How did this happen?

I’d characterize my most dominating personality traits to be independence, efficiency and free/stubborn thinking. For most of the last decade the independent side has driven much of my career direction. I’ve gravitated into entrepreneurial positions where I can better control my own destiny and have the freedom to carve my own path. Even within those positions, I’ve tried to isolate my performance from the rest of the team believing that otherwise I’d be slowed down. It didn’t help that I worked in unstructured work environments.

Now I’ve also always been driven by efficiency. In my schoolwork I was more concerned with doing the right amount of studying/work (judged by me) than with the final result or grade. Socially, I’m definitely on the lazy side of the spectrum. For better or worse this has also carried into my professional career. I don’t like to work hard unless it’s the only way to get something done. More often than not, I’ve been able to figure out shortcuts and this is much more satisfying to me. One positive is that I’m usually able to fully push my ego aside and focus on the end result or goal.

Finally, I’m a stubborn free thinker. I didn’t get accepted into my first five college choices. I was bummed out about it for awhile and one day my mom gave me that look that Brooklyn Jewish mothers have trademarked and told me that if I really wanted to get into any of those schools I could have. She was right. For whatever reason, I never bought into the path. I’d do it the same exact way all over again (Zelda, ayn rand, college hoops and fantasy sports over AP Euro studying= no brainer). I’ve had ample opportunities to follow easier career paths that could be less risky and more financially rewarding. I haven’t. I don’t want to just be successful by worldly standards. I want to be successful by my own standards (not going to get into what that means). I’ve worked in pervious organizations that have reached their goals but I was unimpressed by the way they did it. Right now, I’m kind of enamored with Tony Hsieh (Zappos) and Reed Hastings (NetFlix). They were both able to build successful companies on their own idealistic terms with their own ideal cultures.

As my career has advanced, I’ve started to realize that if I want to keep my independence it will limit my professional upside. A hired gun is just that – impactful and effective but lacking the real power of the person who hired him! Perhaps power and influence is more attractive than independence.

It seems to me that the best way to truly be powerful and influential is through management and leadership. A person who can galvanize a group of people to all work towards the same goal will always be stronger than the individual, right? I also believe that management skills are more transferable. No matter what situation, venture or project a leader can always use these skills they have developed. That seems way easier than trying to learn a new industry as well as I know digital sports media. Finally, I want to do things my way – and the only way that will happen is if I’m in a management position.

Even after writing all this mumbo jumbo I’m still trying to figure out why I’ve developed such a desire to be a leader. It’s a trait that I’ve never really exhibited before other than applying it to myself (and if I’m a leader of one than the jokes on me). I looked at the kids who were captain of my high school sports teams as ass-kissers or coach’s puppets. I never got why my buddy Hal wanted to be class president every year. Even now, very few of my friends/readers seem to have a strong prioritized desire to follow a leadership path (correct me if I’m wrong).

I’ve never had a truly great manager at any organization that I’ve ever been a part of. I don’t think this is uncommon though. A great leader is rare to find. It’s incredible difficult. It’s hard enough to manage yourself, get in your own mind, and control your own actions. Think about how hard it is to do that for a group of diverse people to all achieve a common goal.

I’m learning on the fly. I’m trusting my own instincts, trying to be extremely thoughtful, honest and soaking up as much as possible through blogs, books, conversations and advice. I’m hoping to develop a solid enough foundation so when I make mistakes I can recognize them and correct them with good decisions. I’m not a natural and for most of my life I’ve gravitated towards doings things that I’m naturally good at. It’s a weird feeling of self-awareness when I sense that I’m falling short. I try to challenge myself every day to be more considerate and less selfish. To show less frustration and more inspiration. To focus my thinking on the team and not myself. It’s my biggest professional challenge yet but hopefully I’m up to it.

It’s a bit scary for me to even put all these thoughts and ideas down on your computer screen (or in troy’s case mobile device because he doesn’t own a computer – no way you are still reading this triz!!). I’m not sure what I’m going to think when I look back and read this five or ten year from now. But I don’t think I’m getting any smarter or any sharper over the next decade (genetically, I’m destined to get fatter, snore louder and repeat myself more). But I do hope to become a better leader.

Recently, I’ve been helping a few friends think through there digital business ideas. One way to more fully comprehend a business opportunity is to create a simple pro forma income statement or business model. It’s practically impossible to predict what is going to happen with a new business so a model is used more for a framework to understand key drivers and help make informed decisions.

Most digital businesses derive revenue through E-Commerce (including affiliate fees), subscription products, or advertising revenue. Each of these revenue streams has a few key metrics that help project revenue. Once these drivers are recognized it helps clarify what exactly needs to happen to be successful. For example, digital advertising revenue is a product of visits, page views and CPM rate. A business model also provides a realistic projection of how long, and how much money, it will take to reach certain milestones (most notable profitable). This allows for better planning and cash flow management which is essential in the early stages before a business is profitable.

I created a very simple financial model template that can be used to project website revenue. While this model might not hold up in a meeting with a venture capitalist, it gets to the fundamentals of any website.

If you are in the process of creating a website, or are even thinking about it, play around with this and hit me up if you want to chat through it.

START UP FINANCIAL MODEL
Right click and “save as” the above link to download the Excel spreadsheet.

Lately, I’ve come out of my reading slump with a strong 4 for 4 performance this summer. Since I’ve enjoyed all of these books, I figured I would share a few recommendations.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan asks and answers more questions about the food that we eat than I, or even the Food Network, could ever imagine. Pollan tracks the food chain from mother nature to your dinner plate and I was surprised and fascinated by how it all happens. I especially enjoyed the in-depth account of how farming works and the modern day economics of our food system. I never before got the whole idea behind organic and local food movements but now I actually seek out more natural foods. He even explains the mystifying phenomenon of chickens (CC: Vant and Lisa). If you had a conversation with me in the month of June there’s a good chance it drifted to discussing this book as it totally consumed my thoughts for a few weeks. Luckily, the Omnivore’s Dilemma’s promise to change the way I think about the pleasure of eating only lasted a few weeks. I’m back to craving processed Chicken McNuggets.

I also enjoyed Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. I was obviously intrigued by this book as it combines two things, Israel and entrepreneurship, that greatly interest me. The author’s share analysis, research, case studies and anecdotes on how Israel’s culture, education, community networks and military training have led to a thriving, innovative technology sector that provides integral value to the global business world. Israel’s tech/entrepreneurial cluster is one of the most promising opportunities for the country to put itself in position to prosper and grow in future generations. Much of Israeli’s ability to create a business climate in which good ideas are nurtured and risk is palatable is traced back to the values, ideals and networks that Israeli’s learn in their mandatory military and reserve service. I actually would have liked if they spent more time detailing some of the other factors. What I enjoyed most was reading stories how Israel is becoming more valuable and integrated into the global community in an economic way that I believe is far more powerful than the political posturing, and media bickering that dominate the conversation these days.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is the true story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-born contractor living in New Orleans who decides to tough out Hurricane Katrina (mostly for business reasons) rather than evacuate. The incredible dramatic events that follow touch on the tragedy of the Hurricane, intertwined with race and culture through the experiences of one man. Like in What is The What (about Sudan), Eggers is able to tell the story of a community through the events of one person and does it in a way that blends truth with fiction that makes it even more real than any news report I’ve watched about Katrina.

It only took me a few days to fly through The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine. I’ve been a big Michael Lewis fan since I read Liar’s Poker in college and have read just about all his other books. It’s nice to see him come back to Wall Street — he does so just the way he left it. A keen ability to sift through the bull shit, unimpressed by the shine and $$ of Wall Street, and really tell it like he sees it. In this book, Lewis uses three examples of contrarian finance guys who shorted the housing market within his larger explanation of the financial events that led to the housing meltdown. As always, Michael Lewis is brilliant in breaking down complex phenomena into laymen terms and gets down to the psychological nitty gritty of the characters that he details. I love how he gets into the heads of guys who were so unflappable and sure of themselves. They were convinced they were right and everybody else was crazy/wrong and endured the immense pressure until they were proven right. At my best, this is exactly how I want to think and act in my business actions.

I’m now reading The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. While it’s not exactly my cup of tea, it’s an extremely well-written story and is the selection for my office book club.

On deck I have How Zappos Delivers Happiness by CEO Tony Hsieh, Suttree by Cormac McCarthy (for another bookclub that I am in) and The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo by Stieg Larsson. My rule of thumb with these breakout books is that if everybody seemingly loves it (including Lisa and my pops) then it must be good!

Looking for a good book website? Check out the AV Club blog by the good and funny folks at the Onion. There reviews are money and they are usually on point with the books they cover.

I would love to hear about what you are reading. Leave a comment or hit me up by email.

This week Sports Illustrated published their 2010 Fortunate 50 highest-earning American athletes and ranked Lebron as the fourth overall with total revenue of over $45 Million. Two-thirds of that revenue is generated by sponsorship and marketing deals with corporate partners that include Nike, Sprite, Glaceau VitaminWater, State Farm, Upper Deck, and McDonald’s. During the Knicks futile quest to sign James, the team presented an Interbrand report that predicted that Lebron could generate over one billion dollars during his career if he plays in New York City.

Most of Lebron James’ current deals are traditional sponsorships which typically include television commercials, promotional appearances and the marketing rights to use an athlete’s name and likeness. Digital rights are often included as part of a bundled package or as added value. Digital is not yet driving the revenue. Interbrand didn’t even bother to include digital revenue when calculating Lebron’s Billion.

This will change. In the next decade Lebron will derive substantial revenue through digital sponsorships.

Last week’s “Decision” resulted in a healthy dose of digital growth in the LeBusiness. The new LebronJames.com website and email newsletter launched. The “Decision” television special on ESPN was sponsored by Microsoft Bing in a distinctly digital sponsorship. The Lebron James Facebook page has been “liked” by 2.8MM fans. In just a few weeks on twitter @KingJames gained over 490K followers. Lebron and his marketing team were able to leverage the media coverage and fan frenzy as a catalyst to aggregate a digital audience. Now they will try to monetize it.

LebronJames.com may attract additional sponsorship as it did with Bing but with limited monthly traffic (less than 500K uniques) there is a ceiling on direct digital advertising. Lebron does have a considerably bigger audience on the major social media platforms. Twitter’s direct monetization mechanisms are still immature but popular athletes on twitter are rumored to receive $5K-$10 per sponsored tweet (via Ad.ly). Facebook pages are great promotional opportunities and have become more integral in all media campaigns. Innovative Facebook programs like Amare Stoudemire selling playoff tickets for the Suns through his own Facebook page may also be a new revenue stream in the future.

Lebron’s announcement also signaled the dawn of the individual star athlete as a media entity. Recent trends have seen professional teams create regional sports networks, and professional sports leagues create their own media businesses. Is the next evolution for individual athletes to form their own media companies?

Perhaps it’s already happening with the massive media coverage of star figures such as Tiger Woods and Lebron James. Despite critical reaction, the “Decision” drew 9.9 million viewers on ESPN. Interest in Lebron is at record highs and his new digital media platforms allows him to directly boradcast to his fans (rather than through the NBA or even the Miami Heat).

If Lebron James (or at least his brand) is looked upon as a media company the digital revenue opportunities go far beyond sponsorship. Weekly Youtube video podcasts, twitter contests, email newsletters, memorabilia sales, online auctions and e-commerce opportunities all begin to add up. It becomes conceivable that Lebron can generate an additional $10MM – $20MM per year through digital business with new sponsors or incremental dollars from current brand partners. Some of these digital opportunities don’t even need Lebron’s personal time which makes it even easier to scale. This digital revenue alone can more than makes up for the increased salary that he passed up.

I’m interested to see what happens on and off the court in Miami. If Lebron is successful at building out his own media property it’s a telling sign of a power shift in professional sports. I’m not sure how David Stern, the owners or even the fans will react. Stern didn’t seem to happy with Lebron’s “Decision”. But if Lebron, D-Wade and Bosh continue to stick together they may soon have a healthy dose of power and influence to match their ever-growing paychecks. But first, let’s see them get some rings!

The issue isn’t the content as much as how it is delivered and how quickly it becomes stale. The Super Bowl commercials are great because they are all new and fresh. But most commercials run for months with the same exact 30 second unit. Perhaps there is an argument that repetition is an effective marketing tactic. But I don’t need to re-read my Comm 101 course pack to know that annoying the crap out of people isn’t an effective marketing tactic.

Imagine somebody gave you $5MM to spend on 50 prime time 30 second content blocks over the course of 3 months with the goal to be as influential as possible. Would you really think the most efficient way to do this would be to develop one piece of content and then run it 50 times? How about running 50 pieces of content one time each?

We now live in a real-time instant gratification world where fresh content is at our finger tips through Facebook, twitter and [choose your favorite] mobile apps. Pick up a newspaper and the first thing you realize is that the news in it is one day OLD.

Now let’s analyze your average commercial

1) It’s been played on television for a few weeks or even a few months
2) Therefore, there’s a good chance you’ve already seen it multiple times
3) The concepting, development and production may very well have started over one year ago

Man, if I wanted old, lame content I would watch TV Land.

Luckily for some, there is a vast brand marketing and creative agency conspiracy brewing in which everybody just pretends that their commercials don’t suck. An amazing commercial is just one that sucks a little less than the rest of them. This is comparable to when I get together with my fat/slow/short friends and we play basketball against each other. My 17% 3-pointer percentage is impressive compared to Evanter’s broken shot or Hillman’s defense is suffocating when he is guarding Kosh. Now imagine we charged for spectators to watch us play and they paid without it ever dawning on them how inferior our game was compared to professional basketball. Am I on crazy pills??

Here’s a little secret – there’s is a reason why people DVR shows just to skip the commercials.

A few years ago (July ‘08) I wrote a blog post in which I basically suggested one way to make commercials suck less is for them to introduce new music. It was a cutesy idea but didn’t really solve the major issues I’ve mentioned above.

So when I first saw what Old Spice did this week I was amazed. I’ve seen the future!

Quick backstory – Old Spice has been running a series of commercials called “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” with a cocky, confident, chiseled dude who articulately talks about the weird stuff that he is doing. They are the exact type of clever commercials that suck less and can be tolerated even after you’ve already seen each ad over a dozen times. This week they took it to another level. Over a two day period, Old Spice created over 80 short YouTube video ads in which the Old Spice Guy responds directly to people through social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). Old Spice Guy responds to both celebrities and regular folks all in high quality, well-written “commercial-like” responses. You can watch the YouTube videos here.

So in real-time Old Spice was creating awesome, fresh content. It leveraged cheaper production costs, social media distribution platforms, and two way communication with its viewers to do something cool. Instead of relying on technologies from the freaking 1960’s, Old Spice figured out how to leverage modern day tools, platform and technologies to create the kind of stuff that people love.

I was into it. On Wednesday, I tweeted to Old Spice that I would donate $100 to any charity they mentioned if they made a video reply to me. I was so excited that I crossed my toes as I typled.

I’m not saying every brand should start employing this exact gimmick. But I’d be willing to bet marketing and advertising will look a lot more like this in ten years than the standard 30 second commercial. It definitely will take some time. Processes need to be modernized. For instance, the way commercials are approved and trafficked are obsolete. Brands have to be willing to further let go of how tightly they control the marketing message. The intricate conspiracy of pretending that commercials don’t suck will need to be exposed like Jeff Francouer lack of plate discipline.

Hopefully this is a harbinger of more cool stuff to come in television advertising. Otherwise, when the advanced life forms in 2150 look back at the “Lebron Era” of history (in their Comm 101 classes) they’re just going to laugh at how stupid we all were!

Here is a video that Old Spice made in response to a comment by Perez Hilton…

Congratulations on your big Decision to move down to South Beach and join the Miami Heat. To be honest, I didn’t see it coming. I guess I’m no Chris Broussard. Most people work their entire careers to retire to the sunshine state but you get to do it in the prime of your career.

I don’t blame you for bouncing out of Cleveland. Not much going for the city known as the mistake by the lake. Plus, you’ve lived there for like twenty-five years already. The winters are cold and those weird gnats on Joba Chamberlin’s neck can attack at any time. Heck, a Cleveland sports team hasn’t won a Championship since the Browns in 1964. You don’t need to be killing it on Bodog to know those aren’t great odds.

The Cavs and Dan Gilbert just weren’t able to surround you with the right talent to win a title (and then he has the chutzpah to bitch about it). But now you get to team up with two of the top basketball players in the world. Why worry about winning a ‘chip during the season when you can secure it in the off-season? D-Wade already has won a title. I’m sure he can help show you how it’s done. Look what happened last time you played with Wade and Bosh at the Olympics. You guys won Gold. Duh!

It’s a pretty savvy move to follow the career path of Kevin Garnett. He toiled away in Minnesota for 12 full years before he wised up and went to Boston to get his ring. He really showed the heart of a champion when he proclaimed “Anything is Possible”. That’s a great example that nothing is impossible.

Your career move was so interesting that you even haave me in a state of self-reflection. Maybe instead of trying to build a company from scratch I should just go work at Google, Facebook or Microsoft. Unfortunately websites can’t win championships, but I can tell everyone I changed that world while making billions of dollars.

I must admit, I really wanted you to come to my beloved Knicks. But let’s be real here. We’re coming off one of the worst decades in professional sports and the media scrutiny would be enormous. A few months ago my buddy Will was begging for you on the cover of NY Magazine and now he’s philosophizing on the meaning of being a sports fan! Jeez, who needs all of that? Plus, it’s easy for a Midwestern boy to get lost in a big city.

I admire how you created some good out of a whole lot of hoopla by announcing your Decision on ESPN and having all of the proceeds go to charity. I’ll never understand why a talented ballplayer like Kevin Durant would quietly sign a max deal extension and then announce it with a simple tweet. Some guys are just plain selfish and obtuse. Maybe you should auction off the final five or six roster spots on the Heat to raise even more money for the Boys & Girls.

I’m sure your boy Maverick Carter and your homies (your other “team”) are excited to relocate to South Beach. It’s almost like that show Entourage is about you and your crew. It’s mighty loyal of you to hire all your high school friends instead of employing one of those corporate suits to manage the hundreds of millions of dollars generated by your “King James” brand. Keep on making these solid business decisions and you’ll surely be the first billionaire athlete.

After you win your championships I bet you’re going to party in the city where the HEAT is on, all night on the beach till the break of dawn. I bet your mom Gloria will party even harder!

Enjoy and good luck,
Littyhoops

It started this morning at 10am (an unnaturally early time for us East Coasters) with the USA soccer game. I set up the espn3.com feed through a large screen television and ordered some bagels and juice. Suddenly, the Sportsvite pod was as hot as Shahrukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhaniye Le Jayenge.

I was psyched by the World Cup (I freaking podcasted about it) but until today didn’t have much faith in our team. It was exasperating watching the US come so close to scoring the entire game without putting the ball in the net. My boy Dempsey had chance after chance but couldn’t convert (kind of like me last weekend). I was sure they were going to score. Then at around the 85th minute I was sure they weren’t going to score. But with one Tim Howard fastball, the Yanks were able to instantly turn the USA into a soccer mad country. With one streaking run, Landon Donovan went from a goat to the GOAT — Greatest (American) Of All Time! With a favorable match-up vs. Ghana (during Dudefest no less) and then a potential quarterfinal match between the winner of Uruguay-South Korea dare I say…

By the way, in the 80th minute of the match the UPS guy delivered a box of vuvuzelas to my office. For anybody who does not believe in love at first site, it is my most prized poessesion.

Just a few hours after the thrilling victory my buddy Neal hit me up to inform me that there was a tennis match tied at 30-30 in the 5th set at Wimbledon. At first I didn’t believe him. I was fascinated and headed straight back to espn3.com to check out the action. American John Isner (think of Chris Dudley playing tennis) was bombing ace after ace against unknown (at least to me) Frenchy Nicolas Mahut. I watched till 39-39 as both players seemed unaffected by the fatigue, pressure and insanity of it all. I was called into a few meetings and had a few work related things (the nerve of work to get in the way of my great sports day) and when I got back to it the match was tied at 55! The match was stopped due to darkness tied at 59. Thank the good lord because the announcers were pretty sure that ESPN would never air Sportscenter ever again. That number is so high I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s like if that Syracuse vs. UCONN game went to 14 overtimes of if Tiger Woods won a US Open via a 72 hole sudden death playoff. Just think of anything that is impossible and you got yourself a great analogy.

This is so mind boggling that it could be the opening episode of season seven of LOST. For goodness sake, even the scoreboard broke. I’m not sure how neither guy lost concentration or just plain old gave up. Mahut didn’t even look tired! Isner said “nothing like this will ever happen again. Ever.” One person more geeked than me is Roger Federer who kept on saying how much he loved watching the match. They broke just about every single record for tennis longevity in the book. In fact, there are no longer any empty pages in the darn book.

The match stirred up two of my most deep-rooted pre-adolescence fascinations. The first is the idea that I could fall asleep during a Yankee game and awake in the morning and the game would still be going on in extra extra innings. That way I could continue to watch the game in the morning as I ate cheerios and corn pops.

The second is the method in which I challenged myself when playing ping pong with my little sister. If we were playing to 21 I would give her as big as lead as possible. Then I would battle back to tie it at 20-20. Since ping pong is win by two points, I would then see how long we could play (without her blatantly knowing my scheme). I’m not sure what the point of this was besides allowing me to star in my very own mental Sportscenter and scarring my little sister psyche for life.

Here’s an even more mind blowing fact of the day. My dad is flying to London to watch the completion of the match tomorrow! No, no, no. It’s not what you’re thinking…that would be perverted/sick. My parents happen to be going to England tomorrow for a European summer vacation. My sister just happened to be able to get them Wimbledon tickets. So there is a chance that they might see the completion of the Isner match. Considering my pops was flipping out more than I am in this post, it might be the most serendipitous occurrence since two tennis players tied each other at 59 in the 5th set.

Despite a great afternoon of sports action, little did I know it would improve. Lisa was able to score some fourth row tickets at Citified so we headed out to the game. Do you know how good free food tastes at a sporting event? We sat next to David Lee. RA Dickey was spectacular and is having one of those fairy tale storybook years that can only can happen to 30-something, messy-haired knuckle ballers as he stymied Detroit over eight shutout innings. I’ve spent a good portion of the last few years herbing the Mets but got to give the Amazins some credit. They are playing inspired ball and have some young, unheralded guys stepping up. Ike Davis got some schnoz on him! For at least one night, the Mets won me over.

Finally, I got home and tuned into the Yankee game. They tied it in the 9th off of Arizona closer Aaron Heilman (ha – laughable). After a Grandy-Man homer, Mariano came back out to work a second inning but the D-Backs quickly loaded the bases with no out. Two infield pop-ups and a K later and the greatest reliever to ever play the game had done his job once again. Every time I watch Rivera pitch I appreciate that I am watching greatness. As Rivera ages, I dread the day that he is no longer the Yankee closer. Luckily, even at the age of 40, he shows no signs of slowing down. When it’s all said and done there’s a good chance Rivera will have a monument (yes a monument) at Yankee Stadium.

Still not convinced on how great of a day it was. Giambi hit a walk-off homer to beat Papelbon and the Red Sox. How awesome is that!

Heck this day should have it’s own 30 for 30 episode!

Please good lord Hashem, let this happen every day and I’ll promise to recycle, share, clean my room and be a better person!

It doesn’t take me much to be fascinated by sport. Admittedly, I’m a borderline perv when it comes to baseball, college basketball, anything fantasy, and come to think of it, just about every major sport out there (except for Hockey). I also happen to closely follow NASCAR, PGA Tour, World Series of Poker, the Tour De France (where my peleton at!), and action sports. I remember one summer (1995) of adolescence being enthralled by Dennis Connor valiant attempt to lead Starts & Stripes past the Kiwi’s in the America’s Cup (that’s a sailing race for everyone other than Ellstien).

My point here being that it’s a no-brainer for me to get all wrapped up in World Cup fever. The World Cup is what the Olympics used to be. An international competition featuring a sport people care about!

I’ve been following the US National Team pretty closely and I’m somewhat literate when it comes to European club soccer but by no means am I an soccer aficionado. I’ve enjoyed the last few World Cups so I want to go into this one as knowledgeable as possible. Some people stress about work or life….I stress about not knowing who is starting in Spain’s midfield.

So I asked the most avid soccer fan I know, my birthright homie Leor Shapiro, if he would take part in the maiden voyage. Leor’s a big sports fan. In fact the first time I ever met him, in the Israeli desert no less, he was wearing a St. John’s hat! He also recently lived in London for the better part of a year and got to experience a season of the Premiere League.

It took awhile to get our rhythm. I had some technical difficulties and the sound quality could be better. At first I was a bit wishy washy but grew more confident as we went on. I would also like it to have been a little more punchier and more of a conversation than an interview. All in all though, I think it was a good first stab (but do recognize there needs to be lots of improvement). When it comes to soccer, Leor knows his stuff (as my dad likes to say). I especially enjoyed Leor’s commentary breaking down the USA team players and their style of play.

If you have a chance, listen here or click on the podcast player at the bottom of this blog post page. If you have any World Cup questions, leave a comment and I’ll try and have Leor respond.

Also, if you are around the next few weeks and want to watch World Cup soccer during the day hit me up. I plan to take a bunch of long lunches at PS450 (below my office) or at Bar 29 (29th and 3rd).

Finally, if you want to understand the culture significance of the game of soccer (which is far and away the most popular global sport) check out the book How Soccer Explains The World by Franklin Foer.

I do realize that all you Littyhoopsters are not necessarily as fascinated by the blending of jocks, geeks and suits. So I’ve attempted to venture out to find the right audience for these posts.

I syndicated my post on March Madness on Demand to The Wire blog that is part of the Business Insider Network. This is one of the top digital blogs on the web and is a neat way to get my name and ideas out there. I’m planning to write more about sports and digital for them in the future. It was pretty simple to set this up as I reached out directly to the Deputy Editor, Dan Frommer, and after swapping a few emails we had a basic arrangement in place that allows me to contribute. My first post was read over 250 times and retweeted 48 times. My friends Pete, Blake, Ellstein and Matt M. all spotted it on their own and it made me feel big time!

This week I (or whoever is Brian Litvak – without a “c”) had my blog post on a Freemium ticket model idea posted on CNBC’s Sports Biz Blog with Darren Rovell. The blog announced a contest last week to publish guest blog posts. Over 100 submissions were sent in and Darren and team published 14. My post was lucky enough to be selected. This post dissected the idea of a professional sports team giving away tickets in order to increase game attendence and fan base which a team can then monetize in other ways. I’m not sure if this plan makes economic sense right now (and no team has yet to try it) but it’s an interesting thought exercise especially since I believe sports is shifting from an event dominated medium to a media dominated medium. I received a bunch of comments and it was cool to see how people reacted. One guy commented that this was a bad idea because “half of the stadium is filled with homeless people, most of whom aren’t wearing team logos, don’t spend any money on food or parking, don’t smell very nice, and who beg from the other half of the crowd?”. I think this guy might be confused between my idea and the fans of Philadelphia.

By the way, Darren Rovell is from Roslyn (town next to Great Neck) and is just a few years older than me. I give him lots of credit as he single handedly created a niche in sports business reporting (first for ESPN and now for CNBC). He’s been super responsive the few times I’ve reached out to him over the years and therefore I’m not just a fan of his reporting but as him as a person as well. Plus, the Sahn brothers say he is a good dude.

Look forward to sharing some more of my ideas, theories and findings on digital sports business. Even if you don’t read it here, perhaps you’ll see it on the cover of the Wall Street Journal one day. I hope that black and white sketch of my face is pimp

Lost is the best television I have ever watched (no offense to John from Cincinnati). So I’m happy to report that the highly anticipated series finally was everything I hoped it would be. I was a tad worried that the show would end with far more new questions than answers. In fact, I was kind of worried that the show would end with the “Bad Robot” sticking up his robotic middle finger at me and all the suckers who feverishly tried to make mince meat out of vegetables. There was a lot on the line. The final was either going to be epic and justify the years of being somewhat clueless or it was going to flat out suck. I ended my journey with LOST as a satisfied soul.

LOST has occupied a good portion of my free brain activity. It’s below Sportsvite and St. John’s basketball, vying with fantasy sports as my third biggest obsession in life. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the mental horse power to digest all the secret wonders of the Island. I often tell people that it “hurts my brain” just to think about all that is happening on the show. What I mean by that is that my brain actually aches. I might have sub-consciously threw out my back last week just so I could think about something new before my entire life was consumed by LOST. I’m not sure if anybody has all the answers but I am sure that I have very few. Like the bible, multi-variable calculus and a verse from the MC Twista, my hope has always been that if I could just comprehend bits and pieces it would be enough to keep my mind racing for days.

For most of the last six years there has been more than enough good stuff to keep me interested. I’ve even weathered weird sci-fi subplots, mind-bending time travel and random characters to get to the end. To find out what happens. To get all of the answers.

I’ve only written about LOST once on this blog at the end of season three. It was my favorite episode up until this finale. My big argument in that post was that the show is all about the characters. Characters that I’ve grown to know and understand as good as some of the relationships I have in my real life!

I’m not sure I can even give you a good recap of the final episode or the overarching theme of the show. LOST was just ambiguous enough to allow people to interpret the show in their own vein. If I tried to explain what it means to be I’d just feel foolish and ignorant. As I said, my brain ain’t cut out for this kind of intense, critical thinking!

What I do know is that this was gripping television and it made just enough sense to me. I realized that how it ends is besides the point. The best part was being able to watch every week, trying to figure out what the heck was happening, thinking about what is real, and looking forward to the next episode.

Over the years, I’ve made it a point to know which of my friends, colleagues and blog readers watched LOST. It was interesting to see how these people processed the show and what about the show made it so enjoyable to them. Many people had many different reasons. That’s part of the magic that made the show so special. One of my favorite things to do was think about my
own life and future within the context of some of the themes in the show. What am I meant to do in my life? What decisions didn’t I make and where would I be if I had?

Somebody recently asked me what I’m going to think about when LOST ends. The person didn’t get it. I’m always going to think about LOST and the many themes, plot twists, and characters. I’m ready to start at season one and watch the whole series all over again.

If you don’t watch LOST I’m not sure what’s been holding you back. Yeah, the water cooler conversation might sound ridiculously foolish but it’s not. Go for it! It will be worth the addiction. If you do watch LOST, I hope the finale had meaning for you. And don’t stress about all of the unanswered questions. Instead, just appreciate the enjoyment of the experience.a

Namaste!