#Groupon + #Cubbies = guaranteed inanity

It's clear that Groupon as a company and a business model is a piece of shinola and that investors clearly know that.

If that wasn't proof enough, the Chicago-based company is (albeit, for charity) trying to sell a Groupon coupon of sorts to throw out a first pitch for the Chicago Cubs Aug. 30.

Of course, per the Salon story linked at top, this may be part of a new Groupon push:

In a conference call with analysts, the firm’s CEO Andrew Mason kept talking up Groupon Goods, a service in which Groupon sells discounted merchandise to customers—in other words, something completely different from the coupons that earned the firm its IPO.

Yeah, the rights to throw out the first pitch at a late-season Cubbies game is definitely "discounted merchandise"!

More seriously, other MLB teams could do something similar, but smartly cut out the Groupon middleman. You could auction off such an opportunity in a number of ways.