#AFL is free to use my ideas

[blueberry-ovaries]

MISC. TAG GAME:

thank you for the tag @ronald-speirs, @panzershrike-pretz @malarkgirlypop and @grumpy-liebgott !!! sorry it took me so long!

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?

oooh okay so recently i came back from europe, and i literally loved it so much! i oddly enough LOVED vatican city! and i absolutely adored venice and paris! however, london was also really nice! (i cannot decide i’m so sorry😭)

Something you’re proud of yourself for?

Honestly, going to University! Even when it’s hard and i hate it and have no idea what i’m doing, the fact i made it into university is something i’m very proud of!

Favourite books?

the picture of dorian gray - Oscar Wilde

a good girls guide to murder - Holly Jackson

5 survive - Holly Jackson

the outsiders - S.E Hinton

of mice and men - John Steinbeck

Something that makes your heart happy when you think about it?

my dog :) - his name is cisco and he was free to a good home and under fed, and now he gets treats every time we leave the house and sleeps on the bed

Favourite thing about your culture?

about being Australian? I would suppose our love for sport. We play so many sports over here and we support the aussies even if we don’t like the sport! For example the Matilda’s, our women’s soccer team! Soccer isn’t as big as AFL over here, but i’ve never seen so much support behind Womens soccer, let alone ANY soccer, as we’re very proud of our sporting teams!

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?

close to two years ago? i’m not too sure, but i watched BoB first!

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?

I have not! but i am trying to get my hands on the Dick Winters and Ron Speirs books!

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?

Babe Heffron! and the “are you serious?! only the goddamn nuns call me Edward” BUT the scene with Gene in the fox hole where Babe mocks Gene calling him Babe is a very close second

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?

i have been known to dabble in other fandoms on other apps in fanfic writing 🤭

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?

ANDREW GARFIELD!!! and i am The Amazing spider-man enthusiast!!! (plus hacksaw ridge is a masterpiece)

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?

Some quotes my dad likes to tell me when i’m really anxious over university/ actively having a panic attack are:

“you can only do what you can do” - which pretty much means that all i can do is my best, and the rest will sort itself out, there’s no use stressing over situations i have no control over.

“how do you eat an elephant?” - which basically means, to tackle something large you take it one step at a time, ergo - to eat an elephant you eat it piece by piece

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?

Oh God, i’m not a very interesting person 🧍🏼‍♀️

I got swooped by birds in a century once and have hated birds ever since

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?

i do not have a beta reader 🤭 so position is potentially open 🤭

Three things that make you smile?

- sunsets! i LOVE watching sunsets i just think they are so pretty!

- rainy days (only when i’m inside) But i love rainy days, when i can sit by a window to read or do homework etc. I just think there is something so beautiful about rain!

- chocolate chip cookies :) my FAVOURITE cookies! i do not care if they are basic i love them sm

Any nicknames you like?

most of my nicknames :) But especially the nicknames that my parents give me :))

List some people you love to see around on tumblr:

i’m so sorry if i forget anyone @malarkgirlypop @ronald-speirs @ronsparky @mads-nixon @panzershrike-pretz @executethyself35 @next-autopsy @winnielefou @1waveshortofashipwreck @footprintsinthesxnd @caffeinated-fan @dontirrigateme @softliebgott @xxluckystrike @easycompany123 (+ all my mutuals who i have not tagged, love y’all i just have shocking name recollection)

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?

i mean it would depend on what kinda zombies?? But most likely keeping friends and family alive.

Realistically, dying. i’m not dealing with all that.

Favorite movie?

mulan!!! i LOVE mulan (clearly… i’m literally writing a fic with mulan ideas)

Do you like horror movies?

i got a live hate relationship with them. Like i HATE religious horror with a passion, it freaks me the fuck out, but the conjuring series has great story lines?? However i watched the nun once and i swear to god i almost shit myself whenever k had to leave my room at night?! I was CONVINCED that motherfucker was gonna be in my house.

NO PRESSURE TAGS: @mads-nixon @easycompany123 @executethyself35 @montied @ronsparky @dontirrigateme (plus everyone else who would like to do this! consider this an offical tag!)

[fazcinatingblog]

All these fancy new food places at Marvel this year wow too bad we only play there twice a year

[buckys-black-dress]

inked

a/n: here she is!!! while i work on afl, here is my crackfic on tattoo artist bucky!! if u haven’t caught on yet, most of my writing is au’s because of all the possibilites in terms of scenarios and storylines. anyways, i hope you enjoy, lovies!!! xoxo, ali <3

wc: 2.8k 

[tattoo artist!bucky x fem!reader]

-

It was like an addiction. 

Your first tattoo you got was simple. It was a dainty, small one on your wrist.

But now, it was slowly developing into a sleeve.

Not that you minded, though. Your forearm was slowly becoming filled with designs that you kept going back and getting here and there.

And at the tattoo parlor near your apartment in Brooklyn, you had become a regular at this point.

It was called B&R Tattoo Shop, and it was run by two of the kindest, but most attractive men you’ve ever met. 

You’ve come to find out after getting to know the owners, that they opened the shop a bit after they returned from their second tour in the army and wanted to settle back in their hometown.  

Steve and James were hospitable to you, especially when they first met you. Steve was the one to meet you and speak with you at first, but he handed you off to James, or Bucky as he asked you to call him, because he was the artist at their shop that specialized in more of what you were looking for in terms of style. 

As far as first tattoo conversations go, you and Bucky got to know each other pretty well in one session. The tattoo itself took less than an hour, but it felt like Bucky was... prolonging it in a way, like he wanted to keep you there longer.

As you swung open the door of the shop, you were greeted by their piercer, Natasha. 

“Hey, back for another already?” She smirks from her spot behind the desk. While she wasn’t piercing, she usually worked the front if there was no one else free.

Your first tattoo had been done by Bucky, and you instantly fell in love.

With the tattoo. 

Well, Bucky too. Just a little bit.

He was extremely soothing and eased you into the process of tattooing you. He told you when something was going to happen, and as soon as you got used to the feeling of the needle against your skin. 

The more he talked to you, the less pain you felt. It was already not that painful, but you almost forgot about it with him talking to you. When he looked up to you as he finished, you looked like a confused puppy.

“Okay, all done, doll.” Bucky looked up at you, moving to turn off his machine.

“Oh... that was fast.” You furrowed your brows.

“Well, yeah, we moved pretty fast since it was a pretty small piece.” He explains, grabbing a paper towel and the anti-bacterial spray.

“Do you mind if I take a quick picture of it? I usually do, for my portfolio.” Bucky asks, inspecting the tattoo closely once again.

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine.” You wait for him to pull out his camera, take the picture, and he comes back with a piece of plastic film in his hand.

“Okay, so this saniderm has to stay on for about three days. This is how it’ll heal, and when you take it off just wash it up with a gentle soap and use a cream without any fragrance or any of that crap. I can give you a little of that spray if you wanna use it to clean it up if you ever feel like it’s dirty.” Bucky explains, giving you a mini bottle of the antibacterial spray.

“Thank you,” you say, moving to sit up in the chair. “How much do I owe you?”

“Uh, just about $40.” Bucky says without eye contact, heading to the computer at the front counter.

“$40? That’s it? When I signed the waiver it said the shop minimum was $75...?” You wonder out loud.

“Let’s just say you get a special discount, doll.” He smirks, typing something into the computer and only sparing you a glance.

“O-Oh. Alright.” You say sheepishly, handing him your credit card.

“Okay, you’re all set. Hopefully I’ll see you again soon.” He tells you with a gentle smile. It really contrasted his aura; a big, beefy guy with a metal prosthetic arm, covered in probably hundreds of tattoos. But here he was, smiling like sunshine.

“I think I will be. Have a nice day, Bucky.” 

“You too, sweetheart.” He gives you that smirk again, making you feel like you might actually pass out. And not because you just had a needle jabbed into your skin for almost an hour.

“Uh, I already talked to Bucky for my session today. I know I’m a bit early, I can wait if he’s still working on someone else.” You tell Natasha with a smile.

“Sure, let me get you your waiver.” She says, and you plop down into one of the chairs at the front and pulling out your book to pass time after filling out the form.

After a few minutes, Bucky emerges with a girl from his little tattooing corner.

You hear his voice first, looking up from the book while he talks to her.

“Okay, since this was your first piece and pretty small, I’ll only charge ya $55 for it, doll.” Bucky tells the girl with a smile, and you immediately feel a pang in your chest.

You didn’t want to say you were jealous, but goddamn it, your breathing became just a little more shallow at the sight you were currently witnessing.

Even Natasha and Steve turned their heads to him, confused looks on both of their faces.

“Oh! Y/N, you’re here! C’mon back, I’m sure Nat already set you up with your waiver.” You nod, not saying a word as you follow him to the familiar chair.

“So, are we still doing what we discussed on the phone?” Bucky asks, setting up his area to tattoo you.

“Actually, I was thinking something different.” You say sharply.

“Different?” The shock is evident on his features. 

“Yeah. Different. Just want a little something on my collarbone.” You say, sitting down. 

“O-Okay... what were you thinking of?” He asks, pulling out his sketchbook.

“I want an olive branch, going from here to here.” You show him where you want it to start and end. It was a bit of a stretch right across the left side of your chest. “Something simple and minimal. I’ve been thinking of starting the top of my sleeve, this might be a good way to transition into it.” You say nonchalantly.

“Uhm... alright. How does this look?” Bucky asks, showing you his sketch. “I would, of course, add more detail to your liking, just let me know.” 

“Yeah, I want some more shading, please.” You say shortly. You honestly weren’t trying to be mean, but you were irritated.

But in the end, you really had no right to be. 

After almost ten sessions with Bucky, he hasn’t made any indication that he likes you the way you like him.

Sure, he calls you pet names, but he does that to everyone. Even discounts. You weren’t special. He was just being nice and doing his job.

So honestly, you had to cut the act here.

“Are you sure this is what you want? Are you saving the other design for our next session?” Bucky asks, growing more and more concerned with your odd behavior. Usually you would talk to him about your day, how work was, really anything. 

“I don’t know. I think I might ask Steve to do that one instead.” You say out of spite, more than anything. You would never take a design that Bucky made specially for you to another person to tattoo on you, even if it was his own business partner.

“Wha- Why? Did I do something? You’ve been acting really weird today...” Bucky questions you carefully. “Talk to me, doll. Did you have a bad day at work?”

But that, that right there, was your breaking point. Doll. 

“No, I’m fine. Let’s just get this done.” You huff, laying down after nodding to the sketch that Bucky drew out. 

Bucky’s brows furrowed even further, but didn’t ask any more questions. He laid down the stencil and asked if the placement was alright. You looked in the mirror he handed you and nodded briefly. 

The entire time Bucky had the machine in his hand, neither of you spoke a word. He tried to make brief conversation, but you only responded with a hum or nod. 

When he finally finished up, you got up and headed to the counter without a word after looking at the finished tattoo in the mirror. 

Your face was blank, emotionless, and Bucky was truly lost. 

After you paid the full price of your piece, you walked out of the shop, not even sparing anyone a glance. 

Once you left, the shop was dead silent. Everyone either just finished up with a client or didn’t have any at the moment, and the shop was blanketed in an extremely uncomfortable silence.

“What the hell was that, man?” Sam’s voice broke the silence, making Bucky’s head snap towards him. 

“I-I... I have no idea. She was acting so...so weird today.” Bucky looked more confused than ever.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Natasha’s voice cuts through the palpable silence.

“Wh- What the hell did I do? I asked her too, and she didn’t give me an answer...” Bucky mumbles.

“Do you like her?” She fires back with a fire in her eyes.

“W-Well, yeah. She’s a regular.” Bucky answers, looking at his fiddling hands.

“Not like that, you dunce. You know what I mean, don’t act dumb.” Natasha rolls her eyes.

Bucky sighs, not making eye contact yet again.

“I-... I do like her.” He says. “But I don’t think she feels the same.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ... You really are a dumbass.” Sam sighs out.

Steve snorts at his words, nodding in agreement.

“Buck, she got jealous.” He explains, shaking his head at his best friend’s obliviousness.

“J-Jealous? Of what?” Bucky scoffs in shock.

“That girl you had right before her. Gave her a discount, called her pet names. The whole shabang.” Natasha points out to him. “Also, you gotta stop giving out discounts like that. You’ll lose more money than you’re makin’.” Natasha scoffs. 

“Wh- But... She never said anything...?” Bucky thinks back to all the times you’ve sat in his chair. You never made any indication that you were outwardly interested in him.

“I think she said enough today without actually saying much.” Steve laughs. His friend was a real idiot.

“I... But, why didn’t she say anything before?” Bucky asked.

“Buck, you never said anything either. I guess that when she heard you talk to that girl like that, she thought you really didn’t like her like that at all. You treated that girl the same way you treat her.” Natasha explains to Bucky, who had a look of realization on his face.

“But... I was just... being nice...” He says with his head in his hands. 

“Well, now she thinks you do that with all you clients, so...” Sam says, making the brunet’s head shoot up.

“Fuck. Fuck. I fucked up everything!” He exclaims. “I-I do like her!” 

“Well, don’t tell us that, tell her!” Sam shouts back to him, and before Bucky can process, he’s pulling out his phone and dialing your phone number.

“C’mon, pick up, pick up,” He mumbles repeatedly, but the call goes to voicemail. “Fuck.”

“Not pickin’ up?” Steve questions, coming to the front and picking up the shop phone. “Gimme her number, she’s doesn’t have to shop saved to her phone, right?” 

“No, I don’t think she does.” Bucky says, watching as Steve dials your number.

“Hello?” Your voice sounds annoyed as it filters through the phone. “Who’s this?” 

“Uh, Y/N! Hi!” Steve speaks, looking at Bucky in a panic, his facial expression screaming, ‘talk to her!’ 

“Steve? What’s up?” You ask, wondering what he needed. 

“You uhh... you forgot your book here!” He blurts out, trying to find an excuse, but quickly found one upon seeing your book resting on the seat where you were waiting. 

“O-Oh... I guess I’ll just turn around. I’ll be there in a few. Thanks, Steve.” You say, ready to hang up.

“O-Okay. Bye, Y/N.” He clears his throat, hanging up. “You have like, ten minutes to get your shit together and talk to her when she gets here. Good luck.” Steve pats Bucky on the shoulder, ready to haul Natasha and Sam to the back to give you two some privacy.

Bucky thought that this was the longest ten minutes of his life, and he was trying to conjure up a speech in his head to confess to you.

Finally, when you did appear through the doors, you looked lost. You only saw Bucky, which made you even more aggravated from the fact that you had to turn back around.

You were ready to head home and wallow in peace, but alas, you wanted your book. 

Bucky just watched as you picked up the book from his grasp across the desk, your eyes not meeting his while he kept his gaze on you very intently. 

Just as you turned around to leave, Bucky’s voice cut through the unbearable silence.

“Y/N?” He simply asks, and you feel like the wind’s been knocked out of your lungs at the sound of his small voice. This wasn’t the Bucky you knew and... loved.

“Yes, James?” You simply respond, and Bucky cringes at the sound of his first name being used. 

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“...Why? Is everything alright?” And although your voice didn’t give it away, you felt your heart drop to your stomach. Any possible scenario popped into your head. He has a girlfriend. He’s gonna tell you he doesn’t wanna see you anymore. He-

“E-Everything’s fine, doll. Just wanted to tell you that... That I...” Bucky’s voice sounded strained, like there was something caught in his throat.

“Bucky, just spit it out.” You say, wanting to leave already.

“It’s just- I like you. A lot. And I’m so sorry for earlier with that other client. I was just trying to be nice, but I realized how that looked to you, and I never thought anything of it because I didn’t know if you liked me back or-” Bucky was rambling, and your eyes were wide as saucers.

“Bucky, Bucky stop. Let me talk before you drive your own head in with conclusions,” you say, resting your hand on top of his on the desk.

“I like you a lot, too. I didn’t think you like me either because of that girl before me. You just- you treated her the same way you treated me, and I got jealous. I know I didn’t have the right to be, but it just made me think that... that you didn’t feel the same way about me, that I was just another client to you. I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions, and also for being kind of a bitch to you...” Now you were the one rambling, your hands flying all over the place in explanation.

“D-Doll, I never wanted to make you feel that way. I’m sorry, too. I should’ve told you before, before I almost blew everything with you that we’ve been building these past months.” He says placing one large tattooed hand and one metal hand on the sides of your face. “But I’m not gonna miss my chance again. Y/N, would you like to go on a date with me?”

“I-I would love to, Bucky. Took you long enough to ask me.” You giggle, holding onto the hands on your face.

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of an idiot, if you haven’t already noticed.” He laughs, gazing into your eyes with a look that almost turned you to mush in his hands. 

“Do... do ya wanna go now?” You ask, nodding your head to the door.

“Sure, let me go grab my jacket from the back.” He tells you, and you nod, watching as he keeps his eyes on you until he disappears to the back.

“My man, who would’ve thought you’d finally man up?” Sam ridicules him as soon as Bucky appears.

“Dude, shut up. I got a date to get to, see you losers later.” He rolls his eyes, moving back out where you’re smiling at him.

“Ready, angel?” Bucky asks, slipping his hand into yours.

“Ready, handsome.” You reply, and as soon as you step out into the fall air, you plant a kiss on his cheek. “Where to, lover boy?”

[milf-harrington]

Okay first of all, I absolutely adore your college husband's zukka AU. Now for brain vomit: what if they live in the dorms and people still have no idea they're married? what if they have to deal with communal dorm bathrooms? college sports? being assigned to a project together in class and one of them sleeps on the couch that night (the common space couch obvi)? having to deal with a twin bed in the dorm? their rings - not actually gold, actually just something like string or a twist tie painted gold? having dinner with pianjeong? they celebrate their anniversary by having an actual meal that isn't instant ramen and then video game tournament (after studying of course)? there's so much more but I won't bother you with it at this moment...

first of all, thank you!!

second of all, i actually have answers to some of these adjfksj

- they do live in the dorms, and still none of their dorm mates have realised they’re married (most just think they’re witnessing a 200k enemies to lovers slowburn in real life)

- zuko hates the communal bathroom and will instead choose to go all the way to his uncles house just to use his shower, sokka on the other hand is used to sharing a bathroom with several people so he doesn’t really care and they aren’t the type of couple to shower together bc they both have very different ideas of ‘the perfect water temperature’ so it’s not much of an issue for them

- i don’t know anything about sports other than AFL (and even that is limited knowledge) so feel free to make your own headcanons about that

- do you mean like,, they get assigned a school project and then, like, get huffy or annoyed with each other so one of them gets kicked out and has to sleep on the common space couch?? bc yeah i can see that happening (not even just bc of a project, any argument could lead to being banished from the room for a night)

- they actually do have proper rings!! they went to an op shop (thrift store) and picked them out for each other 

- HAVING DINNER WITH PIANJEONG brb adding that to my notes

- ohh i love that idea!!

and please i’d love to hear more questions/ideas, this is making me so happy, i made the au entirely by accident so it’s so cool that so many people are this interested in it

[grootpoepjeplasjehoofd]

This book is insane, one minute you’re reading about Kahane’s scams, then the next you have tangents like this.

In the spring of 1965, Churba and Kahane set up the July Fourth Movement. According to Kahane, the organization tried to create cells on American college campuses to support the Vietnam War and to block the spread of the radical student Left. Kahane later told me that their pro-Vietnam venture received “seed money” from the government “and certain groups within the labor movement,” including the AFL-CIO under the leadership of George Meany. Churba and Kahane also received support from legendary cold warriors Jay Lovestone and Irving Brown, who had been top officials of the American Communist Party in the 1920s before undergoing a “Damascus Road” conversion and who subsequently ran the AFL-CIO’s powerful International Affairs Department under the tutelage of the CIA.

It was under the CIA’s direction that Lovestone and Brown— using Corsican and Italian mafiosos—set up right-wing death squads in Marseilles and other European cities after the Second World War to break the burgeoning left-wing labor movement.

In an article entitled “I’m Glad the CIA’s ‘Immoral,’ ’’ which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1967, Thomas Braden, who headed the CIA’s clandestine services in Western Europe in the early 1950s, wrote that it was his idea “to give ... $ 15,000 to Irving Brown... to pay off his strong-arm squads in Mediterranean ports so that American supplies could be unloaded against the opposition of Communist dock workers.’’* Brown’s success in France led to similar CIA-funded campaigns of subversion against trade union movements elsewhere in Europe and the Third World. “When they Ithe AFL-CIOl ran out of money, they appealed to the CIA,” wrote Braden, until recently the co-host of Cable News Network’s “Crossfire.” “Thus began the secret subsidy of free trade unions.”

By the mid-1960s, the AFL-CIO was busy propping up South Vietnam’s trade union movement as part of the war effort. * “I visited South Vietnam to work with trade unionists quite often,” Irving Brown told me shortly before he died in Paris in February 1989. Brown said that he and Lovestone “supported the July Fourth Movement” because “we liked their position on Vietnam.” According to Irving Brown’s son, Robert, who worked with the movement, his father introduced Kahane and Churba to wealthy conservatives, as well as to the heads of individual labor unions—like Mike Sampson, president of the Con Ed Local in New York, who contributed $5,000 to the July Fourth Movement from the union’s political slush fund.

Robert Brown was twenty-three when he first met Churba and Kahane in 1965 at his father’s office, where the two spelled out the goals of their group. He recalls that Kahane, who went by the name of Michael King, “appeared to be the more forceful of the two—a little too glib, a little too slick.” Nevertheless, like his father, Robert was impressed with their plan to build a student movement on college campuses that would support the Vietnam War. “Their presentation was fantastic,” said Robert Brown. “There was a screaming need for a student organization that would support the war. Remember this was the spring of 1965. The first U.S. Marine unit had arrived in Danang and President Johnson had raised the draft. King generated a certain sense of urgency and a desire for action, which was very appealing to us. Finally somebody on the Right wanted to do something.”

Churba and Kahane were certainly fortunate to meet Irving Brown and Jay Lovestone. The pair dominated the government’s postwar policies toward the international labor movement. The men themselves were part of a vast network of former Communists turned hard-right CIA assets who were dedicated to waging a no-holds-barred war against Soviet aggression. “My father saved Western Europe,” said Robert Brown. “Every time I drink good French wine I thank my father. Imagine what it meant for Churba and King to meet my father. They thought they were going to have it made.”

[lukealford]

Academic and Professional Communications - Week 13 - ‘Future Strategies

Think about your learning  development over the semester. What surprised you? What was positive and what was negative? 

I am enjoying this course and it’s keeping my attention far more than school ever did. The topics generally relate to something I know a little about so I can ground the new knowledge in existing knowledge making it easier for me to digest new content. In saying that, although I was told that the workload would be a lot, I had no idea what I was getting into. The pace of content is fast, then alongside that I have needed to learn how to reference, use journals, write a proper essay, and research. 

Learning to navigate the Holmesglen library and find the journals is a frustrating experience. I am using older journal articles that have free access because the material I want is not accessible. 

The amount of reading I need to get through is challenging, but I am working really hard to continue building my skills.

Knowledge

I have narrow interests, but I’ve realised I need to be across a much broader range of sports and world issues (Taylor, 2021) so I can understand the connections between sport, social and political events, business and other events like COVID-19.

Skills

I have good NBA and AFL knowledge, but I have skills gaps that I am working on. What I’m particularly focusing on this year is developing my essay writing skills and my organisational and time management skills. Every week I am making small steps forward. I am pleased about this as I know I need these skills not just for studying, but to become a productive employee too.

Attitudes/behaviours  

I have had a few times I have missed classes, and this has been because I’ve woken up late and been too embarrassed to arrive late to the class. I’m hoping that my confidence can improve and I can jump this hurdle in future. I actually think that my shy ways are my biggest hurdle. It stops me from giving full and frank feedback in group work; and it stops me from joining in on group events, sharing information and skills, and developing future networks (Kohler, n.d.), even though I know it’s important. I will work on my personal development in this area over the next semester to see if I can overcome this.

Artifact References

Kohler, C. (n.d.). The importance of networking in college - plus seven tips for success. TopResume.  https://au.topresume.com/career-advice/networking-tips-for-college-students

Nike. (2015, February 12). Welcome to Zoom City Arena: The Future of Basketball [Zoom Arena LED Court] https://news.nike.com/news/welcome-to-zoom-city-arena-the-future-of-basketball 

Student Services a. (n.d.). Improving cohesion. The University of Melbourne.  https://students.unimelb.edu.au/academic-skills/explore-our-resources/essay-writing/improving-cohesion

Student Services b. (n.d.). Building good paragraphs. The University of Melbourne. https://students.unimelb.edu.au/academic-skills/explore-our-resources/essay-writing/building-good-paragraphs

[wallpapernifty]

20 Ideas To Organize Your Own Morning Glory Paint | Morning Glory Paint

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[radically-kind]

Abolish?? The Police???

I know it sounds extreme to some. But 99% of abolitionists do not mean the destruction of police or prisons tomorrow morning. They mean something very different, and very reasonable. If you are willing to listen, there is a lot to learn from this movement. This is the kind approach. This is the radical approach.

Listen to the people actively instituting this change. Democracy Now! did a couple of wonderful interviews on June 8th, 2020 with those very folk. Transcript of the conversation with Jeremiah Ellison, Minneapolis City Councilor, is below. 

Video can be found here: 

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/8/minneapolis_police_abolition

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The City Council of Minneapolis announced Saturday it would disband and abolish the police department responsible for the killing of African American man George Floyd, following nearly two weeks of mass protest and growing calls to defund the police.

In a statement, nine of the city’s 12 councilmembers said, quote, “Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed, and will never be accountable for its action. … We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” they said.

The historic announcement comes after years of organizing on the ground by groups like Reclaim the Block, Black Visions Collective and MPD150.

This is Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender speaking Sunday.

LISA BENDER: Our commitment is to do what’s necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth, that the Minneapolis police are not doing that. Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.

AMY GOODMAN: A supermajority of Minneapolis city councilmembers support disbanding the police department, meaning Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who opposes abolishing the police, can’t override their efforts. Organizers with Black Visions Collective and other activists convinced the mayor to step outside his home Saturday to speak with them. This is organizer Kandace Montgomery.

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Jacob Frey, we have a yes-or-no question for you: Yes or no, will you commit to defunding Minneapolis Police Department?

MAYOR JACOB FREY: Abolition of it?

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: What did I say?

PROTESTERS: Defunding.

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: We don’t want no more police.

PROTESTER: No more!

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: It’s that clear. We don’t want people with guns toting around in our community, shooting us down. Do you have an answer? It is a yes or a no. It is a yes or a no.

PROTESTER: Yes or no!

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Will you defund the Minneapolis Police Department?

MAYOR JACOB FREY: I do not support the full abolition of the police department.

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: All right, fine! You’re wasting our time! Get the [bleep] out of here! Get the [bleep] out!

PROTESTERS: Go home, Jacob! Go home! Go home, Jacob! Go home! Go home, Jacob! Go home!

AMY GOODMAN: This rally was in downtown Minneapolis. Kandace Montgomery reminded demonstrators that Mayor Frey is up for reelection next year.

Well, we go now to Minneapolis, where we’re joined by City Councilmember Jeremiah Ellison.

Councilmember Ellison, welcome back to Democracy Now! This is a historic announcement that the majority of you on the City Council made at a big community rally last night, that you’re going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. Explain what that means.

JEREMIAH ELLISON: For me, it means that we’ve got to create a system of public safety that works for everybody. You know, I think the Minneapolis Police Department, even before the murder of George Floyd, has had a whole host of issues, a handful I can just rattle off the top of my head. You know, we dealt with an issue of the Minneapolis Police Department being involved in the illegal injection of ketamine of people who did not need it. We’ve had a history of not taking sexual assault cases seriously, investigations seriously, and actually recently lied about how many untested rape kits we had. And the list goes on and on.

And so, I think that there has been an acknowledgment that, you know, we have done everything we can on the reform side. We have a chief who is probably one of the most pro-reform chiefs and has instituted every reform we legally can. And so, where do we go from here?

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, he himself had sued the Minneapolis Police Department for racism, isn’t that true, years ago?

JEREMIAH ELLISON: Yeah, that is true. That is true. And so, I think that when we’re looking at having an amazing chief and we’re looking at having a council who has pushed for reform — and it’s not just that the relationship is bad; the relationship is untenable — where do we go from here? I think that that means we have to ask ourselves: What is the best way to keep people safe, if not the Minneapolis Police Department?

AMY GOODMAN: So, explain exactly what this would mean. You made the announcement. You haven’t had a vote in the City Council. So what happens today?

JEREMIAH ELLISON: Right. So, per the commitment that we made yesterday, we’re going to take the next year to engage the people of Minneapolis. You know, obviously, councilmembers have ideas, but I think that if the nine of us sat in a room for a couple days and cooked up a plan without any public engagement, I think that the community would reject that. And so, I think we’re going to commit to a year’s worth of conversations. I think in some ways it’s going to require every single resident in Minneapolis to give their input. But the groundwork is there. Some of the groundwork has been laid for what we can do to keep communities safe, other than have a police force.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, what exactly do you mean, though, you’re going to wait a year? So there will not be a vote taken in the City Council?

JEREMIAH ELLISON: No, we’re not going to wait a — sorry — we’re not going to wait a year. We’re going to engage the community for a year to develop a new system of public safety. You’ve got to understand, the police department has been around for 150 years. At least the Minneapolis — sorry — the Minneapolis Police Department has been around for over 150 years. And police departments all around the country have been around a lot longer than that. I think that we owe it to the city of Minneapolis, to our residents, to develop a plan that moves forward intelligently, that moves forward in a way that works. You know, we’re not going to hit the eject button on the police department today, for instance, because we do not have that new system in place. But we have to start the conversation somewhere. Yesterday was the start of that conversation.

AMY GOODMAN: So, will there be a vote? And what will that vote be on in the City Council now?

JEREMIAH ELLISON: At some point there will have to be a vote about what our new system of public safety looks like. You know, just to give you an example, one of the most effective programs that we’ve been able to fund, really on a shoestring budget, is our group violence prevention program. It’s a program that helps young men get out of gang activity and remove themselves from gang life. It’s a program that’s been more successful in getting gang members to choose a different path forward for themselves than sending them to jail or anything else that we’ve tried in the past. That’s just one program, for example, that I think that we need to actually put our investment in to get fully operational so that we can keep our city safe.

You know, we’re going to have to figure out how to address things like active shooter situations. And we’re aware of the fact that some situations are extremely difficult to deescalate. But most of what police do — you know, we did a study last year of 911 calls, and we realized that one of the top calls that police make are for what we call emotionally disturbed persons or mental health calls. Do we need use of force — someone with a use-of-force background to answer that call? Do we need a gun present at a call like that? Do we need a gun present at a call for a forged $20 bill? I think that the answer to that is no. And we’ve got to — but we’ve never, as a country, leaned into figuring out how do we address issues like this without force. And I think that my colleagues and I are committed to figuring that out.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the Minneapolis police union president Bob Kroll. Activists are demanding he resign, after he called George Floyd a “violent criminal,” described protesters as terrorists and called on police to expand their use of force. In April, Kroll told a radio podcaster he “wasn’t bothered” by shootings he’s been involved in.

LT. BOB KROLL: I’ve been involved in three shootings myself, and not a one of them has bothered me. You know, maybe I’m different.

AMY GOODMAN: Minnesota’s AFL-CIO coalition of labor unions has joined calls demanding that Minneapolis police union president Bob Kroll resign. Jeremiah Ellison, if you can talk about the role of the police union? And are you also calling for Kroll to be out?

JEREMIAH ELLISON: I would love for Kroll to be out, but I don’t think this is the first time people have called for Kroll to resign. Kroll has a long history in the department of incompetence and of rage. And, you know, I think that he, very much so, follows in this traditional model of policing. When you look at sort of the groundwork that’s been laid for modern-day policing, it’s to enforce vagrancy laws. It’s to bust the heads of union organizers. And Kroll, very much so, is proud of that tradition and, I think, leans into that tradition.

I think that Kroll, knowing that he is protected by the base, our department, that democratically elected him to represent them, he knows that there’s really no grounds for him to have to resign. There’s no pressure for him to have to resign, even if people are calling for it. I’m sure he finds the whole endeavor amusing, quite frankly. And Kroll doesn’t just represent himself. Kroll represents — he’s democratically elected by our department to represent them.

And so, I think that for a long time we’ve underestimated what it means to have a department that elects somebody continually who advocates for extreme use of force, who recently advocated for the use of lethal rounds on demonstrators here in Minneapolis, who is the member of a biker gang with ties to white supremacist organizations. I think that we’ve often regarded him as an annoyance. And I think that the truth is that for a long time he’s been a lot more dangerous than that.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremiah Ellison, your father, Keith Ellison, of course, is the attorney general of Minnesota, the first African American attorney general of Minnesota. He is in charge of the prosecution of the four officers, just increased the charges against Chauvin and charged the other three officers. Have you discussed with him this whole issue of dismantling the police department?

JEREMIAH ELLISON: You know, I think he’s aware of the concept of dismantling the police department. I can’t speak for him, obviously, but I think that this is a concept that has to be explored.

You know, as I said, I think someone asked the question, of me, “Well, what are we going to do about sexual assault cases?” And I had to remind them that our current department does not solve sexual assault cases and has a track record of not taking them seriously, lied about the number of rape kits that we had untested.

I think that — I also had a constituent call yesterday, upset, saying, you know, “Jeremiah, the police don’t answer when we call now. What will we expect now?” And I said, “Well, look, what I’m hearing from you is that the police don’t come when you call. And so, we’ve got to figure out a system that keeps you safe, that keeps our neighbors safe.” This current one is not it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the role of community groups, of which you were a part before you were elected — the famous photograph of a Minneapolis police officer with a gun to your head when you were protesting the police killing of Jamar Clark a few years ago. The significance of the community groups that have been pushing for this?

JEREMIAH ELLISON: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think that the community is the most important part of this. You know, other cities have, call it what you want, disbanded, fired their entire police departments, only to slowly glue them back together again over time. And I think that with community support, with community vision and leadership, this is the only way that we’re going to get to a point where we’re learning how to keep communities safe without using the police as our singular tool.

I think that, you know, we’ve heard from police over the years, when we’ve asked them to use less force in certain situations, “Well, look, I’m not a social worker.” And that’s made a lot of community members say, “OK, well, maybe we need social workers, maybe we need mental health professionals, maybe we need people who specialize in childhood development, to be addressing these issues.” And so, I think that the City Council’s position in Minneapolis is 100% owed to the fight, the creativity and the vision of the broader community.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jeremiah Ellison, we want to thank you so much for being with us, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, which just announced this historic decision to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department.

[davewakeman]

Talking Tickets 12 June 2020--AFL! MLB! Revenue! And, More!

Hey There! 

Thanks for being here again this week. If you are enjoying this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues to sign up by visiting this link.

If you aren’t a member of the Slack community, join now. Folks in 12 different time zones get together there to talk tickets and learn from each other.

How is it mid-June? How’s everyone holding up?

I’m relatively fine. Only relatively because if you’ve never seen a string of those 90+ DC summer days, you don’t know what a heatwave is.

Check out a special session I’m doing with Eric Fuller’s Rescue Meet serieson Tuesday, 16 June at 9 AM PST/12 PM EST. I’m leading his session on sales and marketing and we will be doing a little talky thing, but the core of the event is a 30-45 minute break out of my workshop where we are going to focus on rethinking our strategies, coming up with a diagnosis of the real challenge to tackle, and create some action items to move us forward. It is FREE, but you have to get an invitation by visiting the Rescue Meet website.

Don’t forget Happy Hour with me and my buddy, Ken Troupe, this afternoon at 5 PM EDT.

To the tickets!

————————————————————————————————————

1. Reopening in many shapes and forms:

We continue to power forward with the reopening of sports, at least. With concerts and other performances still in a place that lacks a lot of certainty or clarity for when things will be safe to return to normal.

While there are no fans, we will see La Liga return this week and the Premier League restart next week, even if I am going to have to wait a few more days to see Dele Alli.

For many venues, making the most of a bad situation has meant adjusting their business model to allow their venues to become drive-ins and gathering places of a different sort.

The NBA and MLS are going to Orlando in July and Orlando is going to get a moment in the spotlight, though if you haven’t heard of Orlando and Disney…I’m not sure what planet you’ve been on.

What will be curious is whether or not folks actually change their habits after sports comes back and further after folks can attend games. As with everything, the first rule of marketing is to remember that you aren’t your market and that folks often say one thing and do another.

The thing that is obvious is that we need fans in the stands, the Bundesliga has shown that fans matter to the atmosphere, home-field advantage, and…revenue, of course.

Any signs of progress are welcome.

I still would say that I’m cautious because it seems that the science points to an uncertain timeline around a vaccine and cases still building in a lot of places.

I was chatting with my friends in Tokyo about 10 days ago and they were mentioning that the cases were low and I saw this piece about masks in Japan. I think what a lot of us are missing is a clear direction that says “wear the mask because it helps reduce transmission, lessens community spread, and reduces the likelihood of more disruptive actions.”

Of course, I’ve also never realized how filthy too many people are with not washing their hands, covering their mouths when they are coughing and sneezing, and other stuff…

Anyway, continue to keep an eye on the reopening activities like starting up games and events with no or few fans like the AFL’s match with 2,000 fans in attendance. The performances of theatre around the world. And, how the virus is impacting other countries as they move through the different phases of reopening.

And, what do you think about Garth Brooks’s idea?

2. Revenue! Revenue! Revenue! 

Somewhere along the line, I should have shared a piece I saw about how brands were discovering that a lot of their partnerships weren’t paying off.

Part of this is because folks weren’t really making the business case for sponsorship and relying too heavily on emotions and fluff.

The reality is that sponsorships is just one part of the larger revenue puzzle that will need to be reimagined coming out of the pandemic.

We are going to have to put our heads together and rethink a lot of the things that we have taken for granted or just “always done that way” like:

* Sales * Marketing * Customer retention * Customer service * Merchandise * Food and beverage

I can go on.

To achieve our revenue goals in the future, we are going to need to think through how we use technology, what our business models and processes look like, and many other things.

In fact, I think to see the industry of sports, the arts, and other forms entertainment continue to grow, we are going to have to see a much higher level of comfort with innovation become the norm.

In the arts and theatre, the unwillingness to change has popped up in the need for many organizations to try and figure how to become digital and offer digital solutions now.

Where was the urgency before a pandemic set in?

The same goes for the sports organizations that still rely on ~40% or more of their revenue from fans coming to the venue?

Why hasn’t the reinvention of the in-game business model been the number one priority?

I’ll tell you three things when I look at this:

First, we can’t get stuck in the way things have always been done. Obviously, no one can plan for a depression and a pandemic…but we really should be doing more risk planning and stress testing of our organizations so that we can be a lot more flexible in how we generate revenue and more secure in our business practices.

Second, right now is a great opportunity to rethink how you are doing business. In too many instances, I sit on webinars and Zoom calls where the gist of the conversation is about how quickly we can ramp back to “normal” and when I look at how many challenges and points of weakness that the industry was facing before the pandemic…I want to go, “Get back to normal? Are you kidding? That’s the best we can do?”

Maybe I’m just grumpy today? Or, maybe I’m just tired of watching the same bad habits get run on repeat.

You tell me!

3. How do businesses fall apart? Slowly at first, and then all at once…or how MLB is determined to miss a great opportunity to have the spotlight: 

MLB seems to continue to move down a path towards no season…and it leaves a lot of folks scratching their heads.

Last week, I shared the story about the Cubs claiming that 70% of their revenue comes from having fans at their games. And, I’ve been adamant about the need to rethink business models, pricing structures, and the underlying approach to having folks at games as a way to make sure that attendance isn’t sacrificed at the foot of revenue…which is what is happening all too frequently now.

We also saw MLB lose Coca-Cola as a sponsor this week as well, due to “budgetary concerns” which is code for they don’t see the value of a partnership with someone they’ve been associated with, in a major way for a long time.

What’s even crazier is that baseball seems to spend a lot of time on ideas that would hurt their TV monies as well.

MLB, “call me, please!”

If I were an academic and not a marketer, I would have a paper out that would talk about how the economics of the baseball standoff mirror a lot of the challenges we are dealing with in the American and global economies as a whole…but I’m not so instead I’ll offer up these ideas for how baseball can move forward to salvage this season, but the long-term potential of the game.

First, let’s get a season with somewhere between 70-80 games, expanded rosters, and some sort of pro-rated salary for the players.

To quote Gary Adler, “the owners seem to be jumping over dollars to pick up dimes.”

If the nuclear bomb of no baseball season at any level goes off, I don’t really know that MLB recovers because despite “record” revenues, real attendance is crap, interest in the game isn’t that high, and the already aging fan base is only getting older.

To be clear, if the money saved by not paying minor league players and squeezing a few million out of the players is going to make or break your business…the sport has a much bigger problem.

Second, lay on the marketing as much as possible.

Someone asked me about what is being aired on the MLB network and why they weren’t showing a greater variety of stuff.

I don’t have the answer. I know marketing and not television…but there are so many historical games and so much historical footage, it seems like a missed opportunity to not share these things and give the generation of fans that are still diehard baseball fans the chance to share some of the things they love with folks that might not have experienced baseball in this way before.

4. What will saving the theatre and the arts look like? 

In general, I’m a fan of offering public support to the arts because I think the arts are so important for doing a few things like helping us understand other folks’ point of view, explaining complex ideas, and bringing us together. That funding the arts seems like a value in a lot of instances.

In the United States, there are a few industry-led efforts to lobby the government for help for the live entertainment industry. I’m not holding my breath on action anytime soon. But I do appreciate the effort…it is necessary.

In the UK an idea is being floated to allow folks to invest in theatres.

Last week, I shared some of the things that Australia and New Zealand are doing to support the arts. And, this week, the German government has stepped in with a $1.13 billion dollar package to help get their countries arts and entertainment venues back up and running. These are really great starts to helping the industry get back up and running.

As a general topic, I’m concerned about the future of the arts coming out of the pandemic because we’ve seen the funding for the arts be whittled away in so many places.

But the bigger challenge as I mentioned in the revenue section is the need to reinvent our businesses and to rethink how we are marketing and selling our experiences.

The idea that the London Symphony Orchestra is offering up is novel with a shortened production and two performances a night to help maintain social distancing.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of folks share social distance mapping, even if I’ve felt like a lot of this was just ducking the hard work of thinking about how to actually create something that will bridge the gap between where we are now and where we need to get to in the future when we get the virus tamed and are able to have full capacity shows again.

I know we have to work to save the arts and theatre and here are a few suggestions:

First, we need to get some sort for the arts and artists at a government level. Full stop. These buildings are centers in our communities and the artists that make the arts are necessary for these investments to make art happen.

Second, saving the arts is a good time to rethink the relationship between the arts, the buildings, and the communities. We’ve become used to the idea that a stadium can revitalize a downtown area, whether or not that actually happens or not.

What about an opera house or an arts center?

If you’ve ever been to Sydney, you’ll know that the arts buildings are just as much gathering places as any stadium…maybe more so.

Right now is a great time to rethink the relationship between the buildings, the performances, and the community to allow them to take center stage as cultural homes and gathering spaces in the future.

I mean, look at the MoPop in Seattle.

You can experience that place inside and outside the building. Lincoln Center, the same. Insert your favorite here.

I don’t have a complete answer for how to use these buildings as indoor/outdoor community spaces going forward now, but I do think back to the concerts on the pier in Seattle during the summer. Or, the way that we’d have concerts for small groups in the Liquid Lounge at the EMP.

And, I recognize that it may be difficult to come up with a solution…there are opportunities.

More importantly, if we aren’t really pulling out all the stops…we may face a situation where many arts organizations do have such catastrophic losses that they can never recover.

Remember, this isn’t a fight that just the arts are fighting, nightlife, pubs, and other folks are all in similar positions and making sure folks fight for their industries is essential. 

5. The AFL is in a good spot due to owning Marvel Stadium, but being creative with their revenue streams should be a priority: 

File this one under, if you are nice to me, I love you…but I’m a fan of Marvel Stadium and the AFL.

As I’ve mentioned on many occasions, I look at the membership model that some of their clubs offer like Melbourne FC as something everyone around the world should be looking to emulate because it allows them to drive attendance and monetize their global market.

The article above talks about many of the leagues in Australia and how the AFL owning Marvel Stadium has allowed them to have a stronger position than other codes in Australia.

One of the frightening things for a lot of folks as they read through this piece is how the television broadcasters have used the pandemic and the shutdown period to drive down the prices of rights fees. At some point, I think that is a reckoning that a lot of folks are going to be dealing with and I’m certain that this is a scary idea because the expectation that Facebook or Amazon was just going to swoop in hasn’t materialized and I’m not sure if it will.

If you’ve been paying attention to the ongoing challenges Rugby Australia is dealing with, you’ll see that having assets that you can control and that can insulate you from the moment-to-moment ups and downs of business can be helpful in helping you avoid making short-term decisions that are potentially harmful in the long-run.

The truth is that the AFL is a window into the heart of what a lot of organizations in the arts, theatre, sports, concerts, and other live events are dealing with. And there are three things I think we can look to AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan as we head out into our week:

1. Recognize the human side of all of these struggles. Behind every decision are real people that have had their lives disrupted or worse.

2. Be creative. The AFL gained possession of Marvel Stadium when everything was great and this has enabled them to be more in control of their code as the pandemic has played out.

3. Make sure you focus on the right questions. The AFL recognizes that this season is a wipeout on profits and a lot of revenue, so instead of just trying to squeeze everything out of that…they are continuing to focus on recovery and growth. While it doesn’t take the short-term pain away, it does get the focus off of pain and panic and onto progress and positivity. —————————————————————————————————————-

What am I up to this week?

As I mentioned at the top of the program, I’m leading Eric Fuller’s Rescue Meet session on 16 June on sales and marketing. It is open to VPs and executives of organizations around the world and you can sign up for an invitation to the event on the Rescue Meet website.

I’m still at home…so I’m not visiting a city near you, yet. But if you want to chat about something or just need someone to chat to, let me know.

Get yourself some podcast episodes by going to my podcast landing page. I’m working on having some really great new guests around finance, marketing, and strategy…so something a little different than normal.

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Talking Tickets 12 June 2020–AFL! MLB! Revenue! And, More! was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

[junker-town]

The extraordinary life and times of George Nicolau in the era of collusion

Art: Tyson Whiting

George Nicolau served an invaluable role as a labor arbitrator across sports, and helped save baseball from itself.

We are living in the age of scandal, each one more shocking and outrageous than the last. Who can keep track of them all when each day feels like a struggle for survival? Against that backdrop, history can seem as if its become engulfed in a circular time warp, endlessly spinning off its axis.

Yet, some moments demand to be preserved and re-examined because they reveal something real and tangible beyond a headline or a tweet. Take Collusion. That’s now something of a buzzword in baseball circles. But Collusion also refers to a real historical event, which exposed the inner workings of the sport. In the 1980s, baseball’s owners stumbled haphazardly into an ill-conceived plot to assert control over an economic system they could no longer contain.

For three years between 1985 and 1987, Major League Baseball clubs conspired to freeze the free agent market to such a degree that players had no choice but to re-sign with their former teams for a fraction of what they were worth. As with most MLB schemes, it was doomed to failure due to a combination of hubris and greed.

The roots of collusion were sown following the 1985 season. Coming off his great triumph — commercializing the 1984 Olympic games for the enrichment of the organizers, but not the athletes — Peter Ueberrorth was a made man when he agreed to become commissioner of baseball.

As recounted in John Heylar’s seminal Lords of the Realm, Ueberroth dressed down the baseball owners for outbidding each other on long-term contracts with free agents. He asked the owners what their policies were for signing free agents, if they even existed at all. At one point he turned to his counsel and said, “Stop this discussion if any point it smacks of collusion.”

As Heylar relates, Ueberrorth went on to tell the owners it was their fault that salaries were so high and to stop blaming the players. They were smart businessmen, he said, and they should act like it. Everyone agreed there was a problem, Ueberroth said, according to testimony in a later grievance. “Go solve it.”

It was the “Go solve it” part that was at issue. Ueberroth later denied he said those words, but the message was clear. That winter, 29 of the 33 free agents went back to their original teams, hat and glove in hand. Not even George Steinbrenner’s Yankees would make bids on free agents.

Collusion carried on into 1986 when a more robust free agent class found the market even more tense. General managers were now telling one another who they wanted to pursue and for how much. The phrase that carried the day was “fiscal responsibility.” Industry revenues went up, while player salaries went down.

As big-name players continued to be left out in the cold, Montreal star Andre Dawson went so far as to offer the Cubs a blank contract. The club could fill in the amount, which they did for the outrageously low sum of $500,000 with $200,000 in incentives for a player who would go on to win the Most Valuable Player award.

In the midst of all this, Ueberrorth went on the offensive against drugs, specifically cocaine use, by instituting mandatory drug testing. The players union cried foul, saying drug testing was a collective bargaining issue. An arbitrator named Thomas Roberts found for the union, so the baseball owners fired him.

That was a mistake on two levels. First, Roberts had begun hearing the first collusion grievance and an arbitrator couldn’t be fired in the middle of a grievance. Roberts was a deliberate man. He didn’t make a ruling on collusion until September 1987, when he found for the union. The delay allowed the conspiracy to continue unabated.

The second part of the mistake was that Roberts was eventually replaced by George Nicolau, who would hear the second and third round of collusion hearings. Nicolau was a formidable presence in the hearings. As a union lawyer named Steve Fehr put it, “The clubs’ case was obviously falling apart. George Nicolau was asking tougher questions than I was.”

In what became known as Collusion II, Nicolau found for the players, writing:

“‘What transpired in 1986 occurred because everyone ‘understood’ what was to be done. By common consent, exclusive negotiating rights were, in effect, ceded to former clubs. There was no vestige of a free market, as that term is commonly understood. The object was to force players back to their former clubs and the expectation was that all would go back in a replication of 1985, requiring nothing more to be done.”

Undaunted, the owners tried a new tack with the creation of a so-called Information Bank. Essentially, they created a centralized system in which teams would “deposit” their terms into the bank and “withdraw” information on other players. The idea was to prevent some team from coming in and offering too much, thus blowing up their carefully planned salary structure.

Of course, it only takes one team to upset that balance and of course, that team was Steinbrenner’s Yankees who made a play for slugger Jack Clark. As owners went back to the time-honored tradition of distrusting one another, the market began to thaw.

Ueberroth continued to insist he had done nothing wrong. Technically, he didn’t come right out and say the words “collusion,” but then, he didn’t have to. The owners got the message and Nicolau found for the players a third time.

“It must be remembered that the bank was unilaterally established shortly after Chairman Roberts’ decision, following two years in which bids for free agents desired by their former clubs were either nonexistent or virtually so,” Nicolau wrote. “Against that backdrop, the bank’s message was plain — if we must go out into that market and bid, then let’s quietly cooperate by telling each other what the bids are. If we do that, prices won’t get out of line and no club will be hurt too much.”

Now the question was what to do about it. Roberts and Nicolau had made several players “second-look” free agents, which allowed them to re-enter the market. On the question of damages, the players were awarded $285 million.

Despite undergoing a concerted effort to suppress salaries and effectively weaken their own teams competitive prospects, no one was ever fined or suspended for their role in the scheme.

The Collusion Years have all but disappeared from memory, but owners have continued to find ways to corral their spending habits. Nowadays the backstop is a luxury tax, a legally permeable but wildly effective deterrent in keeping salaries down.

Nicolau’s place in history has also been widely ignored. He died early 2020 at the age of 94 following a long and fascinating life. The son of Greek immigrants, he enlisted in the armed forces right out of high school at the height of World War II. Nicolau served as a navigator in B-17 bombing missions. On his fourth and final mission, his aircraft came under fire that shattered his leg resulting in an amputation above the knee.

“If I had been hunched over it would have shattered my head,” Nicolau told Michel Picher in a lengthy interview. “But it threw me about four or five feet against the bulkhead and I thought, well, I wonder what this is going to be like.”

After leaving the service, Nicolau attended the University of Michigan on the GI bill where he graduated with a degree in political science and economics. He then went to Columbia for law school with an eye on becoming a labor lawyer.

He did work for the Newspaper Guild and the Actors Equity Association before leaving in 1963 to join the Peace Corps. While in the Peace Corps, he convinced George Meany, head of the AFL-CIO to allow union workers to take leaves of absence from their jobs to train others in their mechanical areas of expertise.

Following his stint in the Peace Corps, Nicolau worked in various capacities for, among other things, the Office of Economic Opportunity and then-mayor John Lindsay in New York on anti-poverty programs. He also began involving himself in labor mediation and arbitration, helping write a training manual and establishing mediation protocols in prisons.

He also met Peter Seitz, the arbitrator who in 1975 found for the players in the Messersmith-McNally case that gave players the right to free agency. It was Seitz who encouraged Nicolau to become a full-time arbitrator.

Some years later, Nicolau was introduced to Bill Bradley, the former Knicks player who had been elected to the senate. Bradley introduced him to Larry Fleischer, the executive director of the NBPA and Nicolau was eventually brought on as an arbitrator. He also served in that role for the NHL and indoor soccer.

Among the cases he heard during his time with the NBA involved Bernard King who had been suspended without pay by the Utah Jazz following a cocaine arrest. The question was whether the team could suspend the player without pay. Nicolau said they could not.

Drugs became another part of his legacy years later when the case of Steve Howe came before him. Howe had been suspended six times for cocaine use and was granted one final chance by then-commissioner Fay Vincent. Howe pitched well for the Yankees, but was arrested once again for trying to purchase cocaine in Montana during the offseason. Vincent banned Howe for life.

In the grievance hearing, Nicolau suggested that a psychiatrist be brought in to examine Howe. The psychiatrist determined that Howe suffered from Attention-Deficit Disorder and that was the clear cause for his addiction. “So all of the time he had been in rehab,” Nicolau told Picher. “All of the time he had been suspended, no one ever picked this up, that there was some underlying cause.” Howe was reinstated.

Vincent proceeded to haul in various members of the Yankees to his office including manager Buck Showalter and general manager Gene Michael to tell them their testimony in Howe’s grievance had gone against the best interest of baseball. Vincent told them they had, “effectively resigned from baseball.”

The Yankees had a game that day and Showalter arrived just before the first pitch, shaken. The press naturally picked up on it and turned on Vincent in the natural style of New York tabloids of the early 90s. As Heylar wrote, “Between the media firestorm and the pointed words of arbitrator George Nicolau, Vincent backed off.”

Some 35 years after Collusion, the landscape has shifted but it has largely remained the same. Money has poured into sports by the billions, yet we still live in an environment where the lords make the rules and enforce them at their convenience. Teams continue to preach the gospel of fiscal responsibility, while at the same time shaking down cities for tax breaks and sweetheart land deals.

We could use more arbiters of fairness. We could use more like George Nicolau.

[thinkveganworld]

We need to ask many serious questions of our nation's corporate media. Here are just a few.

1. Why don't you refer to our current healthcare system as a "corporate-run system"?

At Democratic presidential debates and elsewhere, network TV journalists have aggressively challenged the notion of "abolishing private health insurance"—without discussing what health insurance companies actually contribute to healthcare beyond bureaucracy and profiteering. At last June's debate, NBC's Lester Holt asked candidates to raise their hands if they would "abolish private insurance in favor of a government-run plan." Over and over, when mainstream journalists refer to Medicare for All—wherein the government would be the provider of health insurance, while doctors and hospitals remain private—they mislabel it "government-run healthcare" or a "government-run system." Yet they never call our current system "corporate-run healthcare."

2. Why don't you provide actual data on the public's attitudes toward health insurance firms?  

A 2016 Harris poll found deep disdain for health insurance companies, with only 16 percent believing that these firms put patients over profits. In a 2018 Forbes article on "The Top 5 Industries Most Hated by Customers," the health insurance industry was ranked fourth (after cable TV, internet providers and wireless phone)—based on American Customer Satisfaction Index rankings. Yet at Democratic debates, we've repeatedly heard from journalists about the millions of US consumers who supposedly relish their private insurance. While I've yet to meet one of those satisfied customers, it's a mantra from media outlets (which are often sponsored by health insurers). More to the point: I've yet to meet anyone who would refuse a plan with more complete coverage at less cost to him or her: "No, I want my beloved Aetna!"

3. Why do you so rarely care about the views of unions . . . unless they're in conflict with environmentalists?  

For more than 30 years, the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)—which I co-founded—has documented that the views and voices of labor unions have been marginalized by mainstream media. An exception occurred at the CNN-hosted presidential debate last week, when Bernie Sanders explained his reasons for opposing NAFTA 2.0. (Below is from the transcript.)

SANDERS: Every major environmental organization has said no to this new trade agreement because it does not even have the phrase "climate change" in it . . .

MODERATOR: But, Senator Sanders, to be clear, the AFL-CIO supports this deal. Are you unwilling to compromise?    

4. Why do you also invoke unions to cast doubt on Medicare for All?

While presidential debate panelists (and corporate Democrats like Joe Biden) have frequently brought up union-negotiated health benefits as an argument against Medicare for All, they rarely mention how US unions have sacrificed wage gains and other benefits to stave off employer cuts to their healthcare.  As flight attendants' union president Sara Nelson told Politico last year: "When we're able to hang on to the health plan we have, that's considered a massive win. But it's a huge drag on our bargaining. So our message is: Get it off the table." As Biden admitted last week, attaching health insurance to a job (whether unionized or not) is an iffy proposition for any worker.  

5. Why do you interrogate politicians over the price tags of social programs but not war?  

CNN devoted the first portion of last week's debate to war, military deployment and foreign conflict—but not one of the 25 questions from CNN journalists or the other moderators asked about the price tag of endless war and militarism. This despite the fact that roughly 57 percent of federal discretionary spending goes to the military and Trump keeps lavishing more money on the military than the Pentagon asks for. When it comes to war spending, mainstream journalists don't ask: "Can our country afford it?"  

"Bias is stark when journalists obsess on the estimated cost of reform while ignoring the estimated cost of the status quo."

After CNN's debate turned from war to progressive proposals for social programs benefitting the vast majority of the public, panelists turned from lapdogs to watchdogs on the issue of cost. Sanders was asked, "Don't voters deserve to see a price tag [on Medicare for All]?" and "How would you keep your plans from bankrupting the country?" To pound home the bias visually, CNN's banners across the bottom of the screen blared: "QUESTION: Does Sanders owe voters an explanation of how much his health care plan will cost them and the country?" And the absurd: "QUESTION: Sanders' proposals would double federal spending over a decade; how will he avoid bankrupting the country?" There were no such banners displayed for viewers about military price tags or the costs of endless war.

6. Why do you probe the costs of reform while sidestepping the higher price tags of the status quo?

Despite CNN's grandstanding claims that Sanders has not provided a price tag on his health plan, he repeatedly says that Medicare for All will cost $30 trillion or a bit more over 10 years. And he immediately adds another assertion that has provoked little media interest or rebuttal—that persisting with the status quo will cost far more, according to federal government sources, perhaps $50 trillion or more. The higher cost is due to corporate profits, executive pay, bureaucracy, etc. Bias is stark when journalists obsess on the estimated cost of reform while ignoring the estimated cost of the status quo. It's media propaganda by omission. Similarly, conservative media have savaged the jobs-creating Green New Deal proposal—which, indeed, will cost trillions—without acknowledging the far higher price tag of continuing the status quo.

7. Why do you ignore the 2016 presidential result in your incessant punditry on which Democrats are electable in 2020?

I'm unaware of a single serious analyst who asserts with a straight face that Hillary Clinton lost to a faux-populist in 2016 because voters perceived her as "too far left" or "too radical." But she obviously did lose votes because she was seen as too status quo and too cozy with the corporate establishment. In key swing states, Clinton failed to energize voters of color, lost young voters to third parties, and lost working-class whites who'd voted for Obama and Sanders. Democrats have been defeated in six presidential elections since the Reagan era, but one would be hard-pressed to find a single defeat attributable to far-leftism.

Establishment journalists seem intent on ignoring this history as they cover Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Over the last year, corporate outlets have continuously portrayed progressive reforms as scarily left-wing, in the face of polls showing they are broadly popular (not just with Democrats)—such as increasing taxes on the rich (a new Reuters poll found most Republicans favor a wealth tax); free public college and cancelling student debt; Medicare for All; and the Green New Deal.

News articles matter-of-factly denigrate these popular proposals as "shoot-the-moon policy ideas" (Washington Post) that may push the Democratic Party "over a liberal cliff" (New York Times). I sometimes wonder if the computer keyboards in certain newsrooms—besides letter and number keys—have a single key that spits out the 8-word phrase: "too far left to win a general election."

Unfortunately, many Democratic voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and elsewhere are unduly influenced by mainstream media, despite the punditocracy's awful track record in 2016 and earlier on predicting who's "electable" in a general election.  

Elite journalists regularly quote their "expert" sources in the Democratic establishment who express worries that if Bernie Sanders wins the nomination, he'll lose badly in November.  

Or do those who own or run corporate media (and corporate Democrats) have a different worry—that Sanders will win the general election, shake up the system, and take away some of their wealth and power?

[tripstations]

It’s time to stop spruiking ‘mateship’

Australia’s new tourism campaign

Tourism Australia has released it’s new campaign ‘Come Live our Philausophy’ focusing on our informal approach to life.

It must be that time of year again. Drunk people are watching horses being whipped. Instagram users are boasting about beach days. And there’s a Tourism Australia campaign that everyone hates.

This last one is a tri-annual event, when our national tourism body unveils a new set of advertisements aimed at attracting foreign tourists. This time the slogan is “Come live our philausophy”, a mind-bending play on words that must have gone through the Chinese whispers of committee meetings and focus groups about 30 times to eventually be belched out as it is.

The campaign includes billboard ads featuring various “Aussie” epithets such as “No worries”, and “A stranger is a mate you haven’t met yet”, while the video ad features real people who work in Australia’s tourism industry, spruiking our country over extended vision of sweeping landscapes and smiling faces – a formula that has a look and feel not dissimilar to the Qantas inflight safety videos (which, I’m pretty sure, is where they took their inspiration).

The big problem with Tourism Australia’s new campaign isn’t the pun ‘philausophy’.  

But where the bloody hell were the marketing experts? Were they hanging out in a place where “Live our philosophy” is such a common, regular saying that you could create a pun from it? Apparently.

And so “Come live our philausophy” has joined a rich canon of Tourism Australia ad campaigns that a whole lot of media commentators and social media tub-thumpers with no expertise in marketing and no access to the relevant market research have declared a failure before it can even get off the ground.

Do Australians honestly believe that we own the concept of becoming friends with people?

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I’m not here to join that chorus. I have no idea about marketing an entire country to a worldwide market. I don’t know what the focus groups have come up with. The slogan, for all I know, might be brilliant.

The trouble is, no one ever likes Tourism Australia campaigns, mostly because we Australians are still a bit uncomfortable with how we look to the outside world. We like to think we’re modern, forward-thinking and sophisticated, whereas the rest of the world thinks we’re kangaroos, Foster’s and Crocodile Dundee. An ad pitched to those people is never going to feel good to those of us who call Australia home.

So I’m not going to bag Tourism Australia’s new marketing philausophy. Except for one thing.

According to the campaign, there are nine distinctly Australian “philausophies” for us to promote to the world. Those include generosity of spirit, a sense of adventure, optimism, a “no worries” attitude, and mateship.

Generosity of spirit is pretty dubious these days, but the one that really bugs me is mateship. Mateship? Most people haven’t even questioned its inclusion, because the concept is such an ingrained and accepted part of the Australian mythology. Australia stands for mateship. That’s what we do. We… become mates with people.

But this has always grated with me. Do Australians honestly believe that we own the concept of becoming friends with people? That we alone have the ability to form platonic, symbiotic relationships with other human beings? That we embrace our fellow man like no one else?

That’s garbage. Of course we don’t. You only have to leave Australia and travel to any other country for the barest second to realise that the entire world is pretty good at making friends as well.

Australia doesn’t own the concept of making friends with people. 

And what does “mateship” even mean? Nothing about us that’s enviable or unique, that’s for sure. It’s such a bland claim as a national trait, so obvious and unimaginative.

(Although that’s kind of our style: take our national anthem, which is so full of bland claims that don’t mean anything that it might as well be an AFL team song. We’re lucky, we’re free, we’re surrounded by water. Great. Why not just say “We are the pride of Brisbane town, we wear maroon, blue and gold”?)

We don’t own mateship, and we don’t even do it a way that’s noticeably better than anyone else. Have you been to Brazil? Brazilians are fantastically warm, lovely people. When you become friends with a Brazilian, you’re friends with them for life. They’ll treat you like family forever. That’s mateship.

Or what about Scotland? I lived in Scotland for eight months or so when I was 17, and the friends I made then are friends I will never lose in my lifetime. Every time I go back to Scotland now, whether I’ve been away for one year or for 10 years, those same people invite me into their homes, they treat me like I’m one of them. Mates.

The same thing happens in the USA. In Canada. In Fiji. In South Africa. In Italy. In Portugal. I would venture to say that it happens in some form in every country in the world.

So come on Australia. Give up on this mateship business, it’s embarrassing – far more embarrassing than Foster’s or Crocodile Dundee. Let’s exchange it for something that really does make our country unique, something we can be proud to call our own: our multi-culturalism; our First Nations culture; our sun-bleached salt-kissed good nature.

That’s my philausophy.

What do you think of Tourism Australia’s new campaign? And do you think about mateship? Is this something we can really call our own, or do other countries do it as well?

Email: b.groundwater@traveller.com.au

Instagram: instagram.com/bengroundwater

To subscribe to the Traveller.com.au podcast Flight of Fancy on iTunes, click here.

The post It’s time to stop spruiking ‘mateship’ appeared first on Tripstations.

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[pranapower]

Adam Goodes reveals the minute he decided to end his AFL career

"Today I remain in a location that is really a love bubble. I took 6 weeks off work to be in that bubble, to be familiar with Adelaide and to support [his partner] Natalie through that really tough period; that 'haze', as a lot of new moms and dads say."

Sharing the detail from his brand-new everyday-- up before dawn on very first feed responsibility with a bottle of revealed milk-- the love bubble bursts all over Goodes' face, softening even the furrow that deepened so noticeably on his eyebrow during his excruciating exit from elite sport.Adam Goodes

and partner Natalie Goodes at the opening night of The Australian Dream in Melbourne.Credit: AAP In 2013, Goodeschallenged

a racist slur fired at him from a teenage woman being in the grandstand of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. She called him an ape, and Goodes pointed in the direction of the insult. He became a hero for change-activists, a bad guy to hillbillies. Thereafter, boos followed Goodes'every move on-field, the jeering growing louder as the individual toll on the champion deepened. Goodes had legions of advocates, but they were offset by caustic commentary, footy chiefs who rubbed salt into injuries and a sport-- the AFL-- that claimed social function design status however was too unclear and slow in response.With his games marred by unrelenting booings and his nights by sleeplessness, in mid-winter 2015, Goodes got back in Sydney from Perth, after a match versus the West Coast Eagles, and broke down. He informed his fiancée:" I'm so sorry, but I simply can't be here. It's got nothing to do with anything about us. I've just got to go." "I got him on an aircraft. I had no idea when he would come back, "says Lucy Mills, a long-time manager and pal." Football was completely irrelevant. Adam had actually hit rock bottom. I was gravely worried for his well-being."Adam Goodes:"The very best thing that I did was get myself out of an environment that was hazardous to me. "Credit: Nic Walker He had actually given Ian Darling, the director of The Final Quarter

, his true blessing to make a forensically researched piece that deftly sets out occasions as they unfolded,using existing video instead of brand-new interviews. The documentary prevents editorialising , encouraging audiences to draw their own conclusions. Darling's vision for an instructional piece driven by philanthropy not profit resonated strongly with Goodes. After its best at the Sydney Movie Festival in June, The Final Quarter was telecasted nationally and will be available, totally free, to all Australian schools from September."The Final Quarter revealed me a lot of video and media that I 'd never ever seen or become aware of,"Goodes states." I simply could not think what some people were stating at that time, and how much of a stir I 'd really made with a few of them. It was through seeing myself in the movie that I remembered howmuch happiness and joy I had on the football field. It made me so upset provided how I in fact feel now about the video game, about being on a football field, and that detach I feel now with the sport."By the end of my career I simply actually disliked being out there on that field and being subjected to what was occurring to me."The Australian Dream, directed by Sundance International Movie Celebration Grand Jury Reward candidate Daniel Gordon, premiered eight weeks later and uses a contrasting narrative arc. Not least because its writer, multi-awarded journalist, author and activist Stan Grant, secured fresh interviews with Goodes.

[sportsnut200695]

Reflective audio pieces provide an audience with a good representation on how an event was shaped and delivered to its public's.

In this activity, I created a podcast that would provide interesting value to listeners of the AFL and St Kilda Football Club. Being a Saints supporter myself, I created this podcast specifically with the idea in mind that it would serve this purpose.

This activity provided me with the opportunity to further reinstate the skills of editing an audio clip. These skills extend to things such as cutting, adding effects and music to really give the recording an emphasis of what a good piece can look like. I tried the free program of Audacity to edit this audio piece, which I really enjoyed using given it’s simplicity.

The purpose that this emerging media type would serve to a sports organisation is to provide fans with an avenue to enjoy a different side of consuming sport. Further by doing this, an organisation will be able to maintain relationships with perhaps their most important stakeholder, the consumer.

Fan experiences will be increased by these audio pieces because it will allow them to maintain a connection to their favourite sports organisation, even if they cannot witness or watch them live.

[getseriouser]

20 THOUGHTS: Easy peasy, Albanese

ALL the experts said the UK would vote to remain in the EU. Similarly everyone thought Hilary would win 

Why do we then act so surprised with last Saturday’s result?

I mean, North Melbourne aren’t the most reliable of tips in 2019 and Sydney showed up in the moments that mattered, let’s be honest.

Oh, and the Federal Election, yeah what a boil over that was. Flicking Malcolm Turnbull then the extra day of mess to turn Peter Dutton into Scott Morrison – masterstroke.

Alastair Clarkson could only dream of such a bold yet effective gameplan.

 1.       Let’s get Carlton out of the way early. Pretty awful last Sunday arvo, sure. But there was nothing surer than the GWS, a week after a pretty soft performance, being openly roasted by their football director, with the prospect of a home game playing a team who’d won four of their last 40, being absolutely on like no-one’s business and doing a number. ‘Giants by a street’ was the bet of the round. So how much were the Blues on a hiding to nothing before a ball was even bounced, why was there such a shock?

2.       As for the victors, so let’s get this straight. Only team to beat the flag favourite, and down at Geelong too, yet one bad game against Hawthorn and they’re a failure. But now, after a dominant performance which showed they are as ruthless as it gets, they’re a favourite again? This column sticks fat, everyone else changes like the Melbourne weather.

3.       Geez, Matty Lloyd, the velvet sledgehammer got soft. Said about Shane Mumford on Marc Murphy “I don’t think he should play this week… his eyes are nowhere near the ball, his eyes are only on Murphy.” Reckons he should have been offered two weeks suspension. Now Matthew, Chrisso assessed it as “…Mumford’s actions were not unreasonably in the circumstances. No further action was taken.” Exactly, it’s a contact sport Lloydy, bloody hell.

4.       Speaking of the former Carlton skipper, he’ll miss a few games now with ribs, but why is he playing in the seniors whilst four-time premiership legend Jaryd Roughead is languishing his last year of footy at Box Hill. If Rough is playing VFL, then the Northern Blues should be where Murphy plays too.

5.       Daisy cops seven and a half gorillas for calling an umpire a cheat. Hmm, surely an apology is all that needs, I mean sure it’s not a great word and umpires need the respect, but that’s a massive whack, especially when it didn’t make the umpires mics so it was just the boundary umpire having a whinge.

6.       Last one on Carlton – Sam Walsh. Number one pick, one of the favourites for the Rising Star, will be a 200-game jet at a minimum. But is he even the best midfielder from his draft class? Those this column trust suggest Bailey Smith, this week’s rising star nominee, will end up the better player and the Dogs, should they have had pick one last year, would have chosen Smith over Walsh. Time will tell, but Doggies fans have got themselves an absolute beauty if nothing else.

7.       On the Doggies, hows the Luke Beveridge vs. Damien Barrett saga. I had a stoush once, it barely lasted a week. This has been years. And the latest episode was on Barrett’s reporting of Tom Boyd a couple years ago, the mental illness vs. back complaint conversation. Regardless, there’s ego on both sides, neither is completely in the right, but players would run through brick walls and win flags for Bevo, whereas the other is getting flogged everywhere for football’s four hundredth best podcast. Sod off Damo.

8.       Mid-season draft on Monday, some clubs will find some much needed talent to keep them in the race for the eight, such as Essendon who might look for a backup in the ruck. But others have an eye to the future. If there’s a guy in the VFL or SANFL who might be a second round or third round pick come the end of the year, why not snare him now and stash him, freeing up the pick you’d used in November? Not the intention of the draft but as always the AFL instils new ideas ridden with loopholes to exploit.

9.       I know it’s a broken record but seriously, West Coast can’t win it, I know they’re seen by some as one of only five chances, but unless they tweak something that changes how they look, or Naitanui’s return adds something really different, they haven’t evolved from last year when one always must evolve. Melbourne if they were any good would have toppled them. They’re 6-3 and sitting sixth, or equal third, but with a % of an even 100 – it’s a false record.

10.   Dees scoring, awful. Jayden Hunt with 11 goals is leading their goal-kicking, Jake Melksham next on 10. Christian Petracca is playing as a forward moreso than in the guts and only eight goals. It’s shit.

11.   Brisbane has only four games left against teams in the eight right now – job done, they kinda have to make finals now, well done Fagan and team.

12.   Gotta say it, is the eight done?

13.   Trav Varcoe, its probably a week, sure, but gee, for Indigenous Round where the Pies wear a jumper which honours the life and tragedy that was Varcoe’s sister, Maggie, who died sadly from an accident on the football field. Can we all agree he plays this week but serves his suspension the round after perhaps?

14.   Another reason I think the Cats and Pies are too short for flag odds and the Tigers as premiership threats loom large – Geelong has used 28 players, Collingwood 27, Richmond though, 33.

15.   Gold Coast, sure Stuey Dew has been seen to so far have done a good job, but they’re back down to third last, two of their three wins were by under a kick and possess a worse % than Carlton. Dew’s getting a pass mark yet Bolton is cooked?

16.   St Kilda, should have won, plain and simple. But they’ll be ok, they’ve got good bits to work with, Billings, Gresham, Dunstan, Steele, nice pieces, stay patient, ride the course.

17.   Sunday at the MCG, two tall forwards on a nice dry day played ok games. One had nine touches and six marks, the other seven touches and five marks. One has played 140 games and is on a million bucks, the other was playing his seventh and is getting peanuts. Tom Lynch. Mitchell Lewis. If you’re a Hawks fan, you would have walked away upset about the loss but happy the highly-prized recruit at the other end is no better than your tall forward.

18.   The Adam Goodes doco goes public in a couple weeks but a few have already seen it. Regardless of whether we all agree there was ‘some’ racism involved or it was literally about he and his character only and skin had nothing to do with it, the portrayal of the booing in his final year is coming from a deliberately controlled angle and it paints the AFL, the media and the football public badly. But we must remember its ‘an’ angle, only. Did at least one racist boo Adam Goodes? Most definitely. Did everyone booing him do so because he was Indigenous, or ‘not-white’. Most definitely not. Tarnishing the masses with the same brush hey, that’s always inclusive. Don’t listen to those in the media towing the politically correct line. Same thing with Scott Pendlebury ANZAC Day. Booing for different reasons, sure, but what I do know is that the outrage and the act with that did not marry. 

I’ll close with this - I like Bachar Houli, I like Majak Daw and I like Lin Jong. I like Eddie Betts, Travis Varcoe and Cathy Freeman. I don’t hate Adam Goodes, I thoroughly respect his football ability, but he wasn’t my cup of English breakfast, even before he pointed out the girl who absolutely did the wrong thing that night at the MCG. Now I’m not a booer but I have no broad issue with booing in between sirens. Am I racist?

19.   Next year is 50 years since the famous first semi-final between St Kilda and South Melbourne in front of 104,000, the Saints big winners on the day but a landmark occasion for both clubs trying to compete with the Carltons, Collingwoods and Essendons of the day. Said it before but now with an anniversary to commemorate it, Saints v Swans, Queens Birthday eve, Sunday primetime, Sydney wearing a South jumper, a match to honour rivalry that for a long time spawned from being either end of Albert Park Lake, but two storied tribes who played a massive part in the growth of the competition in this city.

20.   Some cricket to end with, the World Cup is fast approaching and the home nation are raging favourites. England seemingly score 400 at will and scorers are prepared for a 500 at some point perhaps. But here’s the dirty secret, the entire England batting prowess sits with their openers – Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow. From there, Joe Root is awesome but not Sachin Tendulkar, Ben Stokes ain’t Viv Richards, and its ho hum from there. Bowling unit is good but no better than anyone else’s, so if you can get an opener or both cheaply, they’re just, well, England. But you let them get 150 for the first wicket, you’re screwed.

[davewakeman]

Talking Tickets 15 May 2020--AFL! Bundesliga! Refunds! And, More!

Hey There! 

Thanks for being here again this week. If you are enjoying this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues to sign up by visiting this link.

Don’t forget to check out what we are doing in the Slack Channel. The folks in there try to keep it fun and light while offering up ideas and perspectives on what they are thinking about, looking at, and doing.

A bunch of great free resources are going on right now, here are 3 from friends of the podcast and the newsletter that are worth your attention:

Eric Fuller has his virtual conference, Rescue Meet, going on the 19th from 9-11 AM PDT. He’s got a couple of conversations lined up with folks from venues, tickets, and the customer side along with a few other tricks, opportunities to connect with folks in the industry to work on solutions and to focus on moving forward.

We Will Recover is an effort started up by Einar, Martin, and the team at Activity Stream over in Europe. Frederic Aouad is co-hosting a webinar with me on 26 May at 9 AM EDT and 2 PM EDT to hit the North American and European markets. We are going to talk about recreating your revenue streams, rethinking your marketing approach, and building events that are destinations for your customers.

Andrew and Carol Thomas have put the Ticketing Professionals Conference online, or as many of the sessions from this year’s event as they could online. There are some really great ones coming up with Kara Parkinson, Kirk Bentley, and a bunch more.

There are a bunch more as well including weekly meetings with INTIX, Pollstar, and more.

And, don’t forget, me and my buddy, Ken Troupe, are hosting happy hour tonight.

To the tickets!

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1. Reopening events is starting to happen: 

I start the week by sharing Dave Grohl’s essay on why we need live entertainment.

Tonight, we will see the first American attempt, potentially, at a social distancing concert in Arkansas. (Spoiler, as I was finishing this up, the event in Arkansas was postponed.)

The Bundesliga is returning as well. 

These are all positive signs. But from my conversations with folks around the industry, we are still a long way off from being together with crowds again.

The UK released a three-phase plan this week. Cinemas are starting to reopen in New Zealand and the certification process for venues and stadiums to reopen safely is well underway.

In the US, we are still playing on the 50 state 50 strategy idea that likely means we are going to continue to experience a prolonged period of waiting for business to start to get back to normal. Which is going down against a backdrop of optimism around the NBA and NHL finishing their seasons and a lot of uncertainty around MLB even getting theirs off the ground.

Again, I’ve been pretty consistent on this one…

Watch what the countries that are out in front are doing like South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and China…see what works and see what doesn’t, recognizing that in certain countries and places, the response to the virus has been a little more robust, targeted, and comprehensive. Then, adjust accordingly.

I wish I had a better answer, but I think we have to recognize that the path ahead is going to be a bit bumpy and that there isn’t likely to be a straight line.

But…I mean, BUNDESLIGA!

Who is your side?

I’m taking Bayern Munich because Munich is home of Oktoberfest.

Or, do you prefer to go to see a drive-in show?

2. Marketing, Revenue, and Rethinking What We Do:

Ceci Dadisman wrote about the conversation that seems to be picking up in too many places about things “going back to normal”.

I had a colleague email me the other morning, bemoaning the nature of a lot of conversations that they see taking place as “not productive” or “looking at the wrong things.”

From my point of view, for a lot of places, the way things were wasn’t at a level they needed to be to begin with: sports attendance was down and something most organizations were thinking through globally; the arts, opera, and theatre were seeing challenges to their business model; prices were up and costs were up, making profits tougher to come by.

My vantage is that over the next few years we are likely to see more challenges to profits, greater competition for customers, and less free-spending from investors, the secondary market, speculators and consolidators.

What does all of this mean for all of us?

I think we all need to become comfortable with the idea of innovation being our friend.

Marketing had gone to the crapper before the coronavirus. I could go on and on and I have in private conversations about the deterioration of the marketing role in organizations because folks are afraid to talk about being in marketing because that’s where the money is.

Instead, folks get lost on misguided ideas like “clicks”, “likes”, “reach”, and other terms that aren’t directly attached to money.

Our marketing efforts going forward are going to have to be heavy on revenue generation, getting people into events, and making one time customers repeat customers. For any business, you have to create and keep customers. In far too many instances, that idea is being mouthed, but not followed through on.

I say more about revenue and rethinking below. But marketing and strategy should be on the agenda for every call, meeting, and brainstorming session we are all having.

3. Australian Sports Business Is Back, But What Comes Next?

Australia has a lot of news coming out about the return of sports with the big news of the AFL’s blockbuster return on 11 June. 

While the return of sports is exciting for all of us, especially Melbourne fans like me?!

A lot of the conversation around the return of sport has revolved around will the industry contract and how will the country deal with potentially having to endure its first official recession in almost 30 years.

Hawthorne president Jeff Kennett is asking questions about how to reform the AFL’s business heading out of the pandemic, the NBL could see players leave the league due to the virus, and the A-League is having to go to a hub system to complete its fixtures.

There have been a lot of interesting things going on in Australia and New Zealand both since they’ve handled the virus very well and they are in the Southern Hemisphere.

First, we need to pay attention to how these leagues and organizations monetize. The AFL’s membership program is a pretty great example of monetization of your audience, globally.

Second, we will have to watch what happens as they head into the fall and winter and whether or not there is a snapback of the coronavirus as they head into their flu and cold season.

Third, it will be interesting to see how the Australians capitalize on the absence of sports in the States over the next few weeks since the AFL was broadcasting live to the west coast of the US before the coronavirus shut down Australia as well.

4. Ticketmaster, Refunds, and Finger Pointing:

Representatives Pascarell and Porter wrote a letter in Billboard this week, admonishing Ticketmaster’s behavior during the pandemic.

The letter from Washington was quickly followed up by one from Jared Smith, defending Ticketmaster’s practices.

Jared Smith is absolutely correct when he is explaining his points, but the first rule of crisis PR as credited to Ronald Reagan is “if you are explaining, you are losing.”

That’s where Ticketmaster finds itself along with StubHub and other companies.

I’m not saying it is right or wrong, but the pandemic has exposed the shaky financial underpinnings of a lot of businesses, including live entertainment.

Currently, Live Nation is raising around $800 million by selling off debt.

And, it was good to see that the company is thinking about experimentation heading into the back half of 2020.

From a customer point of view, every one of these examples is a stain on the industry. We’ve had StubHub getting hit heavy, early on. Ticketmaster and Live Nation are taking heat now. We’ve had mismatched refund, exchange, or compensation packages from teams all over the place around the world.

Maybe, most amazingly, I sat in on a call where people were debating ways to avoid paying back fees to customers on tickets they purchased for events that can’t happen, won’t happen, or might never happen.

Again, each of these points creates another dent in the armor of trust between industry and customer and the habit of going to shows, events, and games.

I feel a lot like a broken record here, but none of this stuff happens without customers, fans, and buyers. In an industry where there are so many unsold tickets to begin with, to expect that folks are just going to come rushing back and eat poop to do so is ridiculous.

I recognize it is an uncertain time for everyone, but the longer these refund stories stick around…the more damaging it becomes.

5. Vince McMahon and the XFL…

Well, the XFL isn’t going quietly into the night…I see.

This isn’t the kind of story that I typically find interesting, but as we are dealing with a lot of new ideas due to the pandemic, it pays to think things through differently.

With this story about Oliver Luck and Vince McMahon, there are a few things to pay attention to here.

First, Vince McMahon guaranteed Luck’s contract. I’ve had a couple of folks call me and ask me about taking on new jobs or moving after our lockdowns let up.

Basically, they are looking for advice and I think the wise decision is to make sure you get guarantees.

Second, the basis for not paying the contract is pretty weak.

The precedent that is set here if McMahon wins would be pretty awful for folks, period.

I highlight this story for a few reasons, but I think if you look at what this story highlights about the coming future of what we are dealing with in events and especially sports a couple of ideas come to mind:

1. Strategy matters and it seems like the strategy that the XFL was built on was suspect. The pandemic has highlighted this at a macro level now and I think we are going to see a renewed necessity to adjust the sales process, innovate pricing, and focus on driving attendance.

2. Pick your partners well.

3. Multiple streams of revenue, product-market fit, and testing the basic assumptions of “what everyone knows” or thinks is going to be more important than ever.

Look at the NBA, they are as “innovative” as any league in American sports and 40% of their revenue is tied up in getting fans to come to the arena. This tells you that really two revenue streams drive their entire business: TV and in-game. Something about “all your eggs in one basket” comes to mind.

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What am I up to this week?

Not a lot planned. It is the final week of 4th grade homeschooling…so once we are through that, maybe I can get back to a slightly more normal schedule.

Make sure to check me out on social media and follow along with me at www.davewakeman.com 

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Talking Tickets 15 May 2020–AFL! Bundesliga! Refunds! And, More! was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group