Spoiled kids tend to make bad managers at daddy’s businesses:
Case in point?
Hank Steinbrenner tried to light a fire under his below-par team Tuesday when he told the Post that it was time for the team with the highest payroll in baseball to “earn that money.”
“The bottom line is that the team is not playing the way it is capable of playing,” Steinbrenner told the Post. “These players are being paid a lot of money and they had better decide for themselves to earn that money.”
He went on to add:
Hank Steinbrenner told the New York Post for Wednesday’s editions that he was prepared to fix his Yankees “by force” if needed. That could be taken as a threat toward general manager Brian Cashman, but he said Wednesday he’s staying focused on the task at hand.
Nice. Classy. No need to plant a BoSox jersey at Yankee stadium, someone planted this douchebag there instead.
Yanks are hexed. Read more.
Time Warner takes a page from the book of “give people what they want”
Enter SI Vault. If you are wondering what SI Vault is, as the name would imply, it’s 54 years of Sports Illustraded’s covers, images, stories and much more. If an image is worth a thousand words, what would 54 years’ worth of images be worth?
Here’s a story dating back to 1992, for example, on Christian Laettner and Duke. Hmm… Laettner? Duke? Pardon the shameless plug, but enjoy WatchMojo.com’s classic college programming:
Duke in Top College Programs:
And Laettner in Top College Careers:
All right, enough shameless promotion, now go and enjoy 54 years of SI at SI Vault.
I’m not sure about Pete Carroll’s desire to get back in the NFL. The man is revered in Southern California… why give all of that up for the NFL?
Multiple sources told ESPN.com late Tuesday night that the Falcons are pursuing Pete Carroll for an interview. If Carroll agrees, and the logistics can be arranged, the Southern California coach could huddle with Atlanta owner Arthur Blank by the weekend. Carroll, who has previously been a head coach in the NFL with the New York Jets and New England Patriots, would certainly become the biggest name on the list of Atlanta candidates.
Carroll, 56, recently completed his seventh season at Southern California with a resounding victory over Illinois in the Rose Bowl. He has led the Trojans to two national championships and compiled a 76-14 record. The 14 defeats have been by an average of just 4.1 points.
Read more.
Don MacLean led the Florida Panthers to the Stanley Cup Finals as coach. Now, Tampa Bay Lightning fans are hoping MacLean can lead them back to the Finals.
Tampa Bay Lightning officials announced that the team was being sold to a new group of owners on Tuesday, but new group said fans don’t need to worry about the team leaving the Bay Area.
At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Lightning chairman Tom Wilson introduced Absolute Hockey Enterprises as the new owners of the team. The group consists of nine or ten principle owners, led by former Florida Panthers coach Doug MacLean.
real estate developer Jeff Sherrin and Oren Koules, a television and movie producer, are also a part of the new ownership. Coral Springs
Read more.
Tribune Co., which owns the team, announced in April it was selling itself for $8.2 billion to Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell, who made the deal contingent on shedding non-core assets. That means the Cubs will go on the auction block at the end of the season a decision Tribune chairman and CEO Dennis FitzSimons has conceded was difficult but one that “really makes sense for our shareholders.”
Several potential deep-pocketed bidders are expected to vie for the Cubs and possibly for Wrigley Field, including Cuban and Chicago native Jerry Colangelo, the Phoenix Suns CEO who once ran the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Read more.
The NFL is arguably the most amazing league, no doubt, but the disparity between big and small market teams is like a benign tumor that will one day turn lethal.
When owners approved an extension to the collective bargaining agreement last March, a key element of the plan was an enhanced revenue sharing plan that, over a six-year period, would redistribute about $900 million from big- to small-market franchises. A year later, however, there is still no agreement on how the additional dollars will be meted out, which teams get it, and under what circumstances.
While it remains an issue that isn’t of interest to most fans, revenue sharing clearly is the most fractious item on this week’s agenda here.
“From the public standpoint,” acknowledged the owner of one AFC small-market team, “it’s basically a silent issue. Most fans would say, ‘Hey, it’s just a bunch of rich guys trying to figure out who gets what part of the golden goose.’ But I can tell you, it’s not a quiet issue in the meeting rooms. There’s still a ton of [discord] over it. There’s a lot of hard feeling.”
Indeed, the disparity between the NFL’s high- and low-revenue teams continues to grow. And the owners from the low-revenue franchises insist they are, more than ever, feeling the pinch of trying to compete against teams with bulging coffers. The low-revenue teams insist that, in terms of player costs, they pay a higher percentage than their high-revenue colleagues. The big-market teams have countered that smaller franchises haven’t done enough to market themselves at the local level and, thus, produce more revenues.
Read more.
Oh wow, what a year it was. Enjoy.
Mario Lemieux could not wait to sell the team, but now, it looks like he’ll retain ownership, and move the team. That’s what Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc Andre Fleury will do to a club.
Read more.
This comes a week after Resarch in Motion’s Jim Balsillie withdrew his offer because he was not allowed to move the team.
Read that here.
“This isn’t dating; this is getting married,” AFL commissioner David Baker said. “They are officially an AFL owner.
The AFL is a 19-team indoor football league.
“It is good for our fans,” added Baker, who in 10 years on the job and has seen franchise values for a team in Arena Football League increase from $400,000 each to about $20 million. “We have extremely young demographics who generally turn to (ESPN) as the first place to find sports information.”
Is ESPN unearthing a hidden gem, or getting in at a high price? Read more.
Mark Cuban showed some interest in buying the Pittburgh Penguins just last month, actually, he said that not buying them was a big mistake. Read our initial thoughts here. Of course, Cuban showed his remorse after Research In Motion’s billionaire co-founder Jim Balsillie made a bid for the team. RIM is based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and Balsillie had bought himself a potential dynasty with players like Sydney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and company. But a no-move clause has apparently turned Balsillie off.
Today, word got out that he decided to withdraw his bid for the club, will Mark Cuban move in?
PLAY
