Tag Archives: NFL

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“Coffee or Die”

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You may have never heard of this company. I had a while back but never thought much about them until my friend Doug who reads the WSJ daily sent me this article. I hope I am not stepping on any toes at the WSJ by posting this. Every Veteran needs to read this. I’ve not tasted their brew, but plan to. What is interesting is how the company was (is) treated by some of our major commercial banking institutions and prestigious law firms. I do business with one of those banks, and you can bet your sweet bippy they are going to hear from me. How about you?

If you’ve tasted their brew, let us hear your comments on it.

Friday September 16, 2022

A Socially Conscious but Politically Incorrect Company

You might call Black Rifle Coffee Co. a socially conscious enterprise. “This is a veterans’ corporation,” founder and CEO Evan Hafer, a former Green Beret, says in a Zoom interview. More than half of Black Rifle’s employees have served in the military or are family of veterans. In 2021 the company put $5.3 million in shares toward starting the BRCC Fund, a charity dedicated to helping wounded or traumatized veterans and their families. That was on top of $1.2 million in charitable contributions and $3 million worth of coffee and related products to active-duty military and first responders.

But Mr. Hafer says Black Rifle struggled to find banks and law firms to help it arrange an initial public offering. Since he founded the company in 2014, companies have told him that it was “too irreverent” and poses “reputational risk.”

You can see why Black Rifle wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Its blends include AK- 47 and Silencer Smooth, and its social media presence is colorful, to say the least. The company’s YouTube channel features a shooting contest that ends with Mr. Hafer trying to get a bull’s-eye after taking a direct shot of bear spray to the eyes and a video titled “Could You Be a Pregnant Man?” Mr. Hafer’s personal politics have also drawn outrage from the media—he voted for Donald Trump twice—as has the company’s popularity with some controversial figures on the right. Kyle Rittenhouse was photographed wearing a Black Rifle T-shirt. But none of this seems to have hurt the company’s revenue, which reached $233.1 million last year.

Mr. Hafer thinks the numbers should be evidence enough that Black Rifle’s reputation isn’t a material risk. But his company “started hitting a lot of resistance” from high-level finance companies and law firms, although they claimed they were interested in working with veteran- run corporations.

In 2019 and 2020, a Black Rifle spokeswoman says, company leaders were talking to Chase, Bank of America and Macquarie Group about raising capital. After initially showing interest, all three companies declined to work with Black Rifle, citing the company’s image. In 2018 Black Rifle had tried to open an account at a Chase branch in San Antonio and had been turned away over reputational concerns. The spokeswoman says that Macquarie was particularly fixated on the name of its in-house magazine, Coffee or Die, which covers military issues and won the Military Reporters & Editors Association’s 2022 journalism contest for overseas coverage.

Bank of America and Chase declined to comment. Macquarie said in an email: “We take into account a broad range of factors in making financing and investment decisions. We do not comment on confidential commercially sensitive discussions, including those that did not move beyond a very preliminary stage like this one.”

Black Rifle hit similar roadblocks in 2019 and 2020 with Skadden Arps, Latham & Watkins and Simp-son Thacher & Bartlett. All three law firms passed on working with the coffee company because of its image. According to the Black Rifle spokeswoman, Latham & Watkins said that its reputational risk committee thought no one from top law schools would be willing to work at the firm if it took on Black Rifle as a client, especially because its name included the word “rifle.” The name “is an homage to the service rifle,” Mr. Hafer says. Like the guns he taught special-operations soldiers to shoot, he says, coffee is “ lifesaving equipment.”

Simpson Thacher declined to comment. Skadden Arps and Latham & Watkins didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Despite these obstacles, Black Rifle is thriving. The company went public in February through a special- purpose acquisition merger with SilverBox Engaged Merger Corp and this summer rolled out marketing partnerships with the Dallas Cowboys and Amazon Prime Video.

Yet Mr. Hafer worries what the seemingly arbitrary treatment he experienced will mean for other veterans. “I think it’s going to be really important for those guys—men and women both—to understand, these are the types of doors that are going to be slammed in your face if you’re not conforming to a very specific narrative,” he says. “I don’t want them to go through some of the same issues that we’ve had to go through to get access to capital.”

Ms. Keller is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.

Originally posted 2022-09-17 11:01:29.

Recent Posts

You’re Out!

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What a shame that one of America’s favorite past times is going by the way of the NFL. Millionaires haggling over salaries while playing a game while its fans pay the bill. Not me! I don’t watch either.

MLB’s Alternate Universe

By: G. Maresca

As the Russians deployed tens of thousands of troops for an invasion of Ukraine, Major League Baseball’s (MLB) owners and the players’ union agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement.

MLB’s latest contract ended a lockout that lasted more than three months and barely registered a blip on the news’ radar. Their lockout impacted not just the spring training stadiums, but the local bars, restaurants, and hotels throughout Arizona and Florida. According to Seidman Research, these venues lost nearly half of their revenue when spring training was cut short in 2020.

Once upon a time in America, the national pastime was baseball. The once coast-to-coast sporting diversion is long past its time and prime. Baseball is the Pony Express in the era of the iPhone.

A work stoppage should be the last thing any professional league facing declining numbers needs. Billionaires argue with millionaires who disagree on how to divvy up a dumpster full of cash with the remaining fans paying the freight. Players and owners are heading down the Niagara River fighting over who gets to steer. Such unhinged business practices do not bode well for future growth.

When the MLB minimum salary is well over half a million, it is difficult to convince anyone with a pulse that the players are undergoing financial hardships, while the league’s anti-trust exemption remains. Making it to the “show” as players refer to the majors means the last guy on the bench can afford a wine cellar in their self-driving Bentley, while your average fan is fighting growing inflation that will price many out.

The issue is always the almighty dollar and if MLB’s goal is to drive their fans out, they are clearing the bases. Most could care less about salary caps, player minimums, arbitration, and baseball’s luxury tax structure, which parallels the federal tax code. The more they muddle with it, the more incomprehensible it becomes that has even seasoned tax attorneys bamboozled.

As Jason Gay in the Wall Street Journal put it recently, “the nation’s most self-sabotaging sport is once more setting its own shoelaces aflame” and they have been at it for the last half century.

The league’s television ratings and attendance are proof the game remains in a serious funk. MLB is its own worst enemy and cannot afford to keep their fans away. Commissioner Rob Manfred makes his NFL counterpart Roger Goodell seem like a once in a lifetime lottery pick. MLB attendance last year was down to a 37-year low. The final game of the 2020 World Series had the lowest television ratings ever, while last year’s All-Star game was the second lowest. The league saw 45.3 million fans attend regular season games in 2021, a drop of 33.9% from 2019 – the lowest figure in 35-years.

There remains no joy in Mudville as COVID’s ominous clouds still cast a long shadow as unvaccinated players will be barred from Canada to play the Toronto Blue Jays. MLB’s slow suicide picked up steam when the league stenciled BLM on mounds and outfields, while moving their All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver to appease Leftists – an insufferable and impossible task.

For many, MLB could terminate the season and it would have the same impact if the American Ceramic Society cancelled their annual convention. Even a game as superbly conceived as baseball can be so mismanaged that its fan base is doing a MacArthur and fading away. Those who still find the game worth the time and the expense, MLB’s opening day was Thursday, April 7, one week later than initially scheduled with its 162-regular season games in place.

Greed and envy are just two more nails in MLB’s coffin. In the free marketplace, businesses are at liberty to choose and live with the consequences.

Baseball will survive as it is great entertainment at many levels from the minors to college, high school, and youth leagues, where games don’t last three and a half hours and a hot dog and a beer won’t cost you a small fortune.

MLB’s hubris cares little about their fans just like Hollywood. Fans, however, can be heard by using their pastime money to support the millions of displaced Ukrainians – a grand slam in the humanity game.

 

Originally posted 2022-04-07 09:27:09.

Current Events

Super Bowl LVI

11 Comments

Okay folks, may I ask where will you be at at 1730 EST on Sunday 13 February? Well, first I shall share with you where I will be. I will be sitting outside under the lanai by the pool having a couple fingers of my favorite Single Malt Scotch, Monkey Shoulder, and a mild, hand rolled sweet cigar. Why you ask? Because it’s Happy Hour dummy. And when that is finished, my bride and I will retire to the LR and probably watch a movie on Netflix or Amazon Prime, or maybe a taped episode of 1883 — a great western if you haven’t seen it.

Bet I’ll know where you will be. You will probably be glued to your TV set with beer in hand and maybe some Tacos or Nachos spread out before you and ready to watch the Rams and 49ers battle it out at  Bowl LVI — right?

Sorry, but I don’t watch the NFL,. I did periodically this and last season, but now that my favorite player has announced he is retiring, my NFL days are over. I let you try and figure out who that player was.

But then, after some of you who do have some principles left in your body will, after ready this post, join me at Happy Hour. I mean for me it is 1730 and Happy Hour, but it may not be where you live, but remember the old saying, “It has to five o-clock somewhere. Who said that,, was it Jimmy Buffet, one of my FAVS.

Anyway, you don;t have to tell where you’ll be at that designated time, but if you choose to, by all means do so. Have a good day and enjoy the read Americans.

PHIL MUSHNICK
New York Post
January 29, 2022

Snoop Dogg performing at Super Bowl halftime show

Keepin’ it real. Let’s do it together.

Last Saturday, during CBS’s telecast of the Titans-Bengals playoff game, a commercial for Corona beer aired, starring Snoop Dogg, who, despite countless arrests for guns and drugs, has become a must-have to endorse products.

So what if he luridly degrades women as one of his stocks in trade if he can sell beer?

The night before that ad ran, NYPD officer Jason Rivera, 22, was shot dead with an assault rifle while responding to a domestic violence call in East Harlem. His partner, Wilbert Mora, 27, died from his wounds four days later.

And as I watched that Corona ad, I got to thinking about Snoop Dogg’s violently anti-police, pro-crime vile and vulgar “artistry,” mindful that Roger Goodell appointed and anointed Snoop Dogg the headliner at this year’s Super Bowl halftime.

Perhaps Goodell, also in the interest of keeping it real, would like to rap along with a “song” by Snoop and J5 Slap entitled, “Police.” Ready, Roger? It reads thusly:

“All you n—as out there,

Take your guns that you using to shoot each other

And start shooting these b—h-ass

mother-f–king police.

That’ll impress a mother-f–king n—a like me.”

But Snoop’s Super Bowl selection doesn’t just meet with the approval of the NFL and “It’s All About Our Fans” Goodell. The halftime show and Snoop’s appearance is sponsored with the full, proud commercial and financial support of Pepsi, which seems eager to become the soft drink of hardcore.

Back to that charming, ahem, song. Ready Team Pepsi? It’s Karaoke Night! Here we go:

“Dipping through the city with a Glock in a Range Rove

If you sleeping probably not with the same hoe

Rock the same clothes rich n—as do

And rock by the same code till I’m a rich n—a too

I be in the club with the stick in my shoe

You call the f–king police like a bitch n—a do.”

Five NYPD officers have been shot in the first 20 days of this year. And the fellow chosen by the NFL and approved by Goodell to star in this year’s halftime produces, records, sells and profits from “artistry” advocating streets filled with the blood of cops and threats against those who would help solve the shootings of cops and civilians.

More? We’ll give this part to NBC’s NFL pregame panelist, Jac Collinsworth. Sunday, after NBC presented a Super Bowl halftime promo narrated by Snoop Dogg, he said, “That was our friend, Snoop.”

Roger Goodell
AP

Is that right? He’s our friend? Come on up to the mic, Jac. Now, in the name of keepin’ it real, pick it up with this, the refrain from “our friend’s” charming ditty (with Master P), “Snitches”:

“Snitches snitches snitches

N—as be running they mouth just like b–ches …

Snitches snitches snitches

I got a slug for ya’ll mother-f–king snitches.”

Hey, Corona beer marketing department, your turn. Ready? Snoop Dogg has a video in which he sings a cover version of NWA’s “F–k the police” while holding his crotch in a courtroom. It’s an easy one. Just repeat after Snoop:

“F–k the po-lice! F–k the po-lice!”

I invite — dare, challenge — everyone — Goodell, the NFLPA, NFL team owners, the executive board at Pepsi and Corona, NBC Sports, young Collinsworth — to demonstrate the courage of their convictions to join with Snoop Dogg in any of his dozens of similarly depraved enterprises presented as entertainment.

And now, just for added kicks, look up the lurid lyrics of two other Goodell-certified entertainers who will perform at this Super Bowl halftime, Eminem (“Just Don’t Give A F–k”) and crotch-grabbing Kendrick (“B–ch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”) Lamar.

This is what Roger Goodell thinks NFL audiences, of all ages, are worth on a Super Bowl Sunday. These acts are far beneath him as he has already admitted that he can’t repeat what Snoop Dogg raps. But he feels as if Snoop Dogg is perfect for you and yours — and professional football.

And it’s not as if previous Super Bowl halftime shows under Goodell’s classy, dignified guidance haven’t caused those who know right from wrong to ask why they’ve been dismissed as unworthy, disinvited as out of step with marching that points all of us backwards.

Why, under Goodell, have halftime shows been diving lower and lower? And why has he allowed such uncivil performers to be attached to a championship ball game?

Meanwhile, the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has been removed from a Washington State school’s required reading list because it contains racial slurs.

And Goodell, the shameless $63 million per pandering phony, slaps “Stop Hate” and “End Racism” along the backs of end zones and players’ helmets, then invites Snoop Dogg to be the star of the Super Bowl.

Maybe Snoop will be granted a police escort to the stadium. For his safety, of course.

Officer Rivera was 22. Officer Mora was 27. Just keepin’ it real.

Postscript: Well let’s see I stopped buying Coke products because they went Woke and now Pepsi is sponsoring this half time debacle so I reckon I’ll have to stick with my single malt. HA! Corona? Eh? Not a beer drinker so that’s not a problem, but I do have some in my lanai fridge for guests; that’ll be gone

Originally posted 2022-01-31 08:59:00.

Current Events

Let’s Hear it for Hockey Fans

Video 6 Comments

It’s Fourth of July weekend – – time to celebrate our once great nation’s birthday. It is so heartwarming and exciting to see such out pouring of national pride. I guess hockey teams and  fans aren’t like all the other woke sports like MLB, NFL, et al. No kneeling here, if someone did disrespect the anthem he would probably have gotten his ass whipped! At least this video sure doesn’t show any wokeness. God bless those Islander fans. I wonder if all hockey fans are like that? If so, I may have to become one.  God bless this once great nation, and give us the wherewithal to come back from our current third world status. Enjoy and sing along.

 

Islanders Fans Sing the National Anthem Before Game 6

Originally posted 2021-07-03 10:37:28.

Current Events

Boycott Economics 101

3 Comments

Here I go again. Folks, we need to shut up and do something. It’s time the silent majority, that is if there still is one, start taking some action. Who do these public corporation CEOs think they are that they can make any political statement they so choose and think it doesn’t matter? YES, it does matter, but only if we do something about it. Drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Now there is a company that does so much for Veterans; do some research on Pepsi and see what they do, and they don’t even brag about it. Yet that fool running Coke thinks he can say anything and the dumb, ignorant American will still buy his product. These CEOs monitor their bottom line on a daily basis. If we do as Greg suggests and stop buying  a product, the CEO would know about it in a week — guaranteed. We have the power, but only if we act. Are you willing to walk the walk, or just talk the talk?

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: G. Maresca

When Major League Baseball joined the Cancel Culture by moving their All-Star game out of Georgia thanks to legislation that enhanced the state’s election integrity, talk of boycotting MLB and those that do business with them went vogue.

Politically driven boycotts have deep nationalistic roots. In the 1760s, American colonists exasperated with high British taxation boycotted English goods giving rise to that American revolutionary rally: “taxation without representation.” The civil-rights crusade was initiated by the 1955 boycott of the segregated bus system of Montgomery, Alabama led by Rosa Parks.

In the 1960s, the United Farm Workers boycotted California farmers who employed nonunion workers. After Nike was exposed exploiting foreign sweatshops, sales dropped. However, these two boycotts were about changing business practices.

The comparison to someone burning a $150 Nike football jersey is laughable. Since the jersey has already been paid for such shenanigans only impacts the jersey’s owner. Pseudo-boycotts are identity politics and ineffective.

They are not a solution, but an illusion.

When politics cannot find common ground, boycott. Boycotters must sacrifice. Those who took part in the Montgomery boycott knew their lives would be more difficult.

A sincere and authentic boycott must be logical, organized, and sustained. These qualities are too often lacking in contemporary America.

CEOs do not fear offending the silent majority, who are presumed not to boycott or protest. They see conservatives as submissive and wanting to get along. Political and personal insult are of no substance to them. The time has arrived for the silence to end, particularly when it comes to money. If you want change, spend accordingly.

Companies are not immune to the bottom line; they are its hostage.

If a quarter of the 74 million who voted for Trump started boycotting businesses a long overdue message would be heard and done peacefully unlike how the left operates. The strength of conservative buying power was realized when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for a boycott of Goya and when the Left called out Chick-Fil-A.

In both instances, sales increased.

Economic pain is possible, but it takes a conscious effort. If the corporate world feels the economic heat, change could follow, but keep in mind Rome did not fall in a month.

Neutrality in business is best, but that is lost on Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola who also adamantly opposed Georgia’s legislation. It is easier to vote in Georgia today than it is to check a bag, go through TSA security, and get on a Delta flight that has always required identification.

Coca-Cola promotes racism by telling employees to “be less white” associating whites as being domineering, condescending, and boorish. Imagine the media storm had Coca-Cola asked people to “be less black.” Recall that “New Coke” flopped a generation ago. Today’s Woka-Cola could be its 2.0.

Democrats want to eliminate CO2. Every Coke product and consumer emits CO2. Delta might consider their rising fuel costs in this green era of Biden. Being the Left’s useful idiot is not going to protect them from their extremism, but some must learn the hard way. Their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders and customers.

They are failing both.

The power of the bottom line exists, provided it is exercised. It is not complicated. Do not buy from companies who pay more attention to politics and social media than they do running their businesses.

There are no good reasons for any corporation to become involved in politics that don’t directly impact their profitability.  As Michael Jordan said, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” America is already too politically polarized. Corporate leaders could help rather than hinder by not making their brands a political baseball.

Too many conservatives offer up nothing but excuses for not boycotting. The only thing they loathe more than injustice is inconvenience. W.B. Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming,” written in the aftermath of World War I speaks to us today: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Stop waiting for politicians to collectively change the culture.

Change begins with the reflection you see in the mirror.

MLB Hall of Famer Yogi Berra summarized it like only he could: “If people don’t want to come to the ballpark you cannot stop them.”

Add Ben & Jerry’s to the list of cancel culture, left wing corporations who think they immunize to consumer influence. The ice may be good but it sure is expensive, so buy another brand. Shut their big mouths down!!

Originally posted 2021-04-15 11:14:04.