(via) Bob (of the store) suggests that during ADV's cash-crunch crisis earlier this year, maybe they sold the Gurren Lagann license rights to Bandai Entertainment as a way of raising cash.

In business when you need to raise money fast in tough times, sometimes you have to sell off your highest quality assets because it's all your competitors will buy quickly and pay up for.

He could be right. It's like player trades in baseball: you have to trade quality to get quality, which is why teams often send away good players. A new fan will sometimes ask, "Why not trade away your bozos and get good players?" Well, who'd accept the other side of such a deal?

Back when I was still living in San Diego, and sort-of followed the Padres, my favorite pitcher on the team was Woody Williams. He's a starter, and quite an old man.

His ERA wasn't stellar. He usually had a reasonable W/L ratio (though apparently it's suffered in the last couple of years. What was distinctive about him was that he tended to last a long time before needing relief. A lot of starters these days burn out after four innings, but Williams would pretty routinely last 6 or even more.

San Diego traded him to St Louis in 2001, and I was disappointed. On the other hand, I consoled myself that "you have to trade quality to get quality" and it was something of a tribute to Williams that St. Louis was willing to have him.

I remember watching the first game he started for the Cardinals. Turns out he was in excellent shape that night, and of course had a great team behind him. He pitched (and won) a nine-inning game. And his new team mates mobbed him on the mound afterwards.

A couple of years later St Louis traded him back to the Padres, where he played up until last year. Unfortunately, he then got traded to the Astros, who decided a month ago to release him. That's probably the end of his career. (It happens to the best of them, and not too many pitchers last as long as him. He's 42.)

Anyway, if ADV really did need to raise a lot of money fast, then selling the license rights to Gurren Lagann would have been a good, albeit disappointing, way to go about it. It's hard to see what else ADV might have had which was as valuable, and as easily negotiable in a short time, which could have done it. So Robert could well be right.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:38 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 432 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Everybody always wants to recreate the Herschel Walker trade... but nobody wants to be Minnesota.  Strange, that.

Posted by: BigD at April 20, 2008 01:16 PM (JJ4vV)

2 I think that the worst trade I can remember was when the Los Angeles Rams traded away Ron Jaworski. At the time the Rams had three quarterbacks, and based on what I saw he was the best of the three. But for some reason the coach decided on one of the others, and traded away the other two. Of course, Jaworski eventually led the Eagles to the Superbowl, but didn't win it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 20, 2008 01:33 PM (+rSRq)

3 I don't think I've ever heard of a case of "license trading" like you mention. I mean, sure, it's possible. But it's equally possible (and more likely-sounding) that they just couldn't put an attractive offer together when they attempted to restructure the deal post-Sojitz and Gainax went shopping.

There are a lot of fun stories about ADV and Gainax licensing. Dunno how it'd affect it exactly, but it's never business-as-usual with them...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at April 20, 2008 09:42 PM (OeJqZ)

4 Enh, I put 2 and 2 together (your ADV pessimism and your super-secret project) and figured it was TTGL, and you knew the license was in flux as a result.  But of course you couldn't say anything under instructions from all parties, so I didn't want to bring it up until after the license was reconfirmed or announced to have been changed.

Hmm. Of course, if you're still under NDA, just ignore that bit of spec-ity spec-ing.....

Posted by: ubu at April 21, 2008 01:48 AM (Hy4RP)

5 I don't have a super-secret project, though. I'm workin' on Lucky Star, Ayashi, and moving to Dallas, is all... ;p

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at April 21, 2008 05:51 AM (OeJqZ)

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