Not So Consistent "Cameron Crazies"

Cameron Indoor Stadium is a great place to watch a ball game, right? And Dukies are the best fans in the country, no? Well, that’s what all the experts say:

“It is a completely fun, hot, loud and wonderful place to watch a game, or, most likely, a Duke victory.” – Dan Wetzel, SportsLine.com

“The student crowd, known as the ‘Cameron Crazies’, are mind blowing with their well-embedded actions and chants for all 40 minutes of the game.” – Bob Johnson, EzineArticles

Then explain why the university has set up a new reservation system to encourage fans to come to games. It sure isn’t because they don’t have a winner in Raleigh-Durham – the Blue Devils make a run deep into the NCAA Tournament almost every year.

Last year’s 22-11 finish was a marked disappointment for spoiled Blue Devils fans. The “poor” performance resulted in playing more than half of their home games in front of empty seats in student sections.

While the “Crazies” set up tents to guarantee front row seats for critical ACC showdowns, several games each season are sparsely attended by the home faithful – a fact that Duke senior line monitor Roberto Bazzani considers “pathetic.”

“I get letters from people saying, ‘How can I get in?’ I said, ‘Well, just come,’” legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski told ESPN.

1,200 out of the university’s 6,200 undergraduates can attend games for free. I would think students would be rearing to go after watching their atrocious football squad in the fall (1-10 so far this season).

The system allows students to reserve seats online three days before most games. As long as they show up an hour before game time, the students’ seats are reserved.

I can’t imagine the Duke Administration thought it would come to this. When you think about a college basketball national powerhouse and a historical arena, it doesn’t take long for the “Cameron Experience” to come to mind.

Somebody in the school’s PR department has worked overtime to ensure that people only hear about the good times at Duke – and this storied program has had plenty of them.

Of course, writers and TV audiences only see games like the North Carolina-Duke blockbusters that define this classic venue, anyway.

Oden Giveth and Taketh Away

Now let me get this straight. The Portland Trail Blazers announced a new regional sports network, Comcast SportsNet Northwest, the day before it backed into the first pick in the 2007 NBA draft? Did Blazer management know something about those magic ping pong balls that the rest of the world didn’t?

Give credit to the Blazers for organizing this regional network before franchise-changing Greg Oden fell into their laps. The station provides much-needed consistency to basketball coverage of a team whose seeds have already shown signs of sprouting into a champion at the Rose Garden.

Unfortunately, the extraordinary promotional boost afforded by the college game’s premier prospect will have to wait until next year. Two and a half months after the Blazers made Oden the first pick, the 7-foot stud from Ohio State underwent exploratory knee surgery that ended his rookie campaign before it started.

Second-year starters Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge and a host of other 20-somethings (the entire roster except 31-year-old Raef Lafrentz) showed Blazer management enough promise to showcase their talents regionally on a consistent basis. And executives have been rewarded with a 3-3 start, including a 91-82 win Saturday over the Dallas Mavericks, owners of the league’s best record a season ago.

After following the channel’s content for a number of weeks, it’s clear that the Blazers don’t just headline the programming, they are the programming. Between at least 55 regular season games and expanded pre-game and post-game analysis, Blazer fans can be there for every step of their team’s projected resurgence onto the NBA map.

"We are thrilled to partner with Comcast SportsNet and feel that sports fans in Portland and throughout the Northwest are going to be the true winners," said Trail Blazers Executive Vice President of Business Operations Mike Golub.

He’s right. Blazer fans, who haven’t witnessed a winning season since the end of the franchise’s glory days in 2003, win – and they win big.

But the organization wins on hype alone. Fans are desperate for a winner and team officials know it. The Blazers hired Comcast executive vice president of sports programming and Golf Channel CEO Dave Manougian to oversee the launch. With an unprecedented amount of Blazer games and related programming, including a 200% increase in HDTV, Manougian and his staff have plenty to work with.

And that’s not including Oden - yet.

Ellsbury Steals a Base, America Steals a Taco, Taco Bell Steals America’s Money

Talk about can’t-miss marketing. In last week’s World Series, Taco Bell sponsored a contest where everyone in America would win a free taco if a player stole a base during the series. One stolen base? Baseball-Reference.com and a little math establish that there were more stolen bases (2,918) than games (2,431) all season, at a rate of 1.2 steals per game. One steal in a 4-7 game series is a virtual lock.

Former Oregon State College World Series Champion and Boston Red Sox rookie Jacoby Ellsbury delivered the inevitable with a nondescript Game 2 swipe without a throw in the fourth inning. It was clearly a matter of when, not if, the taco tycoon’s marketing scheme would take effect.

After last year’s contest required a left field home run that never came, executives made it clear they wanted this promotion as much as fans. When FOX play-by-play commentator Joe Buck made the announcement, many of the roughly 12 million viewers (average audience during series according to Nielsen ratings) ran for their calendars. At least, that’s what happened among my friends.

There was no mistaking that the contest was going on. FOX even cut to Red Sox reserve player Royce Clayton, whose microphone might as well have been sponsored by Taco Bell, on multiple occasions as he spread the word about the corporation’s “gift to America” throughout the dugout and across the country.

Many fans must mistakenly assume that Taco Bell suffered millions for the exposure. But the freebies were only offered from 2-5 p.m. on a random Tuesday and don’t cost nearly the $0.79 you pay on any other day. Perhaps the only Taco Bell products with higher margins are the soft drinks people needed to wash down their free tacos.

In an interview with on-field reporter Chris Myers, Taco Bell COO Rob Savage offered this gem: “The fact that Jacoby stole that base means no matter who you’re a fan of, everybody gets a free taco . . . It’s all for our customers. We want to do it for our customers, and we’re ready to serve millions of free tacos to everybody next Tuesday – every one of them made fresh for you.”

I’m not the only one talking about running for the border. According to the Nielsen BuzzMetrics BlogPulse, blog posts including the phrase “Taco Bell” have nearly doubled to .06% since the announcement of the promotion.

So what’s the verdict on this one: good marketing or annoying sales ploy? Between the television publicity, minimal costs and Internet exposure, what’s not to like? The probability of Taco Bell’s promotional benefits outweighing the costs is like the chance of a stolen base in the World Series.

Watch all the free taco madness.

The Face of a Franchise

Is this actually a logo for a professional sports organization in the year 2007? Frankly, if it weren't for my love affair with Major League Baseball and I hadn't seen this image thousands of times, I would find it absurd. I would react the same way to learning about MLB’s Cleveland Indians, the NFL’s Washington Redskins and the Atlanta Braves’ infamous tomahawk chop.

Some might fault tradition, offering that Native American nicknames and logos have been around for decades. But do you really see the potential for the New York Jews or the Anaheim Ragin’ Asians? Potentially racist and demeaning nicknames and logos wouldn’t even make the brainstorming session for upstart teams. If it wouldn’t be accepted now, why can’t past lapses in judgment be eradicated?

Consider an international professional sports organization poking fun at American culture. Yeah, that would be the one that outspends every other team, recruits the best athletes from all parts of the world and has “Mel the Cell Phone” as its mascot.

PR pros may argue that it’s simply unfair to require drastic organizational changes that affect merchandizing. Fans spend millions of dollars on products linked to these specific representations of their favorite teams.

But the greed of professional sports shrinks this argument, says David Hoffman. Unprofitable franchises move frequently before settling in big money markets. Numerous examples of nickname changing can even be found within the past decade. In fact, ironically the Washington D.C. area basketball and baseball franchises have undergone this change (Washington Bullets to Wizards and Expos to Nationals), while the Redskins remain.

We’ve all heard the excuse that Native American tribes enjoy the awareness brought by realistic displays of their cultures on the playing field. But who’s to say when a mascot or logo effectively represents indigenous culture?

Take the case of the University of Illinois Illini, whose Chief Illiniwek mascot is described as Illinois’ most visible representation of its Native heritage. A simple trip to America’s trusted friend Wikipedia reveals that the NCAA deemed Chief Illiniwek “hostile and abusive” before banning the university from hosting postseason activities so long as it used the mascot (Illinois retired the chief in February 2007).

The Cleveland Indians’ recent run in the MLB Playoffs even offers a public relations excuse to effect change. Any time a Native American-affiliated team succeeds on the field, its racist portrayal of culture is spotlighted. The short-term challenges posed by changing insensitive nicknames and logos are favorable to perpetual scrutiny and public outcries looming over on-field success.

By the way, 15 minutes after writing this I flipped on ABC’s new show “Cavemen,” and one of the characters became a substitute teacher at a school where the mascot was a stereotypical caveman. And no, he wasn’t happy about it, either.