Football Friday’s Afterthoughts

Dodgers to have Asian flavor after $1.2bn offer?

The embattled Los Angeles Dodgers owners have been reportedly offered $1.2 billion for the team by a consortium of Chinese investors led by investor Bill Burke, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Dodgers are currently in bankruptcy protection and are being run by an executive who was appointed by Major League Baseball. In addition the owners, Frank and Jamie McCourt are involved in a bitter divorce that centers on, among other issues, who actually owns the team. The two had been using the ball club to finance an extravagant lifestyle and are now mired in debt and have been seeking a variety of outside sources to help meet payroll and other expenses. When Nintendo started the process of buying the Seattle Mariners about a decade ago there was a great deal of resistance and I expect more of the same for this, if it materializes.

Can Sports Teams do more to take advantage of Fan Check-ins?

Do you use location based services to check into places with your smartphone? Obviously you know you are not alone as millions of others vie to be Mayor of such and such and makes you wonder how these people have lives if they are logging into the local pub at twice the rate you are. But anyway Jason Peck has a nice piece on his blog about the technology and proposes that sports teams could take much more advantage of this mobile feature. He points out that the teams have a huge captive audience at games and could leverage this via mobile technology much better than they are currently doing. He links to several interesting papers on the topics and shows which MLB ball parks lead in check-ins. Not surprising that the San Francisco Giants at AT&T lead the way.

Is your NFL draft lineup set?

Thank heavens that preseason football is over (I know, Seattle and Oakland play tonight but..) and now the real work begins. By that I mean drafting your fantasy football team. As a persistent bottom dweller in my league I am not going to offer any advice on players but I do recommend The Big Lead’s excellent Jason Lisk’s look at the skill positions for some insight into players. He also is in the process of doing short evaluations of all of the teams. He is not doing comprehensive ones but often focuses on a single player or area, such as the Ram’s quarterbacking situation, and how it could be expected to change based on historical analysis. Always a good read.

Will Samsung bring Note to US Market?

Samsung is continuing to expand into the mobile computing space with a new product as well as updating its existing tablet, according to Computerworld. The more interesting of the two looks to be the Galaxy Note, a handheld device that enables users to write directly on the screen using its 5.3-inch display and it also serves as a smartphone. The second is a replacement for the Galaxy Tab that it introduced a year ago. The latest version, named Tab 7.7 which sports a sleeker look and a better display. However at this time it is unclear if Samsung will be offering either item in the US. The Tab 7.7 is expected to be priced around $800, significantly higher than rival products and the next wave of tablets are expected to be even lower.