By TERRY LYONS, Editor-in-Chief
BOSTON – “And, now a word from our sponsor.”
For any sports fan, those are the most cringeworthy words of a broadcast. Throughout the rise of commercialism in sports, newspapers and magazines printed advertisements with their coverage of the big games, big stories and bigger-than-life personalities. Radio ran its commercial spots and television crammed every second of downtime for commercials and promo spots to the point where “tonight on 60 Minutes” was just as much a part of the Sunday afternoon CBS Sports broadcast of the NFL as were the Pittsburgh Steelers or New England Patriots.
Game Day is “brought to you by Allstate” … Starting line-ups … “brought to you by Budweiser,” … Halftime “brought to you by American Express” … and “stay tuned for the postgame show, “brought to you by Geico.”
Yes, we’ve all become quite accustomed to the in-game promo reads and rolling graphics. We’ve chalked it all up $1 million ads at every break “to pay the bills.” The repetitive advertisements drive us to hit “mute” on the remote or even change the channel at times.
With all of that a fact of life for a television viewing sports fan, what’s my beef?
A CAPITAL OFFENSE.
What marketer thinks they have any right to ask us to write THE NORTHERN TRUST this weekend when we are covering the PGA TOUR? Why can’t we simply tell the stories of the Northern Trust as part of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs? Just a few years back, the same exact golf tournament was The Barclays and a year or two before that, it was the Deutsche Bank Championship.
Sponsors come and sponsors go. Banks merge and golf-loving CEO’s move on. It’s all a part of the game. But what in the name of the E. W. Scripps National Spelling Bee do marketers have with the ALL CAPS stuff?
Although it is hard to confirm in the Sports Marketing record books, the belief is that the Miami HEAT started this mess. Not long after, the STAPLES Center came along and editors around the country started to balk.
It’s one thing to do a “first mention” sponsor drop-in for a story on say, “The Rose Bowl, presented by Northwestern Mutual,” but it starts to get dicey when publishers of sports pages are asked to plug, the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl or the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl or the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl presented by Bridgestone.
That brings us back to the CAPS.
The PGA TOUR is the main culprit. Aside from THE NORTHERN TRUST, the pro golfers also stage THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK and the ZOZOChampionship. They refuse to write PGA Tour in their news releases and opt for the PGA TOUR, instead.
Other brands, trying to be clever and stylish, have gone the other way with lower case company names and logos. adidas, yahoo, xerox, at&t and target have all gone small while NIKE, IKEA, VISA and the likes of IBM, BMW and CNN stay large. Some say the ALL CAPS seems a bit revolting in the TXT message world which depicts ALL CAPS as SCREAMING or a RANT.
Lastly, we the journalists are all too often subjected to the use of extremely poor grammar within many a company logo or advertising motto. Remember: got milk? (Dairy Farmers) Or, Think Different (Apple)? Leggo my Eggo (Eggo brand waffles, by Kellogg’s)?
Where’s the AP Style Book (or is it the Associated Press’ style book)?
Nevermind.
The lone exception for acceptable use of a grammatically incorrect slogan was the 1996-97 WNBA’s use of the marketing phrase “We Got Next” when the league was about to launch in the summer of ‘97. The universally-utilized term to call for the next game on the playground basketball courts fit perfectly for the then-brand new women’s pro basketball league. Of course, the WNBA will soon celebrate the 25th anniversary of the league and WNBA@25 was not cool enough. Instead, they messed with the proper use of Roman numerals and went with:
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The WNBA logo, for most Roman numerologists would go down as WNBA XXV but the strike-through was approved by Pythagoras himself. … So Be It.
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Last week, the major injuries to Major League Baseball stars was underlined, noting that Ronald Acuna Jr., Mookie Bettsand Jacob deGrom to name a few. This week, it’s the U.S. Open tennis tournament that’s looking like M*A*S*H. … The great Rafael Nadal posted to his social media account(s) that he would miss the U.S. Open and the rest of the 2021 season due to a left foot injury. … Previously, Roger Federerannounced he had to skip The US Open due to the scheduled third surgery on his right knee. Add to the fact, defending men’s champion Dominic Thiemwithdrew due to a right wrist injury as the 2021 U.S. Open’s luster in the men’s draw has been defeated 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.
USA 3×3: Tokyo 2020ne was the inaugural 3×3 basketball tournament at the Olympic Games and was viewed as quite the success in the international basketball world as the the outdoor 3×3 vibes hope to duplicate for basketball what beach volleyball did for the traditional indoor volleyball game. On the homefront, there was an exception as the United States failed to qualify for the men’s basketball 3×3 competition at the just completed Tokyo Games. … Time to right the ship? … Nope.
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San Juan (Puerto Rico) won their first-ever FIBA 3×3 World Tour event since t2012 when they won in Lausanne, Switzerland this weekend (August 20-21). … Just one day after losing their opener against Ub (Serbia) by nine points but winning their ticket to the knock-out stage with an overtime win, San Juan planted their flag on the 3×3 court with wins against the Riga (Latvia)) team that featured three Olympic gold medalists, and then the No. 1 ranked team in the world Liman (Serbia). San Juan then defeated the same Ub team in the final (21-13) to take honors. The USA? The two teams placed sixth and ninth. Here were the standings from this weekend:
LAUSANNE MASTERS STANDINGS
1. San Juan (PUR)
2. Ub (SRB)
3. Antwerp (BEL)
4. Liman (SRB)
5. Riga (LAT)
6. NY Harlem (USA)
7. Aachen Der Stamm (GER)
8. Graz (AUT)
9. Princeton (USA)
10. Novi Sad (SRB)
11. Lausanne Sport (SUI)
12. Gagarin (RUS)
13. Moscow Inanomo (RUS)
14. Alexandria (EGY)
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