is it crazy to try to compete with the NFL ?

I don’t think so. Here is why:

1. There is obviously demand for top level professional football. That is exactly what the UFL hopes to be someday, an equal of the NFL, if not more.

2. The NFL wants and needs competition. They have grown so big and powerful that every move they make is scrutinized by local or federal officials. A competitor allows them to point to us and explain that their moves are for competitive reasons rather than the move of a monopoly.

3. They just extended their CBA. Their CBA structure is not designed for a competitive environment. Competition for top players, even if the UFL gets just a few, increases prices at the top end for all teams. Every star will get paid more, but still have to fit under the cap. That forces teams to use more low cost players, at the expense of signing the middle of the roster. That gives us access to quite a few very, very good NFL players. The downside is that it will significantly impact small market NFL teams and its unclear how the NFL would respond to that and what the impact would be on the UFL.

4. There are a lot of markets that are bigger than some current NFL markets that do not have teams that would love to have a pro football team.

5. There are a lot of smart people involved in the UFL

6. Its a great TV product.

These are just my personal reasons for having an interest in being involved with the UFL. They still have a ton of work to do before a game can be played. Like all good ideas with a great opportunity available to it, the hard part is in the execution.

Hopefully they can get it done.

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There has been quite a big of discussion about the music business lately. In particular the ongoing decline in CD sales. So i decided to revisit a blog post from April of 2005 entitled “The Countdown for the extinction of CDs is about to begin“

I don’t think i said anything groundbreaking. I made the point that I no longer listened to music on CDs. That I had them on an Ipod when I listened. That it was difficult to deal with CDs in order to get to the music I wanted, when I wanted.

So here we are 2 years later and the media is full of articles about the seemingly never ending decline in CD sales and the inability of digital sales to close the gap. Can anyone be surprised ?

When was the last time you saw anyone listening to music on a CD Player ? At the gym ? No. At the Mall, maybe only some of the senior walkers at 9am. On downtown streets at lunch ? No.

Does anyone even know what percent of music is listened to via CD any longer ?

I would say the music industry has put itself in the position of being incredibly stupid. They are dependent on a format, the CD, that few people listen to. Although this is a guess, my guess is that the majority of CD purchases are then put in a PC and imported into an MP3 or other format for consumption on a mobile device. Few people buy a CD and just listen to it. Which means you can say goodbye to impulse buying of CDs.

We are in a market where, whether we like it or not, the music industry has tethered us to our PCs. The easiest way to buy, the easiest way to get the greatest utillity of their products is via the PC. Thats a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE mistake. Did i say that it was a huge mistake to make the PC an inevitable part of the music buying process.

Our ability to consume music has gotten incredibly easy over the past 25 years. From the walkman to the CD Walkman to the IPod, we have ditched the album (to the chagrin of milk crate manufacturers everywhere) and evolved to the point where an 80gb IPod has the capacity to carry every song we might imagine listening to over the course of our lifetime. So easy that it revived Apple and catapulted the company from an innovative niche PC marketer to a technology leader. So easy that we consume more music than ever before, yet total sales are in a tailspin.

Can the music industry be saved ? Yep. It would be so easy its scary. Make music available anywhere and everywhere.

How much music can be stored on 1TB of hard drive space ? All of it. How many people does it take to carry a 1TB drive ? My 3 year old daughter can do it.

I would find a manufacturer of cash machines, the ones you see in every bar, restaurant, mini-mart and retail outlet and work with them to reconfigure the machines so that they can hold a hard drive that can be updated with new songs via wired or wireless internet access and whose screen can offer a simple interface for people to select music. The consumer plugs in their SD card from their phone, or plugs the USB cable attached to the machine into their IPod or similar device and the music selected, downloaded and debited to the customers credit or debit card. Pay the machine host a commission, or a per transaction and everyone goes home happy.

Why wouldnt the music industry do this ? I understand the difficulty of getting an entire industry to do anything, particularly the music industry where the fault is always someone elses’. But this is a matter of survival and the solution is simple.

Not that there aren’t other issues, Its certainly not a simple process to connect your IPod to a random device and buy music. The future of the music industry depends on the negotation of a software update with Apple. It would be a simple, simple enhancement to ITunes software on every IPod. The software, when connected to one of these music dispensers would look for a unique ID and a number with a check digit. If it found a valid number, it would allow the one way transfer of music from the dispenser. Simple and easy…if Apple goes along. Which they should, because it wouldnt be a stretch to put an ITMS like interface on the dispenser, let people login with their Apple ID, and buy music that could be charged to the credit card on file with Apple.

None of this is rocket science. In fact, its easy. Music Kiosks have been proposed for years and years. Kiosks have been developed time and again. They haven’t worked because they have been over engineered and music labels haven’t made enough content available.

I hope the music industry has reached the point of desperation where now is the time.

Its time to recognize that its never been easier to listen to music and more people are doing just that than ever before.
The only difficult part of the music equation is buying it. Sitting in front of your PC works sometimes, but it isn’t optimal all the time. Where ever you see people listening to music, they should be able to buy and immediately listen to their new music. Why can’t the music industry get that we should be able to buy music when we want, where we want, in the format in which we consume it, on our IPods and comparable devices. Until that happens, total music sales will continue to decline and quckly.

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What else is there to do while I sit here in the Cayman Islands relaxing and enjoying every minute of it then ponder the NBA Lottery.

During the season when all the discussions of tanking (i prefer to think of those games as player evaluation games) were taking place, my first inclination was to pick a “lottery date”. A date early enough in the season that was too early for teams to risk the opportunity to battle for the last playoff spot. Given that teams can and do make end of season surges and under 500 teams make the playoffs, it seemed that this would be a plausible solution.

The counter of course is “what about injuries”. A team with a late injury, or a player returning from injury late in the season could either be hurt or unfairly benefit. That of course killed my idea.

So while the Caymanian sun is shining upon me and the really important question of Bud Light vs Corona Light for my first drink of the day is about to be answered with a cold beverage from Budweiser, my solution has evolved to the following:

Replace the lottery with a simple better team record or coin flip based on conference standings. In other words, for the last two teams in each conference , the team with the better record gets the first pick. If its a tie, there is a coinflip. The next to last in each conference face off. The better record gets the 3rd pick, a coin flip breaks a tie, all the way up the standings.

This wont completely eliminate teams from committing to “player evaluation games” at the end of the season, but it does take into account the relevant strengths of the conferences and teams places within the conferences. Its possible that a 25 win team in the better conference is a much better team than a 25 win team in the weaker conference, yet they both get equal weight in the current lottery. They shouldn’t.

What makes this system potentially exciting is that teams will have something to play for at the every end of the season. How much fun would it have been watching Boston and Memphis compete to win enough games to get the #1 pick ?

THis of course isnt foolproof. Teams will still resort to “player evaluation games” at the end of the season and in games between teams in the same conference things could still get absurdly comical at the end of the season.
But it would reduce the number of “player evaluation games” and it could create some really fun, competitive games once the standings are in place as teams play for the right to choose 1st, 3rd, etc.

If this doesn’t get the job done, I can add one more option that might make things more interesting.

Rather than have one method of allocating draft picks, have more than one. On Lottery Day have a coin flip to decide which method is used.

A coin flip between the better team gets the pick system I described above and the current lottery system could make things fun and interesting on Lottery Day . Although losing would still be “rewarded” with a better pick in both cases, the uncertainty would make it difficult for teams to tank games during the season.
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Then on draft day, the first coin flip is to decide which system is used.

Im sure there are better options out there, but I just thought I would throw this one out there as something to have fun with and think about.

Time to put some more sunscreen on
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What in the world is Donald Trump going to do now ? He “quit” The Apprentice after a 3 year run. His casinos once again are having troubles. He is at real risk of transitioning from THE Donald.to, “you remember, THAT Donald” .

I actually feel sorry for the guy. Seriously, what could his future hold ? We live in a culture where celebrity out of the limelight is celebrity quickly forgotten. Its a peril for those whose only skill is being a celebrity and I’m sad to say, I think Donald Trump has fallen from businessperson who goes back to work as some of us are, into the category of celebrity without a TV show .

Is there any question that “You’re fired” will be listed right next to “Is that your final answer” in reality show trivia history ? (I know, insert your Benefactor slams here..).

But have no fear Donald, I have some options for you:

1. You can travel the world over and give speeches on brand dilution. Explaining how a brand that was once synonymous with the finest real estate in the world is now synonymous with a canceled TV show, water, steaks, a doll, mortgages, vodka, a perfume, a game and an online University that tries to sell questionable advice and products and is one of the biggest spammers on the Internet.

2. You can go to VH1 and ask to be on the celebrity fitness show.

3. They need a replacement for Rosie on The View….

4. Also on VH1, I Love New York will be starting up production again. I promise you that you would get record ratings if you become one of her potential boyfriends.

5. You could produce the Broadway version of “Raising Arizona”. You could play H.I. and work with your new born son, riding his coattails as the star of the show.

6. Could anyone play the part of Judge Smails in a remake of Caddyshack better than you ?

Or best of all, you can go back to NBC and ask for one more season of The Apprentice. Me against You. We let the audience pick the tasks and our teams and we let Rosie O’Donnell and Melania be in the boardroom and decide who wins or loses. I would do it just to see those two sitting next to each other.

What do you say ? You up for it ?

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its interesting to me that the organizations that should be combining as quickly as they can aren’t.

What are the strongest news brands in this country ? Rupert Murdoch would tell you that the Wall Street Journal is at or near the top. You can put the New York Times,Washington Post and others up there as well.. You could probably put Time and Newsweek on the list as well. All are print.

For years the TV networks have spent billions on promotion, people and production to try to create a definable and sustainable brand that drives viewership. In the internet era, it hasn’t worked as choice has significantly diluted their audiences.

Cable News Networks have tried to expand the market for news consumption, but really haven’t grown beyond niche audiences, with 2mm viewers for any given program being a huge hit.

What I find interesting is how duplicative all their efforts are. Each of the above has a signifcant news departments with reporters out in the field looking to break stories or do a better job of reporting than their competitors, regardless of medium.

Riddle me this Batman: Rupert Murdoch has figured out that Print and TV can be combined to be a vertical news organization and is willing to pay 5 billion dollars to do it. Why has no one else realized the value of combining big news brands and organizations ?

Why isn’t a CBS News merging their news department with a NY Times and rebranding itself as the 6pm NY Times News ? Or with Time Magazine News ? Or NBC News and ???

I recognize the arrogance factor. That each wants to be the defacto source of news in this country and lever what little editorial power they still have left (Does anyone other than the people who write editorials or are written about really read the editorials in newspapers these days ?). But its time to realize that drastic change is necessary and that ego needs to be put aside.

Put simply, a NY Times reporter with a camera crew can reach every medium available today. Right now any video that reporter captures is relegated to the net. Instead, that resource could be available to a network news department , the net, heck, even as part of a DVD series or to theaters as part of a weekly series. We would show it at Landmark Theaters.

News should be available to its customers in the medium that its customers demand, and in those customers don’t even know they want yet. I know there has been many a time when i have read a Times story thinking that it would be interesting to see video to support the story. Why not ?

This post is a long way of saying that I think news is a unique opportunity still. But what is happening is that everyone is cutting back individual news operations rather than partnering to ramp up. Consumers dont need more brands, they need more indepth reporting of more stories.

Its time for convergence of mediums. The NY TImes 6pm News on CBS makes a lot more sense to me that teleprompter reading by talking heads with nice legs. As Dan Rather often says, its time for news “with Guts”

While on the topic of news, 2 quick thoughts:

1. One of the biggest all time product branding blunders in any business is newspaper columnists and reporters calling what they write on the web a blog. When you have a reporter in the field offering online updates and you call it a blog, you define them as peers of the many unwashed masses who post on a blog, myself included. Suzy and Don on myspace have a blog, and so does your intrepid reporter. Its not too late to come up with a name to brand what professionals call their timely infield updates. Its the only way you are going to differentiate your news organization from user generated content.

2. I was trying to remember the last time I heard a question from a sports reporter before or after a game or event when i thought to myself “What a great question”. Why ?

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First, let me go on the record as saying that in the event that a vote comes up to change the rules about suspensions for players leaving the bench, I will vote against changing it.

Why ? Because its incredibly simple to educate players about the rule. Its a rule they fully understand and they understand the consequences of violating the rule. That makes the NBA stronger because it removes uncertainty. Can it result in a game(s) being impacted , yes. However, that impact results from an action a player knew violated the rules and was a mistake. There is no uncertainty about it. All they had to do was not leave the bench.

I actually think that more rules need to be iron clad like the “don’t leave the bench rule”. Whenever we can remove discretion in enforcement from the NBA the game is better for it.

Fans will hate the Suns not having Amare and Boris, but they all know the rule and recognize that the players knew it and fully understood it. What really gets fans, and me upset is when they can’t understand how and why a rule is enforced.

When Jason Terry was suspended for throwing a punch last year, our only argument was whether or not he actually threw a punch. If he did, all involved, including Jason knew and understood what the punishment would be and why.

When Udonis Haslem got suspended a game for throwing a mouthpiece while lying on the ground, I didn’t quite get that one. Fined for being mad at an official, that I understand all too well. The suspension I didn’t.

When guys throw an elbow to the head or a knee to the groin or have a habit of stepping under a player as he lands, its far too difficult for officials and the league to gauge intent. Its pretty much impossibIe. I think we need to take a no leeway position and make both a flagrant 2 foul. Make it a no questions asked rule. Watch how quickly teams re educate players on how to close out on shooters and how quickly player behavior changes. Not by all, but those who can’t probably are repeat offenders and deserve the penalty. A guy missing the rest of a game is a whole lot better than injuring a player and impacting his career.

It won’t completely eliminate the need for the NBA to pass judgment on player intent and dish out punishment, but it will reduce the number of times they have to do it.

To make the job of enforcing all of this a little easier, I would like to propose something publicly that I have proposed privately but was shot down.

Allow officials, at their discretion, to use instant replay to review unsportsmanlike conduct or any action that could lead to a flagrant 2 foul.

This would be an important change not only to help get the play right, but also because it lets the punitive action for a bad act take place in the game it impacts. It would also make fans feel that the officials took the appropriate action based on the best information available. It can be incredibly frustrating to everyone at the game when a replay contradicts the best efforts of an official on a matter as serious as a Flagrant Foul.

Its not a cure, but it increases the chances of penalties being relative to the game in which the problem occurred. Plus, although it wouldn’t eliminate the need for the league to take action on players, it would probably reduce the number of times they would be asked to take action over a players on court behavior.

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One of the fun things at HDNet is listening to or reading pitch ideas for new shows. One of the most irritating and time wasting jobs at HDNet is listening to or reading pitch ideas for new shows.

99pct of the time the idea is a derivative of something that is already being done, or something so obvious its an insult that they are pitching it. I dont need to be pitched another cooking, poker, pimp my whatever, American Idol knockoff, nor do I want to hear another “compete for a Mavs roster spot” or “business plan competition idea”.

What I would like to read are original show ideas. So post them if you got them.

If they have anything to with sports or a deck of cards, i don’t want to read them and they will be deleted.

If its obvious you don’t know anything about HDNet or have never seen our networks , it will be deleted. All of which is a subtle guide that doing your homework about HDNet will help you. Being a regular viewer, as I know many of you are, will help you even more.

I would love to be able to come back and write a post about how we are developing, or have picked up a show based on a comment posted to the blog. Somebody give me a reason !

m

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A few days ago Youtube said it was creating a program that would pay content providers for their content. Thats obviously great news for content providers, regardless of platform. It helps set a market for content not only for internet video, but it provides a barometer for content value relative to other mediums.

There obviously will be a lot of money available in aggregate for content providers, it will be interesting to see how much individual creators make, not only for their most popular works, which will be trumpeted in the media, but for their follow up works. What percentage of participants will be the “long tailers” in the program and what will their earnings look like ?

Its not really a question. I already know how its going to play out. It will be just like the music business.
The music business has few barriers to entry. Anyone can put their music up for sale on the net. Few barriers to content creation. It costs next to nothing for low end music creation. Marketing however is another story. It costs a lot of money to create visibility, unless of course you find yourself on the front page of a Youtube category page, or its homepage. Which puts Youtube in a position of acting just like your typical big market radio station or music radio network.
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Paying for content, which is good in so many different ways, also has a downside. Youtube immediately went from a small, but interesting community for its original content, to basically being just like Clear Channel. Responsible for programming its different “formats” with the “best” possible content that creates the greatest number of eyeballs and maximizes advertising revenue. Its big business, just like Clear Channel

Im sure community will be involved in selecting content for their “playlists” which they will feature, but the reality is that Youtube corporate will select the videos it promotes just as music is selected to play on the radio or to be featured on radio station and related websites. Ask bands and artists how they feel about the programming skills of for profit radio stations these days ? Satellite or terrestial.

How long do you think it will be before videos appear on Youtube slamming them for which content is selected to participate in the for pay program ? milliseconds ? And how long after that will it be before those who do provide content complain that they aren’t getting the same level of promotion as others and that Youtube has gone corporate ? Instantaneously ?

But that won’t even be the most interesting issue to rear its head. As we all know, Youtube doesn’t stream its videos, it uses progressive download as its method of delivery (presumably because its saves bandwidth costs and speeds up followup viewing). Which means it delivers a copy of every video to every viewer. As mashable.com reported recented, it knows of 23 ways for end users to retain an easily usable copy of that video. How long will it be until we see content that is on Youtube expressly to earn a living for its creator posted to other video hosting sites ? (with pre roll ads , if any, edited out). You just know that the minute someone starts to make real money, that video will be on Veoh, YahooVideo ,AOL Video, Daily motion and every Tom,Dick and Harry video hosting site across the world. If Youtube goes the way of pre roll advertising , Youtube’s best videos , without the ads will pop up on hosting sites and even in Google results and ads within minutes of their posting on Youtube..

Which leads to the question of who is going to do something about it ? Who is going to take the responsibility of protecting that content that Youtube is paying for ?

Will Youtube just tell the content creators to ignore the videos on those other sites because its great promotion ? That more people will see the video, so what do you care ? So what if you are losing a few dollars, its the internet fool, thats the way it works ?

Or will Youtube tell the content creators they are responsible for monitoring all those sites and sending take down notices ? Will Youtube explain to the content creators it has just partnered with that its conceivable that the same video can be uploaded many times, a day, and even though you have a day job, you need to monitor those sites and pay for the attorney costs and filing costs of the DMCA Takedown Notices. Its your problem if those fees are more than we pay you ?

Or will Youtube add DRM ? The net would love that.

Or maybe Youtube will do the monitoring itself and will find itself playing Viacom and sending take down notices to the many websites hosting videos ? That would be interesting. Even more interesting would be if Youtube charged back the legal costs to the content providers and whether they would make the 99pct of partners for whom the legal costs exceed their payment from Youtube pay the difference and turn it into a profit center.

But wait, there is more ! What will Google Video do when people start uploading the videos that are getting a share of revenue up onto Google Video ? Will they “pre enroll” all Youtube partner videos into their filter program to prevent it from being available , or just let them be uploaded , thereby effectively ending the seperation of Google Video and Youtube.

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The markets keep on going up and up and up. The Dow is up more than 2,000 points over the last 2 years. The Nasdaq is up more than 600 points in less than a year. With all this newly created wealth, where is the euphoria and spending ?

Companies are going public, getting bought, increasing dividends, but “The Wealth Effect” doesn’t seem to be anywhere to be found. No stories on CNBC with people bragging about the huge increases in their portfolios. No data that says consumer spending has acclerated in tandem with market increases.

Maybe people don’t trust the markets and have experienced giving back gains, causing them to be conservative….nah, this is the USA. We got it, we spend it.

So where is the money ? I’m curious to know.

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Little has been written about yesterdays announcement that Yahoo would be selling display and video ads for Comcast’s websites, in particular, Comcast.net.

What’s so special about this deal beyond the shear size of Comcast and the inventory it makes available to Yahoo to sell ? its the network stupid.

The one thing that Google doesn’t have is a contained network. Comcast does. The implications are significant.

For the first time, an advertising monetization platform, such as Yahoo’s Panama, can be integrated into a NON internet video platform. When Comcast serves video from comcast.net to its own high speed data customers, those are NOT internet customers. They are private network subscribers. The vagueries and uncertainties of the internet are gone. Comcast has the ability to control and monitor the quality of service in the delivery of the video content from the host on its network to the user destination on its network. Its the equivalent of offering services on your corporate network. The opportunities far exceed what are available on the general internet.

In short, Yahoo and Comcast can start working together to develop video content and ad platforms that Google can’t touch. Any video that is streamed from Comcast.net can be streamed at bit rates that match the user’s throughput, including commercials. If Comcast can deliver on demand video at full DVD quality to PCs, it can deliver commercials at that quality. All without ever touching the internet.

More importantly, since all the users of Comcast.net video are Comcast customers, the two companies can work together to leverage customer data (within privacy limits) to deliver ads that are not only personalized, but also can evolve to be “over the top” of the set top box and be delivered to the TV in the future using Comcasts future switched digital capabilities and OCAP features.

Together Comcast and Yahoo have created an advertising playground that could potentially define the future of advertising on the net. Rules that even Google and Microsoft would have to follow.

The competitive landscape for video advertising just changed, and no one even noticed.

Of course, it still doesnt create enough bandwidth for the delivery of HDTV over the net, nor does it fix Comcast’s problem of not offering HDNet and HDNet Movies to its customers, but thats a topic for another blog.

If done right, this is the first step towards integration of integrating advertising from websites

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