TheHurl

in last year's trade value top 50 Donaldson came 17th and Strasburg 26th.

When you mentioned this I remembered that one of my old friends is the producer for HNIC. So I asked them...unfortunately I didn't get a response that answered it. "I am afraid I do not have the answer to this. I would say that yes, units would be sold by round. Playoffs are tricky as it could be a 4 or 7 game series. I even believe gm 7 would make more money than say game 3. I do know that Leafs and Canucks are the fan favourites so they draw bigger money. Often playoff spots are decided 4 games before the puck drops on the post season. How it all works I have no idea. We have what we call "wilds" which are spots that can be dropped if we run heavy (Damn Ron and Don! Kidding) in the playoffs and finals those become fewer and fewer." so maybe during a playoff series that involves higher ratings they can oversell it and cut out some of the bits they do. That makes sense to me.

I had no idea the Habs were going to do this. Nice!

does he ever... http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~jasonw/images/Robot&water4.JPG

Illitch would be happy to go back to bottom of the MLB payroll if it doesn't affect the rest of his business ventures.

I've never played the game while sober before...but just at home watching football so I signed up with "TheHurl"

Did I mention I'm old and sick. Honestly if I had money on GB in this game...I'd probably have broke my TV.

If they were forced mistakes yes. Dropped passes...bad decisions, poor execution. This shouldn't be a game...it's GB not executing to put the game away.

I hate mistake filled football games. Close doesn't always mean great for me. Exciting yes, good game...not at all IMO

Just throw to Jordy...all day.

just an ugly last 2 minutes. Neither team should be allowed to play in the finals. I get the feeling that this one goes to OT and gets called a great game. Which it's been far from.

why slide after the INT? You are defensive back running against Offensive players, with over 5 minutes to play. I don't think this will end up being costly to GB...but still has me scratching my head. f*** safe play!

And I find it odd that you have 2,307 posts and haven't had one intelligent one. So much for the blind squirrel theory.

Continuing to say it doesn't make it true. The Jays were in first place by 6.5 games and attendance levels were below their 4th place teams. Then reference all the other examples I gave that debunks that myth that winning automatically means increase in attendance. Rogers isn't a he to spend that money. It's a they...and "they" owners will always have to answer to shareholders first. At what point are Jays fans going to get used to the fact that this team is going to have a budget to work around? This board must love it that I have been sick for two weeks now and have time to wet blanket everything. I mean who doesn't love a wet blanket?

Did an O-Lineman really just mock Rodgers?

at least opponents swung at over 40% of his pitches last year. It's still the second lowest in baseball (of qualified pitchers) but at least it's going up (which might be a factor of the catchers getting so many calls for him causing hitters to swing). He's been a guy I've thought of as a stay away from for a couple seasons now.

You do realize I'm not a fan of this front office right? I think they made excellent moves so far this year, they helped themselves this season and didn't do it at the cost of the future. How is that not optimistic from a guy that isn't a fan of the team? I have my views (the correct views of course cause I'm never wrong...well 50% of the time I'm never wrong) and I think offensive depth is their biggest weakness...improving the pitching at the cost of future years payroll, doesn't help with what I think is the biggest weakness and failure or success on the season would still likely rest on the health of several 30 somethings hitters. Again I'll re-iterate my view on what's best for the Jays in 2015 (and it's just my opinion, it will likely never be proven correct as I don't think the front office thinks the same). Sign a guy that can play 2B and multiple other positions. The two guys that best fit this mold, and were or are available, are Zobrist and Zobrist lite (Luis Valbuena). Having a 2B starter that can play multiple positions allows a guy I really like (Travis) to be your injury depth. The step down from Reyes to Travis is big (should Reyes get hurt) but it's not going to kill you. Currently if Reyes gets hurt...Ryan Goins is playing SS and Travis is playing 2B. If that injury is 10 weeks...that's a bigger drop than I think a whole season of Shields vs. a whole season of Norris (who I am also quite high on). Build the offensive depth...see what you have in the young pitchers and use trades during the season, with your minor league pitching depth, to fill the holes you might have. If the Jays sign Shields it improves the team, I don't deny that. But I think the Jays are depending on the health of too many offensive guys.

Here is an interesting look. Total ad revenue for 2012 Sportsnet is $82M. In 2012 I would guess that the BlueJays were a significant chunk of that....but it's not like Sportsnet is making $100's of Millions off the Jays. The total revenue for the entire station in 2012 wasn't even that. http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-02-19-rogers1.png edit...actually this shows that NHL in 2012 provided Sportsnet with almost 30% of their total advertising revenue. http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-02-19-rogers2.png Here is the full article it's about the Rogers NHL deal and how can it possibly make money http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/barry-kiefl/rogers-nhl_b_4815741.html

I know for independent stations rates stay the same and are updated quarterly (so advertising on a Saturday at 2:00 am would cost the same in October, as it would in November or December, I remember this from my days at Rogers...but that's also 30 years ago, as far as I can tell from Google searches it's sill the same though). I don't know about sports though. Do they sell ad time by the season (for some sponsors I would guess that's true as we see the same companies advertising for the whole season...these are usually the Jays chief sponsors though), monthly, weekly, or game by game. So much of business models and costs is easy to find online. This is something I've never been able to find. There was one poster who was good at explaining how things worked for ratings to cost. I know he still posts here, I just can't remember the name.

Because the CFL signed a stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid (I don't think I can stress this enough) contract in 2008. They were averaging 370K in viewership in 2007 (compared to almost double that now) but TSN was also in 1/2 of the households in comparison to now. TSN knew they would be part of every single basic cable package by 2008 and increases were virtually automatic. It was considered a sweetheart deal. Which brings us to today...Sports advertising revenue is at an all time high just based on one fact...it's live. Most people watch sports live (thus seeing the ads) in comparison to binge watching on Netflix and PVR'ing and skipping commercials of so many other shows. So CFL is more valuable right now because sports in general is more valuable advertising wise now. My point about the Jays is that TV contracts for the next season will likely be based on the average viewership over the year, which increased viewers at the end of the year will absolutely help. But the Jays averaging 1.5M in September won't bring increased revenues in September 2015. It's just not how it works.

Not factoring in what winning will do for the next year (cause that is huge I've never ever denied that). The counter argument is that setting up expectations and not meeting them, hurts sales the next year in ways that are equal to the positives of winning, 2013 proved this. 1. Merchandise is not team owned...it increases exposure and further's the value of the franchise but it's not a revenue factor as it's shared by the entire league. 2. I can't say for certain how Sportsnet sells it's playoff ad time...but I don't think they could wait to see if the Jays were there to set their rates (thoughts of the Jays being there might increase sales though). I could be wrong and I'd love to hear from someone who has more knowledge of this. 3. People have always said that contending in September will sell tickets. The truth is that tickets are mostly sold in the off season. Toronto has an okay weekend walk up and pre-sales traffic and a very small weekday walk up traffic. If future single game tickets were huge, the Jays would have sold their August and September games out when they were in first place by 6.5 games in June this year...but that doesn't happen (It's a fact, it's not just Toronto, in general locals don't make plans months in advance). Scalpers are the only people who might forecast September standings. As it turns out the Jays have 3 series in September...and regardless of standings they will be three well attended series. Boston on a weekend...last place Jays draws probably 28K for that series, first place Jays 45K is my guess. NYY on a weekday. Draws over 20K at any time. First place Jays probably draws 33ish. and the final home games of the year (averaged 35 and 37K the last two years). So were talking about probably 75 to 100K in increased attendance for a first place Jays team drawing huge buzz. I'm not saying that's not insignificant numbers...but it's not like the 10K in season tickets that the Marlins and Mets trades sold in 3 days. You don't increase your payroll based on "projected increased revenue if the team is in the hunt"...it's just really bad business. The model I always use for winning alone not selling tickets is the Yankees. In the 90's they were 7th in attendance when they first made the playoffs in 2005. The next year they were 7th in attendance but had a solid increase...they won the world series in 2006...the next year they increased ticket sales again...but were 6th in the AL still. They went on to win 4 world series in 5 years...and finally jumped up to #2 in AL attendance. That's 6 years in a row in the playoffs...4 World Series won in the biggest city and one of the biggest stadiums in the MLB...and they aren't outdrawing Seattle (or Cleveland in 2000). What finally pushed the NYY to number 1 and that increase from 42K to 46K (and eventually 50K)...outspending every team. So yes marketing a James Shields signing might do well for revenue as it will hype there off-season and season ticket sales (although he's James Shields he's not a name that casuals are going to jump out of their seats for), but saying "winning sells tickets" is a terrible and proven wrong marketing plan. Tampa made the playoffs for 2nd time in 3 years and the next year their attendance decreased by 5K and dropped to it's levels when they were among the worst teams in baseball. Baltimore will likely see a decrease this year. Cleveland made the playoffs in 2013, for the first time in 6 years, and attendance went down by 2K and they dropped for 2nd worst to worst (and actually went down in attendance for their 2013 playoff year). Toronto loves hype (see Raptors and it being the place to be during the playoffs last year). So you can do things to market a winning Jays team even in September when the kids are back in school but it's more in the hands of PR...rather than a marketing dept.

I still call ******** on this 40K through September. The Jays were 3.5 games back of a playoff on September 10th...and drew an average of 26K for a weekend series. They are not drawing 40K for weekdays...there just isn't walk up traffic for games. I can see the weekend Red Sox series on September 18th, 19th and 20th doing well regardless of the standings. Having a weekday series against the Yankees helps as far as weekdays go but still not going to sell out. That Rays series on a weekend...normally I'd say that would be a 27K series again...but it's the last home games so it should do okay. Turns out though the Jays have 17 of their last 26 on the road so this perceived meaningful games in September will shoot attendance through the closed roof isn't really a factor. As for ratings...it's not like revenue is paid by viewers per game. A good run will up the overall numbers for Sportsnet...but that revenue won't be seen until the next year or so.

Playoff gates are split between the commissioners office (so all teams), the players and the team. Here’s how postseason ticket revenue is divided: 15 percent of the paid attendance receipts of every postseason game is contributed to the Commissioner’s Office. 50 percent of the paid attendance receipts from the Wild Card games is contributed to the Players Pool. 60 percent of the paid attendance receipts from the first three games of each Division Series is contributed to the Players Pool. 60 percent of the paid attendance receipts from the first four games of each Championship Series and the World Series is contributed to the Players Pool. All paid attendance receipts not paid to the Commissioner’s Office or contributed to the Players Pool is shared equally between the two teams in each Series or Wild Card game. Wendy Thurm did some interesting calculations after the 2012 playoffs and estimated the following numbers as take. Wildcard losers - $500K First round losers (depending on the number of games): between 2.6M - 5.5M Pennent losers $10M WS Loser $17M WS Winner $20M Players pool $81M That's based on ticket sales alone. Concession sales are not going to be any different than a sold out weekend game but still a bonus I'm sure. The economic impact on the city is pretty huge, but that isn't helping the team.

$137,177,700

PROJECTED 2015 LINEUP Catcher Sebastian Valle First Base Ryan Howard Second Base Chase Utley Third Base Maikel Franco Shortstop Freddy Galvis Left Field Domonic Brown Center Field Shane Victorino Right Field Hunter Pence No. 1 Starter Cliff Lee No. 2 Starter Roy Halladay No. 3 Starter Cole Hamels No. 4 Starter Trevor May No. 5 Starter Vance Worley Closer Phillippe Aumont