Posts under ‘Marketing’

How are sports dealing with that new game in town, called recession?  That depends on whom you talk to.  Some are optimistic, and think that sports will weather the storm.  According to John Moag, investment banker who specializes in sports,   “It’s kind of like booze and movies.  Psychologically, people do not want to give it up.”  [...]

Moving to a new team has fueled the sale of Brett Favre New York Jets jerseys, making them the top seller, according to the NFL. The Dallas Cowboys have four of the top 10 most popular jerseys, according to Darren Rovell at CNBC.  And Eli Manning (No. 3) is besting brother Peyton (No. 7). The [...]

You just gotta love those ad execs at Dolce & Gabbana. They’ve enlisted five rugby players from the Italian National Team for a new D&G underwear ad campaign that was shot in Paris. They will be pitching several D&G styles, including Skin Sensation, 24 Fit, Sport Camp, Olympia, Fresh and Highlight. There’s a link to a D&G [...]

Under Armour, the hyper-masculine line of workout gear, might just have muscled its way into an image problem with the same gay men who wear it proudly at the gym.
A piece from the New York Times explores the company and its meteoric rise since former college football player Kevin Plank launched it in 1996. (Hat [...]

Some gay bloggers (and activists) huffed and puffed and Nike backed down. A portion of its Hypderdunk campaign is no more.
On Friday, the company dropped three print and billboard pieces of the campaign, a move coming just days after intense criticism and charges of homophobia surfaced on several gay blogs.
Nike’s three-paragraph statement on the PR [...]

From the “We Can’t Make This Up” file: The U.S. Olympic Committee sent a cease-and-desist letter to the gay group The Northwest Bears after they called their summer campout the ‘Kamp Kodiak 2008 Olympic Village.’ The USOC owns all the trademarks, rights and imagry surrounding the Olympics and did not take kindly to a group [...]

Nike’s new ad campaign for its Hyperdunk shoe is causing a stir.
The six new spots from Wieden & Kennedy, which are starting to surface before the shoe debuts later this month, include variations on two basketball players with one getting a face full of crotch as the other jumps past him. Taglines include “Say Hello,” [...]

Greg Wyshynski at Yahoo! Sports alerts us to the name for Iowa’s new American Hockey League team, the Iowa Chops. The name and logo bear more than a passing similarity to the logo for CHOPS (Changing Homosexuals into Ordinary People). The organization is described as “the powerful new program developed by Christian Youth expert Donnie [...]

In America, we’ve had corporations buy the naming rights to stadiums. We’ve had them enter into exclusive partnerships with leagues. We’ve even had them buy teams and name them after themselves (the New York Red Bulls being the most recent).
Now the WNBA is selling leaguewide space on their jerseys; and the first buyer is McDonalds. [...]

The NBA is dedicating a lot of very expensive TV time to remind viewers that NBA players are philanthropic nice guys rather than… well, I’m afraid to guess what they think they need to overcompensate for. Not only has ABC/ESPN enlisted Def Leppard and Tim McGraw to record the cheesy country music song “Nine Lives” to lead [...]

Somehow through the Atlanta Hawks’ NBA season, I’ve missed the addition of the A-Team Dancers. It’s an outfit of 10 men that take to the court during breaks in home games. The performances are silly and most of the men out of shape. They often strip off their shirts when dancing to seductive songs and [...]

One certainly can’t accuse the New England Patriots of lowering expectations as they head into the 2008 season. From The Smoking Gun:

Three months after their bid for an undefeated season ended with a Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants, the New England Patriots are continuing to pursue trademarks on the phrases “19-0″ and [...]

The NFL released its 2008 schedule today and it was shown live on the NFL Network. Fair enough (better than old NFL Films from 1975). But ESPN broke into its programming for its own NFL schedule show. Both networks then spent the next two hours(!) dissecting games that won’t be played for five months or [...]

Here’s a nice Associated Press article about how more and more teams are offering all-you-can-eat sections. The article states that nearly half of MLB teams, nine NHL teams, six NBA teams and many NASCAR tracks now have such sections.
Of course, it’s not news to readers of this blog, since I’ve written about this trend twice [...]

I had fun watching the Daytona 500 on Sunday.  Lots of horse races prepares you a little  for auto-racing.  The strategies are fairly similar.  After the horses leave the gate, the drivers — er, jockeys — save their mounts for the final craziness as they’re peeling out of the final turn.  So the last 10 [...]