Departments
Ups and downs
By Dustin S. Klein
Smart Business Cleveland | May 2001
(Ups) to Major League Baseball, which has decided to charge listeners for live Webcasts of every game played this season, plus access to its extensive archives. The move is a smart way to capitalize on getting a return on MLB's technology investment and creates a new revenue stream to bring in approximately $20 million over three years. Unfortunately, that still doesn't cover A-Rod's annual salary.
(Downs) to North Point Communications. The DSL provider shut down suddenly in late March, giving its customers less than 48 hours notice and leaving many with no Internet access and few options. Many business owners found themselves hunkering down for waits of up to 60 days for new service, effectively harming their ability to do business. Whatever happened to advance notice?
Ups to Entrepreneurship, which is alive and well in Northeast Ohio. Next month, Ernst & Young LLP will welcome an elite group of business owners into the ranks of Entrepreneur Of The Year honorees. Will it be you?
Downs to LTV. Hundreds of layoffs, a CEO forced to defend himself -- poorly -- against complaints about his salary and bonuses for 2000, creditors screaming for justice and a plant shutting down amidst another bankruptcy. This situation goes well beyond foreign imports. It's time for a self-evaluation of what really went wrong.
Ups to Kent State University, which for the 10th time will receive a grant of nearly $350,000 from the Thomas Edison Program to support liquid crystal research at the Industrial Partnership Program at the Advance Liquid Crystalline Optical Material Center.
Correction: Our April story, "Leave it behind," contained an incorrect first name of a person quoted and incorrect street name. It should have read Wendy Mesnick, and the correct street name is Richmond Road. We apologize for the errors.
