Posts Tagged ‘david donovan’
Cheap Seats Daily: Name Changes Again the Talk of the Town’s Teams?
Today is Elvin Hayes' birthday. Big E is 64.
Hayes was the star power forward on the Baltimore/Washington Bullets during the 1970s. The team went to the NBA Finals four times in that decade.
FOUR times! The NBA Finals!
Four times! (OK: Hayes was only there for three of 'em. But, still...)
And, of course, the Bullets won one of those title tilts, during the 1977-78 season.
The late-model Bullets, playing under another name, are already in last place in the division, six games out of first place after playing only nine games, and, as Eastern Conference champs Cleveland come to town tomorrow, hope is scarce.
The cure? Easy! Just get it over with and change the damn name back to "Bullets," Abe Pollin! What could it hurt?
Happy Birthday, Elvin!
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Speaking of names that should change: The Redskins won't lose trademark rights just yet.
The Supreme Court disclosed yesterday that it won't hear an appeal filed on behalf of an American Indian group that sued the Redskins, saying the team's name is offensive and therefore under federal law shouldn't be afforded trademark protections.
Redskins lawyers, including Dave "Yeah, That's the Ticket!" Donovan argued successfully that the plaintiffs waited too long to file the suit.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Another Redskins trademark lawsuit bubbles up? Why doesn't Dan Snyder just change the name? Maryland Nighthawks come back with a new name? With sign ban lifted, Redskins fans are back to complaining about players? Redskins fans worry that FedExField guards will turn "hi-def" cameras on them looking for bad sign carriers? Birthers take their fight to basketball? Ex-high school star WASN'T 24 years old when he played prep hoops here?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: Dan Snyder Lifts Sign Ban Just In Time for Sign Contest He’s Sponsoring?
Just before game time yesterday, Dan Snyder, following Cheap Seats Daily's pro bono crisis PR counsel, dropped the FedExField sign ban. Snyder had just as quietly and cowardly put the ban in place before the Tampa Bay game a few weeks ago to keep fans from showing how much they hate him.
“We have no intention of trying to control our fans’ varied ways of expressing their views on the Redskins organization and the team’s performance,” former newspaperboy turned Redskins COO David "Yeah, That's the Ticket!" Donovan said in the very brief ban-lifting statement.
“We’ve disappointed our fans so far this season, and I’m as disappointed as they are,” added Dan Snyder. “I understand that some fans want to express their feelings with signs and they should do so, as long as they stay within the boundaries of good taste and don’t block the view of other fans.”
This gives the "He's learning as an owner" crowd something to throw out as they perpetuate that myth.
The "He's a D-bag!" set, meanwhile, gets plenty to work with here, too.
The timing of Snyder's lifting of the sign ban was grotesque, since it was announced too late for anybody going to the Denver game to even get word. Much worse: The announcement also surely has something to do with the fact that Snyder's sponsoring a fan sign contest this Friday with his sportstalker, WTEM, at Dave & Busters at White Flint Mall as part of a Redskins pep rally.
Snyder's station sponsored the same sign contest at the same venue before last year's home game against Dallas.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Sign policies show Dan Snyder's a hypocrite? Dan Snyder ran the same sign promotion at Dave & Busters last year? Dan Snyder likes signs? You can call Albert Haynesworth lazy, but not cowardly? Tank McNamara's neither fair nor funny? Dunbar's season ends atypically? Spingarn's season ends typically? Will somebody tell Mike Miller to stop dressing funny until his damn team wins?)
Cheap Seats Daily: David Donovan, Snyder’s Latest Newspaper Hater, Was a Paperboy?
For all his media hatred, Dan Snyder stuffs his staff with media people. Karl Swanson was in newspapers. Larry Michael was a radio executive. Even Vinny Cerrato came back to the team after a stint at ESPN, where he spent a season in exile after being banished by Marty Schottenheimer (who looks more like Vince Lombardi every season for what he accomplished here.)
Turns out the latest attack dog added to Snyder's pack, David Donovan, fits the pattern. Donovan's complete lack of respect for the media or the truth or both comes out every time he talks to a reporter these days. For but one example of Donovan's outlook: He's the guy who told the Washington Post a couple weeks ago that Redskins officials "don't see any difference" in "the way our actual fans are behaving" this season.
But, there was a time when Donovan was way into newspapering. It was all spelled out in a 2007 feature story in the Daily Times Herald of Carroll, Iowa, his hometown, to honor the local boy made good when he took the job as General Counsel with the Redskins.
Make that the local paperboy made good.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Iowa State gave DC David Donovan AND Vinny Cerrato? What did DC ever do to Iowa State to deserve that? Why did David Donovan join the dark side leave journalism? Snyder's media appearance starting to smell fishy? Ripken statue stolen by guy named Stoneburner who hangs out with a bunch of stoneburners?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: Win Over Dallas Was ‘Better Than Asbestos Litigation’?
More proof that everybody but Highlights Magazine is writing about the Redskins: Now, even the military/industrial complex is going after Dan Snyder. Military.com, a website for the forces, ran a story "Redskins Owner Dan Snyder Doesn't Want You to Support the Troops in His Stadium."
The piece takes a photo of a poster taken by FedExField security guards before the Eagles/Skins game that says "Hi to my huband in Afghanistan," and runs with it. The Great Dan Steinberg made that poster famous after fishing it out of the trash near the stadium entrance.
To be fair, Snyder has shown support for our National Defense. Well, he put out a Commemorative Sept. 11 Redskins hat that had a red-white-and-blue Pentagon stitched on to the side in 2005.
And he sold that hat for only $23.99. Plus shipping. And he kept the money. But still. Bottom line: When Military.com lowers the boom on you, something's gotta give.
And everybody's favorite magazine geared toward an audience of corporate counsel people, Corporate Counsel magazine, also jumps in this week with "Not Exactly a Banner Season for the Washington Redskins."
The publication interviews new Redskins COO and total BS'er David Donovan about the new policies at FedExField prohibiting signs and banning interviews in the parking lot, and he was also asked about fans at the Eagles game having to remove their t-shirts if the message on the garments was anti-Snyder.
"We're not trying to limit what anyone wants to say or chant or wear," Donovan told Corporate Counsel.
Wow. Thus continues Donovan's awe-inspiring streak of just saying stuff so dishonest that not even he could believe it.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Not even Corporate Counsel magazine can stomach David Donovan's whoppers? David Donovan and Dan Snyder, adrenaline rush buddies? How does a Redskins win compare to a class action lawsuit? Skins are only the third-worst team in the NFL? Bono had a hand in Cooley's wounding? D.C. United coach bails?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: Somebody Once Wrote a Nice Dan Snyder Story? Does It Hold Up? No?
Today's the last day to enter Dan Snyder's Cheerleader Pride Giveaway Contest! Tomorrow, folks at Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, will hold the drawing to find out the five 25-to-54-year-old males who've won the right to have Redskins cheerleaders -- armed with sponges and buckets and zero self-esteem -- come over and scrub down their cars.
Come on, pervs: Get your name in before it's too late!
('Course, this also means time is running out on Cheap Seats Daily's ability to run everybody's fave photo.)
(AFTER THE JUMP: Does Dan Snyder's vacation choice mean he's met his Waterloo? Elba is nice this time of year? Somebody wrote something nice about Dan Snyder? Really? Was it accurate? Not really? Where'd David Donovan learn to fib? Dan Snyder's poster confiscating binge was all a prank? Will anybody get a "Goofus and Gallant" reference?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: Will ‘Dumb’ and ‘Dumber’ Shirts Be Allowed at Snyder’s ‘Night of Quarterbacks’?
In case you missed it: Rocken Rollen Stewart, who showed up at televised sporting events carrying a "John 3:16" sign throughout the 1980s, had his sign removed from a Redskins game at RFK in 1984. So he sued.
And he won. But it took eight years before Stewart was told by the courts he could carry his sign into the stadium here.
Times and venues have changed. It's unclear if Rockin' Rollen's case will help victims of the Redskins latest purge. Will somebody who had their poster taken please sue Dan Snyder so we can find out?
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Also, for the eating-disorder-looking print edition, I squeezed BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ for a few more drops. Completists will want this umpteenth revisitation upon the same story so they can see the only appearance of "oral-fecal" in a sentence. Kind of like getting the repackaged Elvis Costello's Greatest Hits every three years, just for the remixed-again version of "Mystery Dance."
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David Alperin checks in with some more Dan Snyder weirdness.
Alperin was the first guy to tell me that Snyder changed the sign policy at FedExField. Before the Tampa Bay game, stadium guards confiscated a sign he made saying "Love the Redskins, Hate the Owner."
(AFTER THE JUMP: Fake cheering at FedEx? You're going to use "Douchewellian" again? AND the trademark sign? El Al disputes charges that its security is as Douchewellian as Dan Snyder's? You're going to promote the Great Dan Steinberg again? GEICO signs good, Snyder Sucks signs bad? Why would anybody go to Snyder's "Night of the Quarterbacks"? Brett Haber plays the feud with his former boss?)
Cheap Seats Daily: Snyder Overstepped Legal Authority While Suppressing Fanimosity?
When the Great Dan Steinberg ran photos of the fanimosity at FedExField during the Tampa Bay game on his blog a few weeks ago, Dan Snyder told the paper to take the shots down. And the Washington Post complied quietly, removing the photos without any explanation to readers for the disappearance.
Snyder's heavyhanded attempt at message killing, Douchewellian as it was, worked in the short term: The censorship of fans was treated as a non-story. (Well, OK: Almost a non-story.) And, as we've learned over time -- Jeff George, Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith, etc... -- Snyder only cares about the short term.
No doubt feeling empowered after the Post's appeasement, Snyder's behavior had grown insane by Monday's game with the Eagles. And the once-burned Steinberg, who now buys tickets to the Redskins games to avoid the team's new restrictions on his reporting, became a war reporter. He embedded himself with the insurgents that night, and has continued telling their tales.
The results have been gripping.
(AFTER THE JUMP: The lawyer who whupped the Redskins on the pedestrian ban thinks fans might have some more cases against Snyder? The Redskins have lost federal freedom of speech cases in the past? One small typo for a columnist, one giant slur of Dan Snyder's legacy? Agent Zero is No. 1? The Wizards peak?)
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Morning Roundup: Burgundy, Gold, and Slimy
Hey, what's this in the Washington Post? Another story "uncovered by Redskins, verified by The Post, or whatever"? Why no! This story is about the Redskins suing fans who've fallen on hard times, and it is seriously harshing my day.
