Waste of a dollar?

It was a pretty decent sports night tonight. Game 5 of the World Series with the possibility of Philadelphia wrapping it up....or will Tampa force the Series back to Florida?? Monday Night Football presented the resurgent Indianapolis Colts fresh off of releasing information that Peyton Manning had a second knee operation and a staph infection in that knee and that it was truly a miracle that he even started the season (against the Bears) versus the unbeaten, ex-Bear (Jeff Fisher) led Tennessee Titans.

So what did I do when faced with this cornucopia of sports? Rented Iron Man from one of those Red Box vending machines. It's only $1.08 (including tax), so if I don't watch it, no biggee. Fortunately I had the baseball game on when Philly scored their two runs, and Tampa scored both of their runs, including one in the top of the sixth with rain coming down in sheets. They suspended the game before the bottom of the sixth started, so the rest of the game will be played tomorrow....when it will colder, wetter and windier. Nice. Tough break for Philly who lose Cole Hamels after only 5 innings pitched. That dude has been unhittable in the playoffs.

But I digress. Do you have one of these Red Box kiosks near you? Check their website (link above) to find one. They hold 500 DVD's which are refilled and changed every Tuesday. The company is actually a majority owned subsidiary of McDonalds Investments. Currently you need to have 15,000+ people coming by your store a week to be able to purchase/lease one, at least that's what the company says. They average about 50 rentals a day and $38k in revenue a year (additional days are $1 as well). My local Jewel has two of them. Not a bad little revenue kicker for the store. A third party loads them weekly and they don't need any other servicing.

I'm still not sure how much money is actually profit out of the $38k, but I'd be intrigued to find out more. They were going to go public earlier this year, but pulled the filing or at least delayed it indefinitely. Coinstar bought 47% of them for $20 million in 2005. An interesting company.