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April 4, 2001 Cox Communications and the San Diego Padres have signed a 10-year agreement to provide fans with televised baseball broadcasts on Channel 4 San Diego.
Larry Lucchino, Padres president and CEO, and Bill Geppert, v.p. and g.m. of Cox, made the announcement.
The current agreement between Cox and the Padres, which began in 1997, expires at the end of 2001.
As part of the agreement, Cox will lease 22,542 square feet of space in the center field building of East Village Square for offices and television studios overlooking San Diego’s new downtown ballpark.
In addition, Cox Communications will create digital television Channel 444 — all Padres, all the time — to be launched on Opening Day 2003.
Channel 444 will broadcast baseball information, classic games and extensive Padres programming all day 365 days a year and will be the only television station in the country featuring continuous baseball coverage.
“What started as an experiment has flourished into a wonderful, expansive partnership,” Lucchino says. “The Channel 4 Padres has drawn rave reviews, both for the abundance of games televised and for the behind-the-scenes programming that foster an intimate relationship between the players and the fans. Cox Communications is a great partner, and we are proud to move forward into the future and to the next level with them.”
“We are pleased to be investing in the Padres, the redevelopment of Downtown and in the San Diego region with this innovative partnership,” Geppert says.
Cox Communications will be the first Founding Ballpark Partner.
“Founding Ballpark Partners represent a new category of commitment,” says Mike Dee, Padres senior v.p. of business affairs, who was the chief creator of the television agreement for the Padres. “They will be few and select, and we’re very happy that a partner with a great track record such as Cox’s is the first to step up.”
Dan Novak, v.p. of programming and communications at Cox, says, “This is great news for Padres fans throughout San Diego County. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to take the relationship between the Padres and Cox Communications to the next level.”
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Higher utility costs are causing Jack in the Box Inc. to forecast it will achieve the lower end of its second quarter earnings forecast of 46 cents to 50 cents per share.
At a Bank of America-hosted presentation to securities analysts, Robert J. Nugent, chairman and CEO of Jack in the Box, added that the company expected to achieve the lower end of its annual earnings forecast of $2.20 to $2.30 per share.
Nugent says although the restaurant chain's same-store sales had slightly exceeded forecasts, those sales were not expected to result in increased earnings due primarily to higher utility costs that are anticipated for the remainder of the fiscal year.
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National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. has delivered the USNS Watkins (T-AKR 315) to the U.S. Navy. The ship was delivered ahead of schedule, under target cost, and with zero discrepancies.
The Watkins is the sixth new construction ship completed by NASSCO under the U.S. Navy's Strategic Sealift Program.
The Watkins is 950 feet in length, has a beam of 105 feet and displaces approximately 62,000 long tons when fully loaded. It has more than 390,000 square feet of cargo carrying space. The gas turbine-powered ship will be able to sustain speeds up to 24 knots when fully loaded.
At 9 a.m. Saturday, NASSCO will launch the USNS Pomeroy, the seventh in the series of strategic sealift ships. The eighth ship is currently under construction on NASSCO's inclined building ways.
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Entropia has announced the addition of two senior management executives: Tim Dammon, v.p. of product management, and Tom Kampfer, v.p. of corporate development and general counsel.
"Tim Dammon and Tom Kampfer bring significant industry knowledge and experience to Entropia, which will result in even better products for our customers and partners," says Jim Madsen, president and CEO of Entropia. "Their addition to our seasoned management team is a testament to Entropia's commitment to successfully deliver commercial distributed computing products and services."
Prior to joining Entropia, Dammon championed product definition across a variety of venture companies for ideaEDGE, a wireless Internet venture incubator. Dammon helped transition Gateway from a component strategy to a platform strategy focused on delivering products based on specific user needs.
Kampfer was v.p. of business development and general counsel for Proxima Corp. (now part of InFocus Corp.) Prior to Proxima, Kampfer spent 10 years with IBM Corp., first as an engineer and later as a transactional attorney focused on software licensing and mergers and acquisitions.
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Nielsen’s NetRatings shows that Internet penetration reached the highest levels for West Coast local markets, with Portland, Seattle and San Francisco leading the list as the most wired cities in March 2001.
San Diego is ranked fifth, behind Boston with 66.2 percent penetration in March this year compared to 58 percent in March, 2000.
Portland and Seattle topped the list as the most wired cities in the country with nearly 70 percent of households having access to the Internet from a personal computer at home.
A year ago, Portland's Internet penetration hit 54 percent, while Seattle totaled 56 percent.
“Access to the Internet has become a need rather than a luxury for the mainstream population in the U.S.," says Allen Weiner, v.p. of analytical services, NetRatings. "Applications such as e-mail and commerce have become part of our daily routine as the Web has touched our personal and professional lives."
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JNI Corp. has announced a new family of Fibre Channel host bus adapters featuring the CompactPCI interface.
The new 2 Gb Ready FibreStar FCC2-6460 Fibre Channel-to-CPCI host bus adapter is based on JNI's new Emerald IV Fibre Channel controller.
Available in Q3 2001, the HBA will initially run on Sun Microsystems Solaris platforms. Subsequent driver releases will include Windows NT and Windows 2000, Hewlett Packard HP-UX, IBM AIX, Novell NetWare and Red Hat Linux.
"As the largest independent manufacturer of Fibre Channel host bus adapters for the Solaris market, JNI intends to offer the broadest open systems, best-of-breed support to Solaris customers now and in the future," says Neal Waddington, president and CEO of JNI. "With the introduction of the new Sun Fire Midframe servers with CompactPCI, JNI's offering of a CPCI storage adapter extends our commitment to the Solaris market. We’ve built our enterprise quality reputation on our high-performance SBus and PCI storage adapters, and we intend to imbue that heritage of quality, performance and ease-of-use into our new FCC2-6460."
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Laser Diagnostic Technologies Inc. of San Diego announced Dr. Douglas Reed and Robert Palmisano have joined its board of directors.
Reed joins representing Vector Fund Management and Palmisano will occupy a new board seat. Both new board members bring extensive medical, financial and strategic business acumen to the company.
Reed is a managing director at Vector with extensive venture capital investment experience, including eight years with S.R. One Ltd., a $150 million fund focused on biopharmaceuticals and life sciences that is affiliated with SmithKline Beecham.
Most recently, Palmisano was president and CEO of Summit Autonomous Technology Inc., a global medical products company specializing in lasers and other refractive surgery products.
"We are very pleased that Doug and Bob agreed to join the board and will contribute their expertise to achieve LDT's goals for the future," says LDT president and CEO, John Moore. "LDT is growing rapidly. The continued success of the company is dependent on a combination of a strong management team and a knowledgeable and active board of directors."
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Front Porch Inc., headquartered in San Diego, has broadened its online media network by signing one of Europe's fastest growing ISPs, London-based Madasafish.
Under the terms of the contract, Front Porch and Madasafish will partner to manage the ISP's advertising inventory utilizing Front Porch's anonymous, cookie-free user profiling and content insertion system.
Madasafish has become known in Europe not only for its youthful and funky brand appeal but for its unique marketing approach that encourages its members to define the types of services and information available including music, movies and games.
"Front Porch and Madasafish are natural business partners,” says Zachary Britton, CEO of Front Porch. “We share a common focus on delivering only the information that people care about. Providing individuals (via access providers) with online information that appeals specifically to them is what Front Porch is all about."
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Sprint says it will aggressively roll out enhanced Sprint ION and Sprint Business DSL service to small businesses in San Diego.
Enhanced Sprint ION and Sprint Business DSL expand Sprint's current small business product portfolio and offer small businesses the advanced communication technologies typically leveraged by large businesses.
"Unlike large businesses that frequently integrate and use advanced technologies, for small businesses, integrating advanced communication technology into their every day business activity can be complex and time consuming," says Todd Townsend, assistant v.p. of small business marketing for Sprint. "At Sprint, we have a dedicated sales force that is trained to help small business customers identify and select the business tools they need to simplify their communication and gain a competitive advantage."
For additional information on Sprint ION, visit www.sprintbiz.com/ion or call 877-746-8466. For information on Sprint Business DSL, visit www.sprintbiz.com/dsl or call 800-889-9982.
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Greyhound casino service, called Lucky Streak, now takes passengers to the front door of the Barona Casino in San Diego.
A round trip Greyhound ticket is priced at $15 and entitles customers to a $5 Barona Casino voucher to play games, 50 percent off the Barona buffet and 50 percent off their next Greyhound trip.
"We’re thrilled to be working with Greyhound," says Linda Devine, assistant g.m. at Barona. "This partnership enables us to offer our customers in Tijuana, Orange County, San Diego and Los Angeles a safe and affordable travel option."
Greyhound schedules to Barona leave Monday through Friday from the Greyhound terminals in Los Angeles and the downtown Greyhound location in Tijuana. Each bus makes stops in Anaheim, Santa Ana, Oceanside, Escondido, San Diego and San Ysidro.
"Lucky Streak customers escape the hassle of fighting traffic and avoid expensive tolls, gas and vehicle wear," says Mike Abercrombie, director, special markets, for Greyhound.
This special offer ends June 14, 2001.
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