The Jim Rome Show was slated to start earlier than Claude desired because of simple supply and demand. The Rome Show was sold out in early November and to meet the minimum requirement of a 13 week schedule we had to start the first week of August. No big deal we still got results. Problem was Claude saw this as not what he demanded and he was used to making demands. In the case of Jim Rome they didn’t get a lot of things. First of all, there was no way Jim Rome was going to do on air endorsements for BOS. Shaun suggested I offer a whopping $1000 a week for the King of Sports Radio. I would have been laughed at and been the joke of the media executives world had I made that a serious offer. So I never bothered to mention that to the Rome people outside of a joke to my new account executive Theresa Gage who took over for Jerry Stehney when Jerry resigned. The Ripners also could not get more than one spot per day for the three hour show this was by order of Kraig Kichen who was putting us on probation and if we were good business that number could be increased in the future. Premiere had that kind of power because their sales people could have sold to any other online gaming company the package BOS got but my presence in LA and persistence was a selling point to them. What BOS did get; new customers that were tracked at 25% of the cost of regular customers which was the deal of the century. Even so Claude didn’t want to pay for the first two weeks of the Rome contract and in order to save the contract I told Claude that I would put my money where my mouth was and he could deduct the first two weeks from my commissions which was $25,000 off of the $50,000 I was to make off of Rome alone. Also I would be credited with the monies that came in from the accounts. After all was said and done I probably would have recouped all of the dollars but the first few weeks where the audience was getting accustomed to hearing the spots helped in weeks three and thereafter, also the Ripners never credited me with customers that re-upped which is to send money after the initial deposit is consumed. Most accounts send in about 400% more than just the initial deposit but in the case of BOS, retention was lower than the industry at about 250%, even than I would have got back the entire $25,000 and then some but I was dealing with a world class chiseler.
Claude making me pay for his early advertising on Jim Rome was his way of telling me about capitalizing on others. When he should have paid for Jim Rome in its entirety he saw it as an opportunity to squeeze money out of me. That is why I wrote the book, maybe I can capitalize off of some publicity and make a few bucks; Just capitalism. Thanks for the lesson Claude. Claude also made numerous comments to me that I was getting an education. The only educating was by me doing some teaching. I would later find out what the education was all about.
The starting of the Rome Show wasn’t too bad but the finals of the US women’s open was a personal beating for me as Big George took $5 from me when Venus Williams routed her sister, Serena in Flushing Meadows. It was a much anticipated match. I made sure I was out of the offices and got to a television to watch the agonizing match. Once Serena lost I knew George and the rest of the sales office would be giving me a heavy dose of humble pie as I assured everyone that Serena would win. I wasn’t worried about the $5. I knew George would hold the $5 up every time I walked into the sales office and he did too.
The U.S. Women’s Open final was a very small defeat for me. The blow that nearly broke the camel’s back and I was the camel would ensue. Corky Flynt started submitting un-approved ad copy for radio. Shaun and Claude were all over my ass about this one. I was ready to resign because I had hired the incompetent. I was ready to take responsibility even though I had email evidence that stated to Corky that the ad copy was absolutely unacceptable. I would end up hiring an attorney to go after her company but in the end I just dropped the case because the media buying company had some very deep pockets and it would be too time consuming. The Ripners were either smart enough or lucky enough to not accept my resignation because the turmoil would get even uglier culminated by September 11, 2001 which was a blessing in disguise for BOS.
Prior to September 11, 2001 in lieu of the problems with Corky Flynt submitting unapproved ad copy we now had a hole of more than half of our advertising campaign because we were pulling off of stations because we could not agree to approved ad copy. Sports stations from Infinity Broadcasting owned by CBS Global Media and Susquehanna radio which had two major stations in San Francisco and Dallas were not accepting the advertising from BOS. I needed to do some quick work and fast that should have been done a month ago but was ignored by Corky Flynt. This is where Brett came through with flying colors. He pushed and pushed and we were constantly on the phone with Infinity Broadcasting executives all the way to the CEO Mel Karmizon. Finally after a few days, Mel agreed to let the matter be settled by the CBS legal department.
I was ready with my cracker-jack education on law that I had studied during personal time on advertising laws, and gaming laws. I repeatedly quoted the Supreme Court ruling and Central Hudson Test which they said they knew about. I figured the more I repeated it the more it would sink in that they could take the money it was just a matter of doing it on their terms and that is exactly the way they wanted it. We did it on their terms. The gambler wants to gamble and all he really needs to hear on the radio is BetOnSports and the phone number 888-999-BETS begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 888-999-BETS end_of_the_skype_highlighting which we were allowed to say. We couldn’t say, keywords such as “gamble, bet, wager” outside of the name or the vanity phone number.
No problem, Bob Elkington had been around the block before and was a seasoned creative professional and just the guy to trust. I also paid Bob a substantial amount of money for doing the creative out of my commissions which would turn into a loss when BOS defaulted on my commissions.
It took the rest of the week and the early part of the following week which was days prior to 9/11 to convince CBS legal that we were legit, and we were although I would soon find out about a lot of illegitimate activities that were going on that I had been shielded from previously. The final CBS legal verdict was that online gaming was limited to certain things that we could say and could not say on the air and each station had the right to make their individual choice on whether to take the advertising or not. This was a major breakthrough! Problem is Claude didn’t think so. He was relentless with wanting more. That is great for business but sometimes you have to know when to ease up and wait for the opportune moment to ask for more.
I had to plead with Claude on this one. He seemed to have no confidence in the audience. He had not acknowledged anything from the previous year when we changed up the creative to have a humorous side and took out the business context about “call up and get 13-5 two team parlays, insured by Lloyd’s of London” which was now a no-no to talk about parlays and odds also. We could still get creative enough to say “log onto your computer at BetOnSports and bring Las Vegas right to your living room”. The gambler was smart enough to put together “BetOnSports” to realize this is some sort of website where I can bet on sports and then “bring Las Vegas to your living room” that Las Vegas is the gambling capital of the world so I must be able to really bet on sports over the internet, than the kicker was “call toll free 888-999-B-E-T-S that’s 888-999-BETS!”. You could say bet certainly enough without using in context outside of the name and vanity number.
On the flip side Claude’s failure to acknowledge our victory was his way of motivating to get more. Like I said nothing was enough. Claude had to win at all costs.
Finally Claude gave in. We could have gotten this deal done a good 4 days earlier but his stubborn streak needed me prodding him two to three times a day to just accept the deal. I would go into meetings with Claude over and over with the same argument that we had enough creative to get through to the audience. I wasn’t changing or adjusting my position either, just hoping my argument was getting through to him because we were missing out on stations in Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major markets with lots of listeners. As a matter of fact Houston had already shown that it could light up the phones with unapproved copy by just saying the name of the company and the phone number. Gamblers are not rocket scientist but then again they are not high school drop-outs that are scrubbing toilets for a living either, although some might have to do that as a second job to pay for their gambling habits if they want to bet while mired in a losing streak.
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