A Different Game

By Eddie

@KingJames: Now or Never!!

10 letters was all it took to send the media into a frenzied storm on the eve of game 5 in the NBA playoffs this past week. The words were not uttered at a presser, during a shoot around or even in a one on one interview, they were delivered via the increasingly popular platform of Twitter. While many will argue that Twitter is a curse that will eventually be the downfall of many, see Rep. Weiner, it has shown an undeniable ability to shift and control the momentum of stories surrounding sports.

The previous tweet from Maurice Jones-Drew was one of a series of tweets by NFL players that lead to a media onslaught of Jay Cutler following Chicago’s demise in the NFC Championship game. Instead of asking him and his fellow teammates what happened to his knee and looking for a reasonable explanation, the media immediately began looking for a weakness in his character and comments on his leadership. These story lines continued, regardless of the fact that all of his teammates stood steadfastly by his side and rebuked all notions that Cutler had quit on the team or taken the easy road out. We soon came to find out that Cutler had taken two separate Cortizone shots in his knee at halftime and eventually learned that he had torn his MCL. However, none of that mattered after the game because Twitter has already started the media in a completely opposite direction.

As we move forward technology will only continue to influence and change the way we watch, observe and comment on sport. We can only hope that the general media will learn to temper their reactions to things like Facebook and Twitter – and begin taking them for what they are most of the time: 140 characters of off the cuff emotions. Instead of reacting like every tweet is a steadfast opinion to be denounce, analyzed and scrutinized from every angle.

The NBA Finals are over and I’ve almost forgotten already who won. Okay, not quite. But give me 6 months and I’ll have to think long and hard about who won. Give it a try yourself: can you remember who won the last World Cup, Stanley Cup, World Series, and Superbowl? Let’s go even deeper: who won the last Masters, Australian Open, and Olympic decathlon?

It’s interesting how the small detail of who actually won often doesn’t stick. Sports marketers are well aware of that.

Instead of hitting us with statistics, history, and text, they put unforgettable images in front of us. Think of Larry Bird and Michael Jordan shooting from the rafters in the famous McDonald’s H-O-R-S-E ad. Does anyone remember who was playing in the Superbowl when that ad debuted?

Sitting in Chicago, I’m biased no doubt, but one thing I’ll remember for a long time is the adidas Derrick Rose commercial. The images of Rose in Chicago, with a kind of haunting soundtrack playing behind L trains, a barber shop, and the playground where he played growing up are hard to forget. The raw, grainy footage makes it hit home in an emotional way — one that’s hard to forget.

Shaq retired today. His swan song: a spectacular, simple, user generated video to say bye bye.

There have been a zillion superlatives used to describe Lionel Messi in the run up to tomorrow’s Champions League final. Among others, I’ve seen “visionary,” “magician,” “phenomenon.”

But I haven’t seen this one: “marketing genius.” I’ll be the first to say it. Leo Messi is a marketing genius.

I was waiting for a meeting today, thumbing through Facebook on my iPhone when I saw the post above. Messi took a couple pictures of his special Champions League Final boots. Could anything be more straightforward and simple? Pull out the phone, snap a pic and post it. With the greatest of ease, he gives his millions of followers a taste of the inside story — exactly what they yearn for.

The result: 180,000+ likes and 24,000+ comments.

A simple picture proves to be an awesome way to engage hundreds of thousands of fans.

The New York Times featured a great video on the history of the crossover dribble. It works on so many levels.

It’s an easy topic to overlook. To be able to go into such depth for something seemingly so simple is an impressive feat. It also incorporates players from across the ages — Allen Iverson, Tim Hardaway, and Dwayne Wade. It’s so awesome to see Tim Hardaway again, let alone Michael Jordan — getting smoked for once. There are also secondary characters who we’ve never heard of before but are important players in this story.

Finally, the simplicity of the filming and editing — so utterly and refreshingly devoid of the annoying pretensions and graphics that everyone (particularly ESPN) thinks are the essence of interesting content. A video doesn’t have to have a zillion special effects and shiny bells and whistles to be powerful. Something as simple as a close-up of Allen Iverson is enough to be captivating.

What could possibly be simpler? How about doing it in black and white? They thought of that too.

from @jack_wilshere, arsenal fc:

Everybody follow @mostlytoasties my friends new toastie company! They are good…..trust me!

1. What’s a toasty?
2. Nice to launch a toasty business if Jack Wilshere (with his 500K followers is one of your friends.)

I  wish I could say that headline was mine. It’s actually from a ridiculous SoccerAmerica article detailing the life and times of magicJack. Wait, what? Why is SoccerAmerica writing about the Shake Weight of voice over IP?

It turns out that the iconoclastic founder of magicJack bought the Washington Freedom of the women’s professional soccer league, moved them down to Florida, and changed their name to be the same as the widget he sells. But wait! There’s more! magicJack has no website, no stadium, not even stands. Yes, if you want to watch Abby Wambach and the best female soccer players of their generation, you need to bring a lawn chair. Shocking.

WPS’s downward spiral has been painful to watch. Last year, the team that won the league went out of business a few weeks later. Why has it come to this?

Fingers can be pointed in a zillion directions, but here’s where I’m going to point mine:

1. The league was a startup, but they tried to run it like the NBA. Startups have limited resources. WPS teams had limited resources. Yet their spending habits were lavish. They rented, but never filled, premier stadiums. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ill-conceived websites. They spent oodles of cash on things they couldn’t afford instead of spending small amounts here and there to figure out what would put tens of thousands of butts in the seats and sell merchandise. The giant inferiority complex that “this is a professional sports league, it has to be glamorous like the NBA” is like a startup trying to offer the same number of products as Amazon on Day 1. Fail.

2. They never recognized their most valuable asset. Think back to the glorious summer of 1999 and the millions of girls screaming, “Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiia!!!!” Women’s soccer has always been about a connection between fans and players. Mia, Julie, Brandy, and Kristine were people we could connect with. Their humanity is what made them so compelling. The WPS completely missed that — putting players at arms length from their fans. Again, it seems, driven by the insecurity that “This is a pro sports team. Our players don’t have to get down in the dirt.”

The best thing WPS could have done is given each player two titles: Player and Marketing Associate. They’d come to practice in the morning and do marketing in the afternoon. Marketing assignments would consist of low-cost tests to see what resonated with people. A group of Chicago Red Stars players might descend on Michigan Avenue and do a juggling demonstration for shoppers on Sunday afternoon, Abby Wambach might have “Ice Cream with Abby” every Thursday after school at Baskin Robbins, and so on. Cost: $0. Potential return: who knows. It could be high, it could be low. Either way, the risk would be minimal.

Most importantly, the league would be built around the relationships fans had with the players. That would put butts in the seats.