After Loss, Mets’ Lead Has Shrunk to a Fraction

Abstract: WASHINGTON — To expunge the nightmarish end to last season, Jerry Manuel knows he must manage the Mets to the playoffs. Nothing else will do. Whether they get there by winning the National League East or by snatching the wild card is of little consequence to him. “The big thing is to get in, no matter how you get in,” Manuel said. “That’s the key. For anybody. And to get in playing well — and hopefully have a lot of things in place at that time.” That sounds like a lot to ask for right now. as the Mets cannot seem to decide what they value more: competent starting pitching, a productive offense or an efficient bullpen. In a dispiriting 7-2 loss to the lowly Washington Nationals on Monday night, none of those elements were on display as the Mets’ lead over the idle Philadelphia Phillies in the East fell to a half-game. “There’s no panic; we know what’s at stake and we know that this is a time where there are little bumps in the road,” said David Wright, who went 0 for 4 and left four runners on base. “We have to keep them at a minimum. We can’t allow this to carry over to the next couple games.” The Mets managed only one hit through seven innings, which was hardly the way to back up starter Pedro Martínez or alleviate the pressure on an erratic bullpen. It is the misfortune of the Mets that one of two oft-used relievers yet to allow a run this month, Duaner Sánchez, was thrust into a seemingly ideal situation and failed. He entered the game in the seventh, with no one on base, two outs and four consecutive right-handers due up — and he left after a walk, a single, and a three-run homer by Elijah Dukes that extended the Nationals’ lead to 7-1. “Just a bad game, period, for us at this stage,” Manuel said. The Nationals’ outburst rendered the Mets’ eighth-inning comeback, when they added a run and loaded the bases with one out before Wright grounded into a double play, essentially meaningless. The Mets’ lead in the division is the smallest it has been since Aug. 27, meaning they could fall out of first place as soon as Tuesday. But with the Phillies also tied atop the wild-card standings with fading Milwaukee, the Mets have an alternate route to the postseason. To get there, the Mets will lean on a rotation that is stronger than it was at this stage last season but will nonetheless be forced to start some combination of Jon Niese and Brandon Knight three times in the final 13 games. That places increased importance on Martínez’s starts because he, unlike Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey or Oliver Pérez, is less likely to last deeper into games, and thus reduce the number of outs the bullpen must record. On Monday, Martínez had trouble adjusting to the stiffness of the mound, which contrasted with a softer one in the bullpen, but he overcame a tense first inning to limit the Mets’ deficit to 2-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth. After putting two on with two out, Martínez watched a grounder by Anderson Hernández, a former Met, sneak through the right side for a pivotal two-run single. Martínez has said that he did not feel comfortable speaking up during last season’s collapse because he did not join the team until the final month of the season. As the race tightens, Martínez said he did not expect to make up for that now. “I hope I do it pitching,” Martínez said. “Talking, I’m not going to solve anything.” The bullpen has allowed 14 runs and 4 homers in the last five games, and Manuel has no idea what he will get from game to game or from reliever to reliever. Had the Mets needed a closer, Luis Ayala would have gotten the call a day after blowing a save against Atlanta, but Manuel acknowledged, “We’ve obviously got some issues late in the game.” “I can’t sit back and say, ‘You got the eighth, you got the ninth,’ ” he said. “In other words, you can normally manage to the sixth or the seventh, and you manage those two bridge innings to get to your eighth or ninth or whatever. Here, you’ve got to manage to the end of the game. The bridge is all the way to the end, you know what I’m saying?” By now, Manuel is eager to try anyone, even those without major league experience. He asked the rookie Bobby Parnell to make his debut by pitching the eighth. Parnell needed eight pitches to retire the side, and afterward, Manuel promised to summon him again. Who knows? Parnell may yet overtake Ayala. How Manuel manipulates the bullpen over the next two weeks may define the Mets’ season and, perhaps, determine his status for next year. He, and everyone else, has another chance Tuesday, against a team the Mets had beaten in five straight games. “You come here and need a game and don’t play well — and that can happen,” Manuel said. “But it shouldn’t happen at this time of the year.” INSIDE PITCH Damion Easley (right quadriceps strain) may be available for pinch-hitting duties but cannot play in the field for several days. ... Jerry Manuel confirmed that Brandon Knight would start Wednesday night.

Baseball
New York Mets
National League
Washington Nationals
Philadelphia Phillies


How a Word, ‘Chee-na,’ Renewed a Crisis Between Beijing and Hong Kong

Abstract: HONG KONG — Thousands of people marched in Hong Kong on Sunday to protest an expected decision by the Chinese government that would effectively block two newly elected politicians from taking their seats in the semiautonomous territory’s legislature. The decision, issued the next day, came after the prospective lawmakers, Sixtus Leung , 30, and Yau Wai-ching , 25, made controversial remarks last month during an oath-taking ceremony in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. Rather than say “China” in their oaths, they said “Chee-na,” a term that many find offensive, associating it with its use by Japan during its occupation of China during World War II. Ms. Yau also added an expletive to her oath. Relations between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, a former British colony of 7.3 million, were already frayed by pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted in 2014 in response to the Chinese government’s rejection of calls for free elections in the territory. The remarks by the two politicians, who have argued that Hong Kong should be independent from China, were widely seen as acts of defiance — and catalysts for a renewed political crisis. Where does the term ‘Chee-na’ come from? Aoki Masaru, a Japanese Sinologist, argued that it originated in early Sanskrit transcriptions of Qin, the name of the dynasty that unified China more than 2,000 years ago, according to a 2012 essay by the historian Joshua A. Fogel. Qin, pronounced “chin,” may have contributed to the country’s name in many Western languages. With the spread of Buddhism from India, and the translation of scriptures into Chinese, the word entered China and then Japan. Professor Fogel, who teaches at York University in Toronto, wrote that the Japanese used the name Chee-na for centuries, but especially from the 19th century through World War II. Before the founding of the Republic of China in 1912, the country had no official symbols or constitution, noted Xu Guoqi , a professor of history at the University of Hong Kong who is writing a book titled “The Idea of China.” Its last imperial dynasty, the Qing, was established by Manchu invaders in the 17th century. Many Chinese nationalists and reformers in the final years of Qing rule — such as Liang Qichao and Zhang Taiyan — used the term “with no hidden bad meaning,” he said. Chee-na was one of many names these intellectuals used to refer to their country, said John Delury , a professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Some of the intellectuals were involved in the anti-Manchu resistance and had gone into exile in Japan, he added. “They felt their country had been stolen for hundreds of years by an invading, non-ethnically Chinese, Manchu people, and now they were trying to get it back,” Professor Delury said. They were searching for a name for the new nation, he said, that would differentiate it from the Qing dynasty. When did Chinese people begin to view the term Chee-na as a slur? The term is the name for China that has “most exercised Chinese opinion” throughout history, Professor Fogel wrote in his 2012 essay. Jan Kiely , a professor of Chinese studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in an email that “strong feelings” were stirred in Chinese people when the Japanese Empire used the word to refer to China during its incursions into Chinese territory, from the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War through World War II. For many Chinese today, Professor Kiely said, Chee-na recalls the sufferings of the occupation and references a Japanese imperial sense that the Chinese were inherently inferior. On Monday, Li Fei, the chairman of China’s parliamentary committee on the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that governs Hong Kong, criticized Mr. Leung and Ms. Yau for using the term. “I especially condemn insults to the country and the nation,” Mr. Li told reporters in Beijing. “I hope Hong Kong people do not forget how Chinese were slaughtered by the Japanese invaders, and especially that the Japanese invaders committed huge crimes when they occupied Hong Kong.” Professor Kiely said that public memory of World War II had surged in China over the past two decades in tandem with rising nationalism, thanks in part to a proliferation of state-sponsored memorials, museums, exhibitions and documentaries about the war. If the term Chee-na can be perceived as a slur against Chinese people, why did the two Hong Kong politicians include it in their oath-taking remarks? Professor Delury said the politicians appeared to be making a satirical comparison between the Chinese government’s current control over Hong Kong and Japan’s invasion in the 20th century. He said it was significant that the remarks were made in the context of what is normally an oath-taking ceremony that is designed to indicate submission to the Chinese government. “All this historical stuff is very interesting, but at a certain level,” he said, “what they’re trying to do here is to register their refusal to obey the way they’re being told to obey.” But the oath-takers’ critics include people in Hong Kong who have pushed for democratic reforms in its political system. What explains that? After taking the oath in the Legislative Council, Mr. Leung attributed his pronunciation of China as “Chee-na” to his local Hong Kong accent. But Ming Sing , a professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said in an interview that some people in Hong Kong dismissed that explanation as “moral hypocrisy,” because Mr. Leung had previously made a point of attacking pro-democracy legislators for their purported unwillingness to challenge the Chinese government. “He was perceived to cover up his real intent,” Professor Sing said. Professor Sing said that many people in Hong Kong also believed that the two politicians’ remarks at the oath-taking ceremony handed the Chinese government a pretext to reinterpret the Basic Law, which was negotiated before Britain returned the territory to Chinese rule in 1997. He said they fear the Basic Law may be interpreted “in a way that could undermine the rule of law and political freedoms in Hong Kong.”

Sixtus Leung
Yau Wai-ching
China
Hong Kong
Indecency Obscenity and Profanity
World War II
Civil Unrest


Clear Channel Reports Earnings Rose 52%

Abstract: SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The radio and billboard giant Clear Channel Communications said Thursday that its fourth-quarter earnings rose 52 percent from the same period in 2006. Net income increased to 65 cents a share, or $320.6 million, from 43 cents, or $211 million, in the year-earlier quarter. Clear Channel said revenue was helped by foreign exchange rates. Revenue reached $1.84 billion, a 4 percent increase over $1.77 billion in the year-earlier period. Excluding gains from asset sales and discontinued business, the company’s fourth-quarter earnings were 45 cents a share, 2 cents less than analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected. The company is waiting for a buyout, led by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital Partners, to close, which it expects by March 31. The Justice Department signed off on the deal on Wednesday, removing the last regulatory hurdle.

Company Reports
Clear Channel Communications Inc


Down-to-Earth Daly Lived Coaching Dream

Abstract: Chuck Daly once described himself as “a journeyman coach who got lucky with some players in Detroit.” He didn’t really believe that, of course, but that was part of Daly’s self-deprecating charm, his enduring appeal. He didn’t need to act important all the time, or remind people with pithy slogans how much of a defensive innovator he was. Maybe that was because he didn’t become a head coach in the N.B.A. until he was 51, a champion with the Pistons until he was 58. He was a dues-payer and a lifer in the truest sense. In his final days, as pancreatic cancer stole this dapper 78-year-old’s trademark vigor, he was surrounded by, among others, Billy Cunningham and Rollie Massimino, the Philadelphia coaching society, his longtime friends. They and other colleagues were his hospital transport and constant companions and support group for his wife, Terry, until Daly died Saturday morning, the end of a life that produced 2 N.B.A. championships, 638 regular-season victories and a whole lot of laughs. “The Daly family and the entire Detroit Pistons and Palace Sports and Entertainment family is mourning the loss of Chuck Daly,” the family and team spokesman Matt Dobek said in a statement. “Chuck left a lasting impression with everyone he met both personally and professionally, and his spirit will live with all of us forever.” He coached four N.B.A. teams, including the Cavaliers for a 41-game stretch that resulted in 32 losses. He never had another sub-.500 record again. He was the perfect choice to lead the one (and, really, only) Dream Team of N.B.A. rock stars on their maiden Olympic voyage at the 1992 Barcelona Games. He was the ideal personality for that job, recognizing that there was no room on the flight across the Atlantic for an intrusive coach’s ego. Daly presided over that team by stoking the competitive fires of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, among others, mostly during hellacious practice scrimmages. The actual games were cakewalks; he never once called timeout. “If I needed anyone to give me credit for coaching those guys,” he told me once, “I had no business being there in the first place.” Along the way to Barcelona, after the Pistons had begun to cycle downward, Daly stopped over in New Jersey to sign with the Nets. The next preseason, I happened to be at a Nets-Pistons exhibition game in Michigan. Dennis Rodman, on his way to his permanent state of outlandish eccentricity, seemed to be protesting Daly’s departure. He came to the game but refused to dress. Daly spent the halftime break and then some more time afterward alone with Rodman, coaching him one last time. In New Jersey, Daly had to deal with a whole new set of shenanigans, with a fractious and occasionally imbecilic ownership, not to mention any time Derrick Coleman and Jayson Williams decided to step out for a late-night snack. Still, Daly liked the roster potential. He had dealt with his share of hard-boiled players in Detroit. In 1992-93, the Nets had a rare winning season and made the playoffs. Then tragedy struck. The Croatian shooting guard Drazen Petrovic, the first European import who believed he could be an N.B.A. star and had the game to back it up, died in an accident on a German autobahn. Daly knew the Nets weren’t going anywhere. He returned for another season — another winning season — only because he believed that he owed the Nets enough to guide them through a difficult healing period. He finished coaching with two years in Orlando, settling in Florida after the long basketball journey of a good man respected by his colleagues, who stood by him until the end.


Paying Patients Test British Health Care System

Abstract: LONDON — Created 60 years ago as a cornerstone of the British welfare state, the National Health Service is devoted to the principle of free medical care for everyone. But recently it has been wrestling with a problem its founders never anticipated: how to handle patients with complex illnesses who want to pay for parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free from the health service. Although the government is reluctant to discuss the issue, hopscotching back and forth between private and public care has long been standard here for those who can afford it. But a few recent cases have exposed fundamental contradictions between policy and practice in the system, and tested its founding philosophy to its very limits. One such case was Debbie Hirst’s. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin , a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist’s support, she decided last year to try to pay the $120,000 cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment. By December, she had raised $20,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down. Mrs. Hirst heard the news from her doctor. “He looked at me and said: ‘I’m so sorry, Debbie. I’ve had my wrists slapped from the people upstairs, and I can no longer offer you that service,’ ” Mrs. Hirst said in an interview. “I said, ‘Where does that leave me?’ He said, ‘If you pay for Avastin, you’ll have to pay for everything’ ” — in other words, for all her cancer treatment, far more than she could afford. Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones. Patients “cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs,” the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament. “That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.,” Mr. Johnson said. But Mrs. Hirst, 57, whose cancer was diagnosed in 1999, went to the news media, and so did other patients in similar situations. And it became clear that theirs were not isolated cases. In fact, patients, doctors and officials across the health care system widely acknowledge that patients suffering from every imaginable complaint regularly pay for some parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free. “Of course it’s going on in the N.H.S. all the time, but a lot of it is hidden — it’s not explicit,” said Dr. Paul Charlson, a general practitioner in Yorkshire and a member of Doctors for Reform, a group that is highly critical of the health service. Last year, he was a co-author of a paper laying out examples of how patients with the initiative and the money dip in and out of the system, in effect buying upgrades to their basic free medical care. “People swap from public to private sector all the time, and they’re topping up for virtually everything,” Dr. Charlson said in an interview. For instance, he said, a patient put on a five-month waiting list to see an orthopedic surgeon may pay $250 for a private consultation, and then switch back to the health service for the actual operation from the same doctor. “Or they’ll buy an M.R.I. scan because the wait is so long, and then take the results back to the N.H.S.,” Dr. Charlson said. In his paper, he also wrote about a 46-year-old woman with breast cancer who paid $250 for a second opinion when the health service refused to provide her with one; an elderly man who spent thousands of dollars on a new hearing aid instead of enduring a yearlong wait on the health service; and a 29-year-old woman who, with her doctor’s blessing, bought a three-month supply of Tarceva , a drug to treat pancreatic cancer, for more than $6,000 on the Internet because she could not get it through the N.H.S. Asked why these were different from cases like Mrs. Hirst’s, a spokeswoman for the health service said no officials were available to comment. In any case, the rules about private co-payments, as they are called, in cancer care are contradictory and hard to understand, said Nigel Edwards, the director of policy for the N.H.S. Confederation, which represents hospitals and other health care providers. “I’ve had conflicting advice from different lawyers,” he said, “but it does seem like a violation of natural justice to say that either you don’t get the drug you want, or you have to pay for all your treatment.” Karol Sikora, a professor of cancer medicine at the Imperial College School of Medicine and one of Dr. Charlson’s co-authors, said that co-payments were particularly prevalent in cancer care. Armed with information from the Internet and patients’ networks, cancer patients are increasingly likely to demand, and pay for, cutting-edge drugs that the health service considers too expensive to be cost-effective. “You have a population that is informed and consumerist about how it behaves about health care information, and an N.H.S. that can no longer afford to pay for everything for everybody,” he said. Professor Sikora said oncologists were adept at circumventing the system by, for example, referring patients to other doctors who can provide the private medication separately. As wrenching as it can be to administer more sophisticated drugs to some patients than to others, he said, “if you’re a doctor working in the system, you should let your patients have the treatment they want, if they can afford to pay for it.” In any case, he said, the health service is riddled with inequities. Some drugs are available in some parts of the country but not in others. Waiting lists for treatment vary wildly from place to place. Some regions spend $280 per capita on cancer care, Professor Sikora said, while others spend just $90. In Mrs. Hirst’s case, the confusion was compounded by the fact that three other patients at her hospital were already doing what she had been forbidden to do — buying extra drugs to supplement their cancer care. The arrangements had “evolved without anyone questioning whether it was right or wrong,” said Laura Mason, a hospital spokeswoman. Because their treatment began before the Health Department explicitly condemned the practice, they have been allowed to continue. The rules are confusing. “It’s quite a fine line,” Ms. Mason said. “You can’t have a course of N.H.S. and private treatment at the same time on the same appointment — for instance, if a particular drug has to be administered alongside another drug which is N.H.S.-funded.” But, she said, the health service rules seem to allow patients to receive the drugs during separate hospital visits — the N.H.S. drugs during an N.H.S. appointment, the extra drugs during a private appointment. One of Mrs. Hirst’s troubles came, it seems, because the Avastin she proposed to pay for would have had to be administered at the same time as the drug Taxol, which she was receiving free on the health service. Because of that, she could not schedule separate appointments. But in a final irony, Mrs. Hirst was told early this month that her cancer had spread and that her condition had deteriorated so much that she could have the Avastin after all — paid for by the health service. In other words, a system that forbade her to buy the medicine earlier was now saying that she was so sick she could have it at public expense. Mrs. Hirst is pleased, but up to a point. Avastin is not a cure, but a way to extend her life, perhaps only by several months, and she has missed valuable time. “It may be too bloody late,” she said. “I’m a person who left school at 15 and I’ve worked all my life and I’ve paid into the system, and I’m not going to live long enough to get my old-age pension from this government,” she added. She also knows that the drug can have grave side effects. “I have campaigned for this drug, and if it goes wrong and kills me, c’est la vie,” she said. But, she said, speaking of the government, “If the drug doesn’t have a fair chance because the cancer has advanced so much, then they should be raked over the coals for it.”

Great Britain
Medicine and Health
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Cancer
Hospitals
Doctors


Manning or Leaf? A Lesson in Intangibles

Abstract: Say the name Bobby Thomson and before long someone is sure to bring up his 1951 partner in baseball history, Ralph Branca. Ever since the 1986 World Series, Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner have gone together like a hot dog and a beer (or perhaps more like oil and water, if you’re a still-mournful Boston Red Sox fan). Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are forever joined in grace by their 1998 pursuit of a home-run record, and in disgrace by their reliance on performance-enhancing drugs . And what figure-skating fan can hear about Nancy Kerrigan without thinking of Tonya Harding, the two being linked by a bizarre episode of attempted kneecapping in 1994? In much the same way, any conversation about football that mentions the splendid Peyton Manning is bound at some point to turn to his onetime doppelgänger, Ryan Leaf. In 1998, Messrs. Manning and Leaf were blisteringly hot prospects as they entered the National Football League’s annual draft — college quarterbacks of exceptional promise, either of them certain to be that year’s No. 1 pick. As recalled in the latest weekly video documentary from Retro Report , that was exactly how the 1998 draft played out. Mr. Manning was selected first, by the Indianapolis Colts. Mr. Leaf was chosen next, by the San Diego Chargers. That is where similarities between the two men dissolve. Peyton Manning went on to become one of the best pro quarterbacks of all time, capturing five most valuable player awards and leading teammates to three Super Bowls. Ryan Leaf? For all his physical prowess and an $11.25 million signing bonus, he became a synonym for an absolute bust. He played in a mere 25 games across four seasons. His passes resulted in many more interceptions than touchdowns. After football, his life skidded off the road. He had a pill problem. In 2012, he began serving a seven-year sentence in his native Montana for breaking into a house in search of painkillers. So, with the 2014 pro football draft upon us this week, does it boil down to a matter of character? The Colts seemed to think so. In Mr. Manning, a member of a family that qualifies as pro football aristocracy, the team believed it had a master of control and poise. Mr. Leaf was the stronger athlete in many respects, but he turned out to have a 10-cent emotional quotient to go with his million-dollar arm. He was hot-tempered and at times lackadaisical in his training habits. The focus on character — “intangibles” being a favored word — is reflected in a current movie, “ Draft Day ,” with Kevin Costner playing a football team’s general manager who is more concerned with a prospect’s inner qualities than with his throwing arm. Character is an issue in all sports and, for that matter, in other endeavors. Perhaps it weighs more heavily in football because an unusually large number of players, 11, must meld into a single unit. Cliché though this may be, the team is a chain that is often only as strong as its weakest link. To assess the durability of those links, the National Football League recently adopted a new evaluation system that seeks to probe a prospect’s personality: somewhat nebulous qualities like motivation, passion and mental toughness. This methodology in a sense is companion to, albeit quite different from, the “Moneyball” approach to baseball, whose adherents hold a near-theological belief in statistical analysis as a gauge of player potential. Then again, baseball lends itself to numerical judgments more readily than football does. The central contest in baseball is, after all, between two men — one throwing the ball, the other trying to hit it. One clearly succeeds; one does not. Football can be trickier. Was a running back’s 25-yard gain the product of his superior agility? Or was he lucky that the offensive line managed to clear a path for him? Even if one accepts that character matters, it can be an imperfect guide. How shall one assess a vicious racist who gets along with almost no one, is quick to use his fists and is thoroughly disliked by even his own teammates? Not a sound prospect, many would say. But what if we call him Ty Cobb, who had the highest career batting average — .366 or .367, depending on whose stats you use — in Major League Baseball history? Would you drop a bundle of cash on an ill-disciplined fellow who is given to overindulgence and who as a boy was deemed by those in charge of him to be “incorrigible”? What if we say his name is Babe Ruth? The N.F.L. has managed to find room for players with criminal records, often for acts of violence. In some past years, the league had so many players under indictment that its games could have been carried by Court TV. A 2012 study by a professor and a student at Hamilton College in upstate New York concluded that a player’s running afoul of the law was less significant as an indicator of future performance than run-ins he may have had with coaches and teammates. The quest to assess intangibles is not likely to end. Nor is it confined to professional sports. To cite but one example, some defense lawyers rely on consultants who are supposedly expert in sizing up people quickly to help pick the “right” jury. One such lawyer is Gerald B. Lefcourt of New York. Yes, he sometimes calls on those specialists, he said in an interview. But “the benefit is deselection rather than selection,” Mr. Lefcourt said. In other words, “it’s more to get you to understand who shouldn’t be a juror” than who should — an unacceptable type for him being someone who is, say, “very government-oriented or a compliance type.” Still, in the end, “you go with your gut,” Mr. Lefcourt said. “Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.” Which is exactly what the football pros say, too.

Football
Sports Drafts and Recruits
Ryan Leaf
Peyton Manning
NFL
Super Bowl
Super Bowl 2015


Nike to Replace Reebok as N.F.L.’s Licensed-Apparel Maker

Abstract: The N.F.L. said Tuesday that Nike would become the league’s exclusive maker of licensed on-field apparel including uniforms, clothing worn on the sidelines and fan gear. Nike replaces Reebok, whose agreement is expiring. Terms of the deal were not announced. But the league said its contract with Nike was for five years and would begin in April 2012. Reebok has a 10-year contract with the N.F.L. that was originally worth at least $250 million to the league. Nike and Reebok are the two largest players in the sports-apparel market, and they have battled to secure licensing deals with various professional leagues and top players in tennis, golf and other sports. The deals to secure the licensing rights with the leagues are expensive. But they often pay for themselves because professional athletes are so ubiquitous that they effectively are billboards for the apparel makers who actively market high-performance gear to consumers. “It’s another opportunity to put the swoosh on world-class athletes, and that’s what they’re all about, and it’s how have they’ve operated for a long time,” said Matt Arnold, a consumer analyst at Edward Jones & Company in St. Louis. The N.F.L. also extended agreements with Under Armour (sponsor of the N.F.L. Combine), GIII (outerwear), VF (T-shirts and fleeces) and Outerstuff (youth apparel). The league also signed agreements with New Era (hats for sideline personnel and fans) and ’47 Brand (hats for fans). Nearly half of the N.F.L.’s income from licensed goods comes from apparel and headwear, according to Ira Mayer, the editor of The Licensing Letter, an industry newsletter. Video games, trading cards and novelty goods make up the remainder. By comparison, apparel (including hats) and footwear make up 32 percent of the N.B.A. income from licensed goods. Mayer said there were risks for Nike, most notably the threat of a work stoppage, which would drastically cut into sales of licensed goods. A surge in counterfeit merchandise can also cut into profits. Nike, like Reebok, also operates in a faster-moving marketplace, where merchandise is requested almost overnight. For example, minutes after Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched a no-hitter in the first game of the National League division series last week, licensing officials from Major League Baseball were in talks with Majestic, which makes licensed T-shirts for the league. Commemorative T-shirts were on sale in time for Game 2, less than 48 hours later. “The biggest change is how event-oriented the licensing programs are now,” Mayer said. “That stuff happens much faster now.”

Football
Sporting Goods
Fashion and Apparel
Nike Inc
National Football League


Late Free Throws Seal Victory for Georgetown

Abstract: The score was tied. There was less than one second to play, and Georgetown’s Jonathan Wallace was dribbling 70 feet from the basket when he heard the whistle. “At first I thought I stepped out of bounds,” Wallace said, “because I was trying to make a play with the time running down.” He said he felt a little nudge as he was trying to turn the corner. “So,” Wallace shrugged, “a call’s a call.” And he was not about to raise a fuss over it. That nudge was a bump from Villanova’s Corey Stokes, the 48th foul called in a frustrating, stop-and-start game. Wallace hit both free throws with a tenth of a second left to give the No. 8 Hoyas a 55-53 victory Monday night, their first home win against the Wildcats in more than a decade. Wallace scored 15 points for the Hoyas (20-3, 10-2 Big East), who have won seven of eight and bounced back from a loss at Louisville on Saturday. Georgetown won despite squandering a 12-point second-half lead and making only two field goals in the final eight minutes. Scottie Reynolds scored 24 points to lead the Wildcats (14-9, 4-7), who have lost six of seven. He tied the score with a running layup in traffic with 1 minute 5 seconds to play. After Georgetown’s Austin Freeman missed a 3-pointer, the Wildcats set up a final shot, something they would not have needed had they not gone 0 of 21 from the field for the first 12 minutes of the second half. There was no doubt the ball would be in Reynolds’s hands. He drove the baseline against Jeremiah Rivers, ran out of room and attempted a pass that Rivers deflected for a turnover. Wallace came up with the loose ball. TEXAS 72, KANSAS 69 Damion James scored 12 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in the second half, and No. 11 Texas held off No. 3 Kansas in yet another thrilling matchup in a rivalry that has quickly escalated into one of the best in the Big 12. James missed most of the first half with foul trouble, then provided the muscle that host Texas (20-4, 7-2) needed to counter the Jayhawks’ size and strength under the basket. James finished with 14 points. Connor Atchley led Texas with 16 points and A. J. Abrams added 14 points. Darrell Arthur scored 22 to lead the Jayhawks (23-2, 8-2), who lost for the second time in 33 regular-season games dating to last season. Texas and Kansas have played some of the most exciting league games in recent years, including their two meetings last season that decided the Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles. WAGNER 82, QUINNIPIAC 70 Joey Mundweiler made a 3-pointer to force overtime, then hit two more in overtime to lead visiting Wagner. All five starters finished in double figures for Wagner (17-6, 10-2 Northeast Conference), led by Mundweiler’s 19 points. Mark Porter had 18 and Jamal Smith added 17. Casey Cosgrove had 16 points and Bryan Geffen added 15 to lead Quinnipiac (12-11, 8-4). AROUND THE NATION The North Carolina junior swingman Marcus Ginyard is nursing a sprained ankle and an injured toe, leaving the No. 5 Tar Heels with few options at an already thin point guard position. The starter Ty Lawson has missed two games with a sprained ankle, and is expected to sit out Tuesday against Virginia. Lawson’s backup, Bobby Frasor, was lost earlier this season after hurting his knee. The senior Quentin Thomas has assumed the lead role with Lawson out, while Ginyard has been the backup. ... The freshman forward Devereaux Peters, a key reserve for No. 16 Notre Dame women’s team, will miss the rest of the season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. Peters, fourth on the team in scoring at 9 points a game and second in rebounding at 5.6, was hurt in an 81-66 victory over Pittsburgh on Sunday.


8 Arctic Nations Pledge Cooperation

Abstract: NUUK, Greenland — The eight Arctic nations pledged Thursday to create international protocols to prevent and clean up offshore oil spills in areas of the region that are becoming increasingly accessible to exploration because of a changing climate. The Arctic Council — the United States, Russia, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden — said the protocols would be modeled on a separate agreement signed here in Nuuk on Thursday to coordinate search-and-rescue operations over 13 million square miles of ocean. The search-and-rescue pact is the first legally binding agreement adopted by the council, which was created in 1996 to address challenges and opportunities in the Arctic spurred by the retreat of sea ice — like growing oil and gas exploration or increasing traffic of cargo and cruise ships, which have doubled the number of tourists in the Arctic in recent years. The council’s actions, officials said, reflected a maturation of a regional group that has been criticized for not acting more aggressively to address the myriad issues of a drastically changing Arctic . The pursuit of natural resources has sharpened regional competition and raised the possibilities of pollution and environmental catastrophes. A senior diplomat from one of the member nations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the council’s governments were “running behind events” like increasing shipping and new exploration licenses across the Arctic. Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first United States secretary of state to attend the council’s biennial meeting of ministers, held this year in the capital of Greenland , the largely autonomous region of Denmark, where warming trends have been felt acutely. She was accompanied by the secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar , and Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. “We are going to raise the visibility of Arctic issues back in the United States so that we can begin to take the steps that are necessary for us,” Mrs. Clinton said in a news conference aboard a boat in Godthab Fjord, north of Nuuk. She reiterated the administration’s call to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty. The treaty, stalled in the Senate for decades, provides the international basis for settling territorial claims in the Arctic, and the failure to ratify it has left the United States at a disadvantage as the other Arctic nations stake out vast regions as exclusive economic zones. Ratification, she said, was “way overdue.” Domestic politics in the United States have often undercut American diplomacy, especially when it comes to reducing emissions blamed for climate change , something Mrs. Clinton herself acknowledged later in remarks with Denmark’s foreign minister. “It’s been challenging in our political system to take the kinds of actions that we know are dictated by the science and by what we see in front of our eyes,” she said. Having failed to win approval for legislation to reduce emissions, she said, the Obama administration would continue to pursue executive and regulatory steps to address climate change. The agreement governing search-and-rescue efforts — though a treaty — was signed by the United States under executive authority and thus does not require Senate ratification. It divides the vast Arctic region into eight zones and puts each nation in charge of coordinating any rescue efforts that might be required in some of the planet’s most remote and formidable conditions. “None of the Arctic nations today have adequate resources for search and rescue in the Arctic in light of the increasing activity that is already” happening, David A. Balton, a deputy assistant secretary who negotiated the agreement for the American side, said before Thursday’s meeting. The same is true for the prospect of a catastrophic oil spill. United States officials said that the push for negotiated protocols for oil exploration in the Arctic stemmed from the searing experience of the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year. The administration is considering requests for exploration off Alaska. How expansive and binding the protocols for preventing a similar disaster in the Arctic are remains to be seen as the Arctic Council begins negotiations. “At a minimum,” Mr. Salazar said, “what I think we can probably do is aim at getting to a set of best practices that can be used in oil and gas exploration and production in the Arctic region.”

Arctic Regions
Greenland
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Law of the Sea (UN Convention)
Environment
Global Warming
State Department
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Salazar Ken


Collective Health, Insurance Services Start-Up Focused on Employers, Raises $81 Million

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — While many start-ups have sought to make their name in the health care industry, fewer are taking on the knotty health insurance information services sector. Collective Health, which provides tools to help companies with their employer-provided insurance, said on Tuesday that it had raised $81 million in a new round of financing . The round was led by Google Ventures, a new investor, and existing backers New Enterprise Associates, Founders Fund, Maverick Capital, Redpoint Ventures and RRE Ventures. Collective Health raised $32 million seven months ago, and the new round increases the company’s total fund-raising to $119 million. Health insurance is a notoriously difficult business for start-ups to grapple with, given the reams of regulations that must be followed. Another health insurance start-up, Oscar, which is valued at $1.5 billion , is focused on trying to make buying health insurance easier for consumers. Collective Health is also trying to make health insurance easier to use. But the two-year-old company is taking a different tack by focusing on employers, letting customers tailor which insurance options they want to offer their workers. Its offerings include ways to eliminate paper-based systems for the management and administration of such insurance plans. The start-up said that it was working with insurers like Anthem and Blue Shield of California as partners. In connection with the fund-raising, Collective Health said that it planned to expand to companies outside of California next year. “We’re working to shift the focus of health insurance from profits to people,” Ali Diab, the chief executive and co-founder of Collective Health, said in a statement. “This significant infusion of capital comes at the perfect moment, enabling us to make our solution available to companies across the U.S.”

Health Insurance
Collective Health
Startup
Venture capital


Rodriguez Drops Option Worth $17.5 Million

Abstract: Francisco Rodriguez had been saying for months that he did not care about his $17.5 million vesting option for 2012, and on Friday the reason for that became clear. Rodriguez preferred eliminating the option, as lucrative as it was, and becoming a free agent after the season, and his latest team made that possible. On Friday, Rodriguez’s new agent, Scott Boras, negotiated a buyout with the Milwaukee Brewers , the team to which the Mets hastily traded Rodriguez on Tuesday under unusual circumstances. The new buyout eliminates the 55 games-finished clause that would have activated the $17.5 million option and allows the Brewers to use Rodriguez as a closer without worrying about the option. It also calls for Milwaukee to pay Rodriguez $4 million if he opts out. But the issue of Rodriguez’s no-trade clause and how it was never submitted to the Mets by his former representatives could remain a thorny one if Rodriguez chooses to pursue it and argues for damages. Boras said Rodriguez was never told until after he was traded that his 10-team no-trade list, which would have barred a trade to the Brewers, was not submitted to the Mets. It could be argued, and most likely will be, that his rights under his original contract were compromised and he lost something of value. “Frankie was unaware that his no-trade list was not received by the Mets,” Boras said Friday. But Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson said Thursday that he told Rodriguez’s former representatives, Paul Kinzer and Arn Tellem of the Wasserman Group, about “two or three weeks ago” that the Mets had never received a list. “Frankie was not told by Paul Kinzer or Arn Tellem, his former representatives, that his no-trade list was not submitted, and that list included Milwaukee,” Boras said. Neither Tellem nor Kinzer could be reached for comment, either to rebut Boras’s account or to explain why Rodriguez did not know about the oversight. A week ago, Rodriguez hired Boras as his agent, and Boras told the Mets on Saturday that he would be representing Rodriguez. According to two baseball officials with direct knowledge of the events, the Mets told teams on Sunday that they had to trade Rodriguez within days, even though the nonwaiver trading deadline is July 31. The Mets assumed Boras would inspect the documents and discover the no-trade list was not submitted, which could have created a trade obstacle the team wanted to avoid, the officials said. About 48 hours later, during Tuesday’s All-Star Game, Rodriguez was traded to Milwaukee. Instead of filing a grievance and possibly holding up the trade, Boras told Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin he would not protest the deal if the Brewers granted Rodriguez a buyout from the option, which they did. Like the Mets, the Brewers were only too happy to get out from under the $17.5 million option that apparently no one wanted.

Baseball
Rodriguez Francisco
Milwaukee Brewers
Free Agents (Sports)
Wages and Salaries


Clash of the Titans, and Teammates

Abstract: The Formula One season that enters its halfway point at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday has not been typical of recent years, in which one or two drivers collect all the victories and steal the show. The story of the 2010 championship so far is an extraordinary one of tension and competition between teammates at the top four teams, five drivers of whom have won races. “I’ve never known a year like it,” said Jenson Button, the reigning world champion who drives for McLaren Mercedes and who is second in the series with two victories, behind his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, also with two victories. In fact, McLaren with its two English drivers just six points apart will be watched closely by the home crowd as they fight for the honors this weekend. Hamilton won the race in 2008; Button has not won it. It is the first time two British world champions have raced on the same team since Graham Hill and Jim Clark at Lotus in 1968. McLaren has been on a season-long public relations drive to emphasize how cozy and brotherly are these two rival teammates. In a series of videos released to the media, the two have been seen exchanging friendly banter while slot-car racing, manually constructing a Formula One car and searching for the car once used by their illustrious predecessor, Ayrton Senna. What a contrast to the late 1980s when at this same McLaren team the biggest rivalry in Formula One history pitted Senna and Alain Prost, who fought each other and knocked each other off the track in order to win titles. Has the sport developed since then, as McLaren would like us to believe? The story told on track, and in the looks on drivers’ faces when pressed on the question, says otherwise. Asked about how he and Button might have a hard time controlling themselves in the battle for the coveted home victory this weekend, Hamilton’s face told one story and his words the opposite. “It’s exactly the same as always,” he responded. “For me, I’ve won the Grand Prix before, I’d love to win it again. But the plan is to do it exactly the same as we have in all the wins we’ve had. If he does a better job than me, he does a better job than me. But he has to do a better job than me, and vice versa.” Despite the gloss of off-track friendliness between teammates, most have been at each other’s throats. Even Hamilton and Button clashed in a risky manner on the track, exchanging the top position at the Turkish Grand Prix on May 30 with just a few laps left in the race — which Hamilton won. It was at that race that another teammate relationship went out of control on the track and off, as all pretense of brotherly love faded — at least briefly. At the Red Bull team, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, who also have won two races each and now lie in third and fourth in the championship ranking, had a nightmare coming together of the Senna and Prost kind. Webber led the race from the start and Vettel was in second when, with 17 laps remaining, Vettel tried to pass Webber for the lead. Webber held his line and Vettel made a mistake and the two collided. Vettel was out of the race, and Webber, nevertheless, finished third. Vettel twice made signs with his finger at his head as if to say Webber was crazy, although the blame appeared to most spectators to lie with Vettel. Christian Horner, the Red Bull team director, said he played no favorites. “You deal with an even hand,” he said. “Both guys are supported equally; they both have the same components and the same opportunities. I think it’s great that at the first three teams in the championship as it stands there doesn’t appear to be a preset No.1 or No.2 driver, which I think is very healthy for the sport and for the fans and for racing.” At Ferrari, only Fernando Alonso has won a race. But he and Felipe Massa have fought closely on the track, and Massa appears set for a resurgence. At Mercedes, Michael Schumacher, 41, is in a position unique in his career as he has been outperformed by his teammate, Nico Rosberg, 25. Rosberg is in seventh in the series with 75 points, while Schumacher is ninth with 34. Through his previous 15 years in the series, Schumacher was always considered the No.1 driver on his team, and often given special treatment. At Mercedes the drivers have been allowed to race each other. Robert Kubica, at Renault, said he thought the close battles were due to car breakdowns and errors by the top drivers. Others think they reflect the new points system, which gives more value to a victory, increasing the difference between first and second from two points to seven. Horner disagrees. “I don’t think the drivers are thinking about the mathematics at that stage. It’s all about winning,” he said. “That’s what a Grand Prix driver’s DNA is all about. I think winning Grands Prix is the biggest thing for them.”

Formula One
Automobile Racing
Great Britain


Time Inc. Is Preparing to Head Out on Its Own

Abstract: Time Inc., the largest magazine publisher in the United States, with properties like People, Sports Illustrated and Fortune, is preparing for one of the most pivotal periods in its 91-year history. Within the next six months, its parent, the media conglomerate Time Warner, hopes to spin off Time Inc. into a separate public company. But if the plan succeeds, Time Inc. will become independent at a difficult moment. Not only do the magazine industry’s fortunes continue to sag, but Time Inc. has also shown signs of instability. It has churned through three chief executives in the last three years, and lost a star editor, its former editor in chief Martha Nelson. To combat these negative forces, Time Inc. will abandon the traditional separation between its newsroom and business sides, a move that has caused angst among its journalists. Now, the newsroom staffs at Time Inc.’s magazines will report to the business executives. Such a structure, once verboten at journalistic institutions, is seen as necessary to create revenue opportunities and stem the tide of declining subscription and advertising sales. Overseeing these changes is Joseph A. Ripp, a former longtime Time Warner official who became Time Inc.’s chief executive in September. In an interview, Mr. Ripp said it was refreshing to shake things up. In recent months, he confirmed publicly that there would be additional layoffs in 2014. He has also expressed openness to initiatives, including expanding the company’s television programming and conference businesses. “Because we were part of a larger media conglomerate, our ability to expand outside of print magazines was always restricted,” said Mr. Ripp, who explained that Time Warner’s television and film businesses often hampered the magazines’ ability to move into video. Time Warner is not alone in separating ailing print assets from more profitable businesses. In 2014, Tribune Company will try to split its newspapers from its television and digital units. And this year, News Corporation cleaved its film and TV businesses from its newspaper and publishing arms. In going it alone, Time Inc. will returns to its roots as a stand-alone company, which was co-founded in 1922 by the publisher Henry Luce. Roughly a quarter-century ago, Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications. Today, Time Warner is a media and entertainment giant with a $63 billion market value and profitable assets likes HBO. But in recent years Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive, has shrunk the company, discarding businesses like AOL and Time Warner Cable to concentrate on film and television. Next on the spinoff block is Time Inc. To run the magazine business as a separate company, Mr. Bewkes hired Mr. Ripp. He assumed the post this summer from Laura Lang, who lasted only 15 months in the job. She had succeeded Jack Griffin, who was forced out after less than six months in 2011. Mr. Ripp, 61, a former chief financial officer at Time Warner, said that while he moved to restructure Time Inc. and push it into new businesses, he recognized that the company’s value was tied to its magazines’ credibility. But he draws a distinction between the journalistic standards applied to magazines like Time and those for lighter fare, like Cooking Light. Would it be an ethical breach for an executive on Time Inc.’s business side to suggest a certain type of cream cheese to be used in a frosting recipe? By Time Inc.’s old standards, it would be. “We will never, ever, ever, violate our trust with consumers,” Mr. Ripp said. “If you look at journalism at Time Inc., we have applied the concepts equally to covering budget deficits and food titles. Service journalism can be different.” To mediate any disputes and help the newsroom side maintain its independence, Mr. Ripp recently rehired Norman Pearlstine, Time Inc.’s former editor in chief, to become the company’s chief content officer, essentially acting as a corporate referee. Still, Mr. Ripp’s leadership has caused plenty of worry inside Time Inc. Interviews with roughly two dozen current and recently departed Time Inc. executives on the news and business sides revealed that employees feared that deep cuts would be necessary to position Time Inc. as a stand-alone publicly traded company with strong financial prospects. Current employees were said to also fear retribution if they resist publishers who might allow advertisers to influence content. Image Joseph A. Ripp of Time Inc. Credit Lisa Berg “People are really concerned about reporting to the business side,” said one former Time Inc. executive who requested anonymity to speak more candidly. “There’s a lot of trepidation about it.” Among those who expressed concern was Ms. Nelson, the recently departed editor in chief. Before Mr. Ripp came aboard and brought on Mr. Pearlstine, the magazines’ editors all reported to Ms. Nelson, who was seen as a staunch defender of newsroom autonomy. Late last summer, Mr. Ripp invited Ms. Nelson to Nantucket to discuss his plans, according to several current and former Time Inc. executives. Troubled by the idea of reporting to the business side, she resigned. “When Joe suggested a new structure that required editors to report to the business heads, I wasn’t comfortable being part of it,” Ms. Nelson said. “You can’t take apart what you have promoted and built.” Other executives find Mr. Ripp’s and Mr. Pearlstine’s intentions refreshing as they seek to make Time Inc. more business-savvy while also defending its journalism. Since Mr. Pearlstine started his job on Nov. 1, he has consulted Sports Illustrated on legally sensitive articles like the drug case of the former N.F.L. player Sam Hurd. He has also encouraged Time magazine to increase its conference offerings, urging executives to use the robust conference business of another company brand, Fortune, as a model. “Finally, we are out of this box that we’ve been in,” said Scott Omelianuk, editor of This Old House, who has won approval to expand the title’s television programming beyond its flagship show. “We’re going forward and we’re going to grow these brands. It was clear to me that there was a sea change at the company.” Other Time magazines are pushing into new areas in search of revenue growth. Paul Fichtenbaum, editor of Time Inc.’s sports group, noted that Sports Illustrated had significantly expanded its television and online coverage. And some magazines had already been reporting to the business side, including those in Time Inc.’s lifestyle group like Real Simple. But the need for more changes became clear when Time Warner announced the proposed Time Inc. spinoff last March. According to securities filings related to the planned stock offering, the company’s total revenues at Time Inc. have declined to $3.4 billion in 2012 from $3.7 billion in 2010. And the filing also highlighted the company’s heavy dependence on People, which last year accounted for 20 percent of its revenues. And now Ms. Nelson, the driving force behind People’s success, is gone. Ms. Nelson, who became Time Inc.’s first female editor in chief last January, following John Huey, also created InStyle, another lucrative title. Those two magazines generated nearly $1.9 billion in revenue in 2012, according to data tracked by the magazine consultant John Harrington. Daniel Okrent, who worked at Time Inc. in newsroom management positions for more than two decades and left after Ms. Nelson’s departure, said her absence left a big hole. “She was the cover genius for People magazine,” Mr. Okrent said. “She built InStyle from nothing. People is the money pot. People is where the profits come from.” With Ms. Nelson’s departure, Mr. Ripp will now look for revenue-creation ideas from Mr. Pearlstine, who occupied Time Inc.’s editor in chief job from 1995 to 2005. Mr. Pearlstine said that in his newly defined role, magazine editors would not report to him but to the business side of their publications. Nor will he manage newsroom budgets. Instead he plans to focus on being a “second set of eyeballs” for controversial coverage, and help plot the company’s future. “I have a long history of working closely with Joe Ripp, and we have an easy, collaborative relationship that allows us to move quickly,” Mr. Pearlstine said. Several Time Inc. executives question the hiring of the 71-year-old Mr. Pearlstine, arguing that the company should have hired a younger executive to identify opportunities in the digital-media age. He said that no matter the medium — either in print or on the web — his job remained spotting great talent and giving it the responsibility to do great work. “One of my big roles is to identify the people with the age and kind of digital experience that comes from not having been a creature of prior technologies,” Mr. Pearlstine said.

Joseph A Ripp
Norman Pearlstine
Time Warner
Magazine
News media,journalism


Are Small-Cap Stocks Signaling a Recovery?

Abstract: IN times of economic uncertainty, investors don’t usually flock to volatile assets like small-company stocks. Instead, they tend to favor havens like bonds or shares of stable, industry-leading blue-chip companies. But have you seen how small-capitalization stocks have been performing lately? Despite all the bad news surrounding record-high oil prices, mounting job losses, and continuing troubles in housing, the Russell 2000 index of small stocks has soared 12.7 percent since mid-March. By comparison, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index of large stocks is up by a more modest 3.5 percent. For investors, this surprising situation raises an important question: Are small stocks signaling that the worst of the economic storm is behind us? Historically, a small-stock rally during an economic slowdown has often foreshadowed better times ahead. Ned Davis Research of Venice, Fla., studied economic downturns since the end of World War II and found that large-cap stocks tended to lose their momentum to small stocks six months after the start of an official recession. The typical recession has lasted about 10 months, so these turns often take place during the economic slump — not after one. To be sure, no official recession has yet been declared this time around. But if, as some economists believe, a recession started in December, it wouldn’t be surprising that small stocks have begun to excel. The recent surge in small-cap stocks “fits with many other economic and stock market indicators suggesting recovery,” said James W. Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. He points out that not only are small stocks generally doing well, but also that the most economically sensitive sectors of the small-cap universe have performed best of late. They include energy stocks in the S.& P. 600 small-stock index, which are up more than 40 percent since the start of April; the technology sector, up more than 9 percent; and industrial stocks, up more than 8 percent. Bradford Evans, co-portfolio manager of the Heartland Value fund, which specializes in small stocks, says that other signs also support this optimistic view of the economy. For example, he said, “I would look to the yield curve as confirmation that the economy is possibly staging a stealth recovery.” Last year, the yield curve — the spectrum of interest rates paid by bonds of various maturities — was inverted. In other words, a two-year Treasury note was paying out more than a 10-year note, even though the 10-year Treasury locked you into a longer commitment. Historically, this has signaled economic troubles ahead. Today, the yield curve is sloped normally, with 10-year Treasuries paying substantially more than two-year notes. This typically signals economic growth ahead. Still, not all market watchers are convinced that the small-cap rally is an all-clear signal for Wall Street. “I would say it’s too soon to tell,” said Samuel S. Stewart Jr., chairman of Wasatch Advisors, an asset manager based in Salt Lake City that specializes in investing in small and medium-sized companies. Tim Hayes, chief investment strategist at Ned Davis, agrees. “I’m playing it cautiously until I can be confident in saying that the stock market has bottomed,” he said. “And we can’t say that yet.” But even if the economic and market storm is continuing, small caps don’t necessarily have to start underperforming large-company stocks. Small-stock earnings have held up surprisingly well during this slowdown. In the first quarter, as profits for companies in the S.& P. 500 sank 17 percent versus the same period a year earlier, earnings for the S.& P. 600 small-stock index fell less than 9 percent, according to Merrill Lynch. AND Wall Street analysts are forecasting that S.& P. 600 earnings this year will grow just as fast as large-cap stock profits — by around 8 percent, according to S.& P. “On average, earnings for the companies we own are coming through reasonably well,” Mr. Stewart said. Moreover, with inflation fears heightened, there is a growing sense that the Federal Reserve, which meets this week, won’t cut interest rates again. That should be good for small stocks. Standard & Poor’s studied the performance of large and small stocks after various series of Fed rate cuts going back to 1954. On average, in the six months after the last rate cut of a series, the Russell 2000 index advanced 14.9 percent, versus just 9.4 percent for the S.& P 500. And 12 months after the last rate cuts, the small-cap advantage persisted. Small stocks surged 25.2 percent, on average, in the year after the Fed stopped trimming rates, versus 18.9 percent for large-cap shares. Of course, what if the biggest threat isn’t a slowdown, but inflation? Don’t worry, Mr. Paulsen said. Historically, small stocks have typically outpaced large stocks during periods of accelerating inflation. In the 1970s, for example, as inflation was running at an average annual rate of 7.4 percent, small stocks gained 11.5 percent a year, on average, versus 5.9 percent for large stocks. Similarly, in the 1940s, when inflation was 5.4 percent, on average, small stocks doubled the performance of big stocks. Why? Mr. Paulsen argues that just to compete, many small-cap companies must run more efficiently than industry-leading large caps. “If you’ve got companies that are operating extremely lean,” he said, “and they’re now able to raise prices, more of that increase will fall to their bottom line.”

Small Business
Stocks and Bonds
Economic Conditions and Trends
United States Economy
Personal Finances


Lawsuit Seeks Hundreds of Millions of Dollars From Mets for Madoff Victims

Abstract: The trustee representing the victims of Bernard L. Madoff ’s multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from the owners of the Mets , alleging that they, as longtime and successful investors, knew or should have known Madoff was operating a fraud, according to two lawyers involved in the case. The trustee’s lawsuit against the Mets takes aim at roughly 100 financial entities owned or controlled in part by the Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, and could imperil the assets held by the two men, an array of holdings that includes the baseball team, the regional cable sports network that televises its games, as well as commercial real estate holdings and investment funds. The lawsuit seeks to recover not only $300 million in what the trustee, Irving H. Picard , calls “fictitious profits” — the difference between what the Wilpon and Katz entities put into Madoff’s investment firm and what they took out over their many years of investing — but also additional millions, according to the two lawyers, who would not be identified because of the secrecy surrounding the case. On Friday, Mr. Wilpon, who has long portrayed himself and his family as victims of Mr. Madoff’s and who had insisted his personal finances were stable, announced that he would be seeking one or more “strategic partners” to buy a share of the Mets. In a statement, he asserted that he and his family would not give up principal ownership of the team, estimating that he would be willing to sell up to 25 percent of the club. “To address the air of uncertainty created by this lawsuit, and to provide additional assurance that the New York Mets will continue to have the necessary resources to fully compete and win, we are looking at a number of potential options including the addition of one or more strategic partners,” the statement said. One person involved in the Madoff proceedings said it was possible Mr. Picard was seeking as much as $1 billion. Mr. Wilpon would not comment on the lawsuit, citing the fact that it had been filed under seal. Karen Wagner, a lawyer representing the Wilpon family in its current dealings with Mr. Picard, did not return numerous calls and e-mails on Friday seeking comment. The Mets, despite their poor record on the field in recent years, are generally regarded as among the most valuable franchises in Major League Baseball, their worth estimated at $858 million by Forbes magazine in 2010. Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz, brothers-in-law who serve on a variety of major Jewish and other charitable boards, have for decades been prominent real estate developers and investors. One person in baseball said Mr. Wilpon had contacted Bud Selig , the commissioner of baseball, to arrange a face-to-face meeting next week. The person said Mr. Selig had not been informed of the size or nature of the lawsuit against Mr. Wilpon. Major League Baseball declined to comment on the matter. Mr. Picard has won roughly $10 billion in settlements from other Madoff investors whose fortunes he charged were amassed improperly through their lengthy history of investments with Mr. Madoff. According to the lawyer involved in the case, Mr. Picard’s lawsuit will claim that Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz ignored or failed to heed what amounted to “red flags” in recent years about the potentially suspect nature of Mr. Madoff’s operation. The red flags, according to the lawyer, included concerns raised by officials at Merrill Lynch , the investment bank, and Peter Stamos, an investing partner of Mr. Wilpon’s. The investment fund started jointly by Mr. Katz and Mr. Stamos in 2002 is one of the few Wilpon-family-related entities not listed as a defendant in the trustee’s lawsuit. A spokesman for Mr. Stamos’s firm declined to comment. Selena Morris, a spokeswoman for Bank of America , of which Merrill Lynch & Co. is a wholly owned subsidiary, said, “It’s not appropriate for us to comment.” Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz, whose families over many years were close to Mr. Madoff’s, have said since Mr. Madoff’s arrest in 2008 that they felt betrayed by his fraud, and that they were financially hurt by its undoing. Indeed, they and others affiliated with them have sought, in effect, to be compensated as losers in the vast swindle. But the team’s owners never disclosed the size of their losses, and they have repeatedly claimed they will be able to financially survive them . Indeed, as recently as last week, Jeff Wilpon, Mr. Wilpon’s son and the chief operating officer of the Mets, denied that the owners had any interest in selling part of the club. The lawsuit filed by Mr. Picard was filed under seal at the request of lawyers for Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz. Lawsuits in such cases can be sealed only if the defendants claim the information in the legal filings contains trade secrets, other confidential business information or “scandalous” material. Last week, The New York Times and WNBC-TV filed a motion in bankruptcy court seeking to unseal the lawsuit. A hearing on that motion was set for Feb. 9. Four people involved in New York real estate and banking said in recent weeks that Mr. Wilpon over the last year had already been quietly approaching a small number of potential investors, without success. The four would not be identified by name, out of respect for Mr. Wilpon and their clients. It is unclear what Mr. Wilpon’s legal strategy will be in fighting back against Mr. Picard’s claim. Mr. Wilpon and his family, while extremely wealthy, nonetheless are encumbered by existing debt on much of their holdings, and his decision to seek partners is the clearest sign yet that he needs to raise cash. Mr. Wilpon, who has been disappointed by the attendance at Citi Field , the team’s new stadium in Queens , over the last two years, recently refinanced the team’s debt, according to investment bankers. The refinancing of the club’s roughly $400 million in debt took longer than usual to finalize, perhaps because of concerns about Mr. Wilpon’s exposure in the Madoff case. Mr. Wilpon also recently arranged a $450 million debt refinancing on his regional sports network, SNY. The deal allowed roughly $240 million in dividends to be paid to the various owners, and Mr. Wilpon’s group was believed to have received at least a third, according to an investment banker involved with sports franchises. Mr. Wilpon, who grew up in Brooklyn and was a childhood friend of the Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax , bought a small share of the Mets in 1980, and six years later assumed a 50 percent share. He moved to buy out his co-owner, Nelson Doubleday , in a deal that became final in August 2002. Over the years, Mr. Wilpon has made clear that he wants the team to be a kind of family legacy, and that he and his children and grandchildren envision holding some or all of it for years. All along, Mr. Wilpon was friends with Mr. Madoff. They had raised their families together in Roslyn, Long Island , and came to share memberships at country clubs and on philanthropic boards. And across those years, Mr. Wilpon, Mr. Katz, their families and their businesses opened an extraordinary array of accounts with Mr. Madoff. And, according to numerous associates, Mr. Wilpon brought close friends and others he trusted or admired to Mr. Madoff to get in on his strikingly reliable and seriously profitable investment operation.

Bernard L Madoff
Mets
Fred Wilpon
Irving H Picard
Saul B Katz
Baseball
Ponzi scheme
Lawsuit


As Mobile Networks Speed Up, Data Gets Capped

Abstract: The newest smartphones are intended to run on speedy 4G networks that allow people to effortlessly stream music, watch Netflix movies and tune in live to a Mets game, wherever they are. But there’s a catch, of course. Cellphone plans that let people gobble up data as if they were at an all-you-can eat buffet are disappearing, just as new data-gobbling Internet services from Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, Apple and the like are hitting the market or catching on with wide audiences. These services use far more data than simply checking e-mail or browsing the Web, so their heaviest users may find themselves running over their plan’s monthly allotment and paying extra. The wireless carriers say their tighter limits will affect only a small percentage of customers. And they say they are simply trying to get ahead of an exploding appetite for data and avoid problems with overburdened networks. Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T , said that if current trends continued, the company’s network would carry more data in the first two months of 2015 than in all of 2010. He described the pricing issue as a “balancing act,” adding: “The tiered data plans will meet the needs of the overwhelming majority of consumers. A lot of people think they’re heavy users, but they’re not.” But analysts say that inevitably more people will find themselves in the “heavy user” category, particularly as more of them trade in their lower-end phones for smartphones and move to 4G networks. For most people who use their phones to check e-mail, surf the Web and watch an occasional video, the move toward tiered pricing will not immediately raise their phone bills. Verizon ’s monthly plan offering two gigabytes of data for $30, announced last month, costs the same as its old unlimited plan, for example. But even now it doesn’t take much for a media-hungry smartphone user to chew through two gigabytes; watching Netflix video for more than roughly 20 minutes a day will do the trick. And an extra gigabyte will cost Verizon customers an additional $10. “Over time, as you give people faster devices with faster speeds, it’s going to be a lot easier to hit that two-gig mark,” said Philip Cusick, an analyst with JPMorgan Chase who follows the telecommunications industry. In addition to worrying about overtaxing their networks, wireless carriers are looking for new ways to make money from mobile data and applications, rather than voice minutes. Over the last three years, the amount of money consumers spent a month on mobile calling declined to $30 from $40, according to Recon Analytics. During the same period, the average amount spent on data nearly doubled, jumping to $13 from $7. “We’ve fallen in love with data and the utility that we get from it,” said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon. “The usage pattern has changed dramatically.” AT&T and Verizon have both phased out their unlimited data plans in favor of tiered plans. Verizon offers 75-megabyte plans for basic phones, as well as two-, five- and 10-gigabyte plans for smartphones, topping out at $80 a month. Those in the more expensive plans who go over their limit are charged $10 for another gigabyte, as are AT&T customers who exceed the limit on that company’s two-gigabyte plan, which costs $25. T-Mobile, which AT&T is hoping to acquire, offers tiers from 200 megabytes up to 10 gigabytes. Those on the 200-megabyte plan are charged 10 cents for an extra megabyte. And if those with the upper-tier plans exceed their limits, the company slows their data connections until the next billing period. Sprint is the last carrier to hold onto its unlimited data plan, but analysts and industry experts say it is unlikely to last. All of the carriers let customers track their data use through their Web sites and on their phones, and they send alerts when customers are in danger of going over. Of course, those who want to avoid paying more can simply wait until they are connected to a Wi-Fi network to, say, download high-definition videos, since this will not count against the monthly limit. But that doesn’t help someone who wants to stream movies or music on a long evening commute. Terry Hartup, 34, who works as a technology consultant in Clearwater, Fla., said he was frustrated that his connection might be slowed if T-Mobile decided he was using too much data. “These new services are coming out that let us do more, but the pipe is getting smaller and smaller,” he said. “And costing us more.” Mr. Hartup, who streams audio throughout most of the day on Spotify and Pandora over T-Mobile’s network and Wi-Fi, says he rarely goes over two gigabytes a month. But he worries that new apps and services will make it harder to stay under that cap. The data caps are very much on the minds of developers of mobile apps and services, who need to think about how they will affect the way people use their phones. Malthe Sigurdsson, vice president for product design at the Internet music service Rdio, said the company was adapting to the data limits. Rdio includes several features intended to help prevent users from unwittingly churning through their data allowance. “You can set Rdio to play at a lower quality when using a cellular network, and then decide to use a higher quality when on Wi-Fi,” he said. “We try to help people out so they don’t use up their cap in a few hours of using our service.” Most people, he said, have adjusted their behavior to stream only when they are on a Wi-Fi network, or make use of a feature that lets them store songs on their phones to play when they are away from Wi-Fi. Kevin Systrom, one of the founders of Instagram, a popular photo-sharing application for iPhones, said he was concerned that data caps would constrain developers from creating innovative and possibly data-intensive features and services. “Any low data limits imposed would curb usage of all services,” he said. He called the introduction of data caps “a step backwards for mobile technology.” Yet AT&T and other carriers, along with some developers, argue that the caps make data use more affordable and improve the performance of the carriers’ networks for all. The main issue, developers say, is that most people have no idea how much data they are using when watching a YouTube video or sending an e-mail. “They don’t have an intuitive feel for how much data they’re using,” said Rick Osterloh, vice president for development at Skype. “You can so easily blow through a data plan if you’re watching videos, browsing the Web and making Skype calls.” Mr. Osterloh said he sympathized with the challenge the carriers face in managing demands. But he is concerned that mobile Skype users who accidentally go over their limits may get upset with the company rather than their carrier. The wireless carriers, who will increasingly compete with one another for customers, could raise their data caps to best rivals and accommodate customers’ increasing appetites. During a recent call with investors, Lowell McAdams, Verizon’s newly appointed chief executive, said it was not inconceivable that carriers might once again dangle unlimited data plans to lure subscribers. “There may be some that hold out longer with unlimited, and I wouldn’t be surprised if unlimited comes back in and out from a promotional perspective,” he said. But he added that the trend toward limits was “inevitable.”

Wireless Communications
Smartphones
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Verizon Communications Inc
AT&T Inc


Van Heyst Group Aims to Turn Company Events Into Media Gold

Abstract: BEFORE there were TED Talks, there were Della talks. Like the founders of the TED conferences after her, Della van Heyst understood the importance of putting smart people in front of an audience to express their ideas. Back in the digital dark ages of the late 1970s, she introduced a conference that became the influential Stanford Publishing Course, a two-week retreat for people in the publishing industry. Over the years, industry luminaries like Nan Talese, Lewis Lapham and Helen Gurley Brown, as well as rising technology stars like Jeff Bezos, taught at the conference. From that success grew the Van Heyst Group , which Della ran with her daughter, Carrie, to plan conferences for large companies. But a few years ago, Della was preparing to retire. (She is now 73.) It was then that Carrie faced “a dark night of the soul,” she said, as she wondered whether she could keep running the company. In 2009, Della was continuing to orchestrate live conversations among business leaders, academics and celebrities, for clients that included Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Fortune over the years. But the recession was unkind to the events business, which is notoriously cyclical anyway. The Van Heyst Group’s revenue plunged when companies cut back on live events. Her daughter’s concerns went beyond the financial. “The C.E.O.’s we deal with are remarkable people, but I feel like the issues they’re discussing belong to everybody,” Carrie said. “These very important conversations, which were the heart of our business, happened behind closed doors.” She wondered: Was there a way to open the company’s events to more people? And could she add her own stamp to a business that was closely identified with her vibrant and inventive mother? Today, Carrie van Heyst, 45, is answering yes to those questions by becoming involved in the media industry’s move toward live publishing — the simultaneous production of live events and spin-off content for print, video, the Web and mobile devices. In the last few years, publications including The Washington Post, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have introduced or accelerated conference offerings that cover business, political, cultural and other topics. “It seems counterintuitive that in the digital age, physical events are gaining in popularity,” said Ken Doctor, a media analyst at Outsell Inc., a research firm, adding that, nevertheless, “events have become a significant third stream of revenue, behind circulation and advertising, for media companies.” He predicts that within a few years, live events may account for 20 percent of media company revenue, through a combination of ticket sales, sponsorship and advertising deals. Some magazines produced conferences in the past, but typically for brand-building, not profit. It wasn’t until the ad drought of 2008 and the rise of social media and mobile computing that companies really started to grasp the potential of live publishing. The viral success of TED Talks, the slickly produced videos from the TED conferences, helped prove the revenue value of live events combined with online content. One of the most-watched TED talks, by a brain researcher discussing her own stroke, has been viewed more than eight million times. Although the videos themselves are free, they’ve significantly driven income for the flagship conferences, said Tom Rielly, director of fellows and community at TED. MR. RIELLY worked with Della van Heyst during her Stanford Publishing days, teaching art directors to use design software. “The course was an elite program that you had to be invited to,” he said. “If you went, you were guaranteed an incredibly high level of schmoozing with movers and shakers in the publishing industry. “Della was always early on topics,” Mr. Rielly said. “Not too early, but enough to give people a competitive edge.” After Della left her job as director of strategic planning for the Stanford Alumni Association in 1994 to form the Van Heyst Group, she used her Rolodex to introduce C.E.O.’s and other senior managers to experts in technology and social trends. At a 1995 Internet boot camp, for instance, she recruited Jerry Yang, a young Stanford graduate student who had just founded Yahoo, to brief Fortune 500 chief executives about the Internet. “I said: ‘Jerry, you have to wear a pressed oxford shirt or these people will not take you seriously. If you don’t have one, I will buy you one,’ ” she said. Mr. Yang remembers the conversation, but not the shirt. By the end of her first year at her new firm, Della van Heyst had recruited Carrie, then 27, to expand what had been a one-woman company and start hiring. The firm became a rare example of a mother- and daughter-run operation. Her daughter chose Boulder, Colo., for the headquarters, drawn by its healthy, outdoorsy lifestyle. Her mother stayed in Silicon Valley, where the fast pace and entrepreneurial culture suited her personality. In 2010, Della and her husband, Pete, moved to Boulder to be closer to their daughter and her family; Pete died last year. “My traditional role has been to monetize Della’s fairy dust,” Carrie said recently, as she and her mother ate salads in a conference room at the headquarters. Her mother bristled at the characterization. “I like to think I contribute more than that,” she said wryly. But Della van Heyst acknowledges that her creative spark has led to moments like the cocktail party for the chip maker AMD, where teams sustained by beer and Ding-Dongs competed to build socially beneficial creations; a friend at Lego provided tens of thousands of bricks. “One team created an orgasmatron,” she recalled with glee. “Della and Carrie are night and day,” said Suzanne O’Leary, the company’s senior vice president for client relations. “Della is always saying things like, ‘Of course, we can call all the attendees and get their shirt sizes tomorrow,’ ” in case she and the sponsor decide the participants should all wear matching shirts. “But Carrie will step back and think things through carefully and weigh the pros and cons.” Visually, too, the pair are a study in opposites. Della, born in Hong Kong, is compact, with short gray hair and quick, emphatic speech. Carrie, with all-American blond ringlets and pale freckles, has a more laid-back, surf-and-sand look. Although Carrie stands just 5-foot-4, she towers over her diminutive, energetic mother. Their yin-and-yang energy worked well for many years, but by 2005 Carrie had a growing sense of unease, which came to a head in 2009 as she pondered the future of the business. She wondered whether the company could play a larger role in producing meaningful, open conversations. She is a mother of two boys, and “when you have children, you think about, ‘How do I want to participate in this world so I’m creating benefit for them?’ ” Carrie van Heyst had already seen how a more transparent model, tightly integrating live events and digital content, could have powerful results. In 2003, she and Della persuaded Time Inc. to be a co-sponsor of a conference called “The Future of Life,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA. The event brought together renowned scientists, including the DNA pioneer James Watson, and social thinkers like Stewart Brand, Paul Saffo and Jaron Lanier. From the outset, the event was designed to spin off content for multiple platforms including Time magazine, its Web site, broadcast TV and DVDs. The event convinced Carrie van Heyst that live publishing had the same potential as old-fashioned live TV for spontaneity and surprise. During one controversial session, when an ethicist questioned the necessity of embryonic stem cell research, Dr. Watson leapt from his seat and shouted, “That’s crap!” “That’s the kind of spontaneous thing that can only happen in a live event,” she said. “If you can turn it into live content on other platforms, it extends that excitement outside the walls. ” Since the DNA event, social media, streaming video and mobile computing have made cross-platform content easier to create and view. Recently, as companies have crawled out of the recession, more Van Heyst clients have become interested in the potential of live events combined with digital content. This year, Forbes will produce eight events, including a health care conference in New York that the Van Heyst Group is coordinating. The invitation-only event will include 250 health care executives, physicians, investors and other leaders. From it, Forbes will produce a print article, online content and an e-book summarizing the event and its conclusions. “Conferences have been around for a long time,” said Mike Federle, chief operating officer of Forbes Media. “What’s happening now, though, is part of the irony of digital media. As the world is more connected digitally, it only seems to accentuate the need for personal interaction, so conferences are enjoying a real surge.” IN a startling reversal, some start-up media companies are making events their flagship, and then building blogs, e-books or other content around them. When David Kirkpatrick, a former Fortune editor and author of “The Facebook Effect,” began his company, Techonomy, in 2010, he worked with the Van Heyst Group to introduce it, with a conference for nearly 300 business leaders at the Ritz-Carlton at Lake Tahoe. “Events are not the only thing we do, or are going to do, but we started with them because they’re reliably profitable,” he said. In 2011, the second Techonomy conference drew participants including Marissa Mayer, Esther Dyson, Jack Dorsey, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steve Case and Lyle Lovett. Attendees paid $4,500 each, plus lodging and airfare. Attendee fees make up roughly half Techonomy’s revenue; the balance comes from sponsorships, which cost $65,000 to $375,000 each, Mr. Kirkpatrick said. Like many conferences produced by media companies, the live portion of Techonomy is exclusive and invitation-only, but it opens to a broader discussion through a partnership with Forbes, which covered the event with online articles and video. Media clients aren’t the only ones to respond to Carrie van Heyst’s efforts to make events more open. This year, for instance, the Van Heyst Group developed a live blog with video, photographs and text for the Cisco I.T. Executive Symposium , for 125 corporate executives. “In the past, Cisco had been very rigid about having executive events be off the record,” said Erica Spoor, a global event strategist for Cisco. “But we felt like, Cisco is in the communication business, and having a closed circuit event doesn’t make a ton of sense. We’re moving to an era of complete transparency and sharing.” Of course, corporate communications at many companies still shy away from the limelight. As for media companies, even if live events do become a significant third platform, that’s no guarantee of steady work for the Van Heyst Group. It’s certainly not the only company producing thought-leader events. And even if it manages to outperform its rivals, some clients may decide to take the organizing in-house. “It’s fine to outsource at the beginning while you’re learning,” Mr. Doctor, the media analyst, said, “but if events become a third or fourth revenue source, I’d want to have that expertise inside.” Still, for the moment, live publishing has been good news for the Van Heyst Group, where media businesses now represent half of its clients. The company, which had to lay off half its staff in the recession, has grown back to 16 employees. Revenue has risen to $2 million, and the company expects to turn its first profit in five years in 2012, Carrie van Heyst said. And, like its media clients, it is moving to diversify its income. It has developed a proprietary software tool, which it now licenses to clients, to help manage and develop audiences for very large events. THE company has also diversified its client base, decreasing its share of tech companies and adding health-oriented nonprofits like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation , and community-oriented projects like TEDxMileHigh , a TED spinoff for innovative ideas in the Denver region. “All of this shows Carrie’s stamp on the company, and out of it grows a different kind of thinking, a different concept of what’s important in life and business,” Della van Heyst said. While Della has stepped away from daily involvement, she hasn’t gone far. She also subcontracts to clients who want her specific input. For now, at least, the live-publishing trend shows no signs of slowing. “Digital communication affects companies in all kinds of ways,” Mr. Doctor said, “but it’s really this recombination of the digital and physical that defines the age we’re in.”

Van Heyst Group
van Heyst Carrie
van Heyst Della
Magazines
Media
Video Recordings and Downloads
Computers and the Internet
TED Conference


In Japan, Another Leader Takes Heat for Golfing During a Crisis

Abstract: TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe now shares at least one thing in common with President Obama: criticism for an ill-timed game of golf. The Japanese leader, who has been vacationing at a popular mountain resort town, faced continuing sniping from opposition lawmakers on Saturday for playing several holes of golf earlier in the week instead of immediately returning to Tokyo to supervise the government’s response to deadly landslides that struck the western city of Hiroshima. The landslides on Wednesday, caused by heavy rains, left at least 40 dead and 47 others missing, officials said. Critics say Mr. Abe then made matters worse by going back to his resort home in the town of Karuizawa, instead of canceling the rest of his vacation to oversee the rescue efforts. Opposition lawmakers said they planned to question the governing Liberal Democratic Party about the prime minister’s actions next week during a meeting of a parliamentary committee on disaster response. “How can he go back to his villa while there are still so many missing?” said Seiji Mataichi of the Social Democratic Party. “What poor judgment.” The criticisms echo those faced this past week by President Obama for playing golf while on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, just hours after he went on television to denounce Islamic fighters for killing an American journalist, James Foley. While the president was apparently determined to show that he would not let the militants hijack his agenda, or his vacation schedule, critics said he looked callous toward Mr. Foley’s grieving family. Image Shinzo Abe Credit Toru Hanai/Reuters In Japan, analysts said the hoopla over the golf game was unlikely to seriously hurt Mr. Abe. However, they said it did reflect a rare misstep by a conservative leader who has kept his approval ratings above a respectable 50 percent by carefully cultivating an image of firm, competent leadership in a nation that has seen many ineffective prime ministers. “This has been a bad week for leaders on the links,” Jeff Kingston, a professor of modern Japanese history at Temple University in Tokyo, said in an email. “Still, Abe is the most active premier in memory, constantly in motion, meeting world leaders and announcing new initiatives, so I don’t think Japan will begrudge him a brief break. Odds are he will visit the disaster zone soon, and this brouhaha will blow over.” National attention has been gripped by the tragedy in Hiroshima, where continuing heavy rains have hampered the search for the missing. Many residents are feared to have been buried alive as they slept in the early hours on Wednesday, when rain-soaked hillsides turned into cascading walls of mud that destroyed neighborhoods. The mounting death toll has made the natural disaster one of the worst here since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan that killed nearly 20,000 and caused the Fukushima nuclear accident. On Friday, Mr. Abe’s defenders said the prime minister was able to receive regular updates about the emergency response even while getting what they said was some well-deserved rest from his highly demanding job. The prime minister defended himself by saying that he did not complete the 18-hole golf course, which he was playing on Wednesday morning with three members of his cabinet, but cut the game short after just four holes. “I canceled the golf and returned to Tokyo, where I gave the orders that needed to be given,” Mr. Abe told reporters. Still, the episode created an opening for opponents to fault the popular prime minister as being out of touch. They seized on the fact that Mr. Abe has repeatedly invoked the need to be able to protect Japanese lives in arguing for a stronger military and increased security cooperation with the United States. “The prime minister has been talking of protecting the citizens’ lives,” said Banri Kaieda, president of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. “We wish he would take those promises a bit more seriously.”

Japan
Shinzo Abe
Landslides,Mudslides
Golf
Barack Obama
James Foley
Syria
Kidnapping and Hostages
Hiroshima