Not sure how many of you heard this story that went down a little over a week ago, but I don’t think it got enough press for how ridiculous it was. The link to the story can be found here. Basically, the Utah Flash, an NBA-D League team promoted a one on one basketball game between Byron Russell and his Airness, Michael Jordan. Flash owner, Brandt Anderson, started a huge viral marketing campaign around town promoting the fact that Michael Jordan would indeed be in the house for that evening’s game to take on Russell at halftime. As you would expect, the game quickly sold out, and as you would also expect Jordan never showed and never planned to show. I mean, Jordan "Big Leagued" Charlie Sheen in that Hanes Commercial, you really think he's going to Utah to take on Byron Russell?
Being in the minor league sports business, I can almost sympathize with Anderson for trying this stunt, almost. In today’s economy it’s tough to get fans out to your ballpark, arena, rink, whatever your venue may be especially to see a product as crappy as the NBA-D League. Does anyone even go to NBA games anymore unless someone named Lebron, Kobe, or Wade is on the floor?
The only positive I can see coming out of this story is that they get the free press from me blogging about it. I mean there are seven of you that follow Offensive Coordination, most of which probably never heard of the Utah Flash until now. However, in my professional opinion, national press doesn’t do much good for a minor league team. I don’t see myself catching a flight to Utah to check out a Flash game (Mormons frighten me) and I sure as hell wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this.
But let’s be real, think about the long term repercussions of telling a blatant lie to your fan base. Then again, I can only imagine just how big the fan base is for an NBA-DL squad is. It’s pretty clear that the fans of this Orem Utah team aren’t too quick anyway if they really thought one of the largest sports stars ever was going to show to their litte town to play an NBA has been one on one. But don’t worry, upset fans could use their tickets for any other remaining home game and just their luck there’s a big game coming up in January against the Reno Bighorns.
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I actually did read that article. The best part was that he hired someone and an entourage to go around town so it appeared that it was Jordan. As much as a d-bag as the owner is, the fans are even bigger d-bags for actually believing that that would happen in their small rinky dink town.
ReplyDelete"However, in my professional opinion, national press doesn’t do much good for a minor league team."
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. A local hockey team did weekly spots on the Colbert Report a couple of years back and named its mini-mascot after him. Was kinda cool to see them on TV, but probably sold somewhere around ZERO tickets for them and did absolutely nothing for them today.