Category Archives: Sports

More NBA Image Problems

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Sports

Ok, if you are the NBA, how do you address this PR nightmare?  You already have an NBA official who has admitted to taking money to throw games.  Now this official is naming other refs and other games that have been fixed – playoff games at that.

Anyone who has ever watched an NBA Playoff game has walked away wondering, "There were some weird calls in that game…"  In fact, I believe Mark Cuban even hired his own stats guys to chart how refs called games, and which ones were more inconsistent than others.

Contrary to opinion, it really would be easy to fix a game.  Consider that each team has the ball about two times per minute.  And you figure almost every player touches the ball at least once per possession.  And maybe 1/2 the touches result in some sort of light contact from the defender.  A couple of quick innocuous foul calls in the 1st quarter put a player on the bench.  A couple more in the second half keep him on the bench.  And most teams can’t compete when they have a starter on the bench all game.

But the question is, how does the NBA respond?  Do you believe the guy who admitted to being guilty?  Or do you believe the guy who is moving a basketball team from Seattle to Oklahoma City for what he says is in the "best interest of the league."   Who really has more to lose at this point? One guy who has no hope at ever getting his job back is trying to cut down the number of years he’ll be in jail.  The other guy is trying to maintain the image and value of his billion dollar enterprise.  Who do you think would be more willing to stretch the truth to protect their interests?

And just a side note – is there a coincidence that this allegation comes as the Lakers play the Celtics, a revival of when the NBA was great, and a chance to showcase the NBA’s heir apparent to Michael Jordan and coach of the century.  Plus, many people wonder how a GM who was vilified by press and fans for being inept, managed to get Kevin Garnett from his buddy Kevin McHale and Ray Allen from an owner who wanted to move his team to Oklahoma City.   Did the league orchestrate the move to bring power back to Boston?  Maybe that’s the next revelation….

Watch Great Soccer – Support Seattle’s All Nations Cup

Posted by Andy Boyer in Personal, Seattle, Sports

2008%20ANC%20Poster%20Final%20Web.jpgIf you have not booked out every  Saturday or Sunday for the next 3 weeks, try to book some time to check out the All Nations Cup 2008. This is truly one of the most unique events in Seattle, and a great example of what makes the city a pretty cool place to live.

The All Nations Cup is an amateur soccer tournament where every player competes for their home country.  It’s like the World Cup, but for amateurs.  (This weekend’s schedule here.)

I’ve been sporadically over the last few years, and the soccer is always of high quality.  But the real fun is seeing the fans.  You have these small communities of people from Ethiopia, Bosnia, Gambia, etc….There may only be a few hundred in the whole city, but most of them come out to support this group of amateur players.  Everyone has their flags, songs, drums, etc…

All games are at Starfire down in Tukwila and it’s like $10 or $15 or something per day.   With 4 games going on at once, you can shift from field to field and see some pretty strong players.

If you get down there, let me know. 

Sounders Show Off New Microsoft Uniforms

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Media, Seattle, Sports

sounders.jpgThere will be no jokes about the Sounders having to restart the game every 30 minutes to reboot.  Nor will anyone talk about them having a bloated team of 476 players.  And certainly no one will complain that every MLS team must have 10 players from the Sounders roster included with every installation.

No, we won’t make those jokes because despite getting Microsoft money, the Sounders now have the coolest sponsor in the MLS and the best uniforms in the league.

In fact, I may go as far as to say that the MLS has the coolest sponsor in all of Professional soccer, with the announcement of Xbox 360 deciding to be the face (or chest as it were) of Seattle soccer.

Think about the great teams in Euro soccer and then think about their sponsors:

  • Manchester United: AIG Insurance (On a scale of 1 to 100, they score 130 on the boring meter)
  • Arsenal: Emirates Air (borrrrring)
  • Chelsea: Samsung (boring, but at least they are technology)
  • RealMadrid:  BenQ Siemens (more technology, but from Taiwan)
  • Bayern Munich: T-Mobile (yawn)
  • Inter Milan: Pirelli Tires (ok, that’s pretty cool I guess.)
  • AC Milan: Bwin.com (online betting is pretty cool too I suppose)

But until I see Sony, Gucci, Rolex, Ferrari, Gulfstream, Prada, or BMW on the front of a jersey, I’ll take Xbox 360 as the coolest sponsor in soccer.  (How does Apple not get that they need to do this…) 

Even better, the sponsorship and company are here in Seattle.  And tell me it’s not a great looking jersey.  Just tell me how to order and I’m in.

(This photo was taken by Courtney Blethen of the Seattle Times, and I grabbed it from this article. Seattle Times: If you need me to take it down, please just let me know.)   

Monday Night MLS Soccer

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Marketing, Media, Personal, Sports

Dear MLS,

I must admit, I’ve been trying to get excited about watching your games this year in anticipation of Seattle’s entrance to the league next year.  But I’m having a hard time tracking you down on the TV dial.  Also, it seems like your games are generally on in the middle of weekend afternoons, and frankly, there’s just too much other stuff to do.

May I offer a quick suggestion that would fit better with my schedule?

Monday Night Soccer.  Remember the old days of Monday Night Baseball?  Think back before ESPN, when the only ways to watch baseball were Saturday’s Game of the Week with Kubek and Gariagiola, and then MNB with guys like Cosell. Drysdale and Michaels.

Here’s why this works.

  1. Monday is a travel day for most basbeall teams, which leaves sports fans with not much to watch.
  2. You can start every game at the same time.  You only have 14 teams so it shouldn’t be hard to build a schedule to get everyone within a timze zone of each other so that all the games kickoff at 6:15pm PST for West Coast Days and 5:15pm PST on days when they play on the East Coast.  If you start 7 games at the same time, and lets say there’s 1.5 goals per game, then you are showing goal highlights  from other games every 9 or 10 minutes.  Every American can appreciate goals being scored at that pace.
  3. Here’s your opportunity to build some personalities into your broadcasts.  I’m sure we all appreciate that the guys who used to play U.S. soccer need jobs now, but you have a sport with a lot of dead time.  Where is soccer’s Howard Cosell?  Bring me someone who can spin tales for 90 minutes.  He should be able to quote from TMZ, Perez Hilton, the London Times and LeMonde in successive sentences.   There would be no better place to have a real "character" to promote the games into living rooms.
  4. Monday is a huge day for adult soccer leagues, and these teams go to bars after games.  Make sure your TV broadcast partner replays the broadcast, so guys who get done playing soccer can sit around watching MLS highlights rather than home runs. ESPN 2 should have no problem with this.

Monday Night Soccer.  Excuse the mixed metaphor, but this is a slam dunk.

“My Next Request, All Oklahomans Born in 2009 are to be Named Clay”

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Politics, Sports

No matter how scummy Clay Bennett has been to Seattle, there was a tiny sliver of me that thought, "He’s just an Oklahoma guy who wants to bring the NBA to his hometown.  At least he’s a liar who has a constituency in mind."

Well check out this article from NewsOk.com.  Apparently, Bennett is now holding Oklahoma hostage as well, demanding tax refunds on payroll taxes, or he isn’t bringing the team. 

" Lobbyists schmoozed lawmakers at the state Capitol and some received telephone calls and e-mails from Sonics owner Clay Bennett and other representatives of the ownership team a day before the state House is scheduled to consider final passage of legislation that will give the team a rebate on a portion of payroll taxes it will pay if it relocates.

Rep. Charlie Joyner, R-Midwest City, who also voted against the bill, said he received an e-mail from Bennett that said the team might not come to Oklahoma City unless the House passes the tax incentive. "I just don’t think this thing has been handled right. That’s kind of holding legislators hostage," Joyner said."

Read the whole article.  Amazing nerve. 

Kobe’s Big Jump

Posted by Andy Boyer in Personal, Sports

Ok, you are Kobe Bryant, And until you lead your team to an NBA Title without Shaq Diesel leading the way, what else do you really have to prove? Well, maybe you can try to jump over a moving car. I can’t tell if this is real or fake. Common sense says no one would risk their career for a YouTube stunt, but then, Kobe is no common guy. So, you tell me…

An Email from Mark Cuban to David Stern

Posted by Andy Boyer in Creative Writing, Personal, Seattle, Sports

So, here’s the email I’d love to see from Mark Cuban to David Stern…..

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: WTF?

David:

Hey long time no talk.  I really miss our meetings in New York where we talk fines.  It’s my fault – I’ve been busy with the kid and all.  Hopefully I’ll be more feisty in 2009 and get to see you a little more.  

But anyway, quick question for you.  We’re in the middle of the most fascinating "End of season" in NBA History, at least in the West.  We could have NINE 50-win teams out here this year.  It should be the golden age of NBA Basketball West of the Mississippi River.  But when I opened ESPN.com this morning, the lead NBA Story was "E-mails suggest Sonics were thinking OKC in ’07."

Now, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but………………….. WTF?!?!?!? 

Ok, look, I know Clay Bennett is an oil guy and oil is like $2000 a barrel right now.  And I can’t disagree that having some oil money would be good for the league.  Look how well it worked for the English Premier League when they got that Russian Oil Baron, Abromovich.  Now Chelsea’s payroll makes the Yankees look like the Devil Rays.  Win-win all around, except for all the former KGB agents walking around Stamford Bridge these days and that goofy radiation murder.

But I digress.

I need to have a heart-to-heart with you about part of this whole Sonics hijacking.  I mean, let’s look at this on its surface.

  • We lose market #12 for market #50
  • We leave the entire Pacific NW to Portland
  • Our Northwest Division now has a team whose natural rival is Dallas.
  • We could be embroiled in a 3 year lame duck situation, where attendance falls to 254 people a game.
  • We gut a team with a 41 year tradition.
  • We have to induct Gary Payton into the Hall of Fame in a Miami Heat jersey.

I could go on and on. But I think you get the point.

EXCEPT……….this whole thing now has you in an awkward situation.  You see, dear Mr. Bennett has forced you into a corner.  I read all of those emails the Seattle Times and  ESPN published.  Not pretty.

So, from what I gather, one of two things happened: 

1) Clay-Clay and you have some kind of buddy-buddy thing going on, where you and he basically lie through your teeth all day long.  Which makes of you guys both liars, and I’m not sure how I feel about paying big fines to a liar.  Plus, you would be willingly letting a dishonest ownership group into our little clique.  I’m not sure how I feel about guys with more money than me looking for ways to screw me over.  Especially when they are under the watch of another guy who wants to screw me over.

2) OR – Clay-Clay lied to you about this whole Seattle stadium situation.  I know from experience, you don’t screw with King David.  So, I would expect you to fine or punish Clay-Clay the same way you would if any of us tried to pull something.  I mean, you went ballistic over the Kevin McHale / Joe Smith deal, and he was lying to make his team BETTER (at least he thought he was.)  If Clay-Clay really lied to you, well, you better nail him to the wall, because there are 31 other sneaky owners in this league, and we can smell weakness.  Wait till my spin machine gets going if I find out lying to David Stern is not a capital offense, but one that is remedied with a simple apology.

BTW, that wasn’t a threat.  The point is, we have a problem.  Either you and Bennett are be the slimiest people alive, which makes me question my investment in the NBA.  Or Bennett is a liar that is going to go unpunished, which makes me wonder why I get so skewered by you.  I mean, I’ve said a lot of inflammatory things, but they are all TRUE! I questioned the integrity of your refs, you fined me, and your ref ended up in jail for fixing games.  Shouldn’t I get my money back?  I mean, you fined me for being right!  And now we have this Oklahoma yahoo running around telling you lies.  If he doesn’t get punished, well, then I just have to wonder about this whole thing.

Maybe I’m just bitter about Dirk’s injury, but I am really concerned about this whole situation.  I haven’t even asked about how you could possibly ignore the desire of Steve Freaking Ballmer to join the NBA.  Good god!  He’s like the 6th richest guy in the world.  Why the hell wouldn’t we BEG for Steve to join our club?  A guy with lots of money who knows nothing about sports.  HELLO!?!?!? It’s like letting a blind samaratan sit down at a poker table.  C’mon man…This is the kind of money the NBA needs.  Clean, technology money from a global titan.  You want to expand internationally?  I think Steve might know one or two heads of state.  This guy is going to be CEO of Microsoft in 4 months.  The man has some pull.

In conclusion, I hope I haven’t said anything that will cost me another check.  But really, we need to talk about this before we look any stupider as a league.  I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but oil guys are only slightly ahead of steroid dealers and Iranian prime ministers in popularity contests right now.  And the country is in a recession.  Is this really the time to bully a bunch of unemployed people who just lost their houses, to buy a stadium for an oil tycoon while 50% of their kids aren’t graduating high school? Maybe we need to look around and pay attention to what is happening around the rest of the country….I’m just saying….maybe we can think of a way to show why we’re such a smart league, and not a bunch of billionaire morons.

Regards,

Mark Cuban 

 

Join Team “No Runner Left Behind” at the Beat the Bridge Run

Posted by Andy Boyer in Achievement, Charity, Sports

btb02.JPGIn the 2007 Beat the Bridge Run, our small but dedicated 10 man team got 90% of us across the bridge in time (full story here.) While that’s pretty good, that is still leaving one behind and we don’t want to do that in 2008.

If you didn’t join us last year, you missed out on a fun Sunday morning.  So now’s your chance to join the 2008 team.  It should be a blast again.  I mean, I hate running more than just about anything (except eggs) and I manage to get through this 5 miles and immediately start looking forward to next year’s race.

It’s easy to join "No Runner Left Behind."  Just find one of the links I’ve conveniently dropped all over the post.  A few clicks later, you’re on the squad.  6 weeks left – better start training.

People, You Cannot Control Social Media

Posted by Andy Boyer in Entrepreneurism, Media, Personal, Social Media, Sports

One of my favorite things to watch is when businesses choose to ignore a technology or shift in human behavior, and honestly believe that if they ignore it well enough, it will simply go away.

We saw this in the music industry, where executives refused to believe that anyone would rather listen to thousands of songs on a device the size of a credit card rather than using a clunky cd player and devoting an entire wall for storing that same music. 

The newspapers were no better, refusing to consider that carrying a dirty glob of paper with old news was less appealing than simply logging on to a computer and getting the freshest info. 

This makes a story Garrett found even more humorous.  The Chicago Sun Times has some sports columnists who occasionally draw the ire of their readers.  Jay Mariotti is one such columnist.  Apparently, people were responding to his articles in a negative way, so the Sun Times made the decision to stop allowing readers to comment on his columns.  You can almost hear the conversation, "Well if we turn off the technology that allows readers to write negative things about Jay, then no one can write anything negative, and we won’t have to worry about it anymore. Problem solved!"

Except of course, that it’s 2008 and the world doesn’t work like that anymore.  Maybe in 1970 that was a good idea.  But nature abhors a vacuum, so if people want to write negative things about Jay Mariotti, and the Sun Times won’t let it happen on their site, the people will find a new home for their vents.

And they have, thanks to crosstown rival, the Chicago Tribune, who have geniusly embraced Social Media by developing a forum where readers can post comments about Jay Mariotti. And for that matter, other Sun Times writers. 

And guess what, two giant ads on the page.

So, you have one paper pretending that taking away the voice of the people would be helpful.   And you have a other that is profiting on the idea of letting people have their say.  By foolishly thinking you can control the voice of the people, you lose all control of the situation, because now you can’t even moderate out the particularly distasteful ones.  And your competitor gets the ad money. 

Lesson to be learned here: No one has 100% approval rating.  The only way to have any control of the situation is to let the people speak on your turf.  

How Would You Market the MLS?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Entrepreneurism, Marketing, Personal, Sports

mls_logo.gifOk, marketers: Here’s your project.

  • A sport with huge appeal to a small niche audience
  • One brand name that is more powerful than the league itself
  • A product that is sub-par in quality in comparisons to similar products in other countries
  • In other countries, history and tradition are built on rivalry and proximity, which your league does not have
  • Established round-the-calendar competition from 5 mega-sports (MLB, NFL, NBA, NCAA FF, NCAA BB) and 5 to 8 mini-sports (NHL, WNBA, Arena, UFC, Golf, Tennis, Boxing, Lacrosse)

Now you see what the MLS is up against.  It’s the equivalent of a European-wide Basketball League trying to compete against soccer in England.

But here’s the thing – For the first time in the 10 or 15 years the MLS has been around, I am actually aware that this is opening weekend.  I actually am somewhat interested in catching a few games.  I am going to be in LA and actually looked to see in the Galaxy or Chivas would be in town.  Why?  Several potential reasons.  Let me know if you can think of others.

  1. jozy.jpgSince Seattle is getting a team next year, i want to learn about the league.
  2. I’m growing tired of the other sports(?)
  3. I’m watching enough English League Soccer, that I recognize more players on more teams, some of whom who played in the MLS.
  4. I’m following the US National team enough, that I want to see them play a few times on their MLS teams.
  5. Fifa 08 for Xbox has consumed enough of my leisure time, that I want to see who these guys really are.

Anyway, the point is that I am fully aware that this sport has HUGE marketing and logistical issues in front of it, but I am slowly coming around.  And really, I’m the sweet spot for their marketing.   A small % of the country would come watch them play in a high school stadium.  And you have a huge percentage of the country that wouldn’t watch if they served free beer and pizza all game long.  But people like me, who spend too much money on the Mariners, who irrationally go to a bar to watch a college basketball game, and don’t think it’s weird to take a charcoal grill out of a pickup truck when there is a restaurant right across the street, we’re the guys the MLS needs.  Sports fans – people who are there for the experience more than the result.  And I’m coming around, even though I know the product will not be as good as one I could see on channel 401.

Anyway, MLS starts up this week.  Take a peek if you get a chance.  And if that doesn’t grab you, start with some EPL and Champions League Games on TV, or even better, at the George and Dragon.