Comments on: Sports Guys Ads Help Nutri-System Lose $500M

By: steve

steve — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:19:34 +0000

Whoever does marketing for them is just plain stupid. Guys are not going to buy this and watching those has beens is certainly not going to change anyones mind. Give me a break that Dan Patrick was too good to take that money. That loser would take 500k to have someone urinate on him.

By: Tony in Golden

Tony in Golden — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:03:03 +0000

Is it just me, or does Marino look like the a-hole Play-Tone record executive in “That Thing You Do”????

By: Claud

Claud — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:50:31 +0000

Berman sucks, Marino couldn’t win a super bow, Shula is a bitter old guy, and Golic, well he’s a domer so he plain sucks.

By: Brooks

Brooks — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:34:02 +0000

If you read the earnings report, it's clear that marketing costs, in the minds of company officers, was a major factor in the company not coming close to guidance for Q1. (See scapegoat.)

That was only a part of the market cap meltdown, along with the company portraying unrealistic expectations starting in Q4.

While the ads aren't to blame entirely, clearly the company thought the ads would explode sales. The opposite happened. Perfect storm.

But the statement that the sports guys in the ads contributed to a $500M paper loss for the company is 100% accurate. There's other circumstances, including abject mismanagement, but the ads played a significant role.

The company now has a realistic valuation. The stock never should've been that high in the first place in my opinion.

By: Coopers Sports Picks

Coopers Sports Picks — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:44:25 +0000

As a quantitative analyst. It is wrong to make it sound like they hired Chris Berman and lost 8 billion dollars in marketing, fixed, and variable costs in one quarter. It may serve readers to say that the company’s market cap value lost 8 billion dollars but than again I am sure that in the financial meltdown in late 2008 to march 2009 they lost a lot more. Either way thanks for a great article and sorry if I sounded rude above.

By: dobie

dobie — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:06:33 +0000

brooks, you patrick hair club for men…don’t worry!

By: George

George — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:45:04 +0000

c’mon brooks. we can do better than they lost $8 billion dollars. this is a drudge like statement. i guess it’s all about the pageviews!

maybe you should break down the math for your non finance readers.

By: fatty fatty mc fat pants

fatty fatty mc fat pants — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:26:43 +0000

As Dan Patrick stated a years ago, one of the reasons he left ESPN was Nutri-system, they bought a ton of ad space and paid marino, Berman and others to endorse it, BUT!!! they told them to first gain 20-30 pounds before they took the before photos, their food was paid for to help them do this and they were given upwards of 500k each to lose the weight that was pre gained for advertising purposes, a total scam