Market briefing --- Matt (slow)
>> well, after spending a billion dollars over the last four years to field its jaguar racing team in the formula one series, ford has changed its minds. they've never won a race for their billion dollars. they're pulling out, they're closing their team, selling it off at the end of the season, and that's the top story in this week's "money and sports." we're joined by our bloomberg news reporter who's out in detroit today, incidentally, coincidencely maybe we'll say. so ford abandoning us. they said after four years and a billion dollars, never won a race.
>> yeah, essentially, there's the key. they never won a race, and you're spending a billion dollars. you want to have something to show for it. although winning the race isn't exactly what they were interested in. it certainly would have helped promote the brand a little bit, but since they bought jaguar and jackie stewart's racing team in 2000, it's been pretty expensive. this is going to result in over 1,000 lost jobs, so interesting, when they leave formula one, it's going to leave the race circuit with only nine teams, so formula one is going to look pretty hard to fill another team to get somebody to fill in for ford and jaguar.
>> they say horseracing is the sport of kings, but i got to believe that formula one can't be far behind. i mean, are there-are there other people in sight that might be possible buyers? i believe ford bought the team from jackie stewart.
>> correct. and there are some interested parties. nobody really willing to go on record yet, and it's an expensive proposition. and it's really something that's going to take some time. as you said in the beginning, it's not the type of sport where you just put something together. you get a team on the track, and you hope to compete. there's a lot of investment that needs to be best here, and ford, as we said, didn't win a race, so maybe it served its purpose for them. it got the brand out there a little bit, but they're taking a step back now.
>> ok, let's switch gears and talk baseball here. the red sox, people often talk about them, and you talk about red sox records, the fact they haven't been to the world series since 1918, but they're in the record books, at least for their own franchise, thanks to their loyal fans, present company included.
>> yeah, the interesting thing with the red sox, not only are they winning on the field, but you can say they're winning at the turnstiles, too. they sold out every home game this season, 81 in a row for the first time in 103 years they haven't sold out. you look at fenway park, and you say it's a small park, 35,000 people there. how come they're not selling out? but anticipation for this year is as high as it's ever been. they're only the fourth team ever to semiout. anticipation is building up in the boston area. very surprising that it's been 103 years, but just the remaining 5,000 tickets sold earlier this week, so they guaranteed that 81-game sellout.
>> a small park, but a full park as they say. so you're in michigan as opposed to your typical atlanta resident. so you're up there to cover the ryder cup. but detroit is kind of changing, it's not the motor city, it's the sports city. what's going on?
>> absolutely. when you talk to people around the town, they're pretty excited about the ryder cup being here this week. but you look next year what's coming here, they got the major league all-star game in 10 months, and you have the super bowl coming here in 2006, you have in 2008, the pga championship, which is the fourth golf major of the year will be back here oakland hills. then in 2009, they cap it off with the final four, ncaa basketball. so yeah, detroit undergoing a bit of a sports renaissance. everybody in town very happy to talk about it and shed the image that detroit has had over the past years.
>> all right. good stuff. always a pleasure to have you. that is mike buteau, one of our reporters here at bloomberg news. audiences in london are turning out to see places plays about the iraq war, and defense secretary donald rumsfeld, we're going to give you the details of this peculiar little story, up next.
