Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
from MediaFile:
For Yahoo, Tiger scandal better than Michael Jackson
Celebrity deaths are big news. But nothing warms a media executive's heart more than a good celebrity sex scandal.
“God bless Tiger. This week we got a huge uplift.” Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz told a crowd of investors in New York on Tuesday at the UBS Media and Communications Conference.
Reuters
Bartz noted that the Tiger Woods story has filtered through all of Yahoo’s key online properties, from front page news to websites dedicated to sports and gossip.
Asked if Wood’s recently alleged extracurricular activities would help Yahoo meet its quarterly financial targets, Bartz joked that it absolutely would, and added that the scandal has been better for business than Michael Jackson dying. “It’s kind of hard to put an ad up next to a funeral.”
The golfing phenom came up again later during Bartz’s appearance, in a discussion about charging for online news (as News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch is increasingly interested in doing) or keeping the content freely-available and subsidized by advertisements.
Yahoo launches mayoral trash talk in fantasy football league
Get ready for the smack talk as Yahoo is launching a fantasy football competition among 11 U.S. mayors.
Former NBA star Kevin Johnson, who is now mayor of Sacramento, is among the competitors in the head-to-head league. The mayors will compete weekly based on the statistics of National Football League players they draft. Other mayors involved are from Buffalo, New York; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Kansas City, Missouri; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Oakland and San Francisco, California; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Orlando, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Tampa, Florida.
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, a lifetime Green Bay Packers fan, is already putting on his game face: “Winning is the only thing.”
In fantasy sports, fans, including the mayors, select real athletes for make-believe teams and compete based on statistics compiled in the real games. Fantasy sports of all kinds are played by millions of Americans, generating about $1 billion in annual revenue.
Cornett said he will be very involved with his team, but has tapped his 30-year-old son to act as his team’s general manager. His only rule? No Minnesota Vikings.
The Yahoo fantasy football season kicks off Sept. 10, but no date has been set yet for the mayors’ live draft.
The winner of the mayoral league will earn $15,000 for the local nonprofit sports program of his or her choice, while fans, starting Aug. 13, can earn their city another $15,000 donation by voting for their city. The mayoral league can be followed online.
