51: The Magnificent 7

51: Magnificent 7

Phillies 76ers are the first North American professional sports team to acquire an esports team(s), buying Dignitas and Apex, 2 LoL teams.

On September 26, the CEO Scott O’Niel of the Philedelphia 76ers, finalizes the acquisition of United Kingdom eSports team Dignitas and Apex, becoming the first North American sports team to own an esports team. Dignitas has been an esport team for over 10 years, competing in Counterstrike, League of Legends, Overwatch, Smite, and Heroes of the Storm. Michael Rubin, owner of the largest sports fan retailer in the country, Fanatics, is also a majority partner of the 76ers, which could lead to an influx of eSports jerseys in the mainstream market. Scott O’Niel (CEO) joins others in the ownership and partnership of sports with esports. Others in the market include; Rick Fox owner of Echo Fox (Signed Mew2King), Shaq, Alex Rodriguez and other owners of the Sacramento Kings are partners with NRG eSports. The acquisition of Dignitas and Apex are rumored to cost between $5 – $15 million.

Magic Johnson buys Team Liquid, all of it

The majority stock of Team Liquid, one of the most recognizable eSports teams in the world, has been purchased by quite a few people:
The investing co-ownership group includes:

• Monumental Sports & Entertainment – One of the largest sports and entertainment companies in the country, Monumental owns and operates professional sports teams such as the NHL’s Washington Capitals, NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s Washington Mystics and the AFL’s Washington Valor
• Magic Johnson – Hall of Fame basketball player and serial entrepreneur
• Steve Case – Chairman & CEO Revolution, Co-Founder of AOL
• Donn Davis – Co-Founder of Revolution and Managing Partner of Revolution Growth
• Dick Glover – Representing Mandalay Sports Media and their current President and CEO, former EVP of ESPN, former CEO Funny or Die.
• Tony Robbins – Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and life & business strategist
• NextVR – Industry leading VR company specializing in live VR sporting events for FOX Sports, NBC Sports, HBO/Golden Boy, etc.
• Alan Shapiro – CEO of Dick Clark productions
• Mike Mahan – President of Dick Clark Productions
• Lon Rosen – EVP, Chief Marketing Officer of the Los Angeles Dodgers
• Tucker Kain – CFO, Los Angeles Dodgers and Managing Director, Guggenheim Baseball
• Rick Welts – President, COO of the Golden State Warriors
• Brandon Schneider – SVP Business Development of the Golden State Warriors
• Kirk Lacob – Assistant General Manager at Golden State Warriors, Co-founder of imoji
• Harry Tsao – General Partner of Juvo Capital, Co-founder of Juvo+
• Paul Schaeffer – Vice Chairman, COO of the Mandalay Entertainment Group
• Jason Sugarman – Founder, Chairman, CEO of Valor Group Holdings
• Blake Byers – General Partner of Google Ventures (GV)
• Chad Byers – Co-founder and General Partner of Susa Ventures
• Mark Scher – Founder, Principal of Scher Investment Group
• Jordan Rambis – VP Development IDW, tech/esports consultant
• Fred Schaufeld – Managing Director SWaN & Legend Venture Partners
• Zachary Leonsis – VP and General Manager of Monumental Sports Network
• Eric Lefkofsky – Co-founder of Groupon, Innerworkings, Echo, Uptake Technologies and Lightbank
• Brad Keywell – Co-founder of Groupon, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Lightbank, CEO of Uptake Technologies.
• Lerner Enterprises – Managing principal owners of the Washington Nationals MLB team, Owners of Lerner Enterprises
• Tom Kartsotis – Founder, CEO of Bedrock Manufacturing (owner of Shinola and Filson), founder of FOSSIL
• Russ Ramsey – Chairman, CEO of Ramsey Asset Management, co-founder of investment firm Friedman, Billings, Ramsey
• Jeong Kim – Chairman of Kiswe Mobile; Former President of Bell Labs
• Mark Ein – Chairman of Kastle System, CEO Capitol Acquisition Corp, Founder and Owner of World TeamTennis franchise the Washington Kastles
• Crane Kenney – President Baseball Operations, Chicago Cubs
• Larry Barden – Chair, Management Committee at Sidley Austin LLP
• Dhani Jones – Entrepreneur; Investor; TV Host; Former NFL Linebacker
• Tony Nader – Managing Director SWaN & Legend Venture Partners
• Paul Strauss – EVP Mandalay Pictures

Current Co-CEOs and owners Steve Arhancet and Victor Goossens will remain and will also be directors. Peter Guber and Ted Leonsis will act as Executive Chairman of their new esports ownership group, aXiomatic.

Playstation Experience (PSX) coming December 2-3, 2016

No Man’s Sky under investigation for False Advertising in the UK

• Advertising Standards Authority
• UI Design, Flowing Water, Large Scale Combat, size of creatures, behaviour of ships and sentinels, and aiming systems, among other things.
• This comes off the back of Yoshida stating he disliked the promises from Sean Murray

The Lion King is getting remastered by Jon Favreau, possible Jungle Book-esque

• Jungle Book takes in nearly $1 Billion at box office worldwide
• Lion King will be all CGI, no actors.

Ben Affleck is calling the new Batman movie “The Batman”

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales 2017

• Features the return of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow
• Orlando Bloom as Will Turner
• Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa

Magnificent 7 Spoilers Below

General Thoughts:

– Comparison to the original source material, Seven Samurai and Magnificent 7

1. Had a good separation of all character types and cultures
2. Black, Confederate, Asian, Indian, Redneck/Hunter/Survivalist, Mexican, C. Pratt -This seems to contrast with Seven Samurai (maybe) as not all of those fighters were completely different, but maybe that’s racist. BUT that also has to do with the difference in the geographical locations (Japan/Old West)
3. Too many jokes for the tone of the film, but that can be expected with Pratt
4. Costumes were good. Scenery and background was good.
5. Rose Creek reminded me of Armadillo form Red Dead Redemption.
6. What was the point of the pinwheel, explosive markers? No one could see them.
7. The final group were 3 very different people going on different paths. Is that good or bad?
8. Would the gatling gun be that effective at that range? I don’t think so. It wasn’t even lined up correctly with the town.
9. I think I prefer Seven Samurai, it feels better when it’s all hand to hand combat. The number deficit feels that much larger and it’s easier to assume that no one would die so easily from a bullet.
10. Chris Pratt gets shot and it hardly affects him.
11. After Chris Pratt gets shot, the Mexican overkills the guy that shot Pratt. I guess this is to show that their bond has grown?

– When freeing the miners, who sniped all the guards? Goodnight? Cause later he goes on to say how much the violence still lives on in him and how he doesn’t like it.

– No real romance throughout, which is nice to see

Character Thoughts:

Denzel’s character

– Invulnerable

– Personal vendetta works against the spirit of the film

– Explodes his horse through a wooden and glass wall

– Can speak Comanche but no one else can

– When the indian says the enemy will arrive at dawn, it isn’t translated

Chris Pratt  as Joshua Faraday

– Glad to see Chris Pratt can die in a movie

– Has the King of Hearts on his gravestone but no one knew about his affiliation with that card. ALSO, how is that not damaged from the dynamite?

– Glad to see him die, but I don’t like the way he died

– Not enough backstory on him, or any others

– What does he bring to the team that the others don’t? Is he the best shot? Best rider? Fastest talker? Strategist?
– Why does Denzel want him to be there?

– Has a thing for his horse, so does that make him the best rider?

Vincent Donofrio as religious zealot

– Is a religious nut? But not really that nutty.

– Hated his voice. Hard to understand.

– What was his schtick? Hunting? Tracking? He used to hunt indians for the government but now he doesn’t?

– He was introduced as unintelligent but that didn’t seem to stick.

– Had a stand-off with the evil indian at the end, but was that supposed to mean anything?

– When he dies, does he look up to Heaven and then realize he is going to Hell?

– I like when zealous nuts spout scripture in movies to show how crazy they are but it didn’t seem to have that effect with him. Partly because he was hard to understand but also be he didn’t seem too convicted.

– Why did his gravestone have the pinwheel marker? Was that his idea?

Jose, Javi, Miguel (Mexican)

– Nothing much to say about him. He shot things.

– He dual-weld, which means that that isn’t Chris Pratt’s thing.

– Was a criminal but fought for his freedom (but only from Denzel)

– Also, why didn’t he just kill Denzel and the woman when they all first met?

– What’s his motivation?

Comanche

• Facepaint is inconsistent, has it one, then has it off.
• Brought a bow and arrow to a gunfight, but had a gun the whole time
• Was sent to recon while the town was getting rebuilt. Is this because he terrified the settlers or because he didn’t speak english well so that was his best use? Or because he can live off the land better than the rest.
• I would assume that he is a better tracker than Donofrio’s character
• Didn’t scalp a single person
• Had a big boss fight with the evil Indian but that was anticlimactic.

Goodnight

• Confederate fighter
• Afraid of his acts in war, but can still shoot.
• Leaves at the end for some reason, Han Solo?
• Literally shoots a man while his horse is jumping over a blockade
• Snipes all the miner guards?
• I guess his flask is super important to him. So much so that they put it on his grave although the only person that presumably knew that was Billy Rock.
• Is a good character and fits a niche role of the sniper.
• Could have sniped the gatling gun people.

Billy Rock

• Good ole Chinaman.
• Hand to hand combat expert.
• Was told the story about how he took on 20 men barefisted but in the movie he always had his knives and guns.
• Would have loved to see him fight a dozen men in the saloon unarmed.
• Is just as good shooting at range as Goodnight and the girl
• Had his knife holster custom-made, one can assume.
• Pulled his hair pin out to kill that guy in the duel, but his hair didn’t fall down.
• He stays and fights after Goodnight leaves and that’s never addressed.
• There was never anything to suggest that they were anything but partners and it could be assumed that they would both leave.