Before I get into this let me say that all of this Mets-following is fun. Believe me I don’t walk around all day grumbling that @cmhollon is tweetig about Fred, nor do I go around throwing paint on people with black Mets jerseys. This is one aspect of my life, one I enjoy very much…but I’m not some sort of 24/7 Metsaholic crazy person.
Yesterday some of us got into it on twitter (@metspolice) a little bit. There’s this contingent of “Choose The Mets” or in twitter parlance #choosethemets. Read here if you’d like more but in essence it is taking the parts of the Mets you like and rejecting the rest. Sort of the Mets fans version of arguing whether or not Greedo shot first.
The problem is you’re kidding yourself.
Choose The Mets seems to be based upon not buying tickets to a game at Citi Field. That will teach those Wilpons. We shall punish them with our wallets!
Ok, I get it. However, you guys aren’t committed.
Since the Choosers aren’t going to go to games they will stay home and watch games on TV.
Well, most Mets games on TV are on SNY. And you know who owns that? The Wilpons. So you would then be supporting what many think is the Wilpons’ strongest asset. So I am taking that away from you. No SNY for you!
Fine, you can watch the national broadcasts.
Well, no – no you can’t. The centralized fund gets split up by the owners..so by watching games on Fox you’re making it that much more likely that Fox will get good ratings and renew their deal at a higher rate…and then you know who gets some of that money….the Wilpons.
I guess you could watch Subway Series games on YES and make the Steinbrenners rich and hope that WGN is (a) on your cable system and (b) showing Mets-Cubs. So maybe you can catch 10 or so games this year.
Then there’s the radio. Well, this is the last year of the Mets’ deal with WFAN. The more people who listen the more valuable those rights will be. So you really shouldn’t listen or you are helping the Wilpons get closer to a beneficial deal in 2013. Radio off.
You could consider the MLB App and listen to the out of town feed…oh but there’s that centralized fund again.
So, screw it. No Mets baseball. Maybe become a Royals fan. That way you can enjoy baseball without helping the Wilpons…well except for the national TV games, you shouldn’t watch those (see above.) And you won’t be able to get any Royals merch since MLB merch is centralized. So no Alex Gordon jersey for you.
And as for these “Mets” you are choosing? Those are some of the paid employees of the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club, Inc. The Baseball Club Inc. has many people working for them including Dave Howard and some PR folks and some groundskeepers and some people who show you where to park. Oh and some people who are good at hitting a ball with a stick.
Their chairman? His name is Fred Wilpon.
Mr. Fred Wilpon is a Co-Founder and Chairman at Sterling Equities. He is also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Mets. In 2000, Mr. Wilpon Co-Founded and became Chairman of the Brooklyn Baseball Company, owner of the Brooklyn Cyclones. Prior to August 23, 2002, he was a President of the New York Mets baseball team. Mr. Wilpon’s background includes extensive experience in all aspects of the real estate industry, as well as serving as the Senior Executive of many diversified businesses. (via Businessweek.com)
I get that you are mad, but you can’t choose Fred’s employees without choosing Fred. If you want to hit Fred in the wallet you’re going to have to swear off baseball. We both know you aren’t going to do that.
…
Again, I’m not defending the Wilpons. I personally don’t care if Fred owns the team or not.
What I’m fascinated with is how “The Wilpons” have become this thing that people wake up in the morning and are just so angry about.
“The Wilpons” don’t seem to have been stupid in 2006. That summer nobody gave a hoot about ownership. That summer Omar Minaya was a genius and the toast of the town. Willie Randolph had brought pride back to the Mets. The playoffs have a way of making everyone look good, except Carlos Beltran.
So everyone hated on Beltran.
Then everyone hated on Willie.
Then Omar became stupid.
Now the Wilpons are stupid. I don’t want to get politics in here but it reminds me of the perception of a certain recent president who was characterized as both an idiot and yet was the mastermind behind some strategy to make money on oil as part of the biggest conspiracy of all time. From what I read, “the Wilpons” are percieved to be scheming to get rich while going bankrupt and going out their way to destroy the Mets even though it should be their strongest asset.
Maybe they did make some dopey projections like thinking 3.2 million people would fill Citi Field every year. Seems their proverbial ex-wife cleaned out the bank accounts. It’s a mess, I get it.
But it’s all we have.
Strap on your dropshadowless Mets jersey, buy some tickets (try Mets Police tickets when I get that rolling again, we don’t have a deal with MLB like Stubhub does so none of your $ will go to “the Wilpons”) and enjoy baseball.
The next time this team wins 95 games the place will be filled and nobody will care about the owner or his son. Ask any Knicks fan. And you’ll be choosing the Mets with your ass in a seat.
See you Opening Day at Citi Field.
One minor quibble – what you watch (or don’t watch) on TV doesn’t count unless you are part of a household that is counted in the Nielsen ratings. (TV ratings are determined by a supposedly representative sample of viewers, not an actual count of what everyone watches.)
Paul, that’s true for “official” TV ratings. However if you own a cable box, or a satellite box, or anything beyond a digital antenna (to only pick up over the air stations) then your viewing habits are being tracked and tabulated.
And if you have a DVR then all of that activity is known and believe me, is factored in to contract negotiations
Dan I plan and buy media for living and that is factually inaccurate. While DVRs are factored into the Nielsen numbers and while set top boxes can track the data as you specify, it is not something that gets factored into contract negotiations. Because if it was, then the Nielsen data would be dumped and those who sell ad time for SNY, ESPN, YES etal, would simply go with the real time data vs the hopelessly out of date and limited reliability of Nielsen Ratings.
However, to try and draw a line in watching or not watching via Nielsen samples as Paul is doing is not accurate either. You can’t say I am not a Nielsen household, therefore I am exempt from data collection and thus can watch Met games.
Patrick – I actually work in advertising as well, on the analytics side of the fence. You are correct in that these numbers are not formally part of any contract negotiation (Nielsen would never stand for that). but that does not mean that the data isn’t there and is known. I’ve seen reports on cable subscriptions or Tivo data. It’s out there and certainly the people that own the stations (like SNY) can get access to it – that was more my point
and folks can always do independent surveys that ask questions like “do you watch SNY”
Of course you could lie…but then you are a liar, which seems to be what folks get mad at the Wilpons about supoosedly doing. And Katz.
Might I add that not jumping to conclusions based on speculation is not defending Wilpon. While there is a bunch of info out there available for public consumption. NO ONE can connect all the dots regarding their “books” without have access to the “books” themselves.
Plus no one knows how the court will decide in the Madoff case.
No matter how much people claim they “know”, they don’t know it all.
All due respect, that is a tad simplistic. It has become fairly self evident that the Wilpons are flat broke, as they continue to borrow enormous sums of money to operate the baseball team. The long held notion that they will be fine (a belief or opinion I was willing to give a level of credence to for a long while mind you), that yes they lost a ton of money with Madoff but their businesses are sound and they have other funds is just silly. If their businesses were sound and they had other investments they were sitting on, why would they need to borrow significant sums of money for first MLB and then Bank of America? That is not how people who are fine in business operate. That is how people desperate to cling on operate and how their friends enable them. Even IF they come out completely unscathed from the Madoff claw-back, there is no evidence on their part that they can cover their ownership of the Mets. The most rosy scenario that can be painted in that light is that in fear of looking flush going into court against Picard, they are playing the victim and thus borrowing money vs. using their own. Even if that were the case it is a sad act and shameful cronyism from those who would be enabling them financially in that regard.
I have no ill will against the Wilpons. I am sure they are no different than most people, extremely ambitious, perhaps egotistical, simultaneously charitable but also due when the bill comes up.
There is so much evidence to suggest that their rise to 100% ownership of the New York Mets was no different than their business ascendancy and with what we do now know factually about the Madoff situation very much likely financed by its absurdly ridiculous and fictional profits.
In all honesty, if there was ever a sense of truly solid financial ground for the Wilpon and Katz business Sterling Equities, how did it come to pass that they so heavily financed both SNY and CitiField? Any person of reasonable business acumen would try to limit the debt load they put into those types of entities, and yet it appears that Sterling Equities attempted to finance them via loans entirely. That makes NO sense unless the individual who was entrusted with their financial assets was telling them yes, you can have X in terms of your return but it would be better not to withdraw it until Y date.
There is a reason that when you buy a house a bank asks you to put a certain percentage down and then pay interest, and you can put more down if you chose. But in this case it appears the banks allowed Sterling Equities to finance the whole thing in return for a bigger payoff on interest on a later date. And then the house of cards crumbled.
#Choosethemets isn’t about winning or losing. I suggest you read the original posts themselves rather than take Shannon’s or anyone else’s word for what #choosethemets means or stands for.