Indian Giving. Playing Time. FTC, FCC and Other Acronyms. M&A. Trick or Treat?

Pentagon Doing Their Thing Again.  Let’s Take a Look at the 2nd Quarter.  I am Not Smart Enough to Understand the Consumer Benefit to this Merger. Happy Halloween.  Update.

• As if we don’t have enough craziness coming out of our nation’s capital it now looks like the Pentagon has gone mad.  I am not going to rehash the particulars of this asinine and ridiculous scenario but in a nutshell the Pentagon has gone to extreme efforts to recover decade-old reenlistment bonuses paid to thousands of California Army National Guard soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.  So what if some of the bonuses were paid out to soldiers who the Pentagon now says did not qualify for the incentive?  These are the soldiers who reenlisted due to a shortage of troops at the height of the two wars,  and the California Guard officials offered bonus incentives of $15,000 or more to build up forces required for combat.  These are the US citizens our government is going after for repayment of incentives?  Thankfully,  Ashton Carter has finally stepped in to temporarily stop the Pentagon’s relentless harrassement of these soldiers….the soldiers who reenlisted due to a shortage of troops at the height of those two nasty wars.  Google the back stories….just unreal.
• Some who read last week’s blog had quite a bit to say about my piece on baseball and the length of the game.  What most of them said was not so nice.  This week, I decided to take a look at the NFL.  I watched the first half of the Monday Night Football game and gathered the following metrics (love that word) regarding the 2nd quarter:
• 39 – # of minutes of the second quarter
• 35 – # of plays during the second quarter
• 4 minutes, 10 seconds – total play time from the snap to the end of play whistle
• 10 minutes, 30 seconds -total time for six commercials/promo spots Extrapolate what you want from those numbers but the ratio of time played to commercial breaks is a bit concerning. All of you know I am a huge football fan and try to watch as much college and pro football as possible before it is all over in early February.  With that said NFL ratings are down 12% year-over-year and the NFL is blaming the low ratings on the presidential race and the bad matchups for prime time games.  What they are not saying is that one of their key target audiences, the millennials, have little to no appetite for sitting anywhere for over three hours watching pro football.  The NFL has some very smart people working up at that NYC office….I feel confident they will make some changes to make the game time a bit less.  Not so much for NCAA.
• $85B.  A good bit of coin for AT&T to swallow up Time Warner.  On the surface it looks like a great play for AT&T’s shareholders as the merger will allow for convergent technologies across various platforms with a broad content and service offering.  I guess my initial reaction is that the competitive landscape in this space will quickly diminish.  For example, could AT&T make it more expensive for their competitors to gain access to content from Time Warner?  Pricing that their competitors would certainly pass on to their customers.  Think Game of Thrones or Anthony Bourdain’s great show called Parts Unknown….or any other content found on HBO or Turner’s family of networks.  Sure, the FCC and FTC are taking a hard look at this acquisition and there is a possibility that these federal regulators could compel AT&T to accept modifications or go so far as to kill the deal.  Competition is good for all of us.  Let’s hope that this deal turns out to be a good thing for the customer.
• Spooks, ghosts, skeletons and haunted houses.  Thank you to the people of Scotland and Ireland for bringing the Halloween celebration, the night before All Saint’s Day, to America.  I don’t like anything to do with the devil, ghosts and goblins, and especially skeletons.  Thankfully, October 31,  similar to any other reason for Americans to party, has become another celebration for kids to dress up in costumes, go trick or treating, and for most adults, dress up in something socially unacceptable and attend a party or two.  Staggering amounts of money are spent during the Halloween season. Last year, more than 150 million Americans planned to celebrate Halloween, with eight in 10 millennials saying they were planning something fun with their friends. The total spend in 2015 was expected to be $7 billion, with the average American planning to spend $74 on decorations, candy, costumes and more.  Enjoy Halloween and let’s keep everyone, especially the children, safe.
• Updates from previous posts:  The Colombian government is again sitting down with the FARC rebel forces to try and hammer out a deal; The Falcons are back at home later today and yes, they need their defense to rise up; the Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, now wants all foreign troops out of his country within two years; Baseball and the World Series between the Indians and the Cubs is good stuff but why have the Cubs’ bats gone missing? Manchester United:  figure it out soon and do something with Paul Progba. You can’t pay $119m for one player and have him do nothing. Completely unacceptable.

Adios and Happy Sunday Funday!