Is Irsay trying to force Peyton out with contract threats?
Posted by Bob Weber on Feb 15th, 2012 in football | 0 comments
It’s been all the buzz. Will Peyton Manning be back with the Colts next year? Will the Colts pay his $28 Million bonus with his injury? Will the Colts draft Andrew Luck and trade Peyton?
I am a big Peyton fan and I’ve kept quiet about this until now. Most of what’s been stirring around has been rumour and conjecture to this point, but that changed yesterday when Colts owner Jim Irsay made this comment
“We can make it work if he wants to be here,” Irsay said. “We’d be excited to have him back and finish his career with us.
“I want him to be able to make the choice. We would love to have him back here if he can get healthy and we can look at doing a contract that reflects the uncertainty of the . . . healing process with the regeneration of the nerve.”
This comes from a guy who a year ago wanted to make Peyton the highest paid player in the NFL. In fact, last July Peyton rejected a 5 year $100 million deal for a 5 year $90 million deal, allegedly because he wanted to keep a team around him.
“While I appreciate Jim Irsay offering to make me the highest-paid player,” Manning told The Indianapolis Star, “I told him I’d rather he save that money and keep whoever it is … (running back) Joe Adda, (left tackle) Charlie Johnson… whoever that may be. I’m willing to take less than they’ve offered if they are going to take that money to keep players we need to keep and go get other players. All I want is for them to have the cap and the cash to keep the players they want to keep and to sign other players.”
Now, 8 months later, Jim Irsay is trying to put Peyton’s future on him. Seems a little cowardly to me. Honestly, I think Irsay owes Manning a big payday. Yes, the NFL is a business, and not a charity, but Manning has taken a backwater NFL team that had been lackluster for over 20 years and put them on the map. Remember, in 1996 they won 3 times in 1997 to draft Manning. In the last 14 years the have been one of the elite teams in the league with a Super Bowl victory and a shiny new $720 million stadium that hosted the 2012 Super Bowl. The Colts and the city of Indianapolis owe Peyton a lot.
Sure, it’s hard to feel sorry for a guy who has made $174 million in his career (plus endorsements which are probably more than his NFL contracts). It’s also hard to feel sorry for an NFL owner. Honestly, I think Peyton will want to pay, so if Irsay wants to renegotiate his contract to keep him on to work with Andrew Luck, then Peyton will likely go look for options elsewhere. If Irsay wants to pay him starting QB money in the hopes he gets better, Peyton will probably stick around. Either way, I hope Irsay treats him with respect and is a man about making his decision.
Tip for politicians – The Onion is satire
Posted by Bob Weber on Feb 7th, 2012 in Humor, Politics | 0 commentsJust when you thought everyone had figured out that The Onion was satirical and shouldn’t be taken seriously, another politician links to one of their articles. Dr. John Fleming, a Republican congressmen from Louisiana was duped by an article titled Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex and posted the article to his Facebook account.
The post as been taken down, but you can view it at Literally Unbelievable who archives posts that take The Onion seriously. One commenter posted:
The Onion is satire. How exactly did you get elected?
That may be a little harsh, even savvy longtime twitterer Ashton Kutcher makes mistakes.
Roger Goodell to end Pro Bowl?
Posted by Bob Weber on Feb 6th, 2012 in football | 0 comments
It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Two of the greatest teams in the league are ready to face off and what is Roger Goodell talking about? How players played in the pro bowl???
During a conversation with ESPN Radio yesterday Goodell made these comments about the Pro Bowl
“I really didn’t think that was the kind of football that we want demonstrating to our fans,” Goodell said. “The fans were actively booing in the stands. They didn’t like what they were seeing.”
For the last couple of years it’s become obvious that Goodell really wants the Pro Bowl to turn a profit. Since 1980 the Pro Bowl was held in Honolulu at the Aloha Stadium on the week after the Super Bowl. For 30 years it was basically a paid vacation for the best players in the league. In a quest to line the NFL coffers even more, the league (Goodell) has decided to tinker with the game. The first change was to move the game to the week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, this means that many of the best players, those on the Super Bowl teams, won’t participate. The other move was to play the game in Miami who was hosting the 2010 Super Bowl. Moving the game must not have panned out because in 2011 it was back in Hawaii.
The bottom line here is nobody cares. No serious fan even wants to watch the Pro Bowl. It’s at the end of a 6 month season where anyone who is a big fan has likely watched hundreds if not thousands of hours of football. By this time everyone is looking forward to getting acquainted with their wives and children again.
Goodell’s mantra has been player safety for the last couple years. He’s handed down fines liberally and changed the rules to protect players. Now he is making threats to try and increase the competitiveness of a game that is absolutely meaningless, increasing the chances of a player getting injured.
The league can’t get rid of the game, it would just be wrong. The big thing about the Pro Bowl isn’t the game itself, it’s getting selected. If you eliminate that are you going to go to some other ‘all star’ program? Are we going to lose the prestige of having a player that’s been to the Pro Bowl multiple times? Is that recognition going to go away? The NFL makes good money, and I’m sure the ticket prices for the 50,000 people that actually watch the Pro Bowl more than offsets the cost of flying the players out and having the game. These guys give their whole lives to the sport, just let them have a weekend in Hawaii where they don’t get hurt and stop making so much noise about it. Stop trying to squeeze an extra nickel out of every event the NFL has, it’s petty and makes the league seem greedy. And most of all, stop expecting any of us to watch more meaningless games.
Oil Subsidies and Jobs in China
Posted by Bob Weber on Jan 25th, 2012 in Politics | 0 comments
Last night President Barack Obama gave the final State of the Union address of his first term. Much of his speech as a regurgitation of his previous State of the Union addresses, and if you are interested in some fact checks there are several good articles out on it now, like this fact check of Obama ideas that have already flopped. This post is a commentary on two specific items. Oil Subsidies and American Jobs.
Oil Subsidies
“We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.” – Barack Obama, 2012 State of the Union address
Obama’s position has always been anti-big oil. During his Presidential campaign he promised to take the profits from the oil companies and redistribute them to all of us.
Obama and Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
Of course, we all hate big oil (unless we work for them or are a shareholder) just like we hate any company that makes billions of dollars in profit every year from us. Does our hate and envy justify removing oil subsidies? Keep in mind that oil subsidies are not just a big gift we give to big oil. Subsidies are designed to help oil companies explore and create new oil sources domestically and to keep the price of gas down at the pump. Removing oil subsidies could quite possibly increase gas prices and reduce domestic production. This is certainly something that should be explored, but could possibly be better implemented when we have a stronger economy.
Overseas Job Loss
“We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores…. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.” – Barack Obama, 2012 State of the Union address
Job creation isn’t something that should be approached with hand wringing and begging. Businesses send jobs overseas for one reason, it’s cheaper. Labor is cheaper and there is less regulation. Fortunately our government has a way around this, it’s called a Tariff. The trend for the last 60 years or so has been toward ‘free trade’. Why? Several reasons, prior to 1913 tariffs were the way the US government generated most of it’s revenue. After the Sixteenth Amendment passed, Income Tax started to take over as the primary revenue source. In the 30s and 40s the US was a manufacturing powerhouse, and tariffs caused problems with the products we exported. Rich Americans wanted imported goods at a cheap price, so we started moving toward free trade. Unfortunately manufacturing moved overseas as well, labor laws and regulation increased costs here and employment dropped. Increasing tariffs is a risky proposition, it will certainly make big corporations like Apple angry, and it will raise the price of consumer goods, but it shouldn’t have impact of common costs of living like heat, water, electricity, phone service, Internet and housing, plus it would be a new revenue stream for the government.
Sometimes there are simple reasons and solutions to our economic problems, but they aren’t popular, so they don’t get the attention they deserve. Instead we get hollow promises and recycled, but failed, plans.
Seize the Deal – Fro Yo Fail
Posted by Bob Weber on Jan 16th, 2012 in business, Crazy Marketing | 0 comments
Spooners Frozen Yogurt in Fort Collins. A friend in Fort Collins LOVES Spooners and Fro Yo in general, so I thought I would surprise him with a coupon for $10 in yogurt.
The purchase went great, but the first snag was that they didn’t send the deal out right away. I bought it on a Friday and for some reason they didn’t deliver the deal until the following Monday. This restriction was included in the fine print, but didn’t really feed my need for instant gratification the way the Internet is supposed to. Of course, by Monday the purchase was forgotten and didn’t come back to mind until I received a notification about my voucher on the following Wednesday (remember, this was supposed to go to my friend).
So today, 10 days after my initial purchase, I asked my friend about it. He never did see an email about the Fro Yo, so I tried to forward him the notification I had received. He wasn’t able to log in and access the voucher, so I sent him my email and password so he could get the coupon.
After all this, I thought I would send an email to Seize the Deal support and see what they said. Initially an Out of Office notification was sent out, they only have support from 8am – 5:30pm CST Monday through Thursday. The request was sent out at 12:30pm on Monday, it was MLK Day so maybe Seize the Deal keeps Banker/Government hours. Surprisingly, only 3 minutes later a real response was sent offering to forward the link to my friend. This course of action had already been pursued and I informed support of that as well as informing them that I just sent him my login and password so he could get his Voucher.
Seize the Deal’s response?
“Very good – Glad you were able to get it to him.”
Really? No Apology? No explanation of how this is supposed to work? No link to an FAQ for people who don’t get their Vouchers? Nope, just a “Very Good”.
I’ve spent a couple hours trying to figure out how to get a voucher for $5 in free Fro Yo and Seize the Deal doesn’t care. I think next time I’ll just skip it and just pay full price for the yogurt, it will be cheaper.
