Let’s wildly speculate about this other tweet from Shawn Heilbron…together
There is a rich history on this blog of taking small, seemingly innocuous pieces of information shared publicly by those closest to the Athletics Department and extrapolating wildly in an attempt to find answers or draw conclusions of some kind.
Our track record in that department isn’t perfect, but we’ve been right more often than not, and friends….it’s that time again. And this one might be our biggest reach yet.
It all started Friday afternoon with this tweet from Athletics Director Shawn Heilbron.
A cryptic tweet dealing with an “important partnership” for Stony Brook Athletics? From the Athletics Director himself?? Like hell we’re waiting, it’s time to Sherlock Holmes the shit out of this tweet.
First order of business: where was this taken? Here’s what we know. This is clearly a shot from lower Manhattan. That building out the window, the one with the green roof, is part of the World Financial Center complex, and across the river in Jersey City you can clearly see the Goldman Sachs Tower, that big glass building on the right side of the photo.
But there are a lot of buildings in that part of lower Manhattan, and we need to determine which one this photo was taken from if we’re going to speculate with any measure of confidence who or what Heilbron was there to meet with.
Luckily, we’ve got Google Maps.
This screenshot was the closest approximation I could make to the photo shared in Heilbron’s tweet. The viewing angle is slightly more eastward, but all the relevant buildings are there. And friends, there’s really only one building with a view like this: 4 World Trade Center.
The building is just a block or two south from 1 WTC, and part of the massive World Trade Center complex. It was also the first building of the rebuilt complex to reach maximum occupancy, with music giant Spotify claiming the last few vacant floors in recent years.
Operating under the assumption this photo was indeed taken from 4WTC, the next step is to determine which tenant Heilbron was visiting.
Based on what we can see out the window, we can make some rough determinations about where in the building this was taken. 200 Liberty Street, that green-roofed building out the window, has 40 floors, and clearly our photo was taken from above its top floor. 4WTC, by comparison, has 74 floors. Based on what we know about the height of 200 Liberty Street out the window, I would guess this photo was taken somewhere between the 50th and 70th floor of 4WTC.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a comprehensive directory of all the tenants that occupy 4WTC, and harder still to find one that lists which floor each tenant is on. So instead, I found a page on the World Trade Center website that offers a quick glance at all of the companies that have offices across all of the World Trade Center complex.
Many of these — Spotify, Conde Nast, Moody’s — are well-known companies. Others I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of. But which would offer an “important partnership” for a Division I athletics program?
And that’s when I saw it. Computer! ENHANCE!
SNY! As in, SportsNet New York, the region’s go-to sports network! Could it be?
It makes a ton of sense. SNY is known throughout the area for its coverage of New York sports. Mets fans in particular are quite familiar with the network, at least until mid-August, by which point the Mets are usually 22 games out of first.
And SNY has deals with other local college athletics programs as well. Rutgers, UConn, and Syracuse all have partnerships with the network to varying degrees, airing live games or weekly coaches shows, as does the A10 conference, which broadcasts many of its college basketball games during the season.
And yes, even Stony Brook games have appeared on the cable network over the years, most recently just last season when the Seawolves traveled to James Madison for a CAA Football conference matchup.
But what about the details? Does SNY fit the bill we’ve established above, based on our super scientific forensic imaging research?
A quick Google search reveals that yes, SNY’s new headquarters are indeed located at 4 World Trade Center. Right building.
On their corporate website, the network proudly proclaims “SNY Studios are located on the 50th floor high above downtown Manhattan…” Right height.
And finally, the pièce de résistance: check out this photo posted on SNY’s corporate website:
Tell me, does that big, tall, green-roofed building out the back window look at all familiar??
Listen, this is largely a useless exercise. Heilbron’s tweet suggests we’ll know more details shortly, and even if we’re right about who the partner is, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about what the partnership entails. Exclusive broadcast rights to football and basketball games? Corporate sponsorship across all campus athletics facilities? DOES STONY BROOK OWN SNY NOW? Who knows! Hell, my pure, rampant speculation about SNY being involved at all is based on nothing more than one nondescript photo posted to Twitter! I could be wrong about this whole thing!
But I’m not, it’s definitely SNY.
