any name with even the tiniest bit of clout is absolutely cringe inducing). He's probably the last dude in sports media I'd ever want to "have a beer" with. With that being said, though? I still love the guy's work. 

 

In other words, he's PERFECT for The Ringer. 

In December 2017 (months after his drunken Wyoming incident), Russillo said on air that the extension he was offered was at the same money as his current contract. 

Quote

“Here’s the deal: I have been here like I said 12 (years) — 8.5 in this slot — I wasn’t sure I wanted to move slots. Personally, I felt like I wasn’t growing the way I wanted to grow. And that’s OK. I can be wrong there … But the way my contract works is if I was going to move a slot then I could talk to them about like, ‘OK, well, if I’m gonna move again with Will — we’re gonna do 3 to 6.’ Especially with everything that a lot of people at the company had to go through earlier this year, I just said, ‘Is there any way we can talk about an extension?’ ESPN said, ‘Absolutely. We’ll do this.’ And I was offered an extension, and it was the same money that I made now. And in the grand scheme in the way the world works, it’s a lot of money, and I get that. But my days were gonna be different. I was gonna be here on NBA hits for SportsCenter. I was gonna be here like 10 hours a day.

 

“I don’t have a lot of a life now. I don’t really have any balance. I’d be lying if I told you I was super happy lately. I know people who know me really well here, I don’t think they’re entirely surprised by this. So it would have to be something where I also felt like I was growing creatively outside of ESPN Radio — some other entities … I don’t know if that was going to happen.”

1 hour ago, DG_Now said:

 

Are they done partnering with HBO? I hadn't heard that.

 

I read the Luminary stuff two ways -- one is that Simmons hasn't found some sort of "new media" partnership he isn't willing to jump on (DAZN was a partner for some time). The other is they want to paywall some of their podcasts but they can't.

 

Either way, I'm still under the assumption their podcast empire is making tons of money; at least enough to poach talent from ESPN. But if/when the podcast bubble pops? Who knows. Maybe Simmons will hire more of his idiot relatives.

The Ringer staff is larger that one would think, between 80-100.

DAZN was basically an ad read for him.  His interview with John Skipper was on April 3rd.  D AZN needed to sell the Canelo Alvarez fight on May 5th and the GGG fight four weeks later. 

He got a new HBO deal last summer but the length wasn't specified.

Last Monday it was announced that Rusillo was joining full time. That news had to have quickened the vote to unionize.

39 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Good. I've grown a little uncomfortable with him talking about how much money his producers don't have.

Have he hit peak revenue already? 

I say that because they're now partnering with Luminary for "Premium" podcasts of Rewatchables.

No HBO money now, right?

And today, Bill Simmons woke up to this.

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

 

So after the XFL adds 320-350 players the AFL wants Cleveland to have those who cannot even make the XFL?

Then again, there are thousands of dudes like Wello Songz, who think they should "go Pro". 

Time to get more cats from the RPFL.

The Dragons weren't the Streets and the Streets are the current business.

Your paragraphs on the Dragons history don't matter. Each fail to draw folks and generate money. 

You're a mark

8 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

JRSR. (Just right; should read.)

A good theory. But, in this case, the first person whom I spoke to actually had the hat on hand, and even texted me a picture of it sitting on a table in the office in late April. That person claimed that what was holding things up was the wait to have the polo shirt in stock (a wait that, incidentally, goes on to this day).

 

So, by asking for that polo shirt, I evidently committed the NAL equivalent of flying too close to the sun. If I hadn't brought that up, I might have had my hat in late April or early May.

So you expected "Amazon Prime" service from the jump from a Mom&Pop operation which had little to no money to begin with.  $hit was never in inventory,  You're an alt-football mark.

17 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

You should have seen the trouble I had getting these people to take my money!

 

At the beginning of the season in April, I wanted to order some merchandise. But the team's online store was down; it would not become operational until well into the second half of the season.

 

So I called the team's offices, and left a few messages. (Nobody ever answers the phones, no matter which selection you choose at the menu.)

 

A couple of weeks later, someone called me back, and agreed to sell me a cap. I could just give my credit card information over the phone right there, this person said, and we could conclude the transaction.

 

Feeling lucky, I asked whether I could also buy a polo shirt of the type that I had seen on some of the team's staff. The team representative said that that would be possible, but that she would have to get back to me on the details. I said fine, but I would like to by the hat now. But the team representative said that we should do it all as one transaction, and promised to get back to me soon.

 

And then I heard nothing of substance for a couple of months. My e-mails and texts were answered in a purely perfunctory manner, with no information offered.

 

I finally took to tweeting the team's announcer Peter Schwartz, to see if he could help facilitate this transaction. Schwartz eventually tweeted me back to tell me that the team's online store was now up and running. This was in June.

 

So I placed my order for the cap that I had wanted since the beginning of the season, even though it was priced at an absurdly expensive price point of $30. There was no polo shirt on offer; but I decided to take a chance on ordering a bucket hat, despite that item's equally obscene price of $30.

 

After a few weeks of not receiving any notice of the items' shipping, I sent an e-mail to an address of someone in the team's sales office, an address which had been included as a cc in one of the useless e-mail responses I had received months earlier.

 

To my surprise, this person gave me a call. She apologised for the delay, and promised to ship my items immediately. She said she'd send me the tracking number as soon as she had it.

 

And then another couple of weeks went by, during which I received no tracking number. I called this person back to ask for an update. She apologised again, and said that, while she was out of town at that moment, she would see to it that the items were shipped as soon as she returned.

 

At that point, I said that, even though I had paid for shipping, I would be willing to come and pick the items up at the team's offices. The sales representative replied that that would not be possible, as the items were not at the team's offices, but we're being shipped from another location.

 

However, to her credit, she said that, in recognition of the very long delay, she could give me a rebate of $32. (Why 32 and not 30? I have no idea.) And she would also throw in a t-shirt. (Alas, the coveted polo shirt was still not available.)

 

So, in the last days of July, I finally received my New York Streets cap, bucket hat, and t-shirt. I had to laugh at the fact that it took nearly four months of effort in order to get them to accept my money in exchange for items that most normal people would consider garbage.

 

And I didn't get to wear these items out in public, and thereby give the team free promotion, until after the season was over.

 

Anyway, I have the items, which are attractive and well-made. So let's call that a victory. But the whole saga left me with the impression of an office dominated by chaos.

TLDR.

Short story: A small business cannot afford to create and pay to have someone hold merchandise inventory, so they order JIT (Just In Time). As a result, they only processed orders after a certain number was met, like shirts are generally ordered in a gross (gross = 144 items regardless of size). 

So few bought merchandise over months, thus the order took months to be received

1 hour ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

I really hope the Streets aren't one and done.  I love the branding and theme.  With a proper arena and marketing (street team?) and a proper website (Wix could do a better one), it could work.

They play in the f-n National Arena League, which four walls and a ceiling equate to a proper arena.  It is basically the 3rd Tier League.

If they are not making money now, you think going to a larger facility will help? A "street team"...OK.

Let's have sign flippers in Times Square too.  Corey Galloway already told a fib once, stating that two game this season would be at MSG and a pipe dream.

Quote

The new franchise will play their games at the Westchester County Center, with at least two games scheduled to be played at Madison Square Garden as they’re currently manufacturing a custom field that can be operated at both locations.

 

Galloway revealed to the Daily News that he’s hoping more games will take place inside the World’s Most Famous Arena, as he and the staff at MSG have been in talks about a dream scenario that would possibly include a day with a Rangers game in the morning, a Streets game in the afternoon, and a Knicks game in the evening.

I've posted this before, but even in the mid-2000's, renting MSG cost a lot!!!  And it is a Union house. Nassau won't be much cheaper when a playoff Islanders team would have weekend priority as well as Brooklyn Boxing/PBC

12 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

So you think a guy should call a game solo for all nine innings every game? I don't think anyone does. 

The Dodgers had Jaime Jarrín do Spanish Radio solo until 2015 when they brought in his son. He was 79 then and has a contract through the 2020 season.

John Ourand's sports media blog post from Monday is not behind their paywall. 

19 minutes ago, goalieboy82 said:

what is the deal with the no user agreement.  is this one of those every so often things we need to agree on.  

 

I don't think there as ever been an updated ToU (Terms of Use) since I joined.  Only pinned topics which rules were added which you saw only if you choose to look at the update(s).

I hope that any future changes in ToU, privacy policy, or cookie policy are treated the same as this was.