Chapter 6 pages 82-85

Chapter 6
Blacksaw does Costa Rica


The falling of the World Trade Center in NYC gave me a few days to adjust the media schedules to resume around the 3rd week of September considering sports were temporarily put on hold. It only took me a couple of days to call the radio stations and the media buyers that were working for me and have them postpone the schedules. Once this was done than it was time to restructure the media schedules and to Claude’s credit he gave an affirmative blessing to increase the media schedules once sports resumed. It was a very sensitive time but business life goes on and the gambler wasn't about to call it a year because a few nuts with a penchant for destruction had made world news. I figured this would be a good time to give back and make donations from every new account to aid a worthwhile charity for victims and the family members of victims that perished in the disaster. Claude had his reasons deciding not to do so because it would look too much like he was capitalizing off of a horrific event. I respected his point of view here because it was a damned if you do damned if you don't but in my opinion it would have been a great opportunity to reach out and start establishing relations with a politically supported charity.

All of my preparation leading up to the 2001 radio campaigns for BOS was paying off big time now because communications were so solid that every single media that I worked with came through with adjusting the schedules, adding supplemental spots to jump start the campaign that had its momentum stolen from an unavoidable event. I had Bob adjusting the ad copy, and by the night of the 13th of September I had completed all of my professional responsibilities and over the course of the next ten days I just had to monitor current events to insure that only one weekend of NFL football was delayed while we still maintained advertising in collegiate markets where college football was not postponed.

So with the slow time numerous employees were given time off and I took advantage of the timing by exploring Costa Rica and celebrating my 34th birthday. That Friday, I went out with Chuck Bauer meeting up with him at the Hotel Del Rey bar. I did a few laps around the bar while getting the standard physicals by about 4-5 gorgeous female doctors, nurses or candy stripers who would grab your nuts and have you cough to make sure you were healthy enough to have a drink. I love the Hotel Del Rey's concern for physical health. Well this night I meet up with Chuck and tell him that my birthday is in a couple of days and I wanted to know if he wanted to head out for the weekend to Puerto Viejo. He was all for heading out of town but preferred to do some sport fishing out on the Pacific Coast while I wanted to explore the Caribbean. I wanted to go fishing also but for those sexy Caribbean ladies. So we knew we wouldn’t be traveling together but for my birthday he hands me a $100 bill and with a good hearty laugh says, “get yourself something nice here” so I have no other choice but to have a little bit of fun with the lady of my choice as an early birthday gift. Well as I am walking around the bar this beautiful dark skinned black girl is constantly calling my name and I cannot figure out where I know her from. Than it finally hit me. I did have one act of infidelity while I was in a committed relationship down on the island of Curacao and damned if this wasn't the same girl. Happy hostess in Curacao moved her herself on up to better times in Costa Rica where I think she was studying medicine also because she gave me a complimentary physical once I acknowledged her. Damn it was good to see her and I let her know too because we had a great time in Curacao and I thought compelled to give her my $100 bill so she could continue to pursue her medical dreams. A couple hours with Miss Columbia was a great precursor to the birthday. Damn beautiful girls form Columbia!

A few days later was one of the many non-professional highlights of my trip. I ended up at the All-Star café for a Reggae night which always seems to bring out the hot looking girls. Well that night after a considerable amount of drinks I convinced Doogie to take a trip with me out to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica to Puerto Viejo. Now ever since I had gotten to Costa Rica everyone warned me about the Caribbean side. “Don’t go over there the Jamaicans will machete your head off!” Talk about drastic measures for being pale skinned. Well I had lived in South Central Los Angeles and I saw how the press portrayed that area improperly so I figure it was the same here. So that night at the All-Star Café which was a great sports bar, Doogie and I decide we were on our way to Puerto Viejo the next day and that is the night I met Caroline Thomas or Carla for short.

Carla wasn’t my wife to be that I would eventually bring home from Costa Rica but Carla was a great girl. She had a beautiful face, nice braids, cute voice and a big firm ass that you could bounce quarters off of. George would comment that her ass looked like a couple of hams stuck together and I think between him and Doogie over the years her ass was enough to take up both sides of a love seat. If they keep talking they will say I had to take her out in a pick-up truck because the front seat just wasn’t enough. I’m sticking to the story that it wasn’t that big but I will forever be contradicted on that one. In her defense it was nice, just not something George liked on the surface but I certainly had no problems sticking my nose between those honey baked ass cushions. Problem was neither one of us could really understand each other since she spoke very little English and I spoke even less Spanish. Regardless it’s amazing at how good of a time we always had considering the language barrier eliminated all arguments.

Chapter 5 pages 82-83

The delays by Infinity Broadcasting and Susquehanna were met and aided by September 11 events where the Twin Towers came tumbling down in NY City. This was a brief period in time where gamblers needed a week to reflect and the NFL, most of College Football and sports for that matter shut down for about a week. The gamblers would be back in full force though and we were ready for them.

As for the events, I remember waking up in the morning and heading off to the gym at 6 am central time. By the time I came back to my condo I was ready to see the sports updates on CNN headline news which was one of the few English speaking channels that I could count on for home country news. There it was the very gigantic towers that I had stood outside of just a few years earlier were tumbling down. It just didn’t seem right and I certainly didn’t want to make any personal judgments right away but a few things I did know; gamblers would not be signing up for a short while, air travel was going to be more complicated, and going back home permanently in a week was not going to happen. I was really missing Sparky right now and I ended up spending more time with George’s dog Jake taking him for an occasional walk hoping Sparky knew I had not abandoned her. I would even call Odinga to see if she could visit Sparky after all this was her dog and I got her in a heavy buyout which never has bothered me despite paying about a hundred times more than what anyone would pay for a dog that was destined for the pound.

That week was used to re-group and relax. The first couple of days I was constantly on the phones speaking with the utmost courtesy to all the media as I didn’t want to offend anyone with talk about the business of gambling coming back on the air when so many people had just been brutally murdered in a fiery death by some sick individuals but we must live on and I had a job to do. I was amazed at the courtesy of the media. They worked with us by taking spots off the air although there were some stations that couldn’t do it but just about all of them ended up complimenting us spots once we resumed advertising just over a week later in September heading into a weekend of football.

And the gamblers came back in full force as if nothing happened.

Chapter 5 pages 79-82

Claude’s stubborn streak wasn’t necessarily a negative. Fact is he was demanding and got a lot out of people. If you spent a day with Claude you were exhausted by the end of the day because he pushed your mind until you had nothing left to give. I was showing up every morning at 7am with the armed guards opening up the marketing office and sticking around till late in the afternoon and early evenings and I would be spent cause Claude would mentally exhaust me and that I appreciated.

We ended up getting on the air after I gave Claude my guarantee that the creative would work and it did. Claude would always try to put everyone else on the line when it came to taking risks. It was his way to make you pay if it didn’t because he didn’t want to part with a penny even if the business was making tons of money. While at BOS for me it was all risk no reward which is not a good position to conduct business.

Another major problem arose prior to the kick-off of the college games in late August when the phone company was threatening to shut down the phones for non-payment. Claude was in Florida seeing his doctor and left Shaun and Geraldine in charge. Luckily there were some very professional people at BOS that continued to get results while Claude was gone but there were also others that felt it was play time led by Shaun and Geraldine. Gaynor although CEO in title was still down the food chain and not allowed to make decisions. He was the puppet that was going to get BOS to go public where Claude would have hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal. Which I guess he would eventually dispose as much of those funds as possible into his personal bank accounts or buy gold bars to hide throughout the world. I always thought he would make a commitment to be the best once he got those public funds but something must have been wrong because he wanted to win and once he got the dollars the company didn’t improve.

Well Shaun and Geraldine sweated-out this decision on whether to pay the phone bill or not to the very last minute. I recall the cousins talking about this in the VIP room while in a meeting with Shaun. They finally did it, made a decision without Claude and the phones would be free to ring that weekend. The sales office was pulling in about 2000 new customers a day to the tune of approximately $600,000 plus in initial sign up money a day.

When Claude came back there I was in the VIP room with Shaun and Geraldine who were both retreating fast to his tyrannical yelling. He blasted them, why did they paid the phone bill! It was obvious so gamblers could call in for the weekend games otherwise the phone company would shut the phones down and that was the simple answer. Claude went into a tirade and said these words that I will never forget “You never! Never! Ever! Pay anyone in full!” That blew my mind, with the phone company threatening to shut the phones off for non-payment and with the money that was being sent in on a daily basis why try to call the phone company on a bluff? That was Claude though thinking his money was worth more than the $5 bettor just because he touched it and he treated everyone that way. His money was too good for CBS Radio, too good for Clear Channel, too good for Fox. Earth to Claude these are major global media companies that are worth plenty more than BOS. He never could see it that way. Never respected the media the way they should have been respected and when I would end up resigning within the next 9 months he would regret it eventually as the media companies would stop defending the great offender of airwaves that would consistently be late on payments.

When I first went into dealings with the media companies they wanted all money up front. This was standard. I ended up presenting Shaun K’s argument to the media that they would get all their money up front but not the entire schedule up front. As long as we stayed three weeks ahead in payments they would always be getting their money up front and companies like Infinity Broadcasting with the counsel of CBS legal set the standard of getting paid two weeks in advance. Over at Premiere Radio and the Jim Rome Show we were obligated to pay 3 weeks out and Claude more than a few times was late on that where I would have to plead with him to approve the payment because no money was ever sent out without his approval. Shaun, Gaynor, nor anyone else had the right to have money paid out.

Claude balking with Premiere Radio really pissed me off because here we were getting new sign-ups from the Jim Rome Show at 25% of the cost of other media and instead of paying them on time and building up a great relationship he was demanding free spots and delaying payments by telling me to come back another day to ask for payments which embarrassed me when speaking with Premiere. Furthermore Premiere would never give in under normal circumstances considering we were paying less than their rate card and they had advertisers lining up, even turning away all others in online gaming after I secured a contract for BOS. If Claude ran Premiere I imagine he would have got payment than tore up the contract and sold the spots to another advertiser. Premiere showed a lot of class with BOS and the mis-treatment of the media by BOS didn’t earn them any allies. I am sure media companies ended up helping out the Department of Justice in lining up happy to testify witnesses who were subject to consistent abuse from BOS.

Chaper 5 pages 75-78

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.

Chapter 5 pages 73-75

After meeting with Pete, he took me to some new offices on the 10th floor that included the puppet CEO Jay Gaynor and Claude’s cousin Geraldine was now using his office on the 10th floor. I met Jay during the spring and he really seemed not too impressive. He was very reserved and quiet but did smile with those classic British soiled teeth. For the most part he was holed up in a corner office as the CEO but when it came down to decisions I never ever dealt with him it was always Claude. When I would be having a meeting in the VIP room there might be a time when Claude would dismiss Jay for our private marketing/advertising conversations and there were also times when Claude told Jay to wait outside until he was finished with his meetings. As a CEO it had to frustrate Jay to have no real authority but he was a well paid puppet who earned his money. Especially recently he has spent a lot of time under house arrest in Dallas awaiting trial for illegal bookmaking charges. I really never did speak with Jay a whole lot even though we lived in the same condominium building he was rather awkward and never good about responding to a basic hello or good morning outside the office. I assume his desire to get from out of the shadows of Claude probably led to his vociferous ways with US politicians (A BIG NO! NO! Can’t you understand the big red stop sign?) And his eventual doom. Jay was the man that was supposed to get BOS to go public and he didn’t seem to mind misleading others with fudged up numbers in what has been described as a dog and pony show for the people from the European Stock Market.

I cannot emphasize enough how poor it is for any online gaming executive to publically call out a US politician. It’s like a fat woman walking into a men’s locker room telling guys how to shower, shave, fold their towels and clean up after themselves. She contributes nothing to the men’s locker room and it’s not her place to say anything. Likewise, it’s not the right of a non-US citizen to tell politicians who are law making professionals how to do their jobs. It’s probably more annoying when non-citizens try to incite US citizens to take action against lawmakers and BOS would do this with a circulating petition challenging the FCC offices. US citizens can do this on their own as tax payers but non-citizens that do not contribute anything to the society; it’s obnoxious! It’s no wonder the companies that come out in public and tell US lawmakers how to do their job somehow end up in hot water. It’s funny then to hear the online gaming companies talk about how they are being treated unfairly. Contribute first before you talk!

Next to Gaynor’s office was Geraldine. She was a waste of air. As far as I could see she didn’t do anything of any importance although I am sure she played more sports than either of her brothers as she was definitely on the masculine side. I wouldn’t be surprised if she pissed while standing up. She even had the gall to say to me one time, “What you’re doing is nothing special it’s all Claude’s money”. She might have been masculine but the envious streak was without a doubt her feminine side coming out. She would also get herself arrested as part of the online pharmacy scheme where she would have prescriptions forged so product could go out that much quicker. Again greed at work, you can make a lot of money when you can spend money to advertise an online pharmacy. Why screw it up by doing something illegal? Also you could make a lot of money in running an online gaming company. Why screw it up by doing so many illegal things where the list goes on and on of which I am sure the numerous felony accounts that Claude faces in the Texas courts will pose a big challenge for his all-world attorneys to explain them all.

Down in the Board room this time around Claude was all smiles and gave me a big, friendly, warm handshake saying “good to see you Hacksaw!” I was more than surprised. My first thoughts were that he was just stand offish to people that he did not know for less than a year and by now we had frequent meetings. The reality probably was I was delivering a big time ad campaign at a fraction of the cost to him. Little did I know that after a future dictatorial one sided negotiation my fraction would be substantially smaller than the $350,000 I expected to earn for a year’s worth of hard work along with paying my own expenses including air fares, taxis, etc. in travel to and from Costa Rica.

One of the issues I pressed Claude with was re-branding the company to BetOnSports. Why not? He already owned the URL. Claude hated this idea the day I presented it, blasting me that the name of the company was North American Sportsbook Company or NASCO and it was to be used in all radio ad copy just like it was used in print. One day later in the 9th floor board room, Claude announces that all ad copy for creative starting with radio from here on out would be branded as BetOnSports and NASCO would be phased out. I never was one to worry about who gets credit for what but I wanted to ask Claude if he remembered our conversation less than 24 hours ago? His turn around was the single greatest turn around I ever saw in him. This was a small victory for the company that would be overshadowed by a series of ugly events over the next two weeks.

Chapter 5 pages 70-73

Chapter 5

Office Wars, the Terrorist Strikes Back, and the Return of the Gambler (The 2001 Betonsports.com football season)


The summer of 2001 was not one that I want to recall much of considering it took a brutal toll on my personal life and for all of my sacrifices I was shortchanged on the money end by BOS, Big Time! Even worse that summer Odinga, the girlfriend left me along with her son. Even after we broke up I had a great talk with her son telling him I would always be there for him as I played a fatherly role with him. Hopefully the proceeds from this book will pay for his soon to be college education.

Towards the end of the summer I was working from sun-up to sun-down and when the sun went down on the weekends, the play time was starting to begin. With the girlfriend gone now, I was living alone in Torrance with Sparky and I was hurting. I tried not to show it either, so masking it with multiple sex partners was an excellent remedy for the pain.

When Shaun found out I broke up with the girlfriend he thought it was great so I could have a single focus on work. He really was an asshole when it came to dealing with people.

When my mother found out about the break up with Odinga whom she liked, she sent my younger brother, James to California to make sure I was ok, and I sent Jim home with a terrible hangover. Jim showed up in California asking me what had happened and I really wasn’t worried too much and told him apathetically, “Sooner or later they all come around”. Wow was I wrong!

Jim recently married and I was not the greatest of influences on him at this time. Within hours of getting off the plane we were down at Shooters Beach Bar in Redondo Beach baking in the sun while knocking down drinks with my best buddy in SOCAL, Rosie and a few friends all full of ecstasy. It was a blur of an afternoon where my head didn’t quite clear up until we got back to my apartment to blast off a few mini-sticks of dynamite that I had imported from the island of Curacao. It wasn’t dynamite but they were big red sticks with fuses on them that would knock out a chunk of sand or turf wherever they landed. I figured since I was leaving the neighborhood soon I didn’t mind leaving a little present to some of the racist neighbors I had in Torrance.

The second day Jim came out to check up on me kind of flowed straight from the first night with more drinking and partying as we ventured off to Orange County for a Booze Cruise in the Newport Beach Harbor. The cruise was a blast. Plenty of women mostly taken or not my type as I prefer a serious tan but the booze was flowing and there were plenty of old friends to hang out with and enjoy the evening on a big floating 60 foot yacht. By the time the cruise was over I convinced Jim that we should return to LA County considering we didn’t want to be drinking and driving and still had to cover the 40 mile ride back up north. After grabbing a bite to eat and downing some water we drove back to my apartment then grabbed a cab down to the Lighthouse Bar on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach, CA. Jim was having a blast reflecting back on his single days but appeared to be a bit nervous in having to go out with me. Meanwhile, I was trying to work out my game with women that had not seen much practice in the past three years while devoted to my recently walked out love. At the Lighthouse I hit on a few girls with less rejection than I had gotten the day prior which was a good sign. I was striking out but seeing the ball better and that helped me get ready for upcoming weekends in Costa Rica.

Just prior to the flight to Costa Rica I met up with an old college bed buddy from Ohio State and than a couple of fat cousins out of TGI Fridays in Torrance for a three way blowout before heading back to Central America all primed and ready for enjoying 100% of the culture this time around. When a guy has been off the market for long enough he can’t expect to get back into the game and lead off with Beyonce. Need to get in a few warm up tosses with old steadies and have to lower the standards too, so I won’t sicken you with details.

Upon my return to Central America I was ready physically, mentally, and playfully. My previous two trips I refrained from indulging in some of the nicest female natural assets and I was ready to enjoy!

This time I was picked up by the Chief Operations Officer, JR, a Dutchman who I had met in the spring and kept in contact with. This time to Costa Rica was the first time I started to feel a bit different and it started with meeting JR at the airport. I felt something strange that I have never felt before at BOS. I think it was respect. Heck! I earned it!

I was immediately brought to a nice Condominium which I was to share with JR. JR was an average sized, soft spoken guy with big legs from playing soccer for years. He had also held a gaming license in Europe for over 25 years. He was at BOS to expand on his bookmaking talents that he brought from Holland to take them to the next level of online gaming. We had a nice condominium just a short walk from the Mall San Pablo and between us and work was the All-Star café along with a handful of other bars that ranged from punk, reggae to nightclubs blasting Ricky Martin’s La Vida Loca. I am only too happy that I never was in Costa Rica during the mid-90’s and the “Macarena”. We also had a very strange roommate by the name of Michael who was certainly a budget tech guy that worked on the phone systems. Michael was a tall skinny character. He was a strange cat that was overly friendly and would sit in the living room with all the lights out snorting cocaine when you came home at night. He didn’t last long and for that matter I was only to spend 3 weeks in Costa Rica before heading back to Southern California to get my little canine girl Sparky back from friends.

I went over to the Mall San Pablo this time unaccompanied and walked straight into the reception area where this time I was met by Peter Wilson who welcomed me with open arms while he kept repeating “thank you, I thought you would never get here”. He was getting worked hard and getting paid little. For the past couple of months Claude and Shaun put Peter into the marketing department to assist me with anything I needed since I was now the head of electronic media and a large chunk of the BOS budget. Pete was thrown into the wolves, he had no clue to the world of advertising and more often than not Pete was abused like a red headed step child by the Ripners to take care of the communications because Shaun was probably too busy hiding in his office and really couldn’t comprehend the trade talk of electronic media. Claude and Shaun understood print and with the football season coming soon they needed to tend to print rather than learn the intricacies of electronic media.

After a brief hug and hello, an excited Pete took me on a tour of the renovations done at BOS since my last visit. They erected a state of the art 10th floor playground with a full bar, casino tables, restaurants, gym, VIP guest rooms, covered pool and sun deck on the top floor. None of this was for employees and I chose to work out in the public gym on the 4th floor of the mall which had superior equipment. I am not sure but this might have been an innovative move by Claude. (It was.) The pool, bar, and casino were beautiful. The VIP rooms were unfinished and so were the restaurants. Originally this elaborate facility was meant for big bettors but eventually the brain trust started thinking and realized that media giants such as The Jim Rome Show, which was bringing in more new customers than any single source of media was the type of people they needed to schmooze in Costa Rica.

Chapter 4 pages 67-69

I did encounter a few setbacks in my preparation for the 2001 campaign. I failed to get on KFXN in Minneapolis. That state was just tough to crack. I got my way in the Bible belt with the Carolinas and Louisiana. I convinced the good folks up in Washington State which was a bruiser of a state when it comes to moral laws. Of the top 50 sports stations in the country I failed in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Tampa. I was able to get the consolation prize in both Seattle and Tampa as we settled for highly rated talk radio programming and 2nd rate sports talk show respectively.

In 2000 Claude wanted to be on WQAM in Miami. In 2001 the crown jewel was WFAN-New York. This was the big sports radio station in his hometown of New York City. Claude already had the crown jewel with the Jim Rome Show but WFAN was his personal big prize. So I spent a lot of time working with top executives at WFAN. Since I had already dealt with Mel Karmizon the CEO of Infinity Broadcasting and co-CEO of Viacom through Brett the doors were open at WFAN, an Infinity station to deal directly with the top guy. I cannot remember the guys name because we never cut the deal but we spoke frequently for a few weeks during the summer of 2001 trying to iron out a deal. I was able to arrange a time to meet with him when he came out to Los Angeles. We met at Brett Rateaver's office on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles just down the street from Peterson Publishing and Larry Flynt's Hustler building. During our meeting, the President of WFAN demanded a $1,000,000 commitment from BOS to get on the air. I knew Claude wanted WFAN and it was the top local station in the country in the #1 market in the country so I wanted it also because the numbers were 2nd to only Jim Rome. I responded to the President of WFAN by saying that I couldn't get him a larger budget than what was placed on Rome but I could come close. Our meeting ended as I informed both Brett and the president of WFAN to not hold their breath and I would see what I could do and come back to them with a reasonable offer.

I tried to convince Claude that the $1,000,000 commitment was reasonable and we should seriously consider offering WFAN at least $400,000. This was extremely tough for Claude to swallow. He could only relate to KNBR in San Francisco and KTCK in Dallas. Both of those stations BOS alone was spending in excess of $105,000 for a ten week campaign. Also Jim Rome had a weekly audience of 2,000,000 listeners; WFAN had about 1/5 of the audience. I emphasized the limitations that Premiere Radio had put on us by limiting us to one spot per day and with WFAN we would be running around 15-20 spots per week. This just never sank in with Claude and he told me to counter with $200,000 for WFAN but not a penny more. Unfortunately the deal died which I consider one of my biggest failures when it came to online gaming advertising. I should have pushed harder. Based on our results from Jim Rome I estimated WFAN with a $400,000 buy would have been 2nd to Rome and one of our top local stations.

The preparation for the 2001 campaign certainly took its toll on my personal life. I was committed to taking advantage of the opportunity afforded to me by BOS. I would work around the clock putting together schedules, lining up talent, writing scripts, negotiating terms for advertising with the media, traveling to radio stations, media companies, etc. By the time the 2001 ad season was to start I was prepared 10x over and could rattle off all of the stations we were on, the times when the spots were to play, the talent recording the spots or announcing them live, the rates, the talent fees, the sales representatives, the laws of each state, the terms of agreement, the ad copy, and the breakdowns based on each of the brands. I knew everything short of the station’s mascot and I knew some of those too. What I did that year they needed about 20 professionals to replace me. I also was paying bottom dollar which Claude loved and I did it by consolidating the dollars from all the brands. We also eliminated a lot of competition by consolidating dollars and setting up a group consisting of the sports books in the Mall San Pablo just like the BCS which reserves the top bowl games for the big money schools conferences and tries to shut out the small schools with less revenue.



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