Rigging the game

Posted on October 23, 2012 by bvanrysdam

When you think of non-profits organizations, names like The United Way, The American Red Cross and the Susan B. Komen Foundation come to mind. What might surprise you is that the National Football League is also classified as a non-profit and are given tax-exempt status. How is this possible you ask?

The IRS describes 501(c) (6) tax-exempt status this way…

Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.

As you can see, the law only includes “Professional Football Leagues” which leaves Major League Baseball, The National Basketball Association and others sitting on the sidelines. So why did Washington agree to provide preferential treatment to the NFL?

It all goes back to the hey-days of the NFL/AFL Merger. Back in 1966, then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was lobbying to obtain an antitrust exemption for the merger. The antitrust and tax exemptions were put into an undisputed bill and very few people noticed or complained at the time.

That was then, this is now. The NFL is starting to face pressure about their non-profit status, and the worst part for the NFL owners? It’s coming from a Republican Senator. Senator Tom Coburn who represents Oklahoma thinks the government is getting a “Raw Deal” and wants that to change.

A spokesman for the NFL said the league office itself “is classified as a not-for-profit under the tax code because the league office makes no profit.” He said the teams make the profits and they are taxed. This is true, but what he does not mention is that NFL owners don’t pay taxes on the “dues” they pay to belong to the league (an estimated $6 million dollars a year).

Their non-profit status also means they can skip out on paying other taxes because state and local governments usually exempt these organizations from state income and sales tax as well. This was a nice little bonus when the Super Bowl was recently held in Indianapolis because hotels and restaurants did not tax National Football League employees.

And guess what? The NFL actually loses money in a way that would make Enron proud. The NFL paid 8 of its top executives around $53 million dollars in 2009. It would seem the NFL goes out of its way to lose money so they can retain its non-profit status and allow the individual teams to be more profitable.

Now how much additional tax money governments are losing out on is open to debate; it may be a little, or it may be a lot. But when Washington continues to dance on the brink of default and gentle creatures such as Big Bird could be on the chopping block; the government might want to head into the instant replay booth to see if they need to over-turn the ruling on the field and change the 501(c) (6) tax-exempt status law.

Throwing Out The User Experience

Posted on October 23, 2012 by bvanrysdam

The battle for your ears has taken an interesting twist. Traditional over the air broadcasters and internet radio companies are duking it out over something called the “Internet Radio Fairness Act”. This bill, introduced in both the House and the Senate, tries to level the playing field and put the fees internet radio pays for music at the same rate as other digital music providers. Last year, according to Pandora, it paid roughly 50 percent of its total revenue in royalties, more than six times the percentage paid by satellite radio provider Sirius-XM.

“On the surface, the rates paid by PANDORA and other online radio services appear onerous and in need of congressional relief” wrote Richard Greenfield, a media analyst for BTIG. “However, the reason why companies such as PANDORA pay such high royalty rates as a percentage of revenues is because they severely limit audio advertising to protect the user experience and keep people on the platform.”

So their answer is to have Pandora run more advertisements to make up for the revenue (God forbid anyone should “protect the user experience”). A recent radio study by ALAN BURNS AND ASSOCIATES and TRITON DIGITAL showed that radio is less strongly bonded to listeners under 35 because younger listeners want music control and fewer commercials. The response by BTIG brings to mind the infamous quip; “let them eat cake!”

Radio will point to studies showing how many people listen to them during the week, and that number is very impressive, but Internet Radio also has a compelling story to tell. Pandora reported that, in September of 2012, it showed an increase of 67% from 687 million to 1.15 billion of listening hours during the same period last year.

Another point Greenfield raised in his report was “why should the U.S. government allow musicians to be harmed simply to help PANDORA and its investors generate enhanced returns?” It’s an interesting argument because it is the same one used by the radio industry. Many radio executives feel they should pay smaller royalties to musicians because they help promote artists and sell records. Both points of view have merit, but you can’t play both sides.

If radio were smart (and there are many smart people working in radio), they would develop new ways to advertise that continue to produce a healthy profit while enhancing; not hurting its user experience instead of trying to thwart companies like Pandora. Product placement type ads, shorter commercial breaks and smoother insertion of advertisements could all lead to increased listening among younger demos which would result in higher revenues.

Will anyone in radio willing to take the chance, or will they end up listening to Wall Street instead of Main Street.

Roll Up For the Magical Mystery Tour

Posted on October 2, 2012 by bvanrysdam

Beatlemania is trying to remain alive and well with an upcoming re-release of the film, The Magical Mystery Tour. The Beatles had just released the highly acclaimed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when Paul McCartney came up with an idea to make a film based upon The Beatles and their music.

The film was to be unscripted and feature various “ordinary” people who traveled along with the band in a coach (or what us Yanks call a bus). The story highlighted the travelers who had unspecified “magical” adventures along the way and introduced us to six new Beatles songs (“Magical Mystery Tour”, “The Fool on the Hill”, “I am the Walrus” “Flying”, “Blue Jay Way” and “Your Mother Should Know”) .

The movie was shot in color, but was broadcast in black and white on BBC-TV over the 1967 Christmas holidays and was immediately ripped by the critics. The original Rolling Stone review of the movie was comprised by a one-sentence quote from John Lennon: “There are only about 100 people in the world who understand our music.” The album reached #1 on the US charts, but was only able to reach 31^st on the British charts. The soundtrack was better received than the film winning a Grammy Award for best album in 1968.

The film never was distributed in the US and saw limited distribution around the world. Now it’s being restored and released onto DVD and Blu-Ray on October 9. Apple will also have screenings of the 53-minute film for the first time ever on the big screen in the U.S. and around the world. You’ll be able find screening locations and times at www.thebeatles.com.

Message To Fans…The NFL Does Not Care

Posted on September 25, 2012 by bvanrysdam

The sports-talk airwaves are blowing up over the latest botched call by the substitute NFL officials. For those of you who don’t follow the game, last night’s Packers/Seahawks game came down to a last second Hail-Mary pass. The replay clearly showed the Green Bay defender intercepting the ball, but the officials ruled “Dual Possession” and awarded the Seahawks the Touchdown.

Now even the regular officials have been known to blow calls (see Ed “Guns” Hochuli”), but this latest mangled call was reminiscent of a Marx Brothers movie. As you can imagine, the sports-talk show hosts are outraged. They remind us in no uncertain terms that the fans are not going to accept this type of football.

The fans? Really? They think the NFL is that worried about the fans?

Let us visit the replay booth for a moment…

This is a league whose goal it was to increase player safety, yet see no problem throwing scrub officials who are in way over their heads, increasing the risk of injuries from uncalled/missed penalties like chop blocks and blows to the head.
This is the league that makes its fans purchase preseason game tickets at regular season prices even though most of those games are played by people you’ve never heard of before (or after).
This is the league that makes fans purchase PSL (Personal Seat Licenses) which require paying them for the right to purchase tickets.
This is the league that rewards Buffalo fans (Disclaimer: I am a long suffering Bills fan) by taking away one home game each year and having them play in Toronto so they can make even more money.

Now sports-talk hosts are preaching to us that we should boycott the games. Don’t watch them they tell us. Don’t attend the game (even though you had to take a second mortgage to buy the tickets in the first place).

This issue will be resolved, not because the fans are upset, but because Las Vegas cannot be happy. The Packers were 3 to 3 ½ point favorites to win that game. The final score was 14-12 which means a lot of people lost money on that final play. If I were the NFL, I would be a lot more worried about a visit from Tommy DeVito than Jim Rome.

The Most Dangerous Person on the Internet

Posted on September 10, 2012 by bvanrysdam

Do Not Click This Photo!

Who is the most dangerous person on the Internet? Turns out it is Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione Granger in the wildly successful Harry Potter series. Now Watson is not some kind of nerdy super hacker like Lisbeth Salander writing codes to destroy your computer’s hard drive and hence your entire life. No, Watson is actually the bait to lure unsuspecting victims to sites that will launch really nasty viruses and/or steal your identity.

The tech security company McAfee is reporting that Watson tops on the list of famous names that cyber criminals use to lure online searchers. Watson is not the only celebrity unfortunate enough to be used to entice people to click into cyber hell. Last year’s list was topped by Heidi Klum (As Heidi likes to say, one day you’re in, the next day you’re out…Auf Wiedersehen).

Men take note; female celebrities are more likely to be utilized by cyber criminals. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was the only male in the top 20. As a public service from CultureMap.com, other risky celebrities to search online are Jessica Biel, Selena Gomez, Halle Berry, Megan Fox, Shakira, Cameron Diaz, Salma Hayek, and Sofia Vergara.

McAfee advises you to be wary about the sites you visit online to get your daily dose of celebrity scandal. Your best bet is to stick to well-known sites from established organizations like www.culturemap.com. Even so, you still need to practice safe surfing as online charlatans may try to fool you with a genuine-looking URL address that will be sure to lead you into eternal internet damnation.

Sound Cloud

Posted on August 21, 2012 by bvanrysdam

Playing in the Cloud…

Politician’s Use of Songs Hit a Sour Note

Posted on August 16, 2012 by bvanrysdam

In a heated campaign; words matter. The right word can sway someone who is sitting on the proverbial fence and pick a side. The wrong word can take a candidates message off target (Google “Joe Biden” and “Chains”) and be left explaining exactly how their foot ended up in their mouth.

That’s why it so surprising no one seems to be listening to the words of songs being played at political rallies. As careful as the campaigns are to protect the candidates image, you would think someone would bother to listen to the lyrics of the songs they use.

Take the use of “Panic Switch” by the band the Silversun Pickups during a recent Mitt Romney campaign stop. The Sliversun Pickups heard about it and sent the candidate a cease and desist letter, but why use a song whose chorus goes…

When you see yourself in a crowded room, do your fingers itch, are you pistol-whipped?
Will you step in line or release the glitch? Can you fall asleep with a panic switch?

Now to be fair, Romney is not only candidate to not pay attention to the lyrics. We can only assume every politician who has used Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” has never bothered to listen to anything other than the chorus. If they had, they would have discovered the song is about a disgruntled Vietnam Veteran who can’t find a job or get help from the V.A when he returns. Not exactly flag waving stuff.

Political campaigns like to play songs such as the Lee Greenwood anthem “Proud to be an American” to excite the crowd and make them look hip and relevant. Here’s a suggestion; maybe both parties should start playing “Words” by Missing Persons. If you ask me, that song, more than any other, captures the true spirit of politics today.

The China Syndrome

Posted on July 23, 2012 by bvanrysdam

The Olympics haven’t even started and already we’re being treated to trash talking and finger pointing. This has nothing to do with the games themselves, but the fact the official U.S. Olympic teams outfits were made in China (insert gasp here).

You don’t hear a lot of agreement in Washington these days, but it appears everyone can agree outsourcing the making of the outfits to China was a bad idea. Republican House Speaker John Boehner said that Ralph Lauren (who is the evil mastermind behind this sinister plot) should “know better”. Senate Harry Reid from Nevada said “the uniforms should be put in a pile and burned” immediately conjuring heartwarming images of book burnings in Nazi Germany and burning Beatles records in the bible belt.

Interesting how politics can make force one to speak out of both sides one’s mouth. Moving jobs to China is simply part of free enterprise and part of living in a global economy, but having an American company like Ralph Lauren manufacture uniforms to be worn by our Olympic athlete is simply un-American! What’s a citizen to do? Next thing you know, they’ll want to take away our iPhones!

Now before we go and burn Mr. Lauren in effigy (although one does wonder what he would wear to it), it’s important to remember that only 5% of clothing sold in the United States was actually made by Americans (that figure was 95% back in 1960). Hindsight being 20/20, Ralph Lauren could have created a wonderful “Made In America” campaign and had us all waving the flag, but than again, nobody seemed to care that the U.S. Uniforms for the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Utah were made in Canada.

Putting all that aide, I’m more irked that they will be wearing berets with strip of red, white and blue that looks more like the French flag (is that is supposed to invoke a feeling of Americana?).

And what’s up with the huge Ralph Lauren logo on the front the blazer? Those makes soccer uniforms seem classy. If we want to go down that road, why take a cue from NSCAR and sell multiple sponsorship logos? Maybe we can use that money to bring down the nation debt.

Electric Owl

Posted on July 21, 2012 by bvanrysdam

Here’s a photo I recently took of a barn owl. I added some filters in Photoshop to the image and came up with this. I call it Electric Owl.

You can double click the image to see a larger version.

Voting to Vote

Posted on July 10, 2012 by bvanrysdam

It seems like there’s one political skirmish after another these days. The latest one centers on whether voters should be required to present a photo ID.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot claims that voter fraud is rampant. He recently wrote an Op/Ed piece for USA Today and said.…

“In recent years, my office has secured more than 50 voter fraud convictions. Those include a woman who voted in place of her dead mother, a political operative who cast ballots for two people, and a city council member who registered foreign nationals to vote in an election decided by 19 votes. Voter fraud is hard to detect, so cases like these are just the tip of the iceberg.”

I, for one, would be curious to know exactly how long a period of time those convictions took place. Was it one year, five years? And, how many voter fraud cases went to trial that resulted in no convictions? I get voter fraud is hard to detect, but really wonder just how prevalent it is. 90% of an iceberg is submerged, so does that mean there were actually 500 cases in “recent years”?

The other side of the fence will insist this is just a ploy by those terrible Republicans to make it harder for minorities to vote for their favorite Democrat. They will tell you many minorities are afraid to have a photo ID because they don’t trust the government which ironically aligns them alongside the Tea Party (and you thought there was no common ground).

How many people who previously voted without an ID, would not vote if they had to present one? Yes, you can say one less legitimate vote is one too many, but you can make the same argument that one case of voter fraud is one too many. So what is a democracy to do?

There has to be a way to determine how many Texans don’t carry a Photo ID, and how many of them actually bother to vote. Anybody want to place on bet on which number would be higher? The number of voter fraud cases, or the number of people who vote without a picture ID.

And, putting everything to the side for just a moment, I have a hard time understanding how anyone can function in today’s world without a Photo ID. How do you cash a check? Do you live in cash only world? You certainly can’t have a back account. How does one get around? Walk, take the bus? You don’t have to have a Photo ID. to be a citizen of these United States of America, but I gotta believe it would make it much easier on you.

Let’s face it, voter turnout is a joke. We should be encouraging people to go the polls, and not run away from them, but I still don’t have a problem requiring someone to show a little proof of who they are before they vote. I just wish both sides of the debate would actually use some facts when making their case, and not spew out a bunch of speculation and presumptions. I would leave that to the experts like economists and sports bookies.