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December 8, 2008
Net Loss: Jones Soda wants out of NBA Deal
Downtown Dispatch
By Wild World News - Seattle
More heartburn for Bruce Ratner:
Documents obtained by the Downtown Dispatch, the Belltown Messenger's blog, reveal that Seattle's Jones Soda Co. is attempting to terminate their marketing agreement with the New Jersey Nets, another diminishment of market share for the carbonated candy, bubble gum soda and caffeinated energy-drink powerhouse which is progressively downsizing itself out of existence.
...
All the world looks on the NBA as being trendy and youthful and bursting with energy, and of course Jones Soda would want to be associated with that. But in an email dated November 12, 2008, CEO Jones asks company Manager of Legal Affairs Paula McGee if she can "please study whether we can get out of this [New Jersey Nets] deal due to delays and questionable future of this project."Seems Jones execs aren't happy with rumors that the New Jersey Nets may – against all common good sense – stay in New Jersey.
So much for the glee and optimism of a Jones press release from November 2007 announcing that they had won the rights to sell soda at the New Jersey Nets' new arena in Brooklyn, New York "when it opens in 2009." The Newark Star-Ledger now reports that the move won't happen until 2012, if ever, and that maverick Newark mayor Cory Booker is working to keep the team in town. Evidently Jones Soda paid, handsomely, for some sort of business arrangement with the Nets which would allow them to vend their soda in a stadium which may never exist, but only in a city where the Nets will never play. Different.
Jones Executive Vice President of Sales Tom O'Neil concedes, "The Nets are losing $40M a year. They aren't going to want to release us or even help us get out of the deal. They need our money. From my perspective on this we need to play hard ball and pull out based on all the changes, delays and unsupported financing ..."
Jones also has deals with the Seattle Seahawks (13-18 since the Jones deal became official on July 1, 2007) and the Portland Trail Blazers. Both teams are owned by Paul Allen, the principal developer in the South Lake Union neighborhood in which Jones is headquartered.
NoLandGrab: We presume this signals the end of the embarrassingly stupid Ye Olde "Jones Soda Shoppe."
Posted by lumi at December 8, 2008 6:11 AM