Facebook Social Networking Experiment w/Ted Leonsis

In the previous post, I did a brief 5 question interview with Ted Leonsis on his thoughts on Facebook. I then asked him if he’d help me in a little experiment to determine the value of Facebook from my perspective as we proceed towards the launch of TVbytheNumbers next month.

I asked Ted to post a link to the interview from his Facebook account to see if his Facebook friends would click on the link. He was gracious enough to participate in my data collection, and went even a step further by posting a link on ted.aol.com.

The experiment generated 175 unique visits, and I have to conclude that Facebook networking certainly works because a full 44% of the visits came from Facebook and at the time of the experiment Ted had about 300 friends on Facebook. That’s about a 25% click thru rate if you assume all of his Facebook friends saw the link, which is not a fair assumption. Ted’s blog has much higher visibility, but I am not surprised by the results because a story about Facebook via Facebook seemingly is more targeted and relevant.

What surprised me though was the bounce rate of ~82%! I definitely buy that this web site has a dumb as hell URL and that the design isn’t so good, but the bounce rate still surprised me (and people coming from Facebook bounced at the same rate as people coming from ted.aol.com). I changed the web design somewhat mid-stream to add a ton more white space and make it far more basic, and the bounce rate was still the same.

While my head can’t quite get around the notion that the majority of people who are interested in Ted & Facebook wouldn’t stick around even a few seconds to read what Ted had to say about Facebook (which I thought was pretty spot-on), regardless of the dopey naming, there is no denying the data. If I had any sense, I would’ve switched to rseidman.blogspot.com prior to the experiment.

Regardless of my shortcomings, there’s also no denying that Facebook is a very powerful tool.

Very special thanks to Ted Leonsis for helping me learn.

Update 08/25/07 7:45p PDT: Sorry to my Firefox (and to some degree Netscape) using friends. The change I made to the site to add more white space completely broke the site for Firefox users. I've switched to the most basic blogger template now and it works w/Firefox.

Interestingly even though almost half the users today were from Firefox, my bounce rate didn't change significantly while the site was broken for Firefox. Before changing the site in the middle of the experiment yesterday afternoon, whatever dumb color scheme I had up worked fine on Firefox.

Five Questions for Ted Leonsis on Facebook

Q1: Ted, you signed up for Facebook less than 3 weeks ago and have already amassed 300 friends via “counter punching”, what do you like most about Facebook so far?

Ted: I am meeting friends I never knew I had or had lost contact with. That is why I like Facebook; it is not helpful to me for connecting with my inner circle-- we are already connected via email, instant messaging, cell phone and face to face communications; but I now hear from many folks that I had lost contact with over the years.

Q2: Steve Case is quoted in the current Newsweek cover story as saying, “Facebook has emerged as the 'it' service and company ... It represents the next logical progression." Do you agree?

Ted: I do think Facebook has the buzz-- mostly because it is a young adult service. It has become a utility rather than a service about love or hipness--or just hooking up-- and it is clean--fast and high on efficiency. I still await a third party app that blows me away for utility. Today, most of the new apps are cool- but empty calories.

Q3: The VC and software development community seem very excited about Facebook being a development platform, but it’s a development platform in a walled garden (similar to AOL’s client software). Do you think there are big opportunities for entrepreneurs via Facebook?

Ted: It is unclear whether on such an intimate setting as Facebook will do well for commerce; chat rooms haven’t welcomed ad businesses; messaging has NOT scaled for commerce and most of the new services on Facebook are nice to haves--not must haves. The jury is still out-- but many developers and VC's will die trying to make this the next big interactive real estate play.

Already I feel my Facebook page has become cluttered with other people's stuff-- Facebook must be vigilant in not allowing too much development and commerce -- as the environment is still young and developing-- opening everything up sounds great in concept but there is risk in that the community may reject a majority of the in your face selling oriented apps.

Q4: As an owner of multiple sports franchises and as a philanthropist/Filmanthropist do you see social networks like Facebook as playing an important part in reaching your business interests and the causes you support?

Ted: I think the newsfeeds and wall and groups functions can be very helpful to sports franchises--any medium that is user generated--authentic and can circle up "passionates" must be understood and embraced by owners of sports teams. My bet is the majority of my friends will end up being fans of my sports teams.

Q5: The Newsweek article referenced above says Case is Facebook friends with Bill Gates. How about you?

Ted: I have asked Bill Gates to add me as a friend--I await his response.

Ted Leonsis is a Vice Chair for AOL, majority owner of the NHL Washington Capitals and the WNBA Washington Mystics as well as a minority owner of the NBA Washington Wizards. He’s also a self-styled “Filmanthropist,” producing the award winning documentary film, Nanking.

Ted Leonsis vs. SportsTalk 980

I haven’t lived in Washington, D.C. since early 1995, but I follow my old friend Ted Leonsis’ musings on a regular basis. Ted was put off by when hosts of a talk show on SportsTalk 980 as he was headed, along with about 50,000 other people to see the David Beckham vs. DC United soccer match.

Beckham is a star in the international sense, had a movie named after him and married one of the spice girls and that’s the kind of star power we (the aggregate USA star-effer mentality) love.

The hosts on the talk show mocked the people who were going to the game. I understand the mentality: the jacked up attendance for that specific game (probably including Ted) is all because it was an “event” and had nothing to do with a love of soccer. We like the big events. It’s how the system works.

Unless the league can find 3-4 more players of Beckham’s star quality, and they won’t be able to without actually somehow creating the stars, it won’t matter. More to Ted’s real concern is hockey: he owns the NHL Washington Capitals, and has a loyal, but not huge fan base (especially compared to the NFL franchise, the Washington Redskins, but even the MLB and NBA franchises, and even some of the college teams have more of a following locally than the Capitals).

The problem for the NHL, in terms of sheer #’s is its lack of stars. Period. The end. Ted suggests that 980 was foolish for not embracing diversity of all sports leagues, and that it will perish into irrelevancy if it does not.

BIG DISCLAIMER: I love Ted. I’m serious. I have some genuine affection for the guy. He’s smart, charming, and funny and most definitely a “man of the people”, which I think is really cool. He says what he thinks and he’s authentic. I trust him. Plus, he’s been very helpful to me personally. He’s a great guy. But all that doesn’t add up to “he’s always right” and he’s wrong here.

First of all, 980 did cover the event, which I referred to as David Beckham vs. DC United because I can’t name a single other person on the LA Galaxy. I can’t name a single person on DC United either, unless Freddy Adu is still there and I believe the last I heard he was fleeing to play in a country that actually cares about soccer.

I think 980 covered this the way a Sports Talk station should've. They mocked the event nature of it. Sometimes, a part of human nature is that you get a lot more attention by insulting people than you otherwise would. This is a case in point. If they had simply celebrated the event as if it were the second coming of the Beatles, Ted would not have written about it for over the last week. The suggestion that sports talk needs to be diverse, especially in DC is likely folly. I believe 980 would have MORE listeners than it currently has if it said, “From now on, we talk about NOTHING but the Redskins! 365 days a year! All Redskins all the time!” The NFL is a big, big deal. Period. How big of a deal? The NFL DRAFT (yes, the boring ass draft!) was the second highest rated program on non-broadcast television the week it aired in April – edged out by the Sopranos. The NFL draft had MORE THAN THREE TIMES as many television viewers -- just over 5 million as the NHL Finals which had 1.4 million viewers.

The NHL has the same problem as soccer has. Not enough stars. Not nearly enough. Soccer has one. None of the NHL stars have the Q-Rating that Beckham has and only Alex Ovechken and Sidney “Sid the kid” Crosby have any Q-rating with the American public at all and again, not nearly as many people know who those guys are as Beckham and neither of them are in the public’s mind as much as Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr or Bobby Hull. The NHL is lacking good “Bobbys” these days! If the Capitals field a good team and are winning games, making the playoffs, etc., 980 will certainly cover the team locally. But the NHL has the bigger problem of lack of star quality. Even the most casual of sports fans can rattle off five NFL, NBA or MLB stars fairly easily. NHL? Soccer? NO FREAKING WAY.

Mark Cuban suggested to me via e-mail a couple of months back, and I believe not jokingly (though he might have been, I don’t think so) that the NHL needed to get Alex O. and Sid the Kid together with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. I think Cubes is correct. In the life imitates art department, fictional Entourage meets real life Entourage this week with Entourage star Adrian Grenier who plays Vinny Chase hooking his real-life star to the Paris Hilton gravy train. Paris is looking good by the way, perhaps incarceration is good for the skin.

I believe Ted would be better served by leading the NHL’s charge to somehow market its players to the broader public than solving the problems of a small sports talk radio station in DC. If successful, he will have killed two birds with one stone.

Free Consulting from Ted Leonsis for Murdoch & News Corp

Ted posted an in-depth and very well thought out 10 point strategy on how News Corp can make the most out of its acquisition of Dow Jones.

Why I just went LONG 1000 YHOO in my IRA

Normally I don't invest, but, I saw an opportunity here.

The main factor I attribute to this buy is the education I have received recently, specifically from Ted Leonsis, though not anything to do with YHOO and GOOG.

There is a dynamic currently in place where things with scale, any scale (and especially some kind of scale with people who have and spend money) are increasing in value even as scale is being reduced. Whether it's ABC, NBC or CBS, or MLB, NBA and NHL, it doesn't matter. "Share" may be going down, but valuations are going up.

I take this to mean that YHOO, even as the #2 has so much scale that unless it completely screws up, ultimately (thinking 5 years) it will appreciate in value considerably even as it loses "share".

Think I'm wrong? Maybe I am, but it's a dynamic that's already in place and one way I can show that is the television Networks. ABC, CBS and NBC lost 2/3rds of their "share" during primetime between 1995-2006 seasons. All 3 combined now have the share they each once had. Even adjusting for inflation, and even though I don't know the specific valuations I'm comfortable thinking the values of these networks has…not decreased.

I suspect the same thing to happen w/Yahoo. But if I'm wrong, I won't blame Ted.

update: think "Lowest Rated NBA Finals in History" matters? Not to the NBA or the networks it doesn't, it just got 20% MORE in revenues...I know it's counter-intuitive at first, but, 20% more is 20% more and there's just no getting around that.

NBA announces extensions of TV deals with ESPN/ABC, TNT
The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 06/28/2007 01:50:29 AM MDT

NEW YORK - The NBA's new television contracts with ESPN/ABC and TNT include rights to technologies that have yet to be invented, an indication of the importance the deals place on newer forms of media. The eight-year extensions go through the 2015-16 season.

The current six-year contracts expire at the end of next season. ''I consider this to be a wonderful vote of confidence by our very sophisticated network partners who are making such a substantial and long-term commitment,'' NBA commissioner David Stern said. The number of games televised on the networks won't change much. What's different are the extensive rights for the networks to broadcast games and other content on the Web and mobile phones.

The NBA will receive about $930 million a year for all its broadcast rights, an increase of more than 20 percent from the previous average of $767 million, according to a person familiar with the deal who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release details. The previous contracts, though, did not include the extensive digital media rights. Stern said the traditional TV rights still are worth more than the digital rights. ESPN/ABC and TNT will each be able to simulcast and offer video on-demand for games on its networks. Stern and network executives downplayed the league's declining TV ratings, insisting there is still plenty of demand for NBA-related content through other forms of media.

Who Ya Got, Wilbon or Kornheiser? Google says: Wilbon!

First, the important stuff, for some reason Google adwords values Michael Wilbon more than Tony Kornheiser. And Google LOVES Woody Paige.

Update: Woody like Michael Wilbon, was $1/click out of the gate. Paige is up to $5/click now in that campaign (too rich for my blood) and even Plaschke is $5.

Wilbon escalated to $5 as well. Kornheiser? Still only a dollar. Jay Mariotti? $.50. This could be somehow in Google-ese that Jay is more associated with the rantings of a mad-man and so they gave me a price break. To be honest, some of what happens in terms of results makes a lot of sense on the Google side, but some of it...not so much. Now on with the real piece.

Ted Leonsis wrote a blurb on how the whole deal with the crazy DA that knew that none of the Duke Lacrosse player’s DNA was involved, and yet according to his lawyer “his brain just couldn’t process the information. That’s just the way his brain works.” (that’s a paraphrase, though not much of one). Ted said now the whole thing should be put to bed and that we always have to remember someone is innocent until proved guilty.

While I generally do love that system, I’m really not so sure. The DA got disbarred, and that’s good. But I’m all good with him getting an immediate 5 year jail sentence where he has to actually serve 6-12 months, and I don’t even need the trial. One thing is for sure, barring a miracle, this isn’t going to bed. Certainly if the families of those kids can’t press criminal charges against the former D.A., they will try something in the civil courts (assuming the guy has a couple of nickels to rub together). I hope they press criminal charges. It was criminal what he did to those kids. Losing his license to practice law is a good start, and it’s probably enough for me. But I doubt it’s enough for those kids, and if it isn’t I couldn’t blame them.

I also don’t need a court of law to know that Barry Bonds is lying, that Mark McGwire lied, that Sammy Sosa lied – not just about his abilities with English when he was in front of congress, and not just with the steroids, but oh man, don’t even get me started on the corked bat.

I know for sure they lied, and I don’t need any other information. Also, you can look at what actually happens and absolutely figure out the rest (Dusty Baker knew about Bonds, Tony LaRussa knew about McGwire…But Selig for sure, knew).

It’s the human condition. When the stakes are very high (or in some cases only perceived to be high when they are actually not), we have a tendency to lie our butts off. “I did not have sex with that woman…”

When it comes to kids, or even most people, I am right there with Ted. But when it comes to stuff I have to watch on ESPN every day? No. Rafael “the finger wag” Paliemero wagged his finger while he lied (and a few months later tested positive – then he tried to lie again and blame it on someone else!).

I persist only because I am delusional and actually want to resolve the steroids crisis. I’m a problem solver. If you want cheating in baseball fixed, you have to fix it from both sides. Am I as sure as I can be that Barry knew exactly what the cream and the clear were? Yes, yes I am. Am I sure Giants managers, coaches, Brian Sabean (GM) knew that Barry was up to something? Of course I am. Am I as certain that Bud knew about steroids as I am that Sammy Sosa can absolutely tell the difference between his regular bat and a corked bat with his eyes closed? Of course I am.

Both sides lied because it benefited both sides. This is why I view this vastly differently than I view the D.A. and Duke Lacrosse players. In that scenario only one guy was lying – the D.A. He wanted a juicy case that would get press and get him reelected. With performance enhancing drugs in MLB, everyone is lying because everyone benefited. Worse still, it is perceived by both sides that there is absolutely no upside in telling the truth. I agree with this because the whole investigation is unjust, focusing only on the players. That might make congress happy that MLB did something. But congress is a hypocrite too. MLB is like the only entity in the USA with an anti-trust exemption. If the government really wanted to get baseball to do something, they’d just threaten to revoke that. There has been legislation proposed to do just that, but it’s more of lone gun thing than the congress singing in unison.

I ran the ads calling Bud Selig a liar against the keywords, Bud Selig, MLB, and Barry Bonds. But I threw a little bit of money at it. Less than 1% of what I think it would take to actually make a difference, and if any of you want to send me the other 99% I’ll gladly keep at it. I targeted “Shame on you ESPN” ads against the keywords ESPN! And I was the only ad!

I got some e-mail from Google that one of my ads had been disapproved – but it was because of spelling/grammar! I had spelled Sportscenter as Sportcenter. I fixed it, and put the ad back up. My favorite hour of the day is 2pm-3pm on ESPN, and although I almost never watch it live, I almost never ever miss Around the Horn or PTI. I ran my ads against Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. Initially, Kornheiser was $.50 and Wilbon was $1!! Tony Reali ($.40/click) initially outranked every member of Around the Horn I ran the ad against except Woody Paige, who like Wilbon went for a dollar. In the end the “quality” (it’s not a complex explanation, but I’ll skip it here) of my ads was so bad that Kornheiser went up to $1 and everyone else went up to $.50.

But Wilbon was $1 out of the gate. I tried my pals Ted Leonsis -- who was actually the only celebrity other than the fictional “Denny Crane – who already had an ad running against his keyword (it was for some kind of speakers bureau for speaking engagements) and Mark Cuban. Like Kornheiser they were original $.50. But one of my campaigns got so bad that Cuban got jacked up to $10/click (too rich for my blood!). I put him back against another campaign and got him back down to $.50. In the campaign where Cubes escalated to $10, Ted Leonsis only jacked up to $1.

Cuban got the most “celebrity“ traffic, about 8x more than Ted. Of the sports shows it was Woody Page, followed by Kornheiser, Wilbon, and “stat boy” Tony Reali , and Tim Cowlishaw. I screwed up and misspelled Bill Plaschke’s and Jay Mariotti’s names and didn’t correct it until too late in the game to be a fair comparison (there were no searches other than my own to make sure the ad was running). I feel bad too because Plaschke was the inspiration for the “Shame on You” ad campaigns. While Cuban got much more traffic than Leonsis, Cuban didn't generate any clicks. Ted got 1 click. ESPN/MLB resulted in ~250 clicks on over 100,000 impressions.

Other than knowing that I was crazy as hell to pay what I did to conduct this experiment, I know for sure if you target a keyword like ESPN with a “Shame on You ESPN” ad, you can generate some clicks! Almost all of them are no good, they see it’s a blog and bolt immediately. Only about 17% of the clicks actually read the article it pointed to.

I was trying to learn how Google Adwords work, and the experience was very beneficial. I was surprised that nobody was targeting ads at keywords like MLB, ESPN, Baseball or Barry Bonds (that ad says “Shame on You Bud Selig” and it is the only ad on the page.

I asked my astute friend Bill G. if he thought there was a revenue opportunity here for Google ultimately where the likes of ESPN, MLB etc will just by sponsorships against their trademarked keywords (you can’t put the trademark in your ad, but you can attach the ad to a keyword that is a trademark). Bill’s reply:

Clearly those folks don't care now. My guess is they will not care until there is an event that rises above the noise of their lives/businesses. That may be you/now. That may be nothing/ever.

I agree with Bill in general. It will not be me now because I was not willing to throw 100x or 1000x against it (and didn't have 1000x to throw at it if I wanted to!). But if someone with a spare million bucks wanted to work at it, I think they could break through the noise. If someone wants to transfer a spare million into my adwords account, I’m glad to do the leg work.

If your goal is to try to make a difference (and like anyone else, that’s my goal too) the time is now. Bonds is at 748, the All-Star game is coming up here in San Francisco and that means more ESPN talking about more steroids but never talking about, “Damn, you know that Robert Seidman is right, this whole thing is bogus. Why don’t they focus the investigation equally on Bud Selig, management and ownership, too or just listen to Giambi, have the 'we all screwed up' speech and move on."

I understand there is the need for all sides to politically maneuver here to protect their interests. You want to fix it, it’ll be a lot easier to fix with: BLOOD TESTS. But the MLBPA won’t go for that. My advice is that the MLBPA go to ownership and say, “We will do everything we can, including some blood work to protect the sanctity of the game, if we can all just move on from here.”

If I was a conspiracy theorist, what I’d believe is that isn’t happening because…everyone really likes cheating in baseball, but nobody wants to admit it. Let me be clear: the MLBPA and the players are NO SAINTS. At all. But they are no worse than Selig and the rest of ownership to me. But both sides are maneuvering to protect their own interests. Let's hope Adam Smith is still right.

I may be the only person who actually really wants to fix the problem, but if you’re with me and have a spare million to throw at the problem, we could make some real noise and time it with the pop-culture epicenter for steroids, which will no doubt be July 12, 2007 at the gem of a ballpark at 24 Willie Mays Plaza.

I love baseball, but I hate the hypocrisy and resold my entire seasons ticket package for the Giants' games the last 2 years. Two seats for all 81 home games, lower box, 1st base side -- great seats.

I'm sure as Barry Bonds nears 755 and the All-Star game is in town, my own hypocrisy will be tested. I am not certain I won't try to worm my way back into my seats for a couple of games...

Bud Selig, if you want to blow $500 running a "Robert Seidman is a hypocrite" campaign against the keyword robert seidman, knock yourself out, but I think you'd be better served doing these two things:

- admit what you knew and when you knew it and say you're sorry

- tell the people (the fans) that the only way to have any hope of really testing is with blood tests and put pressure on the MLBPA. Make that case to the fanbase. if you really want to test for performance enhancers, that's the only case to make.

If you don't want to do any of that stuff, then will you do me a favor and just act like you love Barry?

No? I didn't think so.

Honesty and integrity matter to me and I hate to see the message hammered home time and time again that those things don't matter as much as making a buck. That's what's going on. With Barry and Bud. That's the message.

That’s a wrap on my steroid in MLB problem solving, but I wanted to go out doing at least a little something.

Bud Selig is a Liar: Why I love Ted Leonsis and Mark Cuban

A little background for those of you who don't know me is in order. I am definitely in the statistically small group of people who knew who Mark Cuban was before he was a billionaire or knew who Ted Leonsis was before he was en route to becoming a billionaire (he's not there yet, but it's on his list of things to do) and owned all or parts of the Washington Capitals (NHL), Washington Wizards (NBA) and Washington Mystics (WNBA). Both Mark and Ted were very good to me going back some 10+ years now. One thing I love in my recent contact with these guys is that fame and success did not seem to change the overall makeup and drive of these two men.

I am grateful to both of them because at a time when I had a little bit of fire in my belly they took the spark and poured some gasoline on it and for me personally that's an extraordinary lovely thing.

Lying goes on all around us. We're lied to constantly. Interestingly as Ted and Mark both own sports franchises… Well think about this, as of a year ago, Mark had been fined $1.6 million dollars (that's probably more money than I have ever had at once)by the NBA. Why? He was fined for what he said, which was, an honest portrayal of how he felt. He was fined $1.6 million dollars for being honest. The league seems to believe that honesty is NOT the best policy for the NBA. I actually don't have strong feelings on David Stern or the NBA, certainly not in the way Cuban or Leonsis probably would.

I don't really know the inner workings of the NBA enough to comment on the inner workings of it or well enough to comment on whether David Stern is a person who acts with both the best interests of the NBA and integrity. It seems to me like he does, but I don't know well enough.

But I know enough about baseball, it's inner workings, psychology, values, etc., to know the following: Bud Selig is a liar. The owners and the management of the San Francisco Giants are…liars. Bud Selig is lying about Steroids. Yes, I said lying about it. And if he wishes to take me to court for slander, fine. All Selig can hope for is that by the time all of the "what did he know and when did he know it" comes out, that he'll be gone. He's playing the game of "musical chairs" and basically what Bud is probably hoping for is that by the time the music stops he's not around even LOOKING for a chair anymore.

This game works this way. The American public is in denial about how much we really like the results of steroids (I am not in denial about this at all, but sometimes I wish I still was!). The truth is, especially given the costs of attending this stuff, we want our professional athletes to be SUPER human. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa AND Barry Bonds delivered. We the fans like the results, the owners liked the results, and Bud Selig liked the results. You could say that there was so much covering of eyes, ears and mouths by Selig and ownership (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil), BUT there was also so much steroid usage that there's no way they got through this period without seeing or at least hearing about someone getting a needle jabbed in their butt. I'm not talking about last year or the year before either. I'm talking 1998-2002 when it was going on, everyone more or less knew it and then looked the other way.

Human nature is that when the stakes are high, people will cheat. This is why Jason Giambi cheated. And why, not only after he got caught (via leaked testimony – and the guy who leaked it is going to JAIL – I'm thrilled about that, probably the biggest smile of the week for me!!!) for steroids, he got caught for amphetamines (greenies) just last year. But Giambi came out with the truth:

I was wrong for doing that stuff. What we should have done a long time ago was stand up -- players, ownership, everybody -- and said: `We made a mistake.' We should have apologized back then and made sure we had a rule in place and gone forward. ... Steroids and all of that was a part of history. But it was a topic that everybody wanted to avoid. Nobody wanted to talk about it."

Although Giambi is a confirmed cheater, he is, in my opinion, absolutely correct about this. Here's how Selig is handling this: he's pressuring Giambi to cooperate with the steroids investigation: name some names or I will suspend you (more or less).

If Hank Aaron wants to be upset with Barry Bonds, I don't have any issue with that at all. But Bud Selig? Please. You knew Bud, and you looked the other way and did nothing. But then you're the kind of guy who would say, "Yeah, I'm an owner, but just go ahead and make me the commissioner!" We already knew right there this is a man lacking in integrity. But it made a lot of people a lot of money and produced a product people wanted to pay for. Everyone was really happy about this: the owners (they made tons of money on this), the players (they made tons of money – and much more with performance enhancements) and the fans, who couldn't eat it up fast enough.

But Bud is a lying hypocrite, so are the owners, and really so are most of the fans. Giambi did tell the truth in that quote above, that's exactly how it is. But once again, your kids are subtley getting the message: honesty isn't the best policy and cheating works – whether you're a player, the owner or the commissioner. It's a bad message to send. Giambi told the truth and the negative reinforcing feedback is, "Whoever told you honesty was the best policy, was lying!"

I love that there are guys like Cuban and Leonsis out there: again, they aren't perfect, but they aren't motivated to cheat and lie due to the stakes being high. They aren't perfect, but in a world massively lacking it at times, these two gentleman have some integrity, and that's something I value very much.

As for steroids, I think this ultimately will hit the NFL hardest of all. We haven't anywhere near begun to hear the last of it. Sorry Mr. Goodell.

Homework from Ted Leonsis and No, I don’t Think Roger Goodell is a “Poor Sap”

After a spirited email exchange with about 25 volleys, Mr. Leonsis did convince me not to overvalue the Nielsen Ratings for sporting events when it came to trying to correlate that to anything(other than the number of people who tuned in).

Then he gave me a book recommendation: The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Market Place. He told me he thought that was the kind of stuff I ought to be writing about.
By page 20, I was inclined to agree with him. The book combines so many things I love:


· Capitalism
· Psychology
· Sociology
· Philosophy
· Research/Science
· Fun with Numbers (data)
· and SPORTS!

While the Nielsen Ratings for NHL games are definitely bleak relative to NFL, MLB and NBA, what’s happening with the NHL is all part of a bigger trend. It may look worse for the NHL ratings wise (at least in terms of the Stanley Cup), but it’s all part of the same overall trend. All kinds of entertainment and “free-time” choices are available, and many of them don’t involve the television at all. The free-time itself is in limited supply.

The NBA, and MLB have certainly seen ratings declines. NBA Finals with scores like 75-72 aren’t helping with the ratings. We like scoring, just like we like home runs (I won’t go off into the steroids rant here) we want to see Lebron score 50 points and even if they lost 127-112, we’d like that better. 75-72 isn’t attractive to the casual fan.

The NFL faces the same challenges. The Super Bowl will probably remain golden for a long, long time though. It’s just a hunch, but the Super Bowl – that’s not about “football”. That’s about a national holiday to have an excuse to get drunk and have a party on a Sunday. It’s St. Patrick’s Day, only better because there’s gambling, square pools, etc. We’re not giving that up any sooner than we’re giving up St. Patrick’s Day.

But here’s the thing. My brain couldn’t really process it at first because it seems so counter intuitive to me. The NFL, NBA, MLB and the NHL will continue to experience lower ratings vs. the glory days, and mostly, the ratings aren’t going to come back. I know the NFL will try to squeeze out Brady vs. Manning in primetime wherever it can and it has the challenge of making more of its personalities interesting to the public in ways that don’t involve arrests for possessing 6,000 semi-automatic weapons.

Yesterday I said Tagliabue was a genius for getting out when he did, and that poor sap Roger Goodell was about to not know what hit him. I didn’t really mean that. They say do what you love, and you can’t go wrong, and sometimes I just love being a jackass. I said that the % of the Cincinnati Bengals arrested would be the least of his worries.

In truth, I believe Goodell’s focus is correct. Specifically because at a time when your fan base is bound to erode somewhat no matter what you do – and it will because “free-time” is limited, but the number of choices we have to fill the free-time keeps growing and growing – you absolutely do not want to have your players modeling behavior that risks alienating a fan base that was already bound to erode. It’s like pushing them out the door. I like his focus. And I like that Pacman “make it rain” Jones will not be suiting up for a single game this year.

But here’s the thing that’s counterintuitive. Despite the eroding fan bases and television ratings, the actual value and health of these leagues can continue to grow anyway, provided it’s managed well.

While even the NFL can’t escape the fan erosion, they of ALL the leagues are best positioned to really rake it in despite the erosion. Managed well, the MLB, NBA and NHL (yes, the NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE – there, I said it) can all do the same, albeit on a smaller scale. It was true 20 years ago and it is still true today. Even with record low ratings.

As for “record low Nielsen ratings” – breathe it in! We’re in a trend to hear that phrase applied to many things. Not just NHL, or NBA finals – it’s already hit the evening news. Katie Couric is taking the heat for that, but really, it’s all part of the same game – limited free time, more choices, more record low ratings. For just about everything really.

But for now and the foreseeable future, television will be a very powerful medium, but with fewer and fewer things that have the capability to bring in massive # of people. That makes the NFL worth…more than it has ever been. Even with eroding ratings. I am not worried about Roger Goodell, and he is no poor sap.

I predict a follow up to the book The Elusive Fan. It will be: The Elusive Viewer: Reinventing Television in a Crowded Marketplace. The beauty of it is, they could just do a find and replace to randomly replace all the “sports” terms with television terms and as is – this book would be more valuable to TV executives than anything they’re reading in Variety. Or, they could just read it as is.

And the More I Find Out, the Better I Did.

“My interest in Science is simply to find out about the world..and the more I find out, the better I did.”

- Nobel prize winning physicist, Richard P. Feynman (this clip requires the RealPlayer).

My brother recently gave me 2 books by Feynman who died almost 20 years ago. But thanks to the books and the Internet, he is still with us. My old friend Ted Leonsis recently got the gourmet deluxe tour of the National Archives and you can read his thoughts about that as well as preserving the historical record.

My bias towards preserving is probably stronger than most. Once upon a time, not all that long ago really, as far as the world itself goes there was a fabulous library in Alexandria (think Alexander the Great, not Alexandria, Va.). While there is vast and spirited debate over the cause of the destruction – and nobody seems to agree – the one thing that is agreed on is that hundreds of thousands of papyrus scrolls were lost. This doesn’t really get played up enough because what it means is that almost ALL recorded history up until a couple of thousand years ago was destroyed. Almost the whole thing.

Imagine some Internet disaster that left only ESPN, Fox, CNN, and the New York Times up and running with everything else destroyed. That’s pretty much what happened in Alexandria. We still have Aristotle, Plato, Homer, etc – which was pretty much the New York Times of all that stuff, but we lost so, so much as a result of losing those hundreds of thousands of scrolls.

I do not really believe that between the archive, the library of Congress, etc, that a systematic approach for preserving everything (all forms of media) that involves double, triple and quadruple redundancy will be developed. Sadly, politics come into play and personal agendas and self-interest factor in far more than they should.

Normally this would probably have me panicked and I would be e-mailing Ted with some impassioned plea that “you have to DO something!”

But there’s one entity – even at the macro level consumed with finding out all about the world – and measuring themselves EXACTLY like Feynman did (the more they find out, the better they did). That entity is Google. I have faith that they will advance the preservation of the historical record regardless of the politics. I am not panicked.

So Much for Lebron Saving the NBA

I'm sure my boy Ted Leonsis is having a chuckle over this:

Lowest rated NBA Finals Game 1 in history .

MJ is going to get some kind of, "Please man, please, c'mon!" call from David Stern

How I got Schooled By Ted Leonsis ( Why the NHL ain’t dead, even though the Ratings Suck!)

Robert Seidman ©June 7, 2007

Many people ask me about my confrontational style and approach and while I primarily attribute this to genetics, it’s an approach I embrace very much because it’s quite often the best way for me to learn.

We live in a wonderful world where Robert Seidman – an out of work blogger – can actually “confront” a guy like Ted Leonsis (a man with a net worth after taxes of over $100 million, who owns an NHL franchise and part of an NBA franchise).

Fortunately, Ted doesn’t have any problem with the confrontation and so for me, the out of work blogger, there is a great opportunity to think and learn. And learn I did. Because I was wrong and Ted was right.

Yesterday at about 2:45pm PDT when I was watching ESPN’s PTI and listening to Kornheiser absolutely rail on the NHL about its abysmal ratings (“if Bettman looks at these ratings and says. ‘we’re fine, everything’s good, the league’s healthy…he’s whistling past the graveyard!” If you had asked me yesterday at 2:46pm if I’d ever get around to disagreeing with Kornheiser, I’d have said, “No way, Mr. Tony is my boy!” Mr. Tony is my boy, but he’s wrong just like I was.

There is absolutely NO correlation between the VALUE of the NHL franchises (which are going up) and the national ratings for the Stanley Cup (which are going down). I am convinced of this now in the way that I am convinced that at some point this morning Apple stock (AAPL) was at around $126.50 even though not a single iPhone has yet been sold. Still, the value at that moment was the value, and does not correlate in any way to the # of iPhones sold.

While I do not believe the NHL will be in better shape 2 years from now if the national ratings for the Stanley Cup are where they are now (or worse), I do believe that “right now” the ratings are not actually indicative either of franchise values or the health of the league, and that right now things are actually much better for the NHL than they were a few years ago. More on this later...

Influencer of the Influencers

I don't care about this Web 2.0 notion of "respect my authority". I have no authority because nobody is reading my blog. Nonetheless, I was able to influence Mr. Leonsis (it may all be subconscious to him, and I'm fine with that!).

Last night I wrote this piece on the growing irrelevancy of the NHL in pop culture, singling OUT my favorite show in the world, "Pardon the Interruption". i note though, I was incorrect that they didn't give ANY time to the Stanley Cup -- it did get about 2 seconds worth in the "Big Finish" (you can see "Ducks" if you click the picture).

Today, Leonsis wrote an entry singing the praises of Washington Post columnist and PTI co-host Michael Wilbon. That's exactly the kind of thing I think Ted ought to be doing: a.) because WILBON ROCKS! (and so does Mr. Tony!) and b.) it would be good for the NHL if the PTI boys felt like talking about the Stanley Cup while it was actually in progress.

i don't care if there's 140,000 people reading this or 14. I'm solutions and results oriented and the results are in: me and and you (all 14 readers) are already making a difference. God bless America.

TV and the Steadfast Leonsis

Even though he didn't link back to this summary of all our e-mail back and forth I'm sure his TV. TV. TV. TV post was specially crafted on my behalf.

I might have to agree he's right about the "growth stock" -- ultimately. But right now, if it was a stock in the Pop Culture market it would be so close to $0 you couldn't short it anyway. How low did it go?

One staple of my life is ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption”. PTI has been on one DVR or another for over 4 years. I love Kornheiser and Wilbon together. My day is kind of thrown off when there’s some BS like golf or tennis or college baseball that cancels PTI for the day. I read Kornheiser religiously as a young man and as much as anyone I blame him for my curmudgeonly style. Thank you Mr. Tony.

On Today’s PTI – they didn’t talk about the Stanley Cup at all. Not at ALL. And yet, they spent “5 Good Minutes” with someone I’d never really heard of “Dan Wheldon”. He was on TV only because Danica Patrick shoved him after last Sunday’s race. Mr. Wheldon is a great TV personality and was very entertaining. The IRL got 5 GOOD minutes, the NHL’s Stanley Cup got no air time at all.

Interestingly one thing that was obvious, Wheldon doesn’t probably have any love for Danica Patrick, but he understands the only reason he is on TV is because of her, and the only reason anyone even cares about the IRL at all is because of her. So even though she can’t win a race, as long as people care about her she can pretty much do what she wants. And the IRL must be most pleased by THIS shove. Way happier than Roger Goodell is going to be if Randy Moss shoves one of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

All of this does raise one question: does hockey have some women down in the minors who can skate a little bit?

Do a Google search on : Female Hockey Players. Then think about how PTI gave the IRL 5 minutes, and the NHL Stanley Cup 0 minutes, and then tell me if it really seems that crazy.

Is The NHL Really In Better Shape Now?

My brother says that in business/negotiations, “he who cares the most usually loses.” Under this theory I thought I could probably win an argument with Ted Leonsis about the NHL because I figured as the owner of the Washington Capitals NHL franchise (and he is a minority owner of the Washington Wizards NBA franchise as well) he is bound to care more than me. I felt like I was in a good position.

But I do not have my sea legs yet, and came out of the communication exchange feeling a little bit worn down and in need of a glass of wine. I give Ted many points for stamina. I also give him a tremendous amount of credit for making himself so accessible to the NHL fan-base (and everyone else, for that matter). I think guys like Leonsis and Cuban making themselves so accessible IS one of the most outstanding aspects of the internet. It’s possible to get guys like this engaged in very interesting conversations. Extremely engaged at times. So I will tip my hat to Ted on that, it’s a great thing.

In fact that’s the reason that I wrote him. I really think the NHL has a great opportunity because while it has lost 50% of its viewers for the Stanley Cup finals in the last 5 years, they were there as recently as 5 years ago. I do worry that more people read Ted’s blog in one month than watched the NHL finals and while that’s great for Ted, I don’t see it as so good for the NHL.

From my perceptive if you had three million homes tuned in 5 years ago and less than half that many are tuned in now, your prospects are worse now than they were before, not better. However…

The world is a wacky place and linear math like that doesn’t always work. As Leonsis himself notes there are now 2000 billionaires. That’s about 10 times as many billionaires as there are sports franchises worth buying. Because of the concentration of capital and the limited supply of sports franchises, we do live in a crazy world where because of the “limited amount of real-estate” property values are going up, up, up, even in cases where the neighborhood is having severe problems (losing half your viewers is a bad day in the neighborhood).

Leonsis points out that from a financial perspective the league is in much better shape now because although ratings were down 50% in 2006 from the 2002 numbers, the league actually broke even in 2006 and lost a significant chunk of change in 2002 when the ratings were much better.

Despite escalation of the underlying value regardless of performance (because of the 2000 billionaires and limited # of franchises), at some point performance still matters. While I agree that breaking even is better than losing money – and I do see that as both an improvement to the business model and improved financial performance, I still am not quite comfortable with the prospects, but I’m focusing on just the problem of the national ratings. Leonsis notes there have been positive improvements and that ticket revenues and actual attendance are both up, as were local ratings for regular season broadcasts.

Despite these improvements, Leonsis agrees that the national ratings remain a big issue. Current deals that have some of the finals on the Versus network really limit exposure (availability to only about 20M of the 100+M tv universe) and hampers both ratings and cross-promotional opportunities.

Though I confess Ted’s explanations do leave me feeling less panicked, I can’t see how the prospects of a league that 1.5 million homes tune in to the finals are truly better than the prospects of something with twice as many homes tuned in. Also, it seems to me that since those folks were watching as recently as 5 years ago, they’re the first people I would focus on winning back. I believe Ted has an opportunity compared to other figures in the NHL because he is out there in the popular culture with a link to his blog from Engadget and everything.

Other than the stars of the NHL themselves doing everything in their power to get face time with the American public (with the leagues assistance), Ted should somehow use his position to do his part to get the 50% back simply because he’s in a better position than most affiliated with the league to have an impact with that.

Is the NHL “really” in better shape now? Ted thinks so, but I’m still not there yet and this year’s ratings (Saturday’s game 3 did a .8 rating with a 2 share during its highest ½ hourly period on Saturday night) of less than a million homes even when the game was on NBC during primetime is not leaving me feel like the NHL is *really* in better shape, even if the franchise values are increasing and the financial performance is better than it was 5 years ago when the average rating was about 3x Saturday night’s results.

I know Paris is in jail, but maybe that’s the best time to approach her with some sort of deal to save the NHL. One thing I think Leonsis is in a better position than most involved with the NHL is really helping put a focus on how to effectively market the stars of the NHL, in fact, I believe marketing its stars is the only way to win back viewers. I see Leonsis as a very determined guy, and if he was determined, really determined to help the NHL market its stars, I think he’d succeed with it.

My E-Mail to Ted Leonsis

Ted,

It seems like comments aren't working at ted.aol.com the last few days and I wanted to take a moment to respond to:

Hardest Thing to Do in Business.

I like that you're a man of the people, both for the Washington, DC area and your NHL Franchise. But I think I'd encourage you to change your focus from championships to improving the abysmal television ratings for the NHL. I know I am always harping on YOU to do this, and I'll tell you why. It's because you probably have a higher Q-rating than any of your stars, including Alex O. Does Alex O have a link to his Web site from the Engadget Blog? No. But Ted Leonsis does. You sir, are more in the pop culture than the NHL. It wouldn't shock me (at all) to find more households read your blog in a month than watched any of the Stanley Cup finals.

For the NHL, I fear the hardest thing to do may be to stay in business.

You know the ratings lines, you have seen these #'s (courtesy of Nielsen Media):

2006 *	**NBC/OLN	7	1.8	3	1,994,000	2,834,000	Carolina vs, Edmonton
2002	ABC	3	3.6	7	3,815,000	5,768,000	Detroit Red Wings vs. Atlanta Thrashers

In four years, the NHL lost half its households and viewers. HALF. In only 4 years. This year's #'s seem to be WORSE so far. Hockey isn't in the popular culture and as nice as ted.aol.com is, it did absolutely nothing to improve NHL television ratings. I'd encourage you to think about this: "why not". My best guess is: "that wasn't really what Ted was going for here," to which I must also ask, "why not?"

Sincerely,

Robert Seidman

How Mark Cuban Would Save the NHL

Around the beginning of the year my friend Bill G. pointed me to former AOL executive and Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis’ blog. On the blog Leonsis was bemoaning the lack of season holders who actually lived in DC where the arena is and that most of the season ticket holders were from the surrounding wealthy Virginia and Maryland suburbs. With DC having a huge African American population and with hockey not being especially popular with ANY Americans, let alone African Americans, I thought what he wrote was ridiculous.

I wrote him to say basically that they should be thrilled to have season ticket holders period, regardless of where they lived and that I’d be more worried about the fact that in the popular culture, Hockey isn’t really a part of that. I got especially annoyed with him and was rather hard on him but my reasons were he was talking to me like I was a total dope, “We’re in good shape, the tv stuff will be fine…” etc. I told him I thought he was crazy and that what he really needed to do was make sure Paris and Britney showed up in the stands on TV.

Recently I wrote Cuban asking him for his quick thoughts on saving hockey, and whether it was dead, dead, dead like the 8-Track player of my youth or whether it could be saved. Here’s his response:

"It needs personalities. There is no one in popular culture. Sid the kid and Ovechkin need to get drunk w Paris and Lindsay."

And this is why he’s a billionaire and I’m some guy writing a blog that presently nobody is reading. That last little bit is critical. Showing up on TV isn’t enough. The alcohol IS necessary...for the sex tape that will save the NHL!

Come on Paris, turn your sites to a good cause. Save the NHL!