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Baseball
 

38 Studios & Rhode Island's VC Nightmare

mikesswimn's picture
O
 
Points)
 on 5/2/13 at 3:30pm
Totally prepared for business...

Afternoon Monkeys,

Any Red Sox fans here on WSO? How about MMORPG fans? Maybe there's some fans of government sponsored VC failure? Well, if you inexplicably landed in all three categories, the recent Bloomberg article by Jonathan Mahler discussing Rhode Island's ill advised foray into the world of VC via Curt Schilling's 38 Studios is probably old news. For the rest of you who may be less familiar with the story, the complete meltdown of 38 Studios and nearly $100 million of Rhode Island's money is worth a read. Also, as Mahler notes, for those of you currently at HBS, an in depth look may be more readily available than you realize:

The good news is that before the company fell apart, Schilling and some of his employees spoke extensively to a few researchers from Harvard Business School. Their case study, published in 2009, is available for only $6.95. It’s worth every penny, particularly if you are a fan of Kingsley Amis-style satire.

The Yankees' A Rod Problem: Sunk costs and investing

Aswath Damodaran's picture
(Gorilla, 566
 
Points)
 on 10/29/12 at 7:30am
arod.jpg

As any baseball fan knows, the New York Yankees have an A Rod problem. Just in case you have no idea what I am talking about, A Rod is Alex Rodriguez, the third baseman for the New York Yankees, signed in December 2007 to a one of the richest sports contracts in history. The Yankees, dazzled by the the numbers that A Rod posted in 2007 and by the possibility that he could become baseball's home run king (with 500 home runs, he seemed to be on a path to beating Barry Bond's record of 762 home runs), signed the then 33-year old to a ten-year contract worth $275 million (with numerous bonus clauses for breaking home run records).

The five years since have not measured up to expectations, with the disappointment building to a Crescendo in the 2012 post-season, when A Rod's anemic hitting led to his being benched in the last two games against the Detroit Tigers. Now, the Yankees owe $114 million over the next 5 years to a 38-year old third baseman, who is susceptible to injuries and has seem to have lost his home run power  and his capacity to hit right handed pitching.  

MLB seriously needs to overhaul instant replay

General Disarray's picture
IB
 
Points)
 on 10/19/12 at 1:00am
A-rod.jpg

Why does baseball refuse to step into the 21st century? We have so much technology that could potentially guarantee that the right calls are made 100% of the time but for some odd reason MLB refuses to implement the technology.

I understand that baseball purists love the human element of the game, but so many mistakes have been made by the umpires that it’s destroying the game. The price baseball has paid for the human element is well documented. Off the top of my head, umpires have ruined what would have been a perfect game (Jim Joyce calling the 27th batter safe at first base when he was clearly out). They ruined the momentum of a dangerous Pirates team last year (Jerry Meals calls a base runner safe at home plate when he was out by 5 feet in the 19th inning).

Inspiring Red Sox player

Amphipathic's picture
 
Points)
 on 7/2/12 at 2:47pm

You don't see this sort of thing very often, I think its really neat (also cause I'm a Sox fan)

"And then there's Daniel Nava. His pedigree was so modest that he …

• tried out for his college team at Santa Clara as a walk-on

• didn't make it

• became the equipment manager

• left after two years because he couldn't afford tuition

• transferred to junior college

• went undrafted

• signed with the Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League

• got cut by the Outlaws after a tryout

• came back a year later

• and finally got signed by the Red Sox on the say-so of assistant director of pro scouting Jared Porter …

• … for $1.

Nava is now the leadoff man for the Sox, hitting .294/.411/.462 and making the league minimum."

This is the Saddest Day in Baseball

IamObama's picture
ER
(Gorilla, 621
 
Points)
 on 5/4/12 at 12:26am

Mariano Rivera has suffered from a torn ACL and could possibly miss the entire season. There was strong belief that this was his last season..

I'm a huge Yankees fan and I've never felt more devastated in a baseball moment than today. Felt like tearing up when I heard Mo speak during the post game. Everyone in the team felt like tearing up..

Thoughts on the $2 Billion Dodgers sale?

JohnAnthony7's picture
(Baboon, 152
 
Points)
 on 3/28/12 at 7:56pm

I'm by no means a valuation expert but I'm scratching my head at the thought that the Dodgers would be worth over $2 Billion, especially considering the Cubs sold for $845 million in 2009 and McCourt bought the team for $370 mil in '04 and hasn't exactly created a model of success in his tenure. Thoughts or explanation on how they could sell for this much?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2012/03/28...

Sports

FinanceWiz's picture
IB
(Baboon, 143
 
Points)
 on 12/23/11 at 11:09pm

So this might be a silly question, but for those in banking now, what sports are typically the ones that people in banking follow? From what I hear from a friend in banking, tennis is pretty popular (even though it isn't too popular among America as a whole). What else do you guys find is talked about a lot among the obvious sports, i.e. Hockey, Basketball, Football, Baseball, Soccer, Golf?

The question on everyone's mind

reddog23's picture
(Orangutan, 348
 
Points)
 on 5/16/11 at 8:47pm

How long until Bautista gets caught using steroids/some other performance enhancing drug?

His run has been too good to be true, especially for someone who was so shitty just 2 seasons ago. As much as I'd like to believe it, no one gets this good overnight.

Buy or Sell: The New York Mets

Midas Mulligan Magoo's picture
 
Points)
 on 5/9/11 at 12:00pm
mets

Would you buy the New York Mets? In the case of SAC Capital's Steve Cohen the answer is a resounding YES. I am not so sure that this is a smart play. Not just for Cohen, but for any investor.

Today I would like to hear thoughts on the potential purchase from the analyst's perspective. I guess the better question would be... do you guys see baseball teams as a good investment overall? With the sport steadily losing ground as far as popularity and revenue is baseball the cash cow it once was? It seems that a ton of teams are having a hard time making money and even the country's most prized media market has felt the pain.

Do employers want to hire student-athletes?

ctheo29's picture
(Chimp, 3
 
Points)
 on 2/1/11 at 2:23pm

I am currently an NCAA Division I Student-Athlete studying Economics and Finance. I have tried everything to break into the trading world and regularly search the internet for entry level trading jobs. I play baseball at school, have a 3.6 gpa, and got a 1350 on my SAT's. I know that I don't go to an Ivy League School and that the job market is bad, but I still thought that I would be able to land a job in trading (hopefully in a trading program or as an assistant trader.) Throughout college all I have heard is that employers love candidates that play sports. It doesn't seem that way to me, maybe employers don't want to hire Student-Athletes and I should take it off my resume? I have applied to every investment bank, prop firm, and hedge fund that I can think of. Any suggestions??

Does anyone know how Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg got financing to buy the Rangers in 2010?

maver1ck74's picture
IB
(Chimp, 11
 
Points)
 on 1/20/11 at 10:22am

Does anyone know how Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg got $593mm of financing to buy the Rangers in 2010?

Did Cliff Lee REALLY take "less money"?

happypantsmcgee's picture
O
(Almost Human, 9,621
 
Points)
 on 12/14/10 at 5:07pm
NYC v Philly

So, I was thinking about all of these commentators getting happy-in-their-pants about Cliff Lee taking 'less money' to go to Philly instead of NYC. Then I got to thinking about all the threads on here about new analysts in New York having trouble making ends meet due to the high cost of living, high tax rates, etc. So that lead me to this question...Did Cliff Lee actually take less money when you factor in the costs of living in NYC and the taxes that go along with it? 120 mil over 5 years in Philly has to be, at the very least, comparable to 138 Mil in NYC...if some of you Big4 guys could weigh in I would appreciate it.

Halladay, Lee, Oswalt, Hamels

General Disarray's picture
IB
 
Points)
 on 12/14/10 at 12:37am

That ladies and gentlemen look like a scary team to face. Glad my team is in entirely another league.

Another Motivating/ Inspiring Story

jonnyseed's picture
ER
 
Points)
 on 10/28/10 at 9:10pm

Since everyone seemed to enjoy the story about the Cornell soccer player turned investment banker who completed the Ironman with no training, I decided to share another sports story.

Baseball World Series

General Disarray's picture
IB
 
Points)
 on 10/24/10 at 12:01am

Anyone watching the postseason? Giants vs. Texas...never would have predicted that at the beginning of the year.

Do MLB teams draft based off their park?

tinomartinez's picture
IB
 
Points)
 on 6/30/10 at 4:34pm

alright i've had this ongoing discussion with my friends about mlb drafts....now i know the first few rounds are just phenoms and usually their position/etc doesnt play a huggggeeee part in the drafting decision...and i also know that teams can alter the landscape of their field/walls in teh offseason...but to what extent does drafting have to do with ballparks...i mean its unique in that no other sport really can guage location into draft decision making...but does it happen?

Tigers' Tragedy

asmklfioaemf's picture
IB
(Monkey, 49
 
Points)
 on 6/3/10 at 12:38pm

Not on FB for jobsearch reasons. My buddy asked me to help him get this group out there, figure we have a lot of sports fans on WSO. PM if you want to be a group moderator.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Armando-Galarraga/106008572764030?ref=ts&v=desc#!/group.php?gid=113192712058854

Red Sox

Millhouse's picture
O
(Orangutan, 290
 
Points)
 on 8/7/09 at 9:04am

This may be an odd question, but are most people in banking/trading Yankees fans or are there a decent number of Sox fans? Would this create "problems" in trading?