The 2022 World Cup has been a controversial subject for a few years now, and will only become more so as more people call upon FIFA to change the location from Qatar. But here’s a sub-topic that came up in discussion last night, and I haven’t seen too much on it yet.

As host country, Qatar gets an automatic bid to the tournament, the same way Brazil, South Africa, Germany, Korea & Japan, France, the USA and Italy did, going back to 1990. Now, most of those teams were WC regulars or had at least been to a Finals before, so it was no big deal.

But we’re in uncharted waters, er desert, with Qatar. Let’s look at the Qatar National Team and some World Cup history.

1. Qatar is currently ranked #100 by FIFA. For comparison that is between Zimbabwe (99) and Moldova (101).
2. The lowest ranked team at the 2014 World Cup was Australia at #62. Australia went 0-0-3, scoring 3 goals and giving up 9 to the Netherlands, Chile and Spain. The next lowest seeded teams were Korea (57), Cameroon (56), Japan (46), Nigeria (44) and Iran (43). Those teams combined to go (1-4-11) with a Minus 18 Goal Differential.  (Note: Iran and Nigeria tied each other so if you pull those games out the 5 teams went 1-2-11.)
3. In the history of the World Cup, the host nation with the worst ranking was South Africa in 2010. South Africa tied Mexico 1-1, got drubbed by Uruguay 3-0 and finished by beating a French team that had sent some of its players and a coach home early, 2-1.
4. In 2014 World Cup qualifying, Qatar was ranked as the #8 Asian team, and survived a 3rd round group of Bahrain (5 ), Iran (7) and Indonesia (24.) Their record of 2-4-0 netted them 10 points to finish 2nd behind Iran (3-3-0), and advanced them to the 4th round, eliminating the favored Bahrain (2-3-1) in the process. In the 4th round, they finished out of contention in 4th place (at 2-1-5) behind Iran (7), South Korea (2) and Uzbekistan (9), and ahead of Lebanon (20.)

So what might happen in the next 8 years? Is it conceivable that a country investing Billions into hosting a World Cup might also invest in strengthening their National team? Could money talk and lure some of the top 14-18 year-olds in Asia and Africa to train in a newly developed Qatar Football Training Facility? Could Qatar become close to par with the top Asian Football squads – Japan, South Korea and Australia?

Perhaps. My friend Alex posits that Qatar will simply pay their Group Stage competitors not to drub them too badly. Give them $1MM for a 3-0 loss, $500k for a 4-0 loss and nothing for 5-0 or worse.

But barring a miracle, it seems that Group A in 2022 will be wide open, with all the other teams being assured an easy win over Qatar, and it could be important how much they win the game by.  It’s also conceivable that we’ll see the worst showing ever by a World Cup Finals team.

Here’s something about MLS I don’t quite understand. DeAndre Yedlin could be headed to Anderlecht of the Belgian League. A friend of mine who knows a ton about soccer asked this series of questions:

Is this a big step up for Yedlin? I’m sure he’d get a raise, but I’m sure he could get a raise in MLS too. But in terms of advancing his career, does it make sense to go to a second tier (or third, or fourth?) Europe league? Or should he try to get a decent MLS salary after this year, and wait until England calls And what would the Sounders get out of this? Do they get any of the transfer fee? Do they get to set the transfer fee? Are we just out of luck? And we’re full on designated players too, right? So even if we got a ton of cash, we can’t really use it, right?

Here’s what I think I know. Please correct me if you know better.

1) Whether or not the play in Belgium is better than the MLS, there’s the perception in Europe that the play in the Dutch, Turkish, Norwegian, Belgian and Portuguese leagues is better than the MLS.

2) It’s easier for a Premier League, Spanish League, German League, Italian League or French League scout to catch a game in Belgium than Seattle.

3) The top teams in all the 2nd tier Europe Leagues at least get to compete in some round of the Champions League. Anderlecht won the Belgian First Division in 2013-2014, and are one of 22 teams to have already qualified for the Final 32 of the Champions League. That’s nice exposure he wouldn’t get here.

4) The MLS technically owns all the contracts of all the players. Essentially, the MLS is a giant talent agency that hosts matches in which to show off the talent they’ve recruited. Part of their revenue model is to find cheap players and develop them into players that other teams want to buy. They need the old guys to drive fans, but the real money is buying young guys low and selling high. It’s another reason the league wants parity and would rather have all the best players split amongst the teams to get playing time rather than having some great players sitting on the Sounders bench behind Dempsey and Martins for 34 games

5) There’s some sort of revenue split between the MLS and the team who scouts and signs the player. Not sure what it is.

6) MLS sets the transfer fee. I believe the team has some input based on whether they think the team and league would generate more revenue if they held the player another year.

7) Sounders would get some cash, but all it would do is help the ownership group. We can’t reinvest it into a higher salary cap.

Bottom line, the more Yedlins the league develops, the more revenue the league makes, the more revenue the teams split, the more designated players the teams can afford to have on each roster, the higher salary cap each team can have, and the more talent we can recruit to the league, which makes it easier to get the next Yedlin to play here, etc…

Let me know if you have more insight.

I tend to enjoy listening to panel discussions more than most people. And I like them even better when I’m the one who gets to ask all the questions.

On June 19, the Seattle Chapter of the American Advertising Foundation hosted an event with four of the city’s strongest small craft distilleries. When they asked me if I’d moderate this panel about how to market a small craft distillery, I thought they were kidding me. But they were serious, and I excitedly prepped for a topic that I had not previously done much business research on.

Our panelists were fantastic (left to right):

• Nathan Kaiser: Owner, 2bar Spirits
• Sven Liden: Cofounder, Black Rock Spirits, home of Bakon Vodka and Sparkle Donkey Tequila
• Kathy Humphrey: Chief Marketeer, Copperworks Distilling Company
• Steve Hawley: Director of Marketing, Westland Distillery

Here are a few bullets I took from the event:

• The one piece of advice every small batch distiller will give you is, “Don’t start a small batch distillery.”
• “Taste” can only get you so far. You have to have a decent flavor, but you are selling a brand, not what you taste like.
• Your brand needs a story. Sparkle Donkey Tequila has the made up history of “El Burro Esparkalo” and then follows that up with a legend of, “In the modern era, Sparkle Donkey Tequila has come to mean many things to many people. But above all it means celebration, fertility, and quality.”
• Winning awards is good for a boost, but you need a great follow through campaign to keep it going.
• Great quote: “Whiskey is what beer wants to be when it grows up.”
• Advice for anyone who thinks they can make tons of money in the burgeoning cannabis industry: “If you think there are a lot of forms to fill out for liquor, the cannabis guys have no idea what’s headed their way. We love that it’s getting legalized. The Liquor Control Board has so many headaches with them, they barely pay attention to us anymore.”
• Fact: “40% of people in the bar do not know what they want to order when they walk to the bar.”
• Make your bottle bright and easy to see against all types of backgrounds in all types of light. Don’t let it hide on the shelf.

The hashtag #AAFInsights has more of these nuggets if you want to roll through them.

Thanks to the AAF for letting me moderate. It was a blast and I hope people in the audience had as much fun as I did.

Only 32 teams are invited to the World Cup finals that you are watching now. How did the 190 or so teams get whittled down to these? Well, there are 3 years of intra-continent tournaments that deliver a few finalists. Here’s how the allocations break out:
1 Host Country
13 European Countries
5 South American Countries
5 African Countries
4 North American / Central American Countries
4 Asian Countries

So, is Europe deserving of 13 spots? Is Africa worthy of 5? Let’s look at the first round of games. (For this comparison, we’re putting the host Brazil with the other 5 South American teams)

North/Central America (4): 3 wins, 1 loss. Vs Africa 2-0-0. Vs South America 1-0-0. Vs Europe 0-1-0.
South America (6): 4 wins, 2 losses, 0 ties. Vs Europe: 3-1-0. Vs Asia 1-0-0. Vs North America 0-1-0.
Europe (13): Total record: 6-6-1. Record vs non-European teams 3-3-1: Vs South America: 1-3-0. Vs NA: 1-0-0. Vs Africa 1-0-0. Vs Asia: 0-0-1
Africa (5): 1 win, 3 losses and 1 tie. Vs North America: 0-2-0. Vs Europe: 0-1-0. Vs Asia 1-0-1.
Asia (4): 0 wins, 2 losses, 2 ties. Vs Africa 0-1-1. Vs Europe 0-0-1. Vs South America 0-1-0.

So what does this tell us?
- The only African or Asian team to get a point against a non Asian or African team is South Korea, with a tie against Russia.
- South America has been as good as advertised, other than Uruguay.
- North America has been pleasantly surprising.
- Europe could not be more neutral.

Clearly the African and Asian teams are struggling, while Sweden and Ukraine are sitting at home. Maybe we should be allocating some of their spots to Europe.

Every spring, tens of thousands of dads, friends, uncles and even moms embark on the gratifying, frustrating and always surprising journey of coaching a Little League baseball team.

Other than Crossfit and Fantasy Football, there may not be an activity that is so mind-absorbing to you – and that absolutely no one around you wants to hear about. No one outside your bubble of coaches and parents cares about little Jimmy’s amazing catch in center field.

But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t subject you to my thoughts on the matter in this little forum. And my thoughts revolve around how coaching 9 year old baseball players is a lot like running a marketing program.

1) Every channel / kid is different: Coaching would be easy if you could just get out front of the audience, give a little spiel about how to turn your hips when swinging, and watch everyone respond in perfect union. But one kid is going to interpret that message as, “Pretend like its a hula-hoop” and another is going to hear, “Keep my feet perfectly still like they are in cement and turn my hips.” Just as every online or offline channel you choose needs its own nuanced content, you must also shape your message for the kids.

2) No matter what you do, some audiences are just not going to do what you want them to do: You can test images, graphics, copy, videos and more. Your content can be fabulous, and still there’s a percent of the market that will ignore, or not understand, anything you try to get across to them. You can explain over and over again, “Run through first base.” You can do drills in which they run through first base. You can have quizzes and ask them what they are supposed to do when they get to first base. During the game, 11 out of 12 kids will run through first base. And the 12th kid is still going to slide, come up short, be out by 2 feet, end the rally and the coach will have to resist throwing his scorebook through the fence.

3) You will have some successes you shouldn’t have, which makes it hard to change: A 9 year old doesn’t know how good he can be. He looks around and sees he hits better than most of the kids despite only keeping one hand on the bat, and says, “That’s good enough.” You beg and plead, “You will be a better hitter if you keep that 2nd hand on the bat.” And so he takes one swing in batting practice, keeps both hands on the bat, misses the ball and decides that sample set is large enough that he’s never going to listen to you again. He shouldn’t be able to hit with one hand, but since he can, he won’t change. We have marketing campaigns that are “doing ok” so we may be resistant to change. It shouldn’t be doing well, but we can’t ensure we’ll do better. And when we dip our toes in the water and have a day of less success, we revert back to what we know.

4) There is always a team with greater resources who looks impossible to beat: In our league, we have the team that plays hard and fast with the rules. The team knew of an all-star player, kept him out of the draft, and then had him join their team later when no one was looking. In 9 year old Little League! Plus, the kids of all the coaches are all 1st rounders that got placed on the team with their dads. So by very definition, they have 4 first round quality players and everyone else has one, maybe two. Your marketing team has less money than Starbucks, less brand power than Coke, fewer distribution channels than Microsoft and can’t afford Apple’s Brand, Design and Ad Agencies. That’s just the way it is. You have to be smarter, see who it is you can beat, and possibly just accept you may not beat everyone.

5) The losses will be hard to take but the wins will be fantastic: Something is always going to surprise you. The kid who never gets a hit will make it to first – and even run through the bag! The center fielder will track down the longest ball hit against you all season and make an amazing catch. The first baseman staring at the kids in the other dugout will make a back handed stab. You just never know where these unexpected gems will happen. You’ll want to take credit for them, but just enjoy the win. It doesn’t matter if the idea for the ad came from the copywriter, admin, customer service rep or janitor. It’s a team win when it works, no matter how and why it happened.

Those are my 5 takeaways. I’m sure I’ll think of more, but like most Little League baseball games, this post has dragged on too long and we’ve seen enough pitches already. I’ll just be thankful if someone of them were strikes.

Marketing Dive released a nice summary about trends in Display vs Search Ad Spending.

The original report came from a survey commissioned by SumAll. The long form report and the associated visuals are worth reading, but Marketing Dive Distills it down to 5 points.

1. Display ads cost one-third less than search ads
2. Tablets offer the most bang for your buck
3. It still takes more tablet impressions for a click than desktop
4. Mobile devices take even more impressions than tablets to inspire clicks
5. Advertisers spend seven times as much on search ads as on display

If you are in the business of buying ads in social, search or display, the data behind the conclusions is worth taking some time to read through.

This was the best 22:00 of YouTube video that I’ve seen in a long time.

The speaker is Scott Galloway, who owns a think tank called L2 and is also a marketing professor at NYU Stern. He quickly explains who is winning and losing in everything from social media and retail to brands and world economies. Really interesting stuff.

There was more Polo than Prada. More Ralph than Lauren. And Levi’s outnumbered Louboutin’s about 5 to 1. But there was enough revelry, camaraderie and fun at Geekwire’s “Oscars of Seattle Startups” last night at EMP that you expected Ellen to organize a group selfie.

You can get the full results of the 13 Geek Awards over at Geekwire.com. But maybe more importantly than the awards themselves is the annual chance to catch up with what every startup in town is up to.

The startup world is a fluid one. Some people who were 100% confident in one project last year have a new passion this year. And some folks working out of their garage a year ago now have a staff of 26. But thanks to Geekwire, we get this annual opportunity to check in with one another.

It’s hard to know where this community would be without Geekwire’s involvement the last few years. Would the Seattle Times and Puget Sound Business Journal have been able to whip 800 entrepreneurial and tech enthusiasts into a kind of extended family who cooperate more than compete with each other? Would we all know the brand names of a few companies poised to be the next Zulily? I think not.

And in an industry still made up of more men than women, it was fantastic to see Julie Sandler and Jane Park given two of the top individual awards – for Geek of the Year and CEO of the Year respectively. In addition to her day job at Madrona, Julie has pushed tirelessly to encourage more young girls to pursue tech careers. And Jane is running one of the fastest growing non-tech businesses in the region.

I don’t think any more people could fit into EMP, and I don’t know how long you’d have to make the event in order to chat with everyone you know there. But it’s nice that in an environment that delivers more struggles than solutions, you know there’s a community rooting for each other. And that’s really what the Geekwire Awards are all about – a place to recognize the ones who made it, and be inspired to follow them on stage next year.

I’ll preface this by saying that this will not be the most complex baseball analysis you’ve ever read. I understand that to make this worth anything, I’d need to factor in stadium anomalies, opposing pitcher records and fielding statistics. If you want an exotic smorgasboard of premium baseball analysis, I suggest heading over to the U.S.S. Mariner.com. Consider my contribution here the baseball equivalent of a food truck.

But this week I wondered aloud, what would it take for the Mariners to be the best hitting team in baseball? Are we one player away or nine? I really didn’t know so I dusted off my excel spreadsheet for this totally unscientific report.

The test is simple. If we replaced the lowest performing Mariners starter with the best hitter in baseball, how would team stats change? Then, how many times do we have to do that to be among the top?

Step 1: Where are we today?

Let’s take a look at the MLB Team Batting Averages, ranked 1-30. (Yes, I know Batting Average is an antiquated way to calculate offensive performance. Remember, I’m only working with a food truck kitchen.)

Step 2: What do our individual stats look like?

So here’s a quick look at the Mariners batting stats. I highlighted the starters, because that’s really the analysis we need to do. There are 8 clear starters, and 4 players who seem to regularly rotate around as that 9th player in the lineup, and a few guys with a couple of at bats each. So for the purpose of this discussion, which is trading one starter for another, we’ll only work with the 8 regulars.

Step 3: What happens when we trade our lowest performing starter for the leading hitter in baseball?

Again, we’re ranking the best hitter by average, not WAR, OPS or anything complex. Right now, that guy is Charlie Blackmon of the Colorado Rockies, who is off to a blistering .410 start. So here’s our new roster, subbing Blackmon for our lowest average starter, Kyle Seager.

Our average jumped 24 points to .246. So by replacing our worst hitter with MLB’s best, we’ve only made it to 18th on the list.

Step 4:  What happens when we trade our two lowest performing starters for the two leading hitters in baseball?

Once again we head to Colorado, where we are kidnapping Troy Tulowitski and putting him on a cargo plane north. This time it’s Brad Miller who is getting our ax.

We’ve now jumped to .267 which puts us a very respectable 7th in the league. So what does it take to get to the top?

Step 5:  What happens when we trade our THREE lowest performing starters for the THREE leading hitters in baseball?

Say good-bye to Abraham Almonte and please welcome Dayan Viciedo and his .377 average to the Pacific Northwest.

We’ve now swapped out 33.3% of our starting lineup, and raised our batting average 63 points. And yet, that still keeps us behind the League Leading Colorado Rockies. (And yes, I know that if we took two guys off their roster they wouldn’t be at .301 anymore. Just go with it.)

Bonus Section:

I have the spreadsheet built, so let’s do one more just for fun. Suppose we didn’t attain the three top hitters in baseball in what surely would be the savviest three-way trade in the history of baseball. Suppose we just ended up with three hitters who were at the MLB average replacing our lowest three.

Now, this is a little wonky, because I took the MLB averages for all the teams combined, and then divided those by 9. The reasoning is that each team has 9 spots in the batting order, so it’s a fair approximation of what the average player on the average team would do if he played in every game.

You see we jump up to .241, which only gets us in a tie for 22nd with Arizona.

Conclusion:

So how far are the Mariners away from having an offense that strikes fear into opposing pitcher rather than just striking out? Well, we are clearly more than 3 average hitters away. And it’s unlikely we’ll get the three top hitters. So we need at least three well above average hitters to dent the top 10.

If you have a Dropbox account, you can download the spreadsheet here. I don’t know why the numbers look weird in View mode.

Round 1:
Sometimes in the beginning of a war, only the protagonist knows that the war has started. In the saga of Andy vs the Woodpeckers, this was the case.

The evil Woodpecker staged a sneak attack one morning with a small series of annoying, but not overly damaging, pings on the side of the house. It wasn’t constant, it wasn’t overly obnoxious; it was just a few taps on the Northeast corner of my house. All I needed to do was tap back at the wall and he would flee. It seemed innocent enough.
Round 1 Winner: Draw

Round 2:
Little did I know that this was the beginning of an invasion, and the WP’s were staking their claim. After about a week, it became clear that the enemy had entrenched itself. The tapping became constant. And it was more than a single woodpecker. It was a whole platoon. They were taking shifts. My tapping back was no longer a deterrent. They had gathered enough intelligence to know nothing was coming through that wall.
Round 2 Winner: Woodpeckers

Round 3:
Thus I had to regroup. I said to myself, “This will be easy. Surely, the internet has dealt with woodpeckers before. I will ask my friend Google for advice.” And Google did not fail me. There were lots of easy tips for deterring woodpeckers. I could attach tin foil to my wall. I could put a fake owl on my gutter. The list of ways to deter a woodpecker was nearly endless. And so, I walked to the northeast corner of my house, unfurled my 12 foot ladder, scaled as high as felt reasonably safe and realized I was still a good 15 feet away from where the deviants were pecking. I looked to my right and saw the nearest window that could be opened was about 50 feet away. Barring the unlikely event that I would learn to fly, there was going to be no easy way to attach tin foil to my wall 25 feet above the ground and 50 feet from a window.
Round 3 Winner: Woodpeckers

Round 4:
“Woodpeckers are probably easily scared,” I naively said to myself. “All I need to do is frighten the woodpecker. When he pecks on the wall, I will hurl a penny with my left hand from 50 feet away. I will scare him off and he’ll know not to mess with me.” And so, when one of my winged attackers attached himself to my abode, I took a penny and chucked it at him from 50 feet away.

Needless to say, I did not hit him.

I did make some noise with my toss and he flew away. First it took him about 20 minutes to come back, so I threw another penny and he flew away again. This time it took him 10 minutes to return. I threw another penny and 5 minutes later he was back. We danced to this song a few more times until he realized he only needed to fly away for 15 seconds or so to get me to leave the window.

About a hundred yards way, I could see a collection of woodpeckers congregating in a tree. I think one may have been taking tickets. I’m pretty sure they were all laughing at me.

Round 4 Winner: Woodpeckers

Round 5:
“I’m a reasonably intelligent human. I’ve seen McGyver. There is a way to get this tin foil on the wall,” I said to the amusement of the fates. On a piece of paper, I had drawn the perfect solution.

• I would attach a nail just under my window and tie a 75 yard string to it.
• Then I’d drop the ball of string to the ground, walk it over to a tree near the edge of the house and throw the string over the tree branch.
• I would then bring the ball of string back towards the window, and hurl it 20 feet into the air, through the open window.
• I could then tie the 2nd end of the string tight and create a “laundry line” which would pass directly by where the woodpeckers were doing their damage.
• I would then use clips and attach a nice long strip of tin foil, and attach a long string to the tin foil that would reach the ground.
• I could then pull the tin foil along the string until I reached the place I wanted to leave it. Easy.

I attached the nail, dropped the string to the ground and began bringing the string across. That’s when I noticed the other trees on the side of my house and the branches that were making it difficult (read: impossible) to get the string through. After a few minutes, I managed to get the string to the target tree, got it over the branch and headed back. Now the branches really grabbed hold of the string. I pulled my way through and prepared to launch the ball through the 3rd floor window.

My first attempt was close, but not successful. My 2nd attempt less so, to the point that the ball of string came back to earth through the tree branches. Attempts 3 thru 10 were similar in nature. Finally – SUCCESS! The ball of string made it through my window. I excitedly bound up stairs and got ready to revel in my win. I grabbed the string and started to coil it in so that I could have my taut laundry line in which to slide my tin foil across.

First there was a slight tug as the string caught a tree branch. I pulled it through. Then there were more tugs, as the tree opened all its fingers and grasped on to any bit of string it could find. The string was not coming up any further. I would not have a taut laundry line, all I would have was a tree full of string.
Round 5 winner: Woodpeckers

Round 6:
That was the end of one day of suffering and I decided to sleep on it and look for more solutions in the morning. So Monday, I headed over to Fred Meyer and asked the nice lady in the Garden Center if they had a Woodpecker Removal kit. When she said, “No, but I think we have some things for rodents or bugs,” my confidence waned. I was going to have to create a solution. 1st stop – some sort of garden sprayer so that I could poison the whole area where these evil creatures were burrowing. 2nd stop – the toy section and the purchase of a high powered Nerf gun.
I tried the poison first, spraying the side of my house high enough that no insect will ever return. This did not phase the woodpecker in the slightest. He was asking – no begging – to be shot with the Nerf gun.

This thing can shoot 75 feet, so my target would be well within the range from my window next time he came over. It was almost too easy.

It wasn’t long before I heard his return. He sat himself on the wall and started banging. I leaned myself out the window took aim. If he saw me, he didn’t show it. This was one cool cat. I lined up the shot, calculating for wind, distance and the unknown variable – how much velocity does a Nerf bullet actually bring to the equation.

I had him in my sights. He was all lined up. For a brief moment, I felt bad about what I was about to do.

That moment passed. I pulled the trigger.

The missile sailed a good foot over his head, as I was surprised by how much speed the missile had. The surprised woodpecker noticed immediately how lucky he was to be alive and fled. Surely, almost being shot would keep him from coming back.

10 minutes later, he was back. Once again, I shot and missed, and he fled. He came back. I shot and missed, and he fled. He came back. I shot and missed, and he fled.

We did this another 10 times or so, me firing from different angles and spots around the perimeter. This plan may work eventually, but I did not have the patience to keep it up.
Round 6 Winner: Woodpeckers

Round 7:
Google couldn’t solve my problem, so I crowd-sourced an answer on Facebook. The obvious solution was raised for me – Helium Balloons!

Just my luck, it’s the day after Easter and QFC was stuck with a ton of Mylar “Happy Easter” Balloons that the florist said he’d sell me for $.99. And he threw in 30 feet of ribbon for fun (or because he just wanted me to leave.) I wasn’t sure how many balloons was the proper amount for Woodpecker removal, but 3 seemed like the right number.

I tied 12 feet of ribbon to the 2 feet already attached. With my ladder still perched against the wall, I climbed to the 12th foot and tied the balloon to its anchor. The balloon swayed back and forth, never going more than about 10 feet from the Woodpecker’s target, but always returning home.

3 hours later, the balloon is still up and the Woodpeckers have not returned. This isn’t a long term solution, but we can put this day in the books.

Round 7 Winner: Andy