Wrapped up in one simple post…Tebow clearly stole the show last season, but I’m betting that Peyton Manning number just skyrocketed with today’s news. Click the image for the larger version.
I’m a huge football fan – College (Go Ducks!) and NFL…although I watch them very differently. I Love My Ducks, and I love NFL Fantasy Football…. I run a league with 9 great friends and every year we have a good time harassing each other on draft night over our respective picks. This new commercial from the NFL Network pretty much sums up our collective reactions when someone ‘steals’ a player we were targeting. Draft night is this Friday…. I’m Ready For Some Football!
John Krasinski and Alec Baldwin go toe to toe for their respective teams in a new commercial by New Era… classic. If you read my blog and follow my Twitter stream, you’ll know I’m on John’s side.
It’s my blog and I’ll write what I want to… ;-) Today, after a bit of a gap in posting, I thought I’d take a look back at a great season for my Oregon Duck Football team. This is a great ‘fan’s perspective’ – hat tip to the guy that created this retrospective.
The Portland Timbers are the second professional sports team to come into my home town (behind our long time resident NBA team, the Trail Blazers). We are a soccer, er ‘futbol’, hungry community and the fans have embraced our new MLS team with open arms. Kudos to the Timbers – they’ve ‘hugged back’ with the same enthusiasm.
One of the things this organization did well right out of the gate was to harness the power of these local fans – in a very social way. Sure, they have a Facebook presence and a Twitter feed. More importantly they reached out their biggest cheerleader – the community of Portland – and asked them to be a part of their Marketing and Media materials, in the most visible fashion available – billboards throughout the Portland Metro area – through a contest called ‘We Are Timbers‘.
How did it work? You went to the Timbers store, got your picture taken with various ‘accessories’ (double headed axe, chain saw – to name a few) and had your photo submitted to be considered to make the top 100. If you made the top 100, your photo was put to a vote by the fans of the soccer club (you had to ‘Like’ the Timbers on Facebook and then ‘Like’ the photo of your friend, colleague, or neighbor that had entered the contest). There was some stiff competition out there. Personally, I wish my good buddy Dwight Adkins had made the final four but when you pair axes with baby bjorns he didn’t stand a chance. Hat tip Timbers – way to get your fans excited about your team and nice job making the community a part of your promotion efforts.
It’s been a month since my Oregon Ducks played for the ‘Natty’… I’m missing football season already. Good thing that ‘Addicted To Quack‘ provided me with this highlight reel from the 2010 season! Looking forward to 13-0 next year…
As you can tell by many of my posts on this blog, I am a big sports fan and specifically a HUGE Oregon Ducks Football fan. My alma mater has been tearing it up on the grid iron this year – leading the nation in scoring offense and tops in scoring defense as well. Our team has become famous as much for it’s available uniform combinations (300+ at last count) as it has for it’s ability to score on you in a heartbeat (just ask Arizona State how devastating that offense is).
This week, they’re in the news again – not just for hosting College Game Day at Autzen stadium, but for the second installation of Supwitchugirl’s viral video collection. Last year, during the Duck’s march to the Rose Bowl they released “I Smell Roses“, which quickly caught fire amongst Duck fans and spread nationally through viral pass along (topping more than 860k views on YouTube). There was some controversy with their usage of the Oregon Duck mascot in the video, but that paled in comparison to the popularity of the spot.
How do you top that? Fast forward to 2010 and on the eve of the biggest game (so far) of the year for our beloved Ducks, Supwitchugirl released their second installment entitled: Return of the Quack. Check it out below… 3 days later, it’s achieved more than 340k views and has been profiled on the Dan Patrick Show. I’d say they know a little something about making a viral video.
Nike has always been well known for creating stunning visual homages for their iconic athlete endorsers. In recent memory there is none bigger than the tribute to LeBron James when he was drafted by, and started playing for, his hometown team – the Cleveland Cavaliers. After this week’s ‘Decision‘ to join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh and form the new ‘Big Three’ (the term originally coined by my beloved Celtics in the Bird/Parish/McHale era), the city of Cleveland decided it had had enough with Nike’s larger than life building wrap and started the process of removing all traces of King James from it’s public edifices. Athletes come and go – some have more impact than others. LeBron was a beacon of hope to the economically distressed Rust Belt. I wonder if he’ll need ‘Witness Protection’ when he returns twice a year to play his former team.