Andy Boyer

Author: Andy

  • Occupy Seattle Described as a Poker Game

    You won’t see this analysis written anywhere else – this content comes from part of an email chain where a bunch of people were discussing the differences between the original Occupy Wall Street and the local spin-off versions such as Occupy LA and Occupy Seattle.  It all stemmed from an LA Times article that explained it would cost Los Angeles $2.3 Million to clean up the park which had been Occupied.  I’ll keep the whole email from this anonymous person for context, but the paragraph with the poker analogy is the one I found most compelling.

    Note: At this point the discussion had moved to talk about whether the movement, or the offshoots of the movement, would be successful on getting student-debts absolved.  (And no offense to puppetry and history majors.)

    People take risks and develop new and improved goods and services because they believe that they will profit from it. That is at the root of our free market economic system. That is exactly what Adam Smith wrote about all those years ago. Plus, where do you think all that money comes from to pay off people’s debts (whether student loans or mortgages or bank bail outs or whatever)? Government takes in revenue through taxes. The inhabitants of a country pay the taxes. So, if one group of people want money from the government (and that is exactly what asking to have your debts payed off is- getting money from the government), in essence those people are asking other people to pay for their choices. Why should I have to pay for the choices that another person made (that is the root of the whole social contract and the obligations of citizenship)?

    For example, I am OK with helping to pay for education in general- most people are. That is why we have free public K-12 education. It is an investment in the future. I am also OK with student grants for college kids who can not afford college. That also helps society and is an investment in the future. But if some guy takes out a massive loan from a private business (i.e. a bank) to fund his two years in college to get a masters degree in literature or history or puppetry or what have you, and then the guy can’t get a job with his worthless degree, why should I have to pay to get his loan written off? That guy is in essence begging money from me. He better be able to explain why and persuade me to pay off his loan, or I will not want to pay it off for him. And if his first attempt to persuade me to pay off his loan is to “occupy” the park down the street from my house and threaten to stay there until I pay for his loan, then frankly he has failed at making his case from the get go.

    To put it in poker terms,  imagine if some guy at the table made big risky bets over and over, chasing long odds on flush draws hand after hand, borrowed money repeatedly from other players to buy in on more hands, and when he finally craps out and has no more money, he demands that everybody else pony up money to pay off his debts. How would you feel about that? How would you react to that? How would the other players react to that? Now imagine if that guy- rather than to try to logically explain why you should pay off his debt- decides to go sit in the bathroom and “occupy” it for several weeks. He messes the place up, refuses to clean it up, disturbs other people who are just trying to use the bathroom, refuses to leave even though he is on private property and the owners ask him nicely to leave, and becomes belligerent when the police to evict him. How would you react to that?

     

     

  • Guest Post: GoDaddy Domains Threatened Because of SOPA Support

    Michael Neu posted this article on our company blog.  I think it’s a good summary and am re-posting it here.

    >>

    Techcrunch posted an article today called “Cheezburger’s Ben Huh: If GoDaddy Supports SOPA, We’re Taking Our 1000+ Domains Elsewhere”. The story is in reference to GoDaddy’s support of SOPA the (Stop-Online-Piracy-Act). Although the bill sounds like a good thing many people are worried that the bill goes WAY too far. If SOPA passes it would makes it really easy for copyright holders to censor content and shut sites down that they think are offensive. The censorship issues go far beyond that as well.

    Ben Huh, The CEO of The Cheezburger Network, has decided to pull his names from GoDaddy because of their support of the bill. Many other big media companies support the passing of the bill as well.

    This is very hot topic right now #SOPA and many sites have spoken out against the bill including Google, Yahoo and others.


    I completely agree with Ben’s stance and think he is giving GoDaddy a chance to make it right before he moves his domains. However, as the article stated it GoDaddy is used to taking some heat, and it will probably take a lot more for them to change. There seems to be a push to transfer domains away from GoDaddy because of their support of this bill so we will how GoDaddy reacts if that trends gains any more momentum.

    People need to familiarize themselves with what is happening with the SOPA bill, and how poorly it was written. It truly is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and needs to be stopped before it passes by a completely technologically uneducated group of political representatives.

    I strongly urge you to familiarize yourself with what is going on and take action like Ben did.

    What are you doing to stop this bill from passing?

  • It Was a Different Time Back Then

    We’ve all seen Mad Men. Well this is the kind of video you get when your Creative department is drinking scotch and hitting on secretaries all day. Take a drink every time you see something sexist and/or something that would get a Marketing Director fired today.

  • Down Goes the Roof

    And just like that, the old starts to make way for the new.

  • Don’t Break the Internet

    Click on the picture below to head over to the Stanford Law Review. Don’t let anyone you’ve ever voted for vote for SOPA.

  • My Ridiculous and Unsubstantiated Prediction for How the Region Gets NBA and NHL Teams

    (Part 1 of a Series)

    So let me preface this. I have no inside information. I know nothing, have talked to no one I reference and have absolutely no reason to believe any of what I am going to write is going to happen. It’s purely a wild speculation that will be fun to look back on if 10% of it comes true.

    The overarching point is this: Bellevue is going to get an NBA and NHL team, and it’s going to start playing around 2015. Here are some details of this ridiculous notion.

    1) The rich people who want an NBA team back here have figured out how to change the conversation. They are working to change the question from, “Should we or shouldn’t we have a World Class arena” to “Should our World Class Arena be in Seattle or Bellevue.” It’s a fantastic tactic. Get two equally powerful groups to wage a battle against each other.

    2) Once you convince Bellevue that Seattle wants an Arena, the politicians in Bellevue start making things happen. It’s a once in a century opportunity that people with power can’t pass up. Seattle is at best in a plateau, and possibly declining in economic importance. Bellevue has Microsoft, Expedia, a financial district, a huge shopping district, and the chance to recruit over any of the major tech companies with small offices in Seattle. Insert a world class arena and you could make an argument that we call the region Seattle-Tacoma-Eastside. It could even be considered like the Twin Cities. Bellevue will do its part to make the Arena happen for the promise of concerts, the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention, NCAA Sweet 16 games, the NCAA Women’s Final 4, NHL All-Star game and all the Justin Bieber you can take.

    3) Now the mechanics. Let’s pick Anschutz Entertainment Group as the private sponsor who recognizes that a privately funded arena, backed by an Entertainment Group, can be hugely profitable. So Arena issue solved, provided they get tenants.

    4) Tenant 1: The Tampa Bay Lightning move to Seattle. The Lightning were recently bought by a Harvard Biz School Investment Banker Jeffrey Vinik. Investment bankers keep score in dollar signs. And the CEO and minority owner of the Lighting is former Seahawks CEO Tod Liewicki. He knows this area. He’s bringing the team back here to share the spotlight with…

    5) Tenant 2: Everyone knows this one. Steve Balmer leads the ownership group of the new NBA team. This happens once David Stern announces his retirement. Once the new guy steps in, he’ll need to make a bold move that gets his regime off on the right foot. And what would make him more popular with owners than to rip out a franchise that is losing money (ie the Hornets) and make the owners a bunch of money by selling it to a big city in a new arena with a Billionaire owner. Easy win.

    6) A small thing to consider: The new light rail through Bellevue hits all the major MSFT headquarters, with a mysterious loop through a dead region of Bel-Red. Welcome to the future home of the new stadium.

    That’s all I have towards this for now. More ideas to come later…

  • What’s your “Pinnion” on the BCS

  • Gary Danielson’s BCS Idea

    I have to say, I really like Gary Danielson’s BCS idea. I could try to explain it in words, but since Gary explained it this weekend, thanks to the magic of digital recording, you can watch it here.  (Apologies that CBS forces you to watch a :15 Lenovo commercial, just gut it out.) I have a few other things to note at the end of the video, so scroll down at the end.


    What I’d add to the idea and explanation:

    – I’d make the Conference champions the HOSTS of the “Quarterfinal Games” and make Wildcards go on the road.

    – In this scenario, the “Quarterfinal” games would be played this weekend.  It would probably be something like Oregon, Wisconsin, Alabama and Stanford or Boise St.  So for fun, your home games would be something like Alabama at Oregon and Stanford (or BSU) at Wisconsin.  Are you watching anything this weekend better than those games?

    – Now the two losers would still be in BCS Bowl Games, so it really doesn’t mess up anyone’s New Year’s plans.  Oregon fans just wouldn’t know where they were flying until this Sunday.  But they’d still have 3 weeks to plan their trip.

    – The two semi-final games would be Bowl Games.  So you’d have LSU vs Stanford/BSU/Wisconsin in the Sugar Bowl and Oklahoma State vs Oregon/Alabama in the Orange or Fiesta Bowl.

    – The final game is played a week later.

    This is a pretty genius scenario because it solves most of the issues with a playoff.  1) You only add 2 games TOTAL  to the schedule and they are home games for 2 teams so there’s no problem filling the stadium.  2) You don’t mess up anyone’s Bowl trips, so college Presidents still get to take their big donors out to *ahem* dinner in Florida, Phoenix, LA and New Orleans.  3) There’s still the human element and we get to yell and scream about whether Boise St, Stanford, Kansas St. or Virginia Tech should have gotten that 6th seed.  4) You don’t extend the season any further.  This years BCS Title game is Jan 9 for Christ’s sake.  5) It moves the New Year’s Day games back to *gasp* New Year’s Day.  6) It keeps the regular season super relevant, AND makes the Conference Championships important.

    I think it’s a cool solution.  Thoughts?

  • My $.02 on this year’s BCS

    I don’t like teams from Oklahoma. I root against any team that Clay Bennett may possibly want to support. That’s what makes this so hard for me to say.

    Oklahoma State deserves to play LSU for the BCS title.

    That actually hurt me to say.

    Now, do you remember the old days, when there was no overtime? In that situation, LSU and Alabama Version 1.0 would have ended 6-6. Both teams would have ended the season 12-0-1. It would be clear that we needed another 60 minutes to settle things.

    However, we have overtime. We have Conference Championship games. And we have Conference champions.

    Now, I would argue that the SEC Championship was a farce caused by the impractical practice of artificially manufacturing a divisional split of East vs West or North vs South. What we should have had in the SEC was SEC #1 play SEC #2. LSU vs Alabama for the SEC Championship. Winner goes to the BCS. That’s real drama. (For the record, we also saw this play out in the Pac-12. We should have seen Stanford at Oregon, not UCLA at Oregon. The divisional thing is just dumb.)

    But we didn’t have that. The SEC created their rules, and their rules caused Alabama to be shut out of their own Conference Championship game. So Alabama should feel aggrieved, upset and annoyed, but they should be taking their case up with their Conference while they prep for the Sugar Bowl or whatever their best option for a non-BCS title would be.

    Meanwhile…

      – Oklahoma St won their conference. Granted, the Big 12 without Nebraska isn’t the same, but it isn’t Conference USA or the Mountain West. They are a Conference Champion from a top 4 Conference.
      – Alabama has already lost to LSU. Stanford lost to Oregon who lost to LSU.
      – Boise State and Houston had to go 13-0 for any legitimate claim.
      – The other Top 4 Conference Champions have 2 losses (Oregon and Wisconsin).

    So, in lieu of 2 undefeated teams, Oklahoma State is the only 1 loss Conference Champion from a Top 4 Conference.

    Alabama fans – you had your chance. You actually had two chances if you count Overtime as a redemption. You blew them both. You should be out.

    We should be seeing LSU vs Oklahoma State.

  • So What is the Next Xbox/Sounders Sponsorship Worth?

    It’s hard to think back to 2008, back before the Seattle Sounders officially existed in anything more than everyone’s imagination.

    The Sounders were to become the 16th team in a league with a couple of marquee names in David Beckham and Landon Donovan. LA, DC and Toronto were the only teams to draw more than 18k fans a game.

    So when the Sounders announced that Xbox was going to commit $20 Million bucks to the team and the league, it really seemed like – and was – a large sum of money to risk.

    But now as we look at the end of the 3rd year of the deal, it’s the Sounders who can’t wait for the contract to expire. Unfortunately for them, they still have 2 more years of the deal. When you look back, the Xbox media team made a heck of a deal.

    At $20 Million over 5 years, you are looking at a deal that is only $4 million a year. For that 4 million Xbox got rights to the front of the jerseys, signage in all MLS stadiums, naming rights to Xbox Pitch at Qwest (then Century Link) Field, and TV spots on all broadcasts.

    Let’s look at some of the other deals in the MLS (sourced from The Brotherly Game):

  • Red Bulls: Red Bull @ $50 Million total, including stadium naming rights. But they also own the team.
  • Real Salt Lake: Xango @ $5MM per year.
  • Galaxy: Herbalife @ $3.5 – $5MM per year.
  • DC United: Volkswagen @ $3MM per year. (A few other deals are in this range, like Philly/Bimbo, San Jose / Amway.)

    • So if we assume the national value to the Sounders sponsor is roughly the same as the value any other team’s sponsor receives, the delta is in the value at home. So lets say maybe 1/2 – 2/3 the value is in national exposure, and 1/3 – 1/2 is in local. If that’s the case, then the national value is about $2 million for each team.

    So in those terms, the local value of DC United’s sponsorship would be about $1 Million per year. For Salt Lake, it’s $3 Million per year. Now the 38,500 fans per game in Seattle just about doubles everyone but the #2 LA Galaxy at 23,000 per game. So if the Sounders drive 2x more fans than Salt Lake, and 2x the TV impressions, you’d have to estimate the local value is at least $6 Million per year (2x Salt Lake).

    There are probably more scientific ways to figure this out, but we don’t have access to impression volumes, jersey sales and hard stats. And we haven’t included the premium that Xbox pays for being the local guys recruiting employees, and the international value of having the team play across Central America and Mexico, or the fact that they’ve gotten a smoking deal the last 3 years.

    So let’s ballpark a number of $9 Million per year to start the new deal in 2014. ($2 Million National Value, $6 Million Local value, $1 Million Premium.) How does that look?