Ex-Phillie's firm defaulted on $75M state loan - UPDATE
Curt Schilling's 38 Studios computer-game firm owes Rhode Island a pile of cash
Ex-Phillie's firm defaulted on $75M state loan - UPDATE
Joseph N. DiStefano
UPDATE: Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee says ex-Phillie Curt Schilling's computer-games company has belatedly paid $1.1 million it owes the state as interest on a $75 million loan.
The check cleared today; it was 38 Studios' second attempt this week to make the defaulted loan current; the first check was withdrawn after the company treasurer warned it would bounce.
But Gov. Chaffee (an independent whose Republican predecessor made the loan) says he's still refusing Schilling's request for more money. Get it from the private sector, he told the ex-star and sometime Fox News guest.. AP story here.
EARLIER: Two years ago Curt Schilling, the star Major League Baseball pitcher who spent more years with the 1990s Phillies than anywhere else, sweet-talked Rhode Island's Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri into lending $75 million to Schilling's nascent computer-games development firm, 38 Studios (named for Schilling's Phillies-Diamondbacks-Red Sox number), after venture capitalists turned him down. In return, Schilling promised to move the firm to Rhode Island from the Boston area, and start paying the money back this year.
38 isn't failing -- its Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has sold something like $60 million as work progresses on the firm's main multiplayer concept, Copernicus -- but it's not enough.
38 missed its May 1 loan payment, Schilling is demanding more cash, and Carcieri's fellow Republicans are mad the state ever got involved, the Boston Globe's Mike Arsenault and Todd Wallack report here.
This is really the fault of the middle class for not working another shift at the job and buying a copy of their video game. Shilling doesn't make jobs unless someone can afford to buy what he sells. Sounds like RI is doing the right thing and allowing govt to not interfere.— djack10- Lets all pool our money together and give him a bailout!!! Come on guys, whos in?— shootfromthehip
- Just wondering where are the right wing hypocrites who constantly harangue the President over the help he and the Dems try to give to the unemployed and the struggling members of the middle class. Guess the cat has their collective tongue.— mike 1717
- Schilling, you are a worthless Bleep— Ashburn072
- How does a state lend a private company taxpayer money? Schilling should ask the Bush family for a loan or face investigation.— Ron
- I wouldn't buy a dog from Shilling.— orange rhino
- This is a story reported on a sports website about a retired baseball player and immediately the left wing ideologs insert their "loser" comments. This makes the point for conservatives who protest government "venture capitalism" while the left supports it. Shilling merely took advantage of personal contacts.— RSPASP
