An open letter to New York Mets ownership

Editorial by: Joel Noe

Editors Location: Lyon, France

Written in response to: Mets Merized Online | metsmerizedonline.com

Dear Mr. Wilpon,

I am talking to you as a die heart fan of the ballclub you own, I am talking to you as someone who majored in finance and accounting, I am writing to you as a web developer of many e-commerce sites and online marketing strategist of ten years, and mostly I am writing because I love the team with my soul and think all the above mentioned traits have led me to the following logical statements.

Over the last few years you have publicly stated that you are broke and keep losing money because of a lack of ticket sales and so on. To satisfy a crumbling fan base you lead us to believe that we are rebuilding for the near future and indeed we are now in a position to do so if only we get more power and better defense up the middle. Furthermore, you have started out this off-season with a reasonable signing of a player that will most likely return more than the actual dollars spent to get him here and I applaud you for that.

However, as a fan who has stuck around for the hard times and a painful rebuilding process that is only now starting to bare fruitful moments I do know that many fans as I are afraid that you are not willing to trade or take on a significant amount of dollars to get us in position to win a championship in the next few years. Similarly, ever since you have been burnt by high price deals with some hefty seasons attached to it you are gun shy to pull the trigger and get us someone who can help us now as well as in the near future and further ignite the passion the burns in all of us that call ourselves Mets fans. Therefore, I am here to think this trough with you and see what business practice is best for a brand like the Mets to gain economically and in productivity.

First one needs not even state that the best way to gain revenue is by putting together a product that is a winning brand. Why? For what you gain by peaking people’s interest in your product is enormous. Take for example the English soccer team of Chelsea and the number of merchandise sold that increased by 62% after the team was sold to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003 and he invested over £100 million on new players and thus Chelsea became a winning brand. Perhaps you would argue that this is due to the popularity of the English Premier League and while that might be true to some extend I’ll ask you if you know how much merchandise sales have increased for Russian football team Rubin Kazan which in 2006 under new president Alexander P. Gusev have shelled out money to bring in big name international players and for the first time in its history made it into the EUFA League as a formidable team? The answer to that is: 88% increase and around three million jerseys sold worldwide.

Should you want to narrow this to just baseball and look how much winning teams sell worldwide in a sport that is just now getting its bearings in European markets, well, you have found the right person. I live in France ever since 2011 and when first arrived here I have seen almost everywhere people wearing either Yankee caps or Tigers jerseys. Moreover, I have seen less and less people wearing Yankee caps over the last few seasons. When I stop and ask someone why the Yankee cap most people say they know nothing about baseball but they were in NY and they bought it since it seemed to be the most popular item. Why dear Mr. Wilpon should a young kid in England who wants to be up to style want to wear a Yankee cap and the beautiful blue and orange of the Mets? Why do I see the rabbi who does not want to expose his Kipah in France wear a Yankee cap and not a Mets cap?

Let us shift focus on the actual product on the field. We do have some up and coming stars which will be the cream of the best for the next few years to come. Harvey, deGrom, Wheeler, Familia, Mejia, Duda, Black are all coming into their own and few are to come the same way. Now please assess when the best window to win a championship or at least make it to the World Series for this group is.  It is either in the next few years with the help of a major power bat or in the longer term with time when your finances will be in order and then either retain the core in addition to signing some big free agents then. Now, what would you say is more logical? Spend the 20 million plus for one impact player now and win a championship in the next few years or be forces to let them go in free agency in a few years? If you wish to return profits on the Mets it is clear that we Mets fans will never let get away with not winning a championship with this core and then lose all our stars without winning anything. You got away with it when Reyes left but can you imagine if you have let Wright go? All this transpired while we had no chance of winning anything but I can assure you if you think that we will be a silent as the Marlins fans think twice.

Therefore, 20 million now and a championship is much cheaper than having to sign four or five to maximum contracts that you will be forced to do so if you wish to have the fan base support behind you and turn the Mets into a profitable entity.

I do not care who that player is as long as it is a 70% chance that he has the impact Mike Piazza had for the team. Remember how overpaying for Pedro has turned out to bring in sales in tickets and merchandise? Hear the call of your fans or I can guarantee you that you will never again make a profit of us Mets fans.

Sincerely

Joel [Rocky] Noe a die-heart fan.

8-year-old promises to lead English League One side to elite in 3 years

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Russia Today| Russia
First Reported by: Elana K. | RT.com






Mac Wilson, an 8-year old lad, could get his first job at English League One club Doncaster after he wrote a letter describing his vision for the team’s development, which reached the table of club chair John Ryan.

Ryan was so impressed with young Mac’s application for the vacancy left by Dean Saunders’ departure that he invited him in for an interview.

“My daughter Claire was with me at the time that I got Mac’s letter and my first thought was to give him a ring,” the Doncaster Free Press quoted him as saying. 

“I got his dad on the phone and asked if I could speak to Mac with regards to the vacancy at Rovers,” Ryan said. “He came on the phone and I asked him whether he would like to come down for an interview. I invited them both down on Saturday for a look round, meet the players and to give him an interview.”

In his letter, Mac promised to get the team in the Premier League in three years. “I thought that was a very positive statement,” Ryan said.

Mac’s dad Adi said the boy was convinced his older brother was playing a trick on him. “We sent off the email for a bit of fun really. All credit to John for responding. Mac has been absolutely full of it since he got in touch and so excited,” the same source quoted Adi as saying.

Rovers season-ticket holder Mac was officially invited to the Keepmoat Stadium to watch the Rovers, lead by a caretaker boss Brian Flynn, play Leyton Orient on Saturday. 

The young man’s future with the club will be announced shortly but one thing is certain: He has hit the ground running. One of the best young coaches in the sport, Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas, wrote his famous letter to Sir Bobby Robson when he was 17, so Mac has some time as handicap.

My Outrage Goes Beyond Baseball

Editorial by: Joel Noe

Editors Location: Lyon, France

Images & Video by: Getty Images | Washington Post

As most readers on The International Reader know, the Mets recently got a $40 million dollar bridge loan from Bank of America to help tide the team over until some of those $20 million dollar ownership stakes they’ve been peddling start to come through.

What really irks me right now, is not so much that the Wilpons got a $40 million dollar loan, but who they got it from; Bank of America. That absolutely stinks to high heaven.

This is the same Bank of America who only two years ago got a $138 billion dollar bailout from the United States government. At the time, Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Ken Lewis told his investors that “losses were accelerating beyond expectations.”

In addition to the bailout money, nearly 13% of the first $350 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds went to Bank of America as well. This was all the result of thousands and thousands of bad loans by BOA to very low credit worthy individuals and thousands of high-risk loans to failing businesses.

Now I don’t begrudge the Wilpons applying for and receiving a loan – any loan no matter the size. They are American citizens and like all of us are entitled to the same privileges afforded to all of us under the constitution.

But what I do have a problem with is Bank of America doling out such a sizable loan to an institution that is only weeks away from becoming completely insolvent based on current and anticipated losses. This transaction is inexcusable and wreaks like the Great Kills landfill on a scorching hot, sunny day in August.

This isn’t the first time I’ve taken issue with a situation like this. It reminds me of when Citigroup took bailout money with one hand, and then agreed to pay the Wilpons $20 million a year for the naming rights to the park over the next 20 years with the other hand. That’s adds up to a grand total of $400 million dollars.

After a national outcry over this fiasco, Citigroup vowed that none of the money going toward Citi Field would come from TARP money. Still, what kind of a crock is that? It just sounded like some high tech number fudging to me – and while it appeased Congress, it certainly didn’t satisfy me.

Anyway, if any of you wonder why the Wilpons are still the owners of the Mets today, as many have said on many occasions before – you can thank Uncle Bud Selig primarily for that.

But leave some blame for Citi Group who funnels in $20 million annually to the Wilpons, and now Bank of America as well, for keeping this New York Mess alive.

 

Topless protests slam Ukraine’s future as global football bordello

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Russia Today TV 

First Reported by:  Russia Today TV

The pro-active Ukrainian women's movement FEMEN have staged a topless protest against what they say are UEFA’s plans to turn economically weak Ukraine into a destination for sex tourists from around the globe.

­Ukraine is to co-host Euro 2012 together with Poland next summer, but FEMEN see nothing good in a major football tournament coming to their country.

“FEMEN consistently criticizes UEFA for its policies of corrupting the fans and artificially cultivating fanaticism, aggression, moral and mental degradation in them,” the statement in FEMEN’s blog said. “The European plodder, who does not go beyond the ‘football-beer-bang’ formula, is the portrait of a ‘superhuman’, according to the football bureaucracy. For the ‘high’ right to host Euro 2012, the Ukrainians are obliged to give away all of their little wealth to be plundered by Platini’s charges, with the most famous of them being the women.”

The movement demands that European football’s governing body initiate an awareness campaign against sex-tourism and financing of the sex industry among fans, and also want customers of prostitutes to face criminal charges.

Ukraine’s FEMEN movement is famous for organizing provocative protest actions in big cities to draw  attention to acute social and political problems as well as women’s rights.

Their actions have become popular with the media as FEMEN members frequently protest naked or with few clothes on.

Mixing Pool and Bowling? Don't 'Knokk' It 'Til You Try It

Reported by: Aol News

Source: www.aol.com

First Reported by: Ben Muessig, Aol News

California entrepreneur Sam Sparks has created a sport dubbed "Knokkers" -- but he insists it's not a whole new ballgame.

"Everyone has seen pool and everyone has seen bowling -- and everyone has probably played both," Sparks told in a Jan. 27 interview to AOL News. "There is a familiarity that is inviting. People don't have much of an aversion to it, even though it's new."

For the most part, Knokkers is just like billiards, only bigger. Much bigger.

"We had a party, and we couldn't get the kids off of it -- so I thought, 'Let's commercialize this thing -- let's build this for real,' " Sparks told AOL News.

Sparks and his cousin began building table prototypes from construction materials, such as railroad ties, indoor/outdoor carpet and recycled tires, and painting bowling balls so they looked like billiards balls.

Through trial and error they say they eventually came out with a table that has the same responsiveness as a standard pool table.

"It has the exact action as a pool table -- you can make a three- or a four-rail shot."

They also realized that normal bowling balls can't withstand the wear and tear of the game, so Sparks used his background in the plastics industry to design 6-pound Knokkers balls from polyurethane.

Standing on a table and dodging those ricocheting balls isn't as dangerous as it sounds, according to Sparks.

"We haven't had anybody hit with a ball," he said. "Because the balls are only 6 pounds, if you were to be hit with one it would be more of a nuisance. It might hurt, but it wouldn't injure you."

Sparks is ready to manufacture tables for interested buyers, and in the next few weeks, he hopes to open the first public Knokkers court at a bowling center in Southern California.

In the next 10 years, Sparks hopes to construct 1,000 tables worldwide. His business is starting out offering two kinds of tables -- permanent fixtures intended for bowling alleys, sports bars and the backyards of the most dedicated players (starting at $39,000), and portable tables that can be quickly installed at fairs, festivals and sporting events.

By showing off Knokkers in public places, he hopes the game will win fans.

"It has a real captivating presence. It pulls people in, kind of like moths to light."

Though he says the game is popular with his kids as well as his mother, Sparks plans to market the game to a demographic between the ages of 21 and 35 -- particularly bar and bowling alley patrons.

That's not very surprising considering the not-so-subtle double entendre in the game's name and logo.

In fact, Knokkers can serve as an icebreaker for singles looking to hook up at bars and bowling alleys, according to Sparks.

"A girl can say, 'Hey, look at my Knokkers!' and get away with it," he explained.

Beyond the risque jokes, Sparks sees Knokkers as liberating.

"When you're standing on the felt, it's kind of taboo. You feel like you're getting away with something when you're playing a game."

Players don't hit the cue ball with a stick. They use their hands. And they don't eye their next shot while walking around the table. They pick their angles while walking on it.

It's a merger between pool and bowling, and in a single word, it's massive.

The game is played on a 15-foot by 30-foot table with bowling ball-sized projectiles. Unlike pool, players don't "scratch" if they move the cue ball before taking a shot.

"The rule in the game of Knokkers is that once you touch the cue ball you have to keep at least one of your feet stationary -- like a pivot foot in basketball," he said. "You can stretch and totally change the geometry of your shot. It makes for fewer difficult shots."

That leads to an easier, faster game that Sparks believes will appeal to both children and adults.

Plans for large-scale billiard games aren't exactly new -- in fact, one inventor in the 1970s even patented a game that would mix pool, bowling and disco aesthetics by allowing players to walk on the table but forcing them to wear tall platform shoes "for safety purposes."

According to Knokkers lore, this massive pool iteration is the brainchild of Steve Wienecke, Sparks' cousin, who says he dreamed up a big pool game in the 1980s. He didn't get around to building a table until three years ago when he finally managed to lay a concrete slab in his Missouri backyard. Since then the game has taken off.