[hrothgar]

Jordans's Furniture is a local chain here in the Boston area. (In an interesting development, the chain was bought out by Warren Buffet a few years back)

Earlier this year (before the start of the season) Jordan's ran an interesting promotion: Any sofa or bed bought within a specified period would be free if the Red Sox won the World Series.

As folks probably know, the Sox won it all last night. As I understand matters, approximately 30,000 customers place orders during the promotion... If the avergae order ran somewhere arround a grand thats a whole bunch of money.

I know that Jordans covered their asses using an insurance policy. I was wondering whether anyone knows who got stuck with the bill. I know that Hamman often offers insurance for sports related promotions. I hope that he wasn't involved with this one... (Alternatively, its entirely possible that Berkshire Hathaway was involved)

Either way, 30 million dollars is one hell of a big bet

[Gerben42]

Interesting

I'm sure that the bill got stuck with someone who could afford it. You win some, you lose some.

The best would be if the Red Sox would indirectly get the bill now, since they probably gained over $30M by winning such an important event (at least from what I've heard it's pretty important).

I'm puzzled how a competition can be called the world series with the strongest baseball team in the world not participating and it is basically a national competition (okay two nations)

[hrothgar]

Gerben42, on Oct 29 2007, 03:43 PM, said:

I'm puzzled how a competition can be called the world series with the strongest baseball team in the world not participating and it is basically a national competition (okay two nations)

The "World Series" dates back to the early 1900s (Wikipedia claims 1903). I doubt that opening the field to teams outside North America was either necessary or practical at that point in time.

Out of curiousity, who do you think is the strongest team in the world?

[3for3]

Even if SCA promotions or some similar entity did insure this promotion, there is no way they lost all of the money. In fact, what they likely do is turn around and hedge themselves, buy betting on that team to win the world series. Say the Red Sox were a 10-1 underdog to win the series.

The promotion would then be worth about $3 million. They could charge the company $5 million. They could then turn around and bet $3 million, get the 10-1 odds, and show a $2 million profit either way.

Danny

[Gerben42]

Quote

Out of curiousity, who do you think is the strongest team in the world?

Cuba? They win the world cup almost all the time.

[hrothgar]

Gerben42, on Oct 29 2007, 04:26 PM, said:

Quote

Out of curiousity, who do you think is the strongest team in the world?

Cuba? They win the world cup almost all the time.

I'm far from an expert on baseball, but as I recall Major League Baseball doesn't permit its players to compete in the World Cup.

Lots of good players come out of the carribean, but I'd be shocked if the Cuban national team was competive with top professional teams out of the US. Admittedly, the "talent" here in the US is spread across a large number of teams. Even so, all that money had (better) buy us something.

[TimG]

Gerben42, on Oct 29 2007, 08:26 AM, said:

Quote

Out of curiousity, who do you think is the strongest team in the world?

Cuba? They win the world cup almost all the time.

Didn't Japan win the World Baseball Classic (or whatever it was called) back in 2006?

[scoob]

Quote

The chain, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., sensibly bought an insurance policy to cover the possibility of a Sox victory. While Jordan’s declined recently to comment to Freakonomics.com on any details, the chain’s CEO earlier told TheRedSoxTimes.com that he had “bought insurance that is going to cover the whole thing. I would never have done it if I was going to be rooting against the Red Sox, let’s put it that way.”

an illinois furniture store did this last year for a bears/packers game as well:

http://www.worldfurn...ture_press.aspx

[TimG]

3for3, on Oct 29 2007, 08:10 AM, said:

Even if SCA promotions or some similar entity did insure this promotion, there is no way they lost all of the money. In fact, what they likely do is turn around and hedge themselves, buy betting on that team to win the world series. Say the Red Sox were a 10-1 underdog to win the series.

The promotion would then be worth about $3 million. They could charge the company $5 million. They could then turn around and bet $3 million, get the 10-1 odds, and show a $2 million profit either way.

Danny

Why would the furniture company pay a $5M to the insurer when they could place the bet themselves for $3M?

[TimG]

Jlall, on Oct 29 2007, 12:13 PM, said:

You're right that this is right up SCA's alley, but as Danny said for things this big they hedge with a bigger company like Berkshire Hathaway (for instance, when they were involved in the pepsi billion). Companies like SCA really don't like variance.

As a side note would all the anti-american trolls please stfu one time about the world series? Gerben, you have made your dislike for the Americans very clear both here and on the earth forums, we know you don't like that the world series is called the world series, we know you will take any shot at the Americans any time it's possible, you are becoming a broken record so please give us all a break.

Maybe he should be reminded that not all Americans think alike. Heck, I wonder if he knows that not all of us even voted for our president.

[cherdano]

I didn't watch the world series.

[bid_em_up]

hrothgar, on Oct 29 2007, 08:36 AM, said:

Gerben42, on Oct 29 2007, 04:26 PM, said:

Quote

Out of curiousity, who do you think is the strongest team in the world?

Cuba? They win the world cup almost all the time.

I'm far from an expert on baseball, but as I recall Major League Baseball doesn't permit its players to compete in the World Cup.

Lots of good players come out of the carribean, but I'd be shocked if the Cuban national team was competive with top professional teams out of the US. Admittedly, the "talent" here in the US is spread across a large number of teams. Even so, all that money had (better) buy us something.

Assuming that it is actually the World Baseball Classic that is being referred to, then yes, MLB players were eligible to play, see this link for the U.S. roster.

http://ww2.worldbaseballclassic.com/2006/r...ex.jsp?sid=t940

However, Gerben is sadly mistaken in their opinion that Cuba is "the strongest team in the world".

Yes, Japan won the event. Tommy Lasorda said at the time that the Dominican Republic had the best team. I'm sure he is more likely to know who really had the best team than either Gerben or myself would.

The US team is a bunch of players assembled to play in a single event, they have not played as a team per se (and yes, this does make a difference) except for this one event. Many of the top MLB players chose to represent their home countries instead of playing on the U.S. team. The US team also included very few of the top pitchers on this roster, as most pitchers choose to rest their arms in the off-season. So the pitching for this event is nowhere near the level you would see from a real "World Series" type team.

I seriously doubt Cuba would beat any of the top 10 MLB teams on any sort of a consistent basis.

However, given that neither the U.S., Dominican Republic, or Cuba actually won the event simply goes to show how unpredictable baseball can be in a short (2/3) series.

[helene_t]

TimG, on Oct 29 2007, 07:19 PM, said:

Heck, I wonder if he knows that not all of us even voted for our president.

How are we supposed to know? Did the Boston Red Sox show a sign during the ceremony?

[keylime]

I agree with Justin - DR is a powerful country. So is Japan and Korea. I think Cuba is not quite as good as many think.

[han]

I readily believe that all the top players in the world play here, but that's not an argument for calling it the world league. If the Spanish soccer teams were able to pay much more than clubs from other countries and the world's top players would all play for Spanish teams then still nobody in their right mind would call the Spanish league the world league.

Suppose the Chinese baseball league starts to pay immense salaries and many top baseball players move to China, should the world league then be renamed? Of course not. It's called the world league because the owners were looking for a grand name, and they found one.

The first time I heard about the world league I thought that it was a quite strange (and I don't think of myself as an America-hater), but we've been through this many times and I agree with Justin that there is no need to bring this up every time there is a baseball thread.

[geller]

Excerpts from Wikipedia on the "World Series" regarding the naming

Quote

The title of this championship may be confusing to some readers from countries where baseball is not a major sport (or even where it is), because the "World" Series is confined to the champions of two baseball leagues that currently operate only in the United States and Canada.

The explanation is that when the term "World's Championship Series" was first used in the 1880s, baseball at a highly-skilled level was almost exclusively confined to North America, especially the United States. Thus it was understood that the winner of the major league championship was the best baseball team in the world. The title of this event was soon shortened to "World's Series" and later to "World Series".

The United States continued to be the only professional baseball country until some decades into the 20th Century. The first Japanese professional baseball efforts began in 1920. The current Japanese leagues date from the late 1940s. Various Latin American leagues also formed around that time.

<snip>
Early in 2006, Major League Baseball conducted the inaugural World Baseball Classic, to establish a "true" world's championship in the way the term is normally used for other international sports. Teams of professional players from 16 nations participated, and Japan won the first World Baseball Classic championship. Olympic baseball was instituted as a medal sport in 1992, but in 2005 the International Olympic Committee voted to eliminate baseball, and it will be off the Olympic program in 2012.

In short, if the name "World Series" were adopted today, anew, it would be ridiculous chauvanism, but it wasn't nearly as unreasonable in 1880 or 1905 and by now it has a long historical tradition....

Incidentally, no serious baseball fan can dispute that US Major League Baseball (MLB) is the strongest League in the world (the Japanese Leagues are pretty strong, but not quite up to the major league level). One reason for this is that MLB (like the English premier League in football (soccer)) features the best players from all over the world. For example the 2007 World Series champions (Boston Red Sox) have two players (out of 25) from Japan (the starting pitcher Matsuzaka, who was the winning pitcher in game 3, and the relief pitcher Okajima). There was also a Japanese player (the second baseman, Matsui), on the losing team in the Series(Colorado). There also are many other foreign players (and managers and coaches) in MLB.

If you want a bridge analogy it's like the Vanderbilt or Spingold, which are held in North America but feature many (most?) of the world's top players.

[3for3]

By the way this is a great idea. Especially in a sport where no team can be a huge favorite before the season, it really seems to make sense. If your team is 10-1, and insurance can be bought at that price, or close to it, it is like a 10% off sale.

You could even quietly raise the prices a month or so ahead of time to fund part of the sale/insurance.

The publicity would be great, and think how well the customers slept on their beds...

Danny