I just enjoyed a short business trip to Southern California. As I travelled from Boston to LA late this week, I remembered that the first day of my journey happened to be on the 22nd anniversary of the day Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced his retirement from the NBA because of the HIV+ diagnosis he was given after he took a physical for his life insurance policy.
Thank God, Earvin is doing very well today. While his playing career was cut short, he went on to two miraculous curtain calls with the '92 NBA All-Star Game (one of my fondest memories) and with the '1992 USA Basketball Dream Team at the Barcelona Summer Olympic Games.
The rest is history. (My prior post noted the news reports).
So, now I'm up early and happy to be heading "home." I don't take "home" for granted. None of us should ever, ever take home for granted because sometimes, some of us -- well -- just can't find their way home.
Note Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, of course, Derek Truck, on rhythm guitar no less, along with drummer Doyle Bramhall. The video was shot at Clapton's Crossroads festival in 2007. In 2011, Bramhall passed away in his sleep at the age of 62.
Gotta Go! Time to pack up and head home.
Fanatics
Showing posts with label Magic Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magic Johnson. Show all posts
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Thursday, September 27, 2012
HERE COME THOSE SANTA ANA WINDS AGAIN...
The worst possible lede sentence for a blog of my sorts would be ... "Back in the day, ..." but this one deserves it.
Back in the day, Wall Street Journal reporter John Helyar pioneered sports business stories like Jacques Cartier navigated the St. Lawrence. The Atlanta-based reporter was one of the first at "The Journal" to realize the growing influence of sports stories in the business world and 20-something years later, he's still getting it done, now with Bloomberg.
In this instance, he is saddled up for a ride with Bloomberg columnist/reporter Scott Soshnick, the 2000-12 version of a sports business frontiersman extraordinaire and Delaware-based Steve Church, a newsman I hope to meet.
Here is the full version of their story on the LA Dodgers TV deal, possibly the most interesting sports biz story of the year 2012. In layman's terms, the TV deal set the table for the purchase of the team, the purchase of the team and the influence of the new ownership group, including Magic Johnson and CEO/Baseball genius Stan Kasten, set the table for the blockbuster trades and player acquisitions made by the Dodgers this summer, especially the mega-deal with the Boston Red Sox for Adrian Gonzalez and some throw-ins. However, in my view, the whole play for the LA Dodgers is hidden the vast acres of land near Chavez Ravine - aka the "parking lots," which upon that stone can someday lay the foundation for an NFL stadium and franchise in the City of Angels.
The TV rights for the whole shebang, including pre-game, post-game, preseason and off-season NFL programming, coupled with the MLB Dodgers would be a formidable programming juggernaut in SoCal as the LA Lakers side with Time-Warner and Comcast/NBC scout the landscape.
Here's Bloomberg's look at the LA Dodgers situation. Good stuff.
***
Back in the day, Wall Street Journal reporter John Helyar pioneered sports business stories like Jacques Cartier navigated the St. Lawrence. The Atlanta-based reporter was one of the first at "The Journal" to realize the growing influence of sports stories in the business world and 20-something years later, he's still getting it done, now with Bloomberg.
In this instance, he is saddled up for a ride with Bloomberg columnist/reporter Scott Soshnick, the 2000-12 version of a sports business frontiersman extraordinaire and Delaware-based Steve Church, a newsman I hope to meet.
 |
| Stan Kasten being interviewed by Bloomberg's Rick Harrow |
The TV rights for the whole shebang, including pre-game, post-game, preseason and off-season NFL programming, coupled with the MLB Dodgers would be a formidable programming juggernaut in SoCal as the LA Lakers side with Time-Warner and Comcast/NBC scout the landscape.
Here's Bloomberg's look at the LA Dodgers situation. Good stuff.
***
L.A. Dodgers Secret TV Deal With MLB Fuels Spending Spree
By -
Sep 27, 2012
The Los Angeles Dodgers have shot
out of bankruptcy and into the ranks of baseball’s biggest
spenders, fueled partly by a secret agreement between former
owner Frank McCourt and Major League Baseball that may limit the
revenue the team is obliged to share with less prosperous clubs.
A settlement ending their 2011 battle in U.S. Bankruptcy Court gives the Dodgers’ new owners a chance to cap income subject to revenue-sharing from a proposed regional sports network at about $84 million a year, according to five people familiar with the confidential “special terms.” With TV sports-rights experts saying the team could get as much as $225 million a year from a network’s rights fees, the Dodgers may enjoy an annual unshared windfall of as much as $141 million.
The “special terms” help explain the Dodgers’ improved finances since emerging from bankruptcy in April by being sold to a group led by Guggenheim Partners for $2.15 billion. That sum was almost twice the record price for a U.S. sports team, and the new owners have been acquiring stars such as infielders Adrian Gonzalez and Hanley Ramirez, committing more than $400 million to multiyear contracts.
“It’s an incredibly great deal for the new ownership that was obviously a factor in the amount of money they were willing to pay,” said Michael Cramer, who handled TV rights while president of the Texas Rangers and now heads a University of Texas sports and media studies program. “Any team in the league would say, ‘Can I have that?’ It’s going to create a lot of owners saying, ‘Where’s mine?”’
The “special terms” set the Dodgers’ annual TV rights fees from the regional network at about $84 million, plus a 4 percent annual escalator, for the life of whatever contract the team signs setting up the network, said the people familiar with the terms.
That figure sets the amount of revenue the Dodgers must share. Baseball rules require that big-market teams share 34 percent of regional network rights fees with small-market teams. Unlike National Football League franchises, which get equal parts of league-negotiated TV rights fees, MLB teams have widely disparate broadcast revenues. The 34 percent revenue-sharing requirement is meant to level the financial playing field a bit, though Cramer said accounting techniques often limit the tab for teams with part-ownership of a regional network.
The Dodgers TV rights valuation was fixed almost one year before the start of talks on a new contract, under the terms of its current one with Fox Sports, at a time of soaring TV broadcast rights deals. Though $84 million is about double the Dodgers’ present rights fees, it became a below-market sum the month after the settlement. Fox Sports is a unit of News Corp. (NWSA)
The Los Angeles Angels, the market’s number two baseball team, signed a 17-year $2.5 billion regional network contract in December with Fox Sports, according to Forbes. The number one Dodgers’ leverage on TV rights has been increased by intense competition for local sports programming in Southern California.
The Los Angeles Lakers more than tripled broadcast revenue by signing a deal with Time Warner Cable last year which brings $200 million a year over the contract’s guaranteed 15 years, according to Forbes. The cable operator has built two new regional sports networks around the NBA team, one English- language and one Spanish-language.
The settlement allows the Dodgers to create a network on which revenue-sharing would be effectively capped at about $84 million, plus the annual 4 percent escalator, depending on how the contract is crafted and the entity is structured, according to two people familiar with the special terms. Comparing the cap amount with Desser’s highest estimate of rights fees means the network may generate an annual windfall of $141 million.
“The basic treatment is exactly the same as every other team in baseball,” Manfred said. “Any dollar that’s actually received in rights fees or signing bonus by the Dodgers is subject to revenue-sharing.”
He said the auction produced high offers not because of the special terms but because a flagship baseball team was available in America’s second biggest media market and under favorable circumstances.
The Dodgers’ spending spree on players hasn’t paid off so far this season. Since an August 25 trade with the Boston Red Sox, which landed four players with more than $260 million of contract obligations, the Dodgers have lost 17 of 29 games, damaging their chances to make the National League playoffs.
Torie von Alt, a spokeswoman for Guggenheim, said executives at the firm would have no comment. Mark Walter, chief executive officer of the Chicago-based investment firm, is the Dodgers’ controlling partner. Stan Kasten, the team’s president, also declined to comment.
The “special terms” was only one of MLB’s departures from its usual team sale procedures. McCourt, not Selig, picked the winning offer, from a list of bidders pre-approved by MLB. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross, not baseball’s owners, made the ultimate approval. Joseph Farnan, the retired judge, was empowered to resolve disputes in the course of the Dodgers’ auction and decide the special terms’ interpretation.
“McCourt had a lot of leverage, because MLB did not want a public hearing on the inconsistencies with which it treats teams,” said Salerno, who represented the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes in bankruptcy proceedings in 2009.
Robert Siegfried, a spokesman for McCourt, said the former owner declined to comment. Manfred said MLB’s decision to settle was motivated solely by its desire to bring about a transfer of Dodgers ownership quickly.
After the settlement was reached, disagreements broke out about how to interpret the “special terms,” according to four people familiar with the events. They are considered so sensitive that only a few numbered copies were made. Gross reviewed them, but didn’t keep a copy and never made them part of the official court record.
At an April 13 court hearing to confirm the team’s sale, Dodgers attorney Bruce Bennett said the mediator had already heard three disputes concerning the special terms during the auction process, and “in all three of these mediations, Judge Farnan found that Major League Baseball’s interpretation was wrong and that the (Dodgers) or the bidder whose proposal was involved was correct.”
The argument didn’t persuade Judge Gross. Still, special treatment for the Dodgers bodes ill for baseball, said Andy Dolich, a former Oakland Athletics executive vice president and member of one of the bidding groups in the Dodgers auction.
“If you don’t have a codified set of rules that everybody is playing with then you have a different game,” said Dolich, who has also held management positions in the other three major U.S. sports leagues. “The ongoing divide between top and bottom in all sports creates a dynamic of question marks.”
In 2004, MLB violated its own 60/40 rule, requiring teams to maintain a ratio of 60 percent equity to 40 percent debt, in approving McCourt’s $421 million purchase of the Dodgers. He did it “entirely with borrowed funds,” according to a bankruptcy court filing by baseball’s lawyers.
News Corp. advanced almost half the purchase price, according to sale documents, with most of its $196 million of loans secured by McCourt-owned Boston real estate.
McCourt turned to Fox Sports for a financial lifeline again in June 2011, when the Dodgers were in a cash crunch and faced with the possibility of missing payroll. He negotiated a 17-year, $3 billion contract extension of the Dodgers broadcast deal, with a $385 million upfront payment which would have both provided liquidity to the team and enabled the owner to pay a divorce settlement and satisfy personal debts.
Selig rejected the deal, which in its first year would have paid the Dodgers $84 million in rights fees, saying in a June 20 letter to McCourt that a desperation-driven contract “failed to fully maximize rights fees through a competitive process, as the Los Angeles Lakers recently did... By disapproving the proposed transaction, I am ensuring that Los Angeles Dodgers LLC will have the opportunity to fully exploit its media rights.”
A week later, McCourt put the Dodgers into bankruptcy.
To contact the reporters on this story: John Helyar in Atlanta at jhelyar@bloomberg.net; Steven Church in Wilmington, Delaware at schurch3@bloomberg.net; Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net
A settlement ending their 2011 battle in U.S. Bankruptcy Court gives the Dodgers’ new owners a chance to cap income subject to revenue-sharing from a proposed regional sports network at about $84 million a year, according to five people familiar with the confidential “special terms.” With TV sports-rights experts saying the team could get as much as $225 million a year from a network’s rights fees, the Dodgers may enjoy an annual unshared windfall of as much as $141 million.
The “special terms” help explain the Dodgers’ improved finances since emerging from bankruptcy in April by being sold to a group led by Guggenheim Partners for $2.15 billion. That sum was almost twice the record price for a U.S. sports team, and the new owners have been acquiring stars such as infielders Adrian Gonzalez and Hanley Ramirez, committing more than $400 million to multiyear contracts.
“It’s an incredibly great deal for the new ownership that was obviously a factor in the amount of money they were willing to pay,” said Michael Cramer, who handled TV rights while president of the Texas Rangers and now heads a University of Texas sports and media studies program. “Any team in the league would say, ‘Can I have that?’ It’s going to create a lot of owners saying, ‘Where’s mine?”’
MLB Dispute
While MLB disputes the extent of the revenue-sharing break afforded by these “special terms,” the settlement cedes authority over their interpretation to a court-appointed arbitrator, retired federal judge Joseph Farnan. He acted as a mediator prior to the settlement and during the Dodgers’ auction.The “special terms” set the Dodgers’ annual TV rights fees from the regional network at about $84 million, plus a 4 percent annual escalator, for the life of whatever contract the team signs setting up the network, said the people familiar with the terms.
That figure sets the amount of revenue the Dodgers must share. Baseball rules require that big-market teams share 34 percent of regional network rights fees with small-market teams. Unlike National Football League franchises, which get equal parts of league-negotiated TV rights fees, MLB teams have widely disparate broadcast revenues. The 34 percent revenue-sharing requirement is meant to level the financial playing field a bit, though Cramer said accounting techniques often limit the tab for teams with part-ownership of a regional network.
Money Stays
“You simply don’t pay the team if you’re the owner of the channel; the money stays in the network,” he said. “It’s a contractual relationship with yourself.”The Dodgers TV rights valuation was fixed almost one year before the start of talks on a new contract, under the terms of its current one with Fox Sports, at a time of soaring TV broadcast rights deals. Though $84 million is about double the Dodgers’ present rights fees, it became a below-market sum the month after the settlement. Fox Sports is a unit of News Corp. (NWSA)
The Los Angeles Angels, the market’s number two baseball team, signed a 17-year $2.5 billion regional network contract in December with Fox Sports, according to Forbes. The number one Dodgers’ leverage on TV rights has been increased by intense competition for local sports programming in Southern California.
The Los Angeles Lakers more than tripled broadcast revenue by signing a deal with Time Warner Cable last year which brings $200 million a year over the contract’s guaranteed 15 years, according to Forbes. The cable operator has built two new regional sports networks around the NBA team, one English- language and one Spanish-language.
Dodger Network
Ed Desser, a Santa Monica, California-based TV sports- rights consultant who advised the Lakers in negotiations, projects that the Dodgers’ annual rights fees from a regional network would average $175 million to $225 million over a 20- year contract. If the team owned a stake in the enterprise, it could take the difference between $84 million and the Desser- projected range in dividends, an unshared source of income.The settlement allows the Dodgers to create a network on which revenue-sharing would be effectively capped at about $84 million, plus the annual 4 percent escalator, depending on how the contract is crafted and the entity is structured, according to two people familiar with the special terms. Comparing the cap amount with Desser’s highest estimate of rights fees means the network may generate an annual windfall of $141 million.
Actual Fees
It doesn’t work that way, said Robert Manfred Jr., an MLB executive vice president who oversees revenue-sharing matters. If the Dodgers command a premium for TV rights, the team must share revenue based on its fees income from the actual contract, according to Manfred, not the settlement-set $84 million a year level.“The basic treatment is exactly the same as every other team in baseball,” Manfred said. “Any dollar that’s actually received in rights fees or signing bonus by the Dodgers is subject to revenue-sharing.”
He said the auction produced high offers not because of the special terms but because a flagship baseball team was available in America’s second biggest media market and under favorable circumstances.
Attractive Opportunity
“The Dodgers contract was expiring at a time when there was fierce competition in the L.A. broadcast market,” Manfred said. “The opportunity to exploit that situation was very attractive to the bidders.”The Dodgers’ spending spree on players hasn’t paid off so far this season. Since an August 25 trade with the Boston Red Sox, which landed four players with more than $260 million of contract obligations, the Dodgers have lost 17 of 29 games, damaging their chances to make the National League playoffs.
Torie von Alt, a spokeswoman for Guggenheim, said executives at the firm would have no comment. Mark Walter, chief executive officer of the Chicago-based investment firm, is the Dodgers’ controlling partner. Stan Kasten, the team’s president, also declined to comment.
The “special terms” was only one of MLB’s departures from its usual team sale procedures. McCourt, not Selig, picked the winning offer, from a list of bidders pre-approved by MLB. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross, not baseball’s owners, made the ultimate approval. Joseph Farnan, the retired judge, was empowered to resolve disputes in the course of the Dodgers’ auction and decide the special terms’ interpretation.
Eager MLB
Taken altogether, the settlement terms suggest MLB was so eager to get McCourt out as owner and to avert an open-court airing of charges he’d leveled against Selig in filings that it made significant concessions, said Phoenix bankruptcy attorney Thomas Salerno.“McCourt had a lot of leverage, because MLB did not want a public hearing on the inconsistencies with which it treats teams,” said Salerno, who represented the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes in bankruptcy proceedings in 2009.
Robert Siegfried, a spokesman for McCourt, said the former owner declined to comment. Manfred said MLB’s decision to settle was motivated solely by its desire to bring about a transfer of Dodgers ownership quickly.
After the settlement was reached, disagreements broke out about how to interpret the “special terms,” according to four people familiar with the events. They are considered so sensitive that only a few numbered copies were made. Gross reviewed them, but didn’t keep a copy and never made them part of the official court record.
Secret Language
Manfred said team owners were briefed on this provision of the settlement, but language of the “special terms” remains secret. How much money, if any, will be shared beyond the $84 million plus escalator limit depends on how the network’s contract is structured. In case of disputes, Judge Farnan will have the final say.At an April 13 court hearing to confirm the team’s sale, Dodgers attorney Bruce Bennett said the mediator had already heard three disputes concerning the special terms during the auction process, and “in all three of these mediations, Judge Farnan found that Major League Baseball’s interpretation was wrong and that the (Dodgers) or the bidder whose proposal was involved was correct.”
Arbitration Powers
At the same hearing, MLB attorney Thomas Lauria argued that Farnan’s arbitration powers should end with the close of the Dodgers’ sale, saying, “Not one of the other teams has this mechanism where they can go to a mediator to get enforcement or seek enforcement or get other remedies that are not subject to anybody else’s review. We’ve got a league. Everybody’s got to be the same; you can’t have the Dodgers and 29 others.”The argument didn’t persuade Judge Gross. Still, special treatment for the Dodgers bodes ill for baseball, said Andy Dolich, a former Oakland Athletics executive vice president and member of one of the bidding groups in the Dodgers auction.
“If you don’t have a codified set of rules that everybody is playing with then you have a different game,” said Dolich, who has also held management positions in the other three major U.S. sports leagues. “The ongoing divide between top and bottom in all sports creates a dynamic of question marks.”
In 2004, MLB violated its own 60/40 rule, requiring teams to maintain a ratio of 60 percent equity to 40 percent debt, in approving McCourt’s $421 million purchase of the Dodgers. He did it “entirely with borrowed funds,” according to a bankruptcy court filing by baseball’s lawyers.
News Corp. Pressure
Selig bowed to pressure from seller News Corp. to approve McCourt, who, unlike some other potential bidders, had agreed to extend the Dodgers broadcast contract with Fox Sports for 10 years, according to people familiar with the transaction. Fox was paying baseball $420 million a year at the time for national broadcast rights.News Corp. advanced almost half the purchase price, according to sale documents, with most of its $196 million of loans secured by McCourt-owned Boston real estate.
McCourt turned to Fox Sports for a financial lifeline again in June 2011, when the Dodgers were in a cash crunch and faced with the possibility of missing payroll. He negotiated a 17-year, $3 billion contract extension of the Dodgers broadcast deal, with a $385 million upfront payment which would have both provided liquidity to the team and enabled the owner to pay a divorce settlement and satisfy personal debts.
Selig rejected the deal, which in its first year would have paid the Dodgers $84 million in rights fees, saying in a June 20 letter to McCourt that a desperation-driven contract “failed to fully maximize rights fees through a competitive process, as the Los Angeles Lakers recently did... By disapproving the proposed transaction, I am ensuring that Los Angeles Dodgers LLC will have the opportunity to fully exploit its media rights.”
A week later, McCourt put the Dodgers into bankruptcy.
To contact the reporters on this story: John Helyar in Atlanta at jhelyar@bloomberg.net; Steven Church in Wilmington, Delaware at schurch3@bloomberg.net; Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Dream a little Magic/Bird & Broadway Showtime
The Boston Celtics host the Loa Angeles Lakers tonight on TNT and all the pre-game buzz seems to be about Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson.
(For Magic/Bird group sales ticket information, please provide information on desired dates to attend the play and the number of seats. Comment section is best method for inquiries. Or email Terry Lyons Sports Marketing at tl (at) terrylyons (dot) com
Larry Bird and Magic?
Yes, during Tuesday night's Celtics home game against the lowly Charlotte Bobcats, Celtics forward Paul Pierce drained a three-point FG to become the #2 scorer in franchise history, surpassing Bird and now trailing John Havlicek.
Yesterday, it was a full-page, double truck feature in the popular "Inside Track" of the Boston Herald, featuring an in-depth look at the steps being taken by producers Tony Ponturo and Fran Kirmser to stage the Broadway play about the great rivalry, then gradual bonding friendship between Magic/Bird.
Here is Associated Press pro basketball writer Brian Mahoney's take on the upcoming show, complete with Johnson's view:
(Note: For Group Sales information or fan packages originating in New England, please contact Terry Lyons Sports Marketing by email: tl (at) terrylyons (dot) com)
***
NEW YORK (AP) - Showtime is about to have a whole new meaning for MagicJohnson.The story of the NBA Hall of Famer's rivalry and friendship with Larry Birdis coming to Broadway in "Magic/Bird,'' set to open in April. The twoconsulted in its production, and Johnson can't wait to watch their story told.His "Showtime'' Lakers of the 1980s were a Hollywood hit, and now he'sready to see his name in Broadway's lights."I guess it's the real Showtime,'' Johnson said in a phone interview. "Whenyou think about Broadway and you think about Larry and I being on Broadway,it's definitely at its highest level and I don't think either one of usthought that we would be on Broadway. If we was, we'd be there seeing aplay and not a play about our lives.''It's the second in a planned series of sports-themed plays from producersTony Ponturo and Fran Kirmser, the team behind "Lombardi.'' Kirmser saideven before that show's success, they wanted to tell the story of Johnsonand Bird, who started as rivals in college and finished as Olympicteammates and longtime friends."They played at such a high competitive level and there was equally a highlevel of respect between the two of them,'' Kirmser said. "That is notsomething that we see all the time now and we thought it would be excitingto take a look and relive the rivalry live on stage and important to take alook at this relationship between the two of them.''They reached out initially to Johnson, who first brought his wife, Cookie,to see "Lombardi'' before committing. Then it was on to Bird, who, justlike with the Dream Team 20 years earlier, wanted to first know thatJohnson was on board."That's normally how it usually works with us,'' Johnson said.Friendships between rivals is nothing new in today's NBA, where playersseem just as eager to team up with a foe than beat him. But the fact thatJohnson and Bird became friends was surprising even to them.Their rivalry started when Johnson's Michigan State team knocked off Bird'sIndiana State squad for the 1979 NCAA championship. Bird, the reservedwhite guy from Indiana, would then end up in Boston, while Johnson,outgoing, black and made for the big city, went to the Lakers, who hadnever beaten the Celtics in the NBA finals.They met for the championship three times as pros, with the Lakers winningtwice. But along the way, what started as hatred had softened, to the pointthat Bird said he lost some of his drive once Johnson retired for the firsttime in 1991 after contracting the HIV virus."Larry learned that Magic was also Earvin, so it wasn't all showbiz, andMagic probably learned that Larry had a sense of humor and personalitybehind that sort of tough exterior as well,'' Ponturo said of theirfriendship. "Something that's lasted 30 years in this kind of environmentis a story worth telling.''Johnson and Bird met with the writers and the actors portraying them. Birdwanted assurances the play would be true to his life and found it to beaccurate - though Tug Coker, the actor who portrays him, has dark hair.But Kirmser said Coker, who has appeared on TV in shows such as "How I MetYour Mother'' and "The Office,'' has the same facial intensity as Bird. Shesaid both he and Kevin Daniels, who plays Johnson, play basketball and"really capture the essence of these two individuals.''"They pick up a basketball and you believe it,'' Kirmser said. "And that,for the theater goer, even the theater goer who doesn't know much aboutbasketball, and certainly for the sports fan, is so important because bothrequire authenticity.''Daniels met with Johnson on Monday, asking him about Johnson'scompetitiveness, his preparation, and of course how his relationship withBird evolved."I told him the story about where I had to shoot the Converse commercial atLarry's house, which I wasn't too happy about,'' Johnson said, adding thatDaniels has the right look because he shares Johnson's "magical smile.''The NBA provided historical footage that appears throughout the 90-minuteshow, which Kirmser said covers "draft to Dream Team.''The duo helped turn the NBA into one of America's most popular sports, andinterest in them was reignited after the 2010 HBO documentary "Magic &Bird: A Courtship of Rivals.'' Seeing their highlights again is a treateven for those who aren't normally into theater."A lot of people do grow up with these two,'' Ponturo said. "You sort ofremember it, but to go back and relive some of these games on the video andthe competition, Fran and I have looked at many, many, many hours of video,and you're reminded of their play and some of the amazing shot making andtalents and everything that they had. So those who go to see the show aregoing to be quickly reminded about how wonderful these two were on thecourt.''Johnson plans to be there when the show opens April 11 at the LongacreTheater, maybe even seated next to Bird. And who could have predicted thatwhen they first met?"Just think about sports. How many guys can be linked to each other andstill be champions, competitors, then walk away being friends?'' Johnsonsaid. "It's hard to find that.''
(For Magic/Bird group sales ticket information, please provide information on desired dates to attend the play and the number of seats. Comment section is best method for inquiries. Or email Terry Lyons Sports Marketing at tl (at) terrylyons (dot) com
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Make a Wish ... Grant a Wish... But, be careful
Over the years, we worked with a large number of Make a Wish kids, mostly kids who wanted to meet Michael Jordan. We did a few with Karl Malone, the USA Basketball team, and a number of meet and greets at NBA All-Star Weekend.
Pretty tough assignment, emotionally, but, then again, I always knew the kids had a much, much tougher assignment ahead of them.
I will cut and paste a Kevin Ding article on Kobe Bryant's volunteer efforts with Make a Wish that ran in the OCR, but I also pass along a short note of advice.
Early in my career, one of my best friends in the world, Josh, who was the head PR guy for the LA Lakers in the Kareem-Magic-Worthy era, mentioned to me that he did a number of Make a Wish requests with the championship Lakers teams. At one meet and greet, in particular, a writer did a note or column and stated that the child has 'terminal' cancer.
The problem?
The family and doctors of the child had never informed the kid of the fact his/her cancer was, indeed, terminal. The kid learned about it when one of his friends read the story to him the next day.
Just think about that.
###
Kobe Bryant's work with kids brings joy, though sometimes it's fleeting
The first part of the sentence comes out naturally, spoken with the understated affection of fathers toward sons. The end part is reality sinking back in.
"He wouldn't shut up about it," Billy Thorington says, "until his last day."
Billy is reflecting on how memorable it was for his son, with the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, to meet Kobe Bryant. And as Billy taps back into the spirit, explaining why it was such a perfect wish, he slips into the present tense for just a moment: "Cody loves basketball."
Billy doesn't notice it. He just goes on to say how right it felt to place a Bryant-autographed photo in Cody's casket.
We met Cody Thorington, 15, and Chris Chavez, 14, on these pages in March in a piece about Bryant's work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Now it's time to say goodbye.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation helps those with life-threatening situations, not necessarily terminal ones, yet there are many unhappy endings. In answering every Make-A-Wish request to come his way, Bryant has met more than 100 kids. He estimates 20 have died within a year.
"Some of them days after," he said.
In that room, the talk is of embracing life. That was the crux of the column in March: Cody, Chris and the unique energy that charged a bare, little room at Staples Center where they separately met Bryant. Rest assured, it was far more party than pity.
That's because the kids smile — for a change — and Bryant insists on smiling back.
"It's tough every time, but they don't want to see you down," Bryant said. "They don't want to be treated like patients. They just want to be kids. They just want to feel normal. They just want to have fun."
Cody and Chris did all that in their meetings with Bryant about a week apart. Eight months later, they died about a week apart, too.
One of the things Bryant addressed in all that life talk with Cody is how to be motivated by adversity: "If they say you can't do it, prove them wrong." Even though Cody's form of cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma, is considered incurable, they were not empty words.
Just three weeks before his death, Cody did prove them wrong: The doctors said he would never walk again, but there Cody was, up and out of his wheelchair and even crossing the street — amazing his relatives with a surprise stroll to their house.
A week later, the tide turned and Cody was in the hospice. Billy would be there — same as he was early on in taking his sons and leaving his wife upon discovering she was abusing them. To be with Cody as his health declined, Billy missed more than a few shifts at his job in Davenport, Iowa, pulling parts from damaged cars. That didn't help the financial disaster left from two years of Cody's medical bills.
What did help was a $5,000 check from the "Nation of Neighbors Gift Patrol," a nonprofit group that heard of Billy's plight and surprised him just before Christmas. As wonderful as Billy said that was in keeping him from losing his house, the hospital bills still need settling. There's also the matter of Cody's headstone; they won't deliver it until Billy finds money for that, too.
This isn't a story about saving grace or everything working out. What the sadness does lead to is Bryant holding his daughters for an extra deep breath at bedtime, and perhaps we can all resolve to appreciate what we have a little more.
About all else there is on the bright side is that the Make-A-Wish Foundation keeps helping, Bryant keeps meeting kids, and those kids do keep smiling.
Upon meeting Bryant two Fridays ago, O'Neal Mitchell of Tenaha, Texas, surmised that Bryant wasn't as tall as advertised. Bryant, listed at 6-foot-7 when he entered the NBA and now listed at 6-6 (without the Afro, apparently), came clean with a grin: "I'm probably 6-5 in sneaks."
Bryant's wife, Vanessa, was there and had prodded him by saying she suspected the same thing — and measured her husband at home one day at 6-4 3/4. O'Neal smiled at getting the truth; he smiled again when Bryant dropped to a knee without being asked for photos next to the wheelchair-bound O'Neal, paralyzed since that day on the football field
Last Friday, Bryant met leukemia-stricken Randall Jones, just 4 1/2 years old. Randall started out nervously moving a mini-basketball from one hand to the other — until Bryant put him at ease with stories of how he used to play ball at that age.
When his mother would hear Bryant dribbling a ball and tell him, "Kobe, put that ball away!" Bryant would dribble inches off the ground to keep quieter — until his mother heard that, too. "And then I had to put the ball away," Bryant said, flashing an aw-shucks smile.
Soon enough, Randall was relaxed enough to ask Bryant point-blank: "You want to play me?" before showing off quite a nifty crossover-dribble move. When Bryant left, under his arm was a book the boy from Dallas had made out of construction paper, and on the last page was this, scribbled childishly but in very sure all caps: "THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY WISH COME TRUE."
These were the sort of memorable moments that Cody, Chris and their families got to place in vaults that should have had so many more memorable moments — but didn't.
Despite Chris spending three weeks in November 2006 in intensive care, then his heart stopping last January during a cancer-related blood transfusion, he and his family made it in from Salt Lake City to meet Bryant in March. Chris wore a Lakers sweatshirt, Air Zoom Kobe I sneakers and a smile.
He smiled again when he was back in a Salt Lake City hospital shortly before he died. Some Jazz players visited Chris and asked if he was a Jazz fan: "No," he said, grinning, "I like the Lakers."
Back in March, Chris' mother, Hasani, had said: "Due to his illness, we pretty much lost everything — our house, our car and even our dog. But that's OK. As long as Chris feels good, we all feel good, too."
This time, she says: "He was even buried with his Kobe shoes."
Hasani asks me to sign Chris' online guest-book obituary. As I do so, I notice the previous two entries are both hers.
Her words are far more meaningful than any I could write there or here.
"Hi, Christopher ... this is Mom. You've been gone for 15 days, and I miss you so much. Tomorrow is your birthday, and we will visit you. That's a promise. I cry every day for you, but knowing that you're no longer in pain eases my heartfelt pain. I'll love you always."
-30-
Pretty tough assignment, emotionally, but, then again, I always knew the kids had a much, much tougher assignment ahead of them.
I will cut and paste a Kevin Ding article on Kobe Bryant's volunteer efforts with Make a Wish that ran in the OCR, but I also pass along a short note of advice.
Early in my career, one of my best friends in the world, Josh, who was the head PR guy for the LA Lakers in the Kareem-Magic-Worthy era, mentioned to me that he did a number of Make a Wish requests with the championship Lakers teams. At one meet and greet, in particular, a writer did a note or column and stated that the child has 'terminal' cancer.
The problem?
The family and doctors of the child had never informed the kid of the fact his/her cancer was, indeed, terminal. The kid learned about it when one of his friends read the story to him the next day.
Just think about that.
###
Kobe Bryant's work with kids brings joy, though sometimes it's fleeting
The first part of the sentence comes out naturally, spoken with the understated affection of fathers toward sons. The end part is reality sinking back in.
"He wouldn't shut up about it," Billy Thorington says, "until his last day."
Billy is reflecting on how memorable it was for his son, with the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, to meet Kobe Bryant. And as Billy taps back into the spirit, explaining why it was such a perfect wish, he slips into the present tense for just a moment: "Cody loves basketball."
Billy doesn't notice it. He just goes on to say how right it felt to place a Bryant-autographed photo in Cody's casket.
We met Cody Thorington, 15, and Chris Chavez, 14, on these pages in March in a piece about Bryant's work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Now it's time to say goodbye.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation helps those with life-threatening situations, not necessarily terminal ones, yet there are many unhappy endings. In answering every Make-A-Wish request to come his way, Bryant has met more than 100 kids. He estimates 20 have died within a year.
"Some of them days after," he said.
In that room, the talk is of embracing life. That was the crux of the column in March: Cody, Chris and the unique energy that charged a bare, little room at Staples Center where they separately met Bryant. Rest assured, it was far more party than pity.
That's because the kids smile — for a change — and Bryant insists on smiling back.
"It's tough every time, but they don't want to see you down," Bryant said. "They don't want to be treated like patients. They just want to be kids. They just want to feel normal. They just want to have fun."
Cody and Chris did all that in their meetings with Bryant about a week apart. Eight months later, they died about a week apart, too.
One of the things Bryant addressed in all that life talk with Cody is how to be motivated by adversity: "If they say you can't do it, prove them wrong." Even though Cody's form of cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma, is considered incurable, they were not empty words.
Just three weeks before his death, Cody did prove them wrong: The doctors said he would never walk again, but there Cody was, up and out of his wheelchair and even crossing the street — amazing his relatives with a surprise stroll to their house.
A week later, the tide turned and Cody was in the hospice. Billy would be there — same as he was early on in taking his sons and leaving his wife upon discovering she was abusing them. To be with Cody as his health declined, Billy missed more than a few shifts at his job in Davenport, Iowa, pulling parts from damaged cars. That didn't help the financial disaster left from two years of Cody's medical bills.
What did help was a $5,000 check from the "Nation of Neighbors Gift Patrol," a nonprofit group that heard of Billy's plight and surprised him just before Christmas. As wonderful as Billy said that was in keeping him from losing his house, the hospital bills still need settling. There's also the matter of Cody's headstone; they won't deliver it until Billy finds money for that, too.
This isn't a story about saving grace or everything working out. What the sadness does lead to is Bryant holding his daughters for an extra deep breath at bedtime, and perhaps we can all resolve to appreciate what we have a little more.
About all else there is on the bright side is that the Make-A-Wish Foundation keeps helping, Bryant keeps meeting kids, and those kids do keep smiling.
Upon meeting Bryant two Fridays ago, O'Neal Mitchell of Tenaha, Texas, surmised that Bryant wasn't as tall as advertised. Bryant, listed at 6-foot-7 when he entered the NBA and now listed at 6-6 (without the Afro, apparently), came clean with a grin: "I'm probably 6-5 in sneaks."
Bryant's wife, Vanessa, was there and had prodded him by saying she suspected the same thing — and measured her husband at home one day at 6-4 3/4. O'Neal smiled at getting the truth; he smiled again when Bryant dropped to a knee without being asked for photos next to the wheelchair-bound O'Neal, paralyzed since that day on the football field
Last Friday, Bryant met leukemia-stricken Randall Jones, just 4 1/2 years old. Randall started out nervously moving a mini-basketball from one hand to the other — until Bryant put him at ease with stories of how he used to play ball at that age.
When his mother would hear Bryant dribbling a ball and tell him, "Kobe, put that ball away!" Bryant would dribble inches off the ground to keep quieter — until his mother heard that, too. "And then I had to put the ball away," Bryant said, flashing an aw-shucks smile.
Soon enough, Randall was relaxed enough to ask Bryant point-blank: "You want to play me?" before showing off quite a nifty crossover-dribble move. When Bryant left, under his arm was a book the boy from Dallas had made out of construction paper, and on the last page was this, scribbled childishly but in very sure all caps: "THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY WISH COME TRUE."
These were the sort of memorable moments that Cody, Chris and their families got to place in vaults that should have had so many more memorable moments — but didn't.
Despite Chris spending three weeks in November 2006 in intensive care, then his heart stopping last January during a cancer-related blood transfusion, he and his family made it in from Salt Lake City to meet Bryant in March. Chris wore a Lakers sweatshirt, Air Zoom Kobe I sneakers and a smile.
He smiled again when he was back in a Salt Lake City hospital shortly before he died. Some Jazz players visited Chris and asked if he was a Jazz fan: "No," he said, grinning, "I like the Lakers."
Back in March, Chris' mother, Hasani, had said: "Due to his illness, we pretty much lost everything — our house, our car and even our dog. But that's OK. As long as Chris feels good, we all feel good, too."
This time, she says: "He was even buried with his Kobe shoes."
Hasani asks me to sign Chris' online guest-book obituary. As I do so, I notice the previous two entries are both hers.
Her words are far more meaningful than any I could write there or here.
"Hi, Christopher ... this is Mom. You've been gone for 15 days, and I miss you so much. Tomorrow is your birthday, and we will visit you. That's a promise. I cry every day for you, but knowing that you're no longer in pain eases my heartfelt pain. I'll love you always."
-30-
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