[Mbodell]

Gerben42, on Oct 29 2007, 07:43 AM, 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 Red Sox are way, way, way, way better than any existing baseball team in the world made up entirely of non-MLB players.

[3for3]

Jlall, on Oct 29 2007, 12:16 PM, said:

TimG, on Oct 29 2007, 12:10 PM, said:

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?

These numbers are off, there is no way the middle man could ever get this much of a premium, but your point is valid, why is there a middle man at all?

The answer is there really is no need, lol. After the Pepsi Billion promotion, the next time pepsi wanted to do a promotion they went straight through Berkshire Hathaway without having SCA as a middle man.

In one of the stories, they quoted another sports promotion firm as saying they would have insured the bet for 30%. This may be way off, but maybe my numbers weren't so crazy after all.

Danny

[3for3]

Jlall, on Oct 29 2007, 09:43 PM, said:

Sure, but if SCA could get 5 million then whoever they got to hedge the bet would not take 3 million, unless 5 million was a huge screw job in which case the company doing the promotion would not take it. Sure if any of the 3 parties involved were fish it could happen, but I doubt that's the case. It seems like something more reasonable would be something like SCA getting 3.5 million and then hedging for 3 million, but I could be off as well.

Justin:

I agree with your estimates for the amount of edge they would charge. With a relatively simple proposition like this, it would seem a sharp businessman would just hop on a plane to Vegas and take care of it himself. Of course that might be against company policy

Danny

[geller]

Quote

QUOTE (Gerben42 @ Oct 29 2007, 07:43 AM)
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 Red Sox are way, way, way, way better than any existing baseball team in the world made up entirely of non-MLB players.

Think of it as being like the world club championship of football (soccer), the Toyota Cup, rather than the FIFA World Cup (national teams competition). All the top clubs are (at the moment) in the US major leagues, which pay big enough salaries that they buy up all the top players from Japan, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Vemezuela, etc. (all but Cuba, and even some Cubans are in the US major leagues).

If the foreign leagues (Japan for example) get stronger, rest assured that some promoter (probably MLB itself) will cheerfully stage a real world club championship if they can get enough income from TV rights to make it worthwhile.

[barmar]

You think it's bad that only North American teams can play in the World Series? I have it on good authority that the Andromedans are extremely pissed that only earthlings are eligible for Miss Universe. And by their standards, they're not even good looking! When they show up, Donald Trump is gonna get it.