Truth hits everybody. I would have thought student newspapers would have been immune to the desperate sensationalism now plaguing mainstream newspapers as they scramble for every sold issue and pageview they can manage, but … et tu, Plainsman?
Guess not. Of course, as desperate sensationalism goes, this is most definitely the way to go about it. Clever thinking, Plainsman staff; WBE approves. PPL’s got the rest of the story.
We’re better at branding than you. Between the Limo Gambit, Big Cat Weekend, “Every Day …” and the new football site–whoops, there went 27 minutes–we already knew that no football program in the country is sharper at this whole marketing thing than modern-day Auburn. The latest evidence, of course, is the new “Tiger Trek”, a title I peg at 1,274 times more appealing than “the rubber chicken circuit.” Why can’t football games by decided by who can come up with the cleverest names for things? Auburn would be this year’s national title favorite.
Expectationswatch. My buddies at Arkansas Expats have taken a look at the early-early 2010 projections and found the same thing I did: that the Hogs are being set up as this year’s “surprise” team in the SEC and that Auburn will likely be projected fourth in the SEC West.
To which I respond: mwa ha ha ha ha!
Um. We’re already working not to judge Tony Barbee by the head coaching company he kept at UMass and Memphis, but guess what? We’re now going to have to also not judge him by the administrators who hired him at UTEP, who responded to his departure by hiring Tim freaking Floyd, the guy who just got finished throwing USC under the NCAA’s bus for various O.J. Mayo-related shenanigans–including allegedly paying straight cash money to one of Mayo’s handlers. As Brian said, if you’ve put yourself in a position where Gregg Doyel is giving you sound advice, you have made a very grave mistake indeed.
The positive spin here is that if UTEP had a certain patina of skeeze during Barbee’s tenure, what with welcoming the transfer of Derrick Caracter and other BCS-level rejects, then apparently this wasn’t necessarily a product of Barbee’s arrival; the skeeze started all the way at the top. The negative spin, of course, is that between Calipari and the people who would hire Tim Floyd, Barbee has known little but skeeze for most of his coaching life.
The odds remain overwhelming that Barbee will be fine at Auburn, and that we’ll have a program that Auburn fans can be proud of both for its victories and its off-court demeanor. But I can’t help but wish his background was so much less … well … blotchy.
(And while I’m linking up CBS columns, I don’t know how many Auburn fans other than Kurt really wanted Jacobs to spend time chasing after marquee names that would have used Auburn for nothing but a raise, but Gary Parrish and the bumblers at DePaul–who we’ve got to thank for Barbee in the first place–explain why that would have been a bad, bad idea.)
This again? This is more a personal interest thing than an Auburn thing, but the Lakers visited the Hawks last night, and with the inevitable influx of purple-and-gold in Phillips Arena it apparently meant it was time to break out the “Why is Atlanta such a bad sports town?” pieces again.
My response to that one is the same as my response to all of them: Atlanta’s not a bad sports town. It’s a great sports town. It’s just a bad pro sports town. Sure, the flood of transplants and relative youth of the ATL’s sports teams–the culprits Kevin Arnovitz cites in the post above–work against them, but it’s not that Atlantans don’t have century-old sports ties like Bostonians or Chicagoans. Those ties just happen to be for college teams, the Dawgs and Jackets, instead of professional ones. And since the (mostly East Coast-based) national media never truly has cottoned on to the fact that fans really can care more for their college teams than their pro counterparts, they think no one in Atlanta cares about sports. In a word: nonsense.
(And as for the Braves failing to sell out their playoff games … dude. Let’s see Milwaukee or Kansas City win 14 divisional consecutive division titles and still sell out their opening-round series.)
Etc. It’s old cheese by now, but I still haven’t linked up Jay Coulter’s outstanding argument for Auburn great Ken Rice as a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, which you should definitely read if you haven’t … You’ll never guess which SEC team is in imminent danger of getting slapped with APR penalties, unless, of course, you guess the team that’s spent the last several years being coached by Ed Orgeron and Houston Nutt … Darvin Adams is one of CFN’s Five New SEC Stars to Know, just like under-the-radar non-entity Randall Cobb. Who’s ever heard of that guy? … and finally:
holy crap, i just spit water all over my desk looking at that pic.
thanks.
TIGER!
I read the Truehoop article too. Arnovitz is a native Atlantan, and overlooked the most crucial aspect of the Atlanta sports culture. How could he leave out the whole, ‘metro Atlantans fill close to 25% of college football stadiums throughout the fall in Auburn, AL; Clemson, SC; Tuscaloosa, AL; not to mention more than 75% in Athens, GA and right downtown at Tech.
I won’t call the piece idiocy, because I think Arnovitz and the Truehoop guys–shout out Bret LaGree–are very good. But man, what an oversight.
AU fourth in the West – HA!
And “set up” is right. I look for the Tigers to treat this years surprise team the same way they treated last years surprise team. Let’s just not ask Tubberville for any predictions.
I’m trying to keep from doing any “connect the dots” with Barbee. Gonna just sit back and enjoy the ride. I think basketball can be fun again.
Great stuff this week, Jerry.
I can’t believe you showed the artwork nipple. I am ashamed to say I am titillated.
As long as it’s tasteful. But if you enjoyed that, make sure you read Jeremy’s review of “Tank”:
http://www.thewareaglereader.com/2010/03/in-the-tank-for-the-tigers/
Or at least look at the pictures.
Actually, your argument about the Braves not selling out playoff games doesn’t hold water at all. As an avid baseball guy (and one who used to work in the minors talking to executives every day), I feel obligated to point this out. First, Milwaukee and Kansas City are MUCH smaller markets than Atlanta. ATL is one of the top 7 markets in America. Also, it wasn’t just the divisional playoff games that were not sold out. I distinctly remember the NLCS against the D-Backs where 10,000 empty seats could be had at Turner Field.
Now, I’m a Rockies fan, so I have don’t have a dog in this fight. But if you remember the night that Randy Johnson threw his perfect game in ATL, there were only 18,000 in attendance.
Finally, if you want to take yourself seriously as a sports team, it is NECESSARY to sell out playoff games. Most teams would KILL for 14 straight post-season appearances. The fact that those were taken for granted and left empty stadiums was a complete insult to the greatness of those teams.
All right, then let’s see San Diego and Anaheim win 14 straight divisional titles and sell out all their playoff games. Whatever the size of the market, it’s not infinite, and that many playoff games makes them much less of an event and drives down demand.
When another team goes to the playoffs that many times AND fails so many times that it seems dangerous to get the fanbase’s hopes up, and that team still sells everything out, THEN the Braves postseason attendance issues would be an “insult.” Otherwise, it’s just what would happen to any baseball team that’s not the Yanks or Red Sox that produced the same results.
As for the attendance at Randy Johnson’s (random midseason) performance, what does that have to do with not selling out playoff games?
It’s hard to accept that getting to the playoffs every year drives down demand. You are talking about a maximum of 11 games a year, if you have home field and each series goes the distance. And just because they failed the previous years should have no bearing on the subsequent years’ attendance at the playoffs. To me, this sounds like every excuse I have ever heard out of Braves fans for being apathetic. It’s a market of 6 million people. Selling out a few games, playoffs especially, should not be an issue.
And Anaheim has made the playoffs in 6 of the last 7 years, but tickets are impossible to find for those games. As for San Diego, its hard to argue that because the markets are vastly different. According to Nielson ratings systems, which grades market size based on population, Atlanta is the 8th largest market in the country. San Diego is the 28th, thus would be considered a small-market team in baseball terms.
Finally, I merely mentioned the Randy Johnson thing as another example of Atlanta being a poor sports town. When a future hall of famer is on the mound, and only comes once per year if his turn in the rotation happens to come up, people should show up. Also, the Braves were in first place (the game was during the 14 year run) and any team in first should have MUCH better attendance for games than 18,000.
“And just because they failed the previous years should have no bearing on the subsequent years’ attendance at the playoffs. ”
Why the hell shouldn’t it? I wasn’t a Braves diehard for the final few years of the run, but I wasn’t exactly “casual,” either, and I can tell you that for me, the playoffs sure seemed a heck of a lot less exciting when a) your team had been there and failed so many times previously b) there seemed to be little reason not to expect them to fail again.
I’m not saying Atlanta’s a great town for pro sports, not saying it’s perfectly fine that playoff tickets go unsold. But I don’t care what size market (excluding certain colossi) you’re talking about–you’ll never convince me that in years 12, 13, and 14 of a divisional run that’s produced one World Series championship, that virtually any team wouldn’t have the same problems.
To each their own. I just think it sounds like a spoiled fan- base who, like a kid, got tired of its shiny new toy.
Put it this way, and this is my last comment on the issue, if the NCAA were to ever go to a football playoff, and Auburn made it 14 years in a row, but only won it once, would it still be ok to have Auburn’s ticket allotment not sold out?
Anyway, war eagle and go rockies!
Eh, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison–college football games are so scarce Auburn could play a meaningless exhibition against, say, Northwestern, and still sell tons of tickets.
But yeah, I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. War Eagle!, and best of luck to your Rockies.