New Shirt
For those of you who know me, (which is the vast majority of the people who read this blog) you probably know that I own a couple t-shirts. Yes, way to many, but I’ve been more purposeful in my buys lately.
As you read a few days ago I was wondering about the t-shirt business. Where that started was that I bought a shirt from Mothering Hut the other day, and am very happy with the purchase. Mothering Hut makes niche sports t-shirts and has been promoted on a few very popular sports blogs. They make funny shirts and sell everything through Spreadshirt. I wonder how much money they are making and if there is a market for one of these stores to be affiliated with each sports city?
Ohh, and if you’re wondering, this is the shirt I will be wearing the next time I go to a sporting event.
Do stadium construction jobs justify taxpayers money?
I found this at The Fanhouse today. Barack Obama was asked if having the taxpayers dollars pay for the renovation of Soldier Field was the right choice. He responded with
Does the building of the stadium in itself help the local economy that much? I would imagine it helps, but I doubt it justifies the hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers dollars. What about the jobs it provides year in and year out as the team sticks around? What about the local bars and restaurants around the arena or stadium? What about the impact on bringing the community together around a common interest?
Well I guess if the $300M that Clay Bennett is asking for is paid for in the jobs created for construction alone we might as well buck up right away! Why can’t we just sit down Bennett, Obama, and Christine Gregoire. We’d have the new arena by next month right? Oh wait, it’s Seattle, that won’t happen.
“The greatest moment in American sports history”…Really?
I woke up this wonderful 4th of July, and although I had to wait a few hours to watch a tape delayed Wimbledon, I was able to watch another early July “Sporting” event. Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest. For those of you that aren’t framiliar with the event, it’s the super bowl of competetive eating, and people see how many hot dogs and buns they can eat in 12 minutes. The event has really changed in the past six years as Takeru Kobayashi showed that being lean actually helps you fit more hot dogs into your stomach. Well Kobayashi has won the previous six Nathan’s events heading into today.
That changed when Joey Chestnut ate 66(!!!) hot dogs in 12 minutes today to outdo Kobayashi’s 63 (The previous Nathan’s record was 54). Since the event is on the Fourth of July many American’s have been upset about a Japanese contestant dominating the American’s and were very happy to see Joey Chestnut bring back the “Mustard Belt” to America.
The announcers today were taking themselves a little to serious though, here were a few of the quotes that had me wondering why I was watching this event.
“This could be what this country needs to get back on the right track: the mustard belt coming home to America.”
“Google the word “hero” tomorrow and you’ll get Abe Lincoln and Joey Chestnut.”
“This could be the greatest moment in American Sports history.”
Sporting Event Insurance?
I am planning a very exciting vacation this year over Labor Day weekend with a good friend of mine. We plan on attending 4 sporting events in 4 days on the East Coast. I am very excited for the trip and I think it’s going to be an epic vacation. However, I’ve been keeping an eye on Wimbledon the past week, and if you have seen any of it, you know that 6 of the 7 days have been interrupted by rain. There are certain sporting events that just can’t be played in the rain and tennis and baseball are two of them. Three of the four sporting events that my friend and I plan on attending are baseball and tennis.
Is there a business model that could be formed around trips like this? We have our plane tickets bought and can’t really push back our departure date, so if it rains, we’re not going to be able to enjoy all of the activities. If you took into consideration the historical data concerning rain (or snow) in certain cities on specific dates and made a predictive model based on that information you could then sell insurance to people who could get their ticket refunded through you (as a third party) if they were unable to attend a sporting event due to weather. Say for $10 an event (more/less depending on the chance of rain/snow) people would buy the insurance and get a full refund if they gave you back the unused ticket of the sporting event. I bet IAC would love to buy this business and have it as an additional upsell for Ticketmaster transactions.
Is there a business there? I think so, but I’ve only been thinking about it for the past 10 minutes. If anyone wants to give it a go, let me know, I’d love some options and maybe a board seat. I hope I don’t like this idea too much or I will have to take this post down in the near future.
Deadspin’s New Look
Falling in line with the rest of the Gawker blogs Deadspin today changed their look. WOW. Most of the changes didn’t bug me that much other than one cheap gimmick, fishing for page views. Deadspin gets a ton of traffic daily and has really shown other companies (ehem, ESPN) that sports blogs are something to take seriously. What they did today was add a “read more” link about 100 words into each post forcing the reader to go onto the next page to read the rest of the entry. The change really annoyed me for a few reasons.
First, they don’t need the page views other than to pat their stats and increase their ad revenue (more page views more CPM $’s)
Second, the loyal readers don’t want to have to view 20 pages (10 stories a day, two page views per story) to get the humor from Deadspin.
Third, it’s just annoying.
So I wrote Will Leitch, and too my surprise he wrote back saying that he was with me and that the changes wouldn’t last long. The “read more” button was used less and less as the day went on, it was great to see. Also, to have Will actually respond shows that he’s running a great show over there as I’m sure he probably got 100′s of emails on the site redesign. Let’s hope I can have the same issue with my redesign.
Bringing together two of Seattle’s best brands…
Combining two local brands that a person loves does not happen very often. There is the Pyramid Brewery across the street from Safeco (I love the Mariners not the insurance company), but I haven’t been able to buy a Venti Starbucks Americano while shopping for jeans inside Nordstrom yet. Come September though two brands that I’ve been a fan of for many years will combine forces and offer something unique for each company.
Jones Soda won the rights to pour and sell their beverages inside of Qwest field, home of my favorite NFL team, the Seattle Seahawks. This is a huge deal. Jones is the first non Pepsi or Coke soda maker to earn the rights to pour their drinks at a NFL stadium. A 90 person company is taking out two companies that combined run almost all soda fountains in professional and collegiate sports. I don’t drink pop very often, but I will at the next Seahawks game I can guarantee you that. On top of the fountain drinks Jones will also be selling plastic bottles with pictures of the Seahawks and their fans inside the stadium and will print these same pictures on their widely distributed glass bottles as well.
I think this is a real win-win for both parties involved. The Seahawks get a unique product on the market and in their stadium which will help create an even better gameday experience. Jones will get the publicity, which is already HUGE for this decision, and will also be exposing their product to a potential 70,000+ people ten weekends a year on top of all the people who hear the news stories. Also, they’re both Seattle companies so all the better.
About Otis
I live in Seattle, Washington. I am passionate about working with and interacting with others. My work experience includes marketing, account management, and sales.
I am a huge sports fan who on top of cheering for my favorite teams (Go Beavs!) also appreciates coaching strategy, as well as the marketing behind teams, players, and events.
Personally, I enjoys exploring new cities and areas (particularly small towns) and getting outside and playing.