Good morning, all! I hope your week is going well.
A secret of any money-making entity’s success is to look ahead, imagine what your business model should look like five or 10 years down the road. Nobody does this better than the NFL, the USA’s most popular sport.
The ink isn’t even dry on the $100 billion TV and streaming rights deal signed by the league and now it is looking at other ways to maximize revenue. Last week the league let it be known it is prepared to sell off portions of its media operations such as its cable channel, NFL Digital and NFL RedZone. Mind you, the league isn’t willing to sell off these segments in their entirety, just portions, preferably to interests with more expertise in advancing technology.
The league sent a letter to team owners which read in part its aim is to create:
…an even more dynamic media asset that extends reach and engagement and creates additional value for the clubs - including through direct-to-consumer opportunities, new and innovative content and formats, and international expansion.
Translation, the NFL sees the future and it includes more of a one-on-one relationship with the consumer, via ever-evolving technology. In other words, there is more money to be made and the NFL wants as much of it as possible.
Time for Yankees to clean house
It is time for the New York Yankees to clean house and that means parting ways with the general manager and manager. I have written on occasion in this newsletter, that as currently constructed, the Yankees are not a championship caliber ball club. Nothing has changed to convince me otherwise. This current club, with a nearly $210 million payroll, was designed to start a run of World Series appearances now. That was the purpose of the club being sellers at the 2016 trade deadline.
Clearly, at the 77-game mark of the season, the Yankees did not expect to be just three games over .500. You can talk injuries all you want but the reality is all clubs have injuries. General Manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone repeatedly say they have the talent in the clubhouse to produce a championship. Maybe they have overrated that talent. They wouldn’t be the first organization to do so. How they evaluate talent up-and-down also deserves scrutiny. The history of their first-round draft choices has been a disaster.
People talk about owner George Steinbrenner’s knee-jerk reaction as being a detriment to the organization. There is some merit to that, but it’s not as if previous Yankees ownership never shook things up. Whether it be the CBS-owned, Topping, Webb-owned or Ruppert-owned Yankees, when it was time to shake things up, these owners did. After another sweep at the hands of the Red Sox over the weekend, it’s time for another shake up. Hall of Fame baseball writer Bill Madden of the New York Daily News put it best with his open letter to owner Hal Steinbrenner. It is time for a new approach. The current plan, has not worked.
When K.C. Jones talked basketball and baseball
On Christmas Day, 2020, we lost one of the greats in basketball Hall of Fame player and coach K.C. Jones. A dear friend and broadcast partner, Jones would occasionally come out to a baseball game at New Britain Stadium, when the Rock Cats were in existence, to visit me and the “Voice of the Rock Cats,” Jeff Dooley, another dear friend and broadcast partner. One night, during the 2005 season, Jones dropped in the booth and Jeff and I had the recorder going, as this great gentleman talked basketball, his beloved Celtics and even some baseball. I’ve turned it into a two-part presentation on my podcast The Baseball Podcast. Enjoy!
Remember Jane Jarvis
In my last newsletter I wrote about ballpark organists and it evoked some great feedback. Among the points I made was that you could name the organist of each club and even the brand of the organ on which they played.
One of the more renowned ball park organists was Jane Jarvis, who played for the New York Mets. Who knew she had such a fascinating career?
Jarvis, who hailed from the Midwest, had a tragic start to her life, when she lost most of her family in a fatal train accident. But she persevered and became a jazz pianist of some renown. When the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, she was hired as the team organist, even though she knew nothing about baseball. Life took her to New York City, and the Mets brought her aboard, when Shea Stadium opened in 1964. There are even more fascinating aspects to her life which I found out, while navigating You Tube and coming upon Big Chuck’s channel. Here is the link below.
That is it for today. Have a great Fourth of July and thank you for your support.
SPORTSCASTER DAN