Andy Boyer

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More NBA Image Problems

June 11, 2008 /

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….

Should We Revisit the Seattle Monorail

June 10, 2008 /

A few years ago, we had this crazy idea to build a monorail, that would start in downtown and brtanch out to two of Seattle’s far flung neighborhoods, Ballard and Seattle.

By most accounts, the whole plan was run by the guys who drive clown cars, and the money guys needed an abacus to count sea shells on the beach.  It was the little engine that couldn’t even though all of us have spent about $1500 in taxes for the train that never ran.

But is it time to dust off the powerpoint, and re-run the Excel spreadsheet with new numbers?  Interest rates have never been lower, so the money would be cheaper.  Gas prices have never been hire, but will be tomorrow (and the day after, and the day after that, etc…), so you can assume ridership will skyrocket.   And now we have a real crisis, and you see how civic leaders (i.e. Steve Ballmer) suddenly appear in times of crisis.

Sometimes great ideas have terrible execution, or poor timing, and all it takes is a different team on a diferent day to turn a dud into nirvana.  Think the Smarte Car, which 25 years ago was a dog called the Yugo.  Or the iPod, which in 1997 was a dorky thing called Diamond Rio.  The Newton never made it, but pieces of it came back into every PDA sold from 2003-2007. 

So, what do you think?  Why not revisit this whole monorail thing, with a new team driving the project? 

 

Interview With Facebook Execs at “All Things D”

June 5, 2008 /

I found these interviews with Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg & Mark Zuckerberg at FaceReviews.com. The interview was part of the All Things D Conference.

Very interesting interview that runs through the Facebook goals and vision, some insight into what they thought was important as they went from a 3 man side project to Media powerhouse, how FB applications will evolve, and some looks to the future.



Watch Great Soccer – Support Seattle’s All Nations Cup

June 4, 2008 /

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. 

Polls Made Easy, with Vizu

June 4, 2008 /

Vizu is a neat little app that you can use to add a touch of functionality to blog posts and the like. It’s probably been around for a while, but recently hopped on my radar screen thanks to a friend in the ad industry who uses it for quick polls. I don’t know how they make money, but for the rest of us, it’s a pretty slick little tool.

If I had to nitpick, I’d ask for a few more size options. In the case of a short blog post like this one, the Vizu poll doesn’t really fit. So, even after playing with table widths, I still need to drone on and on just to fill up some more space with copy so the poll fits in better.

But on the plus side, you do have plenty color options, so it can work it’s way design-wise into just about any web template. And it’s a breeze to use. The whole process takes less than 2 minutes.

Sounders Show Off New Microsoft Uniforms

May 30, 2008 /

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.)   

Mariners Offer Apologies, Announce They’ll Work With Season Ticket Holders to Salvage Season

May 26, 2008 /

Don’t you wish you’d see a story like this come from Safeco Field?

Mariners Offer Apologies, Announce They’ll Work With Season Ticket Holders to Salvage Season 

SEATTLE – Seattle Mariners President Chuck Armstrong made a ground-breaking apology to Mariners fans today, promising changes will be made and optimistically promoting the 2009 season.

“On behalf of the entire organization, I want to let everyone know that the disappointment you feel for this team, is felt ten-fold in our offices,” said Armstrong.”

Armstrong acknowledged the 2008 season is officially over, and told fans that the focus is now on an AL West title in 2009.  “Given this unique opportunity to plan 10 months out, we really want to involve the fans,” explained Armstrong.  “Our scouts and talent evaluators will release a schedule of events, so that fans can provide input and feedback.  We really want the Mariners fans involved with this rebuilding process.”

Mariners ownership appears to be embarrassed by the result of the season, and realize that their customers have vastly overpaid for the tickets they have already bought.  “We set the prices, and released the product,” said a front office executive.  “Now we see our product is over-priced, and will compensate fans accordingly.  Our customers are our most important asset, and we want them to pay a fair price for what they are seeing.”

The Mariners also announced the forming of a “Fan Oversight Group” a committee of 11 non-employees, voted on by fans, who will have a seat on the Mariners Advisory Board and access to executives.  This group will not drive decisions, but will allow fans to have transparency into organizational matters that affect the customer base.

—————— 

So of course this is silly. But can you think of another business in which you can charge premium prices, provide a shoddy product, exhibit no competency to improve the product, hide behind a release cycle as an excuse for over-charging customers, and provide absolutely no insight into how you might fix the product’s issues?  I can’t think of anything comparable.  It’s just a shame – Beautiful stadium, fans who want to care, and a team that looks like the season is an inconvenience that breaks up their winter holiday.

Wall Street Journal Scoop – Agencies are Offshoring Creative

May 22, 2008 /

I tell you what. You hear complaints about the mainstream media being out of touch at times. But thankfully the Wall Street Journal is able to restore my faith in their relevance by coming up with scoops such as this: 

More Digital Ads Are Produced Offshore
Marketers Ship Work To Costa Rica, Bulgaria; AvVenta Reaps Rewards

Really?  People are offshoring their creative?  I had no idea.  I mean, when I used elance.com last month to have 35 ad banners made for $400, and 25 different firms bid on my project, I just thought I was unique.  It never dawned on me that there was an actual industry around connecting American companies to leverage affordable and talented creative folks from abroad.  Thanks to the WSJ, my eyes have been opened to this 5-10 year old phenomenon.

Among the many sad parts of this article, is the fact that the story was obviously planted by a firm called avVenta Worldwide.  So not only does this WSJ writer, Emily Steel, make it appear that she just found out about creative outsourcing, she also makes it appear that she thinks that avVenta Worldwide is somehow revolutionary in the space.  The article basically tells this story.  "Agencies needed a way to cut costs and bill their Fortune 500 clients the same amount.  So they hire avVenta Worldwide, who has a team of creatives in Costa Rica, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. The agency margins grow, avVenta Worldwide margins grow and no one knows the difference."

Well, no one knows the difference until your PR team gets an article placed in the WSJ and all of those Fortune 500 clients who thought they were paying for Madison Avenue heavyweights with Masters in Graphic Design say, "Uh, WTF?"

Monday Night MLS Soccer

May 22, 2008 /

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.

Explaining Kids’ Hyperactivity

May 19, 2008 /

Here’s an odd report that comes out of England.  Does it mean that pregnant women must add Cell Phones to the list of things they can’t use? Perhaps.  

In a nutshell, the suprised researchers found that cell phone usage while pregnant leads to hperactivity wwhen the kids are born.  Specific results:

  • Mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems
  • The likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation.
  • When the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour.
    • They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems.
    • 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers.
    • 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive.
    • 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.

So if your kid is hyper – don’t blame them….it sounds like it’s your fault 🙂  Can’t wait to see the first lawsuit to come from this…. 

 


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