David Kronheim - The Number Tamer

​

"This guy either spends too much time sitting on barstools, or has too much time on his hands."     A comment from ESPN about David  

​

"Since I don't drink, I'm not sitting on any barstools.   As for having too much time on my hands, you may be right."   David's reply to ESPN

​

I've had over 40 years of experience as a market research analyst.   I also have one of the most unusual backgrounds of anyone in this field.

​

I spent most of my career in advertising (Sawdon & Bess, AC&R, Bates) and created my own market research job.   Many of my accounts, such as Foot Locker, Lady Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, Athletic X-Press, and Champs, were sports related.   At one point, I had worked on some of these accounts longer than anyone at one of their ad agencies had ever done.   Because of that, these retailers were willing to let me have any item in their stores, as long as I paid for it.

​

But here is where it gets unusual.  I was captain of the Sawdon & Bess softball team, and wrote humorous memos for the staff about our games.   (We lost most of the time, so that was a challenge.)   The agency's creative directors believed I had writing talent, so I was given advertising copywriting duties in addition to my number crunching work.   My specialty was creating off-the-wall presentations, and writing funny radio commercials.   You can hear some of my radio spots on my creative website - soundswriteradio.com.   See, having a good sense of humor paid off.

​

So how did I get into writing these baseball attendance analyses?   I had been         a radio sportscaster in college, and learned a lot about the business side of sports.   All the sports accounts I worked on at the ad agencies, advertised with sports leagues and teams, and they wanted to know about attendance.   This is how my compiling sports attendance began.

 

I had another side job for a while.   I hosted a weekly talk show about singles life on a suburban New York radio station.   I was not controversial, certainly 'G-rated,' and was nice to callers and guests.  All of which meant I had no future in talk radio.

 

I've also been a volunteer narrator of audio-recorded books and magazines.  Plus,    I am the author of 'Advertising for Love - Seeking a Wife Through the Personal Ads,' a humorous book about dating.   Though the book was published more than 20 years ago, I still get the occasional royalty check.   Sad to say, the amount of the check is sometimes less than the postage the publisher paid to mail it to me.

 

I've earned a B.A. in Communications-Media Studies from Queens College, and an M.B.A. in Marketing from Hofstra University.

 

My claim to fame, besides being one of the few lifelong New Yorkers who has never had a pastrami sandwich or an egg cream, is that I was the worst fielder in the history of the New York Advertising Co-ed Softball League.   But I'm probably the only player from that league whose name is in the Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, and in Major League Baseball team record books, and whose work can be found in the library of the Baseball Hall-of-Fame.   That distinction, and a valid Metrocard, gets me on the New York City subway. 

​