Dan Borislow
Encyclopedia
Daniel M. Borislow is an American entrepreneur, sports team owner, inventor, and thoroughbred horse breeder. Originating in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

 area, Borislow attended Widener University
Widener University
Widener University is a private, coeducational university located in Chester, Pennsylvania.Its main campus sits on 108 acres , just southwest of Philadelphia...

 and worked in cable construction and landscaping before going into the telephone business. He founded Tel-Save, Inc. to resell access to AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

 long-distance lines in 1989. Borislow took the company public in 1995, and two years later brokered a $100 million deal with AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 that made it the exclusive telephone service of its users. At its peak in early 1998, Tel-Save had sales of $300 million and was valued by Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

 investors at $2 billion. However, due to the financial strain of paying off the AOL deal, Tel-Save lost $221 million in 1999, and Borislow sold his stock and retired.

In his brief retirement, he focused on his horse racing career, sending Talk is Money to the 2001 Kentucky Derby
2001 Kentucky Derby
The 2001 Kentucky Derby was the 127th running of the Kentucky Derby. The race took place on May 5, 2001. There was a crowd of 154,210 in attendance. The 127th Kentucky Derby was the first to be broadcast on NBC, garnering a Nielsen rating of 8.1...

 although the thoroughbred did not complete the race. Borislow's most successful horse yet has been Toccet, who won four graded stakes, among which are the Champagne and Hollywood Futurity
Hollywood Futurity
The Hollywood Futurity is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually since 1981 at Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood, California. The Grade I race is open to two-year-old horses and run over a distance of 1 1/16 miles...

 in 2002. After selling most of his horses in 2004, Borislow set forth plans for a new voice-over-IP business which became the magicJack
MagicJack
MagicJack is a device that plugs into a USB port on the user's computer and that has a standard RJ-11 phone jack into which any standard phone can be plugged. This allows the user to make phone calls to almost any phone in the U.S...

. Invented in 2007, the magicJack is a small product which can be plugged into a computer's USB port and allows for unlimited calling from regular telephones. In 2010, YMAX, the company behind the magicJack, merged with an Israeli company and became a publicly traded corporation. Borislow also purchased a controlling share of the Washington Freedom
Washington Freedom
The Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Germantown, Maryland that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was originally founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's United Soccer Association. Since 2004, the...

 women's professional soccer team. Borislow and his family live in Palm Beach County, Florida
Palm Beach County, Florida
Palm Beach County is the largest county in the state of Florida in total area, and third in population. As of 2010, the county's estimated population was 1,320,134, making it the twenty-eighth most populous in the United States...

, where, through D&K Charitable Foundation, Borislow issues grants to charitable causes.

Tel-Save

In 1989, Borislow founded Tel-Save when he was in his 20s to resell access to AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

 long-distance lines. The company was based in New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, formerly known as Coryell's Ferry, is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 2,528 at the 2010 census. The borough lies on the west bank of the Delaware River at its confluence with Aquetong Creek. A two-lane bridge carries automobile and foot traffic across the...

, and its primary market was toward small and medium-sized businesses. Borislow took the company public in 1995 and had an initial public offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

 of three million shares. He then invested in his own long distance network by deploying five Lucent 5ESS-2000 switches throughout the United States. By 1997, Tel-Save was making $20 million a year.

In 1997, Borislow negotiated a three year deal with America Online that granted Tel-Save exclusive marketing rights to sell long-distance service to AOL users. AOL users, meanwhile, would now be billed online for their local, long distance, cellular, and internet services. His original asking price was $50 million, but after negotiations, the figure increased to $100 million, in addition to half of future profits and 15 percent of the company's stock. Bob Pittman
Robert W. Pittman
Robert Warren "Bob" Pittman , is an American businessman and the founder of MTV. On October 2, 2011, Pittman was named CEO of Clear Channel Media Holdings, Inc.. Pittman has also been the CEO of MTV Networks, AOL, Six Flags Theme Parks, Quantum Media, Century 21 Real Estate and Time Warner...

, president of AOL, compared Borislow to Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...

 for his vision and marketing abilities, but later called him an "asshole." In December of that year, Borislow was behind the merger of Tel-Save and STF, a similar company that provided telecommunications services to office buildings.

At its peak in early 1998, Tel-Save had sales of $300 million and was valued by Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

 investors at $2 billion. His personal stock in the company was $500 million. Borislow's America Online deal was the catalyst for other "portal deals" with AOL. The company's fortunes turned due to the financial strain of the AOL deal, and following an annual loss of $221 million in 1998, he resigned as CEO of the company on January 1, 1999. Gabriel Battista was named CEO in his absence. Tel-Save is now known as Talk America.

magicJack

In 2005, after retiring from business to focus on his horse racing career, Borislow set forth plans for a new voice-over-IP business, with an initial name of Talk4free. He created YMAX Communications Corporation in April 2006 as a communications and equipment service. YMAX's profits come from the production of the magicJack
MagicJack
MagicJack is a device that plugs into a USB port on the user's computer and that has a standard RJ-11 phone jack into which any standard phone can be plugged. This allows the user to make phone calls to almost any phone in the U.S...

, a small device which can be plugged into a computer's USB port and allows for unlimited calling from regular telephones. Although Borislow invented the product in 2007 and has applied for patents from the U.S. government, he is not the CEO, deferring the job to Donald Burns, former CEO of Telco Communication Group. Borislow and Burns shared the payment of $25 million to start up the company.

Before Borislow launched a widespread television campaign in January 2008, the company sold less than 1,000 magicJacks per day. By June, he was selling 8,000-9,000 per day and had roughly 500,000 subscribers in total. Borislow attributes its success to its pricing, at $40 in the first year of service and $20 each year thereafter. Although its voice quality has been criticized, Ted Kritsonis of The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...

 said the "MagicJack was still better than most cell phones I've tried."

In 2009, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum
Bill McCollum
Ira William "Bill" McCollum, Jr. is a former Florida Attorney General. A Republican, he was Florida's 36th attorney general, taking office in 2007...

 investigated a claim that Borislow falsely marketed the magicJack as having a free 30-day trial of the product. In reality, the customer must specifically cancel the trial prior to the 30-day mark, otherwise the credit card would be automatically billed. While Borislow maintained that his company's actions were not illegal, he reached a settlement on April 15, agreeing to pay the state of Florida $125,000 for the cost of the investigation. He said the company resolved over 500 complaints and added a disclaimer on the website clarifying the misconception.

VocalTec, an Israeli telephone company, acquired YMAX in July 2010. Since Borislow and other YMAX businessmen contributed most of the equity, they essentially run the merged business, which kept the "YMAX" moniker. VocalTec was a publicly traded company, so YMAX went on Nasdaq
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 following the merger. In 2010, YMAX had a market capitalization
Market capitalization
Market capitalization is a measurement of the value of the ownership interest that shareholders hold in a business enterprise. It is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a publicly traded company...

 of $300 million and is expected to make $110 million to $125 million in sales.

Horse racing career

After watching horse races at Philadelphia Park for some time, Borislow decided to go into the business in 1991. He frequently wagered on trainer John Scanlan's horses, so he requested Scanlan to be the conditioner for his horses. Among Borislow's first acquisitions was broodmare Beautiful Bid, who gave birth to Breeders' Cup
Breeders' Cup
The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Thoroughbred horse races, most but not all Grade I, operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982. From its inception in 1984 through 2006, it was a single-day event; starting in 2007, it expanded to two days. The location...

 Distaff winner and Eclipse champion Beautiful Pleasure. In 2000, he sold Beautiful Bid for $2.6 million.

Borislow bought a $1.8 million yearling
Yearling (horse)
A yearling is a young horse of either sex that is between one and two years old. Yearlings are comparable in development to a very early adolescent, they are not fully mature physically, and while they may be in the earliest stages of sexual maturity, they are considered too young to be breeding...

 in September 1999 that he would name Talk Is Money. The thoroughbred
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...

 was named after Tel-Save, with Borislow saying, "Every time someone was talking on the phone, I made money." Talk Is Money's best finish came at the Tesio Stakes in April 2001, where the horse placed second. This qualified it for the 2001 Kentucky Derby
2001 Kentucky Derby
The 2001 Kentucky Derby was the 127th running of the Kentucky Derby. The race took place on May 5, 2001. There was a crowd of 154,210 in attendance. The 127th Kentucky Derby was the first to be broadcast on NBC, garnering a Nielsen rating of 8.1...

, and Borislow hired jockey Jerry Bailey
Jerry Bailey
Jerry D. Bailey is a retired American Hall of Fame jockey. He began his racing career in November 1974. His first mount was on a horse named Pegged Rate, who ran off the board. He notched his first career win the next day on his second career mount, Fetch, at New Mexico's Sunland Park, and has...

, who won the 2000 Kentucky Derby
2000 Kentucky Derby
The 2000 Kentucky Derby was the 126th running of the Kentucky Derby. The race took place on May 6, 2000. There were 153,204 in attendance. The winning horse Fusaichi Pegasus was the first betting favorite to win the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979....

 with Macho Uno
Macho Uno
Macho Uno is an American Thoroughbred racehorse. He was sired by the 1994 American Horse of the Year and U.S...

. At 47-1 odds, Talk Is Money came in last in the Derby and did not finish the race.

Borislow's most successful horse yet has been Toccet, who won four graded stakes, among which are the Champagne and Hollywood Futurity
Hollywood Futurity
The Hollywood Futurity is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually since 1981 at Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood, California. The Grade I race is open to two-year-old horses and run over a distance of 1 1/16 miles...

 in 2002. Toccet's name is a misspelled tribute to former National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

 (NHL) player Rick Tocchet
Rick Tocchet
Richard Tocchet is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey right winger who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Los Angeles Kings, Boston Bruins, Washington Capitals and Phoenix Coyotes. He was most recently the head coach of the...

. Toccet was named runner-up to Vindication
Vindication (horse)
Vindication was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse. Bred by Payson Stud Inc., he was sired by 1977 U.S. Triple Crown Champion Seattle Slew...

 for the American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt in 2002, a part of the Eclipse Award
Eclipse Award
The Eclipse Award is an American thoroughbred horse racing award named after the 18th century British racehorse and sire, Eclipse. The Eclipse Awards, honoring the champions of the sport, are sponsored by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association , Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers...

. Once a favorite to enter the 2003 Kentucky Derby
2003 Kentucky Derby
The 2003 Kentucky Derby was the 129th running of the Kentucky Derby. The race took place on May 3, 2003, and there were 148,530 in attendance.- Payout :The 129th Kentucky Derby Payout Schedule* $2 Exacta: Paid $97.00...

, ankle injuries early in the year derailed the horse's career. It only won one listed stakes after its juvenile
Juvenile (organism)
A juvenile is an individual organism that has not yet reached its adult form, sexual maturity or size. Juveniles sometimes look very different from the adult form, particularly in terms of their colour...

 season, out of 15 starts, and now stands at Castleton Lyons
Castleton Lyons
Castleton Lyons near Lexington, Kentucky, is an American horse racing stable and breeding business best known by the name Castleton Farm....

.

After a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...

, Borislow sold a majority of his horses at the Fasig Tipton November sale in 2004. In February 2005, he was in a partnership with baseball manager Joe Torre
Joe Torre
Joseph Paul Torre is a former American professional baseball player and manager who currently serves as Major League Baseball’s Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations. A nine-time All-Star, he played in Major League Baseball as a catcher, first baseman and a third baseman for the...

 and hockey player Keith Jones to buy Wild Desert. In June of that year, Wild Desert won the Queens Plate off a layoff of over 10 weeks.

Women's Professional Soccer

In 2011, Borislow bought Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer is the top level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded 6 teams for the 2011 season, with continued plans for future expansion...

 franchise Washington Freedom
Washington Freedom
The Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Germantown, Maryland that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was originally founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's United Soccer Association. Since 2004, the...

, moved it to South Florida, and renamed it magicJack
MagicJack (WPS)
MagicJack was an American professional soccer club based in Boca Raton, Florida. The team competed in Women's Professional Soccer. MagicJack was originally founded in 2001 as the Washington Freedom of the defunct Women's United Soccer Association. In 2011, the team relocated to Boca Raton, Florida...

. Borislow faced criticism for not creating a team web site, doing nothing to market the team in preseason, and playing in a stadium that has a capacity of only 1,500 — less than the U.S. Soccer
United States Soccer Federation
The United States Soccer Federation is the official governing body of the sport of soccer in the United States. Its headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois. It is a member of FIFA and is responsible for governing amateur and professional soccer, including the men's, women's, youth, futsal...

-mandated minimum of 5,000. Additionally, magicJack players and the WPS players union filed a grievance with the league for violations of the Standard Player Contract Provision, the FIFA Code of Ethics, WPS Media Policy and U.S. Soccer Federation Coaching Requirements.

As a response to ongoing conflicts with Borislow, in June WPS moved to exercise its right to terminate his franchise at the end of the season for breach of contractual obligations. Borislow subsequently filed an injunction that would force the league into arbitration rather than settling the matter with the league’s Board of Governors. The team was disbanded on October 28th, 2011.

Philanthropy

D&K Charitable Foundation was established by Borislow in 1997 with a $21 million stock donation. In the first two years, he tried to use the charity to buy and preserve a tract of land in New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, formerly known as Coryell's Ferry, is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 2,528 at the 2010 census. The borough lies on the west bank of the Delaware River at its confluence with Aquetong Creek. A two-lane bridge carries automobile and foot traffic across the...

. This venture failed in 1998 when the property owner declined Borislow's offer. Following this, D&K made donations to the Clearwater Endoscopy Center and the Center for Digestive Healthcare in Clearwater, Florida
Clearwater, Florida
Clearwater is a city located in Pinellas County, Florida, US, nearly due west of Tampa and northwest of St. Petersburg. In the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and in the east lies Tampa Bay. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 108,787. It is the county seat of...

 until 2001. Since then, it has issued varied grants to causes Borislow supported, such as $2.75 million to two yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

s and $173,450 to a West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and is the most populous city in and county seat of Palm Beach County, the third most populous county in Florida with a 2010 population of 1,320,134. The city is also the oldest incorporated municipality in South Florida...

 private school. Tax records indicate that Borislow and George Farley, the chief financial officer
Chief financial officer
The chief financial officer or Chief financial and operating officer is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management...

 of the non-profit, split approximately $2.1 million in profits from 2001-2005, while $1.6 million went to charitable causes. Borislow drew criticism in 2007 when he paid himself $1.7 million through the charity.

Personal life

Borislow lives with his wife, Michelle, and two children, Danny and Kylie, in Palm Beach County, Florida
Palm Beach County, Florida
Palm Beach County is the largest county in the state of Florida in total area, and third in population. As of 2010, the county's estimated population was 1,320,134, making it the twenty-eighth most populous in the United States...

. The Borislows own two dogs, Magic and Jack. Kylie is the center midfielder on the magicJack Hot Shots, a youth soccer team coached by her father and composed of 10 to 12-year-old girls. They went undefeated in the 2008 Gothia World Cup in Denmark.

In November 2005, he sold a property in Brigantine, New Jersey
Brigantine, New Jersey
Brigantine is an island city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 9,450....

 for $925,000. he still maintains a home in Brigantine, NJ. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, watching sports, and deep sea fishing. Borislow's yacht, dubbed The Triple Crown, has three bedrooms, nine flat screen televisions, and golden fixtures.

External links

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