- Who hasn’t thought to themselves at some point, “You know
what would make the NBA much better? If it were more like the women’s
basketball charity project it subsidizes or European league soccer.” New commissioner Adam Silver has clearly
thought that to himself and he is setting a plan in motion to make sure that
the NBA, WNBA and English Premier League share a very important denominator in
their respective games. Silver informed an audience at the IMG World Congress
of Sports on Wednesday that like the Phoenix Mercury and Arsenal, NBA teams’
game uniforms will almost certainly feature sponsors' logos in the next five
years. “It just creates that
much more of an opportunity for our marketing partners to get that much closer
to our fans and to our players," Silver said at the conference. “It gives
us an opportunity just to have deeper integration when it comes to those forms
of sponsorship.” In other words, we make more money. Yes, making uniforms look
like tacky NASCAR vehicles is always a brilliant play, even if it should
surprise no one at all that Silver is leading the charge on this. Back in 2011,
the then-deputy commissioner said putting logos on jerseys would be worth about
$100 million a year to the league. His push lost some stram in recent months and
suggested earlier this year that the move to logo patches on jerseys had slowed
in recent years because it was unclear how advertising on jerseys might
compromise the advertising being sold by the league's national television
partners. "We know what the value is to advertisers in a world of
1,000-plus channels to be able to show fans in-game branding," Silver said.
It is the NBA charity case that is the WNBA which has gone more all-in on
jersey advertising than any other American pro sports leagues, to the point
that sponsors’ logos on many teams' jerseys dwarf the teams' actual logos. Then
again, the WNBA is a money pit that needs all of the revenue it can get……..
- Stories of people paying absurd amounts of money for
absurdly small apartments – or glorified shoe closets – in Manhattan are both
plentiful and always amusing. Back in September, a real estate listing for a Harlem
apartment that was “smaller than a jail cell” was taken off the market after
news about it spread and the story grew too quickly. But just like that, a tale
of a tiny pad going for a huge wad of cash is back on the scene and this one is
both wildly overpriced and a curious study in the psyche of the insanity of an
eastern European. A Hungarian designer with a big apptite for marking up prices
bought an über-tiny SoHo studio for $287,000, made some solid modifications and
now feels comfortable gouging prospective buyers for a robust $1 million. The
entire apartment – itself the size of a small living room – is being
“foldable.” What the hell does that even mean? As the made-up moniker would
suggest, the mini-apartment has fold-out amenities like a guest “bedroom,” a
dining room table and a work area. Tables and beds that fold out and can be
folded out of the way in order to provide actual living space when a person
wants to move around are somehow supposed to be enough to drive the value up to
more than three times the original price. Should this cheap ploy actually work,
it could be the new wave in the world of “micro-apartments,” which have emerged as the smaller, even
more uncomfortable cousins of the small apartments that have been a New York
City staple for so many years. Designers and slum lords are always looking to
push the boundaries of what is acceptable and odds are, it will not end
here………..
- Virtual reality was cutting edge and futuristic about 20
years ago, but just because the tech world has moved on to better things does
not mean that that companies aren’t still battling away on their ideas for it.
Sony is one such business and the Japanese tech giant unveiled a prototype
headset this week capable of surrounding a wearer's vision with interactive
virtual worlds. The system, codenamed Project Morpheus, is based around a head-mounted
1080p display with head-tracking capabilities. It functions in concert with the
PlayStation 4 console to display imagery on the headset's screen, providing a
90-degree field of view. Sony demonstrated the system at the Game Developers
Conference, showing off its halo-like ring that snaps into place around the
head. A wheel located on the rear headband can be further adjusted for an even
closer fit. Based on the design, Sony sought to improve on the Oculus Rift, a
similar virtual reality headset that has been teased but never released in the
past two years. Some aspects of the Morpheus need work, as a long, heavy black
cable protruding from the side of the visors and dangling headphone cords could
be cleaned up. At GDC, Sony debuted several programs designed specifically for
its new glasses, including one that positions the user as a deep sea diver
inside a shark cage and a sci-fi multiplayer dogfighter game pitting players
against each other in the cockpits of galactic fighter jets. One of the games
incorporated gesture-detecting PlayStation Move controllers in each hand,
allowing for more active gaming. The price point and ease of use remain major
topics for the project and Project Morpheus isn't exactly set to hit store
shelves any time too soon……..
- Tyler, The Creator is better known as Tyler, The Agitator, but his
abrasive act does cause him plenty of trouble. The more popular member of Odd
Future has sparked multiple on-stage altercations and been in more than his
share of scraps since becoming kinda, sorta famous and his antics were in full
effect over the weekend at the South by Southwest festival, where he was
arrested for allegedly inciting a riot. He was playing the Thrasher Converse
Death Match event at the Scoot Inn when the incident took place, heading up a
bill that included Nothing, F*cked Up, Ratking and Ryan Hemsworth. What
happened and what the intent behind it was depends upon whom you ask and the
most recent person to be asked that question was the artist’s attorney, Perry
Q. Minton, who issued a statement about the incident that led to his client
being arrested and charged with a Class A misdemeanor with bail set at $25,000.
"At no time during the concert did Tyler seek to incite or participate in
riotous activity as has been reported in the press,” Minton said. “It is clear
from video clips and witness reports that the patrons and fans attending the
show on that date were full of positive energy appropriate for this type of
event and never exhibited any anger or aggression whatsoever. For law
enforcement or the media to describe the rush of fans through the gate and the
subsequent benign, boisterous activity as a riot is an unfortunate and
inaccurate description of what occurred.” Ah, the ol’ “positive energy
defense.” Tyler, The Creator’s manager Christian Clancy also took up for his
meal ticket with a Tumblr post in which he ass-hattedly claimed that “Tyler had
a punk rock moment at the Converse/Thrasher show at sxsw.” Hey tool, your
client is neither punk nor rock. He’s a loudmouth, B-list rapper whose primary
claims to fame are assaulting audience members and starting riots. You can cite
the chaos at a Rage Against The Machine or Metallica show as an example of what
your client is all about, but until he has 1/1,000th the game of those artists,
you and he should keep their names out your mouth……..
- It’s gettin’ real (ugly and oppressive) real quick in
Venezuela. Venezuelan
President/despot Nicolas Maduro may have only been in office for a year, but he
has clearly learned how to wield and abuse the myriad military, legislative and
judicial powers consolidated during 15 years of socialist rule in his country. Maduro’s
mentor and predecessor in tyranny, the late Hugo Chavez, showed him the way and
Maduro proved he has mastered those lessons with a sudden and severe series of
attacks against opponents who have spent more than a month protesting in the
streets. Maduro and his muscle sprang into action Tuesday, tearing down
barricades erected by the opposition movement and imprisoning dissident leaders
in a blitzkrieg of abuse that left two major opposition politicians behind
bars, one of them sentenced to more than 10 months in prison. Even as the jail
doors were clanking shut behind those two, pro-government lawmakers were hard
at work targeting another outspoken critic of the Maduro regime. San Diego
Mayor Enzo Scarano was removed from his post by the Supreme Court, arrested and
on the same day sent to begin a 10 1/2-month prison term for failing to heed a
court order to have protesters' barricades removed in his city and the same
fate befell San Cristobal Mayor Daniel Ceballos, who was arrested as well on
charges of rebellion and conspiracy. Maduro warned last month that Ceballos
would soon join opposition hardliner Leopoldo Lopez behind bars for fomenting
violence. "It's a matter of time until we have him in the same cold
cell," Maduro said. This despotic dictator is obviously a man who keeps
his promises, even if that does make him an insecure and abusive ass hat……….
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