Archive for September 7th, 2014

07
Sep
14

Sunday Means Laugh Laugh Laugh

By Nerdy Wonka 92 Comments
Categories: All Photos
Tags: ,

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Danny? It’s Chipsticks fault

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07
Sep
14

Racism: From Ferguson PD To The NBA

By Nerdy Wonka 121 Comments
Categories: All Photos and Ferguson
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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The Racist Email

Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the team, i didn’t much focus on game ops. then one day a light bulb went off. when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can’t get 35-55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league. when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:

– it’s 70 pct black

– the cheerleaders are black

– the music is hip hop

– at the bars it’s 90 pct black

– there are few fathers and sons at the games

– we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience. Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba’s urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience. My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don’t know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games. I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don’t care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that’s our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black.

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I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black. Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black. This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low. And many of our black fans don’t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all). Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks and sounds empty when the team takes the floor. In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than any in the league. We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense. people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard “$2 off on hot dogs during halftime tonight” just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and make the fans happier. We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players. Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not great.

More at SB Nation

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07
Sep
14

President Barack Obama: The Jobs Creating President

By Nerdy Wonka 115 Comments
Categories: All Photos and Articles
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Obama GOP

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Adam Hartung: Obama Outperforms Reagan On Jobs, Growth And Investing

To put this week’s jobs report in economic perspective I reached out to Bob Deitrick, CEO of Polaris Financial Partners and author of “Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box” (which I profiled in October, 2012 just before the election) for some explanation. Since then Polaris’ investor newsletters have consistently been the best predictor of economic performance. Better than all the major investment houses. This is the best private sector jobs creation performance in American history

Unemployment-Reagan-v-Obama

As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan. President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his 6th year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year. So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration. We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015. A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.”

When President Obama took office America was gripped in an offshoring boom, started years earlier, pushing jobs to the developing world. Manufacturing was declining in America, and plants were closing across the nation. This week the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released its manufacturing report, and it surprised nearly everyone. The latest Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) scored 59, 2 points higher than July and about that much higher than prognosticators expected. This represents 63 straight months of economic expansion, and 25 consecutive months of manufacturing expansion.

Investment-Returns-Reagan-v-Obama

While most Americans think they are not involved with the stock market, truthfully they are. Via their 401K, pension plan and employer savings accounts 2/3 of Americans have a clear vested interest in stock performance. it is undeniable that President Obama has surpassed the previous president. Investors have gained a remarkable 220% over the last 5.5 years! This level of investor growth is unprecedented by any administration, and has proven quite beneficial for everyone.

More here

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07
Sep
14

Rise and Shine – and Chat On

By Chipsticks 118 Comments
Categories: All Photos

On This Day: President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden wave to thousands at a campaign stop, Friday, Sept. 7, 2012, in Portsmouth, N.H.

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Chat on!

07
Sep
14

Early Bird Chat

By Chipsticks 103 Comments
Categories: All Photos and Joe 'Big Deal' Biden

On This Day: The President and Vice President share a laugh before a campaign rally together in Portsmouth, N.H. Sept. 7, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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