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junker-town · 5 years

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What we liked and didn’t like about the 1st ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur

The best amateurs in the world put on a fantastic show at the home of the Masters this weekend.

The first ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur was a success. There can be improvements, and some historical contexts were ignored in self-congratulatory hype, but overall, it was a success and a fantastic watch. Here are some thoughts on this new endeavor, and what we liked and did not like about its first run.

What we loved

1. This was a great show when you got down to the actual golf and characters playing the golf. Strip down all the hyperbole and over-dramatic framing of “what it all meant” in the grander scheme of things, and this was always going to be what made this a success. Amazing women playing amazing golf on an incredible backdrop that we’ve memorized. The golf made the show, with two top tier women’s college players, Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi, in a head-to-head race striping the hell out of the ball on the back nine at Augusta National. The golf was beautiful and the course looked beautiful and it was a great Saturday afternoon show before the sports world turned to the Final Four.

With an eagle on No. 13 @jenniferkupcho is tied for the lead during the final round at #ANWAgolf pic.twitter.com/u7e3OK050r

— Augusta National Women's Amateur (@anwagolf) April 6, 2019

2. Kupcho not only played a second nine that any of the competitors in the Masters would take in their final rounds, but she also did it in a condition that might make many of them withdraw. During the coverage, she mentioned something about being able “to see again” on the 11th hole. It was a puzzling comment out of context, but then she dropped this in Butler Cabin during the trophy presentation.

“Actually, I don��t know if it was said on TV or not, but I actually got a migraine on the 8th green. From here over to the left, I just couldn’t see. It was blurry. I told my caddie, ‘Look, I’m just looking for you to read the putts. Just tell me where to hit it and I’ll do my best to hit it there.’

Amazingly enough, I knew it was going to — I’ve gotten these migraines before so I knew the blurriness was going to go away and I would just have a headache (Ed. note: JUST a headache). So on that 11th tee is where it kind of started to go away and I was able to finally see. And kind of from there, that’s where it all started. I knew that I was going to be able to do it. I was just trying to get myself under control and get through the holes where I couldn’t see anything.’

Jason Day considered withdrawing from the Masters just listening to that.

3. We’re so used to seeing this course only in Masters conditions, so it was fascinating to watch Saturday’s round played from the member tees and probably closer approximate what the original design intended. We need more elite women’s events on the great classic courses of the world. For the hardcore golf nut, it’s the best way to watch and appreciate these designs.

4. This was a commendable decision and endeavor by Fred Ridley, who introduced the women’s event as one of his first orders of business when he took over as chairman. We’ll to the extraneous hype of it, but the decision to do this as soon as he became chairman is worth recognizing. The players then delivered to make it a show.

5. TV ratings should not dictate whether this endeavor (or most sports productions for that matter) was worthwhile or not. But there is an appetite for this. We knew this. We knew it with or without TV ratings data as some sort of affirmation. But if that’s the kind of thing that is important to you, Nielsen added that it was the highest ranked amateur event — men’s or women’s — since the 2003 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont.

6. It’s hard to overstate how much of a joy it was to watch Kupcho and Fassi, who most of America and even golf nerds had probably not heard of before this weekend, play together in the final round. Kupcho said after the round that they made an effort to put on the show together, beyond just golf shots, and that made it so fun in the final hours.

Coming out of it with Maria in the final group with me, I think both of us kind of just wanted to send the message that golf is about having friends, and to be out there with her, we were cheering each other on, and that’s kind of how golf is supposed to be.

And to make it look fun; it is fun. So to make it look that way for everyone watching, I hope it encourages people to pick up a club and go play.

It may be treacly, but it did look fun. Sports are fun. We should enjoy watching sports. Even this hardened cynical heart was smiling as I watched the two put on a stripe show in biggest stage of their competitive lives to date.

Play Amen Corner✅#ANWAgolf pic.twitter.com/4emB6qQBtU

— Augusta National Women's Amateur (@anwagolf) April 6, 2019

What we didn’t like

1. Saturday was special, but if it’s going to be called the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, every invitee should get to play a competitive round at Augusta National. Instead, the full 72-woman field played at nearby Champions Retreat for 36 holes and a cut was made. Every player got to play a Friday practice round at Augusta. Why not just make that a competitive round? You have the full field out there already so it’s hard to cite the wear-and-tear concerns a week before the Masters. Play one round at Champions retreat if you must, but then move the field to ANGC and the post-cut final 30 to ANGC on Saturday.

2. The hard cut on Thursday should have been flexible. We had 11 women tied above the cut line forcing an 11-for-10 playoff that felt unnecessary. Playing the first 36 holes well enough to be tied for 21st, and then being the one of 11 to not make it to Augusta National in the playoff feels like just about the cruelest way to miss a cut. It’s hard to predict all this and have flexibility in advance, but an odd-numbered 31 with a playing marker, as we have in the Masters, seemed like the best and obvious way to go.

3. Scheduling this opposite the first major championship of the year, the LPGA’s ANA Inspiration, is not ideal. That Saturday rating, and all the attention Golf Channel paid ANWA during the week, certainly took some of the shine and pub away from a major championship. These are two premier events in women’s golf that should not be competing for oxygen. The desire to put this back-to-back with the Masters is understandable, but I’d love to see the ANWA on a fall Augusta National setup. But you can probably guess who’s going to move their championship first. It’s not the green jackets.

4. I’ve already noted this was a commendable decision by Ridley to create this event. But then there was the hyperbolic framing, not necessarily from Ridley, proclaiming that it was busting through some wall. The game of golf, and Augusta, put up so many of those walls so it was hard to hear from these same voices that they were doing something historic. This hype from those around the event, not the competitors, grew tiresome. Something like it should have happened a long time ago. Why not just create it and let these women put on the show that they did? Why not just let it breathe? If the competitors think it’s monumental or historic or that they were hoping to inspire new generations, let them state that. Some did state it, but it got Iost as those same messages were force-fed in hyperbole to us by interested parties desperate to make it work.

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rickhorrow · 5 years

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10 To Watch : Mayors Edition 4119

MAYOR’S EDITION : RICK HORROW’S TOP 10 SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 1 with Jacob Aere

As we head to the Final Four, March Madness ratings are way up. Will they stay that way with overall No. 1 seed Duke out of the picture? Sunday came to a close and saw Michigan State, Texas Tech, Auburn, and Virginia packing their bags for Minnesota. As Sports Illustrated noted, “It’s safe to say that the teams heading to Minneapolis were not a popularly selected quartet two weeks ago.” But this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has definitely been popular with viewers. According to Nielsen, the NCAA Tournament on CBS, TNT, TBS, and truTV is having its fifth-best audience since 1991, when the event expanded to its current TV format. The four networks are averaging 9.1 million viewers, up 6% from 8.5 million last year. When streaming from March Madness platforms is added in, the tourney has a total audience delivery of 9.5 million viewers, up 7% from 8.9 million last year. That is the second-best figure since 1991. Since each of the top four conferences has a representative in the Final Four, expect regional interest and intrigue around an unlikely pair of matchups to prevail and keep those numbers strong.

Ahead of The Masters, Augusta National hosts inaugural women’s amateur event. The Masters has long held its honorary first tee ceremony, and on Saturday, Annika Sorenstam, Nancy Lopez, Lorena Ochoa, and Se Ri Pak will continue that storied tradition at the inaugural Augusta National Women's Amateur. Following that first tee ceremony, the top 30 from two days of competition will play a final 18 holes at Augusta National for a silver trophy and the only first-ever women's amateur crown at this famous venue. The first two rounds will be played Wednesday and Thursday at Champions Retreat Golf Club in Evans. The 72-player field will be cut to 30 players after 36 holes. The final round, which will be televised by NBC, is scheduled for Saturday at the home of the Masters Tournament. Meanwhile, the kids’ amateur Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals will air on Golf Channel on April 7. With a long history of the club supporting amateur golf and with a stated mission to grow the game, Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley took the bold step a little over a year ago to add women to the on-course mix. It’s about time.

With Opening Night this Thursday, Minor League Baseball fans at numerous ballparks will have a more modernized experienced via smart displays and on social media enabled by ISM Connect’s technology and the Allegiant Airline Network. Through its work with ISM Connect, MiLB is introducing new technology to create a more exciting social experience at 25 ballparks on Opening Night, and 31 by the end of 2019. Smart displays located across select stadiums will broadcast exclusive content from both teams and sponsors, giving fans a unique view into the players and teams they root for. In addition to the smart displays, ISM is connecting teams and their fans through mobile devices and social media while they’re at the ballpark. Ballpark Insider (@BallparkInsider) connects fans with MiLB and its teams on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The social channels reach a national audience of MiLB fans and allow stadiums and advertisers to hold exclusive giveaways, share announcements from all teams on the network, and give followers an exclusive look into the world of MiLB.

Kraft Heinz, in partnership with the NHL and NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA), unveiled the four finalist communities competing for the title of Kraft Hockeyville USA 2019. Each of the four finalists will receive funds for rink upgrades from Kraft Heinz, with the grand prize winner awarded the opportunity to host an NHL Pre-Season Game and receive $150,000 in rink upgrades. The four communities advancing to the public voting round are: Calumet Colosseum in Calumet, Michigan; Wexford County Civic Center in Cadillac, Michigan; Eagle River Sports Arena in Eagle River, Wisconsin; and Bernicks Arena in Sartell, Minnesota. The runner-up will receive $30,000 in rink upgrades, and each second-place rink will receive $10,000 in rink upgrades. In addition, each of the four finalists will receive $10,000 worth of new hockey equipment from the NHLPA Goals & Dreams program. Ever since its establishment, the Kraft Hockeyville program has been a shining example of how brands can activate to put the spotlight on small communities whose sports fandom is every bit as big as their major market peers.

Panthers owner David Tepper last week "reemphasized that any future projects for his franchise will impact both Carolinas." According to the Charlotte Observer, Tepper, speaking at the NFL owners' meeting in Phoenix, said, "We're a two-state team. I view it as a whole region." South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster and state legislators have "offered incentives in recent weeks as they woo Tepper and the Panthers" to build their headquarters and training facility in the state. Meanwhile, North Carolina officials have "expressed the desire for the Panthers' facilities to stay put." Tepper said that he has met with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and "made it clear" that the state "continues to be included in his future development plans." Tepper has also "previously offered up the idea of team 'fan fests' in cities on both sides of the state line." The team could also positively impact infrastructure: Governor McMaster noted that the team could be the "impetus for developing a new light rail line from Rock Hill to Charlotte, connecting the two states and team facilities."

MLS has launched its 2019 Soccer For All campaign, showcasing its commitment to end discrimination, as well as the collective effort taking place across the league to drive social change and foster more inclusive communities via the MLS WORKS platform. This year’s Soccer for All Public Service Announcement features a diverse group of players from all 24 clubs, and it includes fans for the first time, looking to further reinforce the message that all are welcome. The PSA, produced in English, French, and Spanish, will be promoted across league partner broadcasts, MLS digital channels, and in-stadium. The broader Soccer For All celebration will begin May 22. MLS has long been considered America’s most progressive and diverse pro sports league. FIFA, however, take note – messaging about ending discrimination and driving social change on the eve of the Women’s World Cup are particularly poignant in light of recent allegations of pay discrepancies and subpar playing conditions faced by women’s soccer teams.

The first esports arena in the U.S. will be built to host the Philadelphia Fusion. This is a big deal, as the Overwatch League's Philadelphia Fusion will start building a $50 million esports arena to host its matches and is expected to game in the new building by early 2021. According to Engadget, the Philadelphia Fusion’s owner, Comcast, has plans to break ground on the 47-acre, 3,500 seat arena site this summer. Strategically placed next to other major sporting arenas, the Fusion arena will be located in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, home to the city's NFL, NBA, NHL, and NCAA teams. The 60,000 square foot building will house a training facility, broadcast studio, and Philadelphia Fusion team offices and will double as a venue for other live events. Overwatch players are expected to be on the road in 2020, with all teams playing in their home cities. At present, all Overwatch teams continue to flock to Los Angeles' Blizzard Arena to play their games, so a new stadium will be a welcome addition to the buzzing U.S. esports environment.

The largest mobile esports charity tournament sees players contribute to end breast cancer. Skillz, the worldwide leader in mobile esports, announced that it has raised over $120,000 for Susan G. Komen, the world's leading breast cancer foundation. According to PR Newswire, more than 25,000 esports players participated through the Skillz platform. The total amount raised exceeded the original $100,000 anticipated by more than 20%, and included participants from 38 states as well as more than 60 countries. Susan G. Komen invests in groundbreaking research and provides potentially life-saving education and patient support programs across the country. As esports grows as an industry, charity tournaments help the sport become more deeply ingrained within mainstream culture and attract otherwise absent fans.

FIVB helps launch Good Net volleyball sustainability project. Good Net will be launched on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the site of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games beach volleyball tournament. According to sportanddev.org, FIVB has teamed up with marine conservation group the Ghost Fishing Foundation to launch the new program designed to recover discarded fishing nets from the world’s oceans, with many to be recycled into volleyball nets for local community use around the world. Every year, 640,000 tons of fishing gear finds its way into the oceans, where it continues to trap marine wildlife, including whales, dolphins, turtles, and fish of all kinds. Good Net aims to raise global awareness of the problem of pollution while also creating a solution by spreading the game of volleyball. The new initiative is two-fold, as it will help to clean our waters and encourage physical activity while encouraging conversation about eco-friendly practices.

Former Harvard basketball player Christopher Egi steps up for social justice. After the murder of Trayvon Martin, Egi began to open his eyes to social justice and formed a team across the Ivy League to create the organization No More Names. The platform was built to spark discussion about social justice issues and connect students to activists and organizations already doing work in their individual communities. The most significant partnership for No More Names has been with Campaign Zero, which has worked to construct concrete plans for police reform through policy change and community initiatives. According to the Boston Globe, No More Names has also worked closely with Save Money, Save Life, the charity founded by Chicago rapper Vic Mensa that teaches civilians throughout the city to be first responders. Ebi’s message is fast spreading across Ivy League schools, and demonstrates how college athletes can also make a community impact.

#10 #10towatch

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flauntpage · 5 years

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Put The Masters Tournament on Your Sports Bucket List

Long before returning to Philadelphia to take a gig with Eyewitness News, I was slogging through the graveyard shift at WJBF News Channel 6 in Augusta, Georgia.

It was a small town, kind of sleepy, sitting on the Savannah River and centering a metro area of about 600,000 people, which is 5.4 million fewer folks than what we’ve got up here. We were television market #117, sandwiched between the hustling and bustling cities of Fort Wayne and Reno on the Nielsen charts.

College football dominated Augusta, about 60/40 Georgia Bulldog to South Carolina Gamecock fans, with other SEC expats finding work in town. A couple of division two basketball programs, Augusta State and USC-Aiken, actually had a nice little rivalry going. High school football used to draw a few thousand people every Friday night, too, which was insane and very typically southern. This was the real deal, and it made games at Garnet Valley or St. Joe’s Prep look insignificant in comparison.

But the king sport in town was golf, obviously. I used to drive by Augusta National at 10:45 p.m. on my way to work, and there it was, just sitting across the street from an IHOP and a Christian book store – the most famous golf course in the world. All I could see was a brief glimpse of the clubhouse down Magnolia Lane, because massive trees blocked the rest of the course from sight. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d easily miss it.

Maybe The Masters is a niche thing, but you should put it on your bucket list and make the trip down there sometime, because it’s a really unique and enjoyable experience.

I went in 2008 and 2009, and I doubt much has changed in ten years’ time. The cool thing about the course is that it’s very old fashioned, from the scoreboard to the vendors and everything in between. And it’s not in some exotic location outside of the city proper, it’s located on a stretch called Washington Road, which I’d describe as a Baltimore Pike type of thoroughfare featuring all sorts of stores and fast food joints. You literally pass an Arby’s and an Olive Garden and then Augusta National is just up ahead, on your right.

The waiting list for tickets (known as badges) is something like years long, so you can either buy them for an arm and a leg off the internet, or stand outside the gates and buy used badges during the practice round days. I did the former in 2008 and the latter in 2009, throwing some guy $100 for his badges as he left the course early in the afternoon. My friend and I then used his passes for re-entry, followed Vijay Singh around the course, and walked around for a few hours before heading home. That move was risky, since there was no guarantee anyone would sell to us, but we got lucky.

I’d really suggest going for the practice rounds before the tournament starts, because the rules are different. You’re allowed to take photos and move around a lot more easily. Players are just casually moving through the course, getting a feel for the fairways and greens, and warming up ahead of round one on Thursday.

The first year, I went with my dad, grandfather, and godfather, and we followed Tiger Woods around for a few holes before peeling off and watching Phil Mickelson come around Amen Corner. When people say that “every inch” of grass is perfectly cut, they’re not bullshitting you. I worked on the grounds crew up at Bella Vista in Gilbertsville for three summers, and we’d never be able to get the course looking like this:

That pohot was shot with a late-90s Olympus digital camera, but even with crappy resolution you see how well-manicured the course is.

For context, our entire fleet at Bella Vista contained two John Deere triplex mowers, the big three-wheeled vehicles you use to cut the fairways. At Augusta, I saw five of those mowers on the same fairway, all cutting in a staggered line. They literally had more mowers on one fairway than we did in our entire fleet.

Another cool thing about The Masters is that the clubhouse and concessions are very simple and old school. When you enter the grounds, you come through a concourse with a shop on one side, bathrooms on the other, and then the food area. Here’s the entryway:

It gets tight in there, but the really unique thing is that they don’t rip you off. The merchandise is very fairly priced and the concessions are insanely cheap, because they don’t carry corporate branding, but essentially white label their products instead.

For instance, you might buy a pack of crackers at the tournament made by Lance, but the package would just say “peanut butter crackers” or something like that. Similarly, these sandwiches cost something like $2.50, and they’re made locally every morning and delivered to the tournament as such:

I think we spent something like $12 and came away with two sandwiches, two bags of peanuts, and two drinks. Twelve dollars at the Wells Fargo Center might get you one slice of pizza, right? One of those huge Lorenzo’s jawns.

The other minimalist feature of the course is the wooden signposts and scoreboards posted throughout. I don’t know if it’s been updated since, but this big old non-electronic scoreboard sits right near the clubhouse between the 18th green and 1st tee box:

You can even see homeboy on the ladder putting in the player names manually.

Another reason I recommend the practice rounds is because it’s a more laid back experience overall. Players sort of wing it as they go through the course, and you’ll often see stuff like this photo, which is Tiger and Mark O’Meara getting a feel for the 18th with multiple balls while hordes of people just sit there and watch:

You also get some quirks that happen only on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

One of the things you’ll see is people taking up spots on his hill that sits to the left of the 16th hole tee box. As the players walk towards the green, they normally stop and try to skip balls across the water and onto the green, which seems like a strange tradition, but it’s just a fun thing they do for the crowd before continuing on to putt:

I think the coolest thing about walking the course is just seeing the spots made famous from past tournaments. You come around Amen Corner and think about shots hit by Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer (and Jordan Spieth, unfortunately). You see Rae’s Creek and The Big Oak Tree sitting on the course side of the clubhouse, which is a staging area for television crews as they interview players coming off the 18th:

But the coolest thing about The Masters is just this kind of trippy and nostalgic vibe you get walking around the course, like you teleported back to the 50s, but in a good way. There’s no corporate crap serving as a distraction and you aren’t blasted by ridiculous food and drink prices or modern day sports entertainment. There’s no music being pumped through loudspeakers, no fireworks, nobody jumping a motorcycle through a flaming hoop. It’s just a minimalist golf tournament without the assorted fanfare. Sure, there are negatives that come with all of that, and Masters organizers haven’t been the most progressive people over the years, but the tournament itself is one hell of an experience, just something different and unique and highly recommended. Augusta is only a 12 hour drive from Philly, or you can hop a connector to the airport from Charlotte or Atlanta, so it’s a super easy trip. Try to do it before you croak.

The post Put The Masters Tournament on Your Sports Bucket List appeared first on Crossing Broad.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Once, bars were bars and grocery stores sold groceries. You could not drink a pint at the grocery store, and you could not buy a pound of Vidalia onions at a bar. Those times are behind us.

Now, grocery stores across the nation — and not just fancy, racehorse grocery stores like Whole Foods, but regular, workhorse grocery stores like Kroger — are adding bars to their locations, in the hopes of inspiring shoppers to linger over conversation or the cheese aisle.

The bars are not alone. For the better part of the past decade, grocery stores have been undergoing a slow morph, from stores selling groceries to multi-pronged retail experiences. This is not so much an identity crisis as an exploration of purpose: What, in 2018, is the grocery store for?

“Grocery Stores Invite Shoppers to Drink While They Shop,” announced the Wall Street Journal, which, in 2016, identified in-store boozing as “the latest step in efforts by supermarkets, a famously low-margin business, to make more money by keeping shoppers in their stores longer and getting them to spend more while they are there.”

It makes intuitive sense. If you swing by the grocery bar for a drink, would you not, maybe, pick up some pasta sauce while you’re there? And if you stop to buy pasta sauce, wouldn’t it be nice to also treat yourself to an IPA? And would you not, perhaps, be more inclined to linger in the aisles — and make more (and more impulsive) purchases — if you were sipping a nice Malbec while you pushed your cart through the store, as some bar-slash-supermarkets (superbarkets) allow?

In a tip for the New York Times, writer Beca Grimm suggested the grocery store bar as a kind of life hack. “One of the keys to fitting socializing into a slammed schedule is to find ways to hit multiple activities at a time,” she wrote. Catch up over a beer with a friend and attend to your grocery list. It is a practical solution to the plight of modern life.

It is also — grocery stores hope — a practical solution for attracting customers in an age of fierce competition. As Grub Street observed earlier this year, “it’s a bad time to be in the business of selling groceries, and the headlines are as bleak as you’d expect,” citing one apocalyptic prediction after another.

“There is enormous pressure to charge a value price while also providing quality and service and the exact products that people want, when and where they want them,” Bill Urda, a senior retail analyst at Boston Consulting Group, told the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the Post explains, people are “spending more of their food budget on restaurant meals and takeout,” while new competitors keep devouring chunks of the market, from German-based discount grocer Lidl, which came stateside in 2017, to big-box stores like Target.

And then there is the constant threat of the internet. Despite the increase in grocery delivery options, which only accelerated last year when Amazon acquired Whole Foods, delivery is still not the way most people get groceries. But it could be.

“Grocery is the largest category within U.S. retail and it is also one of the least penetrated online,” said D1 Capital’s Daniel Sundheim, after the firm led a $600 million round of funding for Instacart, an online grocery delivery service. “The industry is at a tipping point and there will likely be a significant acceleration in the adoption of online ordering for grocery delivery over the next few years.” And while they would say that, it’s not exactly a radical proposition: The Food Marketing Institute and Nielsen predict that by 2024, 70 percent of consumers will be grocery shopping online, accounting for 20 percent of total grocery sales.

(Anecdotally: Last month, I bought my first online groceries because I got a promotion in the mail and also wanted several cans of diced tomatoes. I had never done that before, and now I have, so I think we can all agree the acceleration is real.)

That means the race is on, to lure customers into the stores in the first place and to boost sales once they’re there. This is the promise of the grocerbar.

To be clear, in-store drinking opportunities are not a new phenomenon. Whole Foods opened its first in-store bar in 2009, and as of October 2017, more than 200 of their stores sell full in-store pours, according to Draft, a magazine devoted to the industry. The same year, DeCicco & Sons, a small chain in New York, became the first supermarket in the state to build a bar in one of its stores; at the time, competitors “thought we were crazy,” co-owner Chris DeCicco told Grocery Dive.

They likely don’t think that anymore. As Grocery Dive’s Jeff Wells points out, the bars are a “natural outgrowth” of an increasing interest in craft beer and wine. “Craft beer has grown by double-digit percentages over the past several years, and now commands more than 22% of all beer sales. Wine represents a $39 billion industry that saw 4% sales growth in just the past year,” he reported. (That was in 2017; this year, the percentage is up to 5). Why not capitalize on the interest? “The same customers who buy bottles from the wine and beer department, retailers reason, are likely to appreciate fresh pours and the opportunity to try new varieties.”

But if changing tastes — one might even say increased connoisseurship — makes bars a good bet for grocers, the real engine driving grocerbars isn’t really about booze at all, Steve Thomas, the chief marketing officer with the in-store marketing consultancy Windsor Marketing Group, told Food Dive. It’s about groceries. “The bigger aspect of this is, the longer you keep someone in your store, the higher chance you have of them spending more money,” he said.

It’s not just in-store bars: brick-and-mortar supermarkets are introducing all kinds of new concepts to entice customers to come by and stay a while. The superbarket is, in many ways, a natural extension of the grocerant — the grocery store that also serves hot, restaurant-style meals. At some Whole Foods, Eater noted in its explication of the phenomenon, internal tap rooms host trivia nights. A Chicago location of the Midwestern chain Mariano’s hosts “Sunday mimosa parties.”

And it’s not just alcohol, either. A Whole Foods in Augusta, Georgia, has a putting green, the WSJ reports. One in Boston has a spa. There’s a ShopRite outside of New York City with an in-store fitness studio offering barre and yoga classes. A different Wall Street Journal article, heralding grocery stores as new local hot spots, focuses not on how grocery stores are becoming bars but on how they’re replacing them. According to the paper, “parents now bring their children here to play, retirees gather for Bingo, and singles find romance.”

Is that true? Certainly, grocery stores want it to be. A decline in more traditional gathering places — ones without meat counters — is an opportunity for supermarkets, which are eager, or desperate, to pick up the slack. You can’t meet with your crafting circle on the internet, but you can go to a grocery store that has introduced a communal table for exactly that purpose.

It’s a mirror of what’s happening in other spaces, like movie theaters, which are also expanding beyond their traditional role — showing movies — to offer full-service, upscale food and drink menus. “In the age of streaming, for most people, a trip to the theater isn’t just an excuse to watch a movie,” wrote Vox’s Alissa Wilkinson. “It’s an excursion, a night out, an event.”

There are, of course, skeptics. Writing at October, Tobias Carroll expresses doubts that the superbarket could ever be as satisfying as the classic: “Reducing a bar to its most basic components” — that is, the booze — “and using it as an incentive for something else defeats one of the essential purposes of a bar.” The sense of community, of solidarity with strangers — that’s not the point of the grocerbar, he argues, because a grocerbar exists, above all, to sell groceries.

But then, the grocerbar’s real competition isn’t really your local watering hole — at least, not yet. It’s Instacart; it’s Amazon; it’s FreshDirect. And retailers hope that turning grocery shopping into an experience will be enough for you — for me, for all of us — to put on pants.

Original Source -> Grocery stores want you to have a beer and stay a while

via The Conservative Brief

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adini-nikolaevna · 6 years

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What do you know about Frederick William of Hesse-Cassel? The only thing I know about him is that he married Alexandra Nikolaevna

I think I can help you :) “Fritz” was born in Denmark, and through his mother he was a potential heir for the Danish throne (later, his father-in-law, Nicholas I, urged him to accept the Hesse-Kassel landgraviate instead; besides, his marriage into the Romanov family made him unpopular in liberal Copenhagen), but he renounced his claim in favor of his sister, who would marry King Christian IX and become Queen Louise. He received a university education in Bonn, and then he began a career in the navy. In 1843, he met Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, in Italy, and she recommended him as a potential suitor for her sister Olga. He was known for his “fast living” ways (when his son Alexander Friedrich was born blind, Queen Victoria remarked that the sins of the father had been visited upon the son!), and Alexandra Nikolaevna hoped to help develop him morally and spiritually, but of course their marriage was tragically short. Nine years after her death, he married her first cousin, Princess Anna of Prussia, and they had six children together (Friedrich Wilhelm, Elisabeth, Alexander Friedrich, Friedrich Karl, Marie Polyxene, and Sybille) but Anna knew she would never take Alexandra’s place in Fritz’s heart–she was lonely, and spent much of her time with artists and musicians like Brahms, who said she could have been a concert pianist had she not been a princess. Fritz sided with the Austrians during the Austro-Prussian War, and thus lost Hesse-Kassel to the victorious Prussians, and Anna’s Hohenzollern family turned against the couple. He loved horses and hunting, and he was known as “a Landgrave Without a Land.” He was involved in a long-term love affair with the famous Danish ballerina Augusta Nielsen, until he died of complications from stomach ulcers at the age of sixty-three. After his death, his son and heir, Friedrich Wilhelm (called “Willy” by his family) disappeared at sea, his son-in-law (Elisabeth’s husband), Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Anhalt, died unexpectedly, and then his second-youngest daughter, Marie Polyxene, died of osteomyelitis at age ten. All these tragedies were obviously devastating for Princess Anna, who converted to Catholicism, much to the chagrin of the Prussian royals, including her nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Anna died in 1918, shortly before the end of the First World War.

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whatsupaugusta · 6 years

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DHS secretary: FEMA chief misused cars, but won’t lose job

The head of the federal disaster response agency used government vehicles without proper authorization, but will not lose his job over it, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Friday. Check out the source

The post DHS secretary: FEMA chief misused cars, but won’t lose job appeared first on What's Up Augusta.

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rickhorrow · 5 years

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15+5+5 To Watch : 4119

15 TO WATCH/5 SPORTS TECH/POWER OF SPORTS 5

RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 1 with Jacob Aere

Final Four. Millions of brackets. All of them busted. Brackets are big business, and this year’s ESPN Men’s Tournament Challenge game collected more than 17.2 million completed brackets and set new one- and two-day records for signups, according to the network. By the end of the first day of the tournament, only 42,828 (0.25%) of all brackets remained perfect after just 16 games. At the end of ESPN’s Tournament Challenge Marathon last Tuesday evening, ESPN had collected 9.3 million bracket entries, 1.1 million more than last year. Much was made nationally of Ohio neuropsychologist Gregg Nigl, who had a perfect bracket going into the Sweet Sixteen and stood 49-0 when Purdue busted it with their overtime win against Tennessee. One man who is likely delighted Nigl isn’t his employee? Warren Buffett. For several years, Buffett, a master of market odds, has been so certain that a perfect Sweet Sixteen bracket was statistically impossible that he pledged $1 million for life to any of his several hundred thousand employees who could log one.

Ahead of the Final Four, brands continue to utilize broadcasters as endorsers. The NCAA Tournament is always a prime spot for brands to roll out new campaigns with sports industry endorsers, and one specific group that sees a lot of brand work is tournament broadcasters. Before the Sweet 16, SportsBusiness Daily took a look at which broadcasters are appearing in March Madness-themed ads across the airwaves and internet, and who they are representing. Regular tournament personalities like Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson are back, while notable newcomers like Candace Parker have also broken onto the scene. AT&T is one brand that has often put NCAA broadcasters in its March Madness spots, but this year it has featured fictional announcers as part of its longtime "Just Ok" campaign. Some notable names who have endorsed brands around March Madness but have not been featured in any NCAA-related spots so far this year include Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Reggie Miller. My favorite? You can't beat Barkley's bright blue "Chuxedo" in ads for Capital One, mirrored in a cameo by fellow sports guy Jim, on his way to the "Big Nance."

Baseball’s Opening Day has come and gone, and gate and viewership were strong. Yet MLB's average salary is "on track to drop" for an "unprecedented second straight season." According to the Associated Press, the 872 players on rosters and injured lists averaged $4.36 million, down from $4.41 million at the start of last season and $4.45 million on Opening Day in 2017. These "back-to-back drops follow consecutive slow free-agent markets." Last season's drop was "only the second" since the end of the 1994-1995 strike. All five of the "highest paid players" this season are pitchers, led by the Washington Nationals' Max Scherzer at $37.4 million and Arizona Diamondbacks' Zack Greinke at $32.4 million. The Boston Red Sox are "set to lead the major leagues in payroll for the second straight year," followed by the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees. Having the league’s highest payroll paid off for the Red Sox last year – months from now, we’ll know if another World Series is in their players’ well-compensated grasp.

NASCAR schedule changes benefit ISM Connect and other circuit partners. NASCAR is giving its Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule an overhaul next year. The biggest change will see the NASCAR finale shift from Miami to Phoenix, where it will be held at the just-renovated ISM Raceway on November 8. Meanwhile, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race in Bristol will become a part of the 10-week title battle as the first cut-off race on September 19, joining the Bank of America Roval 400 on October 11 and the STP 500 in Martinsville on November 1. The Daytona 500 will once again open the NASCAR season during President’s Day weekend on February 16. “The fans and the industry as a whole have been vocal about the desire for sweeping changes to the schedule, and the 2020 slate is a reflection of our efforts to execute against that feedback,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. Besides NASCAR fans, perhaps the biggest winner in the schedule revamp is venue tech leader ISM Connect, which stands to gain millions of dollars’ worth of impressions and exposure since its sponsored racetrack will now host the prestigious NASCAR season finale.

WWE increases its WrestleMania mainstream star power – will Gronk be next? WWE has announced that “Saturday Night Live” cast members Michael Che and Colin Jost, hosts of SNL’s “Weekend Update,” accepted Braun Strowman’s WrestleMania challenge and will both now compete in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 35. WrestleMania 35 will stream live on WWE Network from MetLife Stadium on April 7. Meanwhile, newly-retired Rob Gronkowski's "established image and amiable nature already have him ahead of the game" when it comes to "post-football opportunities," according to the Boston Globe. In Q Scores, Gronkowski has a 39% level of awareness among the general population; the "average sports star" is at 26%. And his 22 positive Q Score, meaning 22% of the "general public that is familiar with him considers him one of their favorite personalities," ranks "sixth among players who were in the NFL last year." It seems like a "sure bet that Gronkowski will end up playing a role in some capacity" for the WWE, after already having "appeared at WWE events, including WrestleMania 33." Don’t count him out at MetLife come Sunday.

As the first full weekend of “real” baseball concludes, Nielsen research has broken down fans of Major League Baseball as the league celebrates its 150th year and boasts more than 170 million fans in the U.S. and 10 million in Canada. According to Nielsen data, the average MLB team fan base is more than 2.5 million people, with St. Louis, Kansas City, Cleveland, Houston, and Pittsburgh having the highest percentages of fans in their local market populations. MLB is also gaining fans around the world, especially in Mexico and Japan, where the league returned to host games in 2019. According to Nielsen Sports Social24, brands sponsoring MLB teams experienced 3% to 13% of additional media value from their social media content. On television, the most visible sponsorship real estate appears on camera behind home plate as a batter is ready to swing at a pitch. But interestingly, the outfield actually gets more exposure via social media channels because big plays like home runs and acrobatic fence line catches often make highlight reels.

Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank has sold 10-12% of his NFL franchise for roughly $300 million, the bulk of which was purchased by Canadian mining magnate Alan Kestenbaum. Kestenbaum was a runner-up last year in the sale of the Panthers. The transaction values the Falcons at around $3 billion – excellent news for Blank, who purchased the team in 2002 for $545 million. “We got a very acceptable valuation based on the trends in the league, sales of teams, sales of ownership and what have you,” Blank said, adding that he plans to use the proceeds for his Arthur M. Blank Foundation, which has gifted $400 million since its founding in 1995. “My (six) kids all want me to do more during my lifetime,” he said during the NFL owners meeting in Arizona. “So, they are encouraging me to do more in terms of philanthropy.” In addition to Kestenbaum, existing limited partners Doug Hertz and Ron Canakaris bought additional small stakes as part of the Blank sale. Asked how much of the team Blank owned, a team spokesperson responded, “A vast majority.” NFL rules require the controlling partner to have at least 30%, and Blank is clearly well above that figure.

United Airlines offers to retreat from L.A. naming rights deal. On Friday, United Airlines offered to withdraw from a $69 million deal to change the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum into United Airlines Memorial Coliseum following criticism that "adding a corporate name is disrespectful to the facility's history of honoring troops who fought and died in World War I." According to the Los Angeles Times, the airline made the offer to USC, which "announced the agreement" for the naming rights last year as part of its $270 million renovation of the venue. United Airlines California President Janet Lamkin said in a letter to USC that the company "made 'a significant commitment to financing this project' in exchange for the naming rights and was careful to keep the words 'Memorial Coliseum' to honor the memory of veterans." However, L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, also President of the Coliseum Commission, soundly "criticized the new name." Other options are possible, including renaming the facility "United Airlines Field at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum." With the vast majority of Coliseum renovations already completed, it is likely that United, USC, and the city will work quickly to resolve the naming issue to mutual satisfaction.

Ice Cube’s Big3 basketball league has "secured the support" of Serena Williams and Snoop Dogg as content partners for its $10 billion bid to buy the 21 Fox RSNs from Disney, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. Private equity firm Centerbridge Partners and entrepreneur Carolyn Rafaelian are already financial backers of the Big3, and Ice Cube is now "teaming up" with Williams, Snoop Dogg, actor Kevin Hart, and Michael Strahan’s SMAC Productions as "content partners." Sources said that the Big3 presented a plan to "expand the Fox networks with 24-hour, culturally diverse national programming built around live sports." Ice Cube and Big3 co-Founder Jeff Kwatinetz are "targeting young people and want to spend money on marketing and advertising the networks." Rappers Nas and LL Cool J are also "collaborators on the project.” While the Cube group is likely a longshot to purchase the RSNs, their diverse voices and focus on millennials and Generation Z without a doubt represents the next wave of sports and entertainment media property ownership.

Top Five Tech

Washington Nationals fans have food delivered to their seats through Square. To help start the season off right, the tech company partnered with the team and Levy Restaurants to support in-seat food orders for fans at Nationals games. To order food, fans download the Caviar food-ordering app, place the order, and pay from their seats. Then, they pick up the food at the designated concession stand once they are alerted on their phones. According to Mobile Marketer, Caviar will feature food from its exclusive partners, including a rotating series of pop-up offerings, throughout the season. Overall, professional sports teams are adding more mobile-based services to appeal to fans on smartphones. The future of sports entertainment is through mobile apps, which will provide services like parking information, paperless ticketing, wayfinding through stadiums, food ordering, and real-time data about players and teams.

Opendorse announces a partnership with the MLBPA to enable a larger Twitter presence. The new agreement will enable fans to decide which player’s at-bats will be streamed live on the social media platform through online voting. According to SportsPro, MLB’s official Twitter account will also post highlights of every home run hit during the season, with some dingers presented in a nightly video montage. The league will also produce livestreamed Twitter shows for such mega events as the All-Star Game, Home Run Derby, MLB Playoffs, trade deadline, and the inaugural London Series between fierce rivals New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Overall, this partnership aims to give MLB stars access to more content from their team, league, and brand partners, which they can then approve and publish to their own social accounts which will help MLB catch up to tech-savvier sports leagues like the NBA and NHL.

The NHL selects its official sports betting partner: William Hill. According to Reuters, the league will get marketing revenue from the sports book, which can use NHL brands in its advertising, except for the NHL’s new puck and player data. William Hill already has partnership deals with the Vegas Golden Knights and the New Jersey Devils, but isn’t dominating the hockey wagering market. Previous sports betting deals for the NHL include FanDuel and MGM. MGM justified the investment via the data it will generate from putting sensors inside pucks and on players’ shoulder pads that can be used for specific in-game wagers. William Hill is one of many sports betting partners involved with the NHL, and will thus have to differentiate itself from the other companies to capitalize on the U.S. Supreme Court legalization of regulated and taxed sports wagering.

Twitch uses AI-driven data to properly value esports sponsorships. Amazon’s esports streaming platform has partnered with MVPindex to measure and value its branded content worldwide using artificial intelligence. The motivation behind the agreement is to make it easier for brands and agencies to enter the esports industry, providing value to sponsorship sales Twitch oversees in leagues, tournaments, gamers, and teams. According to SportsPro, MVPindex’s technology leverages AI and speech processing programming to measure and value audience engagement and is able to monitor text and audio mentions, as well as logos within live streams and posts by esports athletes and content publishers. MVPindex can further measure streams and video-on-demand (VOD) files, as well as value hours watched, concurrent views, and lifetime follower and viewer growth within specific streams. As such, it will provide greater marketing value to esports.

Power of Sports Five

Kirk Gibson’s iconic 1988 World Series home run lives on at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers announced that the seat where Gibson hit his pinch-hit home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series will be painted blue and autographed by the ex-Dodger with a plaque to acknowledgement the moment. Additionally, the seat will be part of a special fundraiser for the Kirk Gibson Foundation. According to the Orange County Register, the seat will be sold as a pair with a companion seat for $300 all season, with $200 of the purchase price to be donated to Gibson’s foundation. His charity raises money and awareness for research into Parkinson’s Disease. The Dodgers also partnered with Gibson’s foundation for a series of events and promotions during the season-opening weekend series against the San Francisco Giants including a 50-50 raffle, a silent auction, and a Kirk Gibson bobblehead. The Dodgers’ game-worn jerseys from the second game of the series will also be auctioned off online to benefit Gibson’s charity. Both Gibson and the Dodgers have immortalized a moment in their storied history to give back to a disease that has personally inflicted Gibson.

The biggest charity knockout event celebrates the 25th annual Muhammad Ali Celebrity Fight Night. According to Sports Rants, the stars came out to give, show support, perform, and to continue to raise money and awareness in hopes of one day finding a cure to Parkinson’s disease. Celebrity Fight Night has gifted more than $86 million over the past 24 years benefiting the Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s Center at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. The Barrow Neurological Institute is the world's largest neurological disease treatment and research institution, and this year the Celebrity Fight Night also supported the BNI’s Alzheimer’s and Cognitive Disorders Program. Special honorees for the evening included 27-time Grammy Award-winner Quincy Jones, Arizona State University President Dr. Michael Crow, and Dr. Abraham Lieberman, the medical director of the Movement Disorders Clinic at Barrow Neurological Institute as well as Renee Parsons of the Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation. Although Ali, long retired from boxing, died from complications of Parkinson’s disease in 2016, his fighting spirit spreads the courage to stand up and battle for change.

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