Commentary - Online Sports Marketing Guy Blog

Chiefs Block Twitter Follower: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Posted by Ryan Sleeper
/ September 11, 2012

Last night, the Kansas City Chiefs blocked a Twitter follower for calling them out on their spending habits in recent years. As reported earlier today by Bob Fescoe of 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City, the Chiefs Twitter policy is to block no one unless their behavior gets vulgar. I looked up the tweet that caused the stir from @teedubya, and I have to admit, I wasn’t exactly comfortable embedding it on my own site.

That being said, the problem is not that the Chiefs blocked Travis Wright, who is a global Social Media Manager with over 120,000 Twitter followers (oops….), it’s how they responded with the following private direct message....
Read full story.
Vernon Davis Rejection Conjures Memory of 1995 Commercial

Posted by Ryan Sleeper
/ September 10, 2012

I don't know about you, but the first thing I thought of seeing Vernon Davis getting his touchdown celebration dunk rejected by the goal post Sunday afternoon was Grant Hill's 1995 Sprite commercial. In case you missed it, after scoring on a 4-yard pass from Alex Smith in the third quarter against the Packers, Vernon Davis did his best Tony Gonzales impression by attempting to dunk the football over the crossbar. Only instead of throwing down the one-handed slam, Davis had his offering thrown back by current 2012 NFL block leader, and early leader for Defensive Player of the Year honors, the Lambeau Field crossbar.

Oh, the beauty of the Internet. Needless to say, I was able to find both clips of Vernon Davis' touchdown fail and Grant Hill's Sprite commercial from 1995 within minutes. Take a look for yourself, I'm not so sure that's not actually a young Vernon Davis emulating Hill....
Read full story.
Can You Beat My Quarter’s March Madness Picks?

Posted by Ryan Sleeper
/ March 15, 2012

March Madness is back! It’s that time of year when the so-called experts add to their growing library of evidence that proves they don’t know much more than we do. A time when office bracketology guy loses the office pool to women that have never watched an entire game of basketball in their lives.

While perhaps the least effective way of determining the best team in the sport, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship tournament sure is fun. To prove the randomness of the competition, last year we flipped a quarter to determine how a coin would fare picking games after round one. Last year, the quarter tied me and was in the 93rd percentile of brackets nationwide.

This year, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and actually entered a bracket picked by one of my quarters - a 1990-issued quarter to be exact; the same year the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels defeated Duke for the title. Here’s how it worked....
Read full story.
Ortoning Video Goes Viral

Posted by Ryan Sleeper
/ January 1, 2012

The emergence of Tim Tebow as a confusingly successful NFL quarterback was easily the most talked about sports story of 2011. Perhaps the most polarizing athlete in sports spun off a worldwide phenomenon, and whether they were mocking him or honoring him, people around the globe were “Tebowing”.

Well lo and behold, there is a new gesture sweeping the nation recognizing the mannerisms of the quarterback Tim Tebow replaced out in Denver, Kyle Orton. “Ortoning” is a verb that means “To sit and mope while others do better than you.” I have to hand it to RyanParkerSongs.com for coming up with the concept and providing me with a of couple laughs.

My question for sports marketers out there though is who is capitalizing on this viral content? As reported last month on our Twitter page, at least one sports retailer is capitalizing on the phenomenon. I realize Tim Tebow has the most popular jersey and his presence on the Broncos is leading to more gate and television advertising revenue, but it seems like the Broncos and the NFL are missing the YouTube / social media boat on this one.

This Tebowmania too shall pass, along with the NFL’s chance to juice this story for all it’s worth. I guess in the meantime, we can enjoy the Ryan Parker’s of the world taking advantage of the hysteria.

Enjoy the video….
Read full story.
Google+ Releases NBA Commentators Hangout Commercial

Posted by Ryan Sleeper
/ December 28, 2011

Looking to capitalize on their growing momentum as a fledgling social network, Google+ has released a series of new commercials, one of which features NBA commentators Bill Walton, Jon Barry, Steve Kerr, Spero Dedes, and Kenny Smith. The video depicts the five of them using Google+'s hangout feature to breakdown a YouTube video of a backyard one on one game during the NBA lockout.

I love the 60-second spot from Google for several reasons:
* The commercial demonstrates the power and ease of use of Google+ hangouts, the feature most are touting as Google's biggest competitive advantage over Facebook. Hangouts allow up to 10 friends to video chat seamlessly in one place; even brand pages can host hangouts.
* The commercial cross-sells Google's YouTube video service. The Google+ integration with YouTube will drive video views, and thus, incremental advertising revenue for Google.
* The timing is great with the NBA returning in full force on Christmas Day. The condensed schedule, which requires cramming 66 games into a four month season, will mean that the NBA will constantly be on during that span.

I also love the NBA - Google relationship. The NBA has always been at the forefront of social media use among North American sports leagues. We noted earlier this month that the NBA is the only North American league with a team in the top five among Facebook fans. It is good to see the NBA getting out in front with the newest social network contender, as it is obvious that Google+ is investing in this product for the long-term. With 1,695 current Google+ followers, the NBA has a long way to go if it wants to catch up with their 10,910,745 Facebook fans, but this video should help give them the early lead among sports leagues on Google+.

Check out the video and meet me over at Google+....
Read full story.