Curt Schilling’s video game finally gets on base
Curt Schilling, the former pitcher and two-time World Series champ is more nervous about his new video game than he ever was about baseball.
He told a New York crowd at an event put on by Electronic Arts on Tuesday that he slept like a baby before World Series games in 2007 — but didn’t catch a wink on Monday night ahead of the release of his company’s first video game.
Schilling’s personal fortune is on the line with “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,” a fantasy-action game that hit stores Tuesday. Schilling told Reuters last July he had invested between $30 million to $35 million of his own money into the 400-person company he founded that made the game.
“‘This is opening day of career 2.0,” he told the crowd . And it’s an opening day that’s seven years in the making–Schilling founded the company called 38 Studios (after his jersey number) in 2006.
Schilling has been a video fanboy for years. Peter Moore, EA’s chief operating officer said he first spoke with him in 2005. Schilling called Moore, who then worked at Microsoft, to see if he could get his hands on an advance copy of the Xbox 360.
Moore, who said he turned down phone calls from Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson that same day, took Schilling’s because he was a big Red Sox fan.
“We spoke one hour about massive multiplayer games. I tried to talk him out of it,” Moore said, of Schilling’s idea to bankroll a video game.
Phillies help hometown papers SELL OUT!
The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News are two papers that have suffered persistent misery in recent years as former owner Knight Ridder couldn’t stop their ad revenue and circulation declines. Things haven’t gotten much better… until the Phillies won Major League Baseball’s World Series Wednesday night — the first time that has happened in 28 years.
Now? They can’t print enough. Here’s the press release:
PHILADELPHIA, October 30, 2008 – In response to the Phillies World Series win last night, Philadelphia Media Holdings Chief Executive Officer Brian Tierney announced this morning that last night’s over-run of almost 350,000 copies of The Inquirer and Daily News are completely sold out. And, in an unprecedented move, the printing presses are running again this morning so that an additional 350,000 copies can be printed and available by early afternoon today.
“People are buying these souvenir editions of The Inquirer and Daily News in massive quantities and we are responding by firing up our printing presses for another run this morning,” said Mr. Tierney. “We have not restarted the presses like this in decades but we want to be sure that every fan who wants a copy of our newspapers can buy one.”
Later on Thursday, I got this e-mail from my mother, a South Jersey resident, which makes her an automatic Phillies fan:
Sold-out copies of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer are selling on ebay for $13 and up – I think I’ll keep mine, it may appreciate faster than my retirement portfolio.
I never thought I’d be helping set up newspaper sales at market prices. Not that there’s anything *wrong* with that.
Anyone care to bet on World Series TV ratings?
There’s been quite a bit of hand-wringing over this year’s World Series, which starts this week. It boils down to how Tampa Bay vs. Philadephia doesn’t exactly have the sex appeal of Los Angeles vs. Boston.
But those killjoys are thinking about it all wrong, a number of experts say. What Fox and advertisers really want is a long, competitive series, regardless of who is playing. ”What gets overstated is the importance of the matchup and what gets understated is the importance of volume,” Fox Sports spokesman Lou D’Ermilio says in an article we just posted.
What’s more, Jeff Gagne, a vice president with MPG North America, responsible for national sports negotiations, points out that this Tampa Bay worst-to-first story is pretty intriguing. It all comes down to the Tampa Bay story. “If that storyline can see itself over a long series, the ratings should actually do okay.”
So keep this in mind if you find yourself drawn to BetOnline.com, an online sports book. The betting line on the broadcast rating (who knew you could bet on such things) is currently at a 10.2 share, it said today. That would make it the second-lowest rated World Series of all time. The line for the first game of the series is 9.5.
Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.
(Reuters photo of Tampa Bay Rays pitcher David Price celebrating)
